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SHAKESPEARE'S ROMAN PLAYS 
 AND THEIR BACKGROUND 
 
S0^^ 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON • CHICAGO 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
 V'l l(" >|-;v'iiili 
 
SHAKESPEARE'S 
 ROMAN PLAYS 
 
 AND THEIR BACKGROUND 
 
 BY 
 
 M. W. MacCALLUM 
 
 M.A., HoN.-LL.D., Glasgow 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MODERN LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY 
 
 MACMILLAN AND -CO., LIMITED 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 \ ^925 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 
 First Edition 1910. 
 Beprinted 1925. 
 
 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 
 
TO 
 
 D. M. M-C. 
 
 " De Leev is Aliens op de Welt, 
 Un de is blot bi di." 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Shakespeare's Roman plays may be regarded as 
 forming a group by themselves, less because they 
 make use of practically the same authority and deal 
 with similar subjects, than because they follow the 
 same method of treatment, and that method is to a 
 great extent peculiar to themselves. They have 
 points of contact with the English histories, they 
 have points of contact with the free tragedies, but 
 they are not quite on a line with either class. It 
 seems, therefore, possible and desirable to discuss 
 them separately. 
 
 In doing so I have tried to keep myself abreast of 
 the literature on the subject ; which is no easy task 
 when one lives at so great a distance from European 
 libraries, and can go home only on hurried and 
 infrequent visits. I hope, however, that there is no 
 serious gap in the list of authorities I have consulted. 
 
 The particular obligations of which I am conscious 
 I have indicated in detail. I should like, however, 
 to acknowledge how much I owe throughout to the 
 late F. A. T. Kreyssig, to my mind one of the 
 sanest and most suggestive expositors that Shake- 
 speare has ever had. I am the more pleased to 
 avow my indebtedness, that at present in Germany 
 Kreyssig is hardly receiving the learned, and in 
 England has never received the popular, recognition 
 that is his due. It is strange that while Ulrici's 
 metaphysical lucubrations and Gervinus's somewhat 
 ponderous commentaries found their translators and 
 
vm 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 their public, Kreyssig's purely humane and literary 
 appreciations were passed over. I once began to 
 translate them myself, but " habent sua fata libelli," 
 the time had gone by. It is almost exactly half a 
 century ago since his lectures were first published ; 
 and now there is so much that he would wish to 
 omit, alter, or amplify, that it would be unfair to 
 present them after this lapse of years for the first 
 time to the English public. All the same he has 
 not lost his value, and precisely in dealing with the 
 English and the Roman histories he seems to me to 
 be at his best. 
 
 One is naturally led from a consideration of the 
 plays to a consideration of their background ; their 
 antecedents in the drama, and their sources, direct 
 and indirect. 
 
 The previous treatment of Roman subjects in 
 Latin, French, and English, is of some interest, 
 apart from the possible connection of this or that 
 tragedy with Shakespeare's masterpieces, as showing 
 by contrast the originality as well as the splendour 
 of his achievement. For this chapter of my Intro- 
 duction I therefore offer no apology. 
 
 On the other hand the sketches of the three 
 "ancestors" of Shakespeare's Roman histories, and 
 especially of Plutarch, need perhaps to be defended 
 against the charge of irrelevancy. 
 
 In examining the plays, one must examine their 
 relations with their sources, and in examining their 
 relations with their sources, one cannot stop short at 
 North, who in the main contributes merely the final 
 form, but must go back to the author who furnished 
 the: subject matter. Perhaps, too, some of the 
 younger students of Shakespeare may be glad to 
 have a succinct account of the man but for whom 
 the Roman plays would never have been written^ 
 Besides, Plutarch, so far as I know, has not before 
 been treated exacdy from the point of view that is 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 here adopted. My aim has been to portray him 
 mainly in those aspects that made him such a poWer 
 in the period of the Renaissance, and gave him so 
 great a fascination for men like Henry IV., Mon- 
 taigne, and, of course, above all, Shakespeare. For 
 the same reason I have made my quotations exclu- 
 sively from Philemon Holland's translation of the 
 Morals (ist edition, 1603) and North's translation 
 of the Lives (Mr. Wyndham's reprint), as the 
 Elizabethan versions show how he was taken by 
 that generation. 
 
 The essay on Amyot needs less apology. In view 
 of the fact that he was the immediate original of 
 North, he has received in England far less recog- 
 nition than he deserves. Indeed he has met with 
 injustice. English writers have sometimes challenged 
 his claim to have translated from the Greek. To me 
 it has had the zest of a pious duty to repeat and 
 enforce the arguments of French scholars which 
 show the extreme improbability of this theory. 
 IJnfortunately I have been unable to consult the 
 Latin version of 1470, except in a few transcripts 
 from the copy in -the British Museum : but while 
 admitting that a detailed comparison of that with 
 the Greek and the French would be necessary for 
 the formal completion of the proof, I think it has 
 been made practically certain that Amyot dealt with 
 all his authors at first hand. At any rate he is a 
 man, who, by rendering Plutarch into the vernacular 
 and in many instances furnishing the first draught 
 of Shakespeare's phrases, merits attention from the 
 countrymen of Shakespeare. 
 
 Of North, even after Mr. Wyndham's delightful 
 and admirable study, something remains to be said 
 in supplement. And he too has hardly had his 
 rights. The Morall Philosophie and the Lives 
 have been reprinted, but the Diall of Princes is 
 still to be seen only in the great libraries of Europe. 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 A hurried perusal of it two years ago convinced me 
 that, apart from its historical significance, it was 
 worthy of a place among the Tudor Translations 
 and would help to clear up many obscurities in 
 Elizabethan literature. 
 
 I at first hoped to discuss in a supplementary 
 section the treatment of the Roman Play 'in 
 England by Shakespeare's younger contemporaries 
 and Caroline successors, and show that while in 
 some specimens Shakespeare's reconciling method 
 is still followed though less successfully, while in 
 some antiquarian accuracy is the chief aim, and 
 some are only to be regarded as historical romances, 
 it ultimately tended towards the phase which it 
 assumed in France under the influence of the next 
 great practitioner, Corneille, who assimilated the 
 ancient to the modern ideal of Roman life as 
 Shakespeare never did and, perhaps fortunately, 
 never tried to do. But certain questions, especially 
 in regard to the sources, are complicated, and, when 
 contemporary translations, not as yet reprinted, may 
 have been used, are particularly troublesome to one 
 living so far from Europe. This part of my project, 
 therefore, if not abandoned, has to be deferred ; for 
 it would mean a long delay, and I am admonished 
 that what there is to do must be done quickly. 
 
 I have complained of the lack of books in 
 Australia, but before concluding I should like to 
 acknowledge my obligations to the book-loving 
 colonists of an earlier generation, to whose irrepres- 
 sible zeal for learning their successors owe access to 
 many volumes that one would hardly expect to see 
 under the Southern Cross. Thus a 1599 edition 
 of Plutarch in the University Library, embodying 
 the apparatus of Xylander and Cruserius, has helped 
 me much in the question of Amyot's relations to the 
 Greek. Thus, too, I was able to utilise, among other 
 works not easily met with, the first complete trans- 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 lation of Seneca's Tragedies (i 581), in the collection 
 of the late Mr. David Scott Mitchell, a " clarum et 
 venerabile nomen " in New South Wales. May I, 
 as a tribute of gratitude, inform my English readers 
 that this gentleman, after spending his life in collect- 
 ing books and manuscripts of literary and historical 
 interest, which he was ever ready to place at the 
 disposal pf those competent to use them, bequeathed 
 at his death his splendid library to the State, together 
 with an ample endowment for its maintenance and 
 extension ? 
 
 For much valuable help in the way of information 
 and advice, my thanks are due to my sometime 
 students and present colleagues, first and chiefly, 
 Professor E. R. Holme, then Mr. C. J. Brennan, 
 Mr. J. Le Gay Brereton, Mr. G. G. Nicholson, 
 Dr. F. A. Todd; also to Messrs. Bladen and Wright 
 of the Sydney Public Library for looking out books 
 and references that I required ; to Mr. M. L. Mac- 
 Callum for making transcripts for me from books in 
 the Bodleian Library ; to Professor Jones of Glasgow 
 University for various critical suggestions; above all 
 to Professor Butler of Sydney University, who has 
 pointed out to me many facts which I might have 
 overlooked and protected me from many errors into 
 which I should have fallen, and to Professor Ker of 
 University College, London, who has most kindly 
 undertaken the irksome task of reading through my 
 proofs. 
 
 M. W. MacCALLUM 
 
 University of Sydney, 
 2^fh April, 1909. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I INTRODUCTION 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Roman Plays in the Sixteenth Century . i 
 
 1. "Appius and Virginia." The Translation of 
 
 "Octavia" ...... 2 
 
 2. The French Senecans . . -. . 19 
 
 3. English Followers of the French School. " The 
 
 Wounds of Civil War" .... 44 
 
 II. Shakespeare's Treatment of HistSry^ . . 73 
 
 III. Ancestry of Shakespeare's Roman Plays 
 
 1. Plutarch ....... _9S 
 
 2. Amyot .119 
 
 3. North 141 
 
 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 I. Position of the Play between the Histories 
 and the Tragedies. Attraction of the 
 Subject for Shakespeare and his Genera- 
 tion. Indebtedness "TO Plutarch . .168 
 
 II. Shakespeare's Transmutation of his Material 187 
 
 III. The Titular Hero of the Play 212 
 
xiv CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 CHAPTER 
 
 IV. The Excellences and Illusions of Brutus . 233 
 
 V. The Disillusionment of Brutus. Portia . 255 
 
 VI. The Remaining Characters . . -275 
 
 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 I. Position of the Plav after the Great 
 
 Tragedies. Shakespeare's Interest in the 
 Subject 3°° 
 
 II. Antony and Cleopatra, a History, Tragedy, 
 
 AND Love Poem; as shown by its Relations 
 with Plutarch 3^8 
 
 III. The Associates of Antony .... 344 
 
 IV. The Political Leaders 368 
 
 V. Mark Antony 391 
 
 VI. Cleopatra . . . . . • -413 
 
 VII. Antony and Cleopatra 439 
 
 CORIOLANUS 
 
 I. Position of the Play before the Romances. 
 
 Its Political and Artistic Aspects . . 454 
 
 II. Parallels and Contrasts with Plutarch . 484 
 
 III. The Grand Contrast. Shakespeare's Concep- 
 
 tion OF the Situation in Rome . . . 518 
 
 IV. The Kinsfolk and Friends of Coriolanus . 549 
 
CONTENTS XV 
 
 CHAPTBi: PAGE 
 
 V. The Greatness of Coriolanus. Aufidius 571 
 
 »*■■■ 
 
 VI. The Disasters of Coriolanus and their Causesj 598 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 A. Nearest Parallels between Garnier's Cornelie 
 
 IN the French and English Versions and 
 Julius Caesar 628 
 
 B. The Verbal Relations of the Various Versions 
 
 of Plutarch, illustrated by Means of 
 Volumnia's Speech 631 
 
 C. Shakespeare's Alleged Indebtedness to Appian 
 
 in Julius Caesar 644 
 
 D. Shakespeare's Loans from Appian in Antony and 
 
 Cleopatra 648 
 
 E. Cleopatra's One Word 653 
 
 F. The "Inexplicable" Passage in Coriolanus . 657 
 
 INDEX 660 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ROMAN PLAYS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Plays that dealt with the History of Rome were 
 frequent on the Elizabethan stage, and all portions 
 of it were laid under contribution. Subjects were 
 taken from legends of the dawn like the story of 
 Lucretia, and from rumours of the dusk like the 
 story of Lucina ; from Roman pictures of barbarian 
 allies like Massinissa in the South, or barbarian 
 antagonists like Caractacus in the North ; as well as 
 from the intimate records of home affairs and the 
 careers of the great magnates of the Republic or 
 Empire. But these plays belong more distinctively 
 to the Stuart than to the Tudor section of the period 
 loosely named after Elizabeth, and few have sur- 
 vived that were composed before the beginning of 
 the seventeenth century. For long the Historical 
 Drama treated by preference the traditions and 
 annals of the island realm, and only by degrees did 
 " the matter of Britain " yield its pride of place to 
 "the matter of Rome the Grand." Moreover, the 
 earlier Roman Histories are of very inferior import- 
 ance, and none of them reaches even a moderate 
 standard of merit till the production of Shakespeare's 
 Julius Caesar in 1600 or 160 1. In this department 
 Shakespeare had not the light to guide him that 
 
2 INTRODUCTION 
 
 he found for his English Histories in Marlowe's 
 Edward II., or even in such plays as The Famous 
 Victories of Henry V. The extant pieces that 
 precede his first experiment, seem only to be grop- 
 ing their way, and it is fair to suppose that the 
 others which have been lost did no better. Their 
 interest, in so far as they have any interest at all, 
 lies in the light they throw on the gradual progress 
 of dramatic art in this domain. And they illustrate 
 it pretty fully, and show it passing through some of 
 the main general phases that may be traced in the 
 evolution of the Elizabethan Tragedy as a whole. 
 At the outset we have one specimen of the Roman 
 play in which the legitimate drama is just beginning 
 to disengage itself from the old Morality, and 
 another in which the unique Senecan exemplar is 
 transformed rather than translated to suit the primi- 
 tive art of the time. Then we have several more 
 artistic specimens deriving directly or indirectly 
 from the French imitators of Seneca, which were 
 the most dignified and intelligent the sixteenth 
 century had to show. And lastly we have a speci- 
 men of what the Roman play became when elabor- 
 ated by the scholar-playwrights for the requirements 
 of the popular London stage. 
 
 A survey of these will show how far the ground 
 was prepared for Shakespeare by the traditions of 
 this branch of the drama when he turned to cultivate 
 it himself 
 
 APPIUS AND VIRGINIA. THE TRANSLATION OF 
 OCTAVIA 
 
 The crudest if not the earliest of the series is 
 entitled A new Tragicall Comedie of Apius and 
 Virginia, by R.B., initials which have, been supposed 
 
APPIUS AND VIRGINIA 3 
 
 with some probability to stand for Richard Bower, 
 who was master of the Chapel Royal at Windsor in 
 1559. It was first printed in 1575, but must have 
 been written some years before. A phrase it 
 contains, "perhaps a number will die of the sweat," 
 has been thought to refer to the prevalence of the 
 plague in 1 563, and it may be identified with a play 
 on the same subject that was acted at that time by 
 the boys of Westminster. At any rate several 
 expressions show beyond doubt that it was meant for 
 representation, but only on the old-fashioned scaffold 
 which was soon to be out-of-date. Its character and 
 scope belong too, in part, to a bygone age. The 
 prologue proclaims its ethical intention with the 
 utmost emphasis : 
 
 You lordings all that present be, this Tragidie to heare 
 Note well what zeale and loue heerein doth well appeare. 
 And, Ladies, you that linked are in wedlocke bandes for euer 
 Do imitate the life you see, whose fame will perish neuer : 
 But Uirgins you, oh Ladies fair, for honour of your name 
 Doo lead the life apparent heere to win immortall fame.^ 
 
 It is written in commendation of chastity and 
 rebuke of vice : 
 
 Let not the blinded God of Loue, as poets tearm him so. 
 
 Nor Venus with her venery, nor Lechors, cause of wo. 
 
 Your Uirgins name to spot or file : deare dames, obserue the 
 
 life 
 That faire Verginia did obserue, who rather wi«h(ed) the knife 
 Of fathers hand hir life to ende, then spot her chastety. 
 As she did waile, waile you her want, you maids, of courtesie. 
 If any by example heere would shun that great anoy,^ 
 Our Authour would rejoyce in hart, and we would leap for joy. 
 
 No Moral Play could be more explicit in its lesson, 
 and the Moral Play has also suggested a large 
 number of the personages. Conscience, Justice, 
 Rumour, Comfort, Reward, Doctrine, Memory, are 
 
 1 Quotations taken, with a few obvious emendations, from Mr. 
 Farmer's reproduction in the Tudor Facsimile Texts. 
 ^ The hurt of impurity, not of death. 
 
4 INTRODUCTION 
 
 introduced, and some of them not only in scenes by 
 themselves, but in association with the concrete 
 characters. Occasionally their functions are merely 
 figurative, and can be separated from the action 
 that is supposed to be proceeding : and then of 
 course they hardly count for more than the attributes 
 that help to explain a statue. Thus, when Appius 
 resolves to pursue his ruthless purpose, he exclaims : 
 
 But out, I am wounded : how am I deuided ! 
 Two states of my life from me are now glided : 
 
 and the quaint stage direction in the margin gives 
 the comment : " Here let him make as thogh he 
 went out, and let Consience and Justice come out 
 of ^ him, and let Consience hold in his hande a Lamp 
 burning, and let Justice haue a sworde and hold 
 it before Apius brest." Thus, too, another stage 
 direction runs : " Here let Consience speake within : 
 
 ' Judge Apius, prince, oh stay, refuse : be ruled by thy friende : 
 What bloudy death with open shame did Torquin gaine in ende?'" 
 
 And he answers : " Whence doth this pinching 
 sounde desende ? " Here clearly it is merely the 
 voice of his own feelings objectified : and in both 
 instances the interference of the Abstractions is 
 almost wholly decorative ; they add nothing to the 
 reflections of Appius, but only serve to emphasise 
 them. This'however is not always the case. They 
 often comport themselves in every respect like the 
 real men and women. Comfort stays Virginius from 
 suicide till he shall see the punishment of the wicked. 
 Justice and Reward (that is. Requital) summoned by 
 the unjust judge to doom the father, pronounce 
 sentence on himself. In the end Virginius enters in 
 company with Fame, Doctrina, and Memory. 
 
 I Altered unnecessarily to out after by Mr. Carew Hazlitt in his 
 edition of Dodsley's Old English Plays. Appius' words imply that the 
 two principles pass from his life, and the spectators are asked to 
 imagine that they actually see the process. 
 
APPIUS AND VIRGINIA 5 
 
 Other of the characters, again, if more than general 
 ideas, are less than definite individuals. There is a 
 sub-plot not at all interwoven with the main plot, 
 in which the class types, Mansipulus, Mansipula, 
 and their cronjr, Subservus, play their parts. With 
 their help some attempt is made at presenting the 
 humours of vulgar life. They quarrel with each other, 
 but are presently reconciled in order to divert them- 
 selves together, and put off the business of their 
 master and mistress, hoping to escape the punish- 
 ment for their negligence by trickery and good luck. 
 But we do not even know who their master and 
 mistress are, and they come into no contact with 
 either the historical or the allegorical figures. 
 
 The only personage who finds his way into both 
 compartments of the "Tragicall Comedie " is Hap- 
 hazard the Vice, who gives the story such unity as 
 it possesses. His name happily describes the double 
 aspect of his nature. On the one hand he stands 
 for chance itself; on the other for dependence on 
 chance, the recklessness that relies on accident, and 
 trusts that all will end well though guilt has been 
 incurred. In this way he is both the chief seducer 
 and the chief agent, alike of the petty rogues and 
 of the grand criminal. To the former he sings : 
 
 Then wend ye on and folow me, Mansipulus,^ Mansipula, 
 Let croping cares be cast away ; come folow me, come folow 
 me: 
 
 Subseruus is a joly loute 
 Brace ^ Haphazard, bould blinde bayarde ! ^ 
 A figge for his uncourtesie that seekes to shun good company ! 
 
 To Appius' request for advice he replies : 
 
 Well, then, this is my counsel!, thus standeth the case, 
 Perhaps such a fetche as may please your grace : 
 
 ' Text, Mansipula. 
 
 '^ Altered by Hazlitt to " brave." It probably means " embrace." 
 
 ^ A horse that doe^ not see where it is going. 
 
6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 There is no more wayes but hap or hap not. 
 Either hap or eh hapless, to knit up the knot : 
 And if you will hazard to venter what falles, 
 Perhaps that Haphazard will end all your thralles. 
 
 His distinctive note is this, that he tempts men by- 
 suggesting that they may offend and escape the 
 consequences. In the end he falls into the pit that 
 he has digged for others, and when his hap is to be 
 hanged, like a true Vice he accepts the contretemps 
 with jest and jape. 
 
 Yet despite the stock-in-trade that it takes over 
 from Morality or Interlude, -Appius and Virginia 
 has specialties of its own that were better calculated 
 to secure it custom in the period of the Renaissance. 
 The author bestows most care on the main story, 
 and makes a genuine attempt to bring out the human 
 interest of the Subject and the persons. In the 
 opening scene he tries, in his well-meaning way, to 
 give the irhpression of a home in which affection is 
 the pervading principle, but in which affection itself 
 is not allowed to run riot, but is restrained by pru- 
 dence and obligation. Father, mother, and daughter 
 sing a ditty in illustration of this sober love or its 
 reverse, and always return to the refrain : 
 
 The trustiest treasure in earth, as we see, 
 Is man, wife, and children in one to agree; 
 Then friendly, and kindly, let measure be mixed 
 With reason in season, where friendship is fixed. 
 
 There is some inarticulate feeling for effect in the 
 contrast between the wholesomeness of this orderly 
 family life and the incontinence of the tyrant who 
 presently seeks to violate it. And the dramatic bent 
 of the author — for it is no more than a bent — appears 
 too in the portraiture of the parties concerned. The 
 rningled perplexity and dread of Virginius, when in 
 his consciousness of right he is summoned to the 
 court, are justly conceived; and there is magnanimity 
 
APPIUS AND VIRGINIA 7 
 
 in his answer to Appius' announcement that he must 
 give judgment " as justice doth require " : 
 
 My lord, and reason good it is : your seruaunt doth request 
 No parciall hand to aide his cause, no parciall minde or brest. 
 If ought I haue offended you, your Courte or eke your Crowne, 
 From lofty top of Turret hie persupetat me downe : 
 If treason none by me be done, or any fault committed, 
 Let my accusers beare the blame, and let me be remitted. 
 
 Similarly, the subsequent conflict in his heart between 
 fondness for his daughter and respect for her and 
 himself is clearly expressed. And her high-spirited 
 demand for death is tempered and humanised by her 
 instinctive recoil when he " profFers a blow " : 
 
 The gods forgeue thee, father deare! farewell: thy blow do 
 bend — 
 , Yet stay a whyle, O father deare, for fleash to death is fraile. 
 Let first my wimple bind my eyes, and then thy blow assaile, 
 Nowe, father, worke thy will on me, that life I may injoy. 
 
 But the most ambitious and perhaps the most suc- 
 cessful delineation is that of Appius. At the outset 
 he is represented as overwhelmed by his sudden 
 yearning. Apelles, he thinks, was a "prattling fool" 
 to boast of his statue; Pygmalion was fond "with 
 raving fits " to run mad for the beauty of his work, 
 for he could make none like Virginia. Will not the 
 Gods treat him as they treated Salmacis, when Her- 
 mophroditus, bathing in the Carian fountain near the 
 Lycian Marches, denied her suit ? 
 
 Oh Gods aboue, bend downe to heare my crie 
 As once ye^ did to Salmasis, in Pond hard Lyzia by : 
 Oh that Virginia were in case as somtime Salmasis, 
 And in Hermofroditus stede my selfe might seeke my blisse ! 
 Ah Gods ! would I unfold her armes complecting of my necke ? 
 Or would I hurt her nimble hand, or yeelde her such a checke ? 
 Would I gainsay hir tender skinne to baath where I do washe? 
 Or els refuse her soft sweete lippes to touch my naked fleshe ? 
 Nay ! Oh the Gods do know my minde, I rather would requier 
 To sue, to serue, to crouch, to kneele, to craue for my desier. 
 
 ' In original, he. 
 
8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 But out, ye Gods, ye bend your browes, and frowne to see me fare ; 
 Ye do not force ^ my fickle fate, ye do not way my care. 
 Unrighteous and unequall Gods, unjust and eke unsure, 
 Woe worth the time ye made me liue, to see this haplesse houre. 
 
 This, we may suppose, is intended for a mad out- 
 break of voluptuous passion, "the nympholepsy 
 of some fond despair " ; and, as such, it is not very 
 much worse than some that have won the applause 
 of more critical ages. It may suggest the style of 
 the Interlude in the Midsummer-Night' s Dream, or 
 more forcibly, the "King Cambyses' vein" that was 
 then in vogue (for Preston's play of that name, pub- 
 lished about a couple of years later than the probable 
 date when this was performed, is in every way the 
 nearest analogue to Appius and Virginia that the 
 history of our stage has to offer). But in compari- 
 son with the normal flow of the Moralities, the lines 
 have undoubtedly a certain urgency and glow. And 
 there are other touches that betray the incipient 
 playwright. Appius is not exhibited as a mere 
 monster ; through all his life his walk has been 
 blameless, and he is well aware of his " grounded 
 years," his reputation as judge, and the value of 
 good report. He is not at ease in the course he 
 now adopts ; there is a division in his nature, and he 
 does not yield to his temptation without forebodings 
 and remorse. 
 
 Consience he pricketh me contempnbd. 
 And Justice saith. Judgement wold haue me condemned : 
 Consience saith, crueltye sure will detest me ; ^ 
 And Justice saith, death in thend will molest me : 
 And both in one sodden, me thinkes they dp crie 
 That fier eternall my soule shall destroy. 
 
 But he always comes back to the supreme fact of his 
 longing for Virginia : 
 
 By hir I liue, by hir I die, for hir I joy or woe. 
 
 For hir my soule doth sinke or swimme, for her, I swere, I goe. 
 
 'Heed. '^ Make me detestable. 
 
APPIUS AND VIRGINIA 9 
 
 And there are the potentialities of a really powerful 
 effect in the transition from his jubilant outburst 
 when he thinks his waiting is at an end : 
 
 O lucky light ! lo, present heere hir father doth appeare, 
 
 to his misgivings when he sees the old man is 
 unaccompanied : 
 
 O, how I joy! Yet bragge thou not. Dame Beuty bides 
 behinde. 
 
 And immediately thereafter the severed head is dis- 
 played to his view. 
 
 Nor was R. B., whether or not he was Richard 
 Bower, Master of the Chapel children, quite without 
 equipment for the treatment of a classical theme, 
 though in this respect as in others his procedure is 
 uncertain and fumbling in the highest degree. The 
 typical personages of the under-plot have no relish 
 of Latinity save in the termination of the labels that 
 serve them as names, and they swear by God's 
 Mother, and talk glibly of church and pews and 
 prayer books, and a "pair of new cards." Even in 
 the better accredited Romans of Livy's story there 
 are anachronisms and incongruities. Appius, though 
 ordinarily a judge, speaks of himself as prince, king 
 or kaiser ; and references are made to his crown and 
 realm. Nevertheless the author is not without the 
 velleities of Humanism. He ushers in his prologue 
 with some atrocious Latin Elegiacs, which the open- 
 ing lines of the English are obliging enough to 
 paraphrase : 
 
 Qui cupis aethereas et summas scandere sedes. 
 Vim simul ac fraudem discute, care, tibi. 
 
 Fraus hie nulla juvat, non fortia facta juvabunt : 
 Sola Dei tua te trahet tersa fides. 
 
 Cui placet in terris, intactae paludis ^ instar, 
 Vivere Virginiam nitere, Virgo, sequi : 
 
 ' Professor Butler, to whom I am indebted for other emendations of the 
 passage, which is very corrupt in the printed text, suggests Palladis, 
 which gives a meaning, the Virgin goddess, and saves the metre. But 
 I am not sure that R. B. had any bigoted objection to false quantities. 
 
lo INTRODUCTION 
 
 Quos tulit et luctus, discas et gaudia magna, 
 
 Vitae dum Parcae scindere fila parant. 
 Hue ades, O Virgo pariter moritura, sepulchre ; 
 
 Sic ait, et fades pallida morte mutat." 
 
 Who doth desire the trump of fame to sound unto the skies. 
 Or els who seekes the holy place where mighty Joue he lies, 
 He must not by deceitfull mind, nor yet by puissant strength, 
 But by the faith and sacred lyfe he must it win at length ; 
 And what ^ she be that virgins lyfe on earth wold gladly leade, 
 The fluds that Virginia did fall ^ I wish her reade, 
 Her doUer and hir doleful losse and yet her joyes at death : 
 " Come, Virgins pure, to graue with me," quoth she with latest 
 breath. 
 
 In the same way there is throughout a lavish display 
 of cheap boyish erudition. Thus Virginius, reckon- 
 ing up his services to Appius, soliloquises : 
 
 In Mars his games, in marshall feates, thou wast his only aide, 
 The huge Carrebd his^ hazards thou for him hast* ofte assaied. 
 Was Sillas force by thee oft shunde or yet Lady Circe's^ lande, 
 Pasiphae's^childe, that Minnotaur, did cause thee euer stande? 
 
 We are here indeed on the threshold of a very 
 different kind of art, of which, in its application to 
 Roman history, a sample had been submitted to the 
 English public two years previously in the Octavia 
 ascribed to Seneca. 
 
 The Latin Tragedy, merely because it was Latin, 
 and for that reason within the reach of a far 
 greater number of readers, was much better known 
 than the Greek at the period of the Renaissance. 
 But apart from its advantage in accessibility, it 
 attracted men of that age not only by its many 
 brilliant qualities but by its very defects, its tendency 
 to heightened yet abstract portraiture, its declamation, 
 its sententiousness, its violence, its unrestfulness. It 
 had both for good and bad a more modern bearing 
 
 ' I.e. " whoever." 
 
 2 Fall, causative ; " the tears she copiously shed." 
 
 3 Charybdis. 4 Original, was. 
 
 ^ So Hazlitt ; in the original Advice. » In the original, Lacefaer. 
 
OCTAVIA II 
 
 than the masterpieces of Hellenic antiquity, and in 
 sbme ways it corresponded more closely with the 
 culture of the sixteenth century than with our own. 
 It was therefore bound to have a very decisive 
 influence in shaping the traditions of the later stage ; 
 and the collection of ten plays ascribed to Seneca, 
 the poor remainder of a numerous tribe that may be 
 traced back to the third century before Christ, 
 furnished the pattern which critics prescribed for 
 imitation to all who would achieve the tragic crown. 
 And if this was true of the series as a whole, it was 
 also true of the play, which, whatever may be said 
 of the other nine, is certainly not by Seneca himself, 
 the poorest of them all, with most of the faults and 
 few of the virtues of the rest, Odavia, the sole 
 surviving example of the Fabula Praetexta, or the 
 Tragedy that dealt with native Roman themes. 
 The Octavia, however, was not less popular and 
 influential than its companions, and has even a claim 
 to especial attention inasmuch as it may be con- 
 sidered the remote ancestress of the Modern Historic 
 Play in general and of the Modern Roman Play 
 in particular. It inspired Mussato about 1300 to 
 write "in Latin his Eccerinis, which deals with an 
 almost contemporary national subject, the fate of 
 Ezzelino : it inspired the young Muretus about 1 544 
 to write his Julius Caesar, which in turn showed his 
 countrymen the way to treat such themes in French. 
 Before eight years were over they had begun to do 
 so, and many were the Roman plays composed by 
 the School of Ronsard. Certainly Seneca's method 
 would suit the historical dramatist who was not quite 
 at home in his history, for of local colour and visual 
 detail it made small account, and indeed was hardly 
 compatible with • them. And it would commend 
 itself no less to men of letters who, without much 
 dramatic sympathy or aptitude, with no knowledge 
 of stage requirements, and little prospect of getting 
 
12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 their pieces performed, felt called upon honoris causA 
 to write dramas, which one of the most distinguished 
 and successful among them was candid enough to 
 entitle not plays but treatises. It is worth while to 
 have a clear idea of the Octavia from which in right 
 line this illustrious and forgotten progeny proceeded. 
 
 The date of the action is supposed to be 62 a.d. 
 when Nero, who had for some time wished to wed 
 his mistress, Poppaea Sabina, and had murdered his 
 mother, partly on account of her opposition, divorced 
 his virtuous wife, his step-sister Octavia, and exiled 
 her to Pandataria, where shortly afterwards he had 
 her put to death. The fact that Seneca is one of 
 the persons in the piece, and that there are antici- 
 patory references to Nero's death, which followed 
 Seneca's compulsory suicide only after an interval 
 of three years, sufficiently disposes of the theory 
 that the philosopher himself was the author. 
 
 The text accepted in the sixteenth century suffered 
 much, not only from the corruption of individual 
 expressions, but from the displacement of entire 
 passages. Greatly to its advantage it has been 
 rearranged by later editors, but in the following 
 account, their conjectures, generally happy and 
 sometimes convincing, have been disregarded, as 
 they were unknown to Thomas Nuce, who rendered 
 it into English in 1561. In his hands, therefore, it 
 is more loosely connected than it originally was, 
 or than once more it has become for us ; and some- 
 thing of regularity it forfeits as well, for the dislocated 
 framework led him to regard it as a drama in only 
 four acts. Despite these flaws in his work he is a 
 cleverer craftsman than many of his colleagues in 
 Senecan translation, whose versions of the ten 
 tragedies, most of them already published separately, 
 were collected in a neat little volume in 1 581.1 
 
 * It is from this that I quote. I have not been able to see either the 
 first edition or the reprint for the Spenser Society. , 
 
OCTAVIA 13 
 
 An original "argument" summarises the story 
 with sufficient clearness. 
 
 Octauia, daughter to prince Claudius grace, 
 
 To Nero espousd, whom Claudius did adopt, 
 
 (Although Syllanus first in husbandes place 
 
 Shee had receiu'd, whom she for Nero chopt ^), 
 
 Her parentes both, her Make that should have bene, 
 
 Her husbandes present Tiiranny much more, 
 
 Her owne estate, her case that she was in. 
 
 Her brother's death, (pore wretch), lamenteth sore. 
 
 Him Seneca doth persuade, his latter loue, 
 
 Dame Poppie, Crispyne's wife that sometime was, 
 
 And eake Octauias maide, for to remoue. 
 
 For Senecks counsel he doth lightly passe ^ 
 
 But Poppie ioynes to him in marriage rites. 
 
 The people wood * unto his pallace runne, 
 
 His golden fourmed shapes*; which them sore spytes, 
 
 They pull to ground : this uprore, now begunne. 
 
 To quench, he some to griesly death doth send. 
 
 But her close cased up in dreadful barge, 
 
 With her unto Compania coast to wend 
 
 A band of armed men, he gave in charge. 
 
 This programme the play proceeds to fill in. 
 
 In the first act Octavia, unbosoming herself to her 
 nurse, relieves her heart of its woe and horror. She 
 recounts the misfortunes of her house, the atrocities 
 of her lord, his infidelities to her, her detestation of 
 him. The nurse is full of sympathy, but admonishes 
 her to patience, consoling her with assurances of the ' 
 people's love, and reminding her of the truancies that 
 the Empress of Heaven had also to excuse in her 
 own husband and brother : 
 
 Now, madam, sith on earth your powre is pight 
 And haue on earth Queene Junos princely place. 
 And sister are and wyfe to Neroes grace. 
 Your wondrous restles dolours great appease.^ 
 
 ' Exchanged. ^ Has small consideration. 
 
 5 Mad. * Statues. 
 
 ° Tu quoque terris altera Juno 
 
 Sorer Augusti 
 
 coniunxque graves vince dolores. (Line 224, ed. Peiper & Richter). 
 This is now assigned to the chorus. 
 
14 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The chorus closes the act with a variation on the 
 same themes, passing from praises of Octavia's purity ' 
 and regrets for the ancient Roman intolerance of 
 wrong, to the contrasted picture of Nero's unchal- 
 lenged malignity. 
 
 The second act commences with a monologue by 
 Seneca on the growing corruption of the age, which 
 is interrupted by the approach of his master in talk 
 with the Prefect. His words, as he enters, are : 
 
 Dispatch with speede that we commaunded haue : 
 Go, send forthwith some one or other slaue,- 
 That Plautius cropped scalpe, and Sillas eke, 
 May bring before our face : goe some man seeke.^ 
 
 Seneca remonstrates, but his remonstrances are of 
 no avail ; and in a long discussion in which he advo- 
 cates a policy of righteousness and goodwill and the 
 sacredness of Octavia's claims, he is equally unsuccess- 
 ful. The act, to which there is no chorus, concludes 
 with Nero's determination to flout the wishes of the 
 people and persist in the promotion of Poppaea : 
 
 Why do we not appoynt the morrow next 
 When as our mariage pompe may be context ? ^ 
 
 The third act is ushered in with one of those 
 boding apparitions of which the Senecan Tragedy 
 is so fond. The shade of Agrippina rises, the bridal 
 torch of Nero and Poppaea in her hand : 
 
 Through paunch of riuened earth, from Plutoes raigne 
 With ghostly steps I am returnd agayne. 
 In writhled wristes, that bloud do most desyre, 
 Forguyding ^ wedlocke vyle with Stygian fire.* 
 
 ^ Parage imperata : mitte qui Plauti mihi 
 Sillaeque caesi referat abscissum caput. (Line 449.) 
 
 ^ Quin destinamus proximum thalamis diem ? (Line 604.) 
 
 ^ Guiding to ruin. 
 
 * Tellure rupta Tartaro gressum extuli 
 stygiam cruenta praeferens dextra facem 
 thalamis scelestis. (Line 605.) 
 
OCTAVIA 15 
 
 She bewails her crimes on her son's behalf and 
 his parricidal ingratitude, but vengeance will fall on 
 him at last. 
 
 Although that Tyrant proude and scornful wight 
 His court with marble stone do strongly dyght, 
 And princelike garnish it with glistering golde : 
 Though troupes of soldiours, shielded sure, upholde 
 Their chieftaynes princely porch ; and though yet still 
 The world drawne drye with taskes even to his will 
 Great heapes of riches yeeld, themselues to saue ; 
 Although his bloudy helpe the Parthians craue, 
 And Kingdomes bring, and goods al that they haue ; 
 The tyme and day shall come, when as he shall, 
 Forlorne, and quite undone, and wanting all. 
 Unto his cursed deedes his life, and more. 
 Unto his foes his bared throate restore.^ 
 
 As >she disappears, Octavia enters in conversation 
 with the chorus, whom she dissuades from the ex- 
 pression of sympathy for her distress lest they should 
 incur the wrath of the tyrant. On this suggestion 
 they denounce the supineness of the degenerate 
 Romans in the vindication of right, and exhort each 
 other to an outbreak. 
 
 In the fourth act, Poppaea, terrified by an ominous 
 dream of Nero stabbing her first husband, and of 
 Agrippina, a firebrand in her grasp, leading her 
 down through^ the earth, rushes across the stage, 
 but is stayed by her nurse, who soothes and encour- 
 ages her, and bids her return to her bridal chamber. 
 Yet it seems as though her worst fears were at once 
 to be realised. The chorus, acknowledging the 
 charms of the new Empress, is interrupted by the 
 hurried arrival of a messenger. He announces that 
 
 1 Licet extruat marmoribus atque auro tegat 
 superbus aulam, limen armatae ducis 
 servent cohortes, mittat immensas opes 
 exhaustus orbis, supplices dextram petant 
 Parthi cruentam, regna divitias ferant : 
 veniet dies tempusque quo reddat suis • 
 animam nocenteni sceleribus jugulum hostibus 
 desertus ac destructus at cunctis egens. (Line 636.) 
 
i6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 the people are in uproar, overthrowing the statues 
 of Poppaea, and demanding the restitution of Octavia. 
 But to what purpose ? The chorus sings that it is 
 vain to oppose the resistless arms of love. It is at 
 least vain to oppose the arms of Nero's soldiers. 
 Confident in their strength he enters, breathing forth 
 threatenings and slaughter, and expectant of a time 
 when he will exact a full penalty from the citizens : 
 
 Then shall their houses fall by force of fire ; 
 What burning both, and buildings fayre decay,i 
 What beggarly want, and wayling hunger may, 
 Those villaines shall be sure to have ech day.^ 
 
 Dreaming of the future conflagration, he is dissatis- 
 fied with the prefect, who tells him that the insurrec- 
 tion has been easily quelled with the death of one or 
 two, and meanwhile turns all his wrath against the 
 innocent cause of the riot. The play does not, how- 
 ever, end with the murder of Octavia. She informs 
 the chorus that she is to be dispatched in Agrip- 
 pina's death-ship to her place of exile. 
 
 But now no helpe of death I feele, 
 Alas I see my Brothers boate : 
 This is the same, whose vaulted keele 
 His Mother once did set a flote. 
 And now his piteous Sister I, 
 Excluded cleane from spousall place 
 Shall be so cari^d by and by ; * 
 No force hath virtue in this case.* 
 
 And the final song of the chorus, with a touch of 
 dramatic irony, wishes her a prosperous voyage, and 
 
 ' Destruction of fair buildings. 
 
 ^ Mox tecta flammis concidant urbis meis, 
 
 ignes ruinae noxium populum premant 
 
 turpisque egestas saeva cum luctu fames. (Line 847.) 
 ' At once. 
 * Sad jam spes est nulla salutis : 
 
 fratris cerno miseranda ratem. 
 
 hac en cuius vecta carina 
 
 quondam genetrix 
 
 nunc et thalamis expulsa soror 
 
 miseranda vehar. (Line 926.) 
 
OCTAVIA 17 
 
 congratulates her on her removal from the cruel city 
 
 of Rome : 
 
 O pippling puffe of western wynde, 
 
 Which sacrifice didst once withstand, 
 
 Of Iphigen to death assignde : 
 
 And close in Cloude congealed clad 
 
 Did cary hir from smoking aares ^ 
 
 Which angry, cruell Virgin had ; 
 
 This Prince also opprest with cares 
 
 Saue from this paynefull punishment 
 
 To Dian's temple safely borne : 
 
 The barbarous Moores, to rudenesse bent, 
 
 Then " Princes Courtes in Rome forlorne 
 
 Haue farre more Cyuile curtesie : 
 
 For there doth straungers death appease 
 
 The angry Gods in heauens on hie, 
 
 But Romayne bloude our Rome must please.* 
 
 There could be no greater contrast than between 
 Appius and Virginia, with its exits and entrances, 
 its changefulness and busde, its mixture of the pom- 
 pous and the farcical ; and the monotonous declama- 
 tion, the dismissal of all action, the meagreness of 
 the material in the Octavia. And yet they are more 
 akin than they at first sight appear. Disregard the 
 buffoonery which the mongrel " tragicall comedie " 
 inherited from the native stock, and you perceive 
 traits that suggest another filiation. The similarity 
 with the Latin Play in its English version is, of 
 course, misleading, except in so far as it shows how 
 the Senecan drama must present itself to an early 
 
 ' Altars. 2 Than. 
 
 ^ Lenes aurae zephyrique leves 
 tectam quondam nube aetheria 
 qui vixistis raptam saevae 
 virginis aris Iphigeniam, 
 banc quoque tristi procul a poena 
 portate precor templa ad Triviae. 
 Urbe est nostra mitior Aulis 
 et Maurorum * barbara tellus ; 
 hospitis illic caede litatur 
 numen superum. 
 civis gaudet Roma cruore. (Line 1002.) 
 
 * Better reading, Taurorum. 
 B 
 
i8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Elizabethan in the light of his own crude art. The 
 devices of the rhetorician were travestied by those^ 
 who knew no difference between rhetoric and rant, 
 and whose very rant, whether they tried to invent 
 or to translate, was clumsy and strained. Hence the 
 "tenne tragedies" of Seneca and the nearly con- 
 temporary Mixed Plays have a strong family resem^ 
 blance in style. In all of them save the Octavia 
 the resemblance extends from diction to verse, for 
 in dialogue and harangue they employ the trailing 
 fourteen-syllable measure of the popular play, while 
 in the Octavia this is discarded for the more artistic 
 heroic couplet. In this and other respects, T. N., 
 as Nuce signs himself, is undoubtedly more at his 
 ease in the literary element than others of the group ; 
 nevertheless he is often content to fly the ordinary 
 pitch of R, B. This is most obvious when their 
 performances are read and compared as a whole, 
 but it is evident enough in single passages. The 
 Nurse, for example, says of Nero to Octavia : 
 
 Eft stepped into servile Pallace stroke. 
 
 To filthy vices lore one easly broke, 
 
 Of Divelish wicked wit thi& Princocks proude, 
 
 By stepdames wyle prince Claudius Sonne auoude ; 
 
 Whome deadly damme did bloudy match ylight, 
 
 And thee, against thy will, for feare did plight.^ 
 
 These words might almost suit the mouths of 
 Appius and his victims. 
 
 But leaving aside the affinities due to the common 
 use of English by writers on much the same plane 
 of art, the London medley is not immeasurably 
 different from or inferior to the Roman Praetexta, 
 even when confronted with the latter in its native 
 
 ' The original author has a right to complain : 
 
 Intravit hostis hei mihi captam domum 
 
 dolisque novercae principis factus gener 
 
 idemque natus iuvenis infandi ingeni 
 
 scelerum capacis dira cui genetrix facem 
 
 accendit at te iunxit invitam metu. (Line 155.) 
 
OCTAVIA 19 
 
 dress. In both the characterisation is in the same 
 rudimentary and obvious style, and shows the same 
 predilection for easily classified types. There is 
 even less genuine theatrical tact in the Latin than 
 in the English drama. The chief persons are under 
 careful supervision and are kept rigidly apart. Nero 
 never meets Octavia or Poppaea, Poppaea and 
 Octavia never meet each other. No doubt there 
 are some successful touches : the first entrance of 
 Nero is not ineffective ; the equivocal hopefulness 
 of the last chorus is a thing one remembers : the 
 insertion of Agrippina's prophecy and Poppaea's 
 dream does something to keep in view the future 
 requital and so to alleviate the thickening gloom. 
 Except for these, however, and a few other felicities 
 natural to a writer with long dramatic traditions 
 behind him, the Octavia strikes us as a series of 
 disquisitions and discussions, well-arranged, well 
 managed, often effective, sometimes brilliant, that 
 have been suggested by a single impressive historical 
 situation. 
 
 THE FRENCH SENECANS 
 
 These salient features are transmitted to the 
 Senecan dramas of France, except that the character- 
 isation is even vaguer, the declamation ampler, and 
 the whole treatment less truly dramatic and more 
 obviously rhetorical ; of which there is an indication 
 in the greater relative prominence of monologue as 
 compared with dialogue, and in the excessive pre- 
 dilection for general reflections,^ many of them 
 
 '"Jodelle's und Garnier's Dramen sind reicher an Sentenzen als 
 die Seneca's, Jodelle hat mehr als doppelt so viel." Gedankenkreis 
 . . . in Jodellis und Garnier's Tragodien, by Paul Kahnt, who gives 
 the results of his calculations in an interesting table. 
 
20 INTRODUCTION 
 
 derived from Seneca and Horace, but many of them 
 too of modern origin. 
 
 At the head of the list stands xhe Julhis Caesar 
 of Muretus, a play which, even if of far less intrinsic 
 worth than can be claimed for it, would always be 
 interesting for the associations with which it is 
 surrounded. 
 
 Montaigne, after mentioning among his other 
 tutors " Marc Antoine Muret, que la France et 
 I'ltalie recognoist pour le meilleur orateur du temps," 
 goes on to tell us: "J'ay soustenu les premiers 
 personnages ez tragedies latines de Buchanan, de 
 Guerente et de Muret, qui se representerent en 
 nostre college de Guienne avecques dignity : en 
 cela, Andreas Goveanus, nostre principal, comme 
 en toutes aultres parties de sa charge, feut sans 
 comparaison le plus grand principal de France ; et 
 m'en tenoit on maistre ouvrier." 
 
 The Julius Caesar written in 1 544 belongs to the 
 year before Montaigne left Bordeaux at the age of 
 thirteen, so he may have taken one of the chief 
 parts in it, Caesar, or M. Brutus, or Calpurnia. 
 This would always give us a kind of personal con- 
 cern in Muret's short boyish composition of barely 
 600 lines, which he wrote at the age of eighteen 
 and afterwards published only among his Juvenilia. 
 •But it has an importance of its own. Of course it 
 is at the best an academic experiment, though from 
 Montaigne's statement that these plays were pre- 
 sented "avecques dignity," and from the interest 
 the principal took in the matter, we may suppose 
 that the performance would be exemplary in its 
 kind. Of course, too, even as an academic experi- 
 ment it does not, to modern taste, seem on the level 
 of the more elaborate tragedies which George 
 Buchanan, "ce grand poete ecossois," as Montaigne 
 reverendy styles his old preceptor, had produced at 
 the comparatively mature age of from thirty-three 
 
THE FRENCH SENECANS 
 
 21 
 
 to thirty-six, ere leaving Bordeaux two years before. 
 It IS inferior to the Baptistes and far inferior to the 
 Jephthes m precision of portraiture and pathos of 
 appeal. But in the sixteenth century, partly, no 
 doubt, because the subject was of such secular im- 
 portance and the treatment so congenial to learned 
 theory, but also, no doubt, because the eloquence was 
 sometimes so genuinely eloquent, and the Latin, 
 despite a few licenses in metre and grammar, so racy 
 of the classic soil, it obtained extraordinary fame and 
 exercised extraordinary influence. For these reasons, 
 as well as the additional one thiat it is now less 
 widely known than it ought to be, a brief account 
 of it may not be out of place. 
 
 The first act is entirely occupied with a soliloquy 
 by Caesar, in which he represents himself as having 
 attained the summit of earthly glory. 
 
 Let others at their pleasure count their triumphs, and name 
 themselves from vanquished provinces. It is more to be 
 called Caesar: whoso seeks fresh titles elsewhere, takes 
 something away thereby. Would you have me reckon the 
 regions conquered under my command? Enumerate all 
 there are.^ 
 
 Even Rome has yielded to him, even his great son- 
 in-law admitted his power, 
 
 and whom he would not have as an equal, he has borne as a 
 superior. 2 
 
 What more is to be done .<* 
 
 My quest must be heaven, earth is become base to me. 
 . . . Now long enough have I lived whether for myself or 
 
 ' Numerent triumphos, cum volant, alii suos, 
 Seque * subactis nominent provinciis. 
 Plus est vocari Caesarem ; quisquis novos 
 Aliunde titulos quaerit, is jam detrahit : 
 Numerare ductu vis meo victas plagas ? 
 Percurrito omnes. 
 
 ^ quemque noluerat parem, 
 Tulit priorem. 
 
 * Insert ex. 
 
22 INTRODUCTION 
 
 for my country. . . . The destruction of foes, the gift of 
 laws to the people, the ordering of the year, the restoration 
 of splendour to worship, the settlement of the world,— than 
 these, greater things can be conceived by none, nor pettier be 
 performed by me. . . . Wheii afe has played the part 
 assigned- to it, death never comes in haste and sometimes 
 too late.i 
 
 The chorus sings of the immutability of fortune. 
 
 In the second act Brutus, in a long monologue, 
 upbraids himself with his delay. 
 
 Does the virtue of thy house move thee nought, and 
 nought the name of Brutus ? Nought, the hard lot of thy 
 groaning country, crushed by the tyrant and calling for thine 
 aid ? Nought the petitions in which the people lament that 
 Brutus comes not to champion the state? If these things 
 fail to touch thee, thy wife now gives thee rede enough that 
 thou be a man ; who has pledged her faith to thee in blood, 
 thus avouching herself the oflspring of thine uncle.^ 
 
 He raises and meets the objections which his under- 
 standing offers : 
 
 Say you he is not king but dictator ? If the thing be the 
 same, what boots a different name ? Say you he shuns that 
 name, and rejects the crowns they proffer him : this is pre- 
 tence and mockery, for why then did he remove the tribunes? 
 True, he gave me dignities and once my life; with me my 
 country outweighs them all. Whoso shows gratitude to a 
 
 1 Coelum petendum est : terra jam vilet mihi. . . . 
 
 Jam vel mihi, vel patriae vixi satis. . . . 
 
 Hostes perempti. civibus leges datae, 
 
 Digestus annus, redditus sacris nitor, 
 
 Compostus orbis, cogitari nee queuht 
 . Majora cuiquam, nee minora a me geri. . . . 
 
 Cum vita partes muneris functa est sui, 
 
 Mors propera nunquam, sera nonnunquam venit. 
 
 * Nihilne te virtus lucrum commovet, 
 Nomenque Bruti ? nihil * genientis patriae, 
 Pressae a tyranno, opemque poscentis tuam 
 Conditio dura ? nil libelli supplices, 
 Queis Brutum abesse civitatis vindicem 
 Cives queruntur? Haec parum si te movent, 
 Tua jam, vir ut sis, te satis conjux moaet, 
 Fidem cruore quae tibi obstrinxit su^m, 
 Testata sic se avunculi prolem tui. 
 
 * Certainly read nil. 
 
THE FRENCH SENECANS 23 
 
 tyrant against his country's interest, is ingrate while he seeks 
 to be stupidly grateful. ^ 
 
 And his conclusion is 
 
 The sun reawakening to life saw the people under the yoke, 
 and slaves : at his setting may he see them free.* 
 
 To him enters Cassius exultant that the day has 
 arrived, impatient for the decisive moment, scarce 
 able to restrain his eagerness. Only one scruple 
 remains to him ; should j^tony be slain along with 
 his master r Brutus answers : 
 
 Often already have I said that my purpose is this, to 
 
 destroy tyranny but save the citizens. 
 Cass. Then let it be destroyed from its deepest roots, lest if 
 
 only cut down, it sprout again at some time hereafter. 
 Brut. The whole root lurks under a single trunk. 
 Cass. Think'st thou so ? t shall say no more. Thy will be 
 
 done : we all follow thy guidance.* 
 
 The chorus sings the glories of those who, like 
 Harmodius with his " amiculus," destroy the tyrants, 
 and the risks these tyrants run. 
 
 In the third act Calpurnia, flying in panic to her 
 chamber, is met by her nurse, to whom she discloses 
 the- cause of her distress. She has dreamed that 
 Caesar lies dead in her arms covered with blood, 
 
 * At vero non rex iste, sad dictator est. 
 Dum res sit una, quid aliud nomen juvat? 
 At nomen illud refugit, at oblatas sibi 
 Rajicit coronas. Fingere hoc at ludera est. 
 Nam cur .Tribunos igitur ainovit loco ? 
 At mihi at honores at samel vitam dedit. 
 Plu.s patria illis omnibus apud ma potest. 
 Qui se'tyranno in patriam gratum axhibat, 
 Dum vult inapte gratus assa, ingratus ast. 
 
 2 Phoebus ranascens subditos civas jugo, 
 Servosque vidit : liberos videat cadens. 
 
 ' Jam saapa dixi, id esse consihum mihi, 
 
 Salvis perimere civibus tyrannida. 
 Cass. Parimatur ergo ab infimis radicibus, 
 
 Ne quando posthac caesa rursum pulliilet. 
 Bru. Latet sub uno tota radix corpora. 
 Cass. I tan' vidatur? amplius nil proloquar. 
 
 Tibi pareatur ; te sequimur omnes ducam. 
 
24 INTRODUCTION ^ 
 
 and stabbed with many wounds. The nurse points 
 out the vanity of dreams and the unlikelihood of any 
 attempt against one so great and beneficent, whose 
 clemency has, changed even foes to friends. Cal- 
 purnia, only half comforted, rejoins that she will at 
 least beseech him to remain at home that day, and 
 the chorus prays that misfortune may be averted. 
 
 In the fourth act Calpurnia tries her powers of 
 persuasion. To her passionate appeal, her husband 
 answers : 
 
 What ? Dost thou ask me to trust thy dreams ? 
 
 Cal. No ; but to concede something to my fear. 
 
 Caes. But that fear of thme rests on dreams alone. 
 
 Cal. Assume it to be vain ; grant something to thy wife.^ 
 
 She goes on to enurtierate the warning portents, 
 and at length Caesar assents to her prayers since 
 she cannot repress her terrors. But here Decimus 
 Brutus, strikes in : 
 
 High-hearted Caesar, what word has slipped from thee ? ^ 
 He bids him remember his glory : 
 
 O most shameful plight if the world is ruled by Caesar and 
 Caesar by a woman. . . . What, Caesar, dost thoii suppose 
 the Fathers will think if thou bidst them, summoned at thy 
 command, to depart now and to return when better dreams 
 present themselves to Calpurnia. Go rather resolutely and 
 assume a name the Parthians must dread : or if this please 
 thee not, at least go forth, and thyself dismiss the Fathers ; 
 let them not think they are slighted and had in derision.' 
 
 ' Quid ? Somniis me credere tuis postulas ? 
 
 Cal. Non : sed timori ut non nihil tribuas meo. 
 
 Caes. At iste solis nititur somniis timor. 
 
 Cal. Finge esse vanum : tribuito aliquid conjugi. 
 ^ Magnanime Caesar, quod tibi verbum excidit ? 
 ' O statum deterrimum. 
 Si Caesar orbem, Caesarem mulier regit ! . . . 
 Quid, Caesar, animi patribus credis fore, 
 Si te jubente convocatos jusseris 
 Abire nunc, redire, cum Calpurniae 
 Meliora sese objecerint insomnia ? 
 Vade potius constanter, et nomen cape 
 Parthis timendum ; aut, hoc minus si te juvat, 
 Prodito saltem, atque ipse patres mittito : 
 Ne negligi se, aut ludibrio haberi putent. 
 
THE FRENCH SENECANS 25 
 
 Caesar is bent one way by pity for his wife, another 
 by fear of these taunts; but, at last, leaving Calpurnia 
 to her misgivings, he exclaims : 
 
 But yet, since even to fall, so it be but once, is better than 
 to be laden with lasting fear; not if three hundred prophet- 
 voices call me back, not if with his own voice the present 
 Deity himself warn me of the peril and urge my staying here, 
 shall I refrain.^ 
 
 The chorus cites the predictions of Cassandra to show 
 that it would sometimes be wise to follow the counsel 
 of women. 
 
 In the fifth act Brutus and Cassius appear in 
 triumph. 
 
 Brut. Breathe, citizens ; Caesar is slain ! ... In the Senate 
 which he erewhile overbore, he lies overborne. 
 
 Cass. Behold, Rome, the sword yet warm with blood, behold 
 the hand that hath championed thine honour. That 
 loathsome one who in impious frenzy and blind rage 
 had troubled thee and thine, sore wounded by this 
 same hand, by this same sword which thou beholdest, 
 and gashed in every limb, hath spewed forth his life 
 in a flood of gore.* 
 
 As they leave, Calpurnia enters bewailing the truth 
 of her dream, and inviting to share in her laments the 
 chorus, which denounces vengeance on the criminals. 
 Then the voice of Caesar is heard in rebuke of 
 their tears and in comfort of their distress. Only 
 
 ' Sad tamen quando semel 
 Vel cadere-piaestat, quam metu longo premi ; 
 Non si trecentisAfOcibus vatum avocer, 
 Non si ipse voce propria praesens Deus 
 Moneat pericli, atque hie manendum suadeat. 
 Me continebo. 
 
 * Brut. Spirate cives ! Caesar interfectus est. . . . 
 In curia, quam oppresserat, oppressus jacet. 
 Cass. En, Koma, gladium adhuc tepentem sanguine ; 
 En dignitatis vindicem dextram tuae. 
 Impurus ille, qui furore nefario, 
 Rabieque caeca, te et tuos vexaverat, 
 Hac, hac manu, atque hoc, hocce gladio, quern vides, 
 Consauciatus, et omnibus membris lacer 
 Undam cruoris, et animam evomuit simul. 
 
26 INTRODUCTION 
 
 his shadow fell, but he himself is joined to the 
 immortals. 
 
 Weep no more : it is the wretched that tears befit. Those 
 who assailed me with frantic mind — a god am I, and true is 
 my prophecy — shall not escape vengeance for their deed. 
 My sister's grandson, heir of my virtue as of my sceptre, will 
 require the penalty as seems good to him.^ 
 
 Calpurnia recognises the voice, and the chorus cele- 
 brates the bliss of the "somewhat" that is released 
 from the prison house of the body. 
 
 It is interesting to note that Muretus already 
 employs a number of the moiz/s that reappear in 
 Shakespeare. Thus he' gives prominence to the 
 self-conscious magnanimity of Caesar : to the tem- 
 porary hesitation of Brutus, with his appeal to his 
 name and the letters that are placed in his way ; to 
 his admiration for the courage and constancy of 
 Portia ; to his final whole-heartedness and disregard 
 of Caesar's love for him ; to his prohibition of Mark 
 Antony's death ; to Cassius' vindictive zeal and eager 
 solicitation of his friend ; to Calpurnia's dream, and 
 the contest between her and Decimus Brutus and in 
 Caesar's own mind; to Caesar's fatal decision in 
 view of his honour, and his rejection of the fear of 
 death ; to the exultation of Brutus and Cassius as 
 they enter with their blood-stained swords after the 
 deed is done. And more noticeable than any of 
 these details, are the divided admiration and divided 
 sympathy the author bestows both on Brutus and 
 Caesar — which are obvious even in the wavering 
 utterances of the chorus. We are far removed from 
 the times when Dante saw Lucifer devouring Brutus 
 and Cassius in two of his mouths with Judas between 
 
 ' Desinite flere : lacrymae misefos decent. 
 Qui me furenti, (vera praemoneo Indiges) 
 Sunt animo adorti, non inultum illud ferent. 
 Heres meae virtutis, ut sceptri mei, 
 Nepos sororis, arbitratu pro sue 
 Poenos reposcet. 
 
THE FRENCH SENECANS 27 
 
 them ; or when Chaucer, making a composite mon- 
 ster of the pair, tells how " false Brutus-Cassius," 
 
 " That ever hadde of his hye state envye," 
 
 " stikede " Julius with " boydekins." But we are 
 equally far from the times when Marie - Joseph 
 Ch^nier was to write his tragedy of Brutus et 
 Cassius, Les Derniers Romains. At the renaissance 
 the characteristic feeling was enthusiasm for Caesar 
 and his assassin alike, though it was Shakespeare 
 alone who knew how to reconcile the two points of 
 view.^ 
 
 Of the admiration which Muret's little drama 
 excited there is documentary proof Prefixed to it 
 are a number of congratulatory verses, and among 
 the eulogists are not only scholars, like Buchanan,^ 
 but literary men, members of the Pl^iade — Dorat, 
 Baif, and especially Jodelle, who has his compli- 
 mentary conceits on the appropriateness of the 
 author's name, Mark Antony, to the feat he has 
 accomplished. 
 
 But this last testimony leads us to the less explicit 
 but not less obvious indications of the influence 
 exercised by Muret's tragedy which appear in the 
 subsequent story of literary production. This influ- 
 ence was both indirect and direct. The example 
 of this modern Latin play could not but count for 
 
 * I am quite unable to agree with Herr CoUischonn's view that 
 Muret's play is more republican in sentiment than that of Grdvin. In 
 both there is some discrepancy and contradiction, but with Muret, 
 Caesar is a more prominent figure than Brutus, taking part in three 
 scenes, if we include his intervention after death, while Brutus appears 
 only in two, and tomy mind Caesar makes fully as sympathetic an 
 impression. On the other hand, the alleged monarchic bias of Gr^vin's 
 work cannot be considered very pronounced, when, as M. P'aguet 
 mentions in his Tragidie fratnaise au XVI' Steele, "it was reprinted 
 in the time of Ravaillac with a preface violently hostile to the principle 
 of monarchy." But see Herr CoUischonn's excellent introduction to his 
 GrMn's Tragodie " Caesar" Ausgaben and Abhandlungen, etc., Lit. 
 
 2 See Ruhnken's edition ofMuretus. For the text I have generally 
 but not always used CoUischonn's reprint. 
 
28 INTRODUCTION 
 
 something when Jodelle took the further step of treat- 
 ing another Roman theme in the vernacular. In the 
 vernacular, too, Grdvin was inspired to rehandle the 
 same theme as Muretus, obtaining from his prede- 
 cessor most of his material and his apparatus. These 
 experiments again were not without effect on the 
 later dramas of Garnier, two of which were to leave 
 a mark on. English literature. 
 
 The first regular tragedy as well as the first 
 Roman history in the French language was the 
 CUopatre Captive of Jodelle, acted with great success 
 in 1552 before Henry II. by Jodelle's friends, who 
 at the subsequent banquet presented to him, in semi- 
 pagan wise, a goat decked with flowers and ivy. 
 The prologue^ to the King describes the contents. 
 
 " C'est une tragedie 
 Qui d'une voix plaintive et hardie 
 Te represente un Remain, Marc Antoine, 
 Et Cleopatre, Egyptian ne royne, 
 Laquelle apr^s qu' Antoine, son amy, 
 Estant desja vaincu par I'ennemy, 
 Se fust tue, ja se sentant captive, 
 Et qu'on vouloit la porter toute vive 
 En un triomphe avecques ses deux femmes, 
 S'occit. Icy les desirs et les flammes 
 De deux amants : d'Octavian aussi 
 L'orgueil, I'audace et le journel soucy 
 De son trophee emprains tu sonderas.'' 
 
 But this programme conveys an impression of 
 greater variety and abundance than is justified by 
 the piece. In point of fact it begins only after the 
 death of Antony, who does not intervene save as a 
 ghost in the opening scene, to bewail his offences 
 and announce that in a dream he has bid Cleopatra 
 join him before the day is out.^ Nor do we hear 
 
 ' Ancien Theatre Francois, Tome iv. ed Viollet Le Due. 
 2 As he puts it, rather comically to modern ears : m 
 
 'Avant que ce soleil qui vient ores de naistre, 
 Ayant trace son jour, chez sa tante se plonge. 
 
THE FRENCH SENECANS 29 
 
 anything of " desirs et flammes " on his part ; rather 
 he resents her seductions, and has summoned her to 
 share his torments : 
 
 Or se faisant compagne en ma peine et tristesse 
 Qui s'est faite long-temps compagne en ma Hesse. 
 
 The sequel does little more than describe how 
 his command is carried out. Cleopatra enters into 
 conversation with Eras and Charmium, and despite 
 their remonstrances resolves to obey. The chorus 
 sings of the fickleness of fortune : (Act i.). Octavi- 
 anus, after a passing regret for Antony, arranges 
 with Proculeius and Agrippa to make sure of her 
 presence at his triumph. The chorus sings of the 
 perils of pride: (Act 11.). Octavianus visits the 
 Queen, dismisses her excuses, but grants mercy to 
 her and her children, and pardons her deceit when 
 her retention of her jewellery is exposed by Seleucus. 
 But Seleucus is inconsolable for his offence as well 
 as his castigation, and exclaims : 
 
 Lors que la royne, et triste et courageuse, 
 Devant Cesar aux chevaux m'a tire, 
 Et de son poing men visage empire, 
 S'elle m'eust fait mort en terre gesir, 
 Ella eust preveu a mon present desir, 
 Veu que la mort n'eust point estd tant dure 
 Que I'eternelle et mordante pointure 
 Qui ja desjk jusques au fond me blesse 
 D'avoir blesse ma royne et ma maistresse. 
 
 The chorus oddly enough discovers in her maltreat- 
 ment of the tale-bearer a proof of her indomitable 
 spirit, and an indication that she will never let 
 herself be led to Rome : (Act in.). Cleopatra now 
 explains that her submission was only feigned to 
 secure the lives of her children, and that she herself 
 has no thought of following the conqueror's car. 
 Eras and Charmium approve, and all three depart 
 to Antony's tomb to offer there a last sacrifice, 
 which the chorus describes in full detail : (Act 
 
30 INTRODUCTION 
 
 IV.). Proculeius in consternation announces the 
 sequel : 
 
 " J'ay veu (6 rare et miserable chose !) 
 Ma Cleopatre en son royal habit 
 
 Et sa couronne, au long d'un riche lict jt; 
 
 Peint et dore, blesme et morte couchee, 
 Sans qu'elle fust d'aucun glaive touchee, 
 Avecq Eras, sa femme, k ses pieds morte, 
 Et Charmium vive, qu'en telle sorte 
 J'ay lors blasmee : ' A a ! Charmium, est-ce 
 Noblement faict?' ' Ouy, ouy, c'est de noblesse 
 De tant de rois Egyptiens venue 
 Un tesmoignage.' Et lors, peu soustenue 
 En chancelant et s'accrochant en vain, 
 Tombe a I'envers, restans un tronc humain." 
 
 The chorus celebrates the pitifulness and glory of 
 her end, and the supremacy of Caesar : (Act v.). 
 
 Thus, despite the promises of the prologue, the 
 play resolves itself to a single motif, the deter- 
 mination of Cleopatra to follow Antony in defiance 
 of Octavianus' efforts to prevent her. Nevertheless, 
 simple as it is, it fails in real unity. The ghost of 
 Antony, speaking, one must suppose, the final verdict, 
 pronounces condemnation on her as well as himself; 
 yet in the rest of the play, even in the undignified 
 episode with Seleucus, Jodelle bespeaks for her 
 not only our sympathy but our admiration. It is 
 just another aspect of this that Antony treats her 
 death as the beginning of her punishment, but to 
 her and her attendants and the women of Alexandria 
 it is a desirable release. The recurrent theme of 
 the chorus, varied to suit the complexion of the 
 different acts, is always the same : 
 
 Joye, qui dueil enfante 
 Se meurdrist ; puis la mbrt. 
 Par la joye plaisante. 
 Fait au deuil mesme tort. 
 
 Haifa dozen years later, in 1558, the Confreres 
 de la Passion were acting a play which Muretus had 
 
THE FRENCH SENECANS 31 
 
 more immediately prompted, and which did him 
 greater credit. This was the Cesar of Jacques 
 Gr^vin, a young Huguenot gentlemen who, at the 
 age of twenty, recast in French the even more 
 juvenile effort of the famous scholar, expanding it to 
 twice the size, introducing new personages, giving 
 the old ones more to do, and while borrowing largely 
 in language and construction, shaping it to his own 
 ends and making it much more dramatic. Indeed, 
 his tragedy strikes one as fitter for the popular stage 
 than almost any other of its class, and this seems to 
 have been felt at the time, for besides running 
 through two editions in 1561 and 1562, it was 
 reproduced by the Confreres with great success in 
 the former year. Of course its theatrical merit is 
 only relative, and it does not escape the faults 
 of the Senecan school. Gr^vin styles his dramatis 
 pcrsonae rather ominously and very correctly " entre- 
 parleurs '" ; for they talk rather than act. They 
 talk, moreover, in long, set harangues even when 
 they are conversing, and Grdvin so likes to hear 
 them that he sometimes lets the story wait. Nor 
 do they possess much individuality or concrete life. 
 But the young author has passion ; he has fire ; and 
 he knows the dramatic secret of contrasting different 
 moods and points of view. 
 
 He follows his exemplar most closely, and often 
 literally, in the first three acts, though even in them 
 he often goes his own way. Thus, after Caesar's 
 opening soliloquy, which is by no means so Olympian 
 as in Muret, he introduces Mark Antony, who en- 
 courages his master with reminders of his greatness 
 and assurances of his devotion. In the second act, 
 after Marcus Brutus' monologue, not only Cassius 
 but Decimus has something to say, and there is a 
 quicker interchange of statement and rejoinder than 
 is usual in such a play. In the third act, the third 
 and fourth of Muretus are combined, and after the 
 
32 INTRODUCTION 
 
 conversation of Calpurnia with the Nurse, there 
 follow her attempts to dissuade her husband from 
 visiting the senate-house, the hesitation of Caesar, 
 the counter-arguments of Decimus ; and in con- 
 clusion, when Decimus has prevailed, the Nurse 
 resumes her endeavours at consolation. The fourth 
 act is entirely new, and gives an account of the 
 assassination by the mouth of a Messenger, who is 
 also a new person, to the distracted Calpurnia and 
 her sympathetic Nurse. In the fifth Gr^vin begins 
 by returning to his authority in the jubilant speeches 
 of Brutus and Cassius, but one by Decimus is added; 
 and rejecting the expedient of the ghostly interven- 
 tion, he substitutes, much more effectively, that of 
 Mark Antony, who addresses the chorus of soldiers, 
 rouses them to vengeance, and having made sure of 
 them, departs to stir up the people. 
 
 Altogether a creditable performance, and a dis- 
 tinct improvement on the more famous play that 
 supplied the ground-work. One must not be misled 
 by the almost literal discipleship of Gr^vin in par- 
 ticular passages, to suppose that even in language 
 he is a mere imitator. The discipleship is of course 
 undeniable. Take Brutus' outburst : 
 
 Rome effroy de ce monde, exemple des provinces, 
 Laisse la tyrannie entre les mains des Princes 
 Du Barbare estranger, qui honneur luy fera, 
 Non pas Rome, pendant que Brute vivera. 
 
 And compare : 
 
 Reges adorent barbarae gentes suos, 
 Non Roma mundi terror, et mundi stupor. 
 Vivente Bruto, Roma reges nesciet. 
 
 So, too, after the murder Brutus denounces his 
 victim : 
 
 Ce Tyran, ce Cesar, ennemi du Senat. . . . 
 
 Ce bourreau d'innocens, ruine de nos loix, 
 
 La terreur des Remains, et le poison des droicts. 
 
THE FRENCH SENECANS 33 
 
 The lines whence this extract is taken merely enlarge 
 Muretus conciser statement : 
 
 Ille, ille, Caesar, patriae terror suae, 
 Hostis senatus, innocentum carnifex, 
 Legum ruina, public! juris lues. 
 
 But generally Grdvin is more abundant and more 
 fervid even when he reproduces most obviously, and 
 among the best of his purple patches are some that 
 are quite his own. He indeed thought dififerenriy. 
 He modestly confesses : 
 
 Je ne veux pourtant nier que s'il se trouve quelque traict 
 digne estre loue, qu'il ne soit de Muret, lequel a est^ mon 
 precepteur quelque temps es lettres humaines, et auquel je 
 donne le meiUeur comme I'ayant appris de luy. 
 
 All the same there is nothing in Muretus like the 
 passage in which Brutus promises himself an immor- 
 tality of fame : 
 
 Et quand on parlera de Cesar et de Romme, 
 Qu'on se souvienne aussi qu'il a este un homme, 
 Un Brute, le vangeur de toute cruaute, 
 Qui aura d'un seul coup gaigne la liberte. 
 Quand on dira, Cesar fut maistre de I'empire, 
 Qu'on die quant-et-quant, Brute le sceut occire. 
 Quand on dira, Cesar fut premier Empereur, 
 Qu'on die quant-et-quant, Brute en fut le vangeur. 
 Ainsi puisse a jamais sa gloire estre suyvie 
 De celle qui sera sa mortelle ennemie 
 
 Gr^vin's tragedy had great vogue, was preferred 
 even to those of Jodelle, and was praised by Ron- 
 sard, though Ronsard afterwards retracted his praises 
 when Gr^vin broke with him on religious grounds. 
 His protestantism, however, would be a recommen- 
 dation rather than otherwise in England, and one 
 would like to know whether some of the lost Eng- 
 lish pieces on the same subject owed anything to 
 the French drama. The suggestion has even been 
 made that Shakespeare was acquainted with it. 
 There are some vague resemblances in particular 
 
34 INTRODUCTION 
 
 thoughts and phrases,^ the closest of which occurs in 
 Caesar's pronouncement on death : 
 
 II vault bien mieux mourir 
 Asseure de tout poinct, qu'incessament perir 
 Faulsement par la peur. 
 
 This suggests : 
 
 Cowards die many times before their deaths : 
 
 The valiant never taste of death but once. (ii. ii. 32.) 
 
 Herr Collischonn also draws attention to a coinci- 
 dence in situation that is not derived from Plutarch. 
 When tfie conspirators are discussing the chances of 
 Caesar's attending the senate meeting, Cassius says : 
 
 Encore qu'il demeure 
 Plus long temps a venir, si fault il bien qu'il meure : 
 
 and Decimus answers : 
 
 Je m'en vay au devant, sans plus me tormenter, 
 Et trouveray moyen de le faire haster. 
 
 It is at least curious to find the same sort of addition, 
 in the same circumstances and with the same 
 speakers in Shakespeare. 
 
 Cassius. But it is doubtful yet, 
 
 Whether Caesar will come forth to-day, or no. . . . 
 
 Dec. Brut. Never fear that : if he be so resolved, 
 I can o'ersway him. ... 
 For I can give his humour the true bent 
 And I will bring him to the Capitol. 
 
 (n. i. 194, 202, 210.) 
 
 Such minutiae, however, are far from conclusive, 
 especially since, as in the two instances quoted, 
 which are the most significant, Plutarch, though he 
 did not authorise, may at any rate have suggested 
 them. The first looks like an expansion of Caesar's 
 remark when his friends were discussing which death 
 was the best : " Death unlooked for." The second 
 
 ' Enumerated by Collischonn in his excellent edition, see above. 
 He has, however, overlooked the one I give. 
 
THE FRENCH SENECANS 35 
 
 follows as a natural dramatic anticipation of the part 
 that Decimus actually played in inducing Caesar to 
 keep tryst. They may very well have occurred 
 independently to both poets ; or, if there be a con- 
 nection, may have been transmitted from the older 
 to the younger through the medium of some for- 
 gotten English piece. There is more presumptive 
 evidence that Gr^vin influenced the Julius Caesar 
 of Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling ; but 
 Stirling's paraphrase of his authorities is so diffuse 
 that they are not always easy to trace. His appar- 
 ent debts to Gr^vin may really be due to the later 
 and much more famous French Senecan Gamier, 
 two of whose works have an undoubted though not 
 very conspicuous place in the history of the English 
 Drama generally, and especially of the Roman Play 
 in England. 
 
 CornMe, the earlier and less successful of the pair, 
 written in Garnier's twenty-eighth year, was per- 
 formed at the Hotel de Bourgogne in 1573, and was 
 published in 1574. The young author was not 
 altogether unpractised in his art, for already in 1 568 
 he had written a drama on the subject of Portia, 
 but he has not yet advanced beyond his prede- 
 cessors, and like them, or perhaps more obviously 
 than they, is at the stage of regarding the tragedy 
 "only^ as an elegy mixed with rhetorical exposi- 
 tions." The episode that he selected lent itself to 
 such treatment. 
 
 Cornelia, the daughter of Metellus Scipio, had 
 after the loss of her first husband, the younger 
 Cassius, become the wife of Pompey the Great, of 
 whose murder she was an eye-witness. Meanwhile 
 her father still made head against Caesar in Africa, 
 and the play deals with her regrets and suspense at 
 Rome till she learns the issue of this final struggle. 
 In the first act Cicero soliloquises on the woes of 
 the country, which he traces to her lust of conquest ; 
 
36 INTRODUCTION 
 
 and the chorus takes up the burden at the close. 
 In the second Cornelia bewails her own miseries, 
 which she attributes to her infidelity in marrying 
 again : Cicero tries to comfort her and she refuses 
 his comfort, both in very long harangues; and the 
 chorus describes the mutability of mortal things. In 
 the third act she narrates an ominous dream in which 
 the shade of Pompey has visited her. Scarcely has 
 she left .the stage when Cicero enters to announce 
 the triumph of Caesar and the death of Scipio. 
 Cornelia re-enters to receive the urn with Pompey's 
 ashes, the sight of which stirs her to new laments 
 for herself and imprecations against Caesar. The 
 chorus dwells on the capriciousness of fortune. In 
 the fourth act the resentment against Caesar is 
 emphasised by Cassius in discourse with Decimus 
 Brutus, and the chorus sings of Harmodios and 
 Aristogeiton ; but after that Caesar and Antony 
 come in and discuss the means to be taken for 
 Caesar's safety, Antony advocating severity and 
 caution, Caesar leniency and confidence. This act 
 is closed by a chorus of Caesar's friends, who cele- 
 brate his services and virtues. The fifth act is 
 chiefly occupied with the messenger's account of 
 Scipio's last battle and death, at the end of which 
 Cornelia at some length declares that when she has 
 paid due funeral rites to husband and father, she will 
 surrender her own life. 
 
 From this analysis it will be seen that Corndlie as 
 a play is about as defective as it could be. The 
 subject is essentially undramatic, for the heroine— 
 and there is no hero — has nothing to do but spend 
 her time in lamentations and forebodings, in eulogies 
 and vituperations. Yet the subject is more suitable 
 than the treatment. There is no trace of conflict, 
 internal or external; for the persons maintain their 
 own point of view throughout, and the issue is a 
 matter of course from the first. There is no 
 
THE FRENCH SENECANS 37 
 
 entanglement or plot ; but all the speakers, as they 
 enter in turn, are affected with a craving to deliver 
 their minds either in solitude or to some congenial 
 listener : and their prolations lead to nothing. Even 
 the unity of interest, which the classicists so prized, 
 and over-prized, is lacking here, despite the bare- 
 ness of the theme. Cicero has hardly less to say 
 than Cornelia, and in two acts she does not so much 
 as appear, while in one of them attention is diverted 
 from her sorrows to the dangers of Caesar. The 
 heroine no doubt retains a certain kind of primacy, 
 but save for that, M. Faguet's description would be 
 literally correct : " The piece in the author's concep- 
 tion might be entitled Thoughts of various persons 
 concerning Rome at the Date of Thapsus."^ The 
 CornMe is by no means devoid of merit, but that 
 merit is almost entirely rhetorical, literary, and 
 poetical. The language is never undignified, the 
 metres are carefully manipulated ; the descriptions 
 and reflections, many of them taken from Lucan, 
 though sometimes stilted, are often elevated and 
 picturesque. But the most dramatic passages are 
 the conversations in the fourth act, where the inter- 
 locuteurs, as Garnier calls the characters with even 
 more reason than Gr^vin calls those of his play 
 entreparleurs, are respectively Decimus Brutus and 
 Cassius, Caesar and Mark Antony : and this is 
 typical for two reasons. In the first place, these 
 scenes have least to do with the titular subject, and 
 are, as it were, mere excrescences on the main 
 theme. In the second place, they are borrowed, so 
 far as their general idea is concerned, from Grdvin, 
 as Gr^vin in^turn had borrowed them from Muretus; 
 and even details have been transmitted to the cadet 
 in the trinity from each and both of his predecessors. 
 Thus in the Corndlie Decimus not very suitably 
 replaces or absorbs Marcus Brutus, but the whole 
 
 ' Tragddie Frangatse au XVT' Siicle. 
 
38 INTRODUCTION 
 
 tone and movement of the interview with Cassius 
 are the same in all the three plays, and particular 
 expressions reappear in Gamier that are peculiar to 
 one or other of his elder colleagues or that the later 
 has adapted from the earlier. For example, Gar- 
 nier's Cassius describes Caesar as 
 
 un homme efFemine 
 Qui le Roy Nicomede a jeune butine.^ 
 
 There is no express reference to this scandal in 
 Muretus, but it furnishes Grdvin's Decimus with a 
 vigorous couplet which obviously has inspired the 
 above quotation : 
 
 N'endurons plus sur nous regner un Ganimede 
 Et la moitie du lict de son Roy Nicomede. 
 
 Here, on the other hand, is an instance of Gamier 
 getting a phrase from Muretus that Gr^vin passed 
 over. Decimus says in excuse of his former patron : 
 
 Encor' n'est il pas Roy portant le diadSme : 
 
 to which Cassius replies : 
 
 Non, il est Dictateur : et n'est-ce pas de mesme ? 
 
 In the Latin both objection and answer are put in 
 the lips of Marcus Brutus, but that does not affect 
 the resemblance. 
 
 At vero non rex iste, sed dictator est. 
 Dum res sit una, quid aliud nomen juvat? 
 
 In other cases the parallelism is threefold. Thus 
 Garnier's Cassius exclaims : 
 
 Les chevaux courageux ne maschent point le mors 
 Sujets au Chevalier qu'avecque grands efforts ; 
 Et les toreaux cornus ne se rendent domtables 
 Qu'a force, pour paistrir les plaines labourables. 
 Nous homnies, nous Romains, ayant le coeur plus mol, 
 Sous un joug volontaire irons ployer le col. 
 
 ' Garnier's TragMes, ed. Foerster. 
 
THE FRENCH SENECANS 39 
 
 Grdvin's Marcus Brutus said : 
 
 Le taureau, le cheval ne prestent le col bas 
 A I'appetit d'un joug, si ce n'est pas contraincte : 
 Fauldra il done que Rome abbaisse sous la craincte 
 De ce nouveau tyran le chef da sa grandeur ? 
 
 In Muretus the same personage puts it more 
 
 shortly : 
 
 Generosiores frena detrectant equi : 
 Nee nisi coaeti perferunt tauri jugum : 
 Roma patietur, quod recusant belluae ? 
 
 In the scene between Caesar and Antony the 
 resemblances are less marked in detail, partly owing 
 to the somewhat different role assigned to the 
 second speaker, but they are there ; and the general 
 tendency, from the self-conscious monologue of 
 Caesar with which it opens, to the dialogue in which 
 he gives expression to his doubts, is practically the 
 same in both plays. 
 
 And these episodes are of some importance in 
 view of their subsequent as well as their previous 
 history. Though neither entirely original nor en- 
 tirely relevant, they seem, perhaps because of their 
 comparative fitness for the stage, to have made 
 a great impression at the time. It has been sug- 
 gested that they were not without their influence 
 on Shakespeare when he came to write his Julius 
 Caesar: a point the discussion of which may be 
 reserved. ' It is certain that they supplied Alexander, 
 though he may also have used Gr^vin and even 
 Muretus, with the chief models and materials 
 for certain scenes in his tragedy on the same 
 subject. Thus, he too presents Caesar and Antony 
 in consultation, and the former prefaces this inter- 
 change of views with a high-flown declaration of 
 his greatness. Thus, too, the substance of their 
 talk is to a great extent adapted from Garnier and 
 diluted in the process. Compare the similar versions 
 
40 INTRODUCTION 
 
 of the apology that Caesar makes for his action. In 
 Alexander he exclaims : 
 
 The highest in the heaven who knows all hearts, 
 Do know my thoughts as pure as are their starres, 
 And that (constrain'd) I came from forraine parts 
 To sefeme uncivill in the civill warres. 
 I mov'd that warre which all the world bemoanes, 
 Whil'-st urged by force to free my selfe from feares ; 
 Still when my hand gave wounds, my heart gave groanes ; 
 No Romans bloud was shed, but I shed teares.^ 
 
 It is very like what Garnier's Caesar says : 
 
 J'atteste Jupiter qui sonne sur la terre, 
 
 Que contraint malgre moy j'ay mene ceste guerre : 
 
 Et que victoire aucune od j'apper9oy gesir 
 
 Le corps d'un citoyen, ne me donne plaisir : 
 
 Mais de mes ennemis I'envie opiniatre, 
 
 Et le malheur Romain m'a contraint de combattre. 
 
 So, too, when Antony asserts that some are con- 
 triving Caesar's death, the speakers engage in a 
 dialectical skirmish : 
 
 Caesar. The best are bound to me by gifts in store. 
 
 Antony. But to their countrey they are bound farre more. 
 
 Caesar. Then loathe they me as th' enemy of the state ? 
 
 Antony. Who freedom love, you (as usurper) hate. 
 
 Caesar. I by great battells have enlatg'd their bounds. 
 
 Antony. By that they think your pow'r too much abounds. 
 
 The filiation with Garnier is surely unmistakable, 
 though it cannot be shown in every line or phrase. 
 
 Antoine. Aux ennemis domtez il n'y a point de foy. 
 
 Cesar. En ceux qui vie et biens de ma bonte resolvent ? 
 
 Antoine. Voire mais beaucoup plus a la Patrie ils doivent. 
 
 Cesar. Pensent-ils que je sois ennemy du pais ? 
 
 Antoine. Mais cruel ravisseur de ses droits envahis. 
 
 Cesar. J'ay a Rome soumis tant de riches provinces. 
 
 Antoine. Rome ne peut souffrir commandement de Princes. 
 
 The scene with the conspirators Stirling treats very 
 differently and much more freely. It had had, as 
 
 ' Works of Sir William Alexander, Glasgow, 1S72. Julius Caesar, 
 
 II. i. 
 
THE FRENCH SENECANS 41 
 
 we have seen, a peculiar history. In Muretus it 
 was confined to Marcus Brutus and Cassius, in 
 Gr^vin Decimus Brutus is added, in Gamier 
 Decimus is retained and Marcus drops out. Alex- 
 ander discriminates. He keeps one discussion for 
 Marcus and Cassius, in so far restoring it to the 
 original and more fitting form it had obtained from 
 Muretus, though he transfers to Marcus some of 
 the sentiments that Gamier had assigned to Decimus. 
 But the half-apologetic role that Decimus plays in 
 Gamier had impressed him, and he did not choose 
 to forego the spice of variety which this contributed. 
 So he invents a new scene for him in which Cicero 
 takes the place of Cassius and solicits his support. 
 But though the one episode is thus cut in two, and 
 each of the halves enlarged far beyond the dimensions 
 of the original whole, it is unquestionable that they 
 owe their main suggestion and much of their matter 
 to the Corndlie. 
 
 Since then Gamier, when his powers were still 
 immature, could so effectively adapt these incidental 
 passages, it is not surprising that he should by and 
 by be able to stand alone, and produce plays in 
 which the central interest was more dramatic. 
 
 Of these we are concerned only with Marc 
 Antoine, which was acted with success at the H6tel 
 de Bourgogne in 1578, and was printed in the same 
 year. In it Gamier has not altogether freed him- 
 self from his former faults. There are otiose person- 
 ages who are introduced merely to supply general 
 ^reflections : Diomedes, the secretary, on the pathos 
 of Cleopatra's fall ; Philostratus, the philosopher, on 
 the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy. There 
 is no inter-action of character on character, all the 
 protagonists being so carefully excluded from each 
 other that Octavianus does not meet Antony, 
 Antony does not meet Cleopatra, Cleopatra does 
 not meet Octavianus. The speeches are .still over 
 
42 INTRODUCTION 
 
 long, and the "sentences" over abundant. Never- 
 theless there is a real story, there are real charactei's; 
 and the story and characters admit, or rather 
 demand, an effective alternation of passion. 
 
 The time comprises the interval between Antony's 
 final reverse and the suicide of Cleopatra : it is 
 short, but a good deal longer than what Jodelle 
 allowed himself in the companion play. Further, 
 the situation is much more complex and less con- 
 fined, so that Garnier, while "borrowing many motifs 
 from Jodelle, or from their common authority, 
 Plutarch, is able to avoid the monotony of Cldopatre 
 Captive. Nor does the coherence suffer. It is true 
 that the account of Antony's death, announced by 
 Dercetas, occurs as with Shakespeare in the fourth 
 act ; but the play is rightly named after him and not 
 after the Queen. He is the principal and by far 
 the most interesting figure, and it is his tragic fate 
 to which all that precedes leads up, and which 
 determines all that follows. 
 
 The first act, as so often in these Senecan plays, 
 is entirely occupied with a soliloquy, which Antony 
 declaims ; but even this has a certain share of 
 dramatic life, though rather after the fashion of a 
 dramatic lyric than of a dramatic scene. He rages 
 against what he supposes to be the crowning perfidy 
 of his mistress, he recalls all that his infatuation has 
 cost him ; the worst of his woes is that they are 
 caused by her ; but he must- love her still. The 
 second act has at the opening and the close respec- 
 tively the unnecessary monologues of Philostratus 
 and Diomedes, but they serve as setting for the 
 animated and significant conversation between Cleo- 
 patra and her women. From it we learn that of the 
 final treason at least she is innocent, but she is full 
 of remorse for the mischief that her love and her 
 caprices have done, and determines, despite the 
 claims of her children, to expiate it in death. 
 
THE FRENCH SENECANS 43 
 
 Then, entering the monument she despatches 
 Diomedes with her excuses to Antony. To him 
 we return in the third act, which is central in interest 
 as in position, and we hear him disburden his soul 
 to his friend Lucilius. His fluctuations of feeling, 
 shame at his undoing, passion for the fair undoer, 
 jealousy lest his conqueror should supplant him in 
 love as in empire, are delineated with sympathetic 
 power : 
 
 Ait Cesar la victoire, ait mes biens, ait I'honneur 
 
 D'estre sans compagnon de la terre seigneur, 
 
 Ait mes enfans, ma vie au mal opiniatre, 
 
 Ce m'est tout un, pourveu qu'il n'ait ma Cleopatra : 
 
 Je ne puis I'oublier, tant j'affole, combien 
 
 Que de n'y penser point servoit mon plus grand bien. 
 
 He remembers his past glory and past prowess, and 
 it stings him that he should now be overcome by an 
 inferior foe : 
 
 un homme effemine de corps et de courage 
 Qui du mestier de Mars n'apprist oncque I'usage. 
 
 But he has only himself to blame, for he has debased 
 his life : 
 
 N'ayant soing de vertu, ny d'aucune louange } 
 Ains comme un pore ventru touille dedans la fange, 
 A cceur saoul me voitray en maints salles plaisirs, 
 Mettant dessous le pied tous honnestes desirs. 
 
 Now it only remains for him to die. In the fourth 
 act Octavianus dwells on the arduousness of his 
 triumphs and the enormity of Antony's offences, in 
 order to justify a ruthless policy ; and a discussion 
 follows between him and Agrippa. like the one 
 between Julius and Antony in the Corndlie, except 
 that here the emperor and his adviser have their 
 parts reversed. When his resolution seems fixed 
 Dercetas enters in dismay with tidings that Antony 
 has sought to take his own life, and that mortally 
 wounded he has been drawn up into the monument 
 
44 INTRODUCTION 
 
 to breathe his last in Cleopatra's arms. For a 
 moment his conqueror's heart is touched. But only 
 for a moment. He speedily gives ear to the warn- 
 ing of Agrippa, that to secure her treasures and 
 preserve her life, Cleopatra must be seized. In the 
 fifth act she has all her preparations made to follow 
 her lord. In vain Euphron tries to stay her by 
 gathering her children round and predicting their 
 probable fate : 
 
 Eufron. Desja me semble voir 
 
 Cette petite enfance en servitude cheoir, 
 
 Et portez en trionfe, . . . 
 
 Et au doigt les monstrer la tourbe citoyenne. 
 
 Cleopatre. He ! plutost mille morts. 
 
 But she persists in her resolve and dismisses them. 
 Her only regret is that she has delayed so long, 
 
 Et ja fugitive Ombre avec toy je serois, 
 Errant sous les cypres des rives escartees. 
 
 She has waited only to pay the due rites, but now 
 she is free to breathe her last on her lover's corpse : 
 
 Que de mille baisers, et mille et mille encore 
 Pour office dernier ma bouche vous honore. 
 Et qu'en un tel devoir mon corps affoiblissant 
 Defaille dessur vous, mon ame vomissant. 
 
 ENGLISH FOLLOWERS OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL. 
 "THE WOUNDS OF CIVIL WAR" 
 
 The Marc Antoine is the best tragedy on a Roman 
 theme, and one of the best imitations of Seneca that 
 France in the sixteenth century has to show. It 
 deserved to find admirers on the other side of the 
 Channel, and it did. Among the courtly and cul- 
 tured circles in whose eyes the Latin drama was the 
 ideal and criterion to which all poets should aspire 
 
FRENCH SCHOOL IN ENGLAND 45 
 
 and by which their achievements should be tested, 
 it was bound to call forth no little enthusiasm. In 
 England ere this similar attempts had been made 
 and welcomed, but none had been quite so moving 
 and interesting, above all none had conformed so 
 strictly to the formal requirements of the humanist 
 code. In Gorboduc, the first of these experiments, 
 Sidney, lawgiver of the elect, was pleased to admit 
 the "honest civility" and "skilful poetry," but his 
 praises were not without qualification : 
 
 As it is full of stately speeches and well sounding Phrases, 
 clyming to the height of Seneca his stile, and as full of notable 
 moralitie, which it doth most delightfully teach, and so obtayne 
 the very end of Poesie : yet in troth it is very defectious in 
 the circumstaunces : which greeveth mee, because it might not 
 remaine as an exact model of all Tragedies. For it is faulty 
 both in place, and time, the two necessary companions of all 
 corporall actions. For where the stage should alwaies repre- 
 sent but one place, and the uttermost time presupposed in it, 
 should be, both by Aristotles precept, and common reason, 
 but one day : there is both many dayes, and many places, 
 inartificially' imagined.^ 
 
 Nor in such respects were things much better in 
 the Misfortunes of Arthur, by Thomas Hughes, 
 which was composed in 1587, the year after Sidney's 
 death. But meanwhile France had been blessed with 
 a play at least the equal of these native products in 
 poetry and pathos, and much more observant of the 
 unities that scholars were proclaiming. If the scene 
 was not absolutely unchanged, at least the changes 
 were confined within the area of a single town. If 
 the time was not precisely marked, and in Plutarch's 
 narrative slightly exceeded the orthodox limits, still 
 Garnier had so managed it that the occurrences set 
 forth might easily be conceived to take place in a 
 single day. It seems just the modern play that 
 would have fulfilled the desire of Sidney's heart ; 
 and since it was composed in a foreign tongue, what 
 
 * Apologiefor Poetrie, Arbor's reprint. 
 
46 INTRODUCTION 
 
 could be more fitting than that Sidney's sister, the 
 famous Countess of Pembroke, who shared so largely 
 in Sidney's literary tastes and literary gifts, should 
 undertake to give it an English form ? It may have 
 been on her part a pious offering to his manes, and 
 in 1590, four years after her brother's death, her 
 version was complete.^ She was well fitted for her 
 task, and she has discharged it well. Sometimes 
 she may take her liberties, but generally she is 
 wonderfully faithful, and yet neither in diction nor 
 versification is she stiffer than, many contemporary 
 writers of original English verse. Here, for instance, 
 is Diomed's eulogy of Cleopatra's charm : 
 
 Nought Hues so faire. Nature by such a worke 
 Hir selfe, should seeme, in workmanship hath past. 
 She is all heau'nlie : neuer any man 
 But seing hir, was rauish'd with hir sight. 
 The Allablaster couering of hir face, 
 The corall colour hir two lipps engraines, 
 Hir beamie eies, two sunnes of this our world, 
 Of hir faire haire the fine and flaming golde, 
 Hir braue straight stature and her winning partes 
 Are nothing else but fiers, fetters, dartes. 
 
 Yet this is nothing to th' enchaunting skilles. 
 Of her coelestiall Sp'rite, hir training speache, 
 Hir grace, hir Maiestie, and forcing voice. 
 Whether she it with fingers speache consorte, 
 Or hearing sceptred kings ambassadors 
 Answer to cache in his owne language make. 
 
 This excellently preserves many details as well as 
 the pervading tone of the original : 
 
 Rien ne vit de si beau, Nature semble avoir 
 Par un ouvrage tel surpasse son pouvoir : 
 
 ' There is an edition of this by Miss Alice Luce, Litp.rarhistorische 
 Forschungen, 1897, but I am told it is out of print, and at any rate I 
 have been unable to procure it. The extracts I give are transcripts 
 from the British Museum copy, which is indexed thus : Discourse of 
 Life and Death written in French by P. Momay. Antonius a tragedie, 
 ivritten also in French by R. Garnier. Both done in English by the 
 Countesse of Pembroke, ijgs. This edition has generally been over- 
 looked by historians of the drama, from Professor Ward to Professor 
 Schelling (probably because it is associated with Mornay's tract), and, 
 
FRENCH SCHOOL IN ENGLAND 47 
 
 EUe est toute celeste, et ne se voit personne 
 La voulant contempler, qu'elle ne passionne. 
 L'albastre qui blanchist sur son visage saint, 
 Et le vermeil coral qui ses deux levres peint. 
 La clairte de ses yeux, deux soleils de ce monde, 
 Le fin or rayonnant dessur sa tresse blonde, 
 Sa belle taille droitte, et ses frians attraits, 
 Ne sont que feux ardents, que cordes, et que traits. 
 
 Mais encor ce n'est rien aupres des artifices 
 De son esprit divin, ses mignardes blandices, 
 Sa maiestie, sa grace, et sa forgante voix, 
 Soit qu'ell' la vueille joindre au parler de ses doigts, 
 Ou que des Rois sceptrez recevant les harangues, 
 Elle vueille respondre a chacun en leurs langues. 
 
 The most notable privilege of which the translation 
 makes use is to soften or refine certain expressions 
 that may have seemed too vigorous to the high- 
 bred English lady. This, for example, is her ren- 
 dering of the lines already quoted in which Antony 
 denounces his voluptuous life : 
 
 Careless of uertue, careless of all praise, 
 Nay, as the fatted swine in filthy mire. 
 With glutted heart I wallow'd in delights, 
 All thoughts of honor troden under foote. 
 
 Similarly, in Cleopatra's closing speech, the original 
 expression,, "mon ame vomissant," yields to a 
 gentler and not less poetical equivalent : 
 
 A thousand kisses, thousand thousand more 
 Let you my mouth for honor's farewell give : 
 That, in this office, weake my limmes may growe 
 Fainting on you, and fourth my soule may flowe. 
 
 As the deviations are confined to details, it is not 
 necessary to repeat the account of the tragedy as a 
 whole. These extracts will show that Garnier's 
 Marc Antoine was presented to the English public 
 in a worthy dress ; and the adequacy of the work- 
 manship, the appeal to cultivated taste, the prestige 
 
 as a rule, the translation of Gamier is said to have been first published 
 in 1595. That and the subsequent editions bear a different title from 
 the neglected first ; the Tragedie of AntonU, instead oi Antonius. 
 
48 INTRODUCTION 
 
 of the great Countess as " Sidney's sister, Pem- 
 broke's mother," her personal reputation among 
 literary men, procured it immediate welcome and 
 lasting acceptance. Fifteen years after its first 
 publication it had passed through five editions, and 
 must have been a familiar book to Elizabethan 
 readers who cared for such wares. Moreover, it 
 directly evoked an original _English play that 
 followed in part the same pattern and treated in 
 part the same theme. 
 
 In 1594 appeared the Cleopatra of Samuel Daniel, 
 dedicated to Lady Pembroke with very handsome 
 acknowledgments of the stimulus he had received 
 from her example and with much modest depreca- 
 tion of the supplement he offered. His muse, he 
 asserts, would not have digressed from the humble 
 task of praising Delia, 
 
 had not thy well graced Antony 
 (Who all alone, having remained long) 
 Requir'd his Cleopatra's company. 
 
 These words suggest that it was not written at once 
 after the Countess's translation : on the other hand 
 there can have been no very long delay, as it was 
 entered for publication in October, 1593. The first 
 complete and authorised edition of Delia along with 
 the Complaint of Rosamond, which Daniel does not 
 mention, had been given to the world in 1592 ; and 
 we may assume from his own words that the 
 Cleopatra was the next venture of the young author 
 just entering his thirties, and ambitious of a graver 
 kind of fame than he had won by these amatorious 
 exercises. He had no reason to be dissatisfied with 
 the result, and perhaps from the outset his self-dis- 
 paragement was not very genuine. His play was 
 reprinted seven times before his death, and these 
 editions show one complete revision and one 
 thorough recast of the text. Poets are not wont 
 
FRENCH SCHOOL IN ENGLAND 49 
 
 to spend such pains on works that they do not 
 value. The truth is that Daniel's Cleopatra may 
 take Its place beside his subsequent Philotas among 
 Ae best original Senecan tragedies that Elizabethan 
 England produced. Its claims, of course, are almost 
 exclusively literary and hardly at all theatrical, 
 though some of the changes in the final version 
 of 1607 seem meant to give a litrie mobility to the 
 slow-paced scenes. But from first to last it depends 
 on the elegiac and rhetorical qualities that charac- 
 terise the whole school, and in its undivided atten- 
 tion to them recalls rather Jodelle's Cldopatre 
 Captive than Garnier's Marc Antoine. The resem- 
 blance to the earlier drama is perhaps not accidental. 
 The situation is precisely the same, for the story 
 begins after the death of Antony, and concludes 
 with the account of Cleopatra's suicide. Thus, 
 despite Daniel's statement, his play is not in any 
 true sense a sequel to the one which the Countess 
 had rendered, nor is it the case, as his words in- 
 sinuate, that in the Antonius Cleopatra still delayed 
 to join her beloved : on the contrary we take leave 
 of her as she is about to expire upon his corpse. 
 So though his patroness's translation may very well 
 have suggested to him his heroine, it could not 
 possibly prescribe to him his argument. And 
 surely after Gamier had shown the more excellent 
 way of treating the subject so as to include both 
 the lovers, this truncated section of the history 
 would not spontaneously occur to any dramatist as 
 the material most proper for his needs. It seems 
 more than likely that Daniel was acquainted with 
 Jodelle|s play, and that the precedent it furnished, 
 determined him in his not very happy selection of 
 the final episode to the exclusion of all that went 
 before. A careful comparison of the two Cleopatras 
 supports this view. No doubt in general treatment 
 they differ widely, and most of the coincidences in 
 
50 INTRODUCTION 
 
 detail are due to both authors having exploited 
 Plutarch's narrative. But this is not true of all. 
 There are some traits that are not to be accounted 
 for by their common pedigree, but by direct trans- 
 mission from the one to the other. Thus, to 
 mention the most striking, in Jodelle Seleucus is 
 made to express penitence for exposing the Queen's 
 misstatement about her treasure. There is no 
 authority for this : yet in Daniel the new motif 
 reappears. Of course it is not merely repeated 
 without modification. In Jodelle it is to the chorus 
 that the culprit unbosoms himself; in Daniel it is 
 to Rodon, the false governor who has betrayed 
 Caesarion, and who similarly and no less fictitiously 
 is represented as full of remorse for his more heinous 
 treason. But imitators frequently try in this fashion 
 to vary or heighten the effect by duplicating the 
 roles they borrow ; and Daniel has done so in a 
 second instance, when he happened to get his sug- 
 gestion from Gamier. In the Marc Antoine, as we 
 saw, there is the sententious but quite superfluous 
 figure of the philosopher Philostratus ; Daniel 
 retains him without giving him more to do, but 
 places by his side the figure of the equally senten- 
 tious and superfluous philosopher Arius. In Rodon 
 we have just such another example of gemination. 
 It is safe to say that the contrite Seleucus comes 
 straight from the pages of Jodelle ; and his pres- 
 ence, if there were any doubt, serves to establish 
 Daniel's connection with the first French Senecan 
 in the vernacular. 
 
 But the Countess's prot^g^ differs from her not 
 only in reverting to an elder model : he distinctly 
 improves on her practice by substituting for her 
 blank verse his own quatrains. The author of the 
 Defence of Ryme showed a right instinct in this. 
 Blank verse is doubtless the better dramatic measure, 
 but these pseudo-Senecan pieces were lyric rather 
 
FRENCH SCHOOL IN ENGLAND 51 
 
 than dramatic, and it was not the most suitable for 
 them. The justice of Daniel's method is proved by 
 Its success. He not only carried the experiment 
 successfully through for himself, which might have 
 been a iour de force on the part of the " well- 
 languaged" poet, but he imposed his metre on 
 successors who were less skilled in managing it 
 like Sir William Alexander. 
 
 Such, then, is the Cleopatra of Daniel, a play that, 
 compared even with the contemporary classical 
 dramas of France, belongs to a bygone phase of the 
 art; a play that is no play at all, but a series of 
 harangues interspersed with odds and ends of dia- 
 logue and the due choric songs ; but that neverthe- 
 less, because it fulfils its own ideal so thoroughly, is 
 admirable in its kind, and still has charms for the 
 lover of poetry. 
 
 The first act is occupied with a soliloquy of 
 Cleopatra,^ in which she laments her past pleasure 
 and glory, and proclaims her purpose of death. 
 
 Thinke, Caesar, I that liu'd and raign'd a Queene, 
 Do scorne to buy my life at such a rate, 
 That I should underneath my selfe be seene, 
 Basely induring to suruiue my state : 
 That Rome should see my scepter-bearing hands 
 Behind me bound, and glory in my teares ; 
 That I should passe whereas Octauia stands. 
 To view my misery, that purchas'd hers.^ 
 
 She has hitherto lived only to temporise with Caesar 
 for the sake of her children, but to her late-born 
 
 ' That is, in the original version. Subsequently Daniel threw a 
 later narrative passages describing Cleopatra's parting from Caesarion 
 and Rodon into scenic form, introduced it here, and followed it up with 
 a discussion between Caesar and his advisers. This seems to be one 
 of his attempts to impart more dramatic animation to his play, and it 
 does so. But as dramatic animation is not what we are looking for, 
 the improvement is doubtful. 
 
 2 Dr. Grosart's Edition. 
 
52 INTRODUCTION 
 
 love for Antony her death is due. She remembers 
 his doting atfection, and exclaims : 
 
 And yet thou cam'st but in my beauties waine, 
 When new appearing wrinckles of declining 
 Wrought with the hand of yeares, seem'd to detaine 
 My graces light, as now but dimly shining . . . 
 Then, and but thus, thou didst loue most sincerely, 
 O Antony, that best deseru'd it better, 
 This autumn of my beauty bought so dearely, 
 For which in more then death, I stand thy debter. 
 
 In the second act Proculeius gives an account of 
 Cleopatra's capture, and describes her apparent 
 submission, to Caesar, who suspects that it is pre- 
 tence. In the first scene of the third act Philostratus 
 and Arius philosophise on their own misfortunes, 
 the misfortunes of the land, and the probable fate 
 of Cleopatra's children. The next scene presents 
 the famous interview between Caesar and Cleopatra, 
 with the disclosures of Seleucus, to which are added 
 Dolabella's avowal of his admiration, and Caesar's 
 decision to carry his prisoner to Rome. In the 
 fourth act Seleucus, who has betrayed the confidence 
 of his mistress, bewails his disloyalty, to Rodon, who 
 has delivered up Caesarion to death ; but they 
 depart to avoid Cleopatra, whom Dolabella has 
 informed of the victor's intentions, and who enters, 
 exclaiming- : 
 
 •t> 
 
 What, hath my face yet powre to win a louer ? 
 Can this torn remnant serue to grace me so. 
 That it can Caesar's secret plots discouer, 
 What he intends with me and mine to do ? 
 Why then, poore beauty, thou hast done thy last 
 And best good seruice thou could'st doe unto me : 
 For now the time of death reoeal'd thou hast. 
 Which in my life didst serue but to undoe me. 
 
 In the first scene of the fifth act Titius tells how 
 Cleopatra has sent a message to Caesar, and in the 
 second scene we learn the significance of this from 
 the Nuntius, who himself has taken her the asps. 
 
FRENCH SCHOOL IN ENGLAND 53 
 
 Well, in I went, where brighter then the Sunne, 
 
 Glittering in all her pompeous rich aray, 
 
 Great Cleopatra sate, as if sh' had wonne 
 
 Caesar, and all the world beside, this day : 
 
 Euen as she was, when on thy cristall streames, 
 
 Cleare Cydnos, she did shew what earth could shew : 
 
 When Asia all amaz'd in wonder, deemes 
 
 Venus from heaueh was come on earth below. 
 
 Euen as she went at firste to meete her loue, 
 
 So goes she now againe to finde him. 
 
 But that first, did her greatnes onely proue. 
 
 This last her loue, that could not liue behind him. 
 
 Her words to the asp are not without a quaint 
 
 pathetic tenderness, as she contrasts the " ugly 
 
 grimness " and " hideous torments " of other deaths 
 with this that it procures : 
 
 Therefore come thou, of wonders wonder chiefe, 
 That open canst with such an easie key 
 The doore of life : come gentle cunning thiefe 
 That from our selues so steal'st our selues away. 
 
 And her dallying with the accepted and inevitable 
 end is good : 
 
 Looke how a mother at her sonnes departing. 
 
 For some farre voyage bent to get him fame, 
 
 Doth entertaine him with an ydle parting 
 
 And still doth speake, and still speakes but the same : 
 
 Now bids farewell, and now recalles him backe, 
 
 Tels what was told, and bids againe farewell, 
 
 And yet againe recalles ; for still doth lacke 
 
 Something that Loue would faine and cannot tell : 
 
 Pleased he should goe, yet cannot let him goe. 
 
 So she, although she knew there was no way 
 
 But this, yet this she could not handle so 
 
 But she must shew that life desir'd delay. 
 
 But this is little more than by-play and make-believe. 
 She does the deed, and when Caesar's messengers 
 arrive, it is past prevention. 
 
 For there they found stretcht on a bed of gold. 
 Dead Cleopatra ; and that proudly dead. 
 In all the rich attire procure she could ; 
 And dying Charmion trimming of her head, 
 
54 INTRODUCTION 
 
 And Eras at her feete, dead in like case. 
 " Charmion, is this well done ? " sayd one of them. 
 " Yea, well," sayd she, " and her that from the race 
 Of so great Kings descends, doth best become." 
 And with that word, yields to her faithfull breath 
 To passe th' assurance of her loue with death. 
 
 One more example of the influence of the French 
 Senecans remains to be mentioned, and though, as 
 a translation, it is less important than Daniel's free 
 reproduction, the name of the translator gives it a 
 special interest. The stately rhetoric of the Cornilie 
 caught the fancy of Thomas Kyd, who from the 
 outset had found something sympathetic in Gamier 's 
 style, and, perhaps in revolt from the sensationalism 
 of his original work, he wrote an English version 
 which was published in 1 594. When this was so, 
 it need the less surprise us that the Senecan form 
 should still for years to come be cultivated by writers 
 who had seen the glories of the Elizabethan stage, 
 above all for what would seem the peculiarly appro- 
 priate themes of classic history : that Alexander 
 should employ it for his Julius Caesar and the rest 
 of his Monarchic Tragedies even after Shakespeare's 
 Julius Caesar had appeared, and that Ben J onsen 
 himself should, as it were, cast a wistful, backward 
 glance at it in his Catiline, which he supplies, not 
 only with a chorus, but with a very Senecan exposi- 
 tion by Sylla's ghost. If this style appealed to the 
 author of The Spanish Tragedy, it. might well appeal 
 to the more fastidious connoisseurs in whom the 
 spirit of the Renaissance was strong. It was to 
 them Kyd looked for patronage in his new departure, 
 and he dedicates his Cornelia to the Countess of 
 Suffolk, aunt of the more memorable lady who had 
 translated the Marc Antoine. 
 
 In execution it hardly equals the companion piece: 
 the language is less flexible and graphic, and the 
 whole effect more wearisome ; which, however, may 
 
FRENCH SCHOOL IN ENGLAND 55 
 
 be due in part to the inferior merit of the play Kyd 
 had to render, as well as to the haste with which 
 the rendering was made. But he aims at preserving 
 the spirit of the French, and does preserve it in no 
 small degree. The various metres of the chorus are 
 managed with occasional dexterity ; the rhyme that 
 is mingled with the blank verse of the declamation 
 relieves the tedium of its somewhat monotonous 
 tramp, and adds point and effectiveness. A fair 
 specimen of his average procedure may be found in 
 his version of the metaphorical passage in Cassius' 
 speech, that, as has been pointed out, can be traced 
 back to Gr^vin and Muretus. 
 
 The stiff-neckt horses champe not on the bit 
 Nor meekely beare the rider but by force : 
 The sturdie Oxen toyle not at the Plough 
 Nor yeeld unto the yoke, but by constraint. 
 Shall we then that are men and Romains borne, 
 Submit us to unurged slauerie ? 
 Shall Rome, that hath so many ouerthrowne 
 Now make herselfe a subject to her owne ? ^ 
 
 Kyd was certainly capable of emphasis, both in the 
 good and the bad sense,' which stands him in good 
 stead when he has to reproduce the passages adapted 
 from Lucan. These he generally presents in some- 
 thing of their native pomp, and indeed throughout 
 he shows a praiseworthy effort to keep on the level 
 of his author. The result is a grave and decorous 
 performance, which, if necessarily lacking in dis- 
 tinctive colour, since the original had so little, is 
 almost equally free from modern incongruities. It 
 can hardly be reckoned as such that Scipio grasps 
 his " cutlass," or that in similar cases the equivalent 
 for a technical Latin term should have a homely 
 sound. Perhaps the most serious anachronism 
 
 * Kyd, ed. Boas. The Cornelia has also been edited by H. Gassner ; 
 but this edition, despite some considerable effort, I have been unable 
 to procure. 
 
56 INTRODUCTION 
 
 occurs when Cicero, talking of " this great town " 
 of Rome, exclaims : 
 
 Neither could the flaxen-haird high Dutch, 
 (A martiall people, madding a.fter Armes), 
 Nor yet the fierce and fiery humord French . . . 
 Once dare t'assault it. 
 
 Gamier is not responsible : he writes quite correctly : 
 
 Ny les blons Germains, peuple enrage de guerre, 
 Ny le Gaulois ardent. 
 
 This, however, is a very innocent slip. It was 
 different when another scholar of the group to 
 which Kyd belonged treated a Roman theme in 
 a more popular way. 
 
 But before turning to him it may be well to say a 
 word concerning the influence which these Senecan 
 pieces are sometimes supposed to have had on 
 Shakespeare's Roman plays that dealt with kindred 
 themes. 
 
 And in the first place it may be taken as extremely 
 probable that he had read them. They were well 
 known to the Elizabethan public, the least famous 
 of them, Kyd's Cornelia, reaching a second edition 
 within a year of its first issue. They were executed 
 by persons who must have bulked large in Shake- 
 speare's field of vision. Apart from her general social 
 and literary reputation, the Countess of Pembroke 
 was mother of the two young noblemen to whom 
 the first folio of Shakespeare's plays was afterwards 
 dedicated on the ground that they had "prosequutted 
 both them and the author living with so much favour." 
 Some of Daniel's works Shakespeare certainly knew, 
 for there are convincing parallelisms between the 
 Complaint of Rosamond on the one hand, and the 
 Rape of Lucrece and Romeo and Juliet on the other; 
 nor can there be much question about the indebted- 
 ness of Shakespeare's Sonnets to Daniel's Delia. 
 Again, with Kyd's acting dramas Shakespeare was 
 
FRENCH SCHOOL IN ENGLAND 57 
 
 undoubtedly acquainted. He quotes The Spanish 
 Tragedy in the Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado 
 About Nothing, King Lear ; and the same play, as 
 well as Solyman and Perseda, if that be Kyd's, in 
 King John : nor is it to be forgotten that many see 
 Kyd's hand and few would deny Kyd's influence in 
 Titus Andronicus, and that some attribute to him 
 the lost Hamlet. All these things considered, 
 Shakespeare's ignorance of the English Senecans 
 would be much more surprising than his knowledge 
 of them. Further, though his own method was so 
 dissimilar, he would be quite inclined to appreciate 
 them, as may be inferred from the approval he puts 
 in Hamlet's mouth of /Eneas' tale to Dido, which 
 reads like a heightened version of the narratives 
 that occur so plentifully in their pages. So there 
 is nothing antecedently absurd in the conjecture 
 that they gave him hints when he turned to their 
 authorities on his own behalf. 
 
 Nevertheless satisfactory proof is lacking. The 
 analogies with Garnier's Marc Antoine not accounted 
 for by the obligation of both dramatists to Plutarch 
 are very vague, and oddly enough seem vaguer in 
 the translation than in the original. Of this there 
 is a good example in Antony's words when he recalls 
 to his shame how his victor 
 
 Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practice had 
 
 In the brave squares of war. (A. and C. iii. x. 39.) 
 
 There is similarity of motif, and even the suggestion 
 of something more, in his outburst in Garnier : 
 
 Un homme effemine de corps et de courage 
 Qui du mestier de Mars n'apprist oncque I'usage. 
 
 But only the motif is left in the Countess of Pem- 
 broke's rendering : 
 
 A man, a woman both in might and minde. 
 In Marses schole who neuer lesson learn'd. 
 
58 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The alleged parallels are thus most apparent whfen 
 Shakespeare is collated with the French, and of 
 these the chief that do not come from Plutarch 
 have already been quoted in the description of the 
 Marc Antoine. They are neither numerous nor 
 striking. Besides Antony's disparagement of his 
 rival's soldiership there are only three that in any 
 way call for remark. In Garnier, Cleopatra's pic- 
 ture of her shade wandering beneath the cypress 
 trees of the Underworld may suggest, in Shake- 
 speare, her lover's anticipation of Elysium, "where 
 souls do couch on flowers" {A. and C. iv. xiv. 51); 
 but there is a great difference in the tone of the 
 context. Her dying utterance : 
 
 Que de mille baisers, et mille et mille encore 
 Pour office dernier ma bouche vous honore : 
 
 is in the wording not unlike the dying utterance of 
 Antony : 
 
 Of many thousand kisses the poor last 
 
 I lay upon thy lips ; {A. and C. iv. xv. 20.) 
 
 but there is more contrast than agreement in the 
 ideas. Above all, Cleopatra's horror at the thought 
 of her children being led in triumph through Rome 
 and pointed at by the herd of citizens is close 
 akin to the feeling that inspires similar passages in 
 Shakespeare {A. and C. iv. xv. 23, v. ii. 55, v. ii. 
 207) ; but even here the resemblance is a little 
 deceptive, since in Shakespeare she feels this horror 
 for herself. 
 
 The correspondences between Shakespeare and 
 Daniel are equally confined to detail, but they are 
 more definite and more significant. It is Daniel 
 who first represents Cleopatra as scorning to be 
 made a spectacle in Rome ; and her resentment at 
 Caesar's supposing 
 
 That I should underneath my selfe be seene, 
 
FRENCH SCHOOL IN ENGLAND 59 
 
 might have expressed itself in Shakespeare's phrase, 
 
 He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not 
 Be noble to myself. (A. and C. v. ii. 191.) 
 
 Noteworthy, too, in the same passage, is her reluc- 
 tance to pass before the injured Octavia, for there 
 is no mention of this point in Plutarch, but Shake- 
 speare touches on it twice. Further, her very notice- 
 able references to her waning charms, her wrinkles, 
 her declining years have their analogies in Shake- 
 speare and in Shakespeare alone ; for Plutarch 
 expressly says that she was "at the age when a 
 woman's beawtie is at the prime." The tenderness 
 in tone of her address to the asp is common and 
 peculiar to both English poets ; and her adorn- 
 ment in preparation for death suggests to each of 
 them, but not to Plutarch, her magnificence when 
 she met Antony on the Cydnus.^ 
 
 These coincidences are interesting, but they are 
 not conclusive. They are none of them such as 
 could not occur independently to two writers who 
 vividly realised the meaning of Plutarch's data ; 
 for he, as it were, gives the premises though he 
 does not draw the inference. Thus he says nothing 
 of Cleopatra's disdain for the Roman populace, but 
 he does make the knowledge that she must go to 
 Rome determine her to die. He says nothing of 
 her recoil from the thought of Octavia seeing her in 
 her humiliation, but he does tell us of her jealousy 
 of Octavia's superior claims. He never hints that 
 Cleopatra was past her bloom, but his praise of her 
 as at her prime belongs to 41 B.C., and the closing 
 incident to 30 b.c, when she was in her thirty- 
 ninth year. He does not attribute to her any 
 kindly greeting of the asp, but he does report that 
 she chose it as providing the easiest and gentlest 
 
 ' The last point is mentioned by Mr. Furness (Variorum Edition), 
 who cites others, of which one occurs in Plutarch and the rest seem to 
 me untenable or unimportant. 
 
6o INTRODUCTION 
 
 means of death. And though in describing her 
 suicide he makes no reference to the meeting on 
 the Cydnus, he dwells on the glorious array on 
 both occasions, and the fancy naturally flies from 
 one to the other. Each of these particulars separ- 
 ately might well suggest itself to more than one 
 sympathetic reader. The most that can be said is 
 that in their mass they have a certain cogency. In 
 any case, however, characteristic and far-reaching 
 as some of them are, they bear only on details of 
 the conception. 
 
 The possible connection oi Julius Caesar with the 
 Corndlie is of a somewhat different kind. It is 
 restricted almost entirely to the conversations be- 
 tween Cassius and Decimus Brutus on the one hand, 
 and between Cassius and Marcus Brutus on the 
 other. It is thought to show itself partly in par- 
 ticular expressions, partly in the general situation. 
 So far as the former are concerned, it is neither 
 precise nor distinctive ; and it is rather remarkable 
 that, as in the case of the Marc Antoine, more is to 
 be said for it when Shakespeare's phraseology is 
 compared with that of the original than when it is 
 compared with that of the translation.^ In regard 
 to the latter M. Bernage, the chief advocate of the 
 theory, writes : 
 
 In the English play {Julius Caesar), as in our own, Brutus 
 and Cassius have an interview before the arrival of the 
 Dictator; the subject of their conversation is the same; it 
 is Cassius too who "strikes so much show of fire" {fait 
 jaillir Vetincelle) from the soul of Brutus. . . . These 
 characters are painted by Gamier in colours quite similar 
 (to Shakespeare's), and he is momentarily as vigorous and 
 great. In like manner . . . Caesar crosses the stage after 
 the interview of the two conspirators; he is moreover 
 accompanied by Antony.^ 
 
 In the whole tone and direction of the dialogue, 
 too, Shakespeare resembles Gamier and does not 
 
 " See Appendix A. ^ ^tude sur Gamier, 1880. 
 
FRENCH SCHOOL IN ENGLAND 61 
 
 resemble Plutarch. The Life records one short 
 sentence as Brutus' part of the colloquy, while 
 Cassius does nothing more than explain the impor- 
 tance of the anonymous letters and set forth the 
 expectations that Rome has formed of his friend. 
 There is no denunciation in Plutarch of Caesar 
 either for his overgrown power or for his "feeble 
 temper " ; there is no lament for the degeneracy of 
 the Romans ; there is no reference to the expulsion 
 of the kings or appeal to Brutus' ancestry ; all of these 
 matters on which both the dramatists insist. And 
 at the end the two friends are agreed on their policy 
 and depart to prosecute their plans, while in Gamier 
 as in Shakespeare Brutus comes to no final decision. 
 
 It would be curious if this conjecture were correct, 
 and if this famous scene had influenced Shakespeare 
 as it was to influence Alexander. There would be 
 few more interesting cases of literary filiation, for, 
 as we have seen, there is no doubt that here 
 Gamier bases and improves on Gr^vin, and that 
 Gr^vin bases and improves on Muretus ; so the 
 genealogy would run Muretus, Gr^vin, Gamier, 
 Kyd, Shakespeare. 
 
 Here the matter may rest. The grounds for be- 
 lieving that Shakespeare was influenced by Gamier's 
 Marc Antoine are very slight ; for believing that he 
 was influenced by Daniel's Cleopatra are some^yhat 
 stronger; that he was influenced by Gamier's 
 Corndie are stronger still; but they are even at 
 the best precarious. In all three instances the 
 evidence brought forward rather suggests the obliga- 
 tion as possible than establishes it as certain. But 
 it seems extremely likely that Shakespeare would 
 be acquainted with dramas that were widely read 
 and were written by persons none of whom can have 
 been strange to him ; and in that case their stateli- 
 ness and propriety may have affected him in other 
 ways than we can trace or than he himself knew. 
 
62 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Meanwhile the popular play had been going its 
 own way, and among other subjects had selected a 
 few from Roman history. We may be certain that 
 slowly and surely it was absorbing some of the 
 qualities that characterised the imitations of the 
 classics ; and this process was accelerated when 
 university men, with Marlowe at their head, took a 
 leading share in purveying for the London play- 
 house. The development is clearly marked in the 
 general history of the drama. Of the Roman play 
 in this transition phase, as treated by a scholar for 
 the delectation of the vulgar, we have only one 
 specimen, but it is a specimen that despite its scanty 
 merit is important no less for the name of the author 
 than for the mode of the treatment. That author 
 was Thomas Lodge, so well known for his songs, 
 novels, pamphlets, and translations. As dramatist 
 he is less conspicuous, and we possess only two 
 plays from his hand. In one of them, A Looking 
 Glass for London and England, which gives ^a descrip- 
 tion of the corruption and repentance of Nineveh, 
 and was acted in 1591, he co-operated with Robert 
 Greene. Of the other,^ The Wounds of Civill War: 
 Lively set forth in the true Tragedies of Marius and 
 Sctlla: As it hath beene publicquely plaide in London, 
 by the Right Honourable the Lord High Admirall 
 his Servants, he was sole author, and it is with it 
 that we are concerned. It was printed in 1594, but 
 was probably composed some years earlier.^ In 
 
 1 I quote from Dodsley's Old English Plays, ed. Hazlitt. 
 
 2 Professor Ward calls attention to the stage direction (Act ill.): 
 "Enter Sylla in triumph in his chair triumphant of gold, drawn by four 
 Moors ; before the chariot, his colours, his crest, his captains, his 
 prisoners ; . . . bearing crowns of gold and manacled." This, he 
 points out, seems a reminiscence of the similar situation in Tambur- 
 laine II., Act iv. sc. 3. : " Enter Tamberlaine drawn in his chariot by 
 the Kings of Trebizon and Soria, with bits in their mouths, reins in 
 his left hand, and in his right hand a whip with which he scourgeth 
 them." From this Professor Ward infers that Lodge's play belongs 
 approximately to the same date as Marlowe's, possibly to 1587. It 
 
THOMAS LODGE 63 
 
 any case it comes after the decisive appearance of 
 Marlowe ; but Lodge was far from rivalling that 
 master or profiting fully by his example, and indeed 
 is inferior to such minor performers as Peele or 
 Greene. Moreover, in the present case he adds to 
 his general dramatic disabilities, the incapacity to 
 treat classical history aright. In this respect, indeed, 
 he improves on the Senecan school by borrowing 
 graphic minutiae from Plutarch, such as the prefigura- 
 tion of Marius' future glory in his infancy by the 
 seven eagles, the account of the Gaul's panic in 
 Minturnae, or the unwilling betrayal of Antonius 
 by the slave. But on the other hand he astonishes 
 us by his failure to make use of picturesque incidents 
 which he must have known; like Sulla's flight for 
 shelter to his rival's house, the relief of Marius by 
 the woman whom he had sentenced, the response of 
 the exile from the ruins of Carthage. And even 
 
 may be so, but there are some reasons for placing it later. The mixture 
 of rhyme and prose instead of the exclusive use of blank verse would 
 suggest that the influence of Tamburlaine was not very immediate. 
 It has some points of contact with the Looking Glass which Lodge 
 wrote along with Greene. It has the same didactic bent, though the 
 purpose is political rather than moral, for the Wounds ofCivill War 
 enforces on its very title page the lesson that Elizabethans had so 
 much at heart, the need of harmony in the State. Like the Looking 
 Glass it deals rather with an historic transaction than with individual 
 adventures, for it summarises the whole disastrous period of the conflict 
 between Marius and Sulla. And like the Looking Glass it visualises 
 this by scenes taken alike from dignified and low life, the latter even 
 more out of place than the episodes of the Nineveh citizens and peasants 
 in the joint work. In so far one is tempted to put the two together 
 about 1591. And there is one detail that perhaps favours this view — 
 the introduction of the Gaul with his bad English and worse French. 
 In Greene's James IV. (c. 1590) the assassin hired to murder Queen 
 Dorothea is also a Frenchman who speaks broken English, and in 
 that play such a personage is quite in keeping, violating the pro- 
 babilities neither of time nor of place. It is, therefore, much more 
 probable that, if he proved popular. Lodge would reproduce the same 
 character inappropriately to catch the applause of the groundlings, 
 than that Lodge should light on the first invention when that invention 
 was quite unsuitable, and that Greene should afterwards borrow it and 
 give it a fit setting. In the latter case we can only account for the 
 absurdity by supposing that Lodge carried much further the anachron- 
 ism in Cornelia of "the fierce and fiery-humour'd French." 
 
64 INTRODUCTION 
 
 when he utilises Plutarch's touchos, Lodge is apt to 
 weaken or travesty them in his adaptation. The 
 incident of the eagles, though it furnishes two of the 
 best passages in the play, illustrates the enfeeble- 
 ment. Plutarch had said : 
 
 When Marius was but very young and dwelling in the 
 contry, he gathered up in the lappe of his gowne the ayrie of 
 an Eagle, in the which were seven young Eagles ; whereat his 
 father and mother much wondering, asked the Sooth-sayers, 
 what that ment ? They answered, that their sonne one day 
 should be one of the greatest men in the world, and that out 
 of doubt he should obtain seven times in his life the chiefest 
 ofiSce of dignity in his contry. 
 
 Plutarch is not quite sure about the trustworthiness 
 of this story, for the characteristic reason that " the 
 eagle never getteth but two younge ones," and his 
 hesitation may have led Lodge to modify the vivid 
 and improbable detail. Favorinus the Minturnian 
 tells the story thus : 
 
 Yonder Marius in his infancy 
 Was born to greater fortunes than we deem : 
 For, being scarce from out his cradle crept, 
 And sporting prettily with his compeers. 
 On sudden seven young eagles soar'd amain, 
 And kindly perch'd upon his tender lap. 
 His parents wondering at this strange event. 
 Took counsel of the soothsayers in this : 
 Who told them that these seven-fold eagles' flight 
 Forefigured his seven times consulship. 
 
 And this version, with only another slight variation, 
 is repeated rather happily in the invented narrative 
 of the presage of Marius' death : 
 
 Bright was the day, and on the spreading trees 
 
 The frolic citizens of forest sung 
 
 Their lays and merry notes on perching boughs ; 
 
 When suddenly appeared in the east 
 
 Seven mighty eagles with their talons fierce. 
 
 Who, waving oft above our consul's head. 
 
 At last with hideous cry did soar away : 
 
 When suddenly old Marius aghast, 
 
 With reverend smile, determin'd with a sigh 
 
 The doubtful silence of the standers-by. 
 
THOMAS LODGE 65 
 
 " Romans," he said, " old Marius must die : 
 These seven fair eagles, birds of mighty Jove, 
 That at my birthday on my cradle sat, 
 Now at my last day warn me to my death." 
 
 But the other two passages Lodge modernises 
 beyond recognition and beyond decency. 
 
 Of the attempt on Marius' life at Minturnae, 
 Plutarch narrates very impressively : 
 
 Now when they were agreed upon it, they could not finde 
 a man in the citie that durst take upon him to kill him; 
 but a man of armes of the Gaules, or one of the Cimbres 
 (for we finde both the one or the other in wryting) that 
 went thither with his sword drawen in his hande. Now 
 that place of the chamber where Marius lay was very darke, 
 and, as it is reported, the man of armes thought he sawe 
 two burninge flames come out of Marius eyen, and heard 
 a voyce out of that darke corner, saying unto him : " O, 
 fellowe, thou, darest thou come to kill Caius Marius?" 
 The barbarous Gaule, hearing these words, ranne out of 
 the chamber presently, castinge his sworde in the middest 
 of the flower,! and crying out these wordes onely : " I can 
 not kill Caius Marius." 
 
 Here is Lodge's burlesque with the Gaul nominated 
 Pedro, whose name is as unsuitable to his language 
 as is his language to his supposed nationality. 
 
 Pedro. Marius tu es mort. Speak dy preres in dy sleepe, 
 for me sal cut off your head from your epaules, before you 
 wake. Qui es stia ? ^ What kinde of a man be dis ? 
 
 Favorinus. Why, what delays are these? Why gaze ye 
 thus? 
 
 Pedro. Notre dame ! Jesu ! Estiene ! O my siniors, der 
 be a great diable in ce eyes, qui dart de flame, and with de 
 voice d'un bear cries out, "Villain, dare you kill Marius?" 
 Je tremble; aida me, siniors, autrement I shall be 
 murdered. ^ 
 
 Pausanins. What sudden madness daunts this stranger 
 thus? 
 
 Pedro. O, me no can kill Marius ; me no dare kill Marius ! 
 adieu, messieurs, me be dead, si je touche Marius. Marius 
 est un diable. Jesu Maria, sava moy ! 
 
 exit fugiens. 
 
 1 Floor. 
 
 ^ Probably : " Qui est Id ?" the misprint of i for / is common. 
 
 E 
 
66 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Things are scarcely better in the episode of 
 Antonius' betrayal. Plutarch has told very simply 
 how the poor man with whom the orator took refuge, 
 wishing to treat him hospitably, sent a slave for 
 wine, and how the slave, by requiring the best 
 quality for the distinguished guest, provoked the 
 questions of the drawer. In Lodge the unsuspecting 
 serving man becomes a bibulous clown who blabs 
 the secret in a drunken catch that he sings as he 
 passes the soldiers : 
 
 O most surpassing wine. 
 
 The marrow of the vine ! 
 
 More welcome unto me 
 
 Than whips to scholars be. 
 
 Thou art, and ever was, 
 
 A means to mend an ass ; 
 
 Thou makest some to sleep, 
 
 And many mo to weep, 
 
 And some be glad and merry. 
 
 With heigh down derry, derry. 
 
 Thou makest some to stumble 
 
 A many mo to fumble 
 
 And me have pinky neyne.^ 
 
 More brave and jolly wine ! 
 
 What need I praise thee mo. 
 
 For thou art good, with heigh-ho ! . . . 
 
 {To the Soldiers): 
 
 You would know where Lord Antony is? I perceive you. 
 Shall I say he is in yond farm-house? I deceive you. 
 Shall I tell you this wine is for him ? The gods forfend. 
 And so I end. 
 
 Lodge is not more fortunate with his additions. 
 Thus, after Sylla's final resignation, two burghers 
 with the very Roman names of Curtail and Poppy 
 are represented as tackling the quondam dictator. 
 
 Curtail. And are you no more master-dixcator, nor 
 generality of the soldiers ? 
 
 Sylla. My powers do cease, my titles are resign'd. 
 
 Pink eyes. 
 
THOMAS LODGE 67 
 
 beinrf^^l ^^^«,r" ^'g»ed your titles ? O base mind, that 
 
 the s!nk .f • T'v ''^^^^ 2^ ''°"°"'' '^^^^ "^^^^ thyself into 
 me smk of simplicity. Fie, beast ! 
 
 Were I a king, I would day by day 
 Suck up white bread and milk, 
 And go a-jetting in a jacket of silk ; 
 My meat should be the curds, 
 My drink should be the whey. 
 And I would have a mincing lass to love me every day. 
 . Poppy Nay, goodman Curtail, your discretions are very 
 simple; let ine cramp him with a reason. Sirrah, whether 
 is better good ale or small-beer? Alas! see his simplicity 
 that cannot answer me ; why, I say ale. 
 Curtail. And so say I, neighbour. 
 
 Poppy. Thou hast reason ; ergo, say I, 'tis better be a 
 king than a clown Faith, Master Sylla, I hope a man may 
 now call ye knave by authority. 
 
 Even more impertinent, because they violate the 
 truth of character and misrepresent an historical 
 person, are some of the liberties Lodge takes with 
 Marius. Such is the device with the echo, which 
 he transfers from the love scenes of poetical Arcady, 
 where it is quite appropriate, to the mountains of 
 Numidia, where it would hardly be in place even if 
 we disregarded the temperament and circumstances 
 of the exile. 
 
 Marius. Thus Marius lives disdain'd of all the gods, 
 
 Echo. Gods ! 
 Marius. With deep despair late overtaken wholly. 
 
 Echo. O, lie ! 
 • Marius. And will the heavens be never well appeased ? 
 
 . Echo. Appeased. 
 
 Martus. What mean have they left me to cure my smart ? 
 
 Ecfio. Art. 
 Marius. Nought better fits old Marius' mind then war. 
 
 Echo. Then, war \ 
 Marius. Then full of hope, say, Echo, shall I go ? 
 
 Echo. Go! 
 Marius. Is any better fortune then at hand ? 
 
 Echo. At hand. 
 Marius. Then farewell, Echo, gentle nymph, farewell. 
 
 Echo. Fare well. 
 Marius (soliloquises). O pleasing folly to a pensive man I 
 
68 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Yet Lodge was a competent scholar who was by and 
 by to translate The Famous and Memourable 
 Workes of Josephus, a Man of Much Honour and 
 Learning among the Jewes, and the Works both 
 Moral and Natural of Lucius Annaeus Seneca. 
 And already in this play he makes Sylla's genius, 
 invisible to all, summon him in Latin Elegiacs 
 audible only to him. If then the popular scenes in 
 Shakespeare's Roman plays do not make a very 
 Roman impression, it should be remembered that he 
 is punctilious in comparison with the University 
 gentleman who preceded him. Nor did the fashion 
 of popularising antique themes with vulgar frippery 
 from the present die out when Shakespeare showed 
 a more excellent way. There is something of very 
 much the same kind in Hey wood's Rape of Lucrece 
 which was published in 1608. 
 
 But these superficial laches are not the most 
 objectionable things in the play. There is nothing 
 orgfanic in it. Of course its negflect of the unities of 
 time and place is natural and right, but it is careless 
 of unity in structure or even in portraiture. The 
 canvas is crowded with subordinate figures who 
 perplex the action without producing a vivid im- 
 pression of their own characters. A few are made 
 distinct by insistence on particular traits, like 
 Octavius with his unbending civic virtue, or 
 Antonius with his ' honey-dropping ' and rather 
 ineffectual eloquence, or Lepidus with his braggard 
 temporising. The only one of them who has real 
 individuality is the younger Marius, insolent, fierce, 
 and cruel, but full of energy and filial affection, and 
 too proud to survive his fortunes. He perhaps is 
 the most consistent and sympathetic person in the 
 piece ; which of itself is a criticism, for he occupies 
 a much less important place than the two principals, 
 expressly announced as the heroes in the title-page. 
 It is difficult even to guess the intention of the 
 
THOMAS LODGE 69 
 
 author in this delineation of them, and in any case 
 the result is not pleasing. Marius, despite a certain 
 amount of tough fortitude— which for the rest is 
 not so indomitable as in Plutarch— and a rude 
 magnanimity displayed in the imaginary scene with 
 Sylla's daughter and wife, is far from attractive ; 
 and it comes as a surprise that after all his violence 
 and vindictiveness he should meet his death " with 
 a reverend smile " in placid resignation. But with 
 Sylla matters are worse. He would be altogether 
 repulsive but for his courage, and Lodge seems to 
 explain him and his career only by appealing to his 
 own adopted epithet of Felix or Fortunate. His 
 last words are : 
 
 Fortune, now I bless thee 
 That both in life and death would'st not oppress me. 
 
 And when, "to conclude his happiness," his sump- 
 tuous funeral is arranged, Pompey expresses the 
 same idea in the lines that close the play : 
 
 Come, bear we hence this trophy of renown 
 
 Whose life, whose death was far from Fortune's frown. 
 
 The problem of his strange story is not so much 
 stated as implied, and far less is there any attempt 
 at a solution. After all his blood-guiltiness, he too, 
 like Marius, passes away in peace, but with him 
 the peacefulness rises to the serenity of a saint or 
 sage. To his friend he exclaims : 
 
 My Flaccus, worldly joys and pleasures fade ; 
 Inconstant time, like to the fleeting tide 
 With endless course man's hopes doth overbear : 
 Now nought remains that Sylla fain would have 
 But lasting fame when body lies in grave. 
 
 To his wife, who soon after asks : 
 
 How fares my lord ? How doth my gentle Sylla ? 
 
 he replies still more devoutly : 
 
 Free from the world, allied unto the heavens ; 
 Not curious of incertain chances now. 
 
70 INTRODUCTION 
 
 There is thus no meaning in the story. The rival 
 leaders are equally responsible for the Wounds of 
 Civil War, but end as happily as though they 
 had been benefactors of society. And this is by no 
 means presented as an example of tragic irony, in 
 which case something might be said for it, but as 
 the natural, fitting, and satisfactory conclusion. Yet 
 Plutarch tells of Marius' sleeplessness, drunkenness, 
 and perturbation, and of Sylla's debaucheries and 
 disease. These were hints, one might have thought, 
 that would have suited the temper of an Elizabethan 
 dramatist ; but Lodge passes them over. 
 
 It is the same with the public story. If Rome is 
 left in quiet it is only because Sylla's ruthlessness 
 has been ' fortunate ' ; it is not represented as the 
 rational outcome of what went before, nor is there 
 any suggestion bf what was to follow after. 
 
 The merit of the play, such as it is, lies in its 
 succession of stirring scenes — but not the most 
 stirring that might have been selected — from the 
 career of two famous personalities in the history of 
 a famous State. It is almost incredible that in 
 barely more than half a dozen years after its publica- 
 tion London playgoers were listening to Julius 
 Caesar with its suggestive episodes, its noble char- 
 acterisation, and full realisation of what the story 
 meant. 
 
 Yet Lodge's play is probably as good as any of 
 those based on Roman History till Shakespeare 
 turned his attention to such subjects. The tides of 
 a number of others have come down to us.. Some 
 of these are of early date and may have approximated 
 to the type of Apius and Virginia. Others would 
 attempt the style of Seneca, either after the crude 
 fashion of Gorboduc or subseiquently under the 
 better guidance of the French practitioners ; and 
 among these later Senecans were distinguished men 
 like Lord Brooke, who destroyed a tragedy on 
 
THOMAS LODGE 71 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra in 1601, and Brandon, whose 
 Vertuous Octavia, written in 1598, still survives.^ 
 In others again there may have been an anticipation 
 or imitation of the more popular manner of Lodge. 
 But the fact that they were never published, or have 
 been lost, or, in one or two cases where isolated 
 copies are extant, have not been thought worth 
 reprinting, affords a presumption that their claims 
 are inferior, and that in them no very characteristic 
 note is struck. It is pretty safe to suppose that 
 they did not contain much instruction for Shake- 
 speare, and that none of them would bridge the 
 gap between Lodge's medley and Shakespeare's 
 masterpiece. 
 
 The progress made since the middle of the century 
 was, of course, considerable. A pioneer performance, 
 like Apius and Virginia, had the merit of pushing 
 beyond the landmarks of the old Morality, and of 
 bringing Roman story within the ken of English 
 playgoers, but it did nothing more. It treated this 
 precisely as it might have treated any other subject, 
 and looked merely to the lesson,' though, no doubt, 
 it sought to make the lesson palatable with such 
 dramatic condiments as the art of the day supplied. 
 The Senecans, inspired by the Octavia, make a dis- 
 interested effort to detach and set forth the con- 
 ception of old Roman greatness, as it was given that 
 age to understand it, and these productions show no 
 impropriety and much literary skill, but the outlines 
 and colours are too vague to admit of reality or life. 
 Lodge is realistic enough in his way, but it is by 
 sacrificing what is significant and characteristic, and 
 submerging the majesty of ancient Rome in the 
 banalities and trivialities of his own time. No 
 dramatist had been able at once to rise to the 
 
 ' It is in the Dyce Collection in South Kensington and is inaccess- 
 ible to me. It is described as claiming sympathy for Antony's 
 neglected wife. 
 
72 INTRODUCTION 
 
 grandeur of the theme and keep a foothold on solid 
 earth, to reconcile the claims of the ideal and the 
 real, the past and the present. That was left for 
 Shakespeare to do. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S TREATMENT OF HISTORY 
 
 The turn of the centuries roughly bisects the 
 dramatic career of Shakespeare. In the first half 
 he had written many comedies and a few tragedies ; 
 in the second he was to write many tragedies with 
 a few plays which, on account of the happy ending 
 and other traits, may be assigned to the opposite 
 class. But beyond these recognised and legitimate 
 subdivisions of the Romantic Drama, he had also 
 before 1600 busied himself with that characteristic 
 product of the Elizabethan Age, the Historical Play 
 dealing with the national annals. In this kind, 
 indeed, he had been hardly less abundant than in 
 comedy, the proportions being nine of the one to 
 eleven of the other. Then suddenly he leaves it 
 aside, and returns to it only at the close in Henry 
 VIII., which moreover is but partially his handi- 
 work. 
 
 Thus, while the tragic note is not inaudible in the 
 earlier period of his activity nor the comic note in 
 the later, the third, that sounded so loud in the 
 sixteenth century, utterly or all but utterly dies 
 away in the seventeenth. 
 
 Why this should be so it is impossible to say. 
 It may be that the patriotic self-consciousness stirred 
 by the defeat of the Armada and the triumph of 
 England waned with the growing sense of internal 
 
74 INTRODUCTION 
 
 grievances and the loss of external prestige, and that 
 the national story no longer inspired such curiosity and 
 delight. It may be that Shakespeare had exhausted 
 the episodes which had a special attraction for con- 
 temporaries and himself. It may be that he found 
 in the records of other lands themes that gave his 
 genius freer scope and more fully satisfied the 
 requirements of his art. Or all these considerations 
 may have co-operated. 
 
 For the last of them there is at any rate this much 
 to say, that, though the play on native history 
 virtually disappears, the Historical Play as such 
 survives and wins new triumphs. The Roman 
 group resembles the English group in many ways, 
 and, where they differ, it has excellences of its 
 own. 
 
 What are the main points in which respectively 
 they diverge or coincide ? 
 
 (i) There is no doubt that it was patriotic en- 
 thusiasm that called into existence the Chronicle 
 Histories so numerous in Elizabeth's reign, of 
 which the best in Shakespeare's series are only the 
 consummate flower. The pride in the present and 
 confidence in the future of England found vent, too, 
 in occupation with England's past, and since the 
 general appetite could not be satisfied by the histories 
 of every sort and size that issued from the press, the 
 vigorous young drama seized the opportunity of 
 extending its operations, and stepped in to supply 
 the demand. Probably with a more definite theory 
 of its aims, methods, and sphere there might have 
 been less readiness to undertake the new department. 
 But in the popular conception the play was little else 
 than a narrative presented in scenes. The only 
 requirement was that it should interest the spectators, 
 and few troubled themselves about classic rule and 
 precedent, or even about connected structure and 
 .arrangement. And when by and by the Elizabethan 
 
TREATMENT OF HISTORY 75 
 
 Tragedy and Comedy became more organic and 
 vertebrate, the Historic Play had secured recognition, 
 and was able to persist in what was dramatically a 
 more rudimentary phase and develop without regard 
 to more exacting standards. Shakespeare's later 
 Histories, precisely the superlative specimens of the 
 whole species, illustrate this with conspicuous force. 
 The subject of Henry IV., if presented in summary, 
 must seem comparatively commonplace ; the ' argu- 
 ment' of both parts, if analysed, is loose and 
 straggling ; the second part to a great extent repeats 
 at a lower pitch the motifs of the first ; yet it is 
 hardly if at all less excellent than its predecessor, 
 and together they represent Shakespeare's grand 
 achievement in this kind. In Henry K, which has 
 merits that make it at least one of the most popular 
 pieces that Shakespeare ever wrote, the distinctively 
 narrative wins the day against the distinctively 
 dramatic. Not only are some of the essential links 
 supplied only in the story of the chorus, but there 
 is no dramatic collision of ideas, no conflict in the 
 soul of the hero, except in the scenes preliminary to 
 Agincourt, not even much of the excitement of 
 suspense. It is a plain straightforward history, 
 admirably conveyed in scene and speech, all the 
 episodes significant and. picturesque, all the persons 
 vividly characterised, bound to stir and inspire by 
 its sane and healthy patriotism ; but in the notes 
 that are considered to make up the differentia of a 
 drama, whether ancient or modern, it is undoubtedly 
 defective. 
 
 In proportion then as Shakespeare realised the 
 requirements of the Chronicle History, and succeeded 
 in producing his masterpieces in this domain, he 
 deviated from the course that he pursued in his 
 other plays. And this necessarily followed from the 
 end he had in view. He wished to give, and his 
 audience wished to get, passages from the history of 
 
76 INTRODUCTION 
 
 their country set forth on the stage as pregnantly 
 and attractively as possible ; but the history was the 
 first and chief thing, and in it the whole species had 
 its raison d'iire. History deliver'- J the material and 
 prescribed the treatment, and even the selection of 
 the episodes treated was determined less perhaps by 
 their natural fitness for dramatic form, than by the 
 influence of certain contemporary historic interests. 
 For the points which the average Elizabethan had 
 most at heart were — (i) The unity of the country 
 under the strong and orderly government of securely 
 succeeding sovereigns, who should preserve it from 
 the long remembered evils of Civil War; (2) Its 
 rejection of Papal domination, with which there might 
 be, but more frequently among the play-going classes, 
 there was not associated the desire for a more radical 
 reconstruction of the Church ; (3) The power, safety 
 and prestige of England, which Englishmen believed 
 to be the inevitable consequence of her unity and 
 independence. So whatever in by-gone times bore 
 on these matters and could be made to illustrate 
 them, whether by parallel or contrast, was sure of a 
 sympathetic hearing. And in this as in other points 
 Shakespeare seems to have felt with his fellow-men 
 and shared their presuppositions. At least all the 
 ten plays on English history in which he is known to 
 have had a hand deal with rivalry for the throne, the 
 struggle with Rome, the success or failure in France 
 accordingly as the prescribed postulates are fulfilled 
 or violated. It may have been his engrossment in 
 these concerns that sometimes led him to choose 
 subjects which the mere artist would have rejected 
 as df small dramatic promise. 
 
 When he turned to the records of antiquity, the 
 conditions were very different. Doubtless to a man 
 of the Renaissance, classical history in its appeal 
 came only second, if even second, to the history of 
 his own land ; doubtless eClso to the man who was 
 
TREATMENT OF HISTORY ^^ 
 
 not a technical scholar, the history of Rome had far 
 more familiar charm than the history of Greece. 
 When, therefore, ^hakespeare went outside his own 
 England in searc^or historical themes, he was still 
 addressing the general heart, and showed himself 
 in closer accord with popular taste than, e.g. Chap- 
 man, whose French plays are perhaps next to his 
 own among the best Elizabethan examples of the 
 historical drama. But we may be sure that Ambois 
 and Biron and Chabot were much less interesting 
 persons to the ordinary Londoner than Caesar and 
 Antony and Coriolanus. Not merely in treatment, 
 but in selection of the material — which cannot fail 
 to influence the treatment — Shakespeare was in 
 touch with common feeling and popular taste. 
 
 All the same a great deal more was now required 
 than in the case of the English series. In that the 
 story of a reign or the section of a reign, the chronicle 
 of a flimsy conspiracy or a foreign campaign might 
 furnish the framework for a production that would 
 delight the audience. It was otherwise when drama- 
 tist and spectators alike knew the history only in its 
 mass, and were impressed only by the outstanding 
 features. Just as with individuals so with nations, 
 many things become significant and important in 
 those of our familiar circle that would seem trivial 
 in mere strangers and acquaintances. If the Roman 
 plays were to be popular as the English ones had 
 been, Shakespeare was bound to select episodes of 
 more salient interest and more catholic appeal than 
 such as had hitherto sometimes served his turn. In 
 the best of the English plays we constantly wonder 
 that Shakespeare could get such results from stories 
 that we should have thought in advance to be quite 
 unfit for the stage. But the fall of Caesar and the 
 fate of those who sought to strangle the infant 
 empire, the shock of opposing forces in Augustus 
 and Antony and the loss of the world for Cleopatra's 
 
78 INTRODUCTION 
 
 love, the triumph and destruction of the glorious 
 renegade from whose wrath the young republic 
 escaped as by fire — that there are tragic possibilities 
 in themes like these is patent to a casual glance. It 
 is significant that, while of the subjects handled in 
 the English histories only the episode of Joan of 
 Arc and the story of Richard III. have attracted the 
 attention of foreign dramatists, all the Roman plays 
 have European congeners. One of the reasons may 
 be, that though the events described In the national 
 series are dramatic enough for national purposes, 
 they do not like the others satisfy the severer inter- 
 national test. 
 
 And to a difference in the character of the material 
 corresponds a difference in the character of the treat- 
 ment. The best of the English plays, as we have 
 seen, are precisely those that it would be hardest 
 to describe in terms of the ordinary drama. The 
 juvenile Richard III. is the only one that could 
 nowadays without objection be included in a list 
 of Shakespeare's tragedies. But with the Roman 
 plays it is quite the reverse. In the main lines 
 of construction they are of tragic build ; there is 
 invariably a tragic problem in the hero's career ; and 
 it reaches a tragic solution In his self-caused ruin. 
 So they are always ranked with the Tragedies, and 
 though here and there they may show a va,riation 
 from Shakespeare's usual tragic technique, it would 
 occur to no one to alter the arrangement. 
 
 (2) Yet these little variations may remind us that 
 after all they were not produced under quite the same 
 presuppositions as plays like Hamlet and Othello, or 
 even King Lear and Macbeth. In a sense they 
 remain Histories, as truly histories as any of their 
 English analogues. The political vicissitudes and 
 public catastrophies do not indeed contribute the 
 chief elements of interest. Here as everywhere 
 Shakespeare is above all occupied with the career 
 
TREATMENT OF HISTORY 79 
 
 of indiiridmals, with the interaction of persons and 
 persons, and of persons and circumstances. Never- 
 theless in these plays the characters are always 
 exhibited in relation to the great mutations in the 
 State. Not merely the background but the environ- 
 ment and atmosphere are supplied by the large life 
 of affairs. It is not so in Lear, where the legend 
 offered no tangible history on which the imagination 
 could take hold ; it is only partially so in Macbeth, 
 where Shakespeare knew practically nothing of the 
 actual local conditions ; nor, had it been otherwise, 
 was there anything in these traditions of prerogative 
 importance for later times. But in the Roman plays 
 the main facts were accredited and known, and of 
 infinite g%nificance for the history of the world. 
 They could not be overlooked, they had to be taken 
 into account. 
 
 For the same reason they must no more be 
 tampered i with than the accepted facts of English 
 History. \ The two historical series are again alike 
 in this, thatTirey-trearTltelr sotipeesawiBBJMasMl^more 
 reverence than either the Comedies or the other 
 Tr^edies show for theirs. Even in Lear the 
 dramatist has no scruple about altering the tradi- 
 tional close ; even in Macbeth he has no scruple 
 aba)ut blending the stories of two reigns. But in 
 dealing with the professedly authentic records 
 whether of England or Rome, Shakespeare felt 
 th^t he had to do with the actual, with what 
 d'^finitely had been ; and he did not conceive him- 
 seSlf free to give invention the rein, as when with 
 a"' light heart he reshaped the caprices of a novel or 
 tpie perversions of a legend. As historical drama- 
 tist he was subordinated to his subject much in the 
 pJame llfay as the portrait painter. He could choose 
 his point of view, and manage the lights and shades, 
 and determine the pose. He could emphasize 
 details^ or slur them over, or even leave them out. 
 
8o INTRODUCTION 
 
 He could interpret and reveal, so far as in tim lay, 
 the meaning and spirit of history. But he had his 
 marching orders and could no more depait from 
 theni to take a more attractive way of his own, than 
 the portrait painter can correct the defects of his 
 sitter to make him an Apollo. It cannot always 
 have been easy to keep true to this self-denying 
 ordinance. Despite the suitability of the subject 
 in general suggestion and even in many particular 
 incidents there must have been a recalcitrance to 
 treatment here and there ; and traces of (this may be 
 detected, if the Roman plays are compared with the 
 tragedies in which the genius of Shakespeare had 
 quite unimpeded sway. To some of the chief of 
 these traces Mr. Bradley has called attention. Thus 
 there is in the middle of Antony and. Cleopatra, 
 owing to the undramatic nature of the historic 
 material, an excessive number of brief scenes "in 
 which the dramatis personae are frequently changed, 
 a';.thni]^1i a, no velist were to tell his story in a suc- 
 cession ot short cnapters, in whicli xie flitted from 
 one group of his characters to another." In C^rio- 
 lanus, "if Shakespeare had made the hero persist 
 and we had seen him amid the flaming ruin^s of 
 Rome, awaking suddenly to the enormity of ^his 
 deed and taking vengeance on himself i* . . 'chat 
 would surely have been an ending more strictly 
 tragic^ than the close of Shakespeare's play." ,In 
 Julius Caesar the "famous and wonderful" quarrel- 
 scene between Brutus and Cassius is "an epis&de 
 the removal of which would not affect the actijal 
 sequence of events (unless we may hold that but 
 for the emotion caused by the quarrel and recoacilifa- 
 
 ' I.e. more tragic in the technical sense. Of course Mr. Bradley' is 
 cjuite aware that as it stands Coriolanus is " a much nobler play." i't 
 is right to add that he expresses no opinion whether the actual clotje 
 of Shakespeare's play " was due simply to his unwillingnes*o contra - 
 diet his historical authority on a point of such magnitude*' At any 
 rate, I am convinced that in his eyes that was a sufficient grieund. 
 
TREATMENT OF HISTORY 8i 
 
 tion Cassius would not have allowed Brutus to 
 overcome his objection to the fatal policy of offering 
 battle at Philippi)." Mr. Bradley discusses this in 
 another connection, and here, as we shall see. 
 Shakespeare only partially adheres to his authority. 
 In the same play, however, we have the episode of 
 the poet Cinna's murder which, however useful in 
 illustrating the temper of the mob and suggestive 
 in other respects, is nevertheless a somewhat crude 
 intrusion of history, for it leads to nothing and in 
 no way helps on the action. But Shakespeare will 
 put up with an occasional awkwardness in the 
 mechanism rather than fail to give what he con- 
 siders a faithful picture. As in the best English 
 Histories he omits, he compresses, he even regroups; 
 but he never consciously alters the sense, and to 
 bring out the sense he utilises material that puts a 
 little strain on his art. 
 
 Yet of course this does not mean that in the 
 Roman any more than in the English plays he 
 attempts an accurate reconstruction of the past. 
 It may even be doubted whether such an attempt 
 would have been intelligible to him or to any save 
 one or two of his contemporaries. To the average 
 Elizabethan (and in this respect Shakespeare was 
 an average Elizabethan, with infinitely clearer 
 vision certainly, but with the same outlook and 
 horizon) the past differed from the present chiefly 
 by its distance and dimness ; and distinctive con- 
 trasts in manners and customs were but scantily 
 recognised. A generation later French audiences 
 could view the perruques and patches of Corneille's 
 Romans without any sense of incongruity, and 
 the assimilation of the ancient to the modern 
 was in some respects much more thorough-going 
 in Shakespeare's England. In all his classical 
 pieces the impression of historic actuality and the 
 genuine antique cachet is only produced when there 
 
ki INTRODUCTION 
 
 is a kind of inner kinship between the circumstances 
 to be represented and the English life that he knew. 
 There was a good deal of such correspondence 
 between Elizabethan life and Roman life, so the 
 Roman Tragedies have a breath of historic veri- 
 similitude and even a faint suggestion of local' 
 colour. There was much less between Elizabethan 
 life and Greek life, so Timon and Troilus and 
 Cressida, though true as human documents, have 
 almost nothing Hellenic about them. But even in 
 the Roman plays, so soon as there is anything that 
 involves a distinctive difference between Rome and 
 London Shakespeare is sure to miss it. Anachron- 
 isms in detail are of course abundantly unimpor- 
 tant, though a formidable list of them could be 
 compiled. In Julius Caesar there are clocks that 
 strike, and the crowd throw up their sweaty night- 
 caps. The arrangements of the Elizabethan stage 
 furnish Cleopatra and Cominius with similes. 
 Menenius is familiar with funeral knells and bat- 
 teries and Galen's prescriptions. 
 
 These are minutiae on which students like Bacon 
 or Ben Jonson might set store, but in regard to 
 which Shakespeare was quite untroubled and care- 
 less. Perhaps they deserve notice only because 
 they add one little item to the mass of proof that 
 the plays were written by a man of merely ordinary ^ 
 information, not by a trained scholar. But for 
 themselves they may be disregarded. It is not such 
 trifles that interfere with fidelity to antiquity. But 
 in weightier matters, too, Shakespeare shows an 
 inevitable limitation in reproducing a civilisation 
 that was in some aspects very different from his 
 own, and for which he had no parallel in his own 
 experience. He shows a precisely analogous limi- 
 tation when he deals with themes from English 
 History that were partly alien to the spirit of the 
 time. Of this King John furnishes the grand 
 
TREATMENT OF HISTORY 83 
 
 example. We all know why that troublesome 
 reign is memorable now, not merely to the consti- 
 
 h if-1 J^'^'^^u"' ^'^^ '° ^^^ '"^^ i" the street and 
 the child on the school bench. Yet Shakespeare 
 makes no mention of Runnymede or the Great 
 
 ^vTx -r ^. ™^y ^^^""'^ '*^^t he, like most 
 
 Elizabethans if interested in such matters at all 
 would have been unsympathetic to a movement 
 that extorted liberties by civil strife. To him the 
 significant points are the disputed succession the 
 struggle with the Pope, the initial invasion of 
 France by England when the Kingdom is of one 
 accord, and the subsequent invasion of England by 
 France when it is divided against itself. So /iTrnp- 
 /ohn, though very true to human nature and even 
 to certain aspects of the period, pays no heed 
 to the aspect which other generations have con- 
 sidered the most important of all. and one which 
 on any estimate is not to be overlooked. But if 
 Shakespeare thus misses a conspicuous feature in a 
 set of occurrences that took place among his own 
 people less than four hundred years before, we need 
 not wonder if he failed to detect the peculiar 
 features of ancient Rome as it existed at a further 
 distance of twelve or sixteen centuries. His approxi- 
 mation to the actual or alleged conditions varies 
 indeed m the different plays. It is closest in 
 Antony and Cleopatra. In that there is hardly a 
 personage or circumstance for which he had not 
 some sort of a clue. ' He knew about soldiers 
 of fortune like Enobarbus and pirate-adventurers 
 like Menas; a ruler like Henry VII. had in him a 
 touch of Octavius, there were not a few notabilities 
 in Europe who carried a suggestion of Mark Antony, 
 the orgies of Cleopatra's court in Egypt were analo- 
 gous to those of many an Italian or French court at 
 the Renaissance. It is all native ground to Shake- 
 speare and he would feel himself at home. On the 
 
84 INTRODUCTION 
 
 other hand, he is least capable of seeing eye to eye 
 the primitive republican life which on Plutarch's 
 evidence he has to depict in Coriolanus. The 
 shrewd, resolute, law-abiding Commons, whom some 
 of the traditions that Plutarch worked up seem 
 meant to exalt ; the plebs that might secede to the 
 Holy Mount, but would not rise in armed revolt; 
 that secured the tribunate as its constitutional lever 
 with which it was by and by to shift the political 
 centre of gravity, this was like nothing that he knew 
 or that anybody else knew about till half a century 
 had elapsed. He could only represent it in terms 
 of a contemporary city mob ; and the consequence 
 is that though he has given a splendid picture that 
 satisfies the imagination and even realises some of 
 Plutarch's hints, it is not true to the whole situation 
 as envisaged by Plutarch.^ Julius Caesar occupies 
 a kind of intermediate position, and for that reason 
 illustrates his method most completely. He could 
 understand a good deal of the political crisis in 
 Rome on which that story turns, from the existing 
 conditions or recent memories of his own country. 
 In both a period of civil turmoil had ended in the 
 establishment of a strong government. In both 
 there were nobles who from principle or interest 
 were opposed to the change, so he could enter into 
 the feelings of the conspirators. In both the cen- 
 tralisation of authority was the urgent need, so he 
 could appreciate the indispensableness of the Empire, 
 the ' spirit of Caesar.' But of zeal for the republi- 
 can theory as such he knows nothing, and therefore 
 his Brutus is only in part the Brutus of Plutarch. 
 
 Thus Shakespeare in his picture of Rome and 
 Romans, does not give the notes that mark off ■ 
 Roman from every other civilisation, but rather 
 
 ' Of course Shakespeare could not be expected to anticipate the 
 later theories and researches that go to prove that the political power 
 of plebs and tribunate has been considerably antedated. 
 
TREATMENT OF HISTORY 85 
 
 those that it possessed in common with the rest, and 
 especially with his own. He even puts into it, with- 
 out any consciousness of the discrepancy, qualities 
 that are characteristic of Elizabethan rather than of 
 Roman life. And the whole result, the quickening 
 of the antique material with modern feeling in so far 
 as that is also antique, and occasionally when it is 
 not quite antique, is due to the thorough realisation 
 of the subject in Shakespeare's own mind from his 
 own point of view, with all the powers not only of 
 his reason, but of his imagination, emotion, passion, 
 and experience. Hence his delineations are in point 
 of fact more truly antique than those of many much 
 more scholarly poets, who can reproduce the minute 
 peculiarities, but not, what is more central and 
 essential, the living energy and principle of it all. 
 This was felt by contemporaries. We have the express 
 testimony of the erudite Leonard Digges, who after 
 graduating as Bachelor in Oxford, continued his 
 studies for many years in several foreign universities, 
 and consequently was promoted on his return to the 
 honorary degree of Master, a man who, with his 
 academic training and academic status, would not 
 be apt to undervalue literal accuracy. But he writes : 
 
 So have I seen when Caesar would appear, 
 And on the stage at half-sword parley were 
 Brutus and Cassius : oh ! how the audience 
 Were ravish'd, with what wonder went they thence ; 
 When some new day they would not brook a line 
 Of tedious though well-labour'd Catiline, — 
 Sejanus too was irksome. 
 
 Ben Jonson in Sejanus and Catiline tried to restore 
 antiquity in its exclusive and exceptional traits. 
 Shakespeare approached it on its more catholic and 
 human side, interpreted it by those qualities in 
 modern life that face towards the classical ideal, and 
 even went the length of using at unawares some that 
 were more typical of his new world. And Jonson's 
 
86 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Roman plays were felt to be well-laboured and irk- 
 some, while his filled the spectators with ravishment 
 and wonder. 
 
 In both series then, English and Roman alike, 
 Shakespeare on the one hand loyally accepted his 
 authorities and never deviated from them on their 
 main route, but on the other he treated them unques- 
 tioningly from his own point of view, and probably 
 rtever even suspected that their own might be differ- 
 ent. 'This is the double characteristic of his attitude 
 to his documents, and it combines pious regard for 
 the assumed facts of History with complete indiffer- 
 ence to critical research. He is as far as possible 
 from submitting to the dead hand of the past, but 
 he is also as far as possible from allowing himself a 
 free hand in its manipulation. His method, in short, 
 implies and includes two principles, which, if separ- 
 ated, may easily become antagonistic, and which, in 
 point of fact, have led later schools of the historic 
 drama in quite opposite directions. A short exami- 
 nation of these contrasted tendencies may" perhaps 
 help to throw a clearer light on Shakespeare's own 
 position. 
 
 The one that lays stress on the artist's right to 
 take counsel with his own ideas has been explained 
 by Lessing in a famous passage of the Hamburg 
 Dramaturgy, which is all the more interesting for 
 the present purpose, that throughout it tacidy or 
 expressly appeals to the practice of Shakespeare. 
 Lessing starts with Aristotle's doctrine that poetry 
 is more pregnant than history, and asks why, when 
 this is so, the poet does not keep within the kingdom 
 of his imagination, why more especially the dramatist 
 descends to the lower artistic level of the historian 
 to trespass on the domain of prosaic fact. And he 
 answers that it is merely a matter of convenience. 
 There is advantage to be gained from illustrious 
 position and impressive associations ; and moreover 
 
TREATMENT OF HISTORY 87 
 
 IhonfJT"?^' u^"'*' '' ^^^P^"' '^^' the audience 
 should already have some idea of the story to be 
 told, that they should, as it were, meet him half 
 way, and brmg to the understanding of his piece 
 some general knowledge of the persons. He o-ains 
 his purpose if he employs famous names which 
 appear m a nimbus of associations, and saves time 
 m describing their characters and circumstances: 
 and thus they attune our minds for what is to come 
 and serve as so many labels by means of which 
 when we see a new play, we may inform ourselves 
 what it IS all about. The initial familiarity and the 
 prestige it implies are fulcra for moving the interest 
 ot the beholders. The historical dramatist, therefore 
 must be careful not to alter the current conceptions 
 of character; but, with that proviso, he has almost 
 unlimited powers, and may omit or recast or invent 
 incidents, or forge an entirely new story, just as he 
 pleases, so long, that is. as he leaves the character 
 intact and does not interfere with our idea of the 
 
 c\- ^" ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ historic label would be more 
 of a hindrance than a help to our enjoyment. 
 
 Lessing's view of the Historic Drama (and there 
 IS no doubt that he thought he was describing the 
 method of Shakespeare) is therefore that it is a free 
 work, of fiction woven around characters that are 
 feirly well known. He was certainly wrong about 
 Shakespeare, and his theory strikes us nowadays 
 as strangely inadequate, but it had very important 
 results. It directly influenced the dramatic art of 
 Germany, and it would be hard to overestimate the 
 share it had in determining Schiller's methods of 
 composition. It was in the air at the time of the 
 Romantic Movement in France, and is really the 
 principle on which Hugo constructs his more impor- 
 tant plays in this kind. Schiller's treatment of history 
 is very free ; he invents scenes that have no shadow 
 of foundation in fact, and yet are of crucial importance 
 
88 INTRODUCTION 
 
 in his idealised narrative ; he invents subordinate 
 persons who are hardly less conspicuous than the 
 authentic principals, and who vitally affect the plot 
 and action. All his plays contain these licenses. 
 Such episodes as the interview between Mary and 
 Elizabeth, of Jeanne Dare's indulgence of her pity 
 illustrate the first, such figures as Mortimer or Max 
 and Thekla illustrate the second ; but what would 
 Mary Stuart or the Maid of Orleans or Wallenstein 
 be without them ? And with Victor Hugo this 
 emancipation from authority is pushed to even 
 greater lengths. Plays like Le Roi s'amuse or 
 Marion de Lorvie might recall the vagaries of early 
 Elizabethan experiments like Greene's James IV., 
 were it not that they are works of incomparably 
 higher genius. Hugo has accepted the traditional 
 view of a French king and a French court, but all 
 the rest is sheer romance on which just here and 
 there we detect the trail of an old mdmoire. 
 
 Now, some of the extreme examples suggest 
 a twofold objection to Lessing's account as a quite 
 satisfactory explanation of the species. 
 
 In the first place, when the poet carries his privi- 
 lege of independence so far, why should he not go a 
 step further and invent his entire drama, names and 
 all } As it is, we either know something of the real 
 history or we do not. If we do not, what is the 
 advantage of appealing to it ? If we do, will not 
 such lordly disregard of facts stir up the same recal- 
 citrance as disregard of traditional character, and 
 shall we not be rather perplexed than aided by the 
 conflict between our reminiscences and the state- 
 ruents of the play .-* 
 
 And, in the second place, is the portrayer of 
 human nature to take his historical persons as once 
 for all given and fixed, so that he must leave the 
 accepted estimate of them intact without attempting 
 to modify it } Surely that would be to deprive the 
 
TREATMENT OF HISTORY 89 
 
 dramatist of his greatest privilege and the drama 
 of Its greatest opportunity. For then we should 
 only see a well-known character illustrated or 
 described anew, displaying its various traits in this 
 or that set of novel surroundings. But there would 
 be little room for the sort of work that the historic 
 drama is specially fitted to do, viz. the exposition of 
 ambiguous or problematic natures, which will give 
 us a different conceptioh of them from the one we 
 have hitherto had. 
 
 Hence there arose in Gei'many a view directly 
 opposed to that of Lessing, and Lotze does not 
 hesitate to recommend the most painstaking investi- 
 gatiori and observance of the real facts. The poet, 
 he thinks, will find scope enough in giving a new 
 interpretation of the career and individuality of the 
 hero, after he has used all the means in his power 
 to bring home to his imagination the actual circum- 
 stances from which they emerged. Probably little 
 was known in England of this theory of Lotze's, 
 though utterances to the same effect occur in Car- 
 lyle, especially in his remarks on Shakespeare's 
 English Histories ; yet it seems to give a correct 
 account of the way in which most English historical 
 dramas were constructed in the nineteenth century. 
 Sir Henry Taylor, while calling ,/'/^«7^ vanArtevelde 
 "a dramatic romance," is careful to state that "his- 
 toric truth is preserved in it, as far as the material 
 events are concerned." Mr. Swinburne, in his trilogy 
 on Mary Stuart, versifies whole pages of contem- 
 porary writers (e.g. in the interview of Mary and 
 Knox taken almost verbatim from Knox's History 
 of the Reformation), and in his prose essay seems 
 specially to value himself on his exact delineation of 
 her career, and his solution of the problem of her 
 strange nature. But the prerogative instance is 
 furnished by Tennyson. In his dedication oi Harold, 
 he writes to Lord Lytton : " After old world records 
 
90 INTRODUCTION 
 
 like the Bayeux Tapestry and the Roman de Rou, 
 Edward Freeman's History of the Norman Conquest 
 and your father's historical romance treating of the 
 same theme have been mainly helpful to me in 
 writing this drama" He puts his antiquarian re- 
 searches first, his use of the best modern critical 
 authorities second, and only in the third place an 
 historical romance, to which for the rest Freeman 
 has said that he owes something himself. Nor 
 would it be difficult to show that in Queen Mary 
 and Becket he has followed the same lines. And 
 on such lines it is clear that the historical drama- 
 tist's only aim must be to present in accurate though 
 artistic form a selection of the incidents and circum- 
 stances of the hero's life and times, and place them 
 in such mutual relation that they throw new light on 
 the nature and destiny of the man. 
 
 But from this point of view the functions of the 
 poet and the historian will tend to coalesce, and it is 
 just this that at first sight rouses suspicion. After 
 all can we so reproduce the past as to give it real 
 immediate truth ? It is hardly possible by anti- 
 quarian knowledge quickened by ever so much 
 poetic power to galvanise into life a state of things 
 that once for all is dead and gone. And meanwhile- 
 the mere effort to do so is apt to make the drama a 
 little frigid, as Tennyson's dramas are. We are 
 seldom carried away on a spontaneous stream of 
 passion ; for in truth the methods of the historian 
 and the poet are radically different, and the painful 
 mosaic work of the one is almost directly opposed 
 to the complete vision, the creation in one jet, which 
 may be rightly expected of the other. 
 
 But it is noteworthy that though the two schools 
 which we have just discussed, make appeal to 
 Shakespeare, his own procedure does not precisely 
 agree with that of one or other. He is too much of 
 the heaven-born poet for the latter ; he has too 
 
TREATMENT OF HISTORY 91 
 
 genuine a delight in facts for the former. He has 
 points of contact with both, but in a way he is more 
 na^if and simple-minded than either. He at the 
 same time accepts the current conception of char- 
 acter with Lessing, and respects the allegations of 
 history with Carlyle. But though he begins with 
 the ordinary impression produced by his hero, he 
 does not stop there. Such an impression is bound 
 to be incoherent and vague. Shakespeare probes 
 and defines it ; he tests it in relation to the assumed 
 facts on which it is based ; he discovers the latent 
 difficulties, faces them, and solves them, and, start- 
 ing with a conventional type, leaves us with an 
 individual man. In doing this he treats the facts as 
 a means, not as an end, but he does not sophisticate 
 them. We hardly ever find fictitious persons and 
 scenes in Schiller's style, and when we do the 
 exception proves the rule, for they have not the 
 same function as in Schiller's theatre. Falstaff 
 plays his part aside, as it were, from the official 
 history, he belongs to the private life of Prince Hal, 
 and is impotent to affect the march of public events. 
 People like Lucius wi Julius Caesar, or Nicanor in 
 Coriolanus, or Silius in Antony and Cleopatra do 
 not interfere in the political story ; they are present 
 to make or to hear comments, or at most to assist 
 the inward interpretation. No unhistorical person 
 has historical work to do, and no unhistorical episode 
 affects the historical action.^ Yet he quite escapes 
 from the chill and closeness of the book-room. He 
 engages in no critical investigations to sift out the 
 genuine facts. He does not study old tapestry or 
 early texts. Unhampered by the learned apparatus 
 of the scholar, undistracted by the need of pausing 
 to verify or correct, he speeds along on the flood- 
 
 ' Even the intervention of the Bastard in King John was guaranteed 
 by the old play and was doubtless considered authentic by Shake- 
 speare. 
 
92 INTRODUCTION 
 
 tide of his own inspiration, which takes the same 
 course with the interests of the nation. For it is 
 the reward of the intimate sympathy which exists 
 between him and his countrymen, that he goes to 
 work, his personal genius fortified and enlarged by 
 the popular enthusiasms, patriotic or cosmopolitan. 
 And nothing can withstand the speed and volume 
 of the current. There is a great contrast between 
 the broad free sweep of his Histories, English or 
 Roman, that lift us from our feet and carry us away, 
 and the little artificial channels of the antiquarian 
 dramas, on the margin of which we stand at ease to 
 criticise the purity of the distilled water. Yet none 
 the less he is in a sense more obedient to his 
 authorities than any writer of the antiquarian school. 
 Just because, while desiring to give the truth as he 
 knows it, he is careless to examine the accuracy or 
 estimate the value of the documents he consults ; 
 and just because, while determined to give a faithful 
 narrative, he spares himself all labour of comparison 
 and research and takes a statement of Holinshed or 
 Plutarch as guaranteeing itself, he is far more in the 
 hands of the guide he follows than a later dramatist 
 would be. He takes the text of his author, and 
 often he has not more than one : he accepts it 
 implicitly and will not willingly distort it : he reads 
 it in the light of his own insight and the spirit of 
 the age, and tries to recreate the agents and the 
 story from the more or less adequate hints that he 
 finds. 
 
 Now, proceeding in this way it is clear that while 
 in every case Shakespeare's indebtedness to his 
 historical sources must be great, it will vary greatly 
 in quality and degree according to the material 
 delivered to him. The situations may be more or 
 less dramatic, the narrative more or less firmly 
 conceived. And among his sources Plutarch occu- 
 pies quite an exceptional place. From no one else 
 
TREATMENT OF HISTORY 93 
 
 has he ' conveyed ' so much, and no one else has he 
 altered so little. And the reason is, that save 
 Chaucer and Homer, on whom he drew for Troilus 
 and Cressida, but from whom he could assimilate 
 little that suited his own different ideas, no other 
 writer contained so much that was of final and per- 
 manent excellence. To put it shortly, in Plutarch's 
 Lives Shakespeare for the first and almost the only 
 time was rehandling the masterpieces of a genius 
 who stood at the summit of his art. It was not so 
 in the English Histories. One does not like to 
 say a word in disparagement of the Elizabethan 
 chronicles, especially Holinshed's, on which the 
 maturer plays are based. They are good reading 
 and deserve to be read independently of the drama- 
 tist's use of them. But they are not works of 
 phenomenal ability, and they betray the infancy of 
 historical writing, not only in scientific method, 
 which in the present connection would hardly matter, 
 but in narrative art as well. Cowley in his Chro- 
 nicle, i.e. the imaginary record of his love affairs, 
 breaks off with a simile and jegt at their expense. 
 If, he says, I were to give the details, 
 
 I more voluminous should grow — 
 (Chiefly if I like them should tell 
 AH change of weathers that befell) 
 
 Than Holinshed and Stowe. 
 
 Their intention is good, and they often realise it 
 so as to interest and impress, but the introduction of 
 such-like trifles as Cowley mentions, without much 
 relevance or significance, may give us the measure 
 of their technical skill. Again, though in the second 
 and third part of Henry VI. Shakespeare may have 
 been dealing with the work of Marlowe, we have 
 to remember, first, that his originals were probably 
 composite pieces not by Marlowe alone, and, further, 
 that even Marlowe could not altogether escape the 
 disabilities of a pioneer. 
 
94 INTRODUCTION 
 
 In Plutarch, however, Shakespeare levied toll on 
 no petty vassal like the compilers of the Chronicles, 
 or innovating conqueror like the author of Tam- 
 burlaine, but on the king by right divine of a 
 long-established realm. And the result is that he 
 appropriates more, and that more of greater value, 
 than from any other tributary. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ANCESTRY OF SHAKESPEARE'S ROMAN PLAYS 
 
 I. 
 
 PLUTARCH 1 
 
 Plutarch, born at Chaeronea in Boeotia, about 45 
 or 50 A.D., jflourished in the last quarter of the first 
 and the earliest quarter of the second century. He 
 came of good stock, which he is not reluctant to 
 talk about. Indeed, his habit of introducing or 
 quoting his father, his grandfather, and even his 
 great grandfather, gives us glimpses of a home in 
 which the prescribed pieties of family life were 
 warmly cherished ; and some of the references imply 
 an atmosphere of simplicity, urbanity, and culture. 
 
 The lad was sent to Athens to complete his 
 education under Ammonius, an eminent philosopher 
 of that generation, though in Carlyle's phrase, ' now 
 dim to us,' who also took part in what little adminis- 
 trative work was still intrusted to provincials, and 
 more than once held the distinguished position 
 of strategos. Thus, as in childhood Plutarch was 
 trained in the best domestic traditions of elder 
 Greece, so now he had before his eyes an example 
 of such active citizenship as survived in the changed 
 condition of things. 
 
 ' See Plutarch's works passim, especially North's version of the 
 Lives reprinted in the Tudor Translations, and the Morals translated 
 by Philemon Holland (1603). See also Archbishop Trench's Lectures 
 on Plutarch. 
 
96 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The same spirit of reverence for the past presided 
 over his routine of study. His works afterwards 
 show a wide familiarity with the earlier literature 
 and philosophy of his country, and the foundations 
 of this must have been laid in his student days. It 
 was still in accordance with accepted precedents and 
 his own reminiscent tastes, that when he set out on 
 his travels, he should first, as so many of his pre- 
 decessors were reported to have done, betake 
 himself to the storied land of Egypt. We know 
 that this must have been after 66 A.D., for in that 
 year, when Nero made his progress through Greece, 
 Plutarch tells us that he was still the pupil of 
 Ammonius. We know, further, that he must have 
 visited Alexandria, for he mentions that in his 
 grandfather's opinion his father gave too large a 
 banquet to celebrate their homecoming from that 
 city. But he does not inform us how much of 
 Egypt he saw, or how long was his stay, or in what 
 way he employed himself. It is only a probable 
 conjecture at most that his treatise on his and Osiris 
 may be one of the fruits of this expedition. 
 
 Of another and later journey that took him to 
 Italy, there is more to be said. Plutarch at an early 
 age, whether before or after the Egyptian tour, had 
 already been employed in public affairs. He tells us : 
 
 I remember my selfe, that when I was but of yoong yeres 
 1 was sent with another in embassage to the Proconsul : and 
 in that my companion staid about I wot not what behind, I 
 went alone and did that which we had in commission to do 
 together. After my returne when I was to give an account 
 unto the State, and to report the effect of my charge and 
 message back again, my father arose, and taking me apart, 
 willed me in no wise to speak in the singular number and 
 say, / departed or went, but, We departed ; item not / said 
 (or quoth I) but We said ; and in the whole narration of the 
 rest to joine alwaies my companion as if he had been 
 associated and at one hand with me in that which I did 
 alone.^ 
 
 '^ Instructions for them, etc. 
 
PLUTARCH 97 
 
 Such courtesy conciliates good will, and he was 
 subsequently sent 'on public business' to Rome. 
 
 I^This must have been before 90 A.D., when Rusticus, 
 whom Plutarch mentions that he met, was con- 
 demned to death, and when the philosophers were 
 expelled from the city ; and was probably some time 
 after 74 a.d.. the date of their previous expulsion, 
 when, moreover, Plutarch was too young to be 
 charged with matters so weighty as to need settle- 
 ment in the capital. But it is not certain whether 
 this was his only visit to Italy, and whether he 
 made it in the reign of Vespasian or of Domitian. 
 His story of a performing dog that took part in an 
 exhibition in presence of Vespasian, has been 
 thought to have the verisimilitude of a witnessed 
 scene, and has been used to support tn€ former- 
 supposition : his description of the sumptuousness 
 of Domitian's buildings makes a similar impression, 
 and has been used to support the latter. All this 
 must remain doubtful, but some things are certain : 
 that his business was so engrossing, and those who 
 came to him for instruction were so numerous, that 
 he had little time for the study of the Latin lan- 
 guage ; that he delivered lectures, some of which 
 were the first drafts of essays subsequently included 
 in the Moralia ; that he had as his acquaintances or 
 auditors several of the most distinguished men in 
 Rome, among them Mestrius Florus, a table com- 
 panion of Vespasian, Sosius Senecio, the correspon- 
 dent of Pliny, and that Arulenus Rusticus afterwards 
 put to death by Domitian, who on one occasion 
 would not interrupt a lecture of Plutarch's to read a 
 letter from the Emperor ; that he traversed Italy as 
 far north as Ravenna, where he saw the bust of 
 
 ^Marius, and even as Bedriacum, where he inspected 
 the battlefields of 69 a.d. 
 
 But though Plutarch loved travel and sight-seeing, 
 and though he was fully alive to the advantages of 
 
98 INTRODUCTION 
 
 a great city, with its instructive society and its 
 collections of books, his heart was in his native 
 place, and he returned to settle there. " I my selfe,"^ 
 he says, " dwelle in a poore little towne, and yet doe 
 remayne there willingly, least it should become 
 lesse. " ^ And in point of fact he seems henceforth 
 only to have left it for short excursions to various 
 parts of Greece. One of these exhibits him in a 
 characteristic and amiable light. Apparently soon 
 after his marriage a dispute had broken out between 
 the parents of the newly wedded pair, and Plutarch 
 in his conciliatory way took his wife, as we should 
 say, ' on a pilgrimage, ' to the shrine at Thespiae on 
 Mount Helicon to offer a sacrifice to Love.^ This 
 is in keeping with all the express utterances and all 
 Ine "uncdrrscious revelations he makes of his feeling 
 for the sacredness of the family tie. He was one of 
 those whose soul rings true to the claims of kith and 
 kin. He thanks Fortune as a chief favour for the 
 comradeship of his brother Timon, and delights to 
 show off the idiosyncrasies of his brother Lamprias. 
 We do not know when his marriage took place, but 
 if Plutarch acted on his avowed principles, it must 
 have been when he was still a young man, and it 
 was a very happy one. As we should expect ; for 
 of all the affections it is wedded love that he dwells 
 on most fully, and few have spoken more nobly and 
 sincerely of it than he. Again and again he gives 
 the point of view, which is often said to have been 
 attained by the Modern World only by the combined 
 assistance of Germanic character and Christian 
 religion. Thus he says of a virtuous attachment : 
 
 But looke what person soever love setleth upon in manage, 
 so as he be inspired once therewith, at the very first, like as 
 it is in Platoes Common-wealth, he will not have these wonisr' 
 in his mouth. Mine and Thine ; for simply all goods are nf 
 common among all friends, but only those who being sevc. _ 
 
 1 Life of Demosthenes. 2 Lgyg^ 
 
PLUTARCH 99 
 
 apart in body, conjoine and coUiquate as it 'were perforce 
 their soules together, neither willing nor believing that they 
 should be twaine but one : and afterward by true pudicitie 
 and reverence one unto the other, whereof wedlock hath 
 most need. . . In true love there is so much continency, 
 modesty, loyalty and faithfulnesse, that though otherwhile it 
 touche a wanton and lascivious minde, yet it diverteth it from 
 other lovers, and by cutting off all malapert boldnesse, by 
 taking downe and debasing insolent pride and untaught 
 stubornesse, it placeth in lieu thereof modest bashfulnesse, 
 silenpe, and taciturnity ; it adorneth it with decent gesture 
 and seemly countenance, making it for ever after obedient 
 to one lover onely. . . For like as at Rome, when there 
 was a Lord Dictatour once chosen, all other officers of state 
 and magistrates valed bonnet, were presently deposed, and 
 laied downe their ensignes of authority ; even so those over 
 whom love hath gotten the mastery and rule, incontinently are 
 quit freed and dehvered from all other lords and rulers, no 
 otherwise than such as are devoted to the service of some 
 religious place.^ 
 
 His wife bore him at least five children, of whom 
 three died in childhood, the eldest son, " the lovely 
 Chaeron," and then their little daughter, born after 
 her four brothers, and called by her mother's name, 
 Timoxena. The letter of comfort which Plutarch, 
 who was absent at Tanagra, sent home after the 
 death took place, is good to read. There is perhaps 
 here and there a touch that suggests the professional 
 moralist and rhetorician : as when he recounts a 
 fable of Aesop's to enforce his advice ; or bids his 
 wife not to dwell on her griefs rather than her 
 blessings, like " those Criticks who collect and gather 
 together all the lame and defective verses of Homer, 
 which are but few in number ; and in the meane time 
 passe over an infinite sort of others which were by 
 him most excellently made " ; or warns her to look 
 to her health because, if " the bodie be evill entreated 
 and not regarded with good diet and choice keeping, 
 it becometh dry, rough and hard, in such sort as 
 from it there breathe no sweet and comfortable 
 
 '^ Love. 
 
lOo INTRODUCTION 
 
 exhalations unto the soule, but all smoakie and 
 bitter vapors of dolour griefe and sadnesse annoy 
 her." These were the toll Plutarch paid to his age 
 and to his training. But the tender feeling for his 
 wife's grief, and the confidence in her dignified 
 endurance of it are very beautiful and human. And 
 his descriptions of the child's sweet nature, which he 
 does not leave general, but after his wont lights up 
 with special reminiscences, and which, he insists, they 
 must not lose from mind or turn to bitterness but 
 cherish as an abiding joy, strike the note that is still 
 perhaps most comforting to mourners. After telling 
 over her other winsome and gracious ways, he 
 recalls : 
 
 She was of a wonderfull kinde and gentle nature ; loving 
 she was againe to those that loved her, and marvellous 
 desirous to gratifie and pleasure others ; in which regards she 
 both delighted me and also yielded no small testimonie of 
 rare debonairetie that nature had endued her withall ; for she 
 would make pretie means ^ to her nourse, and seeme (as it 
 were) to intreat her to give the brest or pap, not only to other 
 infants but also to little babies ^ and puppets and such like 
 gauds as little ones take joy in and wherewith they use to 
 play; as if upon a singular courtesie and humanitie shee 
 could finde in her heart to communicate and distribute from 
 her owne table even the best things that shee had, among them 
 that did her any pleasure. But I see no reason (sweet wife) 
 why these lovely qualities and such like, wherein we took 
 contentment and joy in her life time, should disquiet and 
 trouble us now after her death, when we either think or make 
 relation of them : and I feare againe, lest by our dolour and 
 griefe, we abandon and put cleane away all the remembrance 
 thereof; like as Clymene desired to do when she said 
 
 " I hate the bow so light of cornel tree : 
 All exercise abroad, farewell for me," 
 
 as avoiding alwaies and trembling at the commemoration of 
 her Sonne which should do no other good but renew her 
 griefe and dolour; for naturally we seeke to flee all that 
 troubleth and offendeth us. We oughte therefore so to 
 demeane ourselves, that, as whiles she lived, we had nothing 
 
 I = Coax. 2 Dolls. 
 
PLUTARCH loi 
 
 JT.l'ilhr^f T'^ '"T^* *° ^™'''*'=^' """'^ pleasant to see or 
 Se ^^? .- J' K^'^ *''/!'• °"' daughter; so the cogitation of 
 her may still abide and live with us all our life time, having 
 by many degrees our joy multiplied more than our heaviness! 
 augmented.^ 
 
 And then there is the confident expectation of im- 
 mortahty to mitigate the present pang of severance. 
 
 But Plutarch and his wife had other consolations 
 as well. Two sons, Aristobulus and a younger 
 Plutarch, lived to be men, and to them he dedicated 
 a treatise on the Timaeus. We know that one of 
 them at least married and had a son in his father's 
 hfetime. Beyond his domestic circle Plutarch had a 
 large number of friends in Chaeronea and elsewhere, 
 mcludmg such distinguished names as Favorinus the 
 philosopher and Serapion the poet ; and being, in 
 Dr. Johnson's phrase, an eminently "clubbable man," 
 he was often host and guest at banquets, fragments of 
 the talk at which he has preserved in his Symposiacs. 
 Almost the only rigorous line in his portrait is con- 
 tributed by Aulus Gellius, his later contemporary, 
 and the friend of their common friend Favorinus.' 
 Gellius '- represents the philosopher Taurus as telling 
 about "Plutarchus noster"— a phrase that shows 
 the attachment men felt for him— a story of which 
 Dryden gives the following free and amplified but 
 very racy translation : 
 
 Plutarch had a certain slave, a saucy stubborn kind of 
 fellow; in a word one of these pragmatical servants who 
 never make a fault but they give a reason for it. His justifi- 
 cations one time would not serve his turn, but his master 
 commanded that he should be stripped and that the law 
 should be laid on his back. He no sooner felt the smart but 
 he muttered that he was unjustly punished, and that he had 
 done nothing to deserve the scourge. At last he began to 
 bawl out louder ; and' leaving off his groaning, his sighs, and 
 his lamentations, to argue the matter with mdre show of 
 reason : and, as under such a master he must needs have 
 gained a smattering of learning, he cried out that Plutarch 
 
 1 Epistle to Wife. 2 Nodes Aiticae, i. xxvi. 
 
I02 INTRODUCTION 
 
 was not the philosopher he pretended himself to be ; that 
 he had heard him waging war against all the passions, and 
 maintaining that anger was unbecoming a Vrise man; nay, 
 that he had written a particular treatise in commendation of 
 clemency ; that therefore he contradicted his precepts by his 
 practices, since, abandoning himself over to his choler, he 
 exercised such inhuman cruelty on the body of his fellow- 
 creature. " How is this, Mr. Varlet ? " (answered Plutarch). 
 "By what signs and tokens can you prove that I am in 
 passion ? Is it by my countenance, my voice, the colour of 
 my face, by my words or by my gestures that you have dis- 
 covered this my fury? I am not of opinion that my eyes 
 sparkle, that I foam at the mouth, that I gnash my teeth, or 
 that my voice is more vehement, or that my colour is either 
 more pale or more red than at other times; that I either 
 shake or stamp with madness; that I say or do anything 
 unbecoming a philosopher. These, if you know them not, 
 are the symptoms of a man in rage. In the meantime," 
 (turning to the officer who scourged him) "while he and I 
 dispute this matter, mind your business on his back." 
 
 This story, as we have seen, comes from one who 
 was in a position to get authentic information about 
 Plutarch, and it may very well be true ; but it should 
 be corrected, or at least supplemented, by his own 
 utterances in regard to his servants. " Sometimes," 
 he says, " I used to get angry with my slaves, but at 
 last I saw that it was better to spoil them by indul- 
 gence, than to injure myself by rage in the effort to 
 amend them." And more emphatically : 
 
 As for me I coulde never finde in my hart to sell my drawght 
 Oxe that hadde plowed my lande a longe time, because he 
 coulde plowe no longer for age ; and much lesse my slave to 
 sell him for a litle money, out of the contrie where he had 
 dwelt a long time, to plucke him from his olde trade of life 
 wherewith he was best acquainted, and then specially, when 
 he shalbe as unprofitable for the buyer as also for the seller.^ 
 
 Plutarch was thus fully alive to the social and 
 domestic amenities of life, and to his responsibilities 
 as householder, but he did not for them overlook 
 other claims. He became priest of Apollo in 
 Delphi, and for many years fulfilled the priesdy 
 
 ' Calo Major. 
 
PLUTARCH 103 
 
 functions, taking part in the sacrifices, processions 
 and dances even as an old man ; for philosopher as 
 he was, his very philosophy supplied him with various 
 contrivances for conformity with the ancient cult, 
 and he probably had no more difficulty about it 
 than a modern Hegelian has with the Thirty- nine 
 Articles. His deeper religious needs would be 
 satisfied by the Mysteries, in which he and his wife 
 were initiated. 
 
 He was equally assiduous in public duties, which 
 he did not despise for the pettiness to which under 
 the Roman domination they had shrunk. In his 
 view even the remnants of self-government are to 
 be jealously guarded and loyally employed, though 
 they may concern merely parochial and municipal 
 affairs, and for them vigilant training and discipline 
 are required. 
 
 Surely impossible it is that they should ever have their 
 part of any great roial and magnificall joy, such as indeed 
 causeth magnanimitie and hautinesse of courage, bringeth 
 glorious honour abroad or tranquillitie of spirit at home, who 
 have made choice of a close and private life within doors, 
 never showing themselves in the world nor medling with 
 publicke affaires of common weale ; a life, I say, sequestered 
 from all ofifices of humanitie. far removed from any instinct 
 of honour or desire to gratifie others, thereby to deserve 
 thankes or winne favour : for th,e soul, I may tell you, is no 
 • base and small thing ; it is not vile and illiberal, extending 
 her desires onely to that which is good to be eaten, as doe 
 these poulpes ^ or pour cuttle fishes which stretch their cleies 
 as far as to their meat and no .farther : for such appetites as 
 these are most quickly cut off with satietie and filled in a 
 moment. But when the motives and desires of the minde 
 tending to vertue and honestie, to honour and contentment 
 of conscience are once growen to their vigour and perfection, 
 they have not for their limit, the length and tearme onely of 
 one man's life; but surely the desire of honour and the 
 affection to profit the societie of men, comprehending all 
 aeternitie, striveth still to goe forward in such actions and 
 beneficiall deedes as yield infinite pleasures that cannot be 
 expressed.^ 
 
 ^ Polypes. ^ That a man cannot live pleasantly, etc. 
 
I04 INTRODUCTION 
 
 He was true to his principles. He not only 
 officiated as Archon of Chaeronea, but, "gracing 
 the lowliest act in doing it," was willing to discharge 
 the functions of a more subordinate post, which some 
 thought beneath his dignity. 
 
 Mine answer is to such as reprove me, when they find me 
 in proper person present, at the measuring and counting of 
 bricks and tiles, or to see the stones, sand and lime laid 
 downe, which is brought into the citie : " It is not for myselfe 
 that I builde, but for the citie and common-wealth." ^ 
 
 He was thus faithful over a few things ; tradition 
 made him ruler over many things. It is related that 
 Trajan granted him consular rank and directed the 
 governor of Achaia to avail himself of his advice. 
 This was embellished by the report that he had been 
 Trajan's preceptor ; and in the Middle Ages a letter 
 very magisterial in tone was fabricated from him to 
 his imperial pupil. It was even said that in his old 
 age Hadrian had made him governor of Greece. 
 
 There is a poetic justification for such legends. 
 The government of Trajan and Hadrian was felt to 
 be such that the precepts of philosophy might very 
 fittingly have inspired it, and that the philosopher 
 might very well have been the administrator of their 
 policy. And indeed it is perhaps no fable that 
 Plutarch had something to do with the better rkgiine 
 that was commencing ; for his nephew Sextus of 
 Chaeronea, who may have inherited something of 
 his uncle's spirit, was an honoured teacher of Marcus 
 Aurelius, and influenced his pupil by his example no 
 less than by his teaching. The social renovation 
 which was then in progress should be remembered 
 in estimating Plutarch's career. Gibbon says : "If 
 a man were called to fix the period in the History 
 of the World, during which the condition of the 
 human race was most happy and prosperous, he 
 would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed 
 
 ' Instructions for them, etc. 
 
PLUTARCH 105 
 
 from the death of Domitian to the accession of 
 Commodus." Probably this statement would need 
 to be, if not greatly qualified, at least greatly ampli- 
 fied, before it commanded universal assent, but, as it 
 stands, there is a truth in it which anyone can per- 
 ceive. There was peace throughout a great portion 
 of the world ; there was good government within 
 the Empire ; there was a rejuvenescence of antique 
 culture, literature, and conduct. Indeed, the upward 
 tendency begins with the reigns of Vespasian and 
 Titus, and even the thwarting influence of Domi- 
 tian's principate would be felt in Rome rather than ' 
 in the provinces. It was in this time of "reaction, 
 against corruption" that Plutarch flourished, and his^ 
 later life especially fell well within that Indian 
 summer of classical civilisation that Gibbon cele- 
 brates. The tradition that he survived till the 
 accession of Antonine may be incorrect, but he 
 certainly enjoyed eight years of Trajan's govern- 
 ment, and, by Eusebius' statement, was still alive 
 in the third year of Hadrian's reign. It is to his 
 latter days that his Lives as a whole are assigned, 
 partly on account of the casual reference to contem- 
 porary events that some of them contain. 
 
 Plutarch's character, circumstances, and career in 
 a world which was reaching its close, well fitted him 
 for the work that he did. This Greek citizen of the 
 Roman Empire had cultivated his mind by study 
 and travel, and had assimilated the wisdom of wide 
 experience and pregnant memories which Antiquity 
 had amassed in earlier times and to which this inter- 
 val of revival was heir. Benevolent and dutiful, 
 temperate and devout, with a deep sense of his 
 public obligations and the ethos of his race, he 
 sympathised with the best principles that had 
 moulded the life of olden days, and that were 
 emerging to direct the life of the present. And he 
 combined his amplitude of traditional lore and 
 
io6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 enthusiasm for traditional virtue in a way that made 
 him more than an antiquary or a moralist. The 
 explorer and practitioner of antique ideas, in a sense 
 he was their artist as well. 
 
 His treatment and style already suggest the mani- 
 fold influences that went to form his mind. One of 
 his charms lies in his quotations, which he culls, or 
 rather which spring up of their own accord, from 
 his reading of the most various authors of the most 
 different times. He is at home in Greek literature, 
 and likes to clinch his argument with a saying from 
 the poets, for he seems to find that their words put 
 his thought better than he could himself But this 
 affects his original expression. Dryden writes : 
 
 Being conversant in so great a variety of authors, and 
 collecting from all of them what he thought most excellent, 
 out of the confusion or rather mixture of their styles he 
 formed his own, which partaking of each was yet none of 
 them, but a compound of them all: — like the Corinthian 
 metal which had in it gold and brass and silver, and yet was 
 a species in itself. 
 
 There may be a suggestion of the curious mosaic- 
 worker in his procedure, something of artifice, or at 
 least of conscious art ; and indeed his treatises are 
 not free from a rhetorical and sometimes declamatory 
 strain.^ That in so far is what Courier means when 
 
 ' Even in the narrative passages one is conscious that the descrip- 
 tions have been worked up. Take, e.g. the following passage from 
 the Life of Marius : — • 
 
 'Eirel 81 TroXAovs tuiv 'A/i^prnvrnv ot 'Pcu/tuioi 8ia(j>6iipavr€i dve- 
 )(iopri(Tav oTTicru) koi (tkotos eniir'^ev, ov)(^ Sxnrep evTU^^/itoTt too"Out(j) 
 rhv (TTpaTov fSe^avTO Traiaves kiriviKioi koI ttotoi Kara crKJ/vas Km 
 <f>(,Xocj>poo-vyai irepl Btiirva, Kal, to iravTiav ^Suttov dvSpticTiv euTV\m 
 p,ep,axripfvoLi, mrvoi T/jrtos, d\X' iKuvrjv p,dki(rTa Trjv vvkto. ifto^tpav 
 Kal Tapa;(u)8jj Simayov. ''Hi/ p,(v yap auTOts dxo-pdKtarov to 
 arpaTo-ireSov Kal aTeiy^urrov, direXaTtovTO Se tZv ^ap^dptnv m 
 ■ifokXal fivpidSes ajjTTijTOt Kal ux)p,p.ip,iypivu>v totjtois, otroi SiaTTt- 
 <j>evyea-av, tSv 'A[Ji.^piovu)V oSvp/ioi ^v 8ia vdktos, ov KXavOfnoii 
 ovSi (rrevayp,ois dvdpilnrtav loiKloi, dXXa Orjpofuyrjs tis dipvyrj Kal 
 Ppv\rjp.a ne[iiyp,ivov avtiXat^ Kal Oprjvoii dvaTrep-iropevov Ik jtX^^ous 
 
PLUTARCH 107 
 
 he says that Plutarch writes in the style of a 
 sopkistes ; but it was inseparable from his composite 
 
 •TOfTOVTOv TO. Te TTC/oi^ opjj K<u TO. KotAa Tov TroTa[i.ov Trepieijiiava. 
 Kat Kanixi (fypiKoiSrji ^x°* ■"■" ""eSiov. 
 
 (XX. Dohner's Edition.) 
 Or take this from the Lt/e of Sulla : — 
 
 Ttji* fie Kpavyijv Kot dKakayftov ovk ea-reyev 6 d^p WviJiv to(tovt<ov 
 dfia KaOuTTa/ievtiiV eis rd^iv. 'Hv Se afia kol to KO/arQSa koi 
 (To^apov avriov rrjs TroX.VTeX.aai ovk dpyhv ovSe a,\prja-Tov ets «k- 
 TAij^tv, aXX.' ai re pAipfiapvyal rmv ottAcov rjo-Kruikviov )^pv(r$ re 
 Kol dpyvpif SiwirpeirZs o? re /8a(^a( rav Mrj&iKiav Kai ^kvOikSv 
 XtTiaviav dvap.ep.iyfievai ^u^k^ koI (rifi^pip Xd/iTrovri TrvpoeiSrj Kal 
 Kfrnfiepav ev r<f a-akevecrdai, Kal Sia<j>epe<j-6at Trpoa-e/SaXXov 6\j/iv, &TTe 
 Tovs 'Pw/iatoDS VTrh rhv )(dpaKa crva-TeX.X.eiv eavrovs koI rbv "SvXXav 
 p,r]8evi X6y<f rh ddfifios avroiv d<^cA.£(|/ Svvd[ievov /Sid^ea-dai re 
 airoSiSpdfTKOvras ov PovX.6fji,evov ■^trvy^iav dyeiv /cat <l>epeiv Papeuis 
 e<t>v^pl^ovrai opiovra KOfxiraa-fii^ kol yektori rovs /Sap^dpovi. 
 
 (XVI. Dohner's Edition.) 
 
 This is very different from the unstudied charm of Herodotus. 
 Even in North's translation, though something of the cunning has 
 been lost in the selection and manipulation of the words, it is easy to 
 see that the pictures are elaborate both in their general effect and 
 their details. 
 
 " Now the Romaines, after they had overcome the most parte of the 
 Ambrons, retyring backe by reason the night had overtaken them, did 
 not (as they were wont after they had geven such an overthrow) sing 
 songes of victory and triumphe, nor make good chere in their tentes 
 one with an other, and least of all sleepe : (which is the best and 
 sweetest refreshing for men that have fought happely), but contrarily 
 they watched all that night with great feare and trouble, bicause their 
 campe was not trenched and fortified, and bicause they knewe also 
 that there remained almost innumerable thowsandes of barbarous 
 people, that had not yet fought : besides also that the Ambrons that 
 had fled and scaped from the overthrow, did howle out all night with 
 lowd cries, which were nothing like men's lamentacions and sighes, 
 but rather like wild beastes bellowing and roaringe. So that the 
 bellowinge of such a great multitude of beastly people, mingled 
 together with threates and waylinges, made the mountains there- 
 abouts and the running river to rebounde againe of the sounde and 
 ecco of their cries marvellously : by reason whereof, all the valley 
 that lay bet\yeen both, thundered to heare the horrible and fearfull 
 trembling." 
 
 " The ayer was even cut a sunder as it were with the violence of the 
 noyse and cries of so many sundry nations, which altogether did put 
 them selves in battell ray. The sumptuousness of their furniture 
 moreover, was not altogether superfluous and unprofitable, but served 
 greatly to feare the beholders. For the glistering of their harnesse, 
 
io8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 culture and academic training, and it does not inter- 
 fere with his sincerity and directness. 
 
 His philosophy makes a similar impression. He 
 is an eclectic or syncretist, and has learned from 
 many of the mighty teachers of bygone times. 
 Plato is his chief authority, but Plato's doctrines are 
 consciously modified in an Aristotelian sense, while 
 nevertheless those aspects of them are made promi- 
 nent which were afterwards elaborated by Neo- 
 Platonism strictly so called. But Plutarch, though 
 he has the good word of Neo-Platonic thinkers, is 
 not himself to be reckoned of their company. He 
 is comparatively untouched by their mysticism, 
 borrowed freely from the Theosophy of the East, 
 and he stands in closer lineal relation to the antique 
 Greek spirit than some, like Philo, who precede him 
 in time. He was so indifferent to the Semitic 
 habit of mind that, despite his almost omnivorous 
 curiosity, he never thought it worth while to instruct 
 himself in the exact nature of Judaism or its differ- 
 ence from the Syrian cult, far less to spend on 
 Christianity so much as a passing glance. He 
 approaches Neo-Platonism most nearly in certain 
 religious imaginings which, as he himself recognised, 
 have affinity with beliefs which prevailed in Persia 
 and Egypt ; but even so, he hardly ceases to be 
 national, for these were the two countries with 
 which in days of yore Greece had the most impor- 
 tant historic connections. And moreover, his interest 
 
 so richly trimmed and set forth with gold and silver, the cullers of 
 their arming coates upon their curaces, after the facion of the Medes 
 and Scythians, mingled with the bright glistering Steele and shining 
 copper, gave such a showe as they went and removed to- and fro, that 
 made a light as clere as if all had bene on a very fire, a fearfuU thing 
 to looke upon. In so much as the Romaines durst not so much as 
 once goe out of the trenches of their campe, nor Sylla with all his per- 
 swasion coulde take away this great conceived feare from them : 
 wherefore, (and bicause also he would not compell them to goe forth 
 in this feare) he was driven not to stirre, but close to abide, (though 
 it grieved him greatly) to see the barbarous, people so proudly and 
 villanously laugh him and his men to scorne." 
 
PLUTARCH 109 
 
 in such surmises is not, in the first place, a specula- 
 tive one, but springs from the hope of his finding 
 some explanation of and comfort for the trials and 
 difficulties of actual life. For on the whole he differs 
 from Plato chiefly in his subordination of theory to 
 practice. This compels him to accept loans from 
 the very schools that he most criticises, the Stoics, 
 the Sceptics, the Epicureans themselves. It is his 
 pre-occupation with conduct, rather than eclectic 
 debility, that makes him averse to any one-sided 
 scheme, and inclined to supplement it with manifold 
 additions. But as in his style, so in his thought, 
 he blends the heterogeneous elements to his own 
 purpose, and fixes on them the stamp of his own 
 mind. It is not without reason that his various 
 treatises are included under the common title of 
 Moralia. He may dilate on the worship oi Isis and 
 Osiris, or The Face appearing within the Roundle 
 of the Moone ; he may discuss Whether creatures be 
 more wise, they of the land or those of the water ; 
 What signifieth this word Ei engraven over the Dove 
 of Appolloes Temple in the City of Delphi, and 
 various other recondite matters ; but the prevailing 
 impression is ethical, and he is at his best when he 
 is discoursing expressly on sOrae moral theme, on 
 Unseemly and Naughty Bashfulnesse, or Brotherly 
 Love, or Tranquillitie and Contentment of Mind, or 
 the Pluralilie of Friends, or the question Whether 
 this common Mot be well said ^ Live Hidden J 
 There is the background of serious study and philo- 
 sophic knowledge, but against it is detached the 
 figure of the sagacious and practical teacher, who 
 wishes to make his readers better men and better 
 women, but never forgets his urbanity and culture 
 in his admonitions, and drives them home with 
 pointed anecdote and apt quotation. And the sub- 
 stance of his teaching, though so sane and experi- 
 mental that it is sometimes described as obvious 
 
no INTRODUCTION 
 
 and trite, has a generous, ideal, and even chivalrous 
 strain, when he touches on such subjects as love, or 
 devotion, or the claims of virtue ; and his sympathy 
 goes out spontaneously to noble words or deeds or 
 minds. 
 
 It is an easy step from the famous Moralia to the 
 still more famous Parallel Lives. "All history," 
 says Dryden, in reference to the latter, "is only the 
 precepts of moral philosophy reduced into examples." 
 This, at least, is no bad description of Plutarch's 
 point of view ; and his methods do not greatly differ 
 in the series of essays and in the series of biographies. 
 In the essays he did not let himself be unduly ham- 
 pered by the etiquette of the Moral Treatise, but 
 expatiated at will among Collections and Recollec- 
 tions, and embroidered his abstract argument with 
 the stories that he delights to tell. As historian, on 
 the other hand, he is not tied down to historical 
 narration and exposition, but indulges his moralising 
 bent to the full. He is on the lookout for edifica- 
 tion, and is seldom at a loss for a peg to hang a 
 lecture on. And these discourses of his, though the 
 material is sometimes the sober drab of the decent 
 bourgeois, are always fine in texture, and relieved by 
 the quaintness of the cut and the ingenuity of the 
 garnishing : nor are they the less interesting that 
 they do not belong to the regulation historical outfit. 
 Such improving digressions, indeed, are among 
 Plutarch's charms. " I am always pleased," says 
 Dryden, "when I see him and his imitator Mon- 
 taigne when they strike a litde out of the common 
 road ; for we are sure to be the better for their 
 wandering. The best quarry does not always lie 
 on the open field, and who would not be content to 
 follow a good huntsman over hedges and ditches, 
 when he knows the game will reward his pains ? " ^ 
 
 ' There are so many good things, despite all the inevitable mistakes, 
 in Dryden's Life of Plutarch, that one half regrets that Professor Ker's 
 
PLUTARCH 
 
 II I 
 
 Proceeding in this way it is not to be expected 
 that Plutarch should compose his Lives with much 
 care for dexterous design. Just as in his philosophy 
 he has no rigidly consequent system of doctrine, so 
 in his biographies he has no orderly or well-digested 
 plan. The excellences that arise from a definite and 
 vigorous conception of the whole are not those at 
 which he aims. He would proceed very much at 
 haphazard, were it not for the chronological clue ; 
 which, for the rest, he is very willing to abandon if 
 a tempting by-path presents itself, or if he thinks 
 of something for which he must retrace his steps. 
 Yet, no more than in his metaphysics is he without 
 an instinctive method of his own. The house is 
 finished, and with all its irregularities it is good to 
 dwell in ; the journey is ended, and there has been 
 no monotony on the devious track. There is this 
 advantage indeed in his procedure over that of more 
 systematic biographers, that it offers hospitality to 
 all the suggestions that crowd for admission. None 
 is rejected because it is out of place and insignificant. 
 Gossip and allotria of every kind that do not make 
 out their claims at first sight, and that the more 
 ambitious historian would exclude as trivial, find an 
 entry if they can show a far-off connection with the 
 subject. And, lo and behold, they often turn out to 
 be the most instructive of all. 
 
 But Plutarch welcomes them without scrutinising 
 them very austerely. He submits their credentials 
 to no stringent test. He is no severe critic of their 
 authenticity. He takes them where he finds them, 
 just as he picks up philosophic ideas from all 
 quarters, even from the detested Epicureans, without 
 
 plan did not allow him to include at least part of it in his admirable 
 selection. Thus, in excuse for omitting the catalogue of Plutarch's 
 lost works, which had been given in full in the Paris edition : " But it 
 is a small comfort to the merchant to peruse his bill, of freight when 
 he is certain his ship is cast away ; moved by the like reason, I have 
 omitted that ungrateful task." 
 
112 INTRODUCTION 
 
 condemning them on account of their suspicious 
 source : it is enough for him if they adapt themselves 
 to his use. Nor does he educe from them all that 
 they involve. He does not even confront them with 
 each other, to examine whether opposite hints about 
 his heroes may not lead to fuller and subtler concep- 
 tions of them. This is the point of the charge 
 brought against him by St. fivremond, that he 
 might have carried his analysis further and pene- 
 trated more deeply into human nature. St. fivremond 
 notes how different a man is from himself, the same 
 person being just and unjust, merciful and cruel ; 
 "which qualities," proceeds the critic, "seeming to 
 belie each other in him, [Plutarch] attributes these 
 inconsistencies to foreign causes. He could never 
 . . . reconcile contrarieties in the same subject." 
 He never tried to do so. He collects a number of 
 vivid traits, which, like a number of minute lines, set 
 forth the likeness to his own mind, but he is ordinarily 
 as far from interrogating and combining his impres- 
 sions as he is from subjecting them to any punctilious 
 test. He exhibits characters in the particular aspects 
 and manifestations which history or hearsay has 
 presented, and is content with the general sense 
 of verisimilitude that these successive indications, 
 credited or accredited, have left behind. But he 
 stops there, and does not study his manifold data 
 to construct from them a consistent complex individ- 
 uality in its oneness and difference. And if this is 
 true of him as biographer, it is still truer of him as 
 historian. He touches on all sorts of historical sub- 
 jects — war, policy, administration, government ; and 
 he has abundance of acute and just remarks on them 
 all. But it is not in these that his chief interest lies, 
 and it is not over them that he holds his torch. This 
 does not mean that he fails to perceive the main drift 
 of things or to appreciate the importance of state- 
 craft. Mr. Wyndham, defending him against those 
 
PLUTARCH 113 
 
 who have "denied him any political insight," very 
 justly shows that, despite " the paucity of his political 
 pronouncements," he has a "political bent." His 
 choice of heroes, in the final arrangement to which 
 they lent themselves, proves that he has an eye for 
 the general course of Greek and Roman history, for 
 the impotence into which the city state is sunk by 
 rivalry with neighbours in the one case, for its trans- 
 mutation into an Empire on the other: "The tragedy 
 of Athens, the drama of Rome," says Mr. Wyndham, 
 " these are the historic poles of the Parallel Lives." 
 And Plutarch has a political ideal : the " need of 
 authority and the obligation of the few to maintain 
 it — by a ' natural grace ' springing on the one hand 
 from courage combined with forbearance, and lead- 
 ing, on the other, to harmony between the rulers 
 and the ruled — is the text, which, given out in the 
 Lycurgus, is illustrated throughout the Parallel 
 Lives." So much indeed we had a right to expect 
 from the thoughtful patriot and experienced magis- 
 trate of Chaeronea. The salient outlines of the story 
 of Greece and Rome could hardly remain hidden 
 from a clear-sighted man with Plutarch's knowledge 
 of the past : the relations of governor and governed 
 had not only engaged him practically, but had 
 suggested to him one of his most pithy essays, Prae- 
 cepta gerendae Reipublicae, a title which Philemon 
 Holland paraphrases in stricter accordance with the 
 contents, Instructions for them that manage Affaires 
 of State. But this does not carry us very far. 
 Shakespeare in his English Histories shows at least 
 as much political discernment and political instinct. 
 He brings out the general lesson of the wars of 
 Lancaster and York, and in Henry V. gives his con- 
 ception of the ideal ruler. But no one would say 
 that this series shows a conspicuous genius for 
 political research or political history. The same 
 thing is true, and in a greater degree, of Plutarch. 
 
114 INTRODUCTION 
 
 He is public-spirited, but he is not a publicist. He 
 has not much concern or understanding for particular 
 measures and movements and problems, however 
 critical they may be. It is impossible to challenge 
 the justice of Archbishop Trench's verdict, either in 
 its general scope or in its particular instances, when 
 he says : 
 
 One who already knows the times of Marius and Sulla will 
 obtain a vast amount of instruction from his several Lives of 
 these, will clothe with flesh and blood what would else, in 
 some parts, have been the mere skeleton of a story; but I am 
 bold to say no one would understand those times from him. 
 The suppression of the Catilinarian Conspiracy was the most 
 notable event in the life of Cicero ; but one rises from 
 Plutarch's Life with only the faintest impression of what that 
 conspiracy, a sort of anticipation of the French Commune, 
 and having objects social rather than political, meant. Or 
 take his Lives of the Gracchi. Admirable in many respects 
 as these are, greatly as we are debtors to him here for impor- 
 tant facts, whereof otherwise we should have been totally 
 ignorant, few, I think, would affirm that he at all plants them 
 in a position for understanding that vast revolution effected, 
 with the still vaster revolution attempted by them, and for 
 ever connected with their names. 
 
 In Plutarch the historian, as well as the biogra- 
 pher, is subordinate to the ethical teacher who wishes 
 to enforce lessons that may be useful to men in the 
 management of their lives. He gathers his material 
 for its "fine moral effects," not for "purposes of 
 research." ' 
 
 Plutarch, then, had already composed many dis- 
 quisitions to commend his humane and righteous 
 
 ' De Quincey says : " Nor do I believe Wordsworth would much 
 have lamented on his own account if all books had perished, except 
 the entire body of English poetry and Plutarch's Lives. ... I do not 
 mean to insinuate that Wordsworth was at all in the dark about the 
 inaccuracy or want of authentic weight attaching to Plutarch as 
 historian, but his business with Plutarch was not for purposes of 
 research ; he was satisfied with his fine moral effects" So too one of 
 Plutarch's latest editors, Mr. Holden, says in a similar sense: "Plutarch 
 has no idea of historic criticism. ... He thought far less of finding 
 out and relating what actually occurred than of edifying his readers 
 and promoting virtue." 
 
PLUTARCH 115 
 
 ideas, and it was partly in the same didactic spirit 
 that he seems to have written his Parallel Lives. At 
 the beginning of the Life of Pericles he says : 
 
 Vertue is of this power, that she allureth a mans minde 
 presently to use her, and maketh him very desirous in his 
 harte to foUowe her : and doth not frame his manners that 
 beholdeth her by any imitation but by the only understanding 
 and knowledge of vertuous deedes, which sodainely bringeth 
 unto him a resolute desire to doe the like. And this is the 
 reason why methought I should continew still to write on the 
 lives of. noble men. 
 
 And similar statements occur again and again. 
 They clearly show the aim that he consciously had 
 in view. The new generation was to be admonished 
 and renovated by the examples of the leading spirits 
 who had flourished in former times. And since he 
 was addressing the whole civilised world, he took 
 his examples both from Roman and from Grecian 
 History, and arranged his persons in pairs, each pair 
 supplying the matter for one book. Thus he couples 
 Theseus and Romulus, Alcibiades and Coriolanusj 
 Alexander and Caesar, Dion and Brutus, Demetrius 
 and Antony. Such parallelism is a little far-fetched, 
 and though some of the detailed comparisons with 
 which it is justified, are not from Plutarch's hand, 
 and belong to a later time, it of itself betrays a 
 certain fondness for symmetry and antithesis, a lean- 
 ing towards artifice and rhetoric which, as we have 
 seen, the author owed to his environment. He 
 wishes in an eloquent way to inculcate his lessons, 
 and is perhaps, for the same reason, somewhat prone 
 to exaggerate the greatness of the past, and show it 
 in an idealised light. But this is by no means the 
 pose of the histrionic revivalist. It corresponds to 
 an authentic sentiment in his own nature, which 
 loved to linger amid the glooms and glories of 
 tradition, and pay vows at the shrine of the Great 
 Departed. " The cradle of war and statecraft," says 
 Mr. Wyndham, "was become a memory dear to him. 
 
ii6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 and ever evolved by his personal contact with the 
 triumphs of Rome. From this contrast flowed his 
 inspiration for the Parallel Lives — his desire as a 
 man to draw the noble Grecians, long since dead, 
 a little nearer to the noonday of the living ; his 
 delight as an artist in setting the noble Romans, 
 whose names were in every mouth, a little further 
 into the twilight of more ancient Romance." 
 
 But this transfiguration of the recent and resur- 
 rection of the remoter past, in which Mr. Wyndham 
 rightly sees something "romantic," does not lay 
 Plutarch open to the charge of vagueness or unreality. 
 He was saved from such vices by his interest in 
 human nature and suggestive ana and picturesque 
 incidents on the one hand, and by his deference for 
 political history and civil society on the other. 
 
 He loved marked individualities : no two of his 
 heroes are alike, and each, though in a varying 
 degree, has an unmistakable physiognomy of his own. 
 There is no sameness in his gallery of biographies, 
 and even the legends of demigods yield figures of 
 firm outline that resist the touch. This is largely 
 due to his joy in details, and the imperious demand 
 his imagination makes for them. In his Life of 
 Alexander he uses words which very truly describe 
 his own method, words which BoswelP was after- 
 wards to quote in justification of his own similar 
 procedure. 
 
 The noblest deedes doe not alwayes shew men's vertues 
 and vices, but often times a light occasion, a word, or some 
 sporte, makes men's natural dispositions and manners appear 
 more plaine, then the famous battells wonne wherein are 
 slaine tenne thousande men, or the great armies, or cities 
 wonne by siege or assault. For like as painters or drawers 
 of pictures, which make no accompt of other parts of the 
 bodie, do take the resemblaunces of the face and favor of 
 the countenance, in the which consisteth the judgement of 
 their maners and disposition ; even so they must give us 
 
 '^Johnsoti's Life, ed. B. Hill, i. 31. 
 
PLUTARCH 117 
 
 leave to seeke out the signes and tokens of the minde only, 
 and thereby shewe the life of either of them, referring you 
 unto others to wryte the warres, battells and other great 
 thinges they did.^ 
 
 So he likes to give the familiar traits and emphasise 
 the suggestive nothings that best discover character. 
 But his purpose is almost always to discover charac- 
 ter, and, so far as his principal persons are concerned, 
 to discover great character. Though so assiduous 
 in sharking up their mannerisms, foibles, and oddities, 
 their tricks of gait or speech or costume, he is not 
 like the Man with the Muck Rake, and is not piling 
 together the rubbish of tittle-tattle just because 
 he has a soul for nothing higher. Still less does he 
 take the valet's view of the hero, and hold that he 
 is no hero at all because he can be seen in undress 
 or in relations that show his common human nature. 
 Reverence for greatness is the point from which he 
 starts, reverence for greatness is the star that guides 
 his course, and his reverence is so entire, that on 
 the one hand he welcomes all that will help him to 
 restore the great one in his speech and habit as he 
 lived, and on the other, he assumes that the great- 
 ness must pervade the whole life, and that flashes 
 of glory will be refracted from the daily talk and 
 walk. Like Carlyle, though in a more nmf and 
 simple way, he is a hero- worshipper ; like Carlyle 
 he believes that the hero will not lose but gain by 
 the record of his minutest traits, and that these will 
 only throw new light on his essential heroism. In 
 the object he proposed to himself he has succeeded 
 well. " Plutarch," says Rousseau, almost reproduc- 
 ing the biographer's own words, "has inimitable 
 dexterity in painting great men in little things, and 
 he is so happy in his selection, that often a phrase, 
 a smile, a gesture suffices him to set forth a hero. 
 That is the true art of portraiture. The physiognomy 
 
 '^ Life of Alexander. 
 
ii8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 does not display itself in the main lines, nor the 
 characters in great actions ; it is in trifles that the 
 temperament discloses itself." An interesting testi- 
 mony ; for Rousseau, when he sets up as character- 
 painter, belongs to a very different school. 
 
 It is not otherwise with his narratives of actions 
 or his descriptions of scenes, if action or scene really 
 interest him ; and there is little of intrinsic value, 
 comic or tragic, vivacious or stately, familiar or 
 weird, that does not interest him. Under his quick 
 successive strokes, some of them so light that at 
 first they evade notice, some of them so simple that 
 at first they seem commonplace, the situation becomes 
 visible and luminous. He knows how to choose the 
 accessories and what to do with them. When our 
 attention is awakened, we ask ourselves how he has 
 produced the effect by means apparently so insigni- 
 ficant ; and we cannot answer. Here he may have 
 selected a hint from his authorities, there he may 
 derive another from the mental vision he himself 
 has evoked, but in either case the result is equally 
 wonderful. Whether from his tact in reporting or 
 his energy in imagining, he contrives to make us 
 view the occurrence as a fact, and a fact that is like 
 itself and like nothing else. 
 
 But again Plutarch was saved from wanton and 
 empty phantasms by his political bias. He was not 
 a politician or a statesman or an historian of politics 
 or institutions, but he was a citizen with a citizen's 
 respect for the State. " For himself," to quote Mr. 
 Wyndham once more, "he was painting individual 
 character, and he sought it among men bearing a 
 personal stamp. But he never sought it in a private 
 person, or a comedian, nor even in a poet or a master 
 of the Fine Arts." He confines himself to public 
 men, as we should call them, and never fails to 
 recollect that they played their part on the public 
 stage. And this not only gave a robustness of 
 
PLUTARCH 119 
 
 touch and breadth of stroke to his delineations ; the 
 connection with well-known and certified events 
 preserved him from the worst licenses to which the 
 romantic and rhetorical temper is liable. Courier, 
 indeed, says of him that he was " capable of making 
 Pompey win the battle of Pharsalia, if it would have 
 rounded his sentence ever so little." But though 
 he may be credulous of details and manipulate his 
 copy, and with a light heart make one statement at 
 one time and a different one at another, the sort of 
 liberty Courier attributes to him is precisely the one 
 he does not take. Facts are stubborn things, and 
 the great outstanding facts he is careful to observe : 
 they bring a good deal else in their train. 
 
 AMYOT 1 
 
 A book like the Parallel Lives was bound to 
 achieve a great popularity at the Renaissance. That 
 it was full of instruction and served for warning and 
 example commended it to a generation that was but 
 too inclined to prize the didactic in literature. Its 
 long list of worthies included not a few of the names 
 that were being held up as the greatest in human 
 history, and these celebrities were exhibited not aloft 
 on their official pedestals, but, however impressive 
 and imposing the mise en scene might be, as men 
 among men in the private and personal passages 
 of their lives. And yet they were not private per- 
 sons but historical magnates, the founders or leaders 
 of world-renowed states : and as such they were 
 particularly congenial to an age in which many of 
 the best minds — More and Buchanan, L'Hopital 
 
 ' See De Bligni&res' Essai sur Amyot, and Amyot's translations 
 /aj«V«,'with the prefatory epistles. 
 
I20 INTRODUCTION 
 
 and La Boetie, Brand and Hutten — were awakening 
 to the antique idea of civic and political manhood, 
 and finding few unalloyed examples of it in the 
 feudalised West. It was not enough that Plutarch 
 was made more accessible in the Latin form. He 
 deserved a vernacular dress, and after various 
 tentative experiments this was first satisfactorily, 
 in truth, admirably, supplied by Bishop Amyot in 
 France. 
 
 Jacques Amyot was born in October, 15 13, in 
 Melun, the little town on the Seine, some thirty miles 
 to the south-east of Paris. His parents were very 
 poor, but at any rate from his earliest ^years he was 
 within the sweep of the dialect of the lie de France, 
 and had no patois to unlearn when he afterwards 
 appeared as a literary man. Perhaps to this is due 
 some of the purity and correctness which the most 
 fastidious were afterwards to celebrate in his style. 
 These influences would be confirmed when as a lad 
 he proceeded to Paris to pursue his studies. His 
 instructors in Greek were — first, Evagrius, in the 
 college of Cardinal Lemoine, and afterwards, Thusan 
 and Danes, who, at the instance of Budaeus, had 
 just been appointed lecteurs royaux in Ancient 
 Philosophy and Literature. Stories are told of the 
 privations that he endured in the pursuit of scholar- 
 ship, how his mother sent him every week a loaf by 
 the watermen of the Seine, how he read his books 
 by the light of the fire, and the like ; but similar 
 circumstances are related of others, and, to quote 
 Sainte Beuve, are in some sort "the legend of the 
 heroic age of erudition." It is better authenticated 
 that he supported himself by becoming the domestic 
 attendant of richer students till he graduated as 
 Master of Arts at the age of nineteen. Then his 
 position began to improve. He became tutor in 
 important households, to the nephews of the Royal 
 Reader, and to the children of the Royal Secretary. 
 
AMYOT 121 
 
 Through such patrons his ability and knowledge 
 were made known to the King's sister, Marguerite 
 de Valois, the beneficent patroness of literature and 
 learning. He had proceeded to Bourges, it is said, 
 to study law, but by her influence was appointed to 
 discharge the more congenial functions of Reader 
 in the Greek and Latin Languages, and was soon 
 promoted to the full professorship. The University 
 of Bourges was at the time the youngest in France 
 save that of Bordeaux, having been founded less 
 than three-quarters of a century before in 1463, when 
 the Renaissance was advancing from conquest to 
 conquest in Italy, and when Medievalism was mori- 
 bund even in France. The new institution would 
 have few traditions to oppose to the new spirit, and 
 there was scope for a missionary of the New Learn- 
 ing. For some ten or twelve years Amyot remained 
 in his post, lecturing two hours daily, in the morning 
 on Latin, in the afternoon on Greek. No doubt 
 such instruction would be elementary in a way ; but 
 even so, it was a laborious life, for in those days 
 the classical teacher had few of the facilities that 
 his modern colleague enjoys. It was, however, a 
 good preparation for Amyot's peculiar mission, and 
 he even found time to make his first experiments in 
 the sphere that was to be his own. By 1546 he 
 had completed a translation of the Aethiopica of 
 Heliodorus, the famous Greek romance that deals 
 with the loves and adventures of Theagenes and 
 Chariclea. Amyot afterwards, on the authority of a 
 manuscript which he discovered in the Vatican, 
 identified the author with a Bishop of Tricca who 
 lived in the end of the fourth century, and of whom 
 a late tradition asserted that when commanded by 
 the provincial synod either tp burn his youthful 
 effusion or resign his bishopric, he chose the latter 
 alternative. " Heliodorus," says Montaigne, when 
 discussing parental love, "ayma mieulx perdre la 
 
122 INTRODUCTION 
 
 dignity, le proufit, la devotion d'une prelature si 
 venerable, que de perdre sa fille, fiUe qui dure 
 encores bien gentille, mais k I'aventure pourtant un 
 peu curieusement et mollement goderonnee pour fille 
 ecclesiastique et sacerdotale, et de trop amoureuse 
 fagon." ^ In the case of the young French professor 
 it had happier and opposite consequences, for it pro- 
 cured him from the king the Abbey of Bellozane. 
 This gift, one of the last that Francis bestowed for 
 the encouragement of letters, was partly earned, too, 
 by a version of some of Plutarch's Lives, which 
 Amyot presented to his royal patron and had 
 executed at his command. 
 
 With an income secured Amyot was now in a 
 position to free himself from the drudgery of class 
 work, and follow his natural bent. In those days 
 not all the printed editions of the classics were very 
 satisfactory, and some works of the authors in whom 
 he was most interested still existed only in manu- 
 script or were known only by name. He set out 
 for Italy in the hope of discovering the missing 
 Lives of Plutarch and of obtaining better texts than 
 had hitherto been within his reach, and seems to 
 have remained abroad for some years. For a 
 moment he becomes a conspicuous figure in an 
 uncongenial scene. In May, 1551, the Council of 
 Trent had been reopened, but Charles delayed the 
 transaction of business till the following September. 
 The Italian prelates, impatient and indignant, were 
 hoping for French help against the emperor, but 
 instead of the French Bishops there came only a 
 letter from the " French King addressed to ' the 
 Convention ' which he would not dignify with the 
 name of a council. The King said he had not been 
 consulted about their meeting. He regarded them 
 as a private synod got up for their own purposes by 
 the Pope and the Emperor and he would have 
 
 ' II. viii., De raffection des pires aux enfants. 
 
AMYOT 123 
 
 nothing to do with them.''^ It was Amyot who 
 was commissioned with the delivery and communi- 
 cation of the ungracious message. Probably the 
 selection of the simple Abb^ was intended less as 
 an honour to him than as an insult to the assemblage. 
 At any rate it was no very important part that he 
 had to play, but it was one which made him very 
 uncomfortable. He writes : " Je filois le plus doux 
 que je pouvois, me sentant si mal et assez pour me 
 faire mettre en prison, si j'eusse un peu trop avant 
 parle." He was not even named in the letter, and 
 had not so much as seen it before he was called to 
 read it aloud, so that he complains he never saw a 
 matter so badly managed, "si mal cousu," but he 
 delivered the contents with emphasis and elocution. 
 " Je croy qu'il n'y eust personne en toute la com- 
 pagnie qui en perdist un seul mot, s'il n'estoit bien 
 sourd, de sorte que si ma commission ne gisoit qu'a 
 presenter les lettres du roy, et k faire lecture de la 
 proposition, je pense y avoir amplement satisfait." 
 
 But his real interests lay elsewhere, and he 
 brought back from Italy what would indemnify him 
 for his troubles as envoy and please him more than 
 the honour of such a charge. In his researches he 
 had made some veritable finds, among them a new 
 manuscript of Heliodorus, and Books xi. to xvii. 
 of Diodorus Siculus' Bibliotheca Historica, only the 
 two last of which had hitherto been known at all. 
 His treatment of this discovery is characteristic,^ 
 both of his classical enthusiasm and his limitations 
 as a classical scholar. He did not, as the specialist 
 of that and perhaps of any age would have done, 
 edit and publish the original text, but contented 
 himself with giving to the world a French transla- 
 tion. But the Historic Library has neither the 
 
 1 Froude, Council of Trent, chap. xii. 
 
 2 See M. de Job's remarks in Petit de Julleville's Littirature 
 Franqaise. 
 
124 INTRODUCTION 
 
 allurement of a Greek romance nor the edification 
 of Plutarch's Lives ; and in this version, which for 
 the rest is said to be poor, Amyot for once appealed 
 to the popular interest in vain. 
 
 The Diodorus Siculus appeared in 1554, and in 
 the same year Henry II. appointed Amyot pre- 
 ceptor to his two sons, the Dukes of Orleans and 
 Anjou, who afterwards became respectively Charles 
 IX. and Henry III. As his pupils were very 
 young their tuition cannot have occupied a great 
 deal of his time, and he was able to pursue his 
 activity as translator. In 1559, besides a revised 
 edition of Theagenes and Chariclea, there appeared 
 anonymously a rendering, probably made at an 
 earlier date, of the Dapknis and Chloe, a romance 
 even more " curieusement et mollement goderonnee 
 pour fille ecclesiastique et sacerdotale " than its 
 companion. But it is with his own name and a 
 dedication to the King that Amyot published almost 
 at the same date his greatest work, the complete 
 translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives. If his 
 Heliodorus gave him his first step on the ladder of 
 church preferment, his Plutarch was a stronger 
 claim to higher promotion. Henry II., indeed, died 
 before the end of the year, but the accession of 
 Amyot's elder pupil in 1560, after the short inter- 
 calary reign of Francis II., was propitious to his 
 fortunes, for the new king, besides bestowing on him 
 other substantial favours, almost immediately named 
 him Grand Almoner of France. 
 
 Amyot was an indefatigable but deliberate worker. 
 Fifteen years had elapsed between his first appear- 
 ance as translator and the issue of his masterpiece. 
 Thirteen more were to elapse before he had new 
 material ready for the press. The interval in both 
 cases was filled up with preparation, with learned 
 labour, with the leisurely prosecution of his plan. 
 A revised edition of the Lives appeared in 1565 and 
 
AMYOT 125 
 
 a third in 1 567, and all the time he was pushing on 
 a version of Plutarch's Moralia. Meanwhile in 
 1570 Charles gave him the bishopric of Auxerre ; 
 and without being required to disown the two 
 literary daughters of his vivacious prime, "somewhat 
 curiously and voluptuously frounced and of too 
 amorous fashion " though they might be, he had yet 
 to devote himself rather more seriously to his pro- 
 fession than he hitherto seems to have done. He 
 set about it in his usual steady circumspect way. 
 He composed sermons, first, it is said, writing them 
 in Latin and then turning them into French ; he 
 attended faithfully to the administration of his 
 diocese ; he applied himself to the study of theo- 
 logical doctrine, and is said to have learned the 
 Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas by heart. ^ These 
 occupations have left their trace on his next work, 
 which was ready by 1572. Not only are Plutarch's 
 moral treatises perfectly consonant in tone with 
 Amyot's episcopal office, but the preface is touched 
 with a breath of religious unction, of which his 
 previous performances show no trace. Perhaps the 
 flavour is a little too pronounced when in his 
 grateful dedication to his royal master he declares : 
 " The Lord has lodged in you singular goodness of 
 nature." The substantive needs all the help that 
 can be wrung from the adjective, when used of 
 Charles IX. in the year of St. Bartholomew. But 
 Amyot, though the exhibiter of " Plutarch's men," 
 was essentially a private student, and was besides 
 bound by ties of intimacy and obligation to his 
 former pupil, who had certainly done well by him. 
 Nor was the younger brother behindhand in his 
 acknowledgments. Charles died before two years 
 were out (for Amyot had a way of dedicating books 
 to kings who deceased soon after), and was lamented 
 by Amyot in a simple and heartfelt Latin elegy. 
 
 ^ Twelve volumes ! 
 
126 INTRODUGTION 
 
 But his regrets were quite disinterested, for when 
 Henry III. succeeded in 1574, he showed himself 
 as kind a master, and in 1578 decreed that the 
 Grand Almoner should also be Commander of the 
 Order of the Holy Ghost without being required to 
 give proofs of nobility. 
 
 Invested with ample revenues and manifold dig- 
 nities, Amyot for the next eleven years lived a busy 
 and simple life, varying the routine of his adminis- 
 trative duties with music, of which he was a lover 
 and a practitioner ; with translations, never pub- 
 lished and now lost, from the Greek tragedians, 
 who had attracted him as professor, and from St. 
 Athanasius, who appealed to him as bishop ; above 
 all, with the revision of his Plutarch, for which he 
 never ceased to collect new readings. Then came 
 disasters, largely owing to his reputation for par- 
 tiality and complaisance. When the Duke and the 
 Cardinal of Guise were assassinated in 1588, he was 
 accused by the Leaguers of having approved the 
 crime and of having granted absolution to the King. 
 This he denied ; but his Chapter and diocesans rose 
 against him, the populace sacked his residence, and 
 he had to fly from Auxerre. Nor were his woes 
 merely personal. On August 3rd, 1589, the House 
 of Valois, to which he was so much beholden, 
 became extinct with the murder of Henry III.; 
 and worthless as the victim may have been, Amyot 
 cannot have been unaffected by old associations of 
 familiarity and gratitude. Six days later he writes 
 that he is " the most afflicted, desolate and destitute 
 poor priest I suppose, in France." His private 
 distress was not of long duration. He made peace 
 with the Leaguers, denounced the " politicians " for 
 supporting Henry IV., returned to his see, resumed 
 his episcopal duties, though he was divested of his 
 Grand Almonership, and was able to leave the large 
 fortune of two hundred thousand crowns. But he 
 
AMYOT 127 
 
 did not survive to see the establishment of the new 
 dynasty or the triumph of Catholicism, for he died 
 almost eighty years old in February, 1593, and only 
 in the following June was Henry IV. reconciled to 
 the Church. Perhaps had he foreseen this consum- 
 mation Amyot would have found some comfort in 
 the thought that a third pupil, a truer and greater 
 one than those who were no more, would reign in 
 their stead, and repair the damage their vice and 
 folly had caused. " Glory to God ! " writes Henry of 
 Navarre to his wife, "you could have sent me no 
 more pleasant message than the news of the zest 
 for reading which has taken you. Plutarch always 
 attracts me with a fresh novelty. To love him is to 
 love me, for he was for long the instructor of my 
 early years. My good mother, to whom I owe 
 everything, and who had so great a desire to watch 
 over my right attitude and was wont to say that she 
 did not wish to see in her son a distinguished dunce, 
 put this book in my hands when I was all but an 
 infant at the breast. It has been, as it were, my 
 conscience, and has prescribed in my ear many fair 
 virtues and excellent maxims for my behaviour and 
 for the management of my affairs. "^ 
 
 Amyot has exerted a far-reaching influence on 
 the literature of his own country and of Europe. 
 Though as a translator he might seem to have no 
 more than a secondary claim, French historians of 
 letters have dwelt on his work at a length and 
 with a care that are usually conceded only to the 
 
 ' Vive Dieu ! vous ne m'auri^s sceu rien mander qui me fust plus 
 agr^able que la nouvelle du plaisir de lecture qui vous a prins. 
 Plutarque me soubrit toujours d'une fresche nouveaut^ ; I'aymer c'est 
 m'aymer, car il a est^ longtemps I'instituteur de mon bas age : ma 
 bonne m^re k laquelle je doibs tout, et qui avoit une affection si grande 
 de veiller k mes bons deportmens, et ne vouloit pas (ce disoit-elle) 
 voir en son filz un illustre ignorant, me mist ce livre entre les mains, 
 encores que je ne feusse k peine plus un enfant de mamelle. II m'a 
 estd comme ma conscience et il m'a dictd k I'oreille beaucoup de bonnes 
 honestetds et maximes excellentes pour ma conduite, et pour le 
 gouvemment de mes affaires. 
 
128 INTRODUCTION 
 
 achievements of creative imagination or intellectual 
 discovery. And the reason is that his aptitude for his 
 task amounts to real genius, which he has improved 
 by assiduous research, so that in his treatment, the 
 ancillary craft, as it is usually considered, rises to 
 the rank of a free liberal art. He has the insight 
 to' divine what stimulus and information the age 
 requires ; the knowledge to command the sources 
 that will supply them ; the skill to manipulate his 
 native idiom for the new demands, and suit his 
 expression, so far as may be, both to his subject and 
 to his audience. Among the great masters of trans- 
 lation he occupies a foremost place. 
 
 Of spontaneous and initiative power he had but 
 little. He cannot stand alone. For Henry II. he 
 wrote a Projet de P Eloquence Royal, but it was not 
 printed till long after his death ; and of this and 
 his other original prose his biographer, Roulliard, 
 avows that the style is strangely cumbersome and 
 laggard {estrangement pesant et traisnassier). Even 
 in his prefaces to Plutarch he is only good when he 
 catches fire from his enthusiasm for his author. Just 
 as his misgivings at the Council of Trent, his com- 
 mendations of his royal patrons, his concessions to 
 his enemies of the League, suggest a defect in inde- 
 pendent force of character, so the writings in which 
 he must rely on himself show a defect in independent 
 force of intellect. 
 
 Nor is he a specialist in scholarship. Already in 
 1635, when he had been less than a century in his 
 grave, Bachet de M^ziriac, expert in all departments 
 of learning, exposed his shortcomings in a Discourse 
 on Translation, which was delivered before the 
 Academy. His critic describes him as "a promis- 
 ing pupil in rhetoric with a mediocre knowledge of 
 Greek, and some slight tincture of Polite Letters " ; 
 and asserts that there are more than two thousand 
 passages in which he has perverted the sense of his 
 
AMYOT 129 
 
 author. Even in 1580-81, during Amyot's lifetime, 
 Montaigne was forced to admit in discussion with 
 certam learned men at Rome that he was less 
 accurate than his admirers had imagined. He was 
 certamly as far as possible from being a Zunft- 
 gelekrter. His peculiar attitude is exacriy indicated 
 by his treatment of the missing books of Diodorus 
 which It was his good fortune to light upon. He is 
 not specially interested in his discovery, and has no 
 thought of giving the original documents to the 
 world. At the same time he has such a reverence 
 for antiquity that he must do something about them. 
 So with an eye to his chosen constituency, his own 
 countrymen, he executes his vernacular version. 
 
 For of his own countrymen he always thought first. 
 They are his audience, and he has their needs in his 
 mind. And that is why he made Plutarch the study 
 of his life. His romances are mere experiments for 
 his pastime and equipment : ^ his Diodorus is a task 
 prescribed by accident and vocation : but his Plutarch 
 is a labour of love and of patriotism. It was know- 
 ledge of antiquity for which the age clamoured and 
 of which it stood in need ; and who else could give 
 such a summary and encyclopaedia of Classical Life 
 as the polyhistor of Chaeronea, who interested him- 
 self in everything, from details of household manage- 
 ment to the government of states, from ancestral 
 superstitions to the speculations of philosophers, 
 from after-dinner conversation to the direction of 
 campaigns ; but brought them all into vital relation 
 with human nature and human conduct } Plutarch 
 appealed to the popular instinct of the time and to 
 the popular instinct in Amyot's own breast. It is 
 his large applicability "distill'd through all the need- 
 ful uses of our lives" and "fit for any conference 
 
 ' As he himself states in the Proesme ai Theagine et CharicUe. He 
 has occupied himself with this only, " aux heures extraordinaires, pour 
 adoucir le travail d'autres meilleures et plus fructueuses traductions," so 
 as to be made "plus vif k la consideration des choses d'importance." 
 
 I 
 
I30 INTRODUCTION 
 
 one can use " that, for example, arouses the enthu- 
 siasm of Montaigne. After mentioning that when he 
 v^rites he willingly dispenses with the companionship 
 or recollection of books, he adds : 
 
 But it is with more difficulty that I can get rid of Plutarch: 
 he is so universal and so full that on all occasions and what- 
 ever out-of-the-way subject you have taken up, he thrusts 
 himself into your business, and holds out to you a hand lavish 
 and inexhaustible in treasures and ornaments. I am vexed 
 at his being so much exposed to the plunder of those who 
 resort to him. I can't have the sKghtest dealings with him 
 myself, but I snatch a leg or a wing.^ 
 
 And again : 
 
 I am above all grateful to [Amyot] for having had the 
 insight to pick out and choose a book so worthy and so 
 seasonable, to make a present of it to his country. We 
 dunces .should have been lost, if this book had not raised 
 us out of the mire. Thanks to it we now dare to speak and 
 write. With it the ladies can lecture the school-masters. It 
 is our breviary.^ 
 
 " In all kinds Plutarch is my man," he says elsewhere. 
 And indeed it is obvious, even though he had not 
 told us, that Plutarch with Seneca supplies his 
 favourite reading, to which he perpetually recurs. 
 " I have not," he writes, "systematically acquainted 
 myself with any solid books except Plutarch and 
 Seneca, from whom I draw like the Danaides, filling 
 and pouring out continually." ^ To the latter he 
 
 ' Je me puis plus malaysement desfaire de Plutarque ; il est si 
 universel at si plein, qu'k toutes occasions, et quelque subject extrava- 
 gant que vous ayez prins, il s'ingere k vostre besongne, et vous tend 
 une main liberale et inespuisable de richesses et d'embellissements. 
 II m'en faict despit, d'estre si fort expose au pillage de ceulx qui le 
 hantent : je ne le puis si peu raccointer, que je n'en tire cuisse ou aile 
 (iii. s). 
 
 ^ Mais, surtout, je lui sgais bon grd d'avoir sceu trier et choisir un 
 livre si digne et si k propos, pour en faire present k son pais. Nous 
 aultre? ignorants estions perdus, si ce livre ne nous eust relev^ du 
 bourbier : sa mercy nous osons k cette heure et parler et escrire ; les 
 dames en regentent les maistres d'eschole ; c'est notre bresviaire (ii. 4). 
 
 ' Je n'ay dressd commerce avecques aulcun livre solide sinon Plutarque 
 et Senecque, ou je puyse comme les Danaides remplissant et versant 
 sans cesse (i. 25). 
 
AMYOT 131 
 
 could go for himself; for the Greek he had to depend 
 on Amyot. For combined profit and pleasure, he 
 says, the books that serve me are Plutarch, since 
 he ts French, and Seneca." ^ But it is to the former 
 that he seems to give the palm. 
 
 Seneca is full of smart and witty sayings, Plutarch of things ■ 
 the former kmdles you more and excites you, the latter satisfies 
 you more and requites you better; he guides us while the 
 other drives us.^ 
 
 It is indeed impossible to imagine Montaigne 
 without Plutarch, to whom he has a striking resem- 
 blance both in his free-and-easy homilies and in his 
 pregnant touches. It is these things on which he 
 dwells. 
 
 There are in Plutarch many dissertations at full length well 
 worth knowing, for in my opinion he is the master-craftsman 
 in that trade; but there are a thousand that he has merely 
 indicated; he only points out the track we are to take if we 
 like, and confines himself sometimes to touching the quick 
 of a subject. We must drag (the expositions) thence and put 
 them in the market place. ... It is a dissertation in itself 
 to see him select a trivial act in the life of a man, or a word 
 that does not seem to have such import.^ 
 
 But Montaigne did not stand alone in his admira- 
 tion. He himself, as we have seen, bears witness 
 
 1 Les livresquim'y servent, c'est Plutarque depuis qu'il est francois, 
 et beneque (u. iv.). Of course Montaigne knew some Greek and read 
 It more or Jess. He has even his own opinion about Plutarch's stvle 
 (see page 137), and M. Faguet conjectures : " It is quite conceivable 
 that Montaigne compared the translation with the text, and that it is a 
 piece of mere affectation when he says he knows nothing of the Greek " 
 But doubtless he read the French much more habitually and easily. 
 
 2 Seneque est plein de poinctes et saillies, Plutarque de choses ; celuv 
 ia..vous eschauffe plus et yous esmeut, cettuy ci vous contente davantaee 
 et vous paye mieulx ; il nous guide, I'aultre nous poulse (ii. 10). 
 
 Ml y a dans Plutarque beaucoup de discours estendus trhs dignes 
 d estre sceus, car, k mon gr^, c'est le maistre ouvrier de telle besongne ■ 
 mais il y en a raiUe qu'il n'a que touchez simplement ; et guigne seule- 
 ment du doigt par ou nous irons, s'il nous plaist ; et se contente 
 quelquefois de ne donner qu'une attaincte dans le plus vif d'un propos 
 11 les fault arracher de la, et mettre en place marchande. . . Cela 
 mesme de luy voir trier une legere action en la vie d'un homme, ou un 
 mot qui semble ne porter cela, c'est un discours (i. 25). 
 
132 INTRODUCTION 
 
 to the widespread popularity of Amyot's Plutarch 
 and the general practice of rifling its treasures. 
 Indeed, Plutarch was seen to be so congenial to the 
 age, that frequent attempts had been made before 
 Amyot to place him within the reach of a larger 
 circle than the little band of Greek scholars. In 
 1470, e.g. a number of Italians had co-operated in a 
 Latin version of the Lives, published at Rome by 
 Campani, and this was followed by several partial 
 translations in French.^ But the latter were immedi- 
 ately superseded, and even the former had its authority 
 shaken, by Amyot's achievement. 
 
 This was due partly to its greater intelligence and 
 faithfulness, partly to its excellent style. 
 
 In regard to the first, it should be remembered 
 that the criticism of Amyot's learning must be very 
 carefully qualified. Scholarship is a progressive 
 science, and it is always easy for the successor to 
 point out errors in the precursor, as Mdziriac did in 
 Amyot. Of course, however, the popular expositor 
 was not a Budaeus or Scaliger, and the savants 
 whom Montaigne met in Rome were doubtless 
 justified in their strictures. Still the zeal that he 
 showed and the trouble that he took in searching 
 for good texts, in conferring them with the printed 
 books and in consulting learned men about his con- 
 jectural emendations,^ would suggest that he had 
 the root of the matter in him, and there is evidence 
 
 ' There were also translations in Italian, Spanish, and German ; but 
 none of them had anything like the literary importance of Amyot's, and 
 they were made from the Latin, not from the Greek. Of Hieronymus 
 Boner, for instance, who published his Plutarch, Von dem Leben der 
 allerdurchlauchtigsten Griechen und Romern (ist edition, Augsburg, 
 1534)1 it is misleading to say that he "anticipated" Amyot. Merzdorf 
 writes of Boner's versions of Greek authors generally {Allgemeine 
 Deutsche Biographie) that he "turned them into German not from the 
 original Greek but from Latin translations. Moreover, one must not 
 expect from him any exact rendering, but rather a kind of paraphrase 
 which he accommodates to the circumstances of the time." 
 
 ' See his preface,' towards the close. 
 
AMYOT 133 
 
 that expert opinion in his own days was favourable 
 to his claims.^ 
 
 At the time when he was translating the Lives 
 into French two scholars of high reputation were, 
 independently of each other, translating them into 
 Latin. Xylander's versions appeared in 1 560, those 
 of Cruserius were ready in the same year, but were 
 not published till 1564. They still hold their place 
 and enjoy consideration. Now, they both make 
 their compliments to Amyot. Xylander, indeed, has 
 only a second-hand acquaintance with his publica- 
 tion, but even that he has found valuable : 
 
 After I had already finished the greater part of the work, 
 the Lives of Plutarch written by Amyot in the French 
 language made their appearance. And since I heard from 
 those who are skilled in that tongue, a privilege which I do 
 not possess, that he had devoted remarkable pains to the 
 book and used many good MSS., assisted by the courtesy of 
 friends, I corrected several passages about which I was in 
 doubt, and in not a few my conjecture was established by the 
 concurrence of that translator. ^ 
 
 Cruserius, again, in his prefatory Epistle to the 
 Reader, warmly commends the merits of Xylander 
 and Amyot, but refers with scarcely veiled dis- 
 paragement to the older Latin rendering, which 
 nevertheless enjoyed general acceptance as the 
 number of editions proves, and was considered the 
 standard authority. 
 
 * In later days, too, Mr. Holden, who has busied himself with 
 Plutarch, says " Amyot's version is more scholarlike and correct than 
 those of Langhorne or Dryden and others." 
 
 *Cum jam majorem operis partem absolvissem, prodierunt Vitae 
 Plutarchi gallici lingu^ ab Amyoto conscriptae. Quern cum prae; 
 claram ei libro operam impendisse ex lis qui linguae ejus sunt periti 
 (quod mihi non datum est) et usum multis ac bonis codicibus audirem ; 
 amicorum adjutus . . . officio, nonnuUos, de quibus dubitabam, locos 
 correxi ; in haud paucis mea conjectura est illius interpretis suflFragio 
 comprobata (Ed. 1560). Xylander's friends must have given him 
 yeoman's help, for he frequently discusses Amyot's readings, generally 
 adopting them ; and for the whole life of Cato, he even goes so far as 
 to avow : "Amyoti versionem secutus sum, Graecis non satis integris." 
 
134 INTRODUCTION 
 
 If indeed (he writes) I must not here say that I by 
 myself have both more faithfully and more elegantly inter- 
 preted Plutarch's Lives, the translation of which into Latin a 
 great number of Italians formerly undertook without much 
 success ; this at least I may say positively and justly that I 
 think I have done this.^ 
 
 On the other hand " Amiotus " has been a help to 
 him. When he had already polished and corrected 
 his own version, he came across this very tasteful 
 rendering in Brussels six months after it had ap- 
 peared. " This man's scholarship and industry gave 
 me some light on several passages." ^ It is well then 
 to bear in mind, when Amyot's competency is 
 questioned, that by their own statement he cleared 
 up things for specialists like Xylander and Cruserius. 
 And this is all the more striking, that Cruserius, 
 whom his preface shows to be very generous in his 
 acknowledgments, has no word of recognition for 
 his Italian predecessors even though Filelfo was 
 among their number.^ But his Epistle proceeds : 
 " To whom {i.e. to Amyot) I will give this testimony 
 that now-a-days it is impossible that anyone should 
 render Plutarch so elegantly in the Latin tongue, as 
 he renders him in his own."^ And this praise of 
 Amyot's style leads us to the next point. 
 
 If Amyot claims the thanks of Western Europe 
 
 ' Ego quidem si dicere hic non valeani, vitas me Plutarchi, quas 
 plurimi sumpserunt antehac Itali Latine reddendas parum feliciter, me 
 explicavisse unum at verius et mundius ; hoc carte dicere queo liquide 
 at racte, assa arbitratum me hoc effacissa {Epistola ad Lectorem, 1561, 
 edition 1599). 
 
 ^ Interea cum jam poll vissem atque emendassem vitas maas Plutarchi, 
 ostendit mihi Bruxellae, ubi agabam illustrissimi principis mei legatus, 
 secretarius regius editas elegantissime ab Aniioto lingui gallic4 vitas 
 Plutarchi, quae axierant tamen in publicum sax menses antequam eas 
 viderem. Hujus viri mihi aruditio et diligentia aliquid lucis nonnullis 
 in locis attulit. Cui ego hoc testimonium dabo : non possa fieri, ut 
 quisquam hoc tempore Plutarchum tam vartat ornate lingui Latina 
 quam vartit ille sua {lb.). 
 
 ' Amyot's own attitude is very similar. He cites the Latin versions 
 in proof of the hardness of the original, and challenges a comparison 
 of them with his own. 
 
AMYOT 135 
 
 for giving it with adequate faithfulness a typical 
 miscellany of ancient life and thought, his services 
 to his country in developing the native language 
 are hardly less important. Before him Rabelais 
 and Calvin were the only writers of first-rate ability 
 in modern French. But Rabelais' prose was too 
 exuberant, heterogeneous and eccentric to supply a 
 model; and Calvin, besides being suspect on account 
 of his theology, was of necessity as a theologian 
 abstract and restricted in his range. The new 
 candidate had something of the wealth and universal 
 appeal of the one, something of the correctness and 
 purity of the other. 
 
 Since Plutarch deals with almost all departments 
 of life, Amyot had need of the amplest vocabulary, 
 and a supply of the most diverse locutions. Indeed, 
 sometimes the copious resources of his vernacular, 
 with which he had doubtless begun to familiarise 
 himself among the simple folk of Melun, leave him 
 in the lurch, and he has to make loans from Latin 
 or Greek. But he does this sparingly, and only 
 when no other course is open to him. Generally 
 his thorough mastery of the dialect of the lie de 
 France, the standard language of the kingdom, 
 helps him out. 
 
 Yet he is far from adopting the popular speech 
 without consciously manipulating it. He expressly 
 states that he selects the fittest, sweetest, and most 
 euphonious words, and such as are in the mouths of 
 those who are accustomed to speak well. The in- 
 genuousness of his utterance, which is in great 
 measure due to his position of pioneer in a new 
 period, should not mislead us into thinking him a 
 careless writer. His habit of first composing his 
 sermons in Latin and then translating them into 
 French tells its own story. He evidently realised 
 the superiority in precision and orderly arrangement 
 of the speech of Rome, and felt it a benefit to 
 
136 INTRODUCTION 
 
 submit to such discipline the artless bonhomie of his 
 mother tongue. But since he is the born interpreter, 
 whose very business it was to mediate between the 
 exotic and the indigenous, and assimilate the former 
 to the latter, he never forgets the claims of his fellow 
 Frenchmen and his native French. He does not 
 force his idiom to imitate a foreign model, but only 
 learns to develop its own possibilities of greater 
 clearness, exactitude, and regularity. 
 
 It is for these excellencies among others, "pour 
 la naifet6 et purete du language en quoi il surpasse 
 touts aultres," ^ that Montaigne gives him the palm, 
 and this purity served him in good stead during the 
 classical period of French literature, which was so 
 unjust to most writers of the sixteenth century, and 
 found fault with Montaigne himself for his "Gascon- 
 isms." Racine thought that Amyot's "old style" 
 had a "grace which could not be equalled in our 
 modern language." Fenelon regretfully looks back 
 to him for beauties that are fallen into disuse. Nor 
 was it only men of delicate and poetic genius who 
 appreciated his merits. Vaugelas, the somewhat 
 illiberal grammarian and purist, is the most enthusi- 
 astic of the worshippers. 
 
 What obligation (he exclaims) does our language not 
 owe to him, there never having been anyone who knew its 
 genius and character better than he, or who used words 
 and phrases so genuinely French without admixture of the 
 provincial expressions which daily corrupt the purity of the 
 true French tongue. All stores and treasures are in the 
 works of this great man. And even to-day we have hardly 
 any noble and splendid modes of speech that he has not left 
 us ; and though we have cut out a half of his words and 
 phrases, we do not fail to find in the other half almost all 
 the riches of which we boast. 
 
 It will be seen, however, that in such tributes 
 from the seventeenth century (and the same thing 
 is true of others left unquoted), it is implied that 
 
AMYOT 137 
 
 Amyot is already somewhat antiquated and out of 
 fashion. He is honoured as ancestor in the right 
 line of classical French, but he is its ancestor and 
 not a living representative. Vaugelas admits that 
 half his vocabulary is obsolete, F^nelon regrets his 
 charms just because their date is past, Racine won- 
 ders that such grace should have been attained in 
 what is not the modern language. 
 
 And this may remind us of the very important 
 fact, that Amyot could not on account of his position 
 deliver a facsimile of the Greek. Plutarch lived at 
 the close of an epoch, he at the beginning. The 
 one employed a language full of reminiscences and 
 past its prime ; the other, a language that was just 
 reaching self-consciousness and that had the future 
 before it. Both in a way were artists, but Plutarch 
 shows his art in setting stones already cut, while 
 Amyot provides moulds for the liquid metal. At 
 their worst Plutarch's style becomes mannered and 
 Amyot 's infantile. By no sleight of hand would it 
 have been possible to give in the French of the six- 
 teenth century an exact reproduction of the Greek 
 of the second. Grey-haired antiquity had to learn 
 the accents of stammering childhood. 
 
 Sometimes Amyot hardly makes an attempt at 
 literal fidelity. The style of his original he describes 
 as "plein, serre et philosophistorique." With him 
 it retains the fulness, but the condensation, or rather 
 what a modern scholar describes as "the crowding 
 of the sentence,"^ often gives place to periphrasis, 
 and of the " philosophistorique " small trace remains. 
 Montaigne praises him because he has contrived " to 
 expound so thorny and crabbed ^ an author with such 
 
 1 Mr. Holden. 
 
 ^ Espineux et ferre (ii. iv.). Perhaps _/fe>7-/ should be rendered difficult 
 rather than crabbed. But even thorny and difficult are hardly words 
 that one would apply to Plutarch. Montaigne's meaning may perhaps 
 be illustrated by the criticism of Paley : " Plutarch's Greek is not like 
 Lucian's, fluent and easy, nor even clear. He uses many words not in 
 
138 INTRODUCTION 
 
 fidelity." What is most crabbed and thorny in 
 Plutarch he passes over or replaces with a loose 
 equivalent ; single words he expands to phrases ; 
 difficulties he explains with a gloss or illustration 
 that he does not hesitate to insert in the text ;. and 
 he is anxious to brin^ out the sense by adding more 
 emphatic and oftenmore familiar touches. 
 
 The result of it all undoubtedly is to lend Plutarch 
 a more popular and less academic bearing than he 
 really has. Some of Amyot's most attractive effects 
 either do not exist or are inconspicuous in his original. 
 The tendency to artifice and rhetoric in the pupil of 
 Ammonius disappears, and he is apt to get the credit 
 for an innocence and freshness that are more charac- 
 teristic of his translator. M. Faguet justly points 
 out that Amyot in his version makes Plutarch " a 
 simple writer, while he was elegant, fastidious, and 
 even affected in his style." . . . He "emerges from 
 Amyot's hands as le bon Plutarque of the French 
 people, whereas he was certainly not that." Thus 
 it is beyond dispute that the impression produced is 
 in some respects misleading. 
 
 But there is another side to this. Plutarch in his 
 tastes and ideals did belong to an older, less sophis- 
 ticated age, though he was born out of due time 
 and had to adapt his speech to his hyper-civilised 
 environment. Ampere has called attention to the 
 picture, suggested by the facts at our disposal, of 
 Plutarch living in his little Boeotian town, obtain- 
 ing his initiation into the mysteries, punctually 
 fulfilling the functions of priest, making antiquities 
 and traditions his hobby. "There was this man 
 under the rhetorician," he adds, "and we must not 
 forget it. For if the rhetorician wrote, it was the 
 
 the ordinary Greek vocabulary ; and he too often constructs long sen- 
 tences, the thread of which separately as well as the connection cannot 
 be traced without close attention. Hence he is unattractive as a 
 
 writer." 
 
AMYOT 139 
 
 other Plutarch who often dictated." Of course in a 
 way the antithesis is an unreal one. Plutarch was 
 after all, as every one must be, the child of his own 
 generation, and his aspirations were not confined to 
 himself. The Sophistes is, on the one hand, what 
 the man who makes antiquity and traditions his 
 hobby, is on the other. Still it remains certain that 
 his love was set on things which pertained to an 
 earlier and less elaborate phase of society, to "the 
 good old days " when they found spontaneous accept- 
 ance and expression. On him the ends of the world 
 are come, and he seeks by all the resources of his 
 art and learning to revive what he regards as its 
 glorious prime. His heart is with the men " of heart, 
 head, hand," but when he seeks to reveal them, he 
 must do so in the chequered light of a vari-coloured 
 culture. 
 
 Hence there was a kind of discrepancy between 
 his spirit and his utterance ; and Amyot, removing 
 the discrepancy, brings them into a natural harmony. 
 There is truth in the paradox that the form which 
 the good bishop supplies is the one that was meant 
 for the matter. " Amyot," says Demogeot, summing 
 up his discussion of this aspect of the question, "has 
 in some sort created Plutarch, and made him truer 
 and more complete than nature made him." 
 
 But though Plutarch's ideas seem from one point 
 of view to enter into their predestined habitation, 
 this does not alter the fact that they lose something 
 of their distinctive character in accommodating them- 
 selves to their new surroundings. It is easy to 
 exaggerate their affinity with the vernacular words, 
 as it is easy to exaggerate the correspondence 
 between author and translator. Thus Ampere, half 
 in jest, pleases himself with drawing on behalf of 
 the two men a parallel such as is appended to each 
 particular brace of Lives. Both of them lovers of 
 virtue, he points out, for example, that both had a 
 
HO INTRODUCTION 
 
 veneration for the past, of which the one strove to 
 preserve the memories even then beginning to 
 fade, and the other to rediscover and gather up the 
 shattered fragments. Both experienced sad and 
 troublous times without having their tranquillity- 
 disturbed, the one by the crimes of Domitian or the 
 other by the furies of St. Bartholomew's. Both 
 belonged to the hierarchy, the one as priest of 
 Apollo, the other as Bishop of Auxerre. 
 
 But it is not hard to turn such parallels into so 
 many contrasts. The past with which Plutarch was 
 busy was in a manner the familiar past of his native 
 country or at least of his own civilisation ; but Amyot 
 loved the past of that remote and alien world in 
 which for ages men had neglected their heritage 
 and taken small concern. The sequestered life of 
 the provincial under the Roman Empire, a privacy 
 whence he emerges to whatever civil offices were 
 within his reach, is very different from the dislike 
 and refusal of public activity that characterises the 
 Frenchman in his own land at a time when learning 
 was recognised as passport to high position in the 
 State. The priest of a heathen cult which he could 
 accept only when explained away by a rationalistic 
 idealism, and which was by no means incompatible 
 with his family instincts, was very different from the 
 celibate churchman who ended by submitting to the 
 terms imposed by the intolerance of the Holy 
 League. The analogies are there, and imply per- 
 haps a strain of intellectual kinship, but the contrasts 
 are not less obvious, and refute the idea of a perfect 
 unison. 
 
 Now, it is much the same if we turn from the 
 writers to their writings. All translation is a com- 
 promise between the foreign material and the native 
 intelligence, but in Amyot the latter factor counts 
 most. Classical life is very completely assimilated 
 to the contemporary life that he knew, but such 
 
AMYOT 141 
 
 contemporary life was in some ways quite unlike 
 that which he was reproducing. There is an illusory 
 sameness in the effects produced as there is an illusion 
 of coincidence in the characters and careers of the 
 men who produce them, and this may have its cause 
 in real contact at certain points. But the gaps that 
 separate them are also real, though at the time they 
 were seldom detected. " Both by the details and 
 the general tone of his version," says M. Lanson, 
 " [Amyot] modernises the Graeco-Roman world, and 
 by this involuntary travesty he tends to check the 
 awakening of the sense for the differences, that is, 
 the historic sense. As he invites Shakespeare to 
 recognise the English Mob in the Plebs Romana, 
 so he authorises Corneille and Racine and even 
 Mademoiselle Scudery to portray under ancient 
 names the human nature they saw in France." 
 
 And this tendency was carried further in Amyot's 
 English translator. 
 
 NORTH 
 
 Of Sir Thomas North, the most recent and direct 
 of the authorities who transmitted to Shakespeare 
 his classical material, much less is known than of 
 either of his predecessors. Plutarch, partly because 
 as original author he has the opportunity of express- 
 ing his own personality, partly because he uses this 
 opportunity to the full in frank advocacy of his views 
 and gossip about himself, may be pictured with fair 
 vividness and in some detail. Such information fails 
 in regard to Amyot, since he was above all the 
 mouthpiece for other men ; but his high dignities 
 placed him in the gaze of contemporaries, and his 
 reputation as pioneer in classical translation and 
 nursing-father of modern French ensured a certain 
 
142 INTRODUCTION 
 
 interest in his career. But Ngrth, like him a trans- 
 lator, had not equal prominence either from his 
 position or from his achievement. Such honours 
 and appointments as he obtained were not of the 
 kind to attract regard. He was a mere unit in the 
 Elizabethan crowd of literary importers, and be- 
 longed to the lower class who never steered their 
 course "to the classic coast." He had no such share 
 as Amyot in shaping the traditions of the language, 
 but was one writer in an age that produced many 
 others, some of them greater masters than he. Yet 
 to us, as the immediate interpreter of Plutarch to 
 Shakespeare, he is the most important of the three, 
 the most famous and the most alive. Sainte-Beuve, 
 talking of Amyot, quotes a phrase from Leopardi in 
 reference to the Italians who have associated them- 
 selves forever with the Classics they unveiled: "Oh, 
 how fair a fate ! to be exempt from death except 
 in company with an Immortal ! " This fair fate is 
 North's in double portion. He is linked with a great 
 Immortal by descent, and with a greater by ancestry. 
 Thomas North, second son of the first Baron 
 North of Kirtling, was born about 1535, to live his 
 life, as it would seem, in straitened circumstances 
 and unassuming work. Yet we might have antici- 
 pated for him a prosperous and eminent career. 
 He had high connections and powerful patrons ; his 
 father made provision for him, his brother helped 
 him once and again, a royal favourite interested 
 himself on his behalf His ability and industry are 
 evident from his works ; his honesty and courage 
 are vouched for by those in a position to know ; the 
 efficiency of his public services received recognition 
 from his fellow-citizens and his sovereign. But 
 with all these advantages and qualifications he was 
 even in middle age hafnpered by lack of means, and 
 he never had much share in the pelf and pomp of 
 life. Perhaps his occupation with larger concerns 
 
SIR THOMAS NORTH 143 
 
 than personal aggrandisement may have interfered 
 with his material success. At any rate, in his 
 narrower sphere he showed himself a man of public 
 interest and public spirit, and the authors with 
 whom he busies himself are all such as commend 
 ideal rather than tangible possessions as the real 
 objects of desire. And we know besides that he 
 was an unaggressive man, inclined to claim less 
 than his due ; for in one of his books he professes 
 to get the material only from a French translation, 
 when it is proved that he must have had recourse 
 to the Spanish original as well. 
 
 This was his maiden effort, The Diall of Princes, 
 published in 1557, when North was barely of age 
 and had just been entered a student of Lincoln's 
 Inn ; and with this year the vague and scanty data 
 for his history really begin. He dedicates his book 
 to Queen Mary, who had shown favour to his father, 
 pardoning him for his support of Lady Jane Grey, 
 raising him to the peerage, and distinguishing him 
 in other ways. But on the death of Mary, Lord 
 North retained the goodwill of Elizabeth, who twice 
 kept her court at his mansion, and appointed him 
 Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire ana the Isle of 
 Ely. The family had thus considerable local influ- 
 ence, and it was not diminished when, on the old 
 man's death in 1564, Roger, the first son, succeeded 
 to the title. Before long the new Lord North was 
 made successively an alderman of Cambridge, Lord 
 Lieutenant of the County, and High Steward ; 
 while Thomas, who had benefited under his 
 father's will, was presented to the freedom of the 
 town. All through, the career of the junior appears 
 as a sort of humble pendant to that of the senior, 
 and he picks up his dole of the largesses that Fortune 
 showers on the head of the house. What he had 
 been doing in the intervening years we do not know, 
 but he cannot have abandoned his literary pursuits. 
 
144 INTRODUCTION 
 
 for in 1568, when he received this civic courtesy, he 
 issued a new edition of the Diall, corrected and 
 enlarged; and he followed it up in 1570 with a 
 version of Doni's Morale Filosofia. 
 
 Meanwhile the elder brother was advancing on 
 his brilliant course. He had been sent to Vienna 
 to invest the Emperor Maximilian with the Order 
 of the Garter ; he had been commissioned to present 
 the Queen on his return with the portrait of her 
 suitor, the Archduke Charles ; he had held various 
 offices at home, and in 1574 he was appointed 
 Ambassador Extraordinary to congratulate Henry 
 III. of France on his accession, and to procure if 
 possible toleration for the Huguenots and a renewal 
 of the Treaty of Blois. On this important legation 
 he was accompanie^d by Thomas, who would thus 
 have an opportunity of seeing or hearing something 
 of Amyot, the great Bishop and Grand Almoner 
 who was soon to be recipient of new honours from 
 his royal pupil and patron, and who had recently 
 been drawing new attention on himself by his third 
 edition of the Lives and his first edition of the 
 Morals} It may well be that this visit suggested 
 to Thomas North his own masterpiece, which he 
 seems to have set about soon after he came home in 
 the end of November. At least it was to appear in 
 January, 1579, before another lustre was out; and a 
 translation even from French of the entire Lives, 
 not only unabridged but augmented (for biographies 
 of Hannibal and Scipio are added from the versions 
 of Charles de I'Escluse),^ is a task of years rather 
 than of months. 
 
 ^ I do not know what authority Mr. Wyndham has for his statement 
 that Amyot's version of the Morals " fell comparatively dead." It is, 
 of course, much less read nowadays, but at the time it ran through 
 three editions in less than four years (1572, 1574, 1575), and for the 
 nexMialf century there are frequent reprints. 
 
 " Tiibsg . translated from the Latin collection of 1470, to which they had 
 been con^buted by Acciaiuoli, were included in Amyot's third edition. 
 
SIR THOMAS NORTH 145 
 
 The embassage, despite many difficulties to be 
 overcome, had been a success, and Lord North re- 
 turned to receive the thanks and favours he deserved. 
 He stood high in the Queen's regard, and in 1578 
 she honoured him with a visit for a night. He was 
 lavish in his welcome, building, we are told, new 
 kitchens for the occasion; filling them with pro- 
 visions of all kinds, the oysters alone amounting to 
 one cart load and two horse loads ; rifling the cellars 
 of their stores, seventy-four hogsheads of beer being 
 reinforced with corresponding supplies of ale, claret, 
 white wine, sack, and hippocras ; presenting her at 
 her departure with a jewel worth ^120 in the money 
 of the time. In such magnificent doings he was by 
 no means unmindful of his brother, to whom shortly 
 before he had made over the lease of a house and 
 household stuff. Yet precisely at this date, when 
 Thomas North was completing or had completed 
 his first edition of the Lives, his circumstances seem 
 to have been specially embarrassed. Soon after the 
 book appeared Leicester writes on his behalf to 
 Burleigh, stating that he "is a very honest gentle- 
 man and hath many good parts in him which are 
 drowned only by poverty." There is perhaps a 
 certain incongruity between these words and the 
 accounts of the profusion at Kirtling in the pre- 
 ceding year. 
 
 Meanwhile Lord North, to his reputation as diplo- 
 matist and courtier sought to add that of a soldier. 
 In the Low Countries he greatly distinguished him- 
 self by his capacity and courage ; but he was called 
 home to look after the defences of the eastern 
 coast in view of the expected Spanish invasion, and 
 this was not the only time that the Government 
 resorted to him for military advice. 
 
 No such important charge was entrusted to 
 Thomas, but he too was ready to do his duty by 
 his country in her hour of need, and in 1588 had 
 
146 INTRODUCTION 
 
 command of three hundred men of Ely. In the 
 interval between this and the distressful time of 
 1579 his position must have improved; for in 1591, 
 in reward it may be for his patriotic activity, the 
 Queen conferred on him the honour of knighthood, 
 which in those days implied as necessary qualifi- 
 cation the possession of land to the minimum value 
 of £40 a year. This was followed by other 
 acknowledgments and dignities of moderate worth. 
 In 1592 and again in 1597 he sat on the Commission 
 of Peace for Cambridgeshire. In 1598 he received 
 a grant of ;^20 from the town of Cambridge, and in 
 1 60 1 a pension of £40 a year from the Queen. 
 These amounts are not munificent, even if we take 
 them at the outside figure suggested as the equivalent 
 in modern money. ^ They give the impression that 
 North was not very well off, that in his circumstances 
 some assistance was desirable, and a little assistance 
 would go a long way. At the same time they show 
 that his conduct deserved and obtained appreciation. 
 Indeed, the pension from the Queen is granted 
 expressly "in consideration of the good and faithful 
 service done unto us." 
 
 He also benefited by a substantial bequest from 
 Lord North, who had died in 1600, but he was now 
 an old man of at least sixty-six, and probably he 
 did not live long to enjoy his new resources. Of 
 the brother Lloyd records: "There was none better 
 to represent our State than my Lord North, who 
 had been two years in Walsingham's house, four in 
 Leicester's service, had seen six courts, twenty 
 battles, nine treaties, and four solemn jousts, whereof 
 he was no mean part." In regard to the younger 
 son, even the year of whose death we do not know, 
 the parallel summary would run : " He served a few 
 months in an ambassador's suite ; he commanded a 
 local force, he was a knight, and sat on the Com- 
 
 ' That is, if we multiply them by eight. 
 
SIR THOMAS NORTH 147 
 
 mission of Peace ; he made three translations, one 
 of which rendered possible Shakespeare's Roman 
 Plays."! 
 
 This is his "good and faithful service" unto us, 
 not that he fulfilled duties in which he might have 
 been rivalled by any country justice or militia cap- 
 tain. And, "a good and faithful servant," he had 
 qualified himself for his grand performance by a long 
 apprenticeship in the craft. Like Amyot, he devotes 
 himself to translation from first to last, but unlike 
 Amyot he knows from the outset the kind of book 
 that it is given him to interpret. He is not drawn 
 by the fervour of youth to "vain and amatorious 
 romance," nor by conventional considerations to the 
 bric-a-brac of antiquarianism. From the time that 
 he has attained the years of discretion and comes 
 within our knowledge, he applies his heart to study 
 and supply works of solid instruction. 
 
 Souninge in moral vertu was his speche, 
 And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche. 
 
 It is characteristic, too, both of his equipment and 
 his style, that though he may have known a little 
 Greek and certainly knew some Latin, as is shown 
 by a few trifling instances in which he gives Aymot's 
 expressions a more learned turn, he never used an 
 ancient writer as his main authority, but confined 
 himself to the adaptations and translations that were 
 current in modern vernaculars. 
 
 Thus his earliest work is the rendering, mainly 
 from the French, of the notable and curious forgery 
 of the Spanish Bishop, Antonio de Guevara, alleged 
 by its author to have been derived from an ancient 
 manuscript which he had discovered in Florence. It 
 was originally entitled El Libra Aureo de Marco 
 
 ' Most of the facts of the foregoing sketch are taken from the articles 
 on the Norths in the Dictionary of National Biography, which, how- 
 ever, must not be considered responsible for the inferences. 
 
148 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Aurelio, Emperador y eloquentissimo Orator, but 
 afterwards, when issued in an expanded form, was 
 rechristened, Marco Aurelio con el Relox de 
 Priiuipes. It has however little to do with the real 
 Marcus Aurelius, and the famous Meditations fur- 
 nish only a small ingredient to the work. It is in 
 some ways an imitation of Xenophon's Cyropaedia, 
 that is, it is a didactic romance which aims at giving 
 in narrative form true principles of education, morals, 
 and politics. But the narrative is very slight, and 
 most of the book is made up of discussions, dis- 
 courses, and epistles, the substance of which is in 
 many cases taken with a difference from Plutarch's 
 Moralia. These give the author scope to endite 
 "in high style"; and in his balanced and erudite way 
 of writing, which with all its tastelessness and excess 
 has a far-off resemblance to Plutarch's more rhetori- 
 cal effects, as well as in his craze for allusions and 
 similes, he anticipates the mannerisms of the later 
 Euphuists. But despite the moralisings and affecta- 
 tions (or rather, perhaps, on account of them, for the 
 first fell in with the ethical needs of the time, and 
 the second with its attempts to organise its prose), 
 the book was a great favourite for over a hundred 
 years, and Casaubon says that except the Bible, 
 hardly any other has been so frequently translated 
 or printed. Lord Berners had already made his 
 countrymen acquainted with it in shorter form, but 
 North renders the Diall of Princes in full, and 
 even adds another treatise of Guevara's, The 
 Favored Courtier, as fourth book to his second 
 edition. 
 
 It is both the contents and the form that attract 
 him. In the title page he describes it as "right 
 necessarie and pleasaunt to all gentylmen and others 
 which are louers of vertue " ; and in his preface he 
 says that it is "so full of high doctrine, so adourned 
 with auncient histories, so authorised with grave 
 
SIR THOMAS NORTH 149 
 
 sentences, and so beautified with apte similitudes, 
 that I knowe not whose eies in reding it can 
 be weried, nor whose eares in hearing it not 
 satisfied." 
 
 That North's contemporaries agreed with him iri 
 liking such fare is shown by the publication of the 
 new edition eleven years after the first, and even 
 more strikingly by the publication of John Lily's 
 imitation eleven years after the second. For Dr. 
 Landmann has proved beyond dispute that the 
 paedagogic romance of Euphues, in purpose, in 
 plan, in its letters and disquisitions, its episodes and 
 persons, is largely based on the Diall. He has 
 not been quite so successful in tracing the distinctive 
 tricks of the Euphuistic style through North to 
 Guevara. It has to be remembered that North's 
 main authority was not the Spanish Relox de 
 Principes, but the French Orloge des princes ; 
 and at the double remove a good many of the 
 peculiarities of Guevarism were bound to become 
 obliterated : as in point of fact has occurred. It 
 would be a mistake to call North a Euphuistic 
 writer, though in the Diall, and even in the 
 Lives, there are Euphuistic passages. Still, Gue- 
 vara did no doubt affect him, for Guevara's was the 
 only elaborate and architectural prose with which he 
 was on intimate terms. He had not the advantage 
 of Amyot's daily commerce with the Classics, and 
 constant practice in the equating of Latin and 
 French. In the circumstances a dash of diluted 
 Guevarism was not a bad thing for him, and at any 
 rate was the only substitute at his disposal. To the 
 end he sometimes uses it when he has to write in a 
 more complex or heightened style. 
 
 But if the Spanish Bishop were not in all respects 
 a salutary model. North was soon to correct this 
 influence by working under the guidance of a very 
 different man, the graceless Italian miscellanist. 
 
I50 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Antonio Francesco Doni. That copious and auda- 
 cious conversationalist could write as he talked, on 
 all sorts of themes, including- even those in which 
 there was no offence, and seldom failed to be enter- 
 taining. He is never more so than in his Morale 
 Filosofia, a delightful bock to which and to himself 
 North did honour by his delightful rendering. The 
 descriptive title runs : " The Morall Philosophie of 
 Doni : drawne out of the auncient writers. A worke 
 first compiled in the Indian tongue, and afterwards 
 reduced into diuers other languages : and now lastly 
 Englished out of Italian by Thomas North." This 
 formidable announcement is a little misleading, for 
 the book proves to be a collection of the so-called 
 Fables of Bidpai, and though the lessons are not 
 lacking, the main value as well as the main charm 
 lies in the vigour and picturesqueness of the little 
 stories.^ 
 
 Thus in both his prentice works North betrays the 
 same general bias. They are both concerned with 
 the practical and applied philosophy of life, and both 
 convey it through the medium of fiction : in so far . 
 they are alike. But they are unlike, in so far as the 
 relative interest of the two factors is reversed, and 
 the accent is shifted from the one to the other. In 
 the Diall the narrative is almost in abeyance, and 
 the pages are filled with long-drawn arguments and 
 adrnonitions. In the Fables the sententious purpose 
 is rather implied than obtruded, and in no way 
 interferes with the piquant adventures; which are 
 recounted in a very easy and lively style. 
 
 North was thus a practised writer and translator, 
 with a good knowledge of the modern tongues, when 
 he accompanied his brother to France in 1574. In 
 his two previous attempts be had shown his bent 
 towards improving story and the manly wisdom of 
 the elder world ; and in the second, had advanced in 
 
 'A charming reprint was edited by Mr. Joseph Jacobs in 1888. 
 
SIR THOMAS NORTH 151 
 
 appreciation of the concrete example and the racy 
 presentment. If he now came across Amyot's Plut- 
 arch, we can see how well qualified he was for the 
 task of giving it an English shape, and how con- 
 genial the task would be. Of the Moral Treatises 
 he already knew something, if only in the adulterated 
 concoctions of Guevara, but the Lives would be 
 quite new to him, and would exactly tally with his 
 tastes in their blend of ethical reflection and impres- 
 sive narrative. There is a hint of this double 
 attraction in the opening phrase of the title page: 
 "The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans 
 compared by that grave learned Philosopher and 
 Historiographer, Plutarch of Chaeronea. " The philo- 
 sophy and the history are alike signalised as form- 
 ing the equipment of the author, and certainly the 
 admixture was such as would appeal to the public as 
 well as to the translator. 
 
 The first edition of 1579, imprinted by Thomas 
 Vautrouillier and John Wight, was followed by a 
 second in 1595, imprinted by Richard Field for 
 Bonham Norton. Field, who was a native of 
 Stratford -on -Avon, and had been apprenticed to 
 Vautrouillier before setting up for himself, had deal- 
 ings with Shakespeare, and issued his Venus and 
 Adonis and Rape of Lucrece. But whether or no 
 his fellow townsman put him in the way of it, it is 
 certain that Shakespeare was not long in discovering 
 the new treasure. It seems to leave traces in so 
 early a work as the Midsummer - NigM s Dream., 
 which probably borrowed from the life of Theseus, 
 as well as in the Merchant of Venice, with its refer- 
 ence to " Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia " ; though it 
 did not inspire a complete play ixW Julius Caesar. In 
 1603 appeared the third edition of North's Plutarch, 
 enlarged with new Lives which had been incor- 
 porated in Amyot's collection in 1583: and this 
 some think to have been the particular authority for 
 
152 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus} And again 
 a fourth edition, with a separate supplement bearing 
 the date of 1610, was published in 161 2 ; and of this 
 the famous copy in the Greenock Library has been 
 claimed as the dramatist's own book. If by any 
 chance this should be the case, then Shakespeare 
 must have got it for his private delectation, for by 
 this time he had finished his plays on ancient history 
 and almost ceased to write for the stage. But apart 
 from that improbable and crowning honour, there is 
 no doubt about the value of North's version to 
 Shakespeare as dramatist, and the four editions in 
 Shakespeare's lifetime sufficiently attest its popularity 
 with the general reader. 
 
 ' The whole question about the editions which Shakespeare read is 
 a complicated one. Two things are pretty certain : (l) He must have 
 used the first edition for Midsummer-Nigkfs Dream, which was in all 
 likelihood composed before 159S, when the second appeared. (2) He 
 must have used the first or second iox Julius Caesar, which was com- 
 posed before 1603, when the third appeared. It is more difficult to 
 speak positively in regard to Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus. 
 It has been argued that the former cannot have been derived from the 
 first two editions, because in them Menas' remark to Sextus Pompeius 
 runs : 
 
 " Shall I cut the gables of the ankers, and make thee Lord not 
 
 only of Sicile and Sardinia, but of the whole Empire of Rome 
 
 besides ? " 
 
 In the third edition this is altered to cables, and this is the form that 
 
 occurs in Shakespeare : 
 
 " Let me cut the cable ; 
 And, when we are put off, fall to their throats : 
 All there is thine." {A. and C. 11. vii. 77.) 
 
 But this change is a very slight one that Shakespeare might easily 
 make for himself on the same motives that induced the editor of the 
 Lives to make it. And though attempts have been made to prove that 
 the fourth edition was used for Coriolanus, there are great difficulties 
 in accepting so late a date for that play, and one phrase rather points 
 to one of the first two editions (see Introduction to Coriolanus). If 
 this is really so, it affects the case of Antony and Cleopatra too, for it 
 would be odd to find Shakespeare using the first or second edition for 
 the latter play, and the third for the earlier one. Still, such things do 
 occur, and I think there is a tendency in those who discuss this point 
 to confine Shakespeare over rigidly to one edition. In the twentieth 
 century it is possible to find men reading or re-reading a book in the 
 first copy that comes to hand without first looking up the date on the 
 title page. Was this practice unknown in Shakespeare's day? 
 
SIR THOMAS NORTH 153 
 
 This popularity is well deserved. Its permanent 
 excellences were sure of wide appreciation, and the 
 less essential qualities that fitted Plutarch to meet 
 the needs of the hour in France, were not less 
 opportune in England. North's prefatory " Address 
 to the Reader " describes not only his own attitude 
 but that of his countrymen in general. 
 
 There is no prophane studye better than Plutarke. All 
 other learning is private, fitter for Universities then cities, 
 fuller of contemplacion than experience, more commendable 
 in the students them selves, than profitable unto others. 
 Whereas stories, (i.e. histories) are fit for every place, 
 reache to all persons, serve for all tymes, teache the living, 
 revive the dead, so farre excelling all other bookes as it is 
 better to see learning in noble mens lives than to reade it in 
 Philosophers writings. Nowe, for the Author, I will not 
 denye but love may deceive me, for I must needes love him 
 with whome I have taken so much payne, but I bileve I 
 might be bold to afErme that he hath written the profitablest 
 story of all Authors. . For all other were fayne to take their 
 matter, as the fortune of the contries where they wrote fell 
 out ; But this man, being excellent in wit, in learning, and 
 experience, hath chosen the speciall actes, of the best persons, 
 of the famosest nations of the world. . . . And so I wishe 
 you all the profit of the booke. 
 
 This passage really sums up one half the secret of 
 Plutarch's fascination for the Renaissance world. 
 The aim is profit, and profit not merely of a private 
 kind. The profit is better secured by history than 
 by precept, just as the living example is more 
 effectual than the philosophic treatise. And there is 
 more profit in Plutarch than in any other historian, 
 not only on account of his personal qualifications, 
 his wit, learning, and experience, but on account of 
 his subject-matter, because he had the opportunity 
 and insight to choose the prerogative instances in 
 the annals of mankind. Only it should be noted 
 that the profit is conceived in the most liberal and 
 ideal sense. It is the profit that comes from con- 
 tact with great souls in great surroundings, not the 
 
154 INTRODUCTION 
 
 profit of the trite and unmistakable moral. This 
 Amyot had already clearly perceived and set forth 
 in a fine passage of which North gives a fine 
 translation. The dignity of the historian's office is 
 very high : 
 
 Forasmuch as his chiefe drift ought to be to serve the 
 common weale, and that he is but as a register to set downe 
 the j udgements and definitive sentences of God's Court, whereof 
 some are geven according to the ordinarie course and capacitie 
 of our weake naturall reason, and other some goe according 
 to God's infinite power and incomprehensible wisedom, above 
 and against all discourse of man's understanding. 
 
 In other words history is not profitable as always 
 illustrating a simple retributive justice. It may do 
 that, but it may also do otherwise. Some of its 
 awards are mysterious or even inscrutable. The 
 profit it yields is disinterested and spiritual, and does 
 not lie in the encouragement of optimistic virtue. 
 And this indicates how it may be turned to account. 
 The stuff it contains is the true stuff for Tragedy. 
 
 The remaining half of Plutarch's secret depends 
 on the treatment, which loses nothing in the hands 
 of those who now must manage it ; of whom the one, 
 in Montaigne's phrase, showed "the constancy of so 
 long a labour," and the other, in his own phrase, 
 "took so much pain," to adapt it aright. But just as 
 the charm of style, though undiminished, is changed 
 when it passes from Plutarch to Amyot, so too this 
 takes place to some degree when it passes from 
 Amyot to North. North was translating from a 
 modern language, without the fear of the ancients 
 before his eyes. Amyot had translated from Greek, 
 and was familiar with classical models. Not merely 
 does this affect the comparative fidelity of their 
 versions, as it was bound to do, for North, with two 
 intervals between, and without the instincts of an 
 accurate scholar, could not keep so close as even 
 Amyot had done to the first original. Indeed he 
 
SIR THOMAS NORTH 155 
 
 sometimes, though not often, violates the meaning 
 of the French, occasionally misinterpreting a word, 
 as when he translates Coriolanus' final words to his 
 mother: "Je m'en revois (i.e. revais, retourne) 
 vaincu par toy seule," by " I see myself vanquished 
 by you alone"; more frequently misconstruing an 
 idiom, as when he goes wrong with the negative in 
 passages like the following: "Ces paroles feirent 
 incontinent penser a Eurybides et craindre que les 
 Atheniens ne sen voulussent aller et les aban- 
 donner" ; which he renders : " These wordes made 
 Eurybides presently thinke and feare that the 
 Athenians would not goe, and that they would 
 forsake them."^ 
 
 But the same circumstance affects North's mode 
 of utterance as well. It is far from attaining to 
 Amyot's habitual clearness, coherence, and correct- 
 ness. His words are often clumsily placed, his 
 constructions are sometimes broken and more fre- 
 quently charged with repetitions, he does not always 
 find his way out of a complicated sentence with his 
 grammar unscathed or his meaning unobscured. 
 One of the few Frenchmen who take exception to 
 Amyot's prose says that "it trails like the ivy creep- 
 ing at random, instead of flying like the arrow to its 
 mark." This is unfair in regard to Amyot; it would 
 be fairer, though still unfair, in regard to North. 
 Compare the French and English versions of the 
 passage that deals with Mark Antony's "piscatory 
 eclogue." Nothing could be more lucid or elegant 
 than the French. 
 
 II se meit quelquefois a pescher a la ligne, et voyant qu'il 
 ne pouvoit rien prendre, si en estoit fort despit et marry a 
 cause que Cleopatra estoit prdsente. Si commanda secrette- 
 ment a quelques pescheurs, quand il auroit jete sa ligne, 
 qu'ilz se plongeassent soudain en I'eau, et qu'ilz allassent 
 accrocher a son hamegon quelques poissons de ceulx qu'ilz 
 auroyent eu pesches auparavent; et puis retira aussi deux or 
 
 ' Themistocles. 
 
156 INTRODUCTION 
 
 trois fois sa ligne avec prise. Cleopatra s'en aperceut incon- 
 tinent, toutes fois elle feit semblant de n'en rien sgavoir, et 
 de s'esmerveiller comme il peschoit si bien; mais apart, elle 
 compta le tout a ses far liliers, et leur dit que le lendemain ilz 
 se trouvassent sur I'eau pour voir I'esbatement. Ilz y vin- 
 drent sur le port en grand nombre, et se meirent dedans des 
 bateaux de pescheurs, et Antonius aussi, lascha sa ligne, et 
 lors Cleopatra commanda k lun de ses serviteurs qu'il se has- 
 tast de plonger devant ceulx d' Antonius, et qu'il allast attacher 
 a l'hame9on de sa ligne quelque vieux poisson salle comme 
 ceulx que Ion apporte du pais de Pont. Cela fait, Antonius 
 qui cuida qu'il y eust iin poisson pris, tira incontinent sa ligne, 
 et adonc comme Ion peult penser, tous les assistans se prirent 
 bien fort k rire, et Cleopatra, en riant, lui dit: "Laisse-nous, 
 seigneur, a nous autres .^Egyptiens, habitans^ de Pharus et 
 de Canobus, laisse-nous la ligne; ce n'est pas ton mestier. 
 Ta chasse est de prendre et conquerer villes et citez, pais et 
 royaumes." 
 
 The flow of the English is not so easy and 
 transparent. 
 
 On a time he went to angle for fish, and when he could 
 take none, he was as angrie as could be, bicause Cleopatra 
 stoode by. Wherefore he secretly commaunded the fisher 
 men, that when he cast in his line, they should straight dive 
 under the water, and put a fishe on his hooke which they had 
 taken before: and so snatched up his angling rodde and 
 brought up a fish twise or thrise. Cleopatra found it straight, 
 yet she seemed not to see it, but wondred at his excellent 
 fishing : but when she was alone by her self among her owne 
 people, she told them howe it was, and bad them the next 
 morning to be on the water to see the fishing. A number of 
 people came to the haven, and got into the fisher boates to 
 see this fishing. Antonius then threw in his line, and Cleo- 
 patra straight commaunded one of her men to dive under 
 water before Antonius men and to put some old salte fish 
 upon his baite, like unto those that are brought out of the 
 contrie of Pont. When he had hong the fish on his hooke, 
 Antonius, thinking he had taken a fishe in deede, snatched 
 up his line presently. Then they all fell a-laughing. Cleo- 
 patra laughing also, said unto him : " Leave us, (my lord), 
 Egyptians (which dwell in the contry of Pharus and Cano- 
 bus) your angling rodde: this is not thy profession; thou must 
 hunt after conquering realmes and contries." 
 
 ' Greek BaaiXevnv. Does the habitans come from the 1470 Latin 
 version? A later emendation is dXteCo-ti'. 
 
SIR THOMAS NORTH 157 
 
 This specimen is in so far a favourable one for 
 North, that in simple narrative he is little exposed 
 to his besetting faults, but even here the superior 
 deftness of the Frenchman is obvious. We leave 
 out of account little mistranslations, like •^n a time 
 for qiielquefois, ^ or the fishermen for guelques pes- 
 cheurs, ^ or alone by herself for apart. We even pass 
 over the lack of connectedness when they {i.e. the 
 persons informed) in great number'^ becomes the 
 quite indefinite a number of people, and the omission 
 of the friendly nudge, so to speak, as you can 
 imagine, comme Ion peult penser. But to miss the 
 point of the phrase pour voir I'esbatement, to see the 
 sport, and translate it see the fishing, and then 
 clumsily insert the same phrase immediately after- 
 wards where it is not wanted and does not occur; to 
 change the order of the fishe and the hooke and 
 entangle the connection where it was quite clear, 
 to change s'esmerveiller to wondred, the infinitive to 
 the indicative past, and thus cloud the sense; to 
 substitute the ambiguous and prolix When he had 
 hong the fish on his hooke, for the concise and suffi- 
 cient celafait — to do all this and much more of the 
 same kind elsewhere was possible only because 
 North was far inferior to Amyot in literary tact. In 
 the English version we have often to interpret the 
 words by the sense and not the sense by the words ; 
 and this is a demand which is seldom made by the 
 French. 
 
 But there are compensations. All modern lan- 
 guages have in their analytic methods and common 
 stock of ideas a certain family resemblance, in which 
 those of antiquity do not share ; and in particular 
 
 ' Yet in these three cases, where North is certainly behind Amyot as 
 a narrator, he is more faithful to the Greek. This is the sort of thing 
 that m^es one ask whether he was not really in closer contact with 
 the original than he professes to have been. One remembers his 
 similar modesty in regard to the Diall, which, nominally from the 
 French, really made use of the Spanish as well. 
 
1^8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 French is far closer akin to English than Greek to 
 French. Since North had specialised in the conti- 
 nental literature of his day and was now dispensing 
 the bounty of France, his allegiance to the national 
 idiom was virtually undisturbed, even when he made 
 least change in his original. He may be more 
 licentious than Amyot in his treatment of grammar, 
 and less perspicuous in the ordering of his clauses, 
 but he is equal to him or superior in word music, 
 after the English mode; and he is even richer in 
 full-blooded words and in phrases racy of the soil. 
 Not that he ever rejects the guidance of his master, 
 but it leads him to the high places and the secret 
 places of his own language. So while he is quick 
 to detect the rhythm of the French and makes it 
 his pattern, he sometimes goes beyond it ; though 
 he can catch and reproduce the cadences of the 
 music-loving Amyot, it is sometimes on a sweeter 
 or a graver key. Take, for instance, that scene, 
 the favourite with Chateaubriand, where Philip, 
 the freedman of Pompey, stands watching by the 
 headless body of his murdered master till the 
 Egyptians are sated with gazing on it, till they have 
 "seen it their bellies full" in North's words. Amyot 
 proceeds : 
 
 Puis Tayant lave de I'eau de la mer, et enveloppe d'une 
 sienne pauvre chemise, pour ce qu'il n'avoit autre chose, il 
 chercha au long de la greve ou il trouva quelque demourant 
 d'un vieil bateau de pescheur, dont les pieces estoyent bien 
 vieilles, mais suflSsantes pour brusler un pauvre corps nud, 
 et encore non tout entier. Ainsi comme il les amassoit et 
 assetnbloit, il survint un Romain homme d'aage, qui en ses 
 jeunes ans avoit este b. la guerre soubs Pompeius : si luy 
 demanda : " Qui est tu, mon amy, qui fais cest apprest pour 
 les funerailles du grand Pompeius? " Philippus luy respondit 
 qu'il estoit un sien affranchy. "Ha," dit le Romain, "tu 
 n'auras pas tout seul cest honneur, et te prie vueille moy 
 recevoir pour compagnon en une si saincte et si devote 
 rencontre, a fin que je n'aye point occasion de me plaindre 
 en tout et partout de m'estre habitue en pais estranger. 
 
SIR THOMAS NORTH 159 
 
 ayant en recompense de plusieurs maulx que j'y ay endurez, 
 rencontre au moins ceste bonne adventure de pouvoir toucher 
 avec mes mains, et aider a ensepvelir le plus grand Capitaine 
 des Romains. " 
 
 This is very beautiful, but to English ears, at 
 least, there is something in North's version, copy 
 though it be, that is at once more stately and more 
 moving. 
 
 Then having washed his body with salt water, and 
 wrapped it up in an old shirt of his, because he had no 
 other shift to lay it in,^ he sought upon the sands and found 
 at the length a peece of an old fishers bote, enough to serve 
 to burne his naked bodie with, but not all fully out.^ As he 
 was busie gathering the broken peeces of this bote together, 
 thither came unto him an old Romane, who in his youth had 
 served under Pompey, and sayd unto him : " O friend, what 
 art thou that prepares! the funeralls of Pompey the Great." 
 Philip answered that he was a bondman of his infranchised. 
 "Well," said he, "thou shalt not have all this honor alone, I 
 pray thee yet let me accompany thee in so devout a deede, 
 that I may not altogether repent me to have dwelt so long in 
 a straunge cpntrie where I have abidden such miserie and 
 trouble ; but that to recompence me withall, I may have this 
 good happe, with mine owne hands to touche Pompey's 
 bodie, and to helpe to bury the only and most famous 
 Captaine of the Romanes." ^ 
 
 On the other hand, while anything but a purist in 
 the diction he employs, North's foreign loans lose 
 their foreign look, and become merely the fitting 
 ornament for his native home-spun. It is chiefly on 
 the extraordinary wealth of his vocabulary, his 
 inexhaustible supply of expressions, vulgar and 
 dignified, picturesque and penetrating, colloquial 
 
 'Amyot probably and North certainly has mistaken the sense. 
 After washing and shrouding the body "&\\o de oiSiv ^x"" i^^^^ 
 TrepurKOTur" ; but having nothing else to carry out the funeral rites 
 with, such as pine wood, spices, etc., but looking about on the beach, 
 he found, etc. 
 
 2 A misunderstanding on North's part where Amyot translates the 
 Greek quite adequately. The rendering should be "a poor naked 
 body and moreover an incomplete one," i.e. with the head wanting. 
 
 ^ Potnpeius. 
 
i6o INTRODUCTION 
 
 and literary, but all of them, as he uses them, of 
 indisputable Anglicity — it is chiefly on this that his 
 excellence as stylist is based, an excellence that 
 makes his version of Plutarch by far the most 
 attractive that we possess. It is above all through 
 these resources and the use he makes of them that 
 his book distinguishes itself from the French ; for 
 North treats Amyot very much as Amyot treats 
 Plutarch ; heightening and amplifying ; inserting 
 here an emphatic epithet and there a homely 
 proverb ; now substituting a vivid for a colourless 
 term, now pursuing the idea into pleasant side 
 tracks. Thus Amyot describes the distress of the 
 animals that were left behind when the Athenians 
 set out for Salamis, with his average faithfulness. 
 
 Et si y avoit ne sq&y quoi de pitoyable qui attendrissoit les 
 cueurs, quand on voyoit les bestes domestiques et privees, 
 qui couroient ga et la avec hurlemens et signifiance de regret 
 apres leurs maistres et ceulx qui les avoient nourries, ainsi 
 comme ilz s'embarquoient : entre lesquelles bestes on compte 
 du chien de Xantippus, pere de Pericles, que ne pouvant 
 supporter le regret "d'estre laisse de son maistre, il se jeta 
 dedans la mer apres luy, et nageant au long de la galore oti 
 il estoit, passa jusques en I'isle de Salamine, \k ofi si tost qu'il 
 fust arrive, I'aleine luy faillit, et mourut soudainement. 
 
 But this account stirs North's sympathy, and he 
 puts in little touches that show his interest and 
 compassion. 
 
 There was besides, a certain pittie that made mens harts to 
 yerne, when they saw the poore doggs, beasts and cattell ronne 
 up and doune, bleating, mowing, and howling out aloude after 
 their masters in token of sqrowe, whan they did imbarke. 
 Amongst them there goeth a straunge tale of Xanthippus 
 dogge, who was Pericles father ; which, for sorowe his master 
 had left him behind him, dyd caste him self after into the sea, 
 and swimming still by the galley's side wherein his master 
 was, he held on to the lie of Salamina, where so sone as 
 this poor curve laaded, his breath fayled him, and dyed 
 instantly.^ 
 
 1 Themistocles. 
 
SIR THOMAS NORTH i6i 
 
 Similarly, when he recounts the story how the Gauls 
 entered Rome, North cannot restrain his reverence 
 for Papinus or his delight in his blow, or his 
 indignation at its requital. Amyot had told of 
 the Gaul : 
 
 qui prit la hardiesse de s'approcher de Marcus Papyrius, et 
 luy passa tout doulcementi la main par dessus sa barbe qui 
 estoit longue. Papyrius luy donna de son hasten si grand 
 coup sur la teste, qu'il la luy blecea; dequoy le barbare 
 estant imte, desguaina son espee, et I'occit. 
 
 North is not content with such reserve. 
 
 One of them went boldely unto M. Papyrius and layed his 
 hand fayer and softely upon his long beard. But Papyrius 
 gave him such a rappe on his pate with his staffe, that the 
 bloude ran about his eares. This barbarous beaste was in 
 such a rage with the blowe that he drue out his sworde and 
 slewe him.* 
 
 Or sometimes the picture suggested is so pleasant 
 to North that he partly recomposes it and adds 
 some gracious touch to enhance its charm. Thus 
 he found this vignette of the peaceful period that 
 followed Numa : 
 
 Les peuples hantoient et trafiquoient les uns avec les autres 
 sans crainte ni danger, et s'entrevisitoient en toute cordiale 
 hospitalite, comme si la sapience de Numa eut ete une vive 
 source de toutes bonnes et honnestes choses, de laquelle 
 plusieurs fleuves se fussent derives pour arroser toute I'ltalie. 
 
 This is how North recasts and embellishes the last 
 sentence : 
 
 The people did traflScke and frequent together, without feare 
 or daunger, and visited one another, making great cheere: as 
 if out of the springing fountain of Numds wisdom, many pretie 
 brookes and streames of good and honest life had ronne over all 
 Italic and had watered it? 
 
 But illustrations might be multiplied through pages. 
 Enough have been given to show North's debts to 
 
 ^ Represents irp&m. Amyot leaves out #oto tow yevelov, caught the 
 chtn: si grand, and estant irritd, are added. 
 ^ Ftirius Camillus. 3 Numa Pompilius. 
 
 L 
 
i62 INTRODUCTION 
 
 the French and their limits. With a few unimpor- 
 tant errors, his rendering is in general wonderfully- 
 faithful and close, so that he copies even the sequence 
 of thought and modulation of rhythm. He some- 
 times falls short of his authority in simplicity, neat- 
 ness, and precision of structure. On the other hand 
 he sometimes excels it in animation and force, in 
 volume and inwardness. But, and this is the last 
 word on his style, even when he follows Amyot's 
 French most scrupulously, he always contrives to 
 write in his own and his native idiom. And hence 
 it came that he once for all naturalised Plutarch 
 among us. His was the epoch-making deed. His 
 successors, who were never his supersessors, merely 
 entered into his labours and adapted Plutarch to the 
 requirements of the Restoration, or of the eighteenth 
 or of the nineteenth century. But they were adapt- 
 ing an author whom North had made a national 
 classic. 
 
 Plutarch was a Greek, to be sure, and a Greek no doubt 
 he is still. But as when we think of a Devereux ... we 
 call him an Englishman and not a Norman, so who among 
 the reading public troubles himself to reflect that Plutarch 
 wrote Attic prose of such and such a quality ? Scholars know 
 all about it to be sure, as they know that the turkeys of our 
 farm-yards come originally from Mexico. Plutarch however 
 is not a scholar's author, but is popular everywhere as if he 
 were a native. * 
 
 But one aspect of this is that North carries further 
 the process which Amyot had begun of accommodat- 
 ing antiquity to current conceptions. The atmosphere 
 of North's diction is so genuinely national that objects 
 discerned through it take on its hue. Under his 
 strenuous welcome the noble Grecian and Roman 
 immigrants from France are forced to make them- 
 selves at home, but in learning the ways of the 
 English market-place they forget something of the 
 
 * Quarterly Review, 1861. 
 
SIR THOMAS NORTH 163 
 
 Agora and the Forum. Perhaps this was inevitable, 
 since they were come to stay. 
 
 And the consequence of North's method is that 
 he meets Shakespeare half way. His copy may 
 blur some of the lines in the original picture, but 
 they are lines that Shakespeare would not have 
 perceived. He may present Antiquity in disguise, 
 but it was in this disguise alone that Shakespeare 
 was able to recognise it. He has in short supplied 
 Shakespeare with the only Plutarch that Shake- 
 speare could understand. The highest compliment 
 we can pay his style is, that it had a special relish 
 for Shakespeare, who retained many of North's 
 expressions with little or no alteration. The highest 
 compliment we can pay the contents is, that, only a 
 little more modernised, they furnished Shakespeare 
 with his whole conception of antique history. 
 
 The influence of North's Plutarch on Shakespeare 
 is thus of a twofold kind. There is the influence of 
 the diction, there is the influence of the subject- 
 matter; and in the first instance it is more specifically 
 the influence of North, while in the second it is more 
 specifically the influence of Plutarch. 
 
 It would be as absurd as unfair to deny Shake- 
 speare's indebtedness to North not only in individual 
 turns and phrases, but in continuous discourse. 
 Often the borrower does little more than change 
 the prose to poetry. But at the lowest he always 
 does that ; and there is perhaps in some quarters a 
 tendency to minimise the marvel of the feat, and so, 
 if not to exaggerate the obligation, at least to set it 
 in a false light. He has nowhere followed North 
 so closely through so many lines as in Volumnia's 
 great speech to her son before Rome ; and, next to 
 that, in Coriolanus' great speech to Aufidius in 
 Antium. In these passages the ideas, the arrange- 
 ment of the ideas, the presentation of the ideas are 
 practically the same in the translator and in the 
 
i64 INTRODUCTION 
 
 dramatist : yet, with a few almost imperceptible 
 touches, a few changes in the order of construction, 
 a few substitutions in the wording, the language of 
 North, without losing any directness or force, gains a 
 majestic volume and vibration that are only possible 
 in the cadences of the most perfect verse. These 
 are the cases in which Shakespeare shows most 
 verbal dependence on his author, but his originality 
 asserts itself even in them. North's admirable 
 appeal is not Shakespeare's, Shakespeare's more 
 admirable appeal is not North's.^ 
 
 Similarly there has been a tendency to over- 
 estimate the loans of the Roman Plays from Plutarch. 
 From this danger even Archbishop Trench has not 
 altogether escaped in an eloquent and well-known 
 passage which in many ways comes very near to 
 the truth. After dwelling on the freedom with 
 which Shakespeare generally treats his sources, for 
 instance the novels of Bandello or Cinthio, deriving 
 from them at most a hint or two, cutting and carv- 
 ing, rejecting or expanding their statements at will, 
 he concludes : 
 
 But his relations with Plutarch are very different — different 
 enough to justify or almost to justify the words of Jean Paul 
 when in his Titan he calls Plutarch " der biographische 
 Shakespeare der VVeltgeschichte." What a testimony we 
 have here to the true artistic sense and skill which, with all 
 his occasional childish simplicity^ the old biographer possesses, 
 in the fact that the mightiest and completest artist of all times, 
 should be content to resign himself into his hands and simply 
 to follow where the other leads. 
 
 To this it might be answered in the first place 
 that Shakespeare shows the same sort of fidelity in 
 kind, though not in degree, to the comparatively 
 inartistic chronicles of his mother country. That is, 
 
 ' The relations of the various versions — Greek, Latin, French, and 
 
 English — are illustrated from Volumnia's speech in Appendix B. 
 
 '■^ " Childish simplicity" does not strike one as a correct description 
 of Plutarch's method. 
 
SIR THOMAS NORTH 165 
 
 It IS in part as we have seen, liis tribute not to the 
 historical author but to the historical subject. Grant- 
 ing, however, the superior claims of Plutarch it 
 IS yet an overstatement to say that Shakespeare is 
 content to resign himself into his hands, and simply 
 to follow where the other leads. Delius, after an 
 elaborate comparison of biography and drama, sums 
 up his results in the protest that " Shakespeare has 
 much less to thank Plutarch for than one is generally 
 inclined to suppose." ' 
 
 Indeed, however much Plutarch would appeal to 
 Shakespeare in virtue both of his subjects and his 
 methods, it is easy to see that even as a "grave 
 learned philosopher and historiographer" he is on 
 the hither side of perfection. He interrupts the 
 story with moral disquisitions, and is a little apt to 
 preach, and often, through such intrusions and 
 irrelevances, or the adherence of the commonplace 
 his most impressive touches fail of their utmost 
 possible effect : at least he does not always seem 
 aware of the full value of his details, of their depth 
 and suggestiveness when they are set aright. Yet. 
 he is more excellent in details than in the whole : 
 he has little arrangement or artistic construction ; he 
 is not free from contradictions and discrepancies ;' he 
 gives the bricks and mortar but not the building, 
 and occasionally some of the bricks are flawed or 
 the mortar is forgotten. And his stories have this 
 inorganic character, because he is seldom concerned 
 to pierce to the meaning that would give them unity 
 and coherence. He moralises, and only too senten- 
 tiously, whenever an opportunity offers ; but of the 
 principles that underlie the conflicts and catastrophes 
 which in his free-and-easy way he describes, he has 
 at best but fragmentary glimpses. 
 
 And in all this the difference between the genial 
 moralist and the inspired tragedian is a vast one — 
 so vast that when once we perceive it, it is hard to 
 
i66 INTRODUCTION 
 
 retain a fitting sense of the points of contact. In 
 Shakespeare, Plutarch's weaknesses disappear, or 
 rather are replaced by excellences of precisely the 
 opposite kind. He rejects all that is otiose or dis- 
 cordant in speech or situation, and adds from other 
 passages in his author or from his own imagination, 
 the circumstances that are needed to bring out its 
 full poetic significance. He always looks to the 
 whole, removes discrepancies, establishes the inner 
 connection ; and at his touch the loose parts take 
 their places as members of one living organism. 
 And in a sense, " he knows what it is all about." 
 In a sense he is more of a philosophic historian than 
 his teacher. At any rate, while Plutarch takes his 
 responsibilities lightly in regard both to facts and 
 conclusions, Shakespeare, in so far as that was 
 possible for an Elizabethan, has a sort of intuition 
 of the principles that Plutarch's narrative involves ; 
 and while adding some pigment from his own 
 thought and feeling to give them colour and visible 
 shape, accepts them as his pre-suppositions which 
 interpret the story and which it interprets. 
 
 Thus the influences of North's Plutarch, whether 
 of North's style or of Plutarch's matter, though no 
 doubt very great, are in the last resort more in the 
 way of suggestion than of control. But they do not 
 invariably act with equal potency or in the same pro- 
 portion. Thus Antony and Cleopatra adheres most 
 closely to the narrative of the biographer, which is 
 altered mainly by the omission of details unsuitable 
 for the purpose of the dramatist; but the words, 
 phrases, constructions, are for the most part con- 
 spicuously Shakespeare's own. Here there is a 
 maximum of Plutarch and a minimum of North. In 
 Coriolanus, on the other hand, apart from the 
 unconscious modifications that we have noticed, 
 Shakespeare allows himself more liberty than else- 
 where in chopping and changing the substance; but 
 
SIR THOMAS NORTH 167 
 
 lengthy passages and some of the most impressive 
 ones are incorporated in the drama without further 
 alteration than is implied in the transfiguration of 
 prose to verse. Here there is the maximum of 
 North with the minimum of Plutarch. Julius Caesar, 
 as in the matter of the inevitable and unintentional 
 misunderstandings, so again here, occupies a middle 
 place. Many. phrases, and not a few decisive sug- 
 gestions for the most important speeches, have 
 passed from the Lives into the play: one sentence at 
 least it is hard to interpret without reference to the 
 context; but here as a rule, even when he borrows 
 most, Shakespeare treats his loans very independ- 
 ently. So, too, though he seldom wittingly departs 
 from Plutarch, he elaborates the new material 
 throughout, amplifying and abridging, selecting and 
 rejecting, taking to pieces and recombining, not from 
 one Life but from three. Here we have the mean 
 influence both of Plutarch and of North. 
 
 In so far therefore yi^/z«j Caesar gives the norm 
 of Shakespeare's procedure; and with it, for this as 
 well as on chronological grounds, we begin. 
 
JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 POSITION OF THE PLAY BETWEEN THE HISTORIES 
 AND THE TRAGEDIES. ATTRACTION OF THE 
 SUBJECT FOR SHAKESPEARE AND HIS GENER- 
 ATION. INDEBTEDNESS TO PLUTARCH 
 
 Although Julius Caesar was first published in the 
 Folio of 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, 
 there is not much doubt about its approximate date 
 of composition, which is now placed by almost all 
 scholars near the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. Some of the evidence for this is partly 
 external in character. 
 
 (i) In a miscellany of poems on the death of 
 Elizabeth, printed in 1603, and entitled Sorrowes 
 Joy, the lines occur : 
 
 They say a comet woonteth to appeare 
 When Princes baleful destinie is neare : 
 So Julius starre was scene with fiery crest, 
 Before his fall to blaze among the rest. 
 
 It looks as though the suggestion for the idea and 
 many of the words had come from Calpurnia's 
 remonstrance. 
 
 When beggars die there are no comets seen: 
 
 The heavens themselves blaze forth the death ol princes. 1 
 
 (11. ii. 30.) 
 
 ' Pointed out by Mr. Stokes, Chronological Order, etc. Might not 
 some of the expressions come, however, from Virgil's list of the portents 
 
JULIUS CAESAR 169 
 
 Another apparent loan belongs to the same year. 
 
 In 1603 Drayton rewrote his poem oi Mortimeriados 
 
 under the title of The Barons' Wars, altering and 
 
 adding many passages. One of the insertions runs : 
 
 Such one he was, of him we boldely say, 
 
 In whose riche soule all soueraigne powres did sute, 
 In whome in peace th{e) elements all lay 
 
 So mixt as none could soueraignty impute ; 
 As all did gouerne, yet all did obey. 
 His liuely temper was so absolute, 
 That 't seemde when heauen his model! first began, 
 In him it shewd perfection in a man. 
 
 Compare Antony's verdict on Brutus : 
 
 His life was gentle, and the elements 
 
 So misled in him, that Nature might stand up 
 
 And say to all the world, "This was a man." (v. v. 73.) 
 
 Some critics have endeavoured to minimise this co- 
 incidence on the ground that it was a common idea 
 that man was compounded of the four elements. 
 But that would not account for such close identity of 
 phrase. There must be some connection; and that 
 Drayton, not Shakespeare, was the copyist, is ren- 
 dered probable by the circumstance that Drayton, in 
 1619, i.e. after Shakespeare's death, makes a still 
 closer approach to Shakespeare's language. 
 
 He was a man, then, boldly dare to say. 
 In whose rich soul the virtues well did suit; 
 
 In whom, so mix'd the elements all lay, 
 That none to one could sovereignty impute ; 
 
 As all did govern, yet all did obey : 
 He of a temper was so absolute 
 
 As that it seem'd, when Nature him began. 
 
 She meant to show all that might be in man.^ 
 
 (2) Apart, however, from these apparent adapta- 
 tions in 1603, there is reason to conjecture that the 
 play had been performed by May in the previous year. 
 At that date, as we know from Henslowe's Diary, 
 
 that accompanied Caesar's death? Compare especially "nee diri toties. 
 arsere cometae " (G. i. 488). 
 ' Collier's Shakespeare. 
 
I70 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 Drayton, Webster and others were engaged on a 
 tragedy on the same subject called Caesars Fall. 
 Now it is a well ascertained fact that when a drama 
 was a success at one theatre, something on a similar 
 theme commonly followed at another. The entry 
 therefore, that in the early summer of 1602 Hens- 
 lowe had several playwrights working at this 
 material, apparently in a hurry, since so many are 
 sharing in the task, is in so far presumptive evidence 
 that Shakespeare's Julius Caesar had been produced 
 in the same year or shortly before. 
 
 (3) But these things are chiefly important as con- 
 firming the probability of another allusion, which 
 would throw the date a little further back still. In 
 Weever's Mirror of Martyrs there is the quatrain : 
 
 The many headed multitude were drawne 
 By Brutus speech, that Caesar was ambitious, 
 When eloquent Mark Antony had showne 
 His vertues, who but Brutus then was vicious.^ 
 
 Now this has a much more specific reference to 
 the famous scene in the Play than to anything in 
 Plutarch, who, for instance, even in the Life of 
 Brutus, which gives the fullest account of Brutus' 
 dealings with the citizens, does not mention the 
 substance of his argument and still less any insis- 
 tence on Caesar's ambition, but only says that he 
 "made an oration unto them to winne the favor 
 of the people, and to justifie what they had done " ; 
 and this passage, which contains the fullest notice of 
 Brutus' speeches, like the corresponding one in the 
 Life of Caesar, attributes only moderate success to 
 his appeal in the market place, while it goes on to 
 describe the popular disapproval as exploding 
 before the intervention of Antony.* Thus it seems 
 
 ' Mr. Halliwell-Phillips' discovery. 
 
 2 "Brutus and his confederates came into the market place to 
 speake unto the people, who gave them such audience, that it seemed 
 they neither greatly reproved, nor allowed the fact : for by their great 
 
JULIUS CAESAR 171 
 
 fairly certain that a knowledge of Shakespeare's 
 play is presupposed by the Mirror of Martyrs, which 
 was printed in 1601. 
 
 On the other hand, it cannot have been much 
 earlier. The absence of such a typical "tragedy" 
 from Meres' list in 1598 is nearly proof positive that 
 it was not then in existence. - 
 
 After that the data are less definite. A Warning 
 for Fair Women, printed in 1 599, contains the lines : 
 
 I have given him fifteen wounds, 
 Which will be fifteen mouths that do accuse me : 
 In every mouth there is a bloody tongue 
 Which will speak, although he holds his peace. 
 
 It is difficult not to bring these into connection with 
 Antony's words : 
 
 Over thy wounds now do I prophesy — 
 
 Which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips 
 
 To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue. (in. i. 259.) 
 
 And again : 
 
 I tell you that which you yourselves do know, 
 
 Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths. 
 
 And bid them speak for me : but were I Brutus 
 
 And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 
 
 Would rufHe up your spirits and put a tongue 
 
 In every wound. (in. ii. 228.) 
 
 But in this Shakespeare may have been the debtor 
 not the creditor : and other coincidences like the " Et 
 tu, Brute," in Acolastus his Afterwif^ (1600) may be 
 due to the use of common or current authorities. 
 
 silence they showed that they were sorry for Caesar's death and also 
 that they did reverence Brutus." Julius Caesar. 
 
 "When the people saw him in the pulpit, although they were a 
 multitude of rakehells of alle sortes, and had a good will to make 
 some sturre, yet being ashamed to doe it for the reverence they bare 
 unto Brutus, they kept silence to heare what he would say. When 
 Brutus began to speak they gave him quiet audience ; howbeit 
 immediately after, they shewed that they were not all contented with 
 the murther. For when another called Cinna would have spoken and 
 began to accuse Caesar ; they fell into a great uprore among them, 
 and marvelously reviled him." M. Brutus. 
 
 ^ By S. Nicholson. 
 
172 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 One little detail has been used as an argument that 
 the play was later than 1600. Cassius says : 
 
 There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd 
 
 The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome 
 
 As easily as a king. (i. ii. 159.) 
 
 Here obviously the word we should have expected 
 is infernal not eternal. It has been conjectured^ 
 that the milder expression was substituted in defer- 
 ence to the increasing disapproval of profane 
 language on the stage ; and since three plays 
 published in 1600 use infernal, the inference is that 
 Julius Caesar is subsequent to them. One fails to 
 see, however, why Shakespeare should admit the 
 substantive and be squeamish about the adjective : 
 in point of fact, much uglier words than either find 
 free entry into his later plays. And one has like- 
 wise to remember that the Julius Caesar we possess 
 was published only in 1623, and that such a change 
 might very well have been made in any of the 
 intervening years, even though it were written 
 before 1600. The most then that can be established 
 by this set of inferences, is that it was produced after 
 Meres' Palladis Tamia in 1598 and before Weever's 
 Mirror of Martyrs in 1601. 
 
 The narrowness of the range is fairly satisfactory, 
 and it may be further reduced. It has been sur- 
 mised that perhaps Essex' treason turned Shake- 
 speare's thoughts to the story of another conspiracy 
 by another high-minded man, and that Caesar's 
 reproach, " Et tu. Brute," derived not from the 
 Parallel Lives but from floating literary tradi- 
 tion, would suggest to an audience of those days 
 the feeling of Elizabeth in regard to one whom 
 Shakespeare had but recently celebrated as " the 
 general of our gracious Empress." At any rate the 
 time seems suitable. Among Shakespeare's serious 
 p\a.YS Julius Caesar most resembles in style Henry V., 
 ^ By Mr. Wright, Clarendon Press Edition. 
 
JULIUS CAESAR 173 
 
 written between March and September 1 599, as the 
 above allusion to Essex' expedition shows,^ and 
 Hamlet, entered at Stationers' Hall in 1602, as 
 "latelie acted." But the connection is a good deal 
 closer with the latter than with the former, and 
 extends to the parallelism and contrast between the 
 chief persons, both of them philosophic students 
 called upon to make a decision for which their tem- 
 perament and powers do not fit them, and therefore 
 the one of them deciding wrong and the other 
 hardly deciding at all. Both pieces contain refer- 
 ences to the story of Caesar, but those in Hamlet 
 accord better with the tone of the tragedy. Thus 
 the chorus says of Henry's triumph : 
 
 The mayor and all his brethren in best sort. 
 Like to the senators of the antique Rome, 
 With the plebeians swarming at their heels. 
 Go forth to fetch their conquering Caesar in. 
 
 (v. prologue 25.) 
 
 Would this passage have been penned if Shake- 
 speare had already described how the acclamations of 
 the plebs were interrupted by the tribunes, and how 
 among the senators there were some eager to make 
 away with the Victor ? 
 
 But the two chief references in Hamlet merely 
 abridge what is told more at large in the Play. 
 Polonius says: "I did enact Julius Caesar : I was 
 killed i' the Capitol. Brutus killed me" (iii. ii. 108), 
 which is only a bald summary of the central situation. 
 Hamlet says : 
 
 In the most high and palmy state of Rome, 
 
 A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, 
 
 The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead 
 
 Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets : 
 
 As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood. 
 
 Disasters in the sun ; and the moist star 
 
 Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands 
 
 Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse. (i. i. 1 13.) 
 
 ' Henry V. v. prologue 30. 
 
174 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 This reads like a condensed anthology from the 
 
 descriptions of Casca, Cassius and Calpurnia, eked 
 
 out with a few hints from another passage in 
 
 Plutarch that had ^not hitherto been utilised.^ 
 
 Even the quatram : 
 t 
 
 Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, 
 
 Might stop a hole to keep the wind away : 
 
 O, that that earth which kept the world in awe, 
 
 Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw ! (v. i. 236.) 
 
 is in some sort the ironical development of Antony's 
 thought : 
 
 O mighty Caesar ! dost thou lie so low ? 
 
 Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, 
 
 Shrunk to this little measure? (in. i. 148.) 
 
 But yesterday the word of Caesar might 
 
 Have stood against the world : now lies he there. 
 
 And none so poor to do him reverence. (111. ii. 123.) 
 
 Owing to Weever's reference we cannot ^ut Julius 
 Caesar after Hamlet, but it seems to have closer 
 relations with Hamlet than with Henry V. It is not 
 rash to place it between the two, in 1600 or 1601. 
 This does not however mean that we necessarily 
 have it quite in its original form. On the contrary, 
 there are indications that it may have been revised 
 some time after the date of composition. 
 
 Thus Ben Jonson in his Discoveries writes of 
 Shakespeare : "His wit was in his own power : 
 would the rule of it had been so too ! Many times 
 
 _' Calpurnia speaks of the appearance of comets at the death of 
 princes, but merely in a general way, not as a presage then to be 
 observed : and there is no mention in the play of disasters in the sun 
 or eclipses of the moon. Near the end of the Life of Caesar, Plutarch 
 records the first two portents, and his language suggests the idea of a 
 solar, which', for variety's sake, might easily be changed to a lunar 
 eclipse. "The great comet which seven nightes together was scene 
 very bright after Caesar's death, the eight night after was never seene 
 more. Also the brightnes of the sunne was darkened, the which all 
 that yeare through was very pale, and shined not out, whereby it gave 
 but small heate." 
 
JULIUS CAESAR 175 
 
 he fell into those things could not escape laughter, 
 as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speak- 
 ing to him, ' Caesar, thou dost me wrong,' he 
 replied, 'Caesar did never wrong but with just cause,' 
 and such like ; which were ridiculous." Most people 
 would see in this a very ordinary example of the 
 figure called Paradox, and some would explain wrong 
 in such a way that even the paradox disappears : 
 but the alleged biiise tickled Ben's fancy, for he 
 recurs to it to make a point in the Introduction to 
 the Staple 0/ News. One of the persons says : " I 
 can do that too, if I have cause " ; to which the reply 
 is made : " Cry you mercy ; you never did wrong 
 but with just cause." 
 
 Now in the present play there is no such expres- 
 sion. The nearest analogue occurs in the conclusion 
 of the speech, in which Caesar refuses the petition 
 for Publius Cimber's recall, 
 
 Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause 
 
 Will he be satisfied. (iii. i. 47.) 
 
 It has been suggested ^ that Jonson simply misquoted 
 the passage. But it is not likely that Ben would 
 consciously or unconsciously pervert the authentic 
 text by introducing an absurdity, still less by intro- 
 ducing an absurdity that few people find absurd. 
 In his criticisms on Shakespeare he does not manu- 
 facture the things to which he objects, but regards 
 them from an unsympathetic point of view. It 
 seems probable, therefore, that he has preserved an 
 original reading, that was altered out of deference 
 for strictures like his : and this in so far supports 
 the theory that the play was corrected after its first 
 appearance. 
 
 So, too, with the versification. The consideration 
 of certain technicalities, such as the weak ending, 
 would place Julius Caesar comparatively early, but 
 
 * By Mr. Verity, Julius Caesar, 198. 
 
176 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 there are others that yield a more ambiguous result. 
 It may have been revived and revised about 1607 
 when the subject was again popular. 
 
 And perhaps it has survived only in an acting 
 edition. It is unusually short : and, that Shake- 
 speare's plays were probably abridged for the stage, 
 we know from comparison of the Quarto with the 
 Folio Hamlets. The same argument has been used 
 in regard to Macbeth. 
 
 Still granting the plausibility up to a certain 
 point of this conjecture, its importance must not be 
 exaggerated. It does not affect the fact xhax Julius 
 Caesar belongs essentially to the very beginning of 
 the century, and that it is an organic whole as it 
 stands. If abridged, it is still full, compact and 
 unattenuated. If revised, its style, metre and treat- 
 ment are still all characteristic of Shakespeare's early 
 prime. The easy flow of the verse, the luminous 
 and pregnant diction, the skilful presentation of the 
 story in a few suggestive incidents, all point to a time 
 when Shakespeare had attained complete mastery of 
 his methods and material, and before he was driven 
 by his daemon to tasks insuperable by another and 
 almost insuperable by him, 
 
 Reaching that heaven might so replenish him 
 Above and through his art. 
 
 It is perhaps another aspect of the perfect and 
 harmonious beauty, which fulfils the whole play and 
 every part of it, that while there is none of the 
 speeches "that is in the bad sense declamatory, 
 none that does not gain by its context nor can be 
 spared from it without some loss to the dramatic 
 situation," there are many " which are eminently 
 adapted for declamation " ; ^ that is, for delivery by 
 themselves. In the later plays, on the other hand, 
 
 ' The late Mr. H. Sidgwick, " Julius Caesar and Coriolanus," in 
 Essays and Addresses. 
 
JULIUS CAESAR 177 
 
 it is far more difficult to extract any particular jewel 
 from its setting. 
 
 It is pretty certain then thaX Julius Caesar is the 
 first not only of the Roman Plays, but of the great 
 series of Tragedies. The flame-tipped welter of 
 Titus Andronicus, the poignant radiance ol Romeo 
 and Juliet belong to Shakespeare's pupilage and 
 youth. Their place is apart from each other and 
 the rest in the vestibule and forecourt of his art. 
 The nearest approach to real Tragedy he had other- 
 wise made was in the English History of Richard 
 III- And now when that period of his career begins 
 in which he is chiefly occupied with the treatment of 
 tragic themes, it is again to historical material that 
 he has recourse, and he chooses from it the episode 
 which was probably of supreme interest to the Europe 
 of his day. Since Muretus first showed the way, the 
 fate of Caesar had again and again been dramaiised 
 in Latin and in the vernacular, in French and in 
 English. It was a subject that to a genius of the 
 second rank might have seemed hackneyed, but a 
 genius of the highest rank knows that the common 
 is not hackneyed but catholic, and contains richer 
 possibilities than the recondite. Shakespeare had 
 already been drawn to it himself. The frequent 
 references in his earlier dramas show how he too 
 was fascinated by the glamour of Caesar. In the 
 plays adapted by him, he inserts or retains tributes 
 to Caesar's greatness, to the irony or injustice of 
 his fate. Bedford in his enthusiasm for the spirit 
 of Henry V., as ordained to prosper the realm 
 and thwart adverse planets, can prefer him to only 
 one rival, 
 
 A far more glorious star thy soul will make 
 
 Than Julius Caesar. {H. VI. A. i. i. 155.) 
 
 Suffolk, in his self-conceit and self-pity, seeks for 
 examples of other celebrities who have perished by 
 
178 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 ignoble hands, and compared with his victim, even 
 Brutus seems on the level of the meanest and most 
 unscrupulous. 
 
 A Roman sworder and baaditto slave 
 Murder'd sweet TuUy : Brutus' bastard hand 
 Stabb'd Julius Caasar : savage islanders 
 Poinpey the Great : and Suffolk dies by pirates. 
 
 {H. VI. B. IV. i. 134.) 
 
 Margaret, when her boy is slaughtered at Tewkes- 
 bury, thinks of Caesar's murder as the one deed 
 which can be placed beside it, and which it even 
 transcends in horror. 
 
 They that stabb'd Caesar shed no blood at all, 
 Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame, 
 If this foul deed were by to equal it. 
 
 {H. VI. C. V. V. S3.) 
 
 It is the same if we turn to Shakespeare's indisput- 
 ably spontaneous utterances. He sees Caesar's 
 double merit with pen and sword. Says the little 
 Prince Edward : 
 
 That Julius Caesar was a famous man : 
 With what his valour did enrich his wit, 
 His wit set down to make his valour live. 
 Death makes no conquest of this conquerer : 
 For now he lives in fame, though not in life. 
 
 {R. in. III. i. 84.) 
 
 Rosalind laughs at the self- consciousness of his 
 prowess as she laughs at the extravagance of love 
 in Troilus and Leander, but evidently Shakespeare, 
 just as he was impressed by their stories in Chaucer 
 and Marlowe, was impressed in Plutarch with what 
 she calls the " thrasonical brag of ' I came, saw, and 
 overcame.' " Don Armado is made to quote it in 
 his role of invincible gallant {L.L.L. iv. i. 68) ; and 
 Falstaff parodies it by applying to himself the boast 
 of " the hooked-nosed fellow of Rome " when Sir 
 John Coleville surrenders {H. IV. B. iv. iii. 45). 
 For to Shakespeare there are no victories like 
 
JULIUS CAESAR 179 
 
 Caesar's. The false announcement of Hotspur's 
 success appeals to them for precedent : 
 
 O, such a day 
 So fought, so foUow'd and so fairly won, 
 Came not till now to dignify the times 
 Since Caesar's fortunes. {H. IV. B. i. i. 20.) 
 
 We have already noticed the references to his 
 triumphs, his fate, the ironical contrast between the 
 was and the is in Henry V. and Hamlet, the History 
 and the Tragedy that respectively precede and 
 succeed the play of which he is titular hero. But 
 Shakespeare keeps recurring to the theme almost to 
 the end. When in Measure for Measure the dis- 
 reputable Pompey is conveyed to prison, it suggests a 
 ridiculous parallel with that final triumph of Caesar's 
 when the tribunes saw far other 
 
 tributaries follow him to Rome 
 To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels. 
 
 " How now, noble Pompey," says Lucio as the go- 
 between passes by behind Elbow and the officers, 
 " what, at the wheels of Caesar ? art thou led in 
 triumph ? " (iii. ii. 46). In Antony and Cleopatra, 
 of course the incumbent presence of " broad-fronted 
 Caesar" is always felt. But in Cymbeline, too, it 
 haunts us. Now his difficulties in the island, since 
 there were difficulties even for him, are used as by 
 Posthumus, to exalt the prowess of the Britons, 
 
 When Julius Caesar 
 Smiled at their lack of skill, but found their courage 
 Worthy his frowning at : (n. iv. 21.) 
 
 or by the Queen : 
 
 A kind of conquest 
 Caesar made here ; but made not here his brag 
 Of "came" and "saw" and "overcame." (iii. i. 22.) 
 
 But the dominant note is rather of admiration for 
 
 Julius Caesar, whose remembrance yet 
 
 Lives in men's eyes, and will t,o ears and tongues 
 
 Be theme and hearing ever. (in. i. 2.) 
 
i8o JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 Or if the fault that Brutus enforced is brought to 
 view, the very fault becomes a grandiose and super- 
 human thing : 
 
 Caesar's ambition, 
 Which swell'd so much, that it did almost stretch 
 The sides o' the world. (iii. i. 49.) 
 
 The subject then was one of wide-spread interest 
 and had an abiding fascination for Shakespeare 
 himself. After leaving national history in Henry V. 
 he seems to have turned to the history of Rome for 
 the first Tragedy of his prime in a spirit much like 
 that in which he had gone to the English Chronicles. 
 And he goes to it much in the same way. It 
 has been said that in most of the earlier series 
 " Holinshed is hardly ever out of the poet's hands." ^ 
 Substituting Plutarch for Holinshed the expression 
 is true in this case too. An occasional phrase like 
 the Et tu. Brute, he obtained elsewhere, most 
 probably from familiar literary usage, but con- 
 ceivably from the lost Latin play of Dr. Eedes or 
 Geddes. Stray hints he may have derived from 
 other authorities ; for instance, though this is not 
 certain, a suggestion or two from Appian's Civil 
 Wars for Mark Antony's Oration.^ It is even 
 possible that he may have been directed to the 
 conception and treatment of a few longer passages 
 by his general reading : thus, as we have seen, it 
 has been maintained not without plausibility that 
 the first conversation between Brutus and Cassius 
 can be traced to the corresponding scene in the 
 Cornelie.^ But in Plutarch he found practically all 
 the stuff and substance for his play, except what 
 was contributed by his own genius ; and any other 
 ingredients are nearly imperceptible and altogether 
 
 ' Mr. Churton Collins, Studies in Shakespeare. See also Mr. Boswell 
 Stone, Shakesper^s Holinshed. 
 ^ See Appendix C. 
 "See Introduction, pages 60-61, and Appendix A. 
 
JULIUS CAESAR i8i 
 
 negligible. Plutarch, however, has given much. 
 All the persons except Lucius come from him, and 
 Shakespeare owes to him a number of their character- 
 istics down to the minutest traits. Cassius' leanness 
 and Antony's sleekness, Brutus' fondness for his 
 books and cultivation of an artificial style, Caesar's 
 liability to the falling sickness and vein of arrogance 
 in his later years, are all touches that are taken over 
 from the Biographer. So too with the events and 
 circumstances, and in the main, the sequence in 
 which they are presented. Plutarch tells of the 
 disapproval with which the triumph over Pompey's 
 sons was regarded ; of the prophecy of danger on 
 the Ides of March ; of the offer of the crown on the 
 Lupercal ; of the punishment of the Tribunes ; of 
 Cassius' conference with Brutus ; of the anonymous 
 solicitations that are sent to the latter; of the 
 respect in which he was held ; of his relations with 
 his wife, and her demand to share his confidence ; 
 of the enthusiasm of the conspirators, their contempt 
 for an oath, their rejection of Cicero as confederate, 
 their exemption of Antony at Brutus' request; of 
 Ligarius' disregard of his illness ; of the prodigies 
 and portents that preceded Caesar's death ; of 
 Calpurnia's dream, her efforts to stay her husband 
 at home and the counter arguments of Decius 
 Brutus ; of Artemidorus' intervention, the second 
 meeting with the sooth-sayer ; of Portia's paroxysm 
 of anxiety ; of all the details of the assassination 
 scene ; of the speeches to the people by Brutus and 
 Antony ; of the effects of Caesar's funeral ; of the 
 murder of the poet Cinna ; of the proscription of 
 the Triumvirate ; of the disagreement of Brutus 
 and Cassius on other matters and with reference to 
 Pella, and the interruption of the intruder ; of the 
 apparition of the spirit, and the death of Portia ; of 
 Brutus' discussion with Cassius on suicide ; of his 
 imprudence at PhiUppi ; of the double issue and 
 
i82 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 repetition of the battle ; of the death of Cassius and 
 Brutus on their own swords ; of the surrender of 
 Lucilius ; of Antony's eulogy of Brutus. There is 
 thus hardly a link in the action that was not forged 
 on Plutarch's anvil. 
 
 And even the words of North have in many 
 cases been almost literally transcribed. Says Lucilius 
 when brought before Antony : 
 
 I dare assure thee, that no enemie hath taken, nor shall 
 take Marcus Brutus alive; and I beseech God keepe him 
 from that fortune. For wheresoever he be found, alive or 
 dead ; he will be found like him selfe. (Brutus.) 
 
 Compare : 
 
 I dare assure thee that no enemy 
 
 Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus : 
 
 The gods defend him from so great a shame ! 
 
 When you do find him, or alive or dead, 
 
 He will be found like Brutus, like himself. (v. iv. 21.) 
 
 Or take the passage — considering its length, the 
 exactest reproduction of all — in which Portia claims 
 full share in her husband's secrets. The sentiment 
 is what we are accustomed to regard as modern; 
 but Plutarch, who himself viewed marriage as a 
 relation in which there was no Mine nor Thine,^ 
 has painted the situation with heart-felt sympathy. 
 After describing the wound she gives herself to 
 make trial of her firmness, he proceeds : 
 
 Then perceiving her husband was marvelously out of 
 quiet, and that he coulde take no rest : even in her greatest 
 payne of all, she spake in this sorte unto him : " I being, 
 Brutus (sayed she), the daughter of Cato, was maried unto 
 thee, not to be thy bedde fellowe and companion at bedde 
 and at borde onelie, like a harlot ; but to be partaker also 
 with thee, of thy good and evill fortune. Nowe for thy selfe, 
 I can finde no cause of faulte in thee as touchinge our 
 matche : but for my parte, howe may I showe my duetie 
 towardes thee, and howe muche I woulde doe for thy sake, if 
 
 ' See page 98. 
 
JULIUS CAESAR 183 
 
 I cannot constantlie beare a secret mischaunce or griefe with 
 thee, which requireth secrecy and fidelity ? I confesse, that 
 a woman's wit commonly is too weake to keepe a secret 
 safely : but yet, Brutus, good educacion, and the companie 
 of vertuops men, have some power to reforme the defect of 
 nature. And for my selfe, I have this benefit moreover: 
 that I am the daughter of Cato, and wife of Brutus. This 
 notwithstanding, I did not trust to any of these things before ; 
 untill that now I have found by experience, that no paine 
 nor griefe whatsoever can overcome me.' With those wordes 
 she shewed him her wounde on her thigh, and told him 
 what she had done to prove her selfe. Brutus was amazed 
 to heare what she sayd unto him, and lifting up his handes to 
 heaven, he besought the goddes to give him grace he might 
 bring his enterprise to so good passe, that he might be 
 founde a husband, worthie of so noble a wife as Porcia." 
 
 {Marcus Brutus.) 
 
 It is hardly necessary to point out how closely 
 Shakespeare follows up the trail. 
 
 Portia. Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, 
 Is it excepted I should know no secrets 
 That appertain to you ? Am I yourself 
 But, as it were, in sort or limitation ; 
 To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, 
 And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs 
 of your good pleasure ? If it be no more, 
 Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife. 
 
 Brutus. You are my true and honourable wife, 
 As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
 That visit my sad heart. 
 
 Portia. If this were true, then should I know this secret. 
 I grant I am a woman; but withal, 
 A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife ; 
 I grant I am a woman ; but, withal, 
 A woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter. 
 Think you I am no stronger than my sex. 
 Being so father'd and so husbanded ? 
 Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em : 
 I have made strong proof of my constancy. 
 Giving myself a voluntary wound,' 
 , Here, in the thigh : can I bear that with patience, 
 Atid not my husband's secrets ? 
 
 Brutus. O ye gods. 
 
 Render me worthy of this noble wife. /jj ^ 2Zq!) 
 
i84 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 Here we have " the marriage of true souls " ; and 
 though the prelude to this nuptial hymn, a prelude 
 that heralds and enhances its sweetness, is veriest 
 Shakespeare, when the main theme begins and the 
 climax is reached, he is content to resign himself 
 to the ancient melody, and re-echo, even while he 
 varies, the notes. 
 
 North's actual slips or blunders are received into 
 the play. Thus the account of the assassination 
 runs : " Caesar was driven . . . against the base 
 whereupon Pompey's image stood, which ranne all 
 of a goare blood." The last clause, probably by 
 accident, adds picturesqueness to Amyot's simple 
 description, "qui en fust toute ensanglantee, " and is 
 immortalised in Antony's bravura : 
 
 Even at the base of Pompey's statua 
 
 Which all the while ran blood. (in. ii. 192.) 
 
 More noticeable is the instance of Brutus' reply to 
 Cassius' question, what he will do if he lose the 
 battle at Philippi. Amyot's translation is straight- 
 forward enough. 
 
 Brutus luy respondit : " Estant encore jeune et non assez 
 experimente es affaires de ce monde, je feis ne sgay comment 
 un discours de piiilosophie, par lequel je reprenois et 
 blasmois fort Caton d'estre desfait soymesme " etc. 
 
 That is : 
 
 Brutus answered him : " When I was yet young and not 
 much experienced in the affairs of this world, I composed, 
 somehow or other, a philosophic discourse in which I greatly 
 rebuked and censured Cato for having made away with 
 himself!" 
 
 North did not notice where the quotation began ; 
 connected feis with fier in place of /aire, probably 
 taking it as present not as past ; and interpreted 
 discotirs as principle, which it never meant and never 
 can mean, instead of dissertation. So he translates : 
 
 Brutus answered him, being yet but a young man, and not 
 over greatly experienced in the world : ". trust (I know not how) 
 
JULIUS CAESAR 185 
 
 a certaine rule of Philosophic, by the which I did greatly 
 blame and reprove Cato for killing of him selfe ; as being no 
 godly or lawful acte, touching the goddes ; nor concerning 
 men, valliant ; not to give place and yeld to divine providence, 
 and not constantly and paciently to take "Whatsoever it pleaseth 
 him to send us, but to drawe backe, and flie : but being howe in 
 the middest of the daunger, I am of a contrary mind. For if 
 it be not the will of God, that this battell fall out fortunate for 
 us : I will looke no more for hope, neither seeke to make any 
 new supply for warre againe, but will rid me of this miserable 
 world, and content me with my fortune. For, I gave up my 
 life for my country in the Ides of Marche, for the which I 
 shall live in another more glorious worlde. {Marcus Brutus.') 
 
 It is possible that North used trust in the first 
 sentence as a preterite equal to trusted, just as he 
 uses lift for lifted. But Shakespeare at least took 
 it for a present: so he was struck by the contradic- 
 tion which the passage seems to contain. He got 
 over it, and produced a new effect and dne very true 
 to human nature, by making Brutus' latter sentiment 
 the sudden response of his heart, in defiance of his 
 philosophy, to Cassius' anticipation of what they 
 must expect if defeated. 
 
 Brutus. Even by the rule of that philosophy 
 By which I did blame Cato for the death 
 Which he did give himself, I know not how, 
 But I do find it cowardly and vile, 
 For fear of what might fall, so to prevent 
 The time of life : arming myself with patience 
 To stay the providence of some higher powers 
 That, govern us below. 
 
 Cassius. Then if we lose this battle. 
 
 You are contented to be led in triumph 
 Thorough the streets of Rome? 
 
 Brutus. No, Cassius, no: think not, thou noble Roman, 
 That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome; 
 He bears too great a mind. But this same day 
 Must end that work the ides of March begun-; 
 And whether we shall meet again I know not. 
 Therefore our everlasting farewell take. (v. i. loi.) 
 
 This last illustration may show us, however, that 
 Shakespeare, even when he seems to copy most 
 
£86 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 literally, always introduces something that comes 
 from himself. Despite his wholesale appropriation 
 of territory that does not in the first instance belong 
 to him, the produce is emphatically his own. It is 
 like the white man's occupation of America and 
 Australasia, and can be justified only on similar 
 grounds. The lands remain the same under their 
 new as under their old masters, but they yield un- 
 dreamed-of wealth to satisfy the needs of man. 
 Never did any one borrow more, yet borrow less, 
 than Shakespeare. He finds the clay ready to his 
 hand, but he^ shapes it and breathes into it the 
 breath of life,^knd it becomes a living soul. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S TRANSMUTATION OF HIS 
 MATERIAL 
 
 The examples given in the previous chapter may 
 serve to show that from one point of view it is im- 
 possible to exaggerate Shakespeare's dependence on 
 Plutarch. But this is not the only or the most 
 important aspect of the case. He alters and adds 
 quite as much as he gets. No slight modification of 
 the story is implied by its mere reduction to dra- 
 matic shape, at least when the dramatiser is so 
 consummate a playwright as Shakespeare. And it 
 is very interesting to observe the instinctive skill 
 with which he throws narrated episodes, like that of 
 the death of Cassius, into the form of dialogues and 
 scenes. But the dramatisation involves a great deal 
 more than this. Shakespeare has to fix on what he 
 regards as the critical points in the continuous story, 
 to rearrange round them what else he considers of 
 grand importance, and to bridge in some way the 
 gaps between. These were prime essentials in all 
 his English historical pieces. The pregnant moments 
 have to be selected; and become so many ganglia, 
 in which a number of filaments chronologically dis- 
 tinct are gathered up ; yet they have to be exhibited 
 not in isolation, but as connected with each other, 
 and all belonging to one system. And in Julius 
 Caesar this is the more noticeable, as it makes use 
 
i88 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 of more sources than one. The main authority is 
 the Life of Brutus, but the X-ife of Caesar also is 
 employed very freely, and the Llfe^ of Antony to 
 some extent. The scope and need for insight in this 
 portion of the task are therefore proportionately 
 . great. 
 
 Thus the opening scene refers to Caesar's defeat 
 of the sons of Pompey in Spain, for which he cele- 
 brated his triumph in October, 45 B.C. But Shake- 
 speare dates it on the 15th February, 44 B.C., at the 
 Lupercalian Festival.^ Then, in the account of 
 vCaesar's chagrin at his reception, he mixes up, as 
 Plutarch himself to some extent does, two quite dis- 
 tinct episodes, one of which does not belong to the 
 Lupercalia at all.^ Lastly, it was only later that the 
 Tribunes were silenced and deprived of their offices 
 fpr stripping the images, not of Caesar's "trophies," 
 but of "diadems,"^ or, more specifically, of the 
 "laurel crown"* Antony had offered him. 
 
 The next group of events is clustered round the 
 assassination, arid they begin on the eve of the Ides, 
 the 1 4th March. But at first we are not allowed to 
 feel that a month has passed. By various artifices 
 the flight of time is kept from obtruding itself. The 
 position of the scene with the storm, which ushers in 
 this part of the story, as the last of the first act in- 
 stead of the first of the second, of itself associate s it_ 
 in our minds with what has gone before. Then 
 
 ' Possibly he may have found a suggestion for this in Plutarch's 
 expression that at the Lupercalia, Caesar was "apparelled in a 
 triumphant manner" {Julius Caesar); or, more definitely "appa- 
 relled in his triumphing rohs" (Marcus Antonius). 
 
 2 In the Julius Caesar it is at an interview with the Senate in the 
 market place that Caesar, in his vexation, bares his neck to the blow, 
 and afterwards pleads his infirmity in excuse ; and nothing of the kind 
 is recorded in connection with the offer of the crown at the Lupercalia. 
 In the Marcus Antonius the undignified exhibition, as Plutarch regards 
 it, is referred to the Lupercalia, and the previous incident is not 
 mentioned. 
 
 ^Julius Caesar. ^Marcus Antonius. 
 
THE MATERIAL 189 
 
 there are several little hints that we involuntarily 
 expand in the same sense. Thus Cassius has just 
 said: 
 
 I will this night, 
 In several hands, in at his windows throw, 
 As if they came from several citizens, 
 Writings all tending to the great opinion 
 That Rome holds of his name ; wherein obscurely -, 
 Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at. (i. ii. 319.) 
 
 And now we hear him say : 
 
 Good Cinna, take this paper. 
 And look you lay it in the praetor's chair, 
 Where Brutus may but find it : and throw this 
 In at his window ; set this up with wax 
 Upon old Brutus' statue. (i. iii. 142.) 
 
 We seem to see him carrying out the programme 
 that he has announced for the night of the Luper- 
 calia. Yet there are other hints, — the frequency with 
 which Brutus has received these instigations (11. i. 
 49), his protracted uncertainty since Cassius first 
 sounded him (11. i. 61), the fact that he himself has 
 had time to approach Ligarius, — which presently 
 make us realise that the opening scenes of the drama 
 are left a long way behind. 
 
 And in this section, too, Shakespeare has crowded 
 his incidents. The decisive arrangements of the 
 conspirators, with their rejection of the oath, are dated 
 the night before the assassination ; Plutarch puts 
 them earlier. Then, according to Plutarch, there was 
 a senate meeting the morning after Caesar's murder ; 
 and Antony, having escaped in slave's apparel, 
 proposed an amnesty for the perpetrators, offered his 
 son as hostage, and persuaded them to leave the 
 Capitol. On the following day dignities were distri- 
 buted among the ringleaders and a public funeral 
 was decreed to Caesar. Only then did the reading 
 of the will, the speech of Antony, and the imeute 
 of the people follow, and the reading of the will 
 
I90 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 preceded the speech. After a while Octavius comes 
 from Apollonia to see about his inheritance. 
 
 In the play, on the other hand, Antony's seeming 
 agreement with the assassins is patched up a few 
 minutes after the assassination. Octavius, sum- 
 moned by the dead Caesar, is already within seven 
 leagues of Rome. Antony at once proceeds with 
 the corpse to the market place. He has- hardly 
 made his speech and then read the will, when, as 
 the citizens rush off in fury, he learns that Octavius 
 has arrived. 
 
 A lengthy interval elapses between the end of 
 Act III. and the beginning of Act iv., occupied, so 
 far as Rome and Italy were concerned, with the 
 rivalry and intrigues of Antony and Octavius, and 
 the discomfiture of the former (partly through 
 Cicero's exertions), till he wins the army of Lepidus 
 and Octavius finds it expedient to join forces with 
 him and establish the Triumvirate. But of all this 
 not a word in Shakespeare. He dismisses it as 
 irrelevant, and creates an illusion of speed and con- 
 tinuity, where there is none. The servant who 
 announces the arrival of Octavius, tells Antony : 
 
 He and Lepidu? are at Caesar's house, (in. xi. 269.) 
 
 " Bring me to Octavius," says Antony. And the 
 fourth act opens " atf a house in Rome," " Antony, 
 Octavius and Lepidtis seated at a table," just finish- 
 ing the lists of the proscription. The impression 
 produced is that their conference is direct sequel to 
 the popular outbreak and the conspirators' flight. 
 Yet it is November, 43 b.c, and nineteen or twenty 
 months have gone Isy since the Ides of March. 
 And the progress of time is indicated as well as 
 concealed. Antony announces as a new and alarm- 
 ing piece of news 
 
 And now, Octavius, 
 Listen great things : — Brutus and Cassius 
 Are levying powers. (iv. i. 40.) 
 
THE MATERIAL 191 
 
 This too covers a gap in the history and hurries 
 on the connection. The suggestion is that they are 
 beginning operations at last, and that hitherto they 
 have been inactive. Their various intermediate 
 adventures and wanderings are passed over. We 
 are carried forward to their grand effort, and are 
 reintroduced to them \only when they meet again at 
 Sardis in the beginniiig of 42 BiC, just before the 
 final movement to Pljlilippi, where the battle was 
 fought in October offme same year. 
 
 And this scene Also is " compounded of many 
 simples." The dispute which the poet^ interrupts, 
 the difference of opinion about Pella, the appearance 
 of the Spirit, are ±\\ located at Sardis by Plutarch, 
 but he separates thjem from each other ; the news of 
 Portia's death inundated, the quarrel about money 
 matters ton^ place at Smyrna, and other traits are 
 den^geiSl^mm various quarters. Here they are all 
 
 ' To join like likes, and kiss like native things. 
 
 Then at Philippi itself, not only are some of 
 the speeches transferred from the eve to the day of 
 the engagement ; but a whole series of operations, 
 and two pitched battles, twenty days apart, after the 
 first of which Cassius, and after the second of which 
 Brutus, committed suicide, are pressed into a few 
 hours. 
 
 It will thus be seen that though the action is 
 spread over a period of three years, from the 
 triumphal entry of Caesar in October, 45 B.C., till the 
 victory of his avengers in October, 42 B.C., Shake- 
 speare concentrates it into the story of five eventful 
 days, which however do not correspond to the five 
 separate acts, but by " overlapping " and other con- 
 trivances produce the effect of close sequence, 
 
 1 In the Lizies Fftonius or Phaonius, properly Favonius, a follower 
 of Cato. {Marcus Brutus.) 
 
192 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 'while in point of fact, historically, they are not 
 consecutive at alL 
 
 In the first day there is the exposition, enforcing 
 the predominance of Caesar and the revulsion against 
 it (Act I. i. and ii.) ; assigned to the 15th February, 
 
 44 B.C. 
 
 In the second day there is the assassination with 
 its immediate preliminaries and sequels (Act i. iii.. 
 Act 11., Act III.) all compressed within the twenty- 
 four hours allowed to a Frencji tragedy, viz. within 
 the interval between the night, before the Ides of 
 March and the next afternoon or\ evening.^ 
 
 In the third day there is the |account of the Pro- 
 scription in November, 43 b.c. |Act iv. i.). In the 
 fourth day the meeting of BrutusSand Cassius, which 
 took place early in 42 B.C., and the^parition of the 
 boding spirit, are described (Act iv?sJli;and iii.).^ 
 Both these days are included in one act. ^^^^''^fat 
 
 The fifth day is devoted to the final battle andn^ 
 accessories, and must be placed in October, 42 b.c. 
 (Act v.). 
 
 But the selection, assortment and filiation of the 
 daia are not more conspicuous in the construction of 
 the plot than in the execution of the details. There 
 will be frequent occasion to touch incidentally on 
 these and similar processes in the discussion of other 
 matters, but here it may be well to illustrate them 
 separately, so far as that is possible when nearly 
 every particular instance shows the influence of more 
 than one of them. 
 
 Thus while Shakespeare's picture of the very per- 
 fect union of Brutus and Portia is taken almost in its 
 entirety from Plutarch, who was himself so keenly 
 alive to the beauty of such a wedlock, the charm of 
 
 ' Cassius says at the end of the long opening scene of the series : 
 " It is after midnight " (Act I. iii. 163). In the last scene of the group, 
 Cinna, on his way to Caesar's funeral, is murdered by the rioters 
 apparently just after they have left Antony. 
 
THE MATERIAL 193 
 
 the traits he adopts is heightened by the absence of 
 those he rejects. Probably indeed he did not know, 
 for Plutarch does not mention it, that Brutus had 
 been married before, and had got rid of his first wife 
 by the simple and regular expedient of sending her 
 home to her father. But he did know that Portia, 
 too, had a first husband, Bibulus, "by whom she 
 had also a young sonne." The ideal beauty of their 
 relation is unbrushed by any hint of their previous 
 alliances. 
 
 So, too, he attributes the coolness between Brutus 
 and Cassius at the beginning of the story merely to 
 Brutus' inward conflicts, and to Cassius' miscon- 
 struction of his pre-occupation. In point of fact, 
 it had a more definite and less creditable cause. 
 According to Plutarch, they had both been strenuous 
 rivals for the position of City Praetor, Brutus re- 
 commended by his "vertue and good name," Cassius 
 by his "many noble exploytes" against the Parthians. 
 Caesar, saying "Cassius cause is juster, but Brutus 
 must be first preferred, " had given Brutus the chief 
 dignity and Cassius the second: therefore "they grew 
 straunge together for the sute they had for the prae- 
 torshippe," But it would not answer Shakespeare's 
 purpose to show Brutus as moved by personal ambi- 
 tions, or either of them as aspiring for honours that 
 Caesar could grant. 
 
 There are few better examples of the way in whic^ 
 Shakespeare rearranges his material than the em- 
 ployment he makes of Plutarch's enumeration of tht 
 portents that preceded the assassination. It is given 
 as immediate preface to the catastrophe of the Ides. 
 
 Certainly, destenie may easier be foreseene then avoyded ; 
 considerifSg the straunge and wonderful! signes that were 
 sayd to be seene before Caesars death. For touching the 
 fires in the element, and spirites running up and downe in the 
 night, and also these solitarie birdes to be seene at noone 
 dayes sittinge in the great market place: are not all these 
 signes perhappes worth the noting in such a wonderfuU 
 
 N 
 
194 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 chaunce as happened ? But Strabo the Philosopher wryteth, 
 that divers men were seene going up and downe in fire : and 
 furthermore, that there was a slave of the souldiers, that did 
 cast a marvelous burning flame out of his hande, insomuch as 
 they that saw it, thought he had been burnt, but when the 
 fire was out, it was found he had no hurt. Caesar selfe also 
 doing sacrifice unto the Goddes, found that one of the beastes 
 which was sacrificed had no hart : and that was a straunge 
 thing in nature, how a beast could live without a hart. 
 Furthermore, there was a certain soothsayer that had geven 
 Caesar warning long time affore, to take heede of the day of 
 the Ides of Marche (which is the fifteenth of the moneth), for 
 on that day he should be in great daunger. That day being 
 come, Caesar going into the Senate house, and speaking 
 merily to the Soothsayer, tolde him, ' The Ides of Marche be 
 come' : 'So be they', softly aunswered the Soothsayer, 'but 
 yet are they not past.' And the very day before, Caesar 
 supping with Marcus Lepidus, sealed certaine letters as he was 
 wont to do at the bord : so talke falling out amongest them, 
 reasoning what death was best : he preventing their opinions, 
 cried out alowde, ' Death unlooked for. ' Then going to 
 bedde the same night as his manner was, and lying with his 
 wife Calpurnia, all the windowes and dores of his chamber 
 flying open, the noyse awooke him, and made him affirayed 
 when he saw such light : but more when he heard his 
 wife Calpurnia, being fast a sleepe weepe and sigh, and put 
 forth many fumbling and lamentable speaches. For she 
 dreamed that Caesar was slaine, and that she had him in her 
 armes. ^ 
 
 It is interesting to note how Shakespeare takes 
 this passage to pieces and assigns those of them for 
 which he has a place to their fitting and effective 
 position. Plutarch's reflections on destiny and i 
 Caesar's opinions on death he leaves aside. The 
 first warning of the soothsayer he refers back to the 
 Lupercalia, and the second he shifts forward to its 
 natural place. Calpurnia's outcries in her sleep and 
 her prophetic dream, the apparition of the ghosts 
 mentioned by her among the other prodigies, the 
 lack of the heart in the sacrificial beast, are reserved 
 for the scene of her expostulation with Caesar, and 
 are dramatically distributed between the various 
 
 ^Julius Caesar. 
 
THE MATERIAL 195 
 
 speakers, Caesar, the servant, Calpurnia herself. 
 Shakespeare relies on the fiery heavens and the fire- 
 girt shapes, the flaming hand and the boding bird 
 for his grand effect, and puts them in a setting where 
 they gain unspeakably in supernatural awe. Of 
 course Shakespeare individualises Plutarch's hints 
 and adds new touches. But the main terror is due 
 to something else. We are made to view these por- 
 tents in the reflex light of Casca's panic. He has 
 just witnessed them, or believes that he has done so, 
 and now breathless, staring, his naked sword in his 
 hand, the storm raging around, he gasps out his 
 amazement at Cicero's composure : 
 
 Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth 
 
 Shakes like a thing unfirm ? O Cicero, 
 
 I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds 
 
 Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen 
 
 The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam, 
 
 To be exalted with the threatening clouds : 
 
 But never till to-night, never till now. 
 
 Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. 
 
 Either there is a civil strife in heaven, 
 
 Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, 
 
 Incenses them to send destruction. 
 
 Cicero. Why, saw you anything more wonderful ? 
 
 Casca. A common slave — you know him well by sight — 
 Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn 
 Like twenty torches join'd, and yet his hand. 
 Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd. 
 Besides, — I ha' not since put up my'sword — 
 Against the Capitol I met a lion, 
 Who glared upon me, and went surly by. 
 Without annoying me : and there were drawn 
 Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women. 
 Transformed with their fear ; who swore they saw 
 Men all in fire walk up and down the streets. 
 And yesterday the bird of night did sit 
 Even at noon-day upon the market place 
 Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies 
 Do so conjointly meet, let not men say, 
 'These are their reasons : they are natural' : 
 For, I believe, they are, portentous things 
 Unto the climate that they point upon. (i. iii. 3.) 
 
196 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 Here the superstitious thrill rises to a paroxysm 
 of dread ; but the effect of dispersing the subsidiary 
 presages through so many scenes is to steep the 
 whole play in an atmosphere of weird presentiment, 
 till Caesar passes up to the very doors of the 
 Capitol. 
 
 But besides selecting and rearranging the separate 
 details, Shakespeare establishes an inner connection 
 between them even when in Plutarch they are quite 
 isolated from each other. This is well exemplified 
 by the manner in which the biography and the 
 drama treat the circumstance that the conspirators 
 were not sworn to secrecy. Plutarch says : 
 
 The onlie name and great calling of Brutus did bring on 
 the most of them to geve consent to this conspiracie. Who 
 having never taken othes together, nor taken or geven any 
 caution or assurance, nor binding them selves one to an other 
 by any religious othes, they all kept the matter so secret to 
 them selves, and could so cunninglie handle it, that notwith- 
 standing the goddes did reveal it by manifeste signes and 
 tokens from above, and by predictions of sacrifices, yet all 
 this would not be believed. {Marcus Brutus.) 
 
 The drama puts it thus : 
 
 Brutus. Give me your hands all over, one by one. 
 
 Cassius. And let us swear our resolution. 
 
 Brutus. No, not an oath : if not the face of men 
 The suffrance of our souls, the time's abuse. 
 If these be motives weak, break off betimes : (ii. i. 112.) 
 
 and so on through the rest of his magnificent speech 
 that breathes the pure spirit of virtue and conviction. 
 The nobility of Brutus that is reverenced by all, the 
 conspiracy of Romans that is safe-guarded by no 
 vows, move Plutarch's admiration, but he does not 
 associate them. Shakespeare traces the one to the 
 other and views them as cause and effect, 
 
 Shakespeare thus gready alters the character of 
 Plutarch's narrative by his ceaseless, activity in 
 sifting it, ordering it afresh, and reading into it an 
 
THE MATERIAL 197 
 
 internal nexus that was often lacking in his authority. 
 But this last proceeding implies that he also makes 
 additions, and these are not only numerous and 
 manifold, but frequently quite explicit and very 
 far-reaching. It is important to note that Plutarch 
 has furnished nothing more than stray hints, and 
 often not even so much, for all the longer passages 
 that have impressed themselves on the popular 
 imagination. Cassius' description of the swimming 
 match and of Caesar's fever, Brutus' soliloquy, his 
 speech on the oath, his oration and that of Mark 
 Antony, even, when regarded closely, his dispute 
 with Cassius, are all virtually the inventions of 
 Shakespeare. The only exception is the conversa- 
 tion with Portia, and even in it, though the climax, 
 as we have seen, closely reproduces both Plutarch's 
 matter and North's expression, the fine introduction 
 is altogether Shakespearian. 
 
 But it is not the purple patches alone of which 
 this is triie. The more carefully one examines the 
 finished fabric, the more clearly one sees that the 
 dramatist has not merely woven and fashioned and 
 embroidered it, but has provided most of the stuff. 
 
 Sometimes the new matter is a possible or 
 plausible inference from the premises he found in 
 his author. 
 
 Thus Plutarch represents the populace as on the 
 whole favourable to Caesar, but the tribunes as 
 antagonistic. He also records, concerning the cele- 
 bration of Caesar's victory over Pompey's sons in 
 Spain : 
 
 The triumph he made into Rome for the same did as 
 much offend the Romanes, and more, then anything he had 
 ever done before ; bicause he had not overcome Captaines 
 that were straungers, nor barbarous kinges, but had destroyed 
 the sonnes of the noblest man in Rome, whom fortune had 
 overthrowen. And bicause he had plucked up his race by 
 the rootes men did not thinke it meete for him to triumphe 
 so for the calamaties of his contrie. {Julius Caesar.) 
 
198 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 This is all, but it is enough to give the foundation 
 for the opening scene, which otherwise, both in 
 dialogue and declamation, is an entirely free creation. 
 
 Sometimes again Shakespeare has realised the 
 situation so vividly that he puts in some trait from 
 the occurrences as in spirit he has witnessed them, 
 something of the kind that may very well have 
 happened, though there is no trace of it in the 
 records. Thus he well knows what an unreasonable 
 monster a street mob can be, how cruel in its 
 gambols, how savage in its fun. So in the account 
 of the poet Cinna's end, though the gist of the 
 incident, the mistake in identity, the disregard of 
 the explanation, are all given in Plutarch, Shake- 
 speare's rioters wrest their victim's innocent avowal 
 of celibacy to a flout at marriage, and meet his 
 unanswerable defence, " I am Cinna the poet," 
 with the equally unanswerable retort, " Tear him for 
 his bad verses." (iii. iii. 23.) 
 
 Some of these new touches do more than lend 
 reality to the scene. Though not incompatible with 
 Plutarch's account, they give it a turn that he might 
 disclaim and certainly does not warrant, but that 
 belongs to Shakespeare's conception of the case. 
 Thus after describing the "holy course" of the 
 Lupercal, and the superstition connected with it, 
 Plutarch mentions that Caesar sat in state to witness 
 the sport, and that Antony was one of the runners. 
 There is nothing more ; and Calpurnia is not even 
 named. Shakespeare's introduction of her is there- 
 fore very curious. Whatever else it means, it 
 shows that he imagined Caesar as desirous, certainly, 
 of having an heir, and, inferentially, of founding a 
 dynasty.^ 
 
 Occasionally, however, the dramatist's insertions 
 directly contradict the text of the Lives, if a more 
 striking or more significant effect is to be attained, 
 
 ' Genee, Shakespearis Leben Jind Werke. 
 
THE MATERIAL 199 
 
 and if no essential fact is falsified. Thus Plutarch 
 tells of Ligarius : 
 
 [Brutus] went to see him being sicke in his bedde, and 
 sayed unto him : " O Ligarius, in what a time art thou sicke ! " 
 Ligarius risinge uppe in his bedde and taking him by the 
 right hande, sayed unto him : " Brutus," sayed he, " if thou 
 hast any great enterprise in hande worthie of thy selfe, I am 
 whole." {Marcus Brutus.) 
 
 Shakespeare, keeping the; phrases quoted almost 
 literally, emphasises the effort that Ligarius makes, 
 emphasises too the magnetic influence of Brutus, by 
 representing the sick man as coming to his friend's 
 house, as well as by amplifying his words : 
 
 Lticius. Here is a sick man that would speak with you. . 
 
 Brutus. O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius, 
 To wear a kerchief ! Would you were not sick ! 
 
 Ligarius. I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand 
 Any exploit worthy the name of honour . 
 By all the gods that Romans bow before 
 I here discard my sickness ! Soul of Rome ! 
 Brave son, derived from honourable loins ! 
 Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjured up 
 My mortified spirit. Now bid me run, 
 And I will strive with things impossible ; 
 Yea, get the better of them. . . . 
 . . . With a heart new-fired I follow you. 
 To do I know not what : but it sufficeth 
 That Brutus leads me on. (11. i. 310.) 
 
 So too Plutarch describes the collapse of Portia in 
 her suspense as more complete than does the play, 
 and makes Brutus hear of it just after the critical 
 moment when the conspirators fear that Lena has 
 discovered their plot : 
 
 Nowe in the meane time, there came one of Brutus men 
 post hast unto him, and tolde him his wife was a dying. . . . 
 When Brutus heard these newes, it grieved him, as is to be 
 presupposed : yet he left not of the care of his contrie and 
 common wealth, neither went home to his house for any 
 newes he heard. 
 
 In Shakespeare not only is this very effective 
 dramatic touch omitted, but Portia sends Brutus 
 
200 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 an encouraging message. As her weakness increases 
 upon her, she collects herself for a final effort and 
 manages to give the command : 
 
 Run, Lucius, and commend me to my lord : 
 
 Say, I am merry : come to me again 
 
 And bring me word what he doth say to thee. (n. iv. 44.) 
 
 Shakespeare may perhaps have been unwilling to 
 introduce anything into the assassination scene that 
 might distract attention from the decisive business 
 on hand, but the alteration is chiefly due to another 
 cause. These, the last words we hear Portia utter, 
 were no doubt intended to bring out her forget- 
 fulness of herself and her thought of Brutus even 
 in the climax of her physical distress. 
 
 This, of course, does not affect our general esti- 
 mate of Portia ; but Shalcespeare has no scruple 
 about creating an entirely new character for a minor 
 personage, and, in the process, disregarding the hints 
 that he found and asserting quite the reverse. Thus 
 Plutarch has not much to say about Casca, so 
 Shakespeare feels free to sketch him after his own 
 fancy as rude, blunt, uncultured, with so little educa- 
 tion that, when Cicero speaks Greek, it is Greek to 
 him. This is a libel on his up-bringing. Plutarch 
 in one of the few details he spares to him, mentions 
 that, when he stabbed Caesar, "th'eyboth cried out, 
 Caesar in Latin, ' O vile traitor, Casca, what doest 
 thou?' and Casca in Greek to his brother: 'Brother, 
 helpe me.'" 
 
 But some of Shakespeare's interpolations are, 
 probably unawares to himself, of a vital and radical 
 kind, and affect the conception of the chief charac- 
 ters and the whole idea of the story. Take, for 
 example, Brutus' soliloquy, as he rids himself of his 
 hesitations and scruples. This, from beginning to 
 end, is the handiwork of Shakespeare : 
 
 It must be by his death ; and, for my part 
 I know no' personal cause to spurn at him, 
 
THE MATERIAL 201 
 
 But for the general. He would be crown'd : 
 How that might change his nature, that's the question. 
 It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, 
 And that craves wary walking. Crown him ? — that : — 
 And then, I grant, we put a sting in him, 
 That at his will he may do danger with. 
 The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins 
 Remorse from power : and, to speak truth of Caesar, 
 j I have not known when his affections sway'd 
 ^.^More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof 
 J That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, 
 / Whereto the climber upward turns his face : 
 \ But when he once attains the topmost round, 
 \ He then unto the ladder turns, his back, 
 \Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees 
 •By which he did ascend. So Caesar may ; 
 Then lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel 
 Will bear no colour for the thing he is. 
 Fashion it thus ; that what he is, augmented. 
 Would run to these and these extremities : 
 And therefore think him as a serpent's egg. 
 Which, hatch'd, would as his kind, grow mischievous, 
 And kill him in the shell. (11. i. 10.) 
 
 These words are so unlike, or, rather, so opposite 
 to all that we should have expected, that Coleridge 
 cannot repress his amazement. He comments : 
 
 This speecft is singular : — at least, I do not at present see 
 into Shakespeare's motive, his rationale, or in what point of 
 view he meant Brutus' character to appear. For surely . . . 
 nothing can seem more discordant with our historical pre- 
 conceptions of Brutus, or more lowering to the intellect of 
 the Stoico-Platonic tyrannicide, than the tenets here attributed 
 to him — to him, the stern Roman republican ; namely, — that 
 he would have no objection to a king, or to Caesar, a 
 monarch in Rome, would Caesar but be as good a monarch as 
 he now seems disposed to be. {Lectures and Notes of \%i?>.) 
 
 And this in a way is the crucial statement of Brutus' 
 case. Here he has tried to get rid of the assumptions 
 that move himself and the rest, and seeks to find 
 something that will satisfy his reason. It is thus a 
 more intimate revelation of his deliberate principles, 
 though not necessarily of his subconscious instincts 
 or his untested opinions, than other utterances in 
 
202 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 which he lets feeling or circumstance have sway. Of 
 these there are two that do not quite coincide with 
 it. One of them is not very important, and in any 
 case would not bring him nearer to the antique 
 conception. In his plea for a pure administration 
 of affairs, he asks Cassius : 
 
 What, shall one of us. 
 That struck the foremost man of all this world 
 But for supporting robbers, shall we now 
 Contaminate our fingers with base bribes? (iv. iii. 21.) 
 
 But this, one feels, is merely an argumentum, ad 
 hominem, brought forward very much in after- 
 thought for a particular purpose. At the time, 
 neither in Brutus' speeches to himself or others, 
 nor in the discussions of the conspirators, is Caesar 
 accused of countenancing peculation, or is this made 
 a handle against him. And if it were, it would not 
 be incompatible with acquiescence in a royal govern- 
 ment.^ 
 
 1 On this passage Coleridge has the note : " This seemingly strange 
 assertion of Brutus is unhappily verified in the present day. What is 
 an immense army, in which the lust of plunder has quenched all the 
 duties of the citizen, other than a horde of robbers, or differenced only 
 as fiends from ordinarily reprobate men ? Caesar supported, and was 
 supported by, such as these ; — and even so Buonaparte in our days." 
 On this interpretation Brutus' charge would come to nothing more 
 than this, that Caesar had employed large armies. I believe there is 
 a more definite reference to one passage or possibly two in the Marais' 
 Antonius. 
 
 " [a) Caesar's friends that governed under him, were cause why 
 they hated Caesars government ... by reason of the great inso- 
 lencies and outragious parts that were committed : amongst whom 
 Antonius, that was of greatest power, and that also committed 
 greatest faultes, deserved most blame. But Caesar, notwith- 
 standing, when he returned from the warres of Spayne, made no 
 reckoning of the complaints that were put up against him : but 
 contrarily, bicause he found him a hardy man, and a valliant 
 Captaine, he employed him in his chiefest afifayres. 
 
 " (J>) Now it greved men much, to see that Caesar should be out 
 of Italy following of his enemies, to end this great warre, with 
 such great perill and daunger : and that others in the meane time 
 abusing his name and authoritie, should commit such insolent and 
 outragious parts unto their citizens. This me thinkes was the 
 cause that made the conspiracie against Caesar increase more 
 and more, and layed the reynes of the brydle uppon the souldiers 
 
THE MATERIAL 203 
 
 The other is the exclamation with which he 
 " pieces out " the anonymous letter that Cassius had 
 left unfinished : 
 
 Shall Rome stand under one man's awe ? What, Rome ? 
 
 (II. i. 52.) 
 
 This certainly has somewhat of the republican ring. 
 It breathes the same spirit as Cassius' own avowal : 
 
 I had as lief not be, as live to be 
 
 In awe of such a thing as I myself; (i. ii. 95.) 
 
 except that Cassius feels Caesar's predominance to 
 be a personal affront, while Brutus characteristically 
 extends his view to the whole community. But 
 here Brutus is speaking under the excitement of 
 Cassius' "instigation," and making himself Cassius' 
 mouthpiece to fill in the blanks. Assuredly the 
 declaration is not on that account the less personal 
 to himself; nevertheless in it Brutus, no longer 
 attempting to .square his action with his theory, falls 
 back on the blind impulses of blood that he shares 
 with the other aristocrats of Rome. And in this, the 
 most republican and the only republican sentiment 
 that falls from his lips, which for the rest is so little 
 republican that it might be echoed by the loyal 
 subject of a limited monarchy, it is only the negative 
 aspect of the matter and the public amour propre 
 that are considered. Of the positive essence of 
 republicanism, of enthusiasm for a state in which all 
 the lawful authority is derived .from the whole body 
 of fully qualified citizens, there is, despite Brutus' 
 talk of freemen and slaves and Caesar's ambition, 
 no trace whatever in any of his utterances from first 
 to last. It has been said that Plutarch's Brutus 
 could live nowhere but in a self-governing common- 
 
 neckes, whereby they durst boldlier commit many extorsions, 
 
 cruelties, and robberies." 
 Plutarch is speaking of Antony in particular, but surely this is the sort 
 of thing that was in Shakespeare's mind. 
 
204 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 wealth ; Shakespeare's Brutus would be quite at 
 home under a constitutional king and need not have 
 found life intolerable even in Tudor England. This 
 indeed is an exaggeration. True, in his soliloquy 
 he bases his whole case on the deterioration of 
 Caesar's nature that kingship might bring about ; 
 and if it were proved, as it easily could be from 
 instances like that of Numa, which Shakespeare and 
 therefore Shakespeare's Brutus knew, that no such 
 result need follow, his entire sorites would seem to 
 snap. But though the form of his reflection is 
 hypothetical and the hypothesis will not hold, the 
 substance is categorical enough. Brutus has such 
 inbred detestation of the royal power that practically 
 he assumes it must beyond question be mischievous 
 in its moral effects. This, however, is no reasoned 
 conviction, though it is the starting-point for what 
 he means to be a dispassionate argument, but a 
 dogma of traditional passion. And even were it 
 granted it would not make Brutus a true repre- 
 sentative of classic republicanism. Shakespeare has 
 so little comprehension of the antique point of view 
 that to him a thoughtful and public-spirited citizen 
 can find a rational apology for violent measures only 
 by looking at Caesar's future and not at all by 
 looking at Caesar's past. This Elizabethan Brutus 
 sees nothing to blame in Caesar's previous career. 
 He has not known " when his affections {i.e. 
 passions) sway'd more than his reason," and implies 
 that he has not hitherto disjoined " remorse {i.e. 
 scrupulousness) from power." Yet as Coleridge 
 pertinently asks, was there nothing "in Caesar's 
 past conduct as a man " to call for Brutus' censure ? 
 "Had he not passed the Rubicon," and the like? 
 But such incidents receive no attention. Perhaps 
 Shakespeare thought no more of Caesar's crossing 
 the Rubicon to suppress Pompey and put an end to 
 the disorders of Rome, than of Richmond's crossing 
 
THE MATERIAL 205 
 
 the Channel to suppress Richard III., and put end 
 to the Wars of the Roses. At any rate he makes 
 no mention of these and similar grounds of offence, 
 though all or most of them were set down in his 
 authority.^ 
 
 Shakespeare's position may be thus described. 
 He read in Plutarch that Brutus, the virtuous 
 Roman, killed Caesar, the master-spirit of his own 
 and perhaps of any age, from a disinterested sense 
 of duty. That was easy to understand, for Shake- 
 speare would know, and if he did not know it from 
 his own experience his well-conned translation of 
 Montaigne would teach him, that the best of men 
 are determined in their feeling of right by the 
 preconceptions of race, class, education and the like. 
 But he also read that Brutus was a philosophic 
 student who would not accept or obey the current 
 code without scrutinising it and fitting it into his 
 theory. Of the political theory, however, which such 
 an one would have, Shakespeare had no knowledge 
 or appreciation. So whenever Brutus tries to 
 harmonise his purpose with his idealist doctrine, 
 he has to be furnished with new reasons instead of 
 the old and obvious ones. And these are neither 
 very clear nor very antique. They make one 
 
 ' Coleridge's exact words, in continuation of the passage already 
 discussed may be quoted. " How too could Brutus say that he found 
 no personal cause, none in Caesar's past conduct as a man ? Had he 
 not passed the Rubicon ? Had he not entered Rome as a conqueror ? 
 Had he not placed his Gauls in the Senate ?— Shakespeare, it may be 
 said, has not brought these things forward.— True ;— and this is just 
 the cause of my perplexity. What character did Shakespeare mean 
 his Brutus to be?" 
 
 The verbal answer to this is of course ^^\. fiersonal cause refers not 
 to Caesar but to Brutus, and means that Brutus has no private 
 grievance; but the substance of Coleridge's objection remams 
 unaffected, for Brutus proceeds to take Caesar's character up to the 
 present time under his protection. 
 
 It may be noted, however, that Plutarch says nothmg about the 
 Gauls. If Shakespeare had known of it, it would probably have 
 seemed to him no worse than the presence of the Bretons, " those 
 overweening rags of France," as Richard III. calls them, m the army 
 of the patriotic and virtuous Richmond. 
 
2o6 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 inclined to quote concerning him the words of 
 Caesar "spoken to Cicero in regard to the historical 
 Brutus : 
 
 I knowe not what this young man woulde, but what he 
 woulde he willeth it vehemently. {Marcus Brutus.) 
 
 For what is it that he would ? The one argument 
 with which he can excuse to his own heart the 
 projected murder, is that the aspirant to royal power, 
 though hitherto irreproachable, may or must become 
 corrupted and misuse his high position. This is as 
 different from the attitude of the ancient Roman as 
 it well could be. It would never have occurred to 
 the genuine republican of olden time that any 
 justification was needed for despatching a man who 
 sought to usurp the sovereign place ; and if it had, 
 this is certainly the last justification that would have 
 entered his head. 
 
 But the introspection, the self-examination, the 
 craving for an inward moral sanction that will satisfy 
 the conscience, and the choice of the particular 
 sanction that does so, are as typical of the modern 
 as they are alien to the classical mind. It is clear 
 that an addition of this kind is not merely mechanical 
 or superficial. It affects the elements already given, 
 and produces, as it were, a new chemical combina- 
 tion. And this particular instance shows how 
 Shakespeare transforms the whole story. He 
 reanimates Brutus by infusing into his veins a 
 strain of present feeling that in some ways trans- 
 mutes his character ; and, transmuting the character 
 in which the chief interest centres, he cannot leave 
 the other data as they were. He can resuscitate 
 the past in its persons, its conflicts, its palpitating 
 vitality just because he endows it with his own life. 
 It was an ancient belief that the shades of the 
 departed were inarticulate or dumb till they had 
 lapped a libation of warm blood ; then they would 
 
THE MATERIAL 207 
 
 speak forth their secrets. In like manner it is the 
 life-blood of Shakespeare's own passion and thought 
 that throbs in the pulses of these unsubstantial dead 
 and gives them human utterance once more. This, 
 however, has two aspects. It is the dead who 
 speak ; but they speak through the life that Shake- 
 speare has lent them. The past is resuscitated ; but 
 it is a resuscitation, not the literal existence it had 
 before. Nor in any other way can the phantoms of 
 history win bodily shape and perceptible motion for 
 the world of breathing men. 
 
 This may be illustrated by comparing Shake- 
 speare's Julius Caesar with the Jiilius Caesar of 
 Sir William Alexander, afterwards Earl of Stirling, 
 which seems to have been written a few years later 
 than its more illustrious namesake. Alexander was 
 an able man and a considerable poet, from whom 
 Shakespeare himself did not disdain to borrow hints 
 for Prospero's famous reflections on the transitori- 
 ness of things. He used virtually the same sources 
 as Shakespeare, like him making Plutarch his chief 
 authority, and to supplement Plutarch, betaking 
 himself, as Shakespeare may also have done, to the 
 tradition set in France by Muretus, Grevin, and 
 Gamier. So they build on much the same sites 
 and with much the same timber. But their methods 
 are as different as can well be imagined. Alexander 
 is by far the more scrupulous in his reproduction of 
 the old-world record. He adopts the Senecan type 
 of tragedy, exaggerating its indifference to move- 
 ment and fondness for lengthy harangues ; and this 
 enables him to preserve much of the narrative in itfs 
 original form without thorough reduction to the 
 category of action. This also in large measure 
 exempts him from the need of reorganising his 
 material : practically a single situation is given, and 
 whatever else of the story is required, has to 'be 
 conveyed in the words of the persons, who can 
 
2o8 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 repeat things just as they have been reported. And 
 proceeding in this way Alexander can include as 
 much as he pleases of Plutarch's abundance, a privi- 
 lege of which he avails himself to the utmost. Few 
 are the details that he must absolutely reject, for 
 they can always be put in somebody's mouth ; he is 
 slow to tamper with Plutarch's location of them ; and 
 he never connects them more closely than Plutarch 
 has authorised. He does not extract from his docu- 
 ment inferences that have not already been drawn, 
 nor falsify it with picturesque touches that have not 
 been already supplied, and he would not dream of 
 contradicting it in small things or great. Even 
 Brutus' republicanism is sacred to the author of this 
 " Monarchic Tragedy," though he was to be Secretary 
 of State to Charles I. and noted for his advocacy of 
 Divine Right. He has a convenient theory to justify 
 Brutus as much as is necessary from his point of 
 view. He makes him explain : 
 
 If Caesar had been born or chused our prince 
 
 Then those, who durst attempt to take his life. 
 
 The world of treason justly might convince. 
 
 Let still the states, which flourish for the time, 
 
 By subjects be inviolable thought : 
 
 And those (no doubt) commit a monstrous crime. 
 
 Who lawful! soveraignty prophane in ought : 
 
 And we must think (though now thus brought to bow) 
 
 The senate, king ; a subject Caesar is : 
 
 The soveraignty whom violating now 
 
 The world must damne, as having done amisse. 
 
 Brutus' motives, which Shakespeare sophisticates, 
 can thus be left him. But does this bit of reasoning, 
 which reads like a passage from the Leviathan, and 
 explains why King James called Alexander " My 
 philosophical poet," really come nearer the historic 
 truth than the heart - searching of Shakespeare's 
 Brutus ? And does Alexander, taking Brutus' con- 
 victions at second hand and manufacturing an apology 
 for them, do much more to revive the real Brutus, 
 
THE MATERIAL 209 
 
 than Shakespeare, whose fervid imagination drives 
 
 him to realise Brutus' inmost heart, and who just 
 
 for that reason 
 
 seeks into him 
 
 For that which is not in him ? 
 
 Here and generally Alexander gives the exacter, 
 if not the more faithful transcript, but the main 
 truth, the truth of life, escapes him ; and therefore, 
 too, despite all his painstaking fidelity, he is apt to 
 miss even the vital touches that Plutarch gives. 
 We have seen with what reverent accuracy Shake- 
 speare reproduces the conversation between Brutus 
 and Portia. In a certain way Alexander is more 
 accurate still. Portia pleads : 
 
 I was not (Brutus) match'd with thee to be 
 A partner onely of thy boord and bed ; 
 Each servile whore in those might equall me, 
 Who but for pleasure or for wealth did wed. 
 No, Portia spoused thee minding to remaine 
 Thy fortunes partner, whether good or ill : . . . 
 If thus thou seek thy sorrows to conceale 
 Through a distrust, or a mistrust of me. 
 Then to the world what way can I reveale, 
 How great a matter I would do for thee ? 
 And though our sexe too talkative be deem'd, 
 As those whose tongues import our greatest pow'rs. 
 For secrets still bad treasurers esteem'd, 
 Of others greedy, prodigall of ours : 
 " Good education may reforme defects," 
 And this may leademe to a vertuous life, 
 (Whil'st such rare patterns generous worth respects) 
 I Cato's daughter am, and Brutus wife. 
 Yet would I not repose my trust in ought. 
 Still thinking that thy crosse was great to beare. 
 Till I my courage to a tryall brought. 
 Which suffering for thy cause can nothing feare : 
 For first to try how that I could comport 
 With Sterne afflictions sprit-enfeebling blows. 
 Ere I would seek to vex thee in this sort, 
 (To whom my soule a dutious reverence owes) ; 
 Loe, here a wound which makes me not to smart, 
 No, I rejoyce that thus my strength is knowne ; 
 Since thy distresse strikes deeper in my heart. 
 Thy griefe (lifes joy !) makes me neglect mine owne. 
 
 o 
 
2IO JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 And Brutus answers : 
 
 Thou must (deare love !) that which thou sought'st, receive ; 
 Thy heart so high a saile in stormes still beares, 
 That thy great courage does deserve to have 
 Our enterprise entrusted to thine eares. 
 
 Here, with the rhetorical amplification which was 
 the chief and almost sole liberty that Alexander 
 allowed himself, Plutarch's train of thought is more 
 closely followed than by Shakespeare himself King 
 James's " philosophical poet " does not even suppress 
 the tribute to education, but rather calls attention to 
 the edifying "sentence" by the expedient less common 
 west of the Channel than among his French masters, 
 of placing it within inverted commas. But, besides 
 lowering the temperature of the whole, he character- 
 istically omits the most important passage, at least 
 in so far as Brutus is concerned, his prayer that "he 
 might be founde a husband, worthie of so noble a 
 wife as Porcia." 
 
 Suppose that a conscientious draughtsman and a 
 painter of genius were moved to reproduce the im- 
 pression that a group of antique statuary had made 
 on them, using the level surface which alone is at 
 their disposal. The one might choose his station, 
 and set down with all possible precision in his black 
 and white as much as was given him to see. The 
 other taking into account the different conditions of 
 the pictorial and the plastic art, might visualise 
 what seemed to him the inmost meaning to his own 
 mind in his own way, and represent it, the same yet 
 not the same, in all the glory of colour. The former 
 would deliver a version more useful to the historian 
 of sculpture were the original to be lost, but one in 
 which we should miss many beauties of detail, and 
 from which the indwelling spirit would have fled. 
 The latter would not give much help to an anti- 
 quarian knowledge of the archetype, but he might 
 transmit its inspiration, and rouse kindred feelings 
 
THE MATERIAL 
 
 211 
 
 in an even greater degree just because they were 
 mingled with others that came from his own heart. 
 
 The analogy is, of course, an imperfect one, for 
 the problem of rendering the solid on the flat is not 
 on all fours with the problem of converting Plutarch's 
 Lives to modern plays. But it applies to this extent, 
 that in both cases the task is to interpret a subject, 
 that has received one kind of treatment, by a treat- 
 ment that is quite dissimilar. And the difference 
 between William Alexander and William Shake- 
 speare is very much the difference between the 
 conscientious draughtsman and the inspired artist. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE TITULAR HERO OF THE PLAY 
 
 The modification of Brutus' character typifies and in- 
 volves the modification of the whole story, because 
 the tragic interest is focussed in his career. This 
 must be remembered, if we would avoid misconcep- 
 tion. It has sometimes been said that the play 
 suffers from lack of unity, that the titular hero is 
 disposed of when it is half through, and that there- 
 after attention is diverted to the murderer. But this 
 criticism is beside the point. Really, from beginning 
 to end, Brutus is the prominent figure, and if the 
 prominent figure should supply the name, then, as 
 Voltaire pointed out, the drama ought properly to be 
 called Marcus Brutus. If we look at it in this way, 
 there is no lack of unity, though possibly there is a 
 misnomer. Throughout the piece it is the person- 
 ality of Brutus that attracts our chief sympathy 
 and concern. If he is dismissed to a subordinate 
 place, the result is as absurd as it would' be were 
 Hamlet thus treated in the companion tragedy ; 
 while, his position, once recognised, everything 
 becomes coherent and clear. 
 
 But when this is the case, why should Shakespeare 
 not say so ? Why, above all, should he use a false 
 designation to mix the trail ? 
 
 It has been answered that he was wholly indiffer- 
 ent to labels and nomenclature, that he gives his 
 
THE TITULAR HERO 213 
 
 plays somewhat irrelevant titles, such as Twelfth 
 Night, or lets people christen them at their fancy, 
 What You Will, or As You Like If. Just in the 
 same way, as a shrewd theatrical manager with his 
 eye on the audience, he may have turned to account 
 the prevalent curiosity about Caesar, without inquir- 
 ing too curiously whether placard and performance 
 tallied in every respect. 
 
 And doubtless such considerations were not un- 
 known to him. Shakespeare, as is shown by the 
 topical allusions in which his works abound, by no 
 means disdained the maxim that the playwright 
 must appeal to the current interests of his public, 
 even to those that are adventitious and superficial. 
 At the same time, it is only his comedies, in which 
 his whole method is less severe, that have insignifi- 
 cant or arbitrary titles. There is no instance of a 
 tragedy being misnamed. On the contrary, the chief 
 person or persons are always indicated, and in this 
 way Shakespeare has protested in advance against 
 the mistake of viewing King Lear as a whole with 
 reference to Cordelia, or Macbeth as a whole with 
 reference to Lady Macbeth. 
 
 But in the second place, Julius Caesar, both in its 
 chronological position and in its essential character, 
 comes as near to the Histories as to the Tragedies ; 
 and the Histories are all named after the sovereign 
 in whose reign most of the events occurred. He 
 may not have the chief role, which, for example, 
 belongs in King John to the Bastard, and in Henry 
 IV. to Prince Hal. He may even drop out in the 
 course of the story, which, for example, in the latter 
 play is continued for an entire act after the King's 
 death : but he serves, as it were, for a landmark, to 
 date and localise the action. It is not improb- 
 able that this was the light in which Shakespeare 
 regarded Caesar. In those days people did not 
 make fine distinctions. He was generally viewed 
 
214 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 as first in the regular succession of Emperors, and 
 in so far could be considered to have held the 
 s&tne sort of position in Rome, as any of those 
 who had sat on the throne of England. 
 
 But this is not all. Though it is manifest that 
 Brutus is the principal character, x!ci^ protagonist, the 
 chief representative of the action, the central figure 
 among the living agents, the interest of his career 
 lies in its mistaken and futile opposition to Julius, to 
 the idea of Caesarism, to what again and again, in 
 the course of the play, is called "the spirit of Caesar." 
 The expression is often repeated. Brutus declares 
 the purpose of the conspirators : 
 
 We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar ; 
 
 And in the spirit of men there is no blood : 
 
 O, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit, 
 
 And not dismember Caesar. (ii. i. 167.) 
 
 Antony, above the corpse, sees in prophetic antici- 
 pation, 
 
 Caesar^s spirit ranging for revenge. (iii. i. 273.) 
 
 The ghost of Caesar proclaims what he is, 
 
 Thy evil spirit, Brutus. (iv. iii. 282.) 
 
 And at the close Brutus apostrophises his dead victim : 
 
 Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords 
 
 In our own proper entrails. (v. iii. 95.) 
 
 It is really Caesar's presence, his genius, his concep- 
 tion that dominates the story. Brutus is first among 
 the struggling mortals who obey even while resisting 
 their fate, but the fate itself is the imperialist inspir- 
 ation which makes up the significance of Caesar, and 
 the play therefore is fitly named after him.^ 
 
 This is brought home to us in a variety ofways. 
 
 In the first place, Shakespeare makes it abundantly 
 clear that the rule of the single ma ster-m ind is the 
 only admissible solution for'theproblenToTthe time. 
 
 ' See Professor Dowden, Shakespear^s Mind and Art. 
 
THE TITULAR HERO 215 
 
 Caesar, with his transcendent gifts, was chosen by 
 Providence to preserve the Roman State from ship- 
 wreck, and steer it on its triumphant course ; and 
 even if the helmsman perished, the course was set. 
 Shakespeare was guided to this view by Plutarch. 
 The celebrant of the life of ancient Greece was 
 indeed very far from idealising the man who con- 
 solidated the supremacy of Rome. He records 
 impartially and with appreciation, some of his noble 
 traits, and without extenuation many that were not 
 admirable. But he "honours his memory" very 
 much "on this side idolatry," reserves his chief 
 enthusiasm for Brutus, and never seems to take a 
 full view of Caesar's unique greatness in the mass. 
 None the less, he is now and again forced to admit 
 that he was the man, and his were the methods that 
 the emergency required. Thus talking of the bribery 
 and violence that then prevailed in Rome he remarks : 
 
 Men of deepe judgement and discression seeing such furie 
 and madnes of the people, thought them selves happy if the 
 common wealth were no worse troubled, then with the absolut 
 state of a Monarchy and soveraine Lord to governe them. 
 Furthermore, there were many that were not affraid to speake 
 it openly, that there was no other help to remedy the troubles 
 of the common wealth, but by the authority of one man only 
 that should commaund them all.* 
 
 Again, commenting on the accident by which 
 Brutus did not learn of the victory that might have 
 averted his final defeat, he has the weighty reflection ; 
 
 Howbeit the state of Rome (in my opinion) being now 
 brought to that passe, that it could no more abide to be 
 governed by many Lordes, but required one only absolute 
 Governor: God, to prevent Brutus that it shoulde not come 
 to his government, kept this victorie from his knowledge.^ 
 
 And in one of those comparisons that Montaigne 
 
 loved, he is more emphatic still : 
 
 Howbeit Caesars power and government when it came 
 to be established, did in deede much hurte at his first entrie 
 
 ^Julius Caesar. ^ Marcus Brutus. 
 
2i6 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 and beginning unto those that did resist him : but afterwardes 
 unto them that being overcome had received his government, 
 it seemed he had rather the name and opinion^ dnely of a 
 tyranne, then otherwise that he was so in deed. For there 
 never followed any tyrannicall nor cruell act, but contrarilie, 
 it seemed that he was a mercifull Phisition, whom God had 
 ordeyned of speciall grace to be Governor of the Empire of 
 Rome, and to set all thinges againe at quiet stay, the which 
 
 '■ required the counsell and authoritie of an absolute Prince. 
 
 1 . . . But the fame of Julius Caesar did set up his friends 
 againe after his death, and was of such force, that it raised a 
 
 ' young stripling, Octavius Caesar, (that had no meanes nor 
 power of him selfe) to be one of the greatest men of Rome.^ 
 
 On these isolated hints Shakespeare seizes. He 
 amplifies them and works them out in his conception 
 of the situation. 
 
 The vast territory that is subject to Rome, of 
 which we have glimpses as it stretches north and 
 west to Gaul and Spain, of which we visit the 
 Macedonian and Asiatic provinces in the east and 
 south, has need of wise and steady government. 
 But is that to be got from the Romans.? The 
 plebeians are represented as fickle and violent, greedy 
 and irrational, the dupes of dead tradition, parasites 
 in the living present. They have shouted for Pom- 
 pey, they strew flowers for Caesar : they can be 
 tickled with talk of their ancient liberties, they can be 
 cajoled by the tricks of shifty rhetoric : they cheer 
 when their favourite refuses the crown, they wish to 
 crown his " better parts " in his murderer : they 
 will not hear a word against Brutus, they rush off 
 to fire his house : they tear a man to pieces on 
 account of his name, and hold Caesar beyond parallel 
 on account of his bequest. 
 
 Nor are things better with the aristocrats. Cassius, 
 the moving spirit of the opposijtion, is, at his noblest, 
 actuated by jealousy of greatness. And he is not 
 always at his noblest. He confesses that had he 
 
 ' Reputation. ^ TAe comparison of Dion with Brutus. 
 
THE TITULAR HERO 217 
 
 been in Caesar's good graces, he would have been 
 on Caesars side. This strain of servility is more 
 apparent in the flatteries and officiousness of Decius 
 and Casca. And what is its motive? Cassius 
 seeks to win Antony by promising him an equal 
 voice in disposing of the dignities : and he presently 
 uses his position for extortion and the patronage 
 of corruption. Envy, ambition, cupidity are the 
 governing principles of the governing classes : and 
 their enthusiasm for freedom means nothing more 
 than an enthusiasm for prestige and influence, for 
 the privilege of parcelling out the authority and 
 dividing the spoils. What case have these against 
 the Man of Destiny, whose genius has given com- 
 pass, peace, and security to the Roman world ? But 
 their plea of liberty misleads the unpractical student, 
 the worshipper of dreams, memories, and ideals, 
 behind whose virtue they shelter their selfish aims, 
 and whose countenance alone can make their con- 
 spiracy respectable. With his help they achieve a 
 momentary triumph. But of course it leads not to 
 a renovation of the republic, but to domestic con- 
 fusion and to a multiplication of oppressors. So far 
 as the populace is concerned, the removal of the 
 master means submission to the unprincipled orator, 
 who, with his fellow triumvirs, cheats it of its inheri- 
 tance and sets about a wholesale proscription. So 
 far as the Empire is concerned, the civil war is 
 renewed, and the provincials are pillaged by the 
 champions of freedom. Brutus sees too late that it 
 is vain to strive against the " spirit of Caesar," which 
 is bound to prevail, and which, though it may be 
 impeded, cannot be defeated. .He is ruined with the 
 cause he espoused, and confesses fairly vanquished : 
 O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet.i (v. iii. 94.) 
 
 1 All this is so obvious that it can hardly be overlooked, yet over- 
 looked it has been, though it has frequently been pointed out. In his 
 not very sympathetic discussion of this play, Dr. Brandes makes the 
 
2i8 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 Again, though it may seem paradoxical to say so, 
 the all-compelling power of Caesar's ideal is indi- 
 cated in the presentation of his own character. 
 This at first sight is something of a riddle and a 
 surprise. Shakespeare, as is shown by his many 
 tributes elsewhere, had ample perception and appre- 
 ciation of Caesar' s greatness. Yet in the play called 
 after him it almost seems as though he had a sharper 
 eye for any of the weaknesses and foibles that 
 Plutarch records of him, and even went about to 
 exaggerate them and add to them. 
 
 Thus great stress is laid on his physical disabili- 
 ties. When the crown is offered him, he swoons, 
 as Casca narrates, for, as Brutus remarks, he is 
 subject to the falling sickness. There is authority 
 for these statements. But Cassius describes how 
 his strength failed him in the Tiber and how he 
 shook with fever in Spain, and both these touches 
 are added by Shakespeare. Nor is it the malcon- 
 
 truly astounding statement : " As Shakespeare conceives the situation, 
 the Republic which Caesar overthrew, might have continued to exist 
 but for him, and it was a criminal act on his part to destroy it. . . . 
 'If we try to conceive to ourselves' wrote Mommsen in 1857, 'a 
 London with the slave population of New Orleans, with the police of 
 Constantinople, with the non-industrial character of modern Rome, 
 and agitated by politics after the fashion of the Paris of 1848, we shall 
 acquire an approximate idea of the republican glory, the departure of 
 which Cicero and his associates in their sulky letters deplore.' Com- 
 pare with this picture Shakespeare's' conception of an ambitious 
 Caesar striving to introduce monarchy into a well-ordered republican 
 state" (Brandes, William Shakespeare). Of course Shakespeare 
 had not read Mommsen or any of Mommsen's documents, save 
 Plutarch ; and if he had, neither he nor any one else of his age, was 
 capable of Mommsen's critical and constructive research. But con- 
 sidering the data that Plutarch delivered him he shows marvellous 
 power in getting to the gist of the matter. I think we rise with a 
 clearer idea, after i-eading him than after reading Plutarch, of the 
 hopelessness and vanity of opposing the changes'that Caesar repre- 
 sented, of the effeteness of the republican system ("Let him be 
 Caesar!" cries the citizen in his strange recognition of Brutus' achieve- 
 ment), of the chaos that imperialism alone could reduce to rule. If 
 Shakespeare's picture of Rome is that of " a well-ordered republican 
 state," one wonders what the picture of a republic in decay would be. 
 And where does Dr. Brandes find that Shakespeare viewed Caesar's 
 enterprise as a criminal act ? 
 
THE TITULAR HERO 219 
 
 tents alone who signalise such defects. Caesar 
 himself admits that he is deaf, though of his deafness 
 history knows nothing. 
 
 And not only does Shakespeare accentuate these 
 bodily infirmities ; he introduces them in such a way 
 and in such a connection that they convey an 
 ironical suggestion and almost make the Emperor 
 ridiculous. At the great moment when he is putting 
 by the coronet tendered him by Antony that he 
 may take with the more security and dignity the 
 crown which the Senate will vote him, precisely 
 then he falls down in a fit. This indeed is quasi- 
 historical, but the other and more striking instances 
 are forged in Shakespeare's smithy. It is just after 
 his overweening challenge to the swimming-match 
 that he must cry for aid : " Help me, Cassius, or I 
 sink " (i. ii. 3). In his fever, as Cassius maliciously 
 notes 
 
 ' That tongue of his that bade the Romans 
 
 Mark him and write his speeches in their books, 
 Alas, it cried ' Give me some drink, Titinius,' 
 As a sick girl. (i- "• 125.) 
 
 A pretty saying to chronicle. He says superbly to 
 Mark Antony, "Always I am Caesar" ; and in the 
 very next line follows the anticlimax : 
 
 Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf. (i. ii. 213.) 
 
 But if his physical defects, which after all have ' 
 little to do with the real greatness of the man 
 save in the eyes of spiteful detractors, are thus 
 brought into satirical relief, much more is this the 
 case with his mental and moral failings, which of 
 course concern the heart of his character. 
 
 Already on his first appearance, we see this lord 
 of the world the credulous believer in magic rites. 
 At the Lupercal he enjoins Calpurnia to "stand 
 directly in Antonius' way " and Antony to touch her 
 in his " holy chase " (i. ii. 3 and 8), and he impresses 
 
220 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 on Antony the observance of all the ritual : " Leave 
 no ceremony out" (i. ii. ii). It was not ever thus. 
 The time has been when he held these things at 
 their true value, and it is only recently, as watchful 
 eyes take note, that his attitude has changed. 
 
 He is superstitious grown of late, 
 
 Quite from the main opinion he held once 
 
 Of fantasy, of dreams and ceremonies. (n. i. 195.) 
 
 And this is no mere invention of the enemy. He 
 does have recourse to sacrifice, he does inquire of the 
 priests "their opinions of success" (11. ii. 5) ; though 
 afterwards, on the news of the portent, he tries to 
 put his own interpretation on it : 
 
 The gods do this in shame of cowardice : 
 Caesar should be a beast without a heart. 
 If he should stay at home to-day for fear. (n. ii. 41.) 
 
 He is really impressed by his wife's cries in her 
 sleep, as appears from his words to himself, when he 
 has not to keep up appearances before others, but 
 enters, perturbed, in his nightgown, and seems urged 
 by his anxiety to consult the oracles. He affects to 
 dismiss the signs and omens : 
 
 These predictions 
 Are to the world in general as to Caesar; (11. ii. 28.) 
 
 But it is clear that he attaches importance to them, 
 for, when Decius gives Calpurnia's dream an aus- 
 picious interpretation, he accepts it, and once again 
 changing his mind, presently resolves to set out : 
 
 How foolish do your fears seem now, Calpumia ! 
 
 I am ashamed I did yield to them. 
 
 Give me my robe, for I will go. (11. ii. 105.) 
 
 ' Thus we see a touch of s^lf- decep tion as well as 
 of superstition in C aesar, and this self-deception 
 reappears m other more important matters. He 
 affects an absolute fearlessness : 
 
 Of all the wonders that I yet have heard. 
 
 It seems to me most strange that men should fear. 
 
 ("• ii- 33-) 
 
THE TITULAR HERO 221 
 
 His courage, of course, is beyond question ; but is 
 there not a hint of the theatrical in this overstrained 
 amazement, in this statement that fear is the 
 most unaccountable thing in all his experience ? 
 One recalls the story of the young soldier who said 
 that he knew not what it was to be afraid, and 
 received his commander's answer : " Then you have 
 never snuffed a candle with your fingers." That 
 was the reproof of bravado by bravery in the mouth 
 of a man so fearless that he could afford to acknow- 
 ledge his acquaintance with fear. And surely Caesar 
 could have afforded to do so too. We see and 
 know that he is the bravest of the brave, but if any- 
 thing could make us suspicious, it would be his 
 constant harping on his flawless valour. So, too, he 
 
 says of Cassius : t r i.- . 
 
 ' , I fear him not : 
 
 Yet if my name were liable to fear, 
 
 I do not know the man I should avoid 
 
 So soon as that spare Cassius . . . 
 
 I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd 
 
 Than what I fear; for always I am Caesar, (i. ii. 198, 211.) 
 
 Why should he labour the point.? If he has not 
 fears, he has at least misgivings in regard to 
 Cassius, that come very much to the same thing. 
 His anxiety is obvious, as he calls Antony to his 
 side to catechise him on his opinions of the danger. 
 In the same way he prides himself on his in- 
 accessibility to adulation and blandishments. 
 
 These couchings and these lowly courtesies 
 
 Might fire the blood of ordinary men. 
 
 And turn pre-ordinance and first decree 
 
 Into the law of children. Be not fond 
 
 To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood, 
 
 That will be thaw'd from the true quality 
 
 With that which melteth fools ; I mean, sweet words. 
 
 Low crooked court'sies and base spaniel fawning. 
 
 (ill. i. 36.) 
 
 We may believe that he does indeed stand secure 
 against the grosser kinds of parasites and their more 
 
222 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 obvious devices ; but that does not mean that he 
 cannot be hoodwinked by meaner men who know 
 how to play on his self-love. Decius says : 
 
 I can o'ersway him : for he loves to hear 
 
 That unicorns may be betray'd with trees, 
 
 And bears with glasses, elephants with holes. 
 
 Lions with toils, and men with flatterers ; 
 
 But when I tell him he hates flatterers. 
 
 He says he does, being then most flattered. 
 
 Let me work. (ii. i. 203.) 
 
 And Decius makes his words good. 
 
 In like manner he fancies that he possesses an 
 insight that reads men's souls at a glance. When 
 he hears the cry : " Beware the Ides of March," he 
 gives the command, "Set him before me; let me 
 see his face." A moment's inspection is enough: 
 "He is a dreamer: let us leave him: pass" (i. ii. 24). 
 Yet he fails to read the treachery of the conspirators, 
 thought they are daily about him, consults with 
 Decius whom he "loves," and bids Trebonius be 
 near him. 
 
 And then he elects to pose as no less immovable 
 n resolution than infallible in judgment. When we 
 have been witnesses of all his vacillation and shilly- 
 shally about attending the senate meeting — now he 
 would, now he would not, and again he would — it is 
 hard to suppress the jeer at the high-sounding words : 
 
 I could be well moved, if I were as you : 
 
 If I could pray to move, prayers would move me : 
 
 But I am constant as the northern star, 
 
 Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality 
 
 There is no fellow in the firmament. 
 
 The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks, 
 
 They are all fire, and every one doth shine. 
 
 But there's but one in all doth hold his place : 
 
 So in the world : 'tis furnish'd well with men, 
 
 And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive ; 
 
 Yet in the number I do know but one 
 
 That unassailable holds on his rank, 
 
 Unshaked of motion : and that I am he, 
 
 Let me a little show it, even in this. (iii. i. 58.) 
 
 >^ 
 
THE TITULAR HERO 223 
 
 Now, all these things are wholly or mainly the 
 fabrications of Shakespeare. In Plutarch Caesar 
 does not direct Calpurnia to put herself in Antony's 
 way, nor is there any indication that he attached 
 importance to the rite. It is in the wife and not 
 in the husband that Plutarch notes an unexpected 
 strain of credulity, remarking with reference to her 
 dream : " Capurnia untill that time was never geven 
 to any feare or supersticion."^ Plutarch cites noble 
 sayings of Caesar's in regard to fear, for instance 
 that " it was better to dye once, than alwayes to be 
 affrayed of death : " ^ but he never attributes to him 
 any pretence of immunity from human frailty, and 
 makes him explicitly avow the feeling in the very 
 passage where in Shakespeare he disclaims it. 
 " ' As for those fatte men, with smooth comed 
 heades,' quoth he, ' I never reckon of them : but 
 these pale visaged and carian leane people, I feare 
 them most.' " The dismissal of the soothsayer after 
 a contemptuous glance is unwarranted by Plutarch. 
 There is no authority for his defencelessness among 
 flatterers, or for his illusion that he is superior to their 
 arts. Yielding in quite a natural way and without 
 any hesitation to the solicitations of Calpurnia and 
 the reports of the bad omens, Caesar in Plutarch 
 resolves to stay at home, but afterwards is induced to 
 change his mind by Decius' very plausible arguments. 
 There is no hint of unsteadiness in his conduct, as 
 there described ; nor in the final scene is there any 
 of the ostentation but only the reality of firmness in 
 his rejection of Metellus Cimber's petition. 
 
 Considering all this it is not difficult to understand 
 the indignation of the critics who complain that 
 Shakespeare has here given a libel rather than a 
 portrait of Caesar, and has substituted impertinent 
 cavil for sympathetic interpretation. And some of 
 Shakespeare's apologists have accepted this state- 
 
 ^ Julius Caesar. '^ Ibid. 
 
224 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 ment of the case, but have sought to defend the 
 supposed travesty on the ground that it is prescribed 
 by the subject and the treatment. Thus Dr. Hudson 
 suggests ^ that " the policy of the drama may have 
 been to represent Caesar, not as he was indeed, but 
 as he must have appeared to the conspirators ; to 
 make us see him as they saw him ; in order that 
 they might have fair and equal justice at our hands." 
 With a slight variation this is also the opinion of 
 Gervinus:^ "The poet, if he intended to make the 
 attempt of the conspirators his main theme, could 
 not have ventured to create too great an interest in 
 Caesar : it was necessary to keep him in the back- 
 ground, and to present that view of him which gave 
 reason for the conspiracy." And alleging, what 
 would be hard to prove, that in Plutarch, Caesar's 
 character " altered much for the worse, shortly 
 before his death," he continues, in reference to his 
 arrogance : " It is intended with few words to show / 
 him at that point when his behaviour would excite 
 those free spirits against him." But this explanation 
 will hardly bear scrutiny. In the first place: if 
 Shakespeare's object had been to provide a relative 
 justification for the assassins, he could have done so 
 much more naturally and effectively by adhering to 
 the data of the Life. Among them he could have 
 found graver causes of resentment against Caesar 
 than any of those he invents, which at the worst 
 are peccadillos and affectations rather than real 
 delinquencies. And Plutarch does not slur them 
 over: on the contrary the shadows. in his picture 
 are strongly marked, and he lays a long list of 
 offences to Caesar's score ; culminating in what he 
 calls the " shamefullest part" that he played, to wit, 
 his support of Clodius. Here was matter enough 
 for the dramatic Advocatus Diaboli. It would have 
 
 ' Shakespeare, His Life, Art and Characters. 
 ^ Shakespeare Comjnentaries. 
 
THE TITULAR HERO 225 
 
 been as easy to weave some of these damaging 
 stones mto the reminiscences of Cassius, as to 
 concoct harmless fictions about Caesar's having a 
 temperature and being thirsty, or his failing to 
 swim a river in flood. All these by-gone scandals, 
 whether domestic or political, would have immensely 
 strengthened the conspirators' case, especially with 
 a precisian like Brutus. But Shakespeare is silent 
 concerning them, and Brutus, as we have seen, gives 
 Caesar in regard to his antecedents a clean bill of 
 health. Of course almost all Caesar's previous 
 history is taken for granted and left to the imagin- 
 ation, but the dubious passages are far more 
 persistently kept out of sight than such as tend to 
 his glory. And that is the bewildering thing, if 
 Shakespeare's delineation was meant to explain the 
 attitude of the faction. It is surely an odd way of 
 winning our good will for a man's murderers to 
 keep back notorious charges against him of cruelty, | 
 treason and unscrupulousness, to certify that he has ' 
 never abused his powers or let his passion over- 
 master his reason, and then to trump up stories that 
 he gives himself airs and is deaf in one ear. It 
 reminds one of Swift's description of Arbuthnot : 
 " Our doctor has every quality and virtue that can 
 make a man amiable or useful ; but, alas, he hath a 
 sort of slouch in his walk." Swift, however, was 
 not explaining how people might come to think that 
 Dr. Arbuthnot should be got rid of. 
 
 Again his tendency to parade by no means alters 
 the fact, that he does possess in an extraordinary 
 degree the intellectual and moral virtues that he\ 
 would exaggerate in his own eyes and the eyes of) 
 others. Independence, resolution, courage, insight 
 must have been his in amplest store or he would 
 never have been able to 
 
 Get the start of the majestic world 
 And bear the palm alone; (i. ii. 130.) 
 
 p 
 
226 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 and there is evidence of them in the play. He is 
 not moved by the deferential prayers of the senators : 
 he does persist in the banishment of Publius Cimber ; 
 he has in very truth read the heart and taken the 
 measure of Cassius : 
 
 Such men as he be never at heart's ease, 
 
 Whiles they behold a greater than themselves ; (i. ii. 208.) 
 
 he neither shrinks nor complains when the fatal 
 moment comes. The impression he makes on the 
 unsophisticated mind, on average audiences and the 
 elder school of critics, is undoubtedly an heroic one. 
 It is only minute analysis that discovers his defects, 
 and though the defects are certainly present and 
 should be noted, they are far from sufficing to make 
 the general effect absurd or contemptible. If they 
 do so, we give them undue importance. It was not 
 so that Shakespeare meant them to be taken.. For 
 he has invented for his Caesar not only these trivial 
 blemishes, but several conspicuous exhibitions of 
 nobility, which Plutarch nowhere suggests ; and this 
 should give pause to such as find in Shakespeare's 
 portrait merely a wilful or wanton caricature. Thus 
 in regard to the interposition of Artemidorus, 
 Shakespeare read in North : 
 
 He marking howe Caesar received all the supplications 
 that were offered him, and that he gave them straight to 
 his men that were about him, pressed neerer to him and 
 sayed : " Caesar, reade this memoriall to your selfe, and that 
 quickely, for they be matters of great waight and touch you 
 neerely-" Caesar tooke it of him, but coulde never reade it, 
 though he many times attempted it, for the multitude of people 
 that did salute him : but holding it still in his hande, keeping 
 it to him selfe, went on withall into the Senate house. ^ 
 
 Compare this with the scene in the play : 
 
 Artemidorus. Hail, Caesar ! read this schedule. 
 Decius. Trebonius doth desire you to o'er-read. 
 
 At your best leisure, this his humble suit. 
 
 ^ Julius Caesar. 
 
THE TITULAR HERO 227 
 
 Artemidorus. O Caesar, read mine first, for mine's a suit 
 That touches Caesar nearer : read it, great Caesar. 
 
 Caesar. What touches us ourself shall be last served. 
 
 (ill. i. 3.) 
 
 Can one say that Shakespeare has defrauded Caesar 
 of his magnanimity ? 
 
 Or again observe, in the imaginary conclusion to 
 the unrecorded remonstrances of Calpurnia, how 
 loftily he refuses to avail himself of the little white/ 
 untruths that after all pass current as quite excusable! 
 in society. They are beneath his dignity. Hef 
 turns to Decius : 
 
 Caesar. You are come in very happy time, 
 To bear my greeting to the senators 
 And tell them that I will not come to-day ; 
 Cannot, is false, and that I dare not falser : 
 I will not come to-day : tell them so, Decius. 
 
 Calpurnia. Say he is sick. 
 
 Caesar. Shall Caesar send a lie ? 
 Have I in conquest stretch 'd mine arm so far, 
 To be afeard to tell graybeards the truth ? 
 Decius, go tell them Caesar will not come . . . 
 The cause is in my will : I will not come. (ii. ii. 60.) 
 
 But this last instance is not merely an example of 
 Shakespeare's homage to Caesar's grandeur and his 
 eagerness to enhance it with accessories of his own 
 contrivance. It gives us a clue to the secret of his 
 additions both favourable and the reverse, and points 
 the way to his conception of the man. For observe 
 that this refusal of Caesar's to make use of a false-/ 
 hood is an afterthought. A minute before he hasj 
 also in words that Shakespeare puts in his mouthii 
 fully consented to the proposal that he should feign 
 illness. He pacifies Calpurnia : 
 
 Mark Antony shall say I am not well ; 
 
 And, for thy humour, I will stay at home. (11. ii. 55.) 
 
 This compliance he makes to his wife, but in pre- 
 sence of Decius Brutus he recovers himself and 
 adopts the stricter standard. What does this imply ? 
 
228 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 Does it not mean that in a certain sense he is play- 
 \ ing a part and aping the Immortal to be seen of 
 men? 
 
 Let us consider the situation. Caesar, a man with 
 the human frailties, mental and physical, which are 
 incident to men, is nevertheless endowed by the 
 Higher Powers with genius that has raised him far 
 above his fellows. By his genius he has conceived 
 and grasped and done much to realise the sublime 
 idea of the Roman Empire. By his genius he has 
 raised himself to the headship of that great Empire 
 which his own thought was creating. Private 
 ambitions may have urged and doubtful shifts may 
 have helped his career. He himself feels that 
 within his drapery of grand exploits there is some- 
 thing that will not bear scrutiny ; and hence his 
 mistrust of Cassius : 
 
 He is a great observer and he looks 
 
 Quite through the deeds of men. (i. ii. 201.) 
 
 But these things are behind him and a luminous 
 veil is drawn over them, beyond which we discern 
 him only as " the foremost man of all this world," 
 "the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times," 
 devoted to the cause of Rome, fighting and conquer- 
 ing for her ; filling her public treasuries, her general 
 coffers, with gold ; sympathising with her poor to 
 whom it will be found only after his deatl\ that he 
 has left his wealth. The only hints of unrighteous 
 dealing on his part are given in Artemidorus' state- 
 ment to himself: "Thou ha'st wronged Caius 
 Ligarius," and in Brutus' statement about him that 
 he was slain " but for supporting robbers." But it 
 is never suggested that he himself was guilty of 
 robbery: and the wrong to Ligarius, who was 
 accused "for taking parte with Pompey," and 
 " thanked not Caesar so muche for his discharge, 
 as he was offended with him for that he was brought 
 
THE TITULAR HERO 229 
 
 in daunger by his tyrannical] power,"^ hardly deserves 
 the name, at least in the common acceptation. Besides 
 Shakespeare has a large tolerance for the practical 
 statesman when dowered with patriotism, insight, 
 and resolution ; and will not lightly condemn him 
 because he must use sorry tools, and takes some 
 soil from the world, and is not unmoved by personal 
 interests. Provided that his more selfish aims coin- 
 cide with the good of the whole, and that" he has 
 veracity of intellect to understand, with steadiness 
 of will to satisfy the needs of the time, Shakespeare 
 will vindicate for him his share of prosperity, honour, 
 and desert. And this seems to be, in glorified ver- 
 sion, his view of Caesar. The only serious charge 
 he brings against him in the play, the only charge to 
 which he recurs elsewhere, is that he was ambitious. 
 But ambition is not wholly of sin, and brings forth 
 good as well as evil fruit. Indeed when a man's 
 desire for the first place merges in the desire for the 
 fullest opportunity, and that again in the desire for 
 the task he feels he can do best, it is distinguishable 
 from a virtue, if at all, only by the demand that he 
 shall be the agent. So is it, to compare celebrities 
 of local and of universal history, with the ambitious 
 strain in the character of Henry I V. ; it is not incom- 
 patible with sterling worth that commands solid 
 success ; it spurs him to worthy deeds that redeem 
 the offences it exacts ; and these offences themselves 
 in some sort "tend the profit of the state." No 
 doubt with both men their ambition brings its own 
 Nemesis, the ceaseless care of the one, the prema- 
 ture death of the other. But that need not prevent 
 recognition of their high qualities, or their just claims, 
 or their providential mandate. Such men are mini- 
 sters of the Divine Purposes, as Plutarch said in 
 regard to Caesar ; and in setting forth the essential 
 meaning of his career, Shakespeare can scorn the 
 
 ^ Marcus Brutus. 
 
230 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 base degrees by which he did ascend. Partly his 
 less creditable doings were necessary if he was to 
 mount at all ; partly they may have seemed venial 
 to the subject of the Tudor monarchy ; at worst, 
 when compared with the splendour of his achieve- 
 ment, they were spots in the sun. In any case 
 they were not worth consideration. With them 
 Shakespeare is not concerned, but with the plenary 
 inspiration of Caesar's life, the inspiration that made 
 him an instrument of Heaven and that was to bring 
 peace and order to the world. So he passes over 
 the years of effort and preparation, showing their 
 glories but slightly and their trespasses not at all. 
 He confines himself to the time when the summit 
 is reached and the dream is fulfilled. Then to his 
 mind begins the tragedy and the transfiguration. 
 
 H.S,j«pr«sentSuIIaesaj:,JiJk£_fiYer5Ltmly_great man, 
 as. -earned -aaay-by- Jiis ownxancggtionaiKl, made a 
 slave to it. What a thing was this idea of lEmpire, 
 this "spirit of Caesar," of which he as one of earth's 
 mortal millions was but the vehicle and the organ ! 
 He himself as a human person cannot withhold 
 
 jipmage from himself as the incarnate Imperium. 
 Observe how he speaks of himself habitually in the 
 
 _ihird person. Not " I do this," but " Caesar does 
 this," "Caesar does that," alike when talking to the 
 soothsayer, to his wife and to the senate.' It is 
 almost as though he anticipated its later use as a 
 common noun equivalent to Emperor : for in all 
 these passages hd describes, as it were, what the 
 Emperor's action and attitude should be. And that 
 is the secret of the strange impression that he makes. 
 
 ^ Of course the substitution of the third for the second or first person 
 is very noticeable all through this play, and may have been due to an 
 idea on Shakespeare's part that such a mode of utterance suited the 
 classical and Roman majesty of the theme. But this rather confirms 
 than refutes the argument of the text, for the usage is exceptionally 
 conspicuous in regard to Caesar, in whom the majesty of Rome is 
 summed up. 
 
THE TITULAR HERO 231 
 
 It is a case, an exaggerated case, of noblesse oblige. 
 The Caesar, the first of those Caesars who were to 
 receive their apotheosis and be hailed as DiviAugusti, 
 must in literal truth answer Hobbes' description of 
 the State, and be a mortal gOd. He must be fear- 
 less, omniscient, infallible, without changeableness 
 or shadow of turning : does he not represent the 
 empirR?£i-I e has to lia eai p to an impossible standa rd, 
 and so he .must affect tobe what he is not. He is 
 fhp- ^inrty r nF jJip tdpa that has made^ his fort une. 
 He must not listen to his instincts orTTis"mIsgivings ; 
 there is no room in the Caesar for timidity or mistake 
 or fickleness. But, alas ! he is only a man, and as a 
 man he constantly gives the lie to the majesty which 
 the spirit of Caesar enjoins. We feel all the more 
 strongly, since we are forced to the comparison, the 
 contrast between the shortcomings of the individual 
 and the splendour of the ideal role he uni dertakes. 
 And not only that. In this assumptioh of tfie Divine, 
 involving as it does a touch of unreality and false- 
 hood, he has lost his old surety of vision and efficiency 
 in act. He tries to rise above himself, and pays the 
 penalty by fallingHBelow himself, and rushing on thei 
 ruin which a little vulgar shrewdness would have) 
 avoided. But his mistake is due to his very great-| 
 ness, and his greatness encompasses him to the last, 
 when with no futile and undignified struggle, he 
 wraps his face in his mantle and accepts the end. 
 Antony does not exaggerate when he says : 
 
 O, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! 
 
 Then I, and you, and all of us fell down ; (iii. ii. 194-) 
 
 for it was the Empire that fell. But to rise again ! 
 For the idea of Caesarism, rid of the defects and 
 limitations of its originator, becomes only the more 
 invincible, and the spirit of Caesar begins its free 
 untrammelled course. 
 
 The greatness of his genius cannot be fully 
 
232 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 realised unless the story is carried on to the final 
 triumph at Philippi, instead of breaking off immedi- 
 ately after his bodily death. It is in part Shake- 
 speare's perception of this and not merely his general 
 superiority of power, that makes his Caesar so much 
 more impressive than the Caesar of contemporary 
 dramatists that seem to keep closer to their theme. 
 
 Not only then '\s Julius Caesar the right name for 
 the play, in so far as his imperialist idea dominates 
 the whole, but a very subtle interpretation of his 
 character is given when, as this implies, he is viewed 
 as the exponent of Imperialism. None the less 
 Brutus is the leading personage, if we grant prece- 
 dence in accordance with the interest aroused. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE EXCELLENCES AND ILLUSIONS OF BRUTUS 
 
 Thus Shakespeare has his Act of Oblivion for all 
 that might give an unfavourable impression of 
 Caesar's past, and presents him very much as the 
 incarnate principle of Empire, with the splendours 
 but also with the disabilities that must attend the 
 individual man who feels himself the vehicle for 
 such an inspiration. 
 
 He somewhat similarly screens from view what- 
 ever in the career of Brutus might prejudice his 
 claims to affection and respect : and carries much 
 further a process of idealization that Plutarch had 
 already begun. For to Plutarch Brutus is, so to 
 speak, the model republican, the paragon of private 
 and civic virtue. The promise to the soldiers before 
 the second battle at Phillppi of two cities to sack, 
 calls forth the comment : " In all Brutus' life there 
 is but this only fault to be found " : and even this, 
 as the marginal note remarks, is " wisely excused " ; 
 on the plea, namely, that after Cassius' death the 
 difficulties were very great and the best had to be 
 made of a bad state of things. But no other mis- 
 conduct is laid to his charge : his extortionate 
 usury and his abrupt divorce are passed over in 
 silence. All his doings receive indulgent construc- 
 tion, and the narrative is often pointed with a formal 
 .Sloge. In the Comparison, where of course such 
 
-234 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 estimates are expected, attention is drawn to his 
 rectitude, ' ' only referring his frendschippe and 
 enmitie unto the consideracion of justice and 
 equitie " ; to " the marvelous noble minde of him, 
 that for fear never fainted nor let falle any part of 
 his corage " ; to his influence over his associates 
 so that " by his choyce of them he made them 
 good men " ; to the honour in which he was held 
 by his " verie enemies." But already the keynote 
 is struck in the opening page : 
 
 This Marcus Brutus . . . whose life we presently wryte, 
 having framed his manners of life by the rules of vertue and 
 studie of philosophie, and having employed his wit, which 
 was gentle and constant, in attempting of great things : me 
 thinkes he was rightly made and framed unto vertue. 
 
 And the story often deviates from its course into 
 little backwaters of commendation, as when after 
 some censure of Cassius, we are told : 
 
 Brutus in contrary manner, for his vertue and valliantnes, 
 was well-beloved of the people and his owne, esteemed of 
 noble men, and hated of no man, not so much as of his 
 enemies : bicause he was a marvelous lowly and gentle 
 person, noble minded, and would never be in any rage, nor 
 caried away with pleasure and covetousness, but had ever an 
 upright mind with him, and would never yeeld to any wronge 
 or injustice, the which was the chiefest cause of his fame, of 
 his rising, and of the good will that every man bare him : for 
 they were all perswaded' that his intent was good. 
 
 This conception Shakespeare adopts and purifies. 
 He leaves out the shadow of that one fault that 
 Plutarch wisely excused : he leaves out too the 
 unpleasant circumstance, which Plutarch apparently 
 thought needed no excuse, that Brutus was appli- 
 cant for and recipient of offices at the disposal of 
 the all-powerful dictator. There must be nothing 
 to mar the graciousness and dignity of the picture. 
 Shakespeare wishes to portray a patriotic gentleman 
 of the best Roman or the best English type, such 
 "a gentleman or noble person" as it was the aim 
 
BRUTUS 235 
 
 of Spenser's faerie Queene " to fashion in vertuous 
 and gentle discipline," such a gentleman or noble 
 person as Shakespeare's generation had seen in 
 Spenser's friend, Sir Philip Sidney. So Plutarch's 
 summaries are expanded and filled in partly with 
 touches that his narrative supplies, partly with 
 others that the summaries themselves suggest. 
 
 To the latter class belongs the winning courtesy 
 with which Brutus at his first appearance excuses 
 himself to Cassius for his preoccupation. His 
 inward trouble might well have stirred him to 
 irritability and abruptness ; but he only feels that 
 it has made him remiss, and that an explanation is 
 due from him : 
 
 Vexed I am 
 Of late with passions of some difference. 
 Conceptions only proper to myself, 
 Which give some soil perhaps to my behaviours : 
 But let riot therefore my good friends be grieved — 
 Among which number, Cassius, be you one — 
 Nor construe any further my neglect. 
 Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war. 
 Forgets the shows of love to other men. (i. ii. 39.) 
 
 So with his friends. Shakespeare invents the char- 
 acter of Lucius to show how attentive and considerate 
 Brutus is as master. He apoldgises for having blamed 
 his servant without cause. 
 
 Bear with me, good boy, I am much forgetful, (iv. iii. 255.) 
 
 He notes compassionately that the lad is drowsy 
 and overwatched (iv. iii. 241). At one time he 
 dispenses with his services because he is sleeping 
 sound (11. i. 229). At another he asks a song 
 from him not as a right but as a favour 
 {iv. iii. 256). And immediately thereafter the 
 master waits, as it were, on the nodding slave, 
 and removes his harp lest it should be broken. 
 
 But it is to his wife that he shows the full wealth 
 of his affectionate nature. He would fain keep from 
 
236 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 her the anxieties that are distracting his own mind : 
 but when she claims to share them as the privilege 
 and pledge of wifehood, with his quick sympathy he 
 sees it at once : 
 
 You are my true and honourable wife, 
 As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
 That visit my sad heart. (ii. i. 288.) 
 
 And yielding to her claim as a right, he recognises 
 
 that it is a claim that comes from an ideally noble 
 
 and loving soul, and prays to be made worthy of 
 
 her. What insight Shakespeare shows even in his 
 
 oiiiissions ! This is the prayer of Plutarch's Brutus 
 
 /too, but he lifts up his hands and beseeches thb 
 
 / gods that he may " bring his enterprise to so goode 
 
 L passe that he mighte be founde a husband worthie 
 
 ■^ of so noble a wife as Porcia." Shakespeare's Brutus 
 
 does not view his worthiness as connected with any 
 
 material success. 
 
 And these words are also an evidence of his 
 humble-mindedness. However aggressive and over- 
 bearing he may appear in certain relations, we never 
 fail to see his essential modesty. If he interferes, 
 as often enough he does, to bow others to his will, 
 it is not because he is self-conceited, but because he 
 is convinced that a particular course is right ; and 
 where right is concerned, a man must come forward 
 to enforce it. But for himself he has no idea of the 
 high estimation in which his character and parts are 
 held. When Cassius insinuates that everyone thinks 
 him the man for the emergency, if he would only 
 realise it, his reply is a disclaimer : he has never 
 supposed, and shrinks from imagining, that he is fit 
 for such a role. Yet such is his personality that, as 
 all of the faction feel, his help is absolutely necessary 
 if the conspiracy is to have a chance of approval. 
 Cinna exhorts Cassius to win him to the party, 
 Casca bears witness to his popular credit and to the 
 
BRUTUS 237 
 
 value of his sanction in recommending the enter- 
 prise, Ligarius is willing to follow any course if 
 Brutus leads, the cynical Cassius admits his worth 
 and their great need of Jiim. 
 
 For his amiable and attractive virtues are saved 
 from all taint of weakness by an heroic strain, both 
 high-spirited and public-spirited, both stoical and 
 chivalrous. Challenged by the solicitations of 
 Cassius he for once breaks through his reticence, 
 and discloses his inward temper. We may be sure 
 that even then he speaks less than he feels. 
 
 If it be aught toward the general good, 
 
 Set honour in one eye, and death i' the other, 
 
 And I will look on both indifferently : 
 
 For let the gods so speed me, as I love 
 
 The name of honour more than I fear death, (i. ii. 85.) 
 
 This elevated way of thinking has been fostered and 
 confirmed by study, just as in the case of Sidney, 
 and by study of much the same kind. Plutarch says : 
 
 Now touching the Greecian Philosophers, there was no 
 sect nor Philosopher of them, but he heard and liked it : but 
 above all the rest, he loved Platoes sect best, and did not 
 much give himself to the new or meane Academy as they call 
 it, but altogether to the old Academy. 
 
 .............Jiasstriven to direct hi'-^ Ijffr by right neason. 
 
 and haT^onaere3~ifs~probIems under the guidance 
 of his chosen masters. His utterance, which Plut- 
 arch quotes, on suicide, shows how he has sought 
 Plato's aid for a standard by which to judge others 
 and himself.^ His utterance, which Shakespeare 
 invents, on the death of Portia, shows how he has 
 trained himself to fortitude, and suggests the in- 
 fluence of a different school. 
 
 We must die, Messala : 
 With meditating that she must die once, 
 I have the patience to endure it now. (iv. iii. 190.) 
 
 ' Compare the argument in the Phaedo, with its conclusion : " Then 
 there may be reason in saying that a man should wait and not take his 
 own life till God summons him." Jowett's Plato,Vo\. I. 
 
238 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 He is essentially a thinker, a reader, a student. 
 Plutarch had told how on the eve of Pharsalia, when 
 his companions were resting, or forecasting the 
 morrow, Brutus "fell to his booke and wrote all day 
 long till night, wryting a breviarie of Polybius." 
 And in his last campaign : 
 
 His heade ever busily occupied to thinke of his affayres, 
 . . . after he had slumbered a little after supper, he spent all 
 the rest of the night in dispatching of his waightiest causes, 
 and after he had taken order for them, if he had any leysure 
 left him, he would read some booke till the third watch of the 
 night, at what tyme the Captaines, pety Captaines and 
 Colonells, did use to come unto him. 
 
 Shakespeare only visualises this description when 
 he makes him find the book, that in his troubles and 
 griefs he has been "seeking for so," in the pocket of 
 his gown, with the leaf turned down where he 
 stopped reading. 
 
 Does then Shakespeare take over Plutarch's 
 favourite, merely removing the single stain and 
 accenting all the attractions, to confront him as the 
 embodiment of republican virtue, with Caesar, 
 against whom too no evil is remembered, as the 
 embodiment of imperial majesty? Will he show 
 the inevitable collision between two political prin- 
 ciples each worthily represented in its respective 
 champion ? 
 
 This has been said, and there are not wanting 
 arguments to support it. It is clear that the con- 
 trast is not perplexed by side issues. Brutus has no 
 quarrel with Caesar as a man, and no justification is 
 given for the conspiracy in what Caesar has done. 
 On the contrary, his murderer stands sponsor for his 
 character, acknowledges his supreme greatness, and 
 loves him as a dear friend. But neither on the other 
 hand is anything introduced that might divert our 
 sympathies from Brutus by representing him as 
 bound by other than the voluntary ties of affection 
 
BRUTUS 239 
 
 and respect. And this is the more remarkable that 
 in Plutarch there are two particulars full of personal 
 pathos which Shakespeare cannot have failed to 
 note, and which lend themselves to dramatic pur- 
 poses, as other dramatists have proved. One of 
 them, employed by Voltaire, would darken the 
 assassination to parricide. In explanation of the 
 indulgence with which Caesar treated Brutus, 
 Plutarch says: 
 
 When he was a young man, he had been acquainted with 
 Servilia, who was extreamelie in love with him. And bicause 
 Brutus was borne in that time when their love was hottest, he 
 perswaded him selfe that he begat him.^ 
 
 And then follows what can be alleged in proof. 
 "What of anguish," says Mr. Wyndham, "does this 
 not add to the sweep of the gesture wherewith the 
 hero covered his face from the pedant's sword ! " 
 
 This is a mere casual hint; but the other point 
 finds repeated mention in the Life, and is dwelt 
 upon though explained away in the Comparison. It 
 is the circumstance that Brutus had fought on Pom- 
 pey's side, and that thereafter Caesar had spared 
 him, amnestied his friends, and loaded him with 
 favours. 
 
 The greatest reproache they could make against Brutus 
 was : that Julius Caesar having saved his life, and pardoned 
 all the prisoners also taken in battell, as many as he made 
 request for, taking him for his frende, and honoring him 
 above all his other frends, Brutus notwithstanding had 
 imbrued his hands in his blood.^ 
 
 Plutarch indeed instances' this as the grand proof of 
 Brutus' superiority to personal considerations ; but 
 it looks bad, and certainly introduces a new element 
 into the moral problem. At all events, though it in- 
 volves in a specially acute form that conflict of duties 
 
 > Voltaire decorously invents a secret marriage ! 
 2 The comparison 0/ Dion with Brutus. 
 
240 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 which the drama loves, and was so used by Shake- 
 speare's contemporaries, as early as Muretus and as 
 late as Alexander, Shakespeare dismisses it. 
 
 Attention is concentrated on the single fact that 
 Brutus felt it his duty to take the life of Caesar, and 
 no obligations of kinship or gratitude are allowed to 
 complicate the one simple case of conscience. 
 
 The victim and the sacrificer are thus set before 
 us, each with an unstained record, and in only those 
 personal relations that arise from warm and reverent 
 friendship. 
 
 Of their mutual attachment we are left in no doubt, 
 
 nor are we ever suffered to forget it. Cassius in talk 
 
 to himself, bears witness that Caesar " loves Brutus " 
 
 (i. ii. 317). Antony, in his speech to the people, 
 
 appeals to this as a notorious fact : 
 
 Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel : 
 
 Judge, O you Gods, how dearly Caesar loved him. 
 
 (ill. ii. 185.) 
 
 But the strongest testimony is Caesar's own cry, the 
 cry of astonishment and consternation, whether from 
 the betrayed when the beloved is the traitor, or from 
 the condemned when the beloved is the judge : 
 
 Et tu Brute ! Then fall, Caesar ! (iii. i. 77.) 
 
 Nor is less stress laid on Brutus' feeling. He avows 
 it in the Forum, as before he had assured Antony 
 that "he did love Caesar when he struck him" (iii. 
 i. 182). Cassius tells him : 
 
 When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better 
 Than ever thou lovedst Cassius. (iv. iii. 106.) 
 
 But here again the most pathetic evidence is to be 
 found in the assassination scene itself. When Brutus 
 stoops in the guise of petitioner, we cannot suppose 
 it is merely with treacherous adroitness : 
 
 I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar. (iii. i. 52.) 
 
 Knowing the man, do we not feel that this is the 
 last tender farewell ? 
 
BRUTUS 241 
 
 But though all this is true it cannot be maintained, 
 in view of the soliloquy before the conspirators' meet- 
 ing, that Shakespeare makes Brutus the mouthpiece, 
 of republicanism, as he makes Caesar the mouthpiece' 
 of imperialism. The opposition of principles is 
 present, but it is of principles on a different plane. 
 
 Caesar, the spirit of Caesar, is indeed the spirit of 
 Empire, the spirit of practical greatness in thei 
 domains of war, policy, organisation : of this he is/ 
 the exponent, to this he is the martyr. Brutus' spirit 
 is rather the spirit of loyalty to duty, which finds in 
 him its exponent and martyr too. 
 
 He is lavishly endowed by nature with all the 
 inward qualities that go to make the virtuous man, 
 and these he has improved and disciplined by every 
 means in his power. His standard is high, but he 
 is so strenuous and sincere in living up to it, 
 that he is recognised as no less pre-eminent in 
 the sphere of ethics, than Caesar in the sphere 
 of politics. Indeed their different ideals dominate 
 and impel both men in an almost equal degreq^ 
 And in each case this leads to a kind of pose. It^ 
 appears even in their speech. The balanced pre' 
 cision of the one tells its own tale as clearly as th 
 overstrained loftiness of the other, and is as closel 
 matched with the part that he needs must plaj^ 
 Obviously Brutus does not like to confess that he 
 has -been in the wrong. No more in the craxppwv 
 than in the Emperor is- there room for any weakness. 
 After his dispute with Cassius he assumes rather 
 unjustifiably that he has on the whole been in 
 the right, that he has been the provoked party, and 
 that at worst he has shown momentary heat. But 
 even this slight admission, comipg from him, fills 
 Cassius with surprise. 
 
 Brutus. When I spoke that, I was ill-temper'd too. 
 Cassius. Do you confess so much ? Give me your hand. 
 
 (iv. iii. 116.) 
 Q 
 
242 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 The Ideal Wise Man must not yield to anger any 
 more than to other passions, and it costs Brutus 
 something to own that he has done so. But he 
 minimises his confession by accepting Cassius' 
 apology for his rash humour and promising to over- 
 look any future offences, as though none could be 
 laid to his own door. We like him none the worse 
 for this, his cult of perfection is so genuine : but 
 sometimes the cult of perfection becomes the assump- 
 tion and obtrusion of it. Read the passage where 
 Messala tells him of Portia's death. 
 
 Messala. Had you letters from your wife, my lord ? 
 Brutus. No, Messala. 
 
 Messala. Nor nothing in your letters writ of her ? 
 Brutus. Nothing, Messala. 
 
 Messala. That, methinks, is strange. 
 
 Brutus. Why ask you ? hear you aught of her in yours ? 
 Messala. No, my lord. 
 
 Brutus. Now, as you are a Roman, tell me true. 
 Messala. Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell : 
 For certain she is dead, and by strange manner. 
 
 Brutus. Why, farewell, Portia. (iv. iii. i8i.) 
 
 Now Brutus had received earlier tidings. He may 
 profess ignorance to save himself the pain of explana- 
 tion, though surely it would have been simpler to say, 
 " I know all." But the effect is undoubtedly to 
 bring his self-control into fuller relief in presence of 
 Messala and Titinius even than in the presence of 
 Cassius a few minutes before ; for then he was an- 
 nouncing what he already knew, here he would seem 
 in the eyes of his informants to be encountering the 
 first shock. Too much must not be made of this, 
 for Cassius, who is aware of the circumstances, is no 
 less impressed than the others, and Cassius would 
 have detected any hollow ring. But at the least it 
 savours of a willingness to give a demonstration, so 
 to speak, in Clinical Ethics. 
 
 A man like this whose desires are set on 
 building up a virtuous character, but who is not free 
 
BRUTUS 243 
 
 from the self-consciousness and self-confidence of the 
 specialist in virtue, is exposed to peculiar dangers. 
 His interests and equipment are in the first place 
 for the inward life, and his chief concern is the well- 
 being of his soul. But precisely such an one knows 
 that he cannot save his own soul alone. It is not 
 open to him to disregard the claims of his fellows or 
 the needs of the world, so he is driven to take in 
 hand matters for which he has no inclination or 
 aptitude. He may be quite aware of his unfitness 
 for the work and shrink from investing himself with 
 qualities which he knows he does not possess. All 
 the same, if the call comes, the logic of his nature 
 will force him to essay the ungrateful and impossible 
 task; and he will be apt to imagine a call when 
 there is none. So it is with Brutus. It is true that 
 many of the best respect do look up to him and 
 designate him as their leader: it is none the less 
 true that the unsigned instigations which he takes 
 for the voice of Rome, are the fabrications of a 
 single schemer. He would not be Brutus if he 
 suspected or shirked the summons. This votary of 
 duty cannot acknowledge a merely fugitive and 
 cloistered virtue ; this platonic theorist can easily be 
 hood-winked by the practised politician. So Brutus, 
 who is so at home in his study with his book, who 
 is so exemplary in all the private relations of friend, 
 master and husband; predestined, one would say, 
 for the serene labours of philosophic thought and the i 
 gracious, offices of domestic affection, sweeps from I 
 his quiet anchorage to face the storms of political 
 strife, which such as he are not born to master but 
 which they think they must not avoid. 
 
 It is a common case ; and many have by their 
 very conscientiousness been hurried into a false posi- 
 tion where they could not escape from committing 
 blunders and incurring guilt. But generally the 
 blunders are corrigible and the guilt is venial. It is 
 
244 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 Brutus' misfortune, that his very greatness, his 
 moral ascendancy with the prestige it bestows, gives 
 him the foremost place, and shifts on his shoulders 
 the main responsibility for all the folly and crime. 
 
 For it is inevitable that he should proceed as he 
 does. Yet it is not easy for him. There is a con- 
 flict in this sensitive and finely tuned spirit, which, 
 with all his acquired fortitude, bewrays itself in his 
 bearing to Cassius before any foreign suggestion 
 has entered his mind, which afterwards makes 
 him unlike himself in his behaviour to his wife, 
 which drives sleep from his eyes for nights together, 
 which so jars the rare harmony of his nature, in 
 Antony's view his chief perfection, that he seems to 
 suffer from an insurrection within himself. And it 
 is not hard to understand why this should be. 
 Morality is the guiding principle of Brutus' character, 
 but what if it should be at variance with itself? 
 Now two sets of moral forces are at strife in his 
 heart. There are the more personal sentiments of 
 love and reverence for Caesar and of detestation for 
 the crime he contemplates. Even after his decision 
 he feels the full horror of conspiracy with its " mon- 
 I strous visage " ; how much more must he feel the 
 i horror of assassinating a friend ! On the other side 
 are the more traditional ethical obligations to state, 
 I class, and house. It is almost as fatal to this 
 ' visionary to be called Brutus, as it is to the poet to 
 be called Cinna. For a great historic name spares 
 its bearer a narrow margin of liberty. It should be 
 impossible for a Bourbon to be other than a legiti- 
 mist ; it would be impossible for a Romanoff to 
 abandon the Orthodox Church ; it is impossible for a 
 Brutus to tolerate the merest show of royal power. 
 The memory of his stock is about him. Now 
 Cassius reminds him of his namesake who would 
 brook the eternal devil in Rome as easily as a king ; 
 now the admonition is affixed with wax upon Old 
 
BRUTUS 245 
 
 Brutus' statue ; now he himself recalls the share his 
 ancestors had in expelling the Tarquin. If such an 
 one acquiesced in the coronation of Caesar, he must 
 be the basest renegade, or more detached from his 
 antecedents than it is given a mortal man to be. 
 And in Brutus there is no hint of such detachment. 
 The temper that makes him so attentive and loyal 
 to the pieties of life, is the very temper that vibrates 
 to all that is best in the past, and clings to the spirit 
 of use and wont. Let it again be repeated that 
 Brutus reveals himself to Shakespeare very much in^ 
 the form of a cultured and high-souled English ; 
 nobleman, the heir of great traditions and their"N 
 responsibilities, which he fulfils to the smallest jot 
 and tittle ; the heir also of inevitable preconceptions.-^ 
 But in Brutus there is more than individual 
 morality and inherited ethos : there is superimposed 
 on these the conscious philosophic theory with which 
 his actions must be squared. He has to determine 
 his conduct not by instinct or usage, but by 
 impersonal, unprejudiced reason. It is to this 
 tribunal that in the last resort he must appeal ; and 
 in that strange soliloquy of Bis he puts aside all-- 
 private preferences on the one hand, all local con- 
 siderations on the other, and discusses his difficulty 
 quite as an abstract problem of right and wrong. 
 He sees that if the personal rule of Caesar is to be 
 averted, half measures will not suffice. There are 
 no safeguards or impediments that can prevent the 
 supremacy of so great a man if he is allowed to live. 
 This is his starting point : " It must be by his death." 
 But then the question arises : is the death of such an 
 one permissible ? And in answering it Brutus seems 
 at the first glance to show admirable intellectual 
 candour. He acquits Caesar of all blame ; the 
 quarrel "will bear no colour for the thing he is." 
 What could be more dispassionate and impartial, 
 what more becoming the philosopher? There is 
 
246 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 no sophistication of the facts in the interest of his 
 party. But immediately there follow the incriminat- 
 ing words : 
 
 Fashion it thus ; that what he is, augmented, 
 
 Would run to these and these extremities. (ii. i. 30.) 
 
 There is a sophistication of the inference. Surely 
 this line of argument is invented to support a fore- 
 gone conclusion. Already that hint to his conscience, 
 " Fashion it thus," betrays the resolve to make out 
 a case. And does the mere future contingency 
 justify the present infliction of death ? Brutus is 
 appealing to his philosophy : by his philosophy he 
 is judged : for just about this date he was condemn- 
 ing the suicide of Cato because he found it 
 
 cowardly and vile. 
 For fear of what might fall, so to prevent 
 The time of life. (v. i. 104.) 
 
 But the argument is the same in both cases, and if 
 it does not excuse self-murder, still less does it 
 excuse the murder of others. 
 
 The truth is that Brutus, though he personates 
 the philosopher, is less of one than he thinks. It is 
 not his philosophy but his character that gives him 
 strength to bear the grief of Portia's death; as 
 Cassius says : 
 
 I have as much of this in art as you, 
 
 But yet my nature could not bear it so. (iv. iii. 194.) 
 
 At the end he casts his philosophy to the winds 
 
 rather than go bound to Rome : he " bears too great 
 
 a mind " (v. i. 113). And just as on these occasions 
 
 /he is independent or regardless of it, so here he 
 
 Stampers with it to get the verdict that is required. 
 
 For even in his own eyes he has to play the part of 
 
 the ideally wise and virtuous man ; and though the 
 
 [ obligations of descent and position, the consideration 
 
 in which he is held, the urgings of a malcontent, 
 
BRUTUS 247 
 
 and (as he believes not altogether without reason) 
 the expectations formed of him by his fellow citizens, 
 supply his real motives for the murder, he needs to 
 give it the form of ideal virtue and wisdom before 
 he can proceed to it. 
 
 Now, however, he persuades himself that he has 
 the sanction of reason and conscience, and he acts 
 on the persuasion. His hesitations are gone. He 
 can face without wincing the horror of conspiracy. 
 With an impassioned eloquence, which he nowhere 
 else displays, he can lift the others to the level of 
 his own views. No doubts or scruples becloud his 
 enthusiasm now. 
 
 If not the face of men, 
 • The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse — 
 
 If these be motives weak, break off betimes, 
 
 And every man hence to his idle bed ; 
 
 So let high-sighted tyranny range on 
 
 Till each man drop by lottery. (11. i. 114.) 
 
 His certainty has advanced by leaps and bounds. 
 A few minutes ago there was no complaint against 
 Caesar as he was or had been, but it could be alleged 
 that he might or would change : now his tyranny, 
 lighting by caprice on men, is announced as a positive 
 fact of the future or even of the present. But by 
 this time Brutus is assured that the plot is just and 
 that the confederates are the pick of men, both plot""^ 
 and confederates so noble that for them an ordinary / 
 pledge would be an insult : 
 
 Unto bad causes swear 
 Such creatures as men doubt : but do not stain 
 The even virtue of our enterprise. 
 Nor the insuppressive metal of our spirits, 
 To think that or our cause or our performance 
 Did need an oath. (u- i- 132-) 
 
 He carries them away with him. They abandon 
 the oath ; they accept all his suggestions ; we feel 
 that their thoughts are ennobled by his intervention, 
 
248 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 that, as Plutarch noted to be the effect of his fellow- 
 ship, he has made them better men, at least for the 
 time. 
 
 Meanwhile it is a devout imagination, an uncon- 
 scious sophistry that lends him his power ; and this 
 brings its own Nemesis a., its heels. In the future 
 Brutus will be disillusioned of the merit of the 
 exploit. In the present, persuading his associates 
 of its unparalleled glory, he makes them take their 
 measures to suit. He will not hear of the murder of 
 Antony, for that would be bloody and unnecessary. 
 And his clemency is based on disparagement of 
 Antony's abilities and contempt for his moral char- 
 acter. Of this "limb of Caesar," as he calls him, 
 "who can do no more than Caesar's arm when 
 Caesar's head is off," he cries : 
 
 Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him : 
 
 If he love Caesar, all that he can do 
 
 Is to himself, take thought and die for Caesar : 
 
 And that were much he should ; for he is given 
 
 To sports, to wildness and much company, (n. i. 185.) 
 
 It is not so in Plutarch : 
 
 Brutus would not agree to it. First for that he sayd it was 
 not honest : secondly, bicause he told them there was hope 
 of chaunge in him. For he did not mistrust, but that 
 Antonius being a noble minded and coragious man (when 
 he should knowe that Caesar was dead) would willingly helpe 
 his contrie to recover her libertie, having them an example 
 unto him to follow their corage and vertue. 
 
 In this hope of converting a rusS libertine like 
 Antony, there is no doubt a hint of idealism, but it 
 is not so marked as in the high-pitched magnanimity 
 of Shakespeare's Brutus, who denies a man's powers 
 of mischief because his life is loose. 
 
 Yet though Antony would always be a source of 
 danger, the conspirators might find compensation in 
 the reputation for leniency they would gain, and the 
 danger might be reduced were effective steps taken 
 
BRUTUS 249 
 
 to render him innocuous. But this is only the begin- 
 ning of Brutus' mistakes. If indeed they had not 
 begun before. With his masterful influence he has 
 dissuaded his friends from applying to Cicero, on the 
 ground that Cicero will not share in any scheme of 
 which he is not the author. It may be so, but one 
 would think it was at least an experiment well worth 1 
 the trying. Apart from the authority of his years! 
 and position, there would have been the spell of his 
 oratory; and of that they were soon to be sorely 
 in need, again through Brutus' crotchet that their 
 course evinced its own virtue, and that virtue was a 
 sufficient defence. 
 
 " The first fault that he did," says Plutarch, " was, when 
 he would not consent to his fellow conspirators, that Antony 
 should be slayne : and therefore he was justly accused, that 
 thereby he had saved a stronge and grievous enemy of their 
 conspiracy. The second fault was when he agreed that 
 Caesars funeralls should be as Antony would have them : the 
 which in deede marred all." 
 
 This hint Shakespeare works out. He sees 
 clearly that this further blunder marred all, and 
 heightens the folly of it in various ways. For in 
 Plutarch the question is debated in the Senate, 
 after it has been determined that the assassins 
 shall be not only pardoned but honoured and after 
 provinces have been assigned to them, Crete to 
 Brutus, Africa to Cassius, and the like. Only 
 then, when their victory seems complete and 
 assured, do they discuss the obsequies. 
 
 Antonius thinking good his testament should be red 
 openly, and also that his body should be honorably buried, 
 and not in hugger mugger, least the people might thereby 
 take occasion to be worse offended if they did otherwise : 
 Cassius stowtly spake against it. But Brutus went with the 
 motion and agreed unto it. 
 
 That is the amount of his error : that when all 
 seemed to be going well with the faction, Antony, 
 who had shown himself in seeming and for the 
 
250 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 time their most influential friend, commended the 
 proposal on opportunist grounds, and Cassius 
 opposed it, but Brutus supported it and voted 
 with the majority. In the Play his responsibility 
 is undivided, and all the explanatory circumstances 
 have disappeared. He is not one member of an 
 approving Senate, who, when the assassination 
 seems once for all a chose jugke, accepts a sug- 
 gestion, made apparently in the interests of peace 
 and quiet, by the man to whom, more than to 
 anyone else, the settlement of the affair is due. 
 While the position is still critical, without any 
 evidence of Antony's good will, without any pres- 
 sure of public opinion or any plea of political 
 expediency, he endows the helpless suppliant with 
 means to undo what has been done and destroy 
 those who have done it. No wonder that Cassius 
 when he hears Brutus giving Antony permission to 
 speak in the market place, interrupts : " Brutus, a 
 word with you," and continues in the alarmed aside : 
 
 You know not what you do : do not consent 
 
 That Antony speak in his funeral : 
 
 Know you how much the people may be moved 
 
 By that which he will utter? (m. i. 232.) 
 
 But Brutus waves his remonstrance aside. He is 
 now so besotted by his own sophisms that he 
 will listen to no warning. He thinks all risk will 
 be averted by his going into the pulpit first to 
 show the "reason" of Caesar's death. He has 
 quite forgotten that the one reason that he could 
 allege to himself was merely a hazardous conclusion 
 from doubtful premises ; and this forsooth is to 
 satisfy the citizens of Rome. But meanwhile since 
 their deed is so irreproachable and disinterested, the 
 conspirators must act in accordance, and show their 
 freedom from any personal motive by giving Caesar 
 all due rites : 
 
 It shall advantage more than do us wrong. 
 
BRUTUS 251 
 
 The infatuation is almost incredible, and it springs 
 not only from generosity to Antony and Caesar, 
 but from the fatal assumption of the justice of his 
 cause, and the Quixotic exaltation the assumption 
 brings with it. 
 
 For were it ever so just, could this be brought 
 home to the Roman populace ? Brutus, who is 
 never an expert in facts, has been misled by the 
 inventions of Cassius, which he mistakes for the 
 general voice of Rome. Here, too, Shakespeare 
 departs from his authority to make the duping of 
 his hero more conspicuous. For in Plutarch these 
 communications are the quite spontaneous incite- 
 ments of the public, not the contrivances of one 
 dissatisfied aristocrat. 
 
 But for Brutus, his frendes and contrie men, both by divers 
 procurementes, and sundrie rumors of the citie, and by many 
 bills also, did openlie call and procure him to doe that he 
 did. For, under the image of his auncestor Junius Brutus, 
 that drave the kinges out of Rome, they wrote : " O, that it 
 had pleased the goddes that thou wert now alive, Brutus : 
 and againe that thou wert with us nowe." His tribunall (or 
 chaire) where he gave audience during the time he was 
 praetor, was full of such billes : " Brutus, thou art a sleepe, 
 and art not Brutus in deede." 
 
 All these in Plutarch are worth their face value, but 
 in Shakespeare they are not : and it is one of the 
 ironies of Brutus' career that he takes them as 
 appeals from the people when they are only the 
 juggleries of Cassius. So far from objecting to 
 Imperialism, the citizens when most favourable to 
 Brutus call out, "Let him be Caesar!" "Caesar's 
 better parts shall be crowned in Brutus" (in. ii. 56). 
 This is the acme of his success and the prologue to 
 his disillusionment. 
 
 But even if the case of the conspirators could be 
 commended to the populace, Brutus is not the man 
 to do it. It is comic and pathetic to hear him 
 reassuring Cassius with the promise to speak first 
 
252 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 as though he could neutralise in advance the arts 
 of Antony. Compare his oration with that of his 
 rival. First, in the matter of it, there is no appeal 
 to the imagination or passions, but an unvarnished 
 series of arguments addressed exclusively to the 
 logical reason. Such a speech would make little 
 impression^ on an assembly of those who are called 
 educated men, and to convince an audience like the 
 artisans of Rome (for such was Shakespeare's con- 
 conception of the People), it is ridiculously inadequate. 
 But the style is no less out of place. The diction 
 is as different as possible from the free and fluent 
 rhetoric of Antony. Shakespeare had read in 
 Plutarch : 
 
 They do note in some of his (Brutus') Epistells, that he 
 counterfeated that briefe compendious manef of speach of 
 the Lacedaemonians. As when the warre was begonne, he 
 wrote unto the Pergamenians in this sorte : " I understand 
 you have geven Dolabella money j if you have done it 
 willingly, you confesse you have offended me : if against 
 your wills, shewe it then by geving me willinglie." An other 
 time againe unto the Samians : " Your counsels be long, 
 your doinges be slowe, consider the ende." And in an other 
 Epistell he wrote unto^ the Patareians : " The Xanthians 
 despising my good wil, have made their contrie a grave of 
 dispaire : and the Patareians that put them selves into my 
 protection, have lost no jot of their libertie. And therefore 
 whilest you have libertie, either choose the judgement of the 
 Patareians, or the fortune of the Xanthians." 
 
 Thus prompted Shakespeare makes Brutus affect 
 the balanced structure of Euphuism. Not only in 
 his oration. Read his words to, Cassius at their 
 first interview : 
 
 That you do love me, I am nothing jealous ; 
 What you would work me to, I have some aim ; 
 How I have thought of this and of these times, 
 I shall recount hereafter ; for this present, 
 I would not, so with love I might entreat you. 
 Be any further moved. What you have said 
 
 ^ i.e. in reference to. 
 
BRUTUS 253 
 
 I will consider : what you have to say ^ijP'' 
 
 I will with patience hear, and find a time 
 
 Both meet to hear and answer such high things, (i. ii. 161.) 
 
 Nothing could be more neat, accurate and artificial 
 than this Euphuistic arrangement of phrases. It at 
 once suggests the academic studious quality of 
 Brutus' expression whenever he gives thought to 
 it. But it is a style unsuitable to, one might 
 almost say incompatible with, genuine passion. So 
 it is noteworthy that when he lets himself go in 
 answer to Cassius and introduces the personal 
 accent, he abandons his mannerisms. And could 
 the symmetrical clauses of his oration move the 
 popular heart? It has a noble ring about it, 
 because it is sincere, with the reticence and sobriety j 
 which the sincere man is careful to observe wheij..' 
 he is advocating his own case. But that is not 
 the sort of thing that the Saviour of his Country, 
 as Brutus thought himself to be, will find fit tq^ 
 sway a mob. Nevertheless his eloquence was^ 
 notorious. Plutarch states that when his mind 
 " was moved to followe any matter, he used a 
 kind of forcible and vehement perswasion that 
 calmed not till he had obteyned his desire." There": 
 is a rush of emotion in his words when he is ' 
 denouncing the conventional pledge or wanton^^ 
 bloodshed, but if any personal interest is involvecC^ 
 the springs are dry. In the Forum it is charac^i 
 teristic that he speaks with far more warmth — a , 
 transition indicated not only by the change of ' 
 style, but, after Shakespeare's wont, by the sub- 
 stitution of verse for prose — when he no longer 
 pleads for himself but tries to get a hearing for 
 Mark Antony. 
 
 And this is the man with his formal dialectic and 
 professorial oratory, impassioned only on behalf of 
 his enemy, who thinks that by a temperate state- 
 ment of the course which he has seduced his reason 
 
254 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 to approve, he can prevent the perils of a speech 
 by Caesar's friend. He does not even wait to hear 
 it: but if he did, what could he effect against the 
 sophistries and rhetorical tricks, the fervour and 
 regret, the gesticulation and tears of Antony's head- 
 long improvisation ? 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE DISILLUSIONMENT OF BRUTUS. PORTIA 
 
 Brutus had been doubly duped, by his own subtlety 
 and his own simplicity in league with his conscien- 
 tiousness; for in this way he was led to idealise his 
 deed as enjoined both by the inward moral code and 
 the demands of his country, and such self-deception 
 avenges itself as surely as any intentional crime. 
 He is soon disabused in regard to the wishes of 
 Rome and its view of the alleged wrongs it has 
 suffered from Caesar. His imagination had dwelt 
 on the time when his ancestors drove out the Tar- 
 quin; now he himself must ride "like a madman" 
 through the gates. It is not only the first of his 
 reverses but a step towards his enlightenment, for 
 it helps to show that he has been mistaken in the 
 people. Still, the momentary mood of the populace 
 may not always recognise its best interests and real 
 needs, and may not coincide with the true volonU 
 gdnirale. There is harder than this in store for 
 Brutus. By the time we meet him again at Sardis 
 a worse punishment has overtaken him, and his 
 education in disappointment has advanced, though 
 he does his utmost to treat the punishment as fate 
 and not to learn the lessons it enforces. 
 
 This scene has won the applause of the most 
 dissimilar minds and generations. We have seen 
 how Leonard Digges singles it out as the grand 
 
256 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 attraction of the play, by which, above all others, it 
 transcends the laboured excellences of Catiline or 
 Sejanus. It excited the admiration and rivalry of 
 the greatest genius of the Restoration period. 
 Scott says of the dispute between Antony and 
 Ventidius m All for Love: "Dryden when writing 
 this scene had unquestionably in his recollection 
 the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, which 
 was so justly a favourite in his time, and to which 
 he had referred as inimitable in his prologue to 
 Aureng-Zebe. 
 
 But spite of all his pride, a secret shame 
 Invades his breast at Shakespeare's sacred name : 
 Awed, when he hears his godlike Rorrians rage. 
 He in a just despair would quit the stage ; 
 And to an age less polished, more unskilled, 
 Does with disdain the foremost honours yield." 
 
 In the eighteenth century Dr. Johnson, though he 
 finds Julius Caesar as a whole "somewhat cold and 
 unaffecting," perhaps because Shakespeare's "adher- 
 ence to the real story and to Roman manners" has 
 " impeded the natural vigour of his genius," excepts 
 particular passages and cites " the contention and 
 reconciliation of Brutus and Cassius " as universally 
 celebrated. And Coleridge goes beyond himself in 
 his praise : " I know no part of Shakespeare that 
 more impresses on me the belief of his being super- 
 human, than this scene between Brutus and Cassius. 
 In the Gnostic heresy it might have been credited 
 with less absurdity than most of their dogmas, that 
 the Supreme had employed him to create, previously 
 to his function of representing characters." V Yet k is 
 
 -not merely in the revelation of character that the 
 scene is unique. More than any other single 
 episode, more than all the rest together, it lays 
 
 [bare the significance of the story in its tragic 
 pathos and its tragic irony. Ahd the wonder of 
 it is increased rather than lessened when we take 
 
BRUTUS 257 
 
 note that it is a creation not out of nothing but 
 out of chaos. For there is hardly a suggestion, 
 hardly a detail, that Shakespeare did not find in 
 Plutarch, but here in confused mixture, there in 
 inert isolation, and nowhere with more than the 
 possibilities of being organised. It is Shakespeare, 
 who, to borrow from Milton's description of the 
 beginning of his Universe, "founded and conglobed 
 like things to like, and vital virtue infused and vital 
 warmth." 
 
 The nucleus of this passage is found just after 
 the account of Brutus' exploits in Lycia. 
 
 About that tyme, Brutus sent to pray Cassius to come to 
 the citye of Sardis, and so he did. Brutus understanding of 
 his comming, went out to meete him with all his frendes. 
 There both their armies being armed, they called them both 
 Emperors. Nowe, as it commonly hapneth in great affayres 
 betwene two persons, both of them having many friends, and 
 so many Captaines under them ; there ranne tales and com- 
 plaints betwixt them. Therefore, before they fell in hand 
 with any other matter, they went into a little chamber 
 together, and bad every man avoyde, and did shut the 
 dores to them. Then they beganne to powre out their 
 complaints one to the other, and grew hot and lowde, 
 earnestly accusing one another, and at length fell both a 
 weeping. Their friends that were without the chamber 
 hearing them lowde within, and angry betwene them selves, 
 they were both amased and affrayd also lest it would grow 
 to further matter : but yet they were commaunded that no 
 man should come to them. Notwithstanding, one Marcus 
 Phaonius, that had bene a friend and follower of Cato while 
 he lived, and tooke upon him to counterfeate a Philosopher, 
 not with wisedom and discretion, but with a certaine bedlem 
 and frantick motion : he would needes come into the cham- 
 ber, though the men offered to keepe him out. But it was 
 no boote to let Phaonius, when a mad moode or toy tooke 
 him in the head : for he was a hot hasty man, and sodaine 
 in all his doings, and cared for never a Senator of them all. 
 Now, though he used this bold manner of speeche after the 
 profession of the Cynick Philosophers (as who would say, 
 doggs), yet this boldnes did no hurt many times, bicause 
 they did but laugh at him to see him so mad. This 
 Phaonius at that time, in despite of the doore keepers, 
 came into the chamber, and with a certain scoffing and 
 
258 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 mocking gesture which he counterfeated of purpose, he 
 rehearsed the verses which old Nestor sayd in Homer : 
 My lords, I pray you harken both to mee. 
 For I have seene moe yeares than suchye three. 
 Cassius fell a laughing at him : but Brutus thrust him out 
 of the chamber, and called him dogge, and counterfeate 
 Cynick. Howbeit his comming in brake their strife at that 
 time, and so they left eche other. 
 
 Here there seems little enough to tempt the drama- 
 tist ; the two generals quarrel, Phaonius bursts in, 
 Cassius laughs at him, Brutus turns him out, but 
 the interruption temporarily patches up a truce 
 between them. And this petty incident is made 
 the most pregnant in Shakespeare's whole play ; 
 and that by apparently such simple means. To 
 get the meaning out of it, or to read the meaning 
 into it, he does little more, so far as the mechanical 
 aspects of his treatment are concerned, than collect 
 a few other notices scattered up and down the pages 
 of his authority. He had found in an earlier 
 digression Cassius described as 
 
 a hot cholerick and cruell man, that would often tymes be 
 caried away from justice for gayne : it was certainly thought 
 that he made warre, and put him selfe into sundry daungers, 
 more to have absolute power and authoritie, than to defend 
 the liberty of his contrie. 
 
 Again after describing Brutus' success with the 
 Patareians, Plutarch proceeds : 
 
 Cassius, about the selfe same tyme, after he had compelled 
 the Rhodians every man to deliver, all the ready money they 
 had in gold and silver in their houses, the which being 
 brought together, amounted to the summe of eyght thousande 
 talents : yet he condemned the citie besides, to paye the 
 summe of five hundred talents more. When Brutus in 
 contrary manner, after he had leavyed of all the contrye 
 of Lycia but a hundred and fiftye talents onely : he departed 
 thence into the contrye of Ionia, and did them no more 
 hurt. 
 
 Previously with reference to the first meeting 
 of the fugitives after they collected their armies 
 
BRUTUS 259 
 
 and before they came to Sardis at all, Plutarch 
 narrates : 
 
 Whilst Brutus and Cassius were together in the citie of 
 Smyrna: Brutus prayed Cassius to let him have some part 
 of his money whereof he had great store, bicause all that he 
 could rappe and rend of his side, he had bestowed it in 
 making so great a number of shippes, that by meanes of them 
 they should keepe all the sea at their commaundement. 
 Cassius' friendes hindered this request, and earnestly 
 disswaded him from it : perswading him, that it was no 
 reason that Brutus should have the money which Cassius 
 had gotten together by sparing, and leavied with great evil 
 will of the people their subjects, for him to bestowe liberally 
 uppon his souldiers, and by this meanes to winne their good 
 willes, by Cassius charge. This notwithstanding, Cassius 
 gave him the third part of his totall summe. 
 
 Then at Sardis, but not on occasion of the dispute 
 interrupted by Phaonius, mention is made of the 
 affair with Pella : 
 
 The next daye after, Brutus, upon complaynt of the 
 Sardians did condemne and noted Lucius Pella for a 
 defamed person, that had been a Praetor of the Romanes, 
 and whome Brutus had given charge unto : for that he was 
 accused and convicted of robberie, and pilferie in his office. 
 This judgement much misliked Cassius; bicause he him selfe 
 had secretly (not many dayes before) warned two of his 
 friends, attainted and convicted of the like offences, and 
 openly had cleered them : but yet he did not therefore leave 
 to employ them- in any manner of service as he did before. 
 And therefore he greatly reproved Brutus, for that he would 
 shew him selfe so straight and seveare in such a tyme, as was 
 meeter to beare a little, then to take thinges at the worst. 
 Brutus in contrary manner aunswered, that he should remember 
 the Ides of Marche, at which tyme they slue Julius Caesar : 
 who nether pilled nor polled the contrye, but onely was a 
 favorer and suborner of all them that did robbe and spoyle, 
 by his countenaunce and authoritie. And if there were any 
 occasion whereby they might honestly sette aside justice and 
 equitie : they should have had more reason to have suffered 
 Caesar's friendes, to have robbed and done what wronge and 
 injurie they had would, then to beare with their owne men. 
 For then, sayde he, they could but have sayde they had 
 bene cowards : "and now they mayaccuse us of injustice, beside 
 the paynes we take, and the daunger we put our selves into." 
 
26o JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 Lastly at the end of the Life of Brutus, Shakespeare 
 would find a short notice of the death of Portia. 
 No indication is given of the date at which this 
 took place, except that Plutarch seems on the whole 
 to discredit the idea that she survived her husband. 
 
 And for Porcia, Brutus wife: Nicolaus the Philosopher, 
 and Valerius Maximus doe wryte, that she determining to 
 kill her selfe (her parents and frendes carefullie looking to 
 her to kepe her from it) tooke hot burning coles, and cast 
 them into her mouth, and kept her mouth so close, that she 
 choked her selfe. There was a letter of Brutus found wrytten 
 to his frendes, complayning of their negligence, that his wife 
 being sicke, they would not helpe her, but suffered her to 
 kill her selfe, choosing to dye rather than to languish in 
 paine. Thus it appeareth, that Nicolaus knewe not well that 
 time, sith the letter (at the least if it were Brutus letter) doth 
 plainly declare the disease and love of this Lady, as also the 
 maner of her death. 
 
 Now in Shakespeare's scene all these detached 
 jottings find their predestined place, and together 
 have an accumulated import of which Plutarch has 
 only the remotest guess. They are sq^ combined as 
 to bring out at once the ideal aspect of Brutus''^eed, 
 and its folly and disastrousness in view~ortlie~faCts. 
 He maintains his manhood under the mostterrible 
 ordeal, which is well ; he clings to his illusion in the 
 face of the clearest proof, which is not so well. He 
 is gathering evil fruit where he looked for good, but 
 he refuses to admit that the tree was corrupt ; and 
 of the prestige that his clear conscience confers, he 
 still makes baneful use. He is raised to the heroic 
 by his persistence in regarding the murder as an act 
 of pure and disinterested justice, but for that very 
 reason he makes his blunders, and puts himself and 
 iQthers in the wrong. 
 
 Perhaps indeed his loss of temper is to be ascribed 
 to another cause. He is in a tense, over-wrought 
 state, when the slightest thing will provoke an 
 outbreak. In Cassius' view his private and personal 
 
BRUTUS 261 
 
 sorrow, the only one Cassius could understand, 
 might quite well, apart from all the rest, have driven 
 him to greater violence : 
 
 How 'scaped I killing when I cross'd you so? (iv. iii. 150.) 
 
 No wonder he uses stinging words to his friend, 
 taxes him most unfairly with the boast of being a 
 better soldier, and flings aside Cassius' temperate 
 correction of "elder," with the contemptuous, "If 
 you did, I care not." No wonder he drives out the 
 poet, while Cassius merely laughs at him. Yet even^l 
 here, though he is undoubtedly the angrier andl 
 more unreasonable in the quarrel, his moral dignity( 
 just before has saved him from an indiscretion intoj 
 which Cassius falls. When the other begins to 
 complain before the soldiers, Brutus checks him : 
 
 Cassius, be content ; 
 Speak your griefs softly ; I do know you well. 
 Before the eyes of both our armies here, 
 Which should perceive nothing but love from us. 
 Let us not wrangle : Bid them move away ; 
 Then in my tent, Cassius, enlarge your griefs, 
 And I will give you audience. (iv. ii. 41.) 
 
 In the onset of misfortune Brutus does not forget 
 his weightier responsibilities, though the strain of 
 resisting it may impair his suavity. The fine balance 
 of his nature that was overthrown by suspense, 
 may well be shaken by his afflictions. For they 
 are more numerous than Cassius knew and more 
 poignant than he could understand. 
 
 Portia's suicide with all its terrible accessories 
 Brutus brings into relation with himself. It is 
 absence from him, and, as his love tells him, distress 
 at the growing power of his enemies that caused 
 her madness. The ruin of that home life which / 
 was his native element, the agony and death of the 
 wife he worshipped, are the direct consequences of I 
 his own act. ^ 
 
262 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 And with this private there has come also the 
 public news. The proscription has already swept 
 away seventy senators ; Cicero, despite his " silver 
 hairs," his "judgment," and his "gravity" being one ; 
 and the number given, according to Messala, is an 
 understatement. Brutus had talked of each man's 
 dropping by lottery under Caesar's rule, but however 
 much Caesar had degenerated, would he have 
 decreed a more wholesale and indiscriminate 
 slaughter than this ? Was there anything in his 
 career as described by Brutus himself, that fore- 
 shadowed a callousness like that of the Triumvirs in 
 pricking down and damning their victims, among 
 them the most illustrious members of Brutus' own 
 class ? And the perpetrators, far from injuring their 
 cause by these atrocities, are in a position to take 
 the field with a "mighty power." So the civil war 
 with all its horrors and miseries will run its full 
 course. 
 
 But even that is not the worst. Brutus has to 
 realise that his associates were not the men he 
 supposed them. Their hands are not clean, their 
 hearts are not pure, even his brother Cassius 
 connives at corruption and has "an itching palm" 
 himself Even when the soi disant deliverers wield 
 the power, what are things better than they would 
 have been under Caesar who was at least personally 
 free from such reproach and whose greatness 
 entitled him to his place in front ? Surely there are 
 few more pathetic passages even in Shakespeare 
 than the confession of disillusionment wrung from 
 Brutus by the force of events, a confession none the 
 less significant that he admits disillusion only as to 
 the results and still clings to his estimate of the 
 deed itself 
 
 Remember March, the ides of March remember : 
 Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake ? 
 What villain touch'd his body, that did stab. 
 
BRUTUS 263 
 
 And not for justice ? What, shall one of us, 
 
 That struck the foremost man of all this world 
 
 But for supporting robbers, shall we now 
 
 Contaminate our fingers with base bribes, 
 
 And sell the mighty space of our large honours 
 
 For so much trash as may be grasped thus ? 
 
 I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, 
 
 Than such a Roman. (iv. iii. 18.) 
 
 It has come to this. In anticipating the effects of; 
 Caesar's rule, he had said he "had rather be a 
 villager than to repute himself a son of Rome " in 
 the probable conditions. But his attempt at remedy f 
 has resulted in a situation even more intolerable. ; 
 He would rather be a dog than such Romans as the ' 
 confederates whom he sought to put in Caesar's 
 place are disclosing themselves to be. 
 
 It says much for his intrinsic force, that when all 
 these things rise up in judgment against him, he can 
 still maintain to himself and others the essential 
 nobility of the deed that has brought about all the 
 woe and wrong ; and without any faint-hearted 
 penitence, continue to insist that their doings must 
 conform to his conception of what has been done : 
 that if that conception conflicts with the facts, it is 
 the facts that must give way. Yet on that very 
 account he is quite impracticable and perverse, as 
 every enthusiast for abstract justice must be, who 
 lets himself be seduced into crime on the plea of 
 duty, and yet shapes his course as though he were 
 not a criminal. 
 
 Brutus has brought about an upturn of society 
 by assassinating the one man who could organize 
 that society. His own motives were honourable, 
 though not so unimpeachable as he assumed, but 
 they could not change wrong into right and they 
 could not be taken for granted in others than him- 
 self. Now in the confusions that ensue he finds, to 
 his horror, that revolutions are not made with rose 
 water, that even champions of virtue have to reckon 
 
264 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 with base and dirty tools. So he condemns Pella 
 for bribery. Cassius judges the case better. He 
 sees that Pella is an efficient and useful officer of 
 whose services he does not wish to be deprived. 
 He sees that in domestic broils the leaders must 
 not be too particular about their instruments, that, 
 according to the old proverb, you must go into 
 the water to catch fish. But Brutus will not 
 go into the water. He thinks that an assassin 
 should only have Galahads in his troops. And 
 sometimes his offended virtue becomes even a little 
 absurd. He is angry with Cassius for not giving 
 him money, but listen to his speech : 
 
 I did send to you 
 For certain sums of gold, which you denied me : 
 For I can raise no money by vile means : 
 By heaven, I had rather coin my heart, 
 And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring 
 From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash 
 By any indirection : I did send 
 To you for gold to pay my legions, 
 V/hich you denied me : was that done like Cassius ? 
 Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so ? 
 When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous 
 To lock such rascal counters from his friends. 
 Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts ; 
 Dash him to pieces ! (iv. iii. 69.) 
 
 What does all this come to ? That the superfine 
 Brutus will not be guilty of extortion, but that 
 Cassius may : and then Brutus will demand to share 
 in the proceeds. All this distress and oppression 
 are his doing, or at least the consequences of his 
 deed, and he would wash his hands of these inevi- 
 table accompaniments. He would do this by using 
 Cassius as his dme damnde while yet interfering 
 in Cassius' necessary measures with his moral 
 rebukes.' 
 
 ' It will be noticed that in this episode Shakespeare has altered 
 Plutarch's narrative in two respects. In the first place Cassius did 
 
BRUTUS 265 
 
 This of course is between Cassius and himself, 
 and if Cassius chooses to submit, it is his own 
 concern. But Brutus plays the Infallible to such 
 purpose, that, what with his loftiness of view, his 
 earnestness, and his marvellous fortitude, he obtains 
 an authority over Cassius' mind that has disastrous 
 results. Though Cassius is both the better and 
 the elder soldier, he must needs intermeddle with 
 Cassius' plan of campaign. Here, as so often, 
 Shakespeare has no warrant for his most significant 
 touch. Plutarch had said that Cassius, against his 
 will, was overruled by Brutus to hazard their for- 
 tunes in a single battle. But that was afterwards, 
 at Philippi. There is no hint that Cassius was 
 opposed to the movement from Sardis to Philippi, 
 and it is on this invented circumstance that Shake- 
 speare lays most stress. In the play Brutus, in 
 the teeth of his fellow generals' disapproval, insists 
 on their leaving their vantage ground on the 
 hills, chiefly as it appears because he dislikes the 
 impositions they are compelled to lay on the people 
 round about : 
 
 They have grudged us contribution ; (iv. iii. 206.) 
 
 and because he has a vague belief that this is the 
 nick of time ; 
 
 There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
 
 Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ; 
 
 Omitted, all the voyage of their lives 
 
 Is bound in shallows and in miseries. (iv. ii. 218.) 
 
 give money to the amount of " the thirde part of his totall summe." 
 This is not very important, as in the play he disclaims having 
 ever refused it. But in the second place Brutus was neither so 
 scrupulous nor so unsuccessful in raising supplies, but had used them 
 in a quite practical way, that Captain Mahan would thoroughly 
 approve, in developing his sea power : " all that be could rappe and 
 rend ... he had bestowed it in making so great a number of shippes 
 that by meanes of them they should keepe all the sea at their 
 commaundement." 
 
266 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 These are the arguments which he opposes to 
 Cassius' skilled strategy. He will not even listen 
 to Cassius' rejoinder : 
 
 Cassius. Hear me, good brother — 
 
 Brutus. Under your pardon : (iv. iii. 212.) 
 
 and he runs on. The spiritual dictator carries his 
 point, as he always does, and as here especially 
 he is bound to do, when their recent trial of strength 
 has ratified his powers afresh. Cassius is hypno- 
 tised into compliance, "Then, with your will, go 
 on." But Brutus is wrong. He is doing the very 
 thing that the Triumvirs would. have him do and 
 dare not hope he will do. Octavius, when he hears 
 of the movement, exclaims : 
 
 Now, Antony, our hopes are answered : 
 
 You said the enemy would not come down. 
 
 But keep the hills and upper regions : 
 
 It proves not so. (v. i. i.) 
 
 The adoption of Brutus' plan, which he secured in 
 part through the advantage he had gained in the 
 quarrel, leads directly to the final catastrophe. 
 
 Here then we have the gist of the whole story. 
 
 The tribulations of Brutus that ensue on his grand 
 
 mistake, the wreck of his dearest affections, the 
 
 / butchery at Rome, the oppression of the provinces, 
 
 t)ie-.. appalling discovery that his party is animated 
 
 ^rgp^^^^jfie.<;Lan<i--n,0,t hy,rJiigffl^ VViaT 
 
 .aesar bore away the palm in character as well as 
 ability ; the dauntless resolution with which despite 
 his vibrant sensibility he bears up against the rudest 
 blows ; the sustaining consciousness that he himself 
 acted for the best, and the pathetic imagination even 
 now that the rest must live up to his standard ; the 
 warrant this gives hini to complete the outward ruin 
 of the cause that already is rotten within — all this is 
 brought home to" us in a passage of little more than 
 two hundred lines. It is not merely a masterpiece 
 
BRUTUS 267 
 
 in characterisation ; it at once garners the harvest 
 of the past and sows the seeds of the future. Nor 
 is the execution inferior to the conception ; the 
 passion of the verse, the fluctuation of the dialogue, 
 provide the fit medium for the pregnancy and wealth 
 of the matter/ 
 
 But the scene is not yet at an end. Even now 
 we are not for a moment allowed to forget Brutus, 
 the considerate gentleman and cultured student, in 
 Brutus, the political pedant and the incompetent 
 commander. We have a momentary glimpse of 
 him with Lucius, unassuming and gentle, claiming 
 the indulgence, consulting the comfort, tending the 
 needs of his slave. This moving little passage is, 
 
 ' Two objections have been made to this scene, or, rather to the 
 whole act. The first, in Mr. Bradley's words that it has a " tendency 
 to drag" (Shakespearian Tragedy), is put more uncompromisingly by 
 Mr. Baker (Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist) ; " [Shake- 
 speare] produced in Julius Caesar a fourth act probably not entirely 
 successful even in his own day" ; and afterwards he refers to it as 
 " ineffective to-day." In view of Digges' testimony, it is difficult to see 
 how Mr. Baker can say that it was not entirely successful in Shake- 
 speare's day. As to the impression it makes now, one must largely 
 depend on one's own feeling and experience. Certainly I myself have 
 never been conscious that it dragged or was ineffective, nor have I 
 noted that it failed to stir the audience. I have never been present at 
 a first-rate performance, but I have seen it creditably presented in 
 Germany, England and Australia ; and on every occasion it seemed 
 to me that the quarrel scene was the most popularly successful in the 
 play. This statement is, I beUeve, strictly accurate, for having 
 Digges' lines in my mind I was on the watch to see whether the taste 
 of the Elizabethan coincided with the taste of a later generation. 
 
 The second criticism is that in the economy of the piece it leads to 
 nothing, "unless," as Mr. Bradley says, " we may hold that but for the 
 quarrel and reconciliation, Cassius would not have allowed Bratus to 
 overcome his objection to the fatal policy of offering battle at 
 Philippi." This is quite true, though the proviso is a most important 
 one. But it does very manifestly connect with what has gone jefor< 
 and gives the essence and net 'result of the story. We could sooner 
 dispense with the Fifth Act than the Fouhh, for the Fifth may with 
 less injustice be described as an appendix than the Fourth as an 
 episode. Not only is it less unique in kind, but for the most part it 
 works out issues that can easily be foreseen and that to some extent 
 are clearly indicated here. Of course this is not to say that it could 
 be rejected without mutilating the plajr^for it works them out far more 
 impressively than we could do in- our own imagination, even with 
 Plutarch to help us. 
 
268 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 as we have seen, entirely due to Shakespeare, and 
 it seems to be introduced for the sake partly of the 
 dramatic contrast with the prevailing trouble and 
 gloom, partly of the indication it gives that Brutus 
 is still unchanged at heart. In the stress of his 
 suffering he may be irritable and overbearing with 
 Cassius, but he has more than a woman's tenderness 
 for the boy. 
 
 His habit of reading at night is mentioned by 
 Plutarch, but when we consider the circumstances, 
 has it not a deeper meaning here? His love for 
 Portia we know, but after his brief references to 
 her death, he seems to banish her from his mind, 
 and never, not even in his dying words, does her 
 name cross his lips again. Is this an inadvertence 
 on Shakespeare's part, or an omission due to the 
 kinship of /u/ms Caesar with the Chronicle History? 
 Is it not rather that he conceives Brutus as one of 
 those who are so bound up in their affections that 
 they fear to face a thought of their bereavement 
 lest they should utterly collapse ? Is it fanciful to 
 interpret that search for his book with the leaf 
 turned down, in the light of Macaulay's confession 
 on the death of his sister : " Literature has saved 
 my life and my reason ; even now I dare not in the 
 intervals of business remain alone a minute without 
 a book "? 
 
 But this little interlude, which sets Brutus before 
 us with all his winsome and pathetic charm, leads 
 back to the leading motif, the destruction he has 
 brought on himself by his own error, though he 
 may face it like a man and keep the beauty of his 
 soul unsoiled. Here, too, Plutarch points the way, 
 but Shakespeare advances further in it. What he 
 found was the following bit of hearsay : 
 
 One night very late (when all the catnpe tooke quiet 
 rest) as he was in his tent with a little light, thinking of 
 waighty matters, he thought he heard one come in to him. 
 
BRUTUS 269 
 
 and casting his eye towards the doore of his tent, that he 
 saw a wonderfull straunge and monstruous shape of a body 
 comming towards him, and sayd never a word. So Brutus 
 boldly asked what he was, a god, or a man, and wliat cause 
 brought him thither. The spirit aunswered him, " I am thy 
 evill spirit, Brutus, and thou shalt see me by the citie of 
 Philippes." Brutus beeing no otherwise affrayd, replyed again 
 unto it : " Well, then, I shall see thee agayne." The spirit 
 presently vanished away : and Brutus called his men unto 
 him, who tolde him that they heard no noyse, nor sawe 
 any thinge at all. 
 
 Shakespeare's Brutus is not at the outset so 
 unconcerned as Plutarch's. Instead of " being no 
 otherwise affrayd," his blood runs cold and his hair 
 " stares." On the other hand, he is free from the 
 perturbation that seizes Plutarch's Brutus when he 
 reflects, and that drives him to tell his experience 
 to Cassius, who " did somewhat comfort and quiet 
 him." The Brutus of the play breathes no word of 
 the visitation, though it is repeated at Philippi, 
 till a few minutes before his death, and then in 
 all composure as a proof that the end is near, not 
 as a horror froni which he seeks deliverance. He 
 needs not the support of another, and even in the 
 moment of physical panic he has moral courage 
 enough : he summons up his resolution, and when 
 he has "taken heart" the spectre vanishes. This 
 means, too, that it has a closer connection with his 
 nerves, with his subjective fears and misgivings, 
 than the "monstruous shape" in Plutarch, and 
 similarly, though he alleges that Lucius and his 
 attendants have cried out in their sleep, they are 
 unaware of any feeling or cause of fright. And the 
 significance of this is marked by the greatest change 
 of all. Shakespeare gives a personality to Plutarch's 
 nameless phantom : it is individualised as the ghost 
 of Caesar, and thus Caesar's spirit has beco me 
 Erur-in' <^^^ fffinir" ^^ Pf utus had oeen Laggseijs 
 angeh r^e symbolism explains itseit, out is saved 
 Trom the ' lameness of allegory by the supierstitious 
 
270 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 dread with which it is enwrappe:i_TrheregTets and 
 forebodings of Brutj^i^^jpp^Sro^oremm'^^^^lS^ 
 fajc^r^rTf VH •d a ytftenmischievousness of his interven- 
 tion has been present to his mind : now his accusing 
 thoughts take shape in the vision of his murdered 
 friend, and his vague presentiments of retribution 
 at Philippi leap to consciousness in its prophetic 
 words. But all this does not abash his soul or shake 
 his purpose. He only hastens the morning march. 
 
 Thus he moves to his doom, and never was he 
 so great. He is stripped of all adventitious aids. 
 His private affections are wrecked, and the thought 
 of his wife has become a torture. Facts have given 
 the lie to his belief that his country has chosen him 
 as her champibn. He can no longer cherish the 
 dream that his course has been of benefit to the 
 Roman world. He even seems at last to recognise 
 his own guilt, for not only does he admit the might 
 of Caesar's spirit in the .suicide of Cassius, but when 
 his own turn comes, his dying words sound like a 
 proffer of expiation : 
 
 Caesar, now be still ; 
 I kill'd not thee with half so good a will. (v. v. 50.) 
 
 The philosophic harness in which he "felt so secure, 
 he has already found useless in the hour of need, 
 and fit only to be cast aside. So he stands naked 
 to the blows of fate, bereft of his love, his illusions, 
 his self-confidence, his creed. He has to rely solely 
 on himself, on his own nature and his own character. 
 Moreover his nature, in so far as it means tempera- 
 ment, is too delicate and fine for the rough practical 
 demands on it. Suspense is intolerable to his 
 sensitive and eager soul. Ere the battle begins, 
 he can hardly endure the uncertainty : 
 
 O that a man might know 
 The end of this day's business ere it come ! 
 But it suflficeth that the day will end. 
 And then the end is known. (v. i. 123.) 
 
BRUTUS 271 
 
 The patience in which he tries to school himself 
 cannot protect him from a last blunder. He gives 
 the word too soon and his impetuosity ruins all. 
 No doubt he is not so unsuccessful as Titinius 
 thinks, but he has committed the unpardonable fault 
 of fighting for his own hand without considering his 
 partner. Thus his imprudence gives the final blow 
 to the cause that all through he has thwarted and 
 ennobled. 
 
 But in inward and essential matters his character 
 victoriously stands the test, and meets all the calls 
 that are made upon it. Even when his life-failure 
 stares him in the face, he does not allow it a wider 
 scope than its due, or let it disturb his faith in the 
 purity of his motives. 
 
 I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I : 
 
 Brutus, my country's friend. (v. iv. 7.) 
 
 Even now he can see himself aright, and be sure of 
 the truth of his patriotism. Even now he can prefer 
 the glory of this " losing day " to the " vile conquest " 
 of such men as the authors of the proscription. And 
 he is not without more personal consolations. When 
 none of his friends will consent to kill hin., their very 
 refusal, since it springs from love, fills his soul with 
 triumph. It is characteristic that this satisfaction to 
 his private affections ranks with him as supreme at 
 the end of all. Countrymen, 
 
 My heart doth joy that yet in all my life 
 
 I found no man but he was true to me. (v. v. 33.) 
 
 We need not bemoan his fate : he is happy in it : 
 indeed there is nothing that he could live for in the 
 world of the Triumvirs, and this is what he himself 
 
 ^^^^^^^ '• My bones would rest. 
 
 That have but labour'd to attain this hour. (v. v. 41.) 
 
 At the side of this rare and lofty nature, we see 
 the kindred figure of his wife, similar in her noble 
 
272 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 traits, similar in her experiences, the true mate of 
 his soul. Their relations are sketched in the merest 
 outline, or, to be more correct, are implied rather 
 than sketched. Only in some eighty lines of one 
 scene do we see them together and hear them 
 exchange words. In only one other scene does 
 Portia appear, when we witness her tremors on the 
 morning of the assassination. And in a third we 
 hear of her death in detached notices, which, with 
 the comments they call forth, barely amount to 
 twenty lines. Yet the impression made is indelible 
 and overpowering, not only of the lady's own char- 
 acter, but of the perfect union in which she and 
 Brutus lived. There is no obtrusion of their love : 
 it does not exhale in direct professions. On her 
 part, the claim to share his troubles, the solicitude 
 for his success, the distraction because of his absence 
 and danger ; on his, the acceptance of her claim, two 
 brief outbursts of adoration — and his reticence at 
 her death. For he is not the man to wear his heart 
 on hi5 sleeve ; and the more his feelings are stirred 
 the less inclined is he to prate of them. Just as 
 after slaying Caesar though " he loved him well," he 
 never alludes to the anguish he must have endured, 
 so after his " Farewell, Portia," he turns to the claims 
 of life (" Well, to our work alive ! "), and never even 
 in soliloquy refers to her again. Even, in the first 
 pang of bereavement, the one hint of grief it can 
 extort from him is the curt retort, " No man bears 
 sorrow better." We might fail to recognise all that 
 it meant for him if we did not see his misery reflected 
 in the sympathy and consternation of other men ; in 
 the hesitating reluctance of Messala, to break, as he 
 thinks, the news ; in the dismay of Cassius and his 
 wonder at Brutus' self-control. Cassius indeed cannot 
 but recur to it despite the prohibition, " Speak no 
 more of her." When they have sat down to business 
 his thoughts hark back to the great loss : " Portia, 
 
BRUTUS 273 
 
 art thou gone?" "No more, I pray you," repeats 
 Brutus, who cannot brook the mention of her, and 
 he plunges into the business of the hour. 
 
 And this woman, of whom Brutus felt that he was 
 unworthy, and prayed to be made worthy, noble and 
 devoted as himself, is involved too in his misfortunes. 
 On her also a greater load is laid than she can bear. 
 He is drawn by his political, and she by her domestic 
 ideal into a position that overstrains the strength of 
 each. She demands, as in Plutarch, though perhaps 
 with rather less of the dignity of the Roman matron 
 and rather more of the yearning of the affectionate 
 wife, to share in her husband's secrets. She does 
 this from no curiosity, intrusiveness or jealousy, but 
 from her unbounded love and her exalted conception 
 of the marriage tie. And she is confident that she 
 can bear her part in her husband's cares. 
 
 She has a great spirit, but it is lodged in a fragile 
 and nervous frame. Does she make her words 
 good? She gains her point, but her success is 
 almost too much for her. She can endure pain but 
 not suspense : like Brutus she is martyr to her sense 
 of what is right. We presently find her all but 
 ruining the conspiracy by her uncontrollable agita- 
 tion. The scene where she waits in the street serves 
 the function in the main story of heightening our 
 excitement by means of hers, in expectation of what 
 will presently be enacted at the Capitol ; but it is 
 even more important for the light it throws on her 
 character. She may well confess : "I have a man's 
 heart, but a woman's might." Her feverish anxiety 
 quite overmasters her throughout, and makes her 
 do and say things which do not disclose the plot 
 only because the bystanders are faithful or unobser- 
 vant. She sends the boy to the senate house without 
 telling him his errand. She meaningly' bids him 
 
 take good note 
 What Caesar doth, what suitors press about him. (n. iv. 15.) 
 
 s 
 
274 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 She interrupts herself with the fancy that the revolt 
 has begun. She plies the soothsayer with suspicious 
 questions that culminate in the most indiscreet one 
 on his wish to help Caesar : 
 
 Why, know'st thou any harm's intended towards him? 
 
 (ii. iv. 31.) 
 
 Then she almost commits herself, and has to extem- 
 porise a subterfuge, before, unable to hold out any 
 longer, she retires on the point of fainting, though 
 even now her love gives her strength to send a 
 cheering message to her lord. 
 
 For, her as for Brutus the burden of a duty, which 
 she assumes by her own choice, but which one of 
 her nature must assume, is too heavy. And in the 
 after consequences, for which she is not directly 
 responsible, but which none the less flow from the 
 deed that she has encouraged and approved, it is 
 ^he same inability to bear suspense, along with her 
 craving for her husband's presence and success, that 
 drives her through madness to death. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE REMAINING CHARACTERS 
 
 Far beneath this pair are the other conspirators who 
 rise up against the supremacy of Caesar. 
 
 Among these lower natures, Cassius is undoubtedly 
 the most imposing and most interesting. 
 
 The main Hnes of his character are given in 
 Caesar's masterly delineation, which follows Plutarch 
 in regard to his spareness, but in the other particulars 
 freely elaborates the impression that Plutarch's whole 
 narrative produces. 
 
 Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look : 
 
 He thinks too much : such men are dangerous . . . 
 
 He reads much ; 
 He is a great observer, and he looks 
 Quite through the deeds of men ; he loves no plays, 
 As thou dost, Antony ; he hears no music ; 
 Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort 
 As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit 
 That could be moved to smile at anything. 
 Such men as he be never at heart's ease 
 Whiles they behold a greater than themselves. 
 And therefore are they very dangerous. 
 
 (i. ii. 194 and 201.) 
 
 Lean, gaunt, hungry, disinclined to sports and 
 revelry, spending his time in reading, observation, 
 and reflection — these are the first traits that we 
 notice in him. He too, like Brutus, has learned the 
 lessons of philosophy, and he finds in it the rule of 
 
276 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 life. He chides his friend for seeming to fail in the 
 practice of it : 
 
 Of your philosophy you make no use, 
 
 If you give place to accidental evils. (iv. iii. 145-) 
 
 And even when he admits and admires Brutus' 
 
 self-mastery, he attibutes it to nature, and claims as 
 
 good a philosophic discipline for himself. There is, 
 
 . however, a difference between them even in this 
 
 I point. Brutus is a Platonist with a Stoic tinge ; 
 
 •J Cassius is an Epicurean. That strikes us at first as 
 
 strange, that the theory which identified pleasure 
 
 with virtue should be the creed of this splenetic 
 
 solitary : but it is quite in character. Epicureanism 
 
 appealed to some of the noblest minds of Rome, not 
 
 as a cult of enjoyment, but as a doctrine that freed 
 
 them from the bonds of superstition and the degrading 
 
 fear of death. This was the spirit of Lucretius, the 
 
 poet of the sect : 
 
 ^ Artis 
 
 Religionum anitnum nodis exsolvere pergo : 
 
 and one grand motif oi his pofem is the thought that 
 this death, the dread of which makes the meanness 
 of life, is the end of all consciousness, a refuge rather 
 than an evil : " What ails thee so, O mortal, to let 
 thyself loose in too feeble grievings ? Why weep 
 and wail at death ? . . . Why not rather make an 
 end of life and labour ? " And these are the reasons 
 that Cassius is an Epicurean. At the end, when 
 his philosophy breaks down, he says : 
 
 You know that I held Epicurus strong 
 
 And his opinion : now I change my mind. 
 
 And partly credit things that do presage. (v. i. 77.) 
 
 He has hitherto discredited them. And we seem 
 to hear Lucretius in his noble utterance : 
 
 Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, 
 Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron. 
 Can be retentive to the strength of spirit : 
 
THE REMAINING CHARACTERS 277 
 
 But life, being weary of these worldly bars, 
 
 Never lacks power to dismiss itself. (i. iii. 93.) 
 
 Free from all superstitious scruples and all thought 
 of superhuman interference in the affairs of men, he 
 stands out bold and self-reliant, confiding in his own 
 powers, his own will, his own management : 
 
 Men at some time are masters of their fates : 
 
 The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars 
 
 But in ourselves, that we are underlings, (i. ii. 139.) 
 
 And the same attitude of mind implies that he is rid 
 of all illusions. He is not deceived by shows. He 
 looks quite through the deeds of men. He is not 
 taken in by Casca's affectation of rudeness. He is 
 not misled by Antony's apparent frivolity. He is 
 not even dazzled by the glamour of Brutus' virtue, 
 but notes its weak side and does not hesitate to play 
 on it. Still less does Caesar's prestige subdue his 
 criticism. On the contrary, with malicious contempt 
 he recalls his want of endurance in swimming and 
 the complaints of his sick-bed, and he keenly notes 
 his superstitious lapses. He seldom smiles and 
 when he does it is in scorn. We only once hear of 
 his laughing. It is at the interposition of the poet, 
 which rouses Brutus to indignation ; but the pre- 
 sumptuous absurdity of it tickles Cassius' sardonic 
 humour. 
 
 For there is no doubt that he takes pleasure in 
 detecting the weaknesses of his fellows. He has 
 obvious relish in the thought that if he were Brutus 
 he would not be thus cajoled, and he finds food for 
 satisfaction in Caesar's merely physical defects. 
 Yet there is as little of self-complacency as of 
 hero-worship in the man. He turns his remorseless 
 scrutiny on his own nature and his own cause, and 
 neither maintains that the one is noble or the other 
 honourable, nor denies the personal alloy in his 
 motives. This is the purport of that strange 
 
278 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 soliloquy that at first sight seems to place Cassius 
 in the ranks of Shakespeare's villains along with his 
 lagos and Richards, rather than of the mixed 
 characters, compact of good and evil, to whom 
 nevertheless we feel that he is akin. 
 
 Well, Brutus, thou art aoble : yet, I see. 
 
 Thy honourable metal may be wrought 
 
 From that it is disposed : therefore it is meet 
 
 That noble minds keep ever with their likes : 
 
 For who so firm that cannot be seduced ? 
 
 Caesar doth bear me hard : but he loves Brutus : 
 
 If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius, 
 
 He should not humour me. (i. ii. 312.) 
 
 It frequently happens that cynics view themselves 
 as well as others in their meaner aspects. Probably 
 Cassius is making the worst of his own case and is 
 indulging that vein of self-mockery and scorn that 
 Caesar observed in him.^ But at any rate the 
 lurking sense of unworthiness in himself and his 
 purpose will be apt to increase in such a man 
 his natural impatience of alleged superiority in his 
 fellows. He is jealous of excellence, seeks to 
 minimise it and will not tolerate it. It is on this 
 characteristic that Shakespeare lays stress. Plutarch 
 reports the saying " that Brutus could evill away 
 with ihe tyrannie and that Cassius hated the tyranne, 
 making many complayntes for the injuries he had 
 done him " ; and instances Caesar's appropriation of 
 some lions that Cassius had intended for the sports, 
 as well as the affair of the city praetorship. But in 
 the play these specific grievances are almost effaced 
 in the vague statement, " Caesar doth bear me 
 hard " ; which implies little more than general ill- 
 will. It is now resentment of pre-eminence that 
 makes Cassius a malcontent. Caesar finds him 
 " very dangerous " just because of his grudge at 
 
 ' This explanation is offered with great dififidence, but it is the only 
 one I can suggest for what is perhaps the most perplexing passage in 
 the play, not even excepting the soliloquy of Brutus. 
 
THE REMAINING CHARACTERS 279 
 
 greatness ; and his own avowal that he " would as 
 lief not be as live to be in awe" of a thing like 
 himself, merely puts a fairer colour on the same 
 unamiable trait. He may represent republican 
 liberty and equality, at least in the aristocratic 
 acceptation, but it is on their less admirable side. 
 His disposition is to level down, by repudiating the 
 leader, not to level up, by learning from him. In 
 the final results this would mean the triumph of the 
 second best, a dull and uniform mediocrity in art, 
 thought and politics, unbroken by the predominance 
 of the man of genius and king of men. And it may 
 be feared that this ideal, translated into the terms 
 of democracy, is too frequent in our modern com- 
 munities. But true freedom is not incompatible with 
 the most loyal acknowledgment of the master-mind ; 
 witness the utterance of Browning's Pisan republican : 
 
 The mass remains — 
 Keep but the model safe, new men will rise 
 To take its mould. 
 
 Yet notwithstanding this taint of enviousness and 
 spite, Cassius is far from being a despicable or even 
 an unattractive character. He may play the Devil's 
 Advocate in regard to individuals, but he is capable 
 of a high enthusiasm for his cause, such as it is. 
 We must share his calenture of excitement, as he 
 strides about the streets in the tempest that fills 
 Casca with superstitious dread and Cicero with 
 discomfort at the nasty weather. His republicanism 
 may be a narrow creed, but at least he is willing to 
 be a martyr to it ; when he hears that Caesar is 
 to wear the crown, his resolution is prompt and 
 Roman-like : 
 
 I know where I will wear this dagger then : 
 
 Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius. (i. iii. 89.) 
 
 And surely at the moment of achievement, what- 
 ever was mean and sordid in the man is consumed 
 
28o JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 in his prophetic rapture that fires the soul of Brutus 
 and prolongs itself in his response. 
 
 Cassius. How many ages hence 
 
 Shall this our lofty scene be acted over 
 In states unborn and accents yet unknown ! 
 
 Brutus. How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport 
 That now on Pompey's basis lies along 
 No worthier than the dust ! ^ (m. i. ii i.) 
 
 And even to individuals if they stand the test 
 of his mordant criticism, he can pay homage and 
 admiration. The perception that Brutus may be 
 worked upon is the toll he pays to his self-love, 
 but, that settled, he can feel deep reverence and 
 affection for Brutus' more ideal virtue. Perhaps 
 the best instance of it is the scene of their dispute. 
 Brtitus, as we have seen, is practically, if not 
 theoretically, in the wrong, and certainly he is much 
 the more violent and bitter ; but Cassius submits to 
 receive his forgiveness and to welcome his assurance 
 that he will bear with him in future. This implies 
 no little deference and magnanimity in one who so 
 ill brooks a secondary role. But he does give the 
 lead to Brutus, and in all things, even against his 
 better judgment, yields him the primacy. 
 
 And then it is impossible not to respect his 
 
 ' What a strange effect these words are apt to produce on auditor 
 and reader ! " How true ! " we say, "The prophecy is fulfilled. This 
 is happening now." And then the reflection comes that just because 
 that is the case there is no prophecy and no truth in the scene ; the 
 whole is being enacted, in sport. We experience a kind of vertigo, in 
 which we cannot distinguish the real and the illusory and yet are 
 conscious.of both in their highest potence. And this is a characteristic 
 of all poetry, though it is not aj^irays brought so clearly before the 
 mind. In Shakespeare something of the kind is firequenti compare 
 the reference to the "squeaking Cleopatra" in Antony and Cleopatra, 
 which is almost exactly parzliel ; compare too his favourite device of 
 the play within the play, when we see the actors of a few minutes ago, 
 sitting like ourselves as auditors ; and thus, on the one hand their own 
 performance seems comparatively real, but on the other there is the 
 constant reminder that we are in their position, and the whole is 
 merely spectacular. Dr. Brandes has some excellent remaiks in this 
 connection on Tieck's Dramas in his Romantic School in, Germany. 
 
THE REMAINING CHARACTERS 281 
 
 thorough efficiency. In whatsoever concerns the 
 management of affairs and of men, he knows the 
 right thing to do, and, when left to himself, he does 
 it. He sees how needful Brutus is to the cause and 
 gains him— gains him, in part by a trickery, which 
 Shakespeare without historical warrant ascribes to 
 him ; but the trickery succeeds because he has 
 gauged Brutus' nature aright. He takes the correct 
 measure of the danger from Antony, of his love 
 for Caesar and his talents, which Brutus so con- 
 temptuously underrates. So, too, after the assassina- 
 tion, when Brutus says, 
 
 I know that we shall have him well to friend ; 
 
 he answers, 
 
 I wish we may : but yet I have a mind 
 
 That fears him much ; and my misgiving still 
 
 Falls shrewdly to the purpose. (iii. i. 144.) 
 
 Brutus seeks to win Antony with general consider- 
 ations of right and justice, Cassius employs a more 
 effective argument : 
 
 Your voice shall be as strong as any man's 
 
 In the disposing of new dignities. (iii. i. 177) 
 
 He altogether disapproves of the permission granted 
 to Antony to pronounce the funeral oration. He 
 grasps the situation when the civil war breaks out 
 
 much better than Brutus : 
 
 '/ 
 
 . In such a time a? this it is not meet 
 That every nice offence should bear his comment. 
 
 (iv. iii. 7.) 
 
 His plans of the campaign are better, and he has a 
 much better notion of conducting the battle. 
 
 All such shrewd sagacity is entitled to our resp6ct. 
 Yet even in this department Cassius is outdone by 
 the unpractical Brutus, so soon as higher moral 
 qualities are required, and the wisdom of the fox 
 yields to the wisdom of the man. We have seen 
 
282 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 that however passionate and wrong-headed Brutus 
 may be in their contention, he has too much sense 
 of the becoming to wrangle in public, as Cassius 
 begins to do. Another more conspicuous example 
 is furnished by the way in which they bear anxiety. 
 Shakespeare found an illustration of this in Plutarch, 
 which he has merely dramatised. 
 
 When Caesar came out of his litter : Popilius Laena, that 
 had talked before with Brutus and Cassius, and had prayed 
 the goddes they might bring this enterprise to passe, went 
 into Caesar and kept him a long time with a talke. Caesar 
 gave good eare unto him. Wherefore the conspirators (if 
 so they should be called) not hearing what he sayd to Caesar, 
 but conjecturing by that he had told them a little before, 
 that his talke was none other but the verie discoverie of their 
 conspiracie : they were afifrayed everie man of them, and one 
 looking in an others face, it was easie to see that they all 
 were of a minde, that it was no tarying for them till they 
 were apprehended, but rather that they should kill them 
 selves with their owne handes. And when Cassius and 
 certaine other clapped their handes on their swordes under 
 their gownes to draw them : Brutus marking the counten- 
 aunce a;nd gesture of Laena, and considering that he did use 
 him selfe rather like an humble and earnest suter, then like 
 an accuser : he sayd nothing to his companions (bicause 
 there were amongest them that were not of the conspiracie) 
 but with a pleasaunt countenaunce encouraged Cassius. 
 And immediatlie after, Laena went from Caesar, and kissed 
 his hande ; which shewed plainlie that it was for some matter 
 concerning him selfe, that he had held him so long in talke. 
 
 Shakespeare, by rejecting the reason for the dumb 
 show, is able to present this scene in dialogue, and 
 thus bring out the contrast more vividly. Cassius 
 believes the worst, loses his head, now hurries on 
 Casca, now prepares for suicide. But Brutus, the 
 disinterested man, is less swayed by personal hopes 
 and fears, keeps his composure, urges his friend to 
 be constant, and can calmly judge of the situation. 
 It is the same defect of endurance that brings about 
 Cassius' death. Really things are shaping well for 
 them, but he misconstrues the signs just as he has 
 
THE REMAINING CHARACTERS 283 
 
 misconstrued the words of Lena, and kills himself 
 owing to a mistake ; as Messala points out : 
 
 Mistrust of good success hath done this deed. (v. iii. 66.) 
 
 This want of inward strength explains the 
 ascendancy which Brutus with his more dutiful and 
 therefore more steadfast nature exercises over him, 
 though Cassius is in many ways the more capable 
 man of the two. They both have schooled them- 
 selves in the discipline of fortitude, Brutus in Stoic 
 renunciation, Cassius in Epicurean independence ; 
 but in the great crises where nature asserts herself, 
 Brutus is strong and Cassius is weak. And as 
 often happens with men, in the supreme trial their 
 professed creeds no longer satisfy them, and they 
 consciously abandon them. But while Cassius in 
 his evil fortune falls back on the superstitions ^ 
 which he had ridiculed Caesar for adopting on his 
 good fortune, Brutus falls back on his feeling of 
 moral dignity, and gives himself the death which 
 theoretically he disapproves. 
 
 Yet, when all is said and done, what a fine figure 
 Cassius is, and how much both of love and respect 
 he can inspire. Plutarch's story of his death already 
 bears witness to this, but Shakespeare with a few 
 deeper strokes marks his own esteem. 
 
 Cassius thinking in deede that Titinnius was taken of the 
 enemies, he then spake these wordes : '■ Desiring too much 
 to live, I have lived to see one of my best frendes taken, 
 for my sake, before my face." After that, he gote into a tent 
 where no bodie was, and tooke Pyndarus with him, one of his 
 freed bondmen, whom he reserved ever for suche a pinche, 
 since the cursed battell of the Parthians, when Crassus was 
 slaine, though he notwithstanding scaped from that overthrow; 
 but then casting his cloke over his head, and holding out his 
 bare neck unto Pindarus, he gave him his head to be striken 
 of. So the head was found severed from the bodie : but 
 
 'The trait is taken from Plutarch who, after enumerating the 
 sinister omens before Philippi, adds : " the which beganne some- 
 what to alter Cassius minde from Epicurus opinions." 
 
284 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 after that time Pindarus was never seene more. Whereupon 
 some tooke occasion to say that he had slaine his master 
 without his comraaundement. By and by they knew the 
 horsemen that came towards them, and might see Titinnius 
 crowned with a garland of triumphe, who came before with 
 great speede unto Cassius. Rut when he perceived by the 
 cries and teares of his frends which tormented them selves 
 the misfortune that had chaunced to his Captaine Cassius 
 by mistaking ; he drew out his sword, cursing him selfe a 
 thousand times that he had taried so long, and so slue him 
 selfe presentlie in the fielde. Brutus in the meane time 
 came forward still, and understoode also that Cassius had 
 bene over throwen : but he knew nothing of his death, till he 
 came verie neere to his campe. So when he was come thither, 
 after he had lamented the death of Cassius, calling him the 
 last of all the Romanes, being impossible that Rome should 
 ever breede againe so noble and valliant man as he : he 
 caused his bodie to be buried, and sent it to the citie of 
 Thassos, fearing least his funerals within the campe should 
 cause great disorder. 
 
 In the play Pindarus is not yet enfranchised, and 
 though he gains his freedom by the fatal stroke, 
 would rather remain a slave than return to his 
 native wilds at such a price. Titinius places his 
 garland on the dead man's brow, and in fond regret 
 slays himself, not with his own but with Cassius' 
 sword. Brutus, with hardly a verbal change, repeats 
 the eulogy that Plutarch puts in his mouth. 
 
 The last of all the Romans, fare thee well ! 
 It is impossible that ever Rome 
 Should breed thy fellow. 
 
 But he does not stop here. Flushed with his initial 
 success, he expects to triumph and to live, and the 
 years to come seem darkened with grief for his 
 " brother " : 
 
 Friends, I owe more tears 
 
 To this dead man than you shall see me pay. 
 
 I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time. (v. iii. 99.) 
 
 The minor conspirators, with the adherents of the 
 cause and the humbler dependents, are of course 
 sketched very slightly, as proportion requires, but 
 
THE REMAINING CHARACTERS 285 
 
 they have all something to individualise them in 
 gait or pose. Even in the crowded final act, where, 
 as in the chronicle histories which Shakespeare 
 was leaving behind him, a number of persons are 
 introduced with whom we are almost or entirely 
 unacquainted, there is no monotony in the sub- 
 ordinate figures. They are distinguished from or 
 contrasted with each other in their circumstances, 
 sentiments or fate. Thus Pindarus and Strato are 
 both described as servants, they are both attached 
 to their masters, they are both reluctantly compelled 
 to assist in their masters' death. Should we have 
 thought it possible to differentiate them in the 
 compass of the score or so of lines at the dramatist's 
 disposal ? But Cassius' slave, who, since his capture, 
 has been kept like a dog to do whatever his owner 
 might bid him, will not abide the issue and uses 
 his new liberty to flee beyond the Roman world. 
 Strato, to whom Brutus characteristically turns 
 because he is " a fellow of a good respect " with 
 ^' some smatch of honour " in his life, claims Brutus' 
 hand like an equal before he will hold the sword, 
 confronts the victors with praise of the dead, hints 
 to Messala that Brutus' course is the one to follow, 
 and has too much self-respect to accept employment 
 with Octavius till Messala "prefers," that is, recom- 
 mends him. 
 
 So too with the three captains, all on the losing 
 side, all devoted to their leaders. Titinius, who I 
 seems to feel that his love for Cassius exceeds that 
 
 of Brutus 
 
 (Brutus, come apace, 
 
 And see how I regarded Caius Cassius) 
 
 will not outlive him. Lucilius is quite ready to 
 die for his general, but spared by the generosity of 
 Antony, survives to exult that Brutus has fulfilled 
 his prophecy and been "like himself" Messala, 
 who brought word of Portia's death, must now 
 
286 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 tell the same tale of Cassius with the same keen 
 sympathy for Brutus' grief; and though Strato 
 seems to censure him for consenting to live " in 
 bondage," he shows no bondman's mind when he 
 grounds his preferment of Strato to Octavius on the 
 fact of Strato's having done "the latest service to 
 my master." 
 
 More prominent, but still in the background, are 
 the subaltern members of the faction in Rome. 
 Ligarius, the best of them, with his fiery enthusiasm 
 and personal fealty to Brutus, is an excellent 
 counterpart to the ingratiating and plausible Decius, 
 the least erected spirit of the group. Between them 
 comes Casca, the only one who may claim a word 
 or two of comment, partly because he is sketched in 
 some detail, partly because he is practically an 
 original creation. Plutarch has only two particulars 
 about him, the one that he was the first to strike 
 Caesar and struck him from behind ; the other that 
 when Caesar cried out and gripped his hand, he 
 shouted to his brother in Greek. Shakespeare, as 
 we have seen, summarily rejects his acquaintance 
 with Greek, but the stab in the back sets his fancy 
 to work, and he constructs for him a character and 
 life-history to match. 
 
 Casca is a man who shares with Cassius the 
 jealousy of greatness — "the envious Casca," Antony 
 described him — but is vastly inferior to Cassius in 
 consistency and manhood. He seems to be one of 
 those alert, precocious natures, clever at the uptake 
 in their youth and full of a promise that is not 
 always fulfilled : Brutus recalls that " he was quick 
 mettle when we went to school " (i. ii. 300). Such 
 sprightly youngsters, when they fail, often do so from 
 a certain lack of moral fibre. And so with Casca. 
 He appears before us at first as the most obsequious 
 henchman of Caesar. When Caesar calls for Cal- 
 purnia, Casca is at his elbow : " Peace, ho ! Caesar 
 
THE REMAINING CHARACTERS 287 
 
 speaks." When Caesar, hearing the soothsayer's 
 shout, cries, " Ha ! who calls ? " Casca is again 
 ready : " Bid every noise be still : peace yet again ! " 
 Cassius would never have condescended to tl^at. 
 For Casca resents the supremacy of Caesar as much 
 as the proudest aristocrat of them all : he is only 
 waiting an opportunity to throw off the mask. But 
 meanwhile in his angry bitterness with himself and 
 others he affects a cross-grained bluntness of speech, 
 "puts on a tardy form," as Cassius says, plays the 
 satirist and misanthropci as many others conscious 
 of double dealing have done, and treats friend and 
 foe with caustic brutality. But it is characteristic 
 that he is panic-stricken with the terrors of the 
 tempestuous night, which he ekes out with super- 
 stitious fancies. It illustrates his want both of 
 inward robustness and of enlightened culture. We 
 remember that Cicero's remark in Greek was Greek 
 to him, and that Greek was as much the language 
 of rationalists then, as was French of the eighteenth 
 century Philosophes. Nor is it less characteristic 
 that even at the assassination he apparently does 
 not dare to face his victim. Antony describes his 
 
 procedure 
 
 Damned Casca, like a cur, behind 
 
 Struck Caesar on the neck. (v. i. 43.) 
 
 Yet even Casca is not without redeeming qualities. 
 His humour, in the account he gives of the corona- 
 tion fiasco, has an undeniable flavour : its very 
 tartness, as Cassius says, is a " sauce to his good 
 wit." And there is a touch of nobility in his avowal : 
 
 You speak to Casca, and to such a man 
 
 That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand : 
 
 Be factious for redress of all these griefs. 
 
 And I will set this foot of mine as far 
 
 As who goes farthest. (i. iii- 116.) 
 
 But among those little vignettes, that of Cicero is 
 decidedly the masterpiece. For this Shakespeare 
 
288 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 got no assistance from any of the three Lives on 
 which he drew for the rest of the play. Indeed the 
 one little hint they contained he did not see fit to 
 adopt. In the Marcus Brutus Plutarch says of the 
 conspirators : 
 
 For this cause they durst not acquaint Cicero with their 
 conspiracie, although he was a man whome they loved dearlie 
 and trusted best : for they were affrayed that he being a 
 coward by nature, and age also having increased his feare, he 
 would quite turne and alter all their purpose. 
 
 In the play their reason for leaving him out is very 
 
 different : 
 
 He will never follow anything 
 
 That other men begin. (ii. i. 151.) 
 
 It seems to me, however, highly probable that 
 Shakespeare had read the Life of Cicero and 
 obtained his general impression from it, though he 
 invents the particular traits. The irritable vanity 
 and self-consciousness of the man, which Brutus' 
 objection implies, are, for example, prominent 
 features in Plutarch's portrait. So too is his 
 aversion for Caesar and Caesarism, which makes 
 him view the offer of the crown, abortive though it 
 has been, as a personal offence : Brutus observes 
 that he 
 
 Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes 
 
 As we have seen him in the Capitol 
 
 Being cross'd in conference with some senators. 
 
 (i. ii. 186.) 
 
 But he is very cautious, and even when venting 
 his vexation in one of those biting gibes to which, 
 by Plutarch's statement, he was too prone, he takes 
 care to veil it in the safe obscurity of a foreign lan- 
 guage. "He spoke Greek ... but those that under- 
 stood him smiled at one another and shook their 
 heads" (i. ii. 282). This has sometimes been mis- 
 interpreted. Shakespeare has been taxed with the 
 
THE REMAINING CHARACTERS 289 
 
 absurdity of making Cicero deliver a Greek speech 
 in a popular assemblage. Surely he does nothing 
 of the kind. It is a sally that he intends for his 
 friends, and he takes the fit means for keeping it to 
 them; much as^St. John might talk French, if he 
 wished to be intelligible only to those who had 
 made the Grand Tour and so were in a manner of 
 his own set. Plutarch lays stress on his familiarity 
 with Greek, as also on his study of the Greek 
 Philosophers. This may have left some trace in 
 the description of his bearing in contrast to Casca's, 
 when they meet in the storm. Cool and sceptical, 
 he cannot guess the cause of Casca's alarm. Even 
 when the horrors of earthquake, wind and lightning, 
 are described in detail, he asks unmoved : 
 
 Why, saw you anything more wonderful ? (i. iii. 14.) 
 
 And after the enumeration of the portents, he 
 critically replies : 
 
 Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time : 
 
 But men may construe things after their fashion. 
 
 Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. 
 
 (i. iii. 32.) 
 
 And then after a passing reference^ to current 
 affairs, he bids Casca good night. To him the 
 moral of the whole tempest is : " This disturbed sky 
 is not to walk in." Opinions may differ as to this 
 being the real Cicero; none will deny that it is a 
 living type. 
 
 Apart from the main group of personages, more 
 or less antagonistic to Caesar, stands the brilliant 
 figure of his friend and avenger, the eloquent Mark 
 Antony. Shakespeare conceives him as a man of 
 genius and feeling but not of principle, resourceful 
 and daring, ambitious of honour and power, but 
 unscrupulous in his methods and a voluptuary in 
 
 ' Trivial to him, to us full of tragic meaning. 
 T 
 
290 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 his life. Caesar tells him that he is "fond of 
 plays" and "revels long o' nights." Cassius calls 
 him a "masker and a reveller." Brutus says that 
 he is given "to sports, to wildness and much 
 company." 
 
 He makes his first appearance as the tool of 
 Caesar. With Asiatic flattery, as though in the 
 eastern formula, to hear were to obey, he tells his 
 master : 
 
 When Caesar says "do this," it is perform'd. (i. ii. lo.) 
 
 He perceives his unspoken desires, his innermost 
 wishes, and offers him the crown. It is no wonder 
 that Brutus should regard him but as a "limb of 
 Caesar," or that Trebonius, considering him a mere 
 time-server, should prophesy that he will "live and 
 laugh " hereafter at Caesar's death. But they are 
 wrong. They do not recognise either the genuine- 
 ness of the affection that underlies his ingratiating 
 ways, or the real genius that underlies his frivolity. 
 Here, as everywhere, Cassius' estimate is the correct 
 one. He fears Antony's " ingrafted love " for 
 Caesar, and predicts that they will find in him "a 
 shrewd contriver." Of the love indeed there can be 
 no question. It is proved not only by his public 
 utterances, which might be factitious, nor by his 
 deeds, which might serve his private purposes, but 
 by his words, when he is alone with his patron's 
 corpse. 
 
 O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, 
 
 That I am meek and gentle with these butchers ! 
 
 Thou art the ruins of the noblest man 
 
 That ever lived in the tide of times. 
 
 Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood ! 
 
 (ni. i. 254.) 
 
 It is worth noting the grounds that Antony in this 
 solitary outburst alleges for his love of Caesar. He 
 is moved not by gratitude for favours past or the 
 
THE REMAINING CHARACTERS 291 
 
 expectation of favours to come, but solely by the 
 supreme nobility of the dead. To the claims of 
 nobihty, m truth, Antony is always responsive and 
 he IS ready to acknowledge it in Brutus too. " This 
 was the noblest Roman of them all " ; so he begins 
 his heartfelt tribute to his vanquished foe. This 
 generous sympathetic strain in his nature is one of 
 the things that make him dangerous. He is far 
 from acting a part in his laments for Caesar. He 
 feels the grief that he proclaims and the greatness 
 he extols. His emotions are easily stirred, especially 
 by worthy objects, and he has only to give them 
 free rein to impress other people. 
 
 But along with this he has a subtle, scheming 
 intellect ; he is as much a man of policy as a man 
 of sentiment. After the flight of Brutus and Cassius, 
 we see him planning how he and his colleagues may 
 cut down Caesar's bequests, of which in his speech 
 he had made so much ; how he may shift some of the 
 odium of his proceedings on to Lepidus' back ; how 
 they may best arrange to meet the opposition. This 
 mixture of feeling and diplomacy is especially shown 
 in his words and deeds after the assassination. He 
 does not shrink from any base compliance. His 
 servant appears before the murderers, and at his 
 bidding "kneels," "falls down," lies "prostrate" 
 in token of submission, promising that his master 
 will follow Brutus' fortunes. But even here it is 
 on the understanding that Caesar's death shall be 
 justified ; and when he himself enters he gives his 
 love and grief free scope. 
 
 mighty Caesar, dost thou lie so low ? , 
 
 Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, 
 Shrunk to this little measure ? Fare thee well. 
 
 1 know not, gentlemen, what you intend, 
 Who else must be let blood, who else is rank : 
 If I myself, there is no hour so fit 
 
 As Caesar's death's hour, nor no instrument 
 
 Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich 
 
292 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 With the most noble blood of all this world. 
 
 I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard, 
 
 Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke, 
 
 Fulfil your pleasure. Live a thousand years, 
 
 I shall not find myself so apt to die ; 
 
 No place will please me so, no mean of death, 
 
 As here by Caesar, and by you cut off. 
 
 The choice and master spirits of this age. (iii. i. 148.) 
 
 What could be more loyal on the one hand, or more 
 discreet on the other ? For, as he is well aware, if 
 he comes to terms with the assassins at all, he is 
 liable to an alternative accusation. Either his love 
 for Caesar was genuine, and then his reconciliation 
 with the murderers implies craven fear ; or, if he 
 can freely take their part, his previous homage to 
 Caesar was mere pretence. As he himself says : 
 
 My credit now stands on such slippery ground, 
 
 That one of two bad ways you must conceit me. 
 
 Either a coward or a flatterer. (iii. i. 191.) 
 
 And what more dexterous course could he adopt 
 than to assert his devotion to Caesar without 
 restraint, with undiminished emphasis : and at the 
 same time to profess his respect for the conspirators, 
 " the choice and master spirits of this age," and his 
 readiness to join them tf they prove that Caesar 
 deserved to die. This honourable and reasonable 
 attitude, which honour and reason would in reality 
 prescribe, must especially impress Brutus, to whom 
 Antony is careful chiefly to address himself. He 
 enters a doubtful suppliant ; at the end of the scene 
 not only are his life and credit safe, but he has won 
 from Brutus' magnanimity the means to overthrow 
 him. 
 
 It is characteristic of Antony that he has no 
 scruple about using the vantage ground he has 
 thiis acquired. He immediately determines to 
 employ the liberty of speech accorded him against 
 the men who have granted it. To Octavius' 
 
THE REMAINING CHARACTERS 293 
 
 servant, who enters ere he has well ended his 
 soliloquy, he says : 
 
 Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corse 
 
 Into the market place : there shall I try. 
 
 In my oration, how the people take 
 
 The cruel issue of these bloody men. (in. i. 291.) 
 
 He does not hesitate, though this course will 
 involve in ruin those who have generously spared 
 him and given him the weapons against them- 
 selves. Not even for his country's sake will he 
 pause, though, with his prescient imagination, he 
 sees in all their lurid details the horrors of the 
 
 Domestic fury and fierce civil strife (i. iii. 263.) 
 
 that must inevitably ensue. 
 
 And he effects his purpose, without any other 
 help, by his wonderful address to the citizens. 
 Perhaps nowhere else in History or Literature do 
 we find the procedure of the demagogue of Genius 
 set forth with such masterly insight. For Antony 
 shows himself a demagogue of the most profligate 
 description, but as undeniably the very genius of 
 the art of moving men. Consider the enormous 
 difficulties of his position. He is speaking under 
 limitation and by permission before a hostile 
 audience that will barely give him a hearing, and 
 his task is to turn them quite round, and make 
 them adore what they hated and hate what they 
 adored. How does he set about it ? 
 
 He begins with an acknowledgment and compli- 
 ment to Brutus : " For Brutus' sake I am beholding 
 to you." He disclaims the intention of even praising 
 the dead. He cites the charge of ambition, but not 
 to reply to it, merely to point out that any ambition 
 has been expiated. But then he insinuates argu- 
 ments on the other side : Caesar's faithfulness and 
 justice in friendship, the additions not to his private 
 but to the public wealth that his victories secured, 
 
294 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 his pitifulness to the poor, his refusal of the crown. 
 Really these things are no arguments at all. They 
 have either nothing to do with the case, or are 
 perfectly compatible with ambition, or may have 
 been its very means or may have been meant to 
 cloak it. Such indeed we know that in part at 
 least they were. But thiat does not signify so far 
 as Antony's purpose is concerned. They were all 
 matters well known to the . public, fit to call forth 
 proud and grateful and pleasing reminiscences of 
 Caesar's career. The orator has managed to praise 
 Caesar while not professing to do so : if he does not 
 disprove what Brutus said, yet in speaking what he 
 does know, he manages" to discredit Brutus' authority. 
 And now these regretful associations stirred, he can 
 at any rate ask their tears for their former favourite. 
 Have they lost their reason that tHey do not at least 
 mourn for him they once loved ? And here with a 
 rhetorical trick, which, to his facile, emotional nature, 
 may have also been the suggestion of real feeling, 
 his utterance fails him ; he must pause, for his 
 "heart is in the coffin there with Caesar." 
 
 We may be sure that whatever had happened to 
 his heart his ear was intent to catch the murmurs of 
 the crowd. They would satisfy him. Though he 
 has not advanced one real argument, but has only 
 played as it were on their sensations, their mood 
 has changed. Some think Caesar has had wrong, 
 some are convinced that he was not ambitious, all 
 are now thoroughly favourable to Antony. 
 
 He begins again. And now he strikes the note 
 of contrast between Caesar's greatness yesterday 
 and his impotence to-day. It is such a tragic fall 
 as in itself might move all hearts to terror and pity. 
 But what if the catastrophe were undeserved.'' 
 Antony could prove that it was, but he will keep, 
 faith with the conspirators and refrain. Neverthe- 
 less he has the te^ament, though he will not read 
 
THE REMAINING CHARACTERS 295 
 
 it, which, read, would show them that Caesar was 
 their best friend. i 
 
 Compassion, curiosity, selfishness are now enlisted I 
 on his side. Cries of " The will ! The will ! " arise. ' 
 He is quick to take advantage of these. Just as he 
 would not praise Caesar, yet did so all the same ; so 
 he refuses to read the will, for they would rise in 
 mutiny — this is a little preliminary hint to them — if 
 they heard that Caesar had made them his heirs. 
 
 Renewed insistence on the part of the mob, 
 renewed coyness on the part of Antony ; till at last 
 he steps down from the pulpit, taking care to have 
 a wide circle round him that as many as possible 
 may see. But he does not read the will immediately. 
 Partly with his incomparable eye to effect, partly 
 out of the fullness of his heart (for the substance of 
 his words is the same as in his private soliloquy), he 
 stands rapt above the body. Caesar's mantle recalls 
 proud memories of the glory of Caesar and of Rome, 
 the victory over the Barbarian.^ And this mantle is 
 pierced by the stabs of assassins, of Cassius, of Casca, 
 of Brutus himself. He has now advanced so far 
 that he can attack the man who was the idol of the 
 
 ' Plutarch's account of Caesar's personal prowess in the battle with 
 the Nervii, and of the honours decreed him by the Senate, shows why 
 Shakespeare chose this exploit for special mention : " Had not Caesar 
 selfe taken his shield on his arme, and flying in amongest the barbarous 
 people, made a lane through them that fought before him ; and the 
 tenth legion also seeing him in daunger, ronne unto him from the 
 toppe of the hill, where they stoode in battel!,* and broken the ranckes 
 of their enemies ; there had not a Romane escaped a live that day. 
 But taking example of Caesar's valliantnes, they fought desperatly 
 beyond their power, and yet could not make the Nervians flie, biit they 
 fought it out to the death, till they were all in manner slaine in the 
 field. . . . The Senate understanding it at Rome, ordained that they 
 shoulde doe sacrifice unto the goddes, and keepe feasts and solemne 
 processions fifteene dayes together without intermission, having never 
 made the like ordinaunce at Rome, for any victorie that ever was 
 obteined. Bicause they saw the daunger had bene marvelous great, 
 so many nations rising as they did in armes together against him : and 
 further the love of the people unto him made his victorie much more 
 famous. 
 
 * battle order 
 
296 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 mob but a few minutes before. And he makes his 
 attack well. The very superiority of Brutus to per- 
 sonal claims, the very patriotism which none could 
 appreciate better than Antony, and to which he does 
 large justice when Brutus is no more, this very 
 disinterestedness he turns against Brutus, and despite 
 all he owes him, accuses him of black ingratitude. 
 There is so much speciousness in the charge that it 
 would be hard to rebut before a tribunal of sages : 
 and when Antony makes his coup, withdrawing the 
 mantle and displaying the mutilated corpse, 
 
 Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold 
 Our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look you here, 
 Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with traitors : 
 
 (ni. ii. 199.) 
 
 the cause of Brutus is doomed. Antony has a right 
 to exult, and he does so. There is the triumphant 
 pride of the artist in his art, when, on resuming, he 
 represents Brutus as the rhetorician and himself as 
 the unpractised speaker. He is no orator as Brutus 
 is, and — with sublime effrontery — that was probably 
 the reason he was permitted to address them. But 
 
 Were I Brutus 
 And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 
 Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue 
 In every wound of Caesar, that should move 
 The stones of Rome to rise and piutiny. (in. ii. 230.) 
 
 Note the last words: for though Antony feels entitled 
 to indulge in this farcing and enjoys it thoroughly, 
 he does not forget the serious business. He keeps 
 recurring more and more distinctly to the suggestion 
 of mutiny, and for mutiny the citizens are now more 
 than fully primed. All this, moreover, he has achieved 
 without ever playing his trump card. They have 
 quite forgotten about the will, and indeed it is not 
 required. Biit Antony thinks it well to have them 
 beside themselves, so he calls them back for this last 
 maddening draught. 
 
THE REMAINING CHARACTERS 297 
 
 And all the while, it will be observed, he has 
 never answered Brutus' charge on which he rested 
 his whole case, that Caesar was ambitious. Yet 
 such is the headlong flight of his eloquence, winged 
 by genius, by passion, by craft, that his audience 
 never perceive this. No wonder : it is apt to escape 
 even deliberate readers. 
 
 Such a man will go fast and far. We next see 
 him practically the ruler of Rome, swaying the 
 triumvirate, treating Octavius as an admiring pupil 
 whom he will tutor in the trade, ordering about or 
 ridiculing the insignificant and imitative Lepidus.^ 
 
 But he has the hybris of genius, unaccompanied 
 by character and undermined by licence. It would 
 be an anomaly if such an one were to be perma- 
 nently successful. Shakespeare was by and by, 
 though probably as yet he knew it not, to devote 
 a whole play to the story of his downfall ; here he 
 contents himself with indicating his impending 
 deposition and the agent who shall accomplish it. 
 There is something ominous about the reticence, 
 assurance, and calm self-assertion of the "stripling 
 or springall of twenty years" as Plutarch calls 
 Octavius. At the proscription Lepidus and even 
 Antony are represented as consenting to the death 
 of their kinsfolk : Octavius makes demands but no 
 concessions. When Lepidus is ordered off on his 
 errand, and Antony, secure in his superiority, explains 
 his methods, Octavius listens silent with just a hint 
 of dissent, but we feel that he is learning his lessons 
 and will apply them in due time at his teacher's 
 expense. Already he appropriates the leadership. 
 Before Philippi, Antony assigns to him the left wing 
 and he calmly answers : 
 
 Upon the right hand I, keep thou the left. 
 Antony. Why do you cross me in this exigent ? 
 Octavius. I do not cross you : but I will do so. (v. i. i8.) 
 
 ' In Plutarch Antony treats Lepidus with studied deference. 
 
298 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 All these touches are contributed by Shakespeare, 
 but the last is especially noticeable, because, though 
 the words and the particular turn are his own, the 
 incident itself is narrated not of Antony and Octavius 
 but of their opponents. 
 
 Then Brutus prayed Cassius he might have the leading of 
 the right winge, the whiche men thought was farre meeter for 
 Cassius : both bicause he was the elder man, and also for 
 that he had the better experience. But yet Cassius gave it 
 him. 
 
 Octavius too has a higher conception of the 
 dignity of his position. In that strange scene, 
 another of Shakespeare's additions, when the 
 adversaries exchange gabs, like the heroes of the 
 old Teutonic lays or the Chansons de Gestes, it 
 is Antony who suggests the somewhat unseemly 
 proceeding and it is Octavius who breaks it off. 
 And at the close he, as it were, constitutes himself 
 the heir of Brutus' reputation, and assumes as a 
 matter of course that he has the right and duty 
 to provide for Brutus' followers and take order for 
 Brutus' funeral. 
 
 All that served Brutus, I will entertain them . . . 
 According to his virtue let us use him 
 With all respect and rites of burial 
 Within my tent his bones tonight shall lie. 
 
 (v. V. 60 and 76.) 
 
 For the first of these statements there is no warrant 
 in Plutarch, and the second contradicts the impres- 
 sion his narrative produces ; for in all the mention 
 he makes of the final honours paid to Brutus, he 
 gives the credit to Antony. 
 
 Antonius, having found Brutus bodie,' he caused it to be 
 wrapped up in one of the richest cote armors he had. After- 
 wards also, Antonius understanding that this cote armor was 
 stollen, he put the theefe to death that had stollen it, and 
 sent the ashes of his bodie to Servilia his mother. 
 
 Marcus Brutus. 
 
THE REMAINING CHARACTERS 299 
 
 And more explicitly in the Marcus Antonius : 
 
 (Antony) cast his coate armor (which was wonderfull rich 
 and sumptuous) upon Brutus bodie, and gave commaunde- 
 ment to one of his slaves infranchised to defray the charge 
 of his buriall. 
 
 By means of these additions and displacements 
 Shakespeare shows the young Octavius with his 
 tenacity and self-control already superseding his 
 older and more brilliant colleague. We see in 
 them the beginning as well as the prophecy of 
 the end. 
 
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 POSITION OF THE PLAY AFTER THE GREAT 
 
 TRAGEDIES. SHAKESPEARE'S INTEREST 
 
 IN THE SUBJECT 
 
 It may be taken as certain that Shakespeare did 
 not at once set about continuing the story which 
 he had brought to the end of one of its stages in 
 Julius Caesar and of the future progress of which 
 he had in that play given the partial programme. 
 Antony and Cleopatra belongs to a different phase 
 of his development. 
 
 Though not published, so far as we know, till it 
 appeared in the Folio Edition of 1623, there is not 
 much difficulty in finding its approximate date ; and 
 that, despite its close connection with Julius Caesar 
 in the general march of events and in the re- 
 employment of some of the characters, was some 
 half-dozen years after the composition of Its 
 predecessor. The main grounds for this opinion, 
 now almost universally accepted, are the following: 
 
 I. We learn from the Stationers Register that 
 the publisher, Edward Blount, had entered a 
 " booke called Antony and Cleopatra " on May 
 20th, 1608. Some critics have maintained that 
 this could not be Shakespeare's in view of the 
 fact that in November, 1623, license was granted 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 301 
 
 to the same Blount and the younger Jaggard, with 
 whom he was now co-operating, to include in the 
 collected edition the Shakespearian piece among 
 sixteen plays of which the copies were " not 
 formerly entered to other men." But the objection 
 hardly applies, as the previous entry was in Blount's 
 favour, and, though he is now associated with Jag- 
 gard, he may not have thought it necessary, because 
 of a change of firm as it were, to describe himself 
 as " another man." Even, however, if the author- 
 ship of the 1608 play be considered doubtful, its 
 publication is significant. For, as has often been 
 pointed out, it was customary when a piece was 
 successful at one theatre to produce one on a 
 similar subject at another. The mere existence, 
 then, of an Antony and Cleopatra in the early 
 months of 1608, is in so far an argument that 
 about that time the great Antony and Cleopatra was 
 attracting attention. 
 
 2. There is evidence that in the preceding years 
 Shakespeare was occupied with and impressed by 
 the Life- of Antony. 
 
 {a) Plutarch tells how sorely Antony took to 
 heart what he considered the cffsloyalty of his 
 followers after Actium. 
 
 He forsooke the citie and companie of his frendes, and 
 built him a house in the sea, by the He of Pharos, upon 
 certaine forced mountes which he caused to be cast into the 
 sea, and dwelt there,- as a man that banished him selfe from 
 all mens companie; saying he would live Timons life, bicause 
 l>e had the like wrong offered him, that was affore offered 
 unto Timon : and that for the unthankefulnes of those he 
 had done good unto, and whom he tooke to be his frendes 
 he was angry with all men, and would trust no man. 
 
 In reference to this withdrawal of Antony's to 
 the Timoneon, as he called his solitary house, 
 Plutarch inserts the story of Timon of Athens, 
 and there is reason to believe that Shdkespeare 
 
302 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 made his contributions to the play of that name 
 just before he wrote Macbeth, about the year 1606.^ 
 {b) In Macbeth itself he has utilised the Marcus 
 Antonius probably for one passage and certainly 
 for another. In describing the scarcity of food 
 among the Roman army in Parthia, Plutarch says : 
 
 In the ende they were compelled to live of erbes and 
 rootes, but they found few of them that men doe commonly 
 eate of, and were enforced to tast of them that were never 
 eaten before : among the which there was one that killed 
 them, and made them out of their witts. For he that had 
 once eaten of it, his memorye was gone from him, and he 
 knewe no manner of thing. 
 
 Shakespeare is most likely thinking of this when 
 after the disappearance of the witches, he makes 
 N^anquo exclaim in bewilderment : 
 
 Were such things here as we do speak about ? 
 
 Or have we eaten on the insane root 
 
 That takes the reason prisoner. (i. iii. 83.) 
 
 In any case Macbeth contains an unmistakable 
 reminiscence of the soothsayer's warning to Antony. 
 
 He . . . told Antonius plainly, that his fortune (which of 
 it selfe was excellent good, and very great) was altogether 
 bleamished, and obscured by Caesars fortune : and therefore 
 he counselled him utterly to leave his company, and to get 
 him as farre from him as he could. " For thy Demon," said 
 he (that is to say, the good angell and spirit that kepeth 
 thee), " is affraied of his, and being coragious and high when 
 he is alone, becometh fearefull and timerous when he com- 
 meth neere unto the other." 
 
 Shakespeare was to make use of this in detail when 
 he drew on the Life for an independent play. 
 
 O Antony, stay not by his side : 
 Thy demon, that's thy spirit which keeps thee, is 
 Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable 
 Where Caesar's is not ; but, near him, thy angel 
 Becomes a fear, as being o'erpower'd : therefore 
 Make space enough between you. (11. iii. 18.) 
 
 1 See Bradley, Shakespearian Tragedy. 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 303 
 
 But already in Macbeth it suggests a simile, when 
 the King gives words to his mistrust of Banquo ; 
 
 There is none but he 
 Whose being I do fear : and, under him, 
 My Genius is rebuked ; as, it is said, 
 Mark Antony's was by Caesar.^ (iii. i. 54.) 
 
 More interesting and convincing is a coincidence 
 that Malone pointed out in Chapman's Bussy 
 d'Ambois, which was printed in 1607, t)ut was 
 probably written much earlier. Bussy says to 
 Tamyra of the terrors of Sin : 
 
 So our ignorance tames us, that we let 
 His 2 shadows fright us : and like empty clouds 
 In which our faulty apprehensions forge 
 The forms of dragons, lions, elephants, 
 When they hold no proportion, the sly charms 
 Of the Witch Policy makes him like a monster. 
 
 (hi. i. 22.) 
 
 Compare Antony's words : 
 
 Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish : 
 
 A vapour sometimes like a bear or lion . . . 
 
 .... Here I am Antony : 
 
 Yet cannot hold this visible shape. (iv. xiv. 2 and 13.) 
 
 It is hard to believe that there is no connection 
 between these passages, and if there is Shakespeare 
 must have been the debtor ; but as Bussy d'Ambois 
 
 ' I have said nothing of other possible references and loans because 
 they seem to me irrelevant or doubtful. Thus Malone drew attention 
 to the words of Morose in Ben Jonson's Epicoene : " Nay, I would sit 
 out a play that were nothing but fights at sea, drum, trumpet and 
 target." He thought that this renwrk might contain ironical allusion 
 to the battle scenes in Antony and Cleopatra, for instance the stage 
 direction at the head of Act ill., Scene 10 : " Canidius marcheth with 
 his land army one way over the stage : and Taurus, the lieutenant 
 of Caesar the other way. After their going in is heard the noise of 
 a sea-fight." But even were this more certain than it is, it would only 
 prove that Antony and Cleopatra had made so much impression as to 
 give points to the satirist some time after its performance : it would 
 not help us to the date. For Epicoene belongs to 1610, and no one 
 would place Antony and Cleopatra so late. 
 
 'H.e. Sin's. 
 
304 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 was acted before 1600, this loan is without much 
 value as a chronological indication. 
 
 3. Internal evidence likewise points to a date 
 shortly after the composition of Macbeth. 
 
 (a) In versification especially valuable indications 
 are furnished by the proportion of what Professor 
 Ingram has called the light and the weak endings. 
 By these terms he denotes the conclusion of the 
 verse with a syllable that cannot easily or that 
 cannot fully bear the stress which the normal 
 scansion would lay upon it. In either case the 
 effect is to break down the independence of the 
 separate line as unit, and to vest the rhythm in 
 the couplet or sequence, by forcing us on till we 
 find an adequate resting-place. It thus has some 
 analogy in formal prosody to enjambement, or the 
 discrepancy between the metrical and the gram- 
 matical pause in prosody when viewed in connection 
 with the sense. Now the employment of light 
 and weak endings, on the one hand, and of en- 
 jambement on the other, is, generally speaking, much 
 more frequent in the plays that are considered to 
 be late than in those that are considered to be early. 
 The tendency to enjambement indeed may be traced 
 farther back and proceeds less regularly. But the 
 laxity in regard to the endings comes with a rush 
 and seems steadily to advance. It is first con- 
 spicuous in Antony and Cleopatra and reaches its 
 maximum in Henry VIII. In this progress how- 
 ever there is one notable peculiarity. While it is 
 unmistakable if the percentage be taken from the 
 light and weak endings combined, or from the weak 
 endings alone, it breaks down if the light endings 
 be considered by themselves. Of them there is a 
 decidedly higher proportion in Antony and Cleopatra 
 than in Coriolanus, which nevertheless is almost 
 universally held to be the later play. The reason 
 probably is that the light endings mean a less 
 
*r-" 
 
 POSITION OF THE PLAY 305 
 
 revolutionary departure from the more rigid system 
 and would therefore be the first to be attempted. 
 When the ear had accustomed itself to them, it 
 would be ready to accept the greater innovation. 
 Thus the sudden outcrop of light and weak endings 
 in Antony and Cleopatra, the preponderance of the 
 light over the weak in that play, the increase in the 
 total percentage of such endings and especially in 
 the relative percentage of weak endings in the 
 dramas that for various reasons are believed to be 
 later, all confirm its position after Macbeth and 
 before Coriolanus. 
 
 (h) The diction tells the same tale. Whether we 
 admire it or no, we must admit that it is very 
 concise, bold and difficult. Gervinus censures it 
 as "forced, abrupt and obscure"; and it certainly 
 makes demands on the reader. But Englishmen 
 will rather agree with the well-kriown eulogy of 
 Coleridge : " Feliciter audax is the motto for its 
 style comparatively with that of Shakspere's other 
 works, even as it is the general motto of all his 
 works compared with those of other poets. Be it 
 remembered, too, that this happy valiancy of stvle 
 is but the representative and result of all the 
 material excellences so expressed." But in any 
 case, whether to be praised or blamed, it is a 
 typical example of Shakespeare's final manner, 
 the manner that characterises Coriolanus and the 
 Romances, and that shows itself only occasionally 
 or incompletely in his preceding works. ^ 
 
 {c) A consideration of the tone of the tragedy 
 yfelds similar results. It has been pointed out^ 
 that there is a gradual lightening in the atmosphere 
 of Shakespeare's plays after the composition of 
 Othello and Lear. In them, and especially in the 
 latter, we move in the deepest gloom. It is to 
 them that critics point who read in Shakespeare 
 
 ' Bradley, Shakespearian Tragedy. 
 u 
 
306 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 a message of pessimism and despair. And though 
 there are not wanting, for those who will see them, 
 gUmpses of comfort and hope even in their horror 
 of thick darkness, it must be owned that the misery 
 and murder of Desdemona, the torture and remorse 
 of Othello, the persecution of Lear, the hanging of 
 Cordelia, are more harrowing and appalling than 
 the heart can well endure. But we are conscious 
 of a difference in the others of the group. Though 
 Macbeth retains our sympathy to the last, his story 
 does not rouse our questionings as do the stories 
 of these earlier victims. We are well content that 
 he should expiate his crimes, and that a cleaner 
 hand should inherit the sceptre : we recognise the 
 justice of the retribution and hail the dawn of better 
 times. In Coriolanus the feeling is not only of 
 assent but of exultation. True, the tragedy ends 
 with the hero's death, but that is no unmitigated 
 evil. He has won back something of his lost 
 nobility and risen to the greatest height his nature 
 could attain, in renouncing his revenge : after that 
 what was there that he could live for either in 
 Corioli or Rome ? 
 
 . Antony and Cleopatra has points of contact with 
 both these plays, and shows like them that the 
 night is on the wane. Of course in one way the 
 view of life is still disconsolate epijugh. The lust 
 of the flesh and the lust of tEe eye and the pride 
 of life : ambitious egoism, uninspired craft and 
 conventional propriety ; these are the forces that 
 clash in this gorgeous md^e of the West and the 
 East. At the outset passion holds the lists, then 
 self-interest takes the lead, but principle never has 
 a chance. We think of Lucifera's palace in the 
 Faerie Queene, with the seven deadly sins passing 
 in arrogant gala before the marble front, and with 
 the shifting foundations beneath, the dungeons and 
 ruins at the rear. The superb shows of life are 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 307 
 
 displayed in all their superbness and in all their 
 vanity. In the end their worshippers are exposed 
 as their dupes. Antony is a cloud and a dream, 
 Cleopatra no better than "a maid that milks and 
 does the meanest chares": yet she sees that it is 
 "paltry to be Caesar," and hears Antony mock atl 
 Caesar's luck. Whatever the goal, it is a futile 
 one, and the objects of human desire are shown on 
 their seamy side. We seem to lose sight of ideals, 
 and idealism would be- out of place. Even the 
 passing reference to Shakespeare's own art shows 
 a dissipation of the glamour. In Julius Caesar 
 Brutus and' Cassius had looked forward to an 
 immortality of glory on the stage and evidently 
 regard the theatre as equal to the highest demands, 
 but now to Cleopatra it is only an affair of vulgar 
 makeshifts that parodies what it presents. 
 
 I shall see 
 Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness 
 I' the posture of a whore. ' (v. ii. 219.) 
 
 In so far the impression produced is a cheerless 
 one, and Gervinus has gone so far as to say : 
 " There is no great or noble character among the 
 personages, no really elevated feature in the action; 
 of this drama whether in its politics or its love, 
 affairs." This is excessive : but it is true that, as in 
 Tiinon, the suggestion for which came from the 
 same source and the composition of which may be 
 dated a short time before, no very spiritual note is 
 struck and no very dutiful figure is to the fore. 
 And the background is a lurid one. " A world- 
 catastrophe ! " says Dr. Brandes, " (Shakespeare) 
 has no mind now to write of anything else. What 
 is sounding in his ears, what is filling his thoughts, 
 is the crash of a world falling in ruins. . . . The ; 
 might of Rome, stern and austere, shivered at the 
 touch of Eastern voluptuousness. Everything sank, ( 
 
3o8 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 everything fell, — character and will, dominions and 
 principalities, men and women. Everything was 
 worm-eaten, serpent-bitten, poisoned by sensuality — 
 everything tottered and collapsed." 
 
 Yet though the sultry splendours of the scenes 
 seem to blast rather than foster, though the air is 
 laden with pestilence, and none of the protagonists 
 has escaped the infection, the total effect is anything 
 but depressing. As in Macbeth we accept without 
 demur the penalty exacted for the offence. As in 
 Coriolanus we welcome the magnanimity that the 
 ofifenders recover or achieve at the close. If there 
 is less of acquiescence in vindicated justice than in 
 the first, if there is less of elation at the triumph of 
 the nobler self than in the second, there is yet 
 something of both. In this respect too it seems to 
 stand between them and we cannot be far wrong 
 if we place it shortly after the one and shortly before 
 the other, near the end of 1607. 
 I And that means too that it comes near the end of 
 /Shakespeare's tragic period, when his four chief 
 /tragedies were already composed and when he 
 I was well aware of all the requirements of the 
 I tragic art. In his quartet of masterpieces he 
 was free to fulfil these requirements without let or 
 hindrance, for he was elaborating material that 
 claimed no particular reverence from him. But now 
 he turns once more to authorised history and in 
 doing so once more submits to the limitations that 
 in his practice authorised history imposed. Why he 
 did so it is of course impossible to say. It was a 
 famous story, accessible to the English public in 
 some form or other from the days of Chaucer's 
 Legend of Good Women, and at an early age Shake- 
 speare was attracted by it, or at least was conver- 
 jaat^^jvith^ Cleopatra's reputation as one of the 
 jEgrld/s_^paragons of beauty. In Romeo and Juliet 
 Mercutio includes her in his list of those, Dido, 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 309 
 
 Hero, Thisbe and the rest, who in Romeo's eyes 
 are nothing to his Rosaline ; compared with that 
 lady he finds " Cleopatra a gipsy. " ^ And so indeed 
 Ishe was, for gipsy at first meant nothing else than 
 /Egyptian, and Skelton, in his Garland of Laurel^ 
 swearing by St. Mary of Egypt, exclaims : 
 
 By Mary gipcy. 
 Quod scripsi scripsi. 
 
 But in current belief the black-haired, tawny vagrants, 
 who, from the commencement of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, despite cruel enactments cruelly enforced, 
 began to swarm into England, were of Egyptian 
 , stock. And precisely in this there lay a paradox 
 • and riddle, for according to conventional ideas they 
 jwere anything but comely, and yet it was a matter 
 of common fame that a great Roman had thrown 
 saway rule, honour and duty in reckless adoration of 
 /the queen of the race. Perhaps Shakespeare had 
 ' this typical instance in his mind when in Midsummer 
 Night's Dream he talks of the madness of the lover , 
 
 Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt. (v. i. n.) 
 
 For to the end the poet ignores the purity of Cleo- 
 patra's Greek descent, and seems by many touches to 
 imagine her as of the same type as those undesirable 
 immigrants against whom the penal laws were of so 
 little avail. Nevertheless he accepts the fact of her 
 charm, and, in As You Like It, among the contribu- 
 tions which the " Heavenly Synod " levied on the 
 supreme examples of womankind for the equipment 
 of Rosalind, specifies "Cleopatra's majesty."^ It is 
 not the quality on which he was afterwards to lay 
 stress, it is not the quality that Plutarch accentuates, 
 nor is it likely to have been suggested by the gipsies 
 he had seen. But there was another source on 
 which he may have drawn. Next to the story of 
 
 'n. iv. 44. ^ni. ii. 154. 
 
310 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 Julius Caesar, the story of Antony and Cleopatra 
 was perhaps the prerogative Roman theme among the 
 dramatists of the sixteenth century ^ and was asso- 
 ciated with such illustrious personages as Jodelle 
 and Garnier in France, and the Countess of Pem- 
 broke and Daniel in England. It is, as we have 
 seen, highly probable that Shakespeare had read the 
 versions of his compatriots at any rate, and their 
 dignified harangues are just of the kind to produce 
 the impression of loftiness and state. 
 
 Be that as it may, Cleopatra was a familiar name 
 to Shakespeare when he began seriously to immerse 
 himself in her history. We can understand how it 
 would stir his heart as it iilled in and corrected his 
 previous vague surmises. What a revelation of her 
 witchcraft would be that glowing picture of her 
 progress when, careless and calculating, she con- 
 descended to obey the summons of the Roman 
 
 1 Besides the plays discussed in the Introduction as having a 
 possible place in the lineage of Shakespeare's, others were produced 
 on the Continent, which in that respect are quite negligible but which 
 serve to prove the widespread interest in the subject. Thus in 1560 
 Hans Sachs in Germany composed, in seven acts, one of his home- 
 spun, well-meant dramas that were intended to edify spectator or 
 reader. Thus in 1583 Cinthio in Italy treated the same theme, and it 
 has been conjectured, by Klein, that his Cleopatra was known to 
 Shakespeare. Certainly Shakespeare makes use of Cinthio's novels, 
 but the particulars signalised by Klein, that are common to the 
 English and to the Italian tragedy, which latter I have not been able 
 to procure, are, to use Klein's own term, merely " e.xternal," and are to 
 be explained, in so far as they are valid at all, which Moeller (A7^c- 
 patra in der Tragodien-liieratur) disputes,' by reference to Plutarch. 
 An additional one which Moeller suggests without attaching much 
 weight to it, is even less plausible than he supposes. He points out 
 that Octavius' emissary, who in Plutarch is called Thyrsus, in Cinthio 
 becomes Tireo, as in Shakespeare he similarly becomes Thyreus ; but 
 he notes that this is also the name that Shakespeare would get from 
 North. As a matter of fact, however, in the 1623 folio oi Antony and 
 Cleopatra and in subsequent editions till the time of Theobald, this 
 personage, for some reason or other as yet undiscovered, is styled 
 Thidias ; so the alleged coincidence is not so much unimportant as 
 fallacious. A third tragedy, Montreuil's Cleopatre, which like Cinthio s 
 is inaccessible to me, was published in France in 1 595 ; but to judge 
 from Moeller's analysis and the list of dramatis personae, it has no 
 contact with Shakespeare's. 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 311 
 
 conqueror and answer the charge that she had 
 helped Brutus in his campaign. 
 
 When she was sent unto by divers letters, both from 
 Antonius him selfe and also from his frendes, she made so 
 light of it, and mocked Antonius so much, that she disdained 
 to set forward otherwise, but to take her barge in the river of 
 Cydnus, the poope whereof was of gold, the sailes of purple, 
 and the owers of silver, which kept stroke in rowing after the 
 sounde of the musicke of flutes, howboyes, citherns, vioUs, 
 and such other instruments as they played upon in the barge. 
 And now for the person of her selfe : she was layed under a 
 pavillion of cloth of gold of tissue, apparelled and attired like 
 the goddesse Venus, commonly drawen in picture : and hard 
 by her, on either hand of her, pretie faire boyes apparelled 
 as painters doe set forth god Cupide, with little fannes in 
 their hands, with which they fanned wind upon her. Her 
 ladies and gentlewomen also, the fairest of them were 
 apparelled like the nymphes Nereides (which are the mer- 
 maides of the waters) and like the Graces, some stearing the 
 helme, others tending the tackle and ropes of the barge, out 
 of which there came a wonderfull passing sweete savor of 
 perfumes, that perfumed the wharfes side pestered ^ with 
 innumerable multitudes of people. 'Some of them followed 
 the barge all alongest the rivers side : others also ranne out of 
 the citie to see her comming in. So that in thend, there 
 ranne such multitudes of people one after an other to see her, 
 that Antonius was left post alone in the market place, in his 
 Imperiall seate to geve audience : and there went a rumor in 
 the peoples mouthes that the goddesse Venus was come to 
 play with the god Bacchus,^ for the generall good of all Asia. 
 When Cleopatra landed, Antonius sent to invite her to 
 supper with him. But she sent him word againe, he should 
 doe better rather to come and suppe with her. Antonius 
 therefore to shew him selfe curteous unto her at her arrivall, 
 was contented to obey her, and went to supper to her : where 
 he found such passing sumptuous fare that no tongue can 
 expresse it. 
 
 Only by a few touches has Shakespeare excelled his 
 copy in the words of Enobarbus : but4ie has merely 
 heightened and nowhere altered the effect. 
 
 The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, 
 Burn'd on the water : the poop was beaten gold : 
 
 1 obstructed. ^ Antony had already been worshipped as that deity. 
 
312 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 Purple the sails and so perfumed that 
 
 The winds were love-sick with them : the oars were silver, 
 
 Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke and made 
 
 The water which they beat to follow faster. 
 
 As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, 
 
 It beggat^d all description : she did lie 
 
 In her pavilion — cloth-of-gold of tissue — 
 
 Cfer picturing that Venus where we see 
 
 The fancy outwork nature: on each side her 
 
 Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids 
 
 With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem 
 
 To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool. 
 
 And what they did undid. . . . 
 
 Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides 
 
 So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes 
 
 And made their bends adornings : at the helm 
 
 A seeming mermaid steers : the silken tackle 
 
 Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands 
 
 ThaX yarely frame the office. From the barge 
 
 A strange invisible perfume hits the sense 
 
 Of the adjacent wharfs : and Antony, 
 
 Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone, 
 
 Whistling the air : which, but for vacancy. 
 
 Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too. 
 
 And made a gap in nature. . . . 
 
 Upon her landing, Antony sent- to her. 
 
 Invited her to supper : she replied 
 
 It should be better he became her guest ; 
 
 Which she entreated : our courteous Antoiiy, 
 
 Whom n^er the word of " No " woman hearji speak. 
 
 Being barber' d ten times o'er, goes to the feast 
 
 And for his ordinary pays his heart 
 
 For what his eyes eat only. (ii. ii. 196.) 
 
 And the impression of all this magnificence had not 
 faded from Shakespeare's mind when in after years 
 he wrote his Cymbeline. Imogen's chamber 
 
 is hang'd 
 With tapestry of silk and silver ; the story 
 Proud Cleopatra, when she met her Roman, 
 And Cydnus'^well'd above the banks, or for 
 The press of boats or pride. ^ (11. iv. 68.) 
 
 ' It is rather strange that Shakespeare, whose " accessories " are 
 usually relevant, should choose such a sulsject for the decoration of 
 Imogen's room. Mr. Bradley, in a note to his essay on Antony and 
 Cleopatra says : "Of the 'good' heroines, Imo^ nn is the one who has 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 313 
 
 But it was not only the prodigality of charm that 
 would enthral the poet. In the relation of the lovers, 
 in the character of Cleopatra, in the nature of her 
 ascendancy, there is something that reminds us of 
 the story of passion enshrined in the Sonnets. No 
 doubt it is uncertain whether these in detail are to 
 be regarded as biographical, but biographical they 
 are at the core, at least in the sense that they are 
 authentic utterance of feelings actually experienced. 
 No doubt, too, the balance of evidence points to their 
 composition, at least in the parts that deal with his 
 unknown leman, early in Shakespeare's career ; but 
 for that very reason the memories would be fitter to 
 help him in interpreting the poetry of the historical 
 record, for as Wordsworth says : " Poetry is emotion 
 recollected in tranquillity." So once more Shake- 
 speare may have been moved to " make old offences/ 
 of affections new," that is, to infuse the passion of 
 his own youth into this tale of " old unhappy far-off 
 things." His bygone sorrows of the Sonnets come 
 back to him when he is writing the drama, mirror ; 
 themselves in some of the situations and sentiments, 
 and echo in the wording of a few of the lines. It is 
 of course easy to exaggerate the importance of these 
 reminiscences. The Dark Lady has been described 
 as the original of Cleopatra, but the original of 
 Cleopatra is the Cleopatra of Plutarch, and in many 
 ways she is unlike the temptress of the poet. She 
 is dowered with a marvellous beauty which all from 
 Enobarbus to Octavius acknowledge, while the 
 other is " foul " in all eyes save those of her lover ; 
 her face "hath not the power to make love groan " ; 
 
 most of [Cleopatra's] spirit of fire and air." This is one of the things, 
 one sees to be true as soon as one reads it : can it be that their creator 
 has brought them into association through some feeling, conscious or 
 unconscious, of their kinship in .this important respect ? 
 
 I regret that Mr. Bradley's admirable study, which appeared when 
 I was travelling in the Far East, escaped my notice till a few days, 
 ago, when it was too late to use it for my discussion. 
 
314 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 and in her there is no hint of Cleopatra's royalty of 
 soul. Nor is the devotion of Antojiy the devotion 
 of the sonneteer ; it is tar more absolute and_un- 
 q uestioning , it is also far more com rade-like and 
 sympatHetic ; at first, he exults in it witHbiit shame, 
 arid never till thejast distracted days does suspicion 
 or' cc'rifeinpt enter his heart. Still less is his passing 
 spasrir of jealousy at the close like the chronic 
 jealousy of the poet. It is a vengeful frenzy that 
 * must find other outlets as well, as the self-accusing 
 remonstrances and impotent rebukes of the lyrical 
 complaints. The resemblance between sonnets and 
 play is confined to the single feature that they both 
 tell the story of an unlawful passion for a dark 
 woman — for this was Shakespeare's fixed idea in 
 regard to Cleopatra — whose character and reputation 
 were stained, whose influence was pernicious, and 
 whose fatal spells depended largely on her arts 
 and intellect. But this was enough to give Shake- 
 speare, as it were, a personal insight into the case, 
 and a personal interest in it, to furnish him with 
 the key of the situation and place him at the 
 centre. 
 
 And there was another point of contact between 
 the author and the hero of the tragedy. It is 
 stated in Plutarch's account of Antony : " Some say 
 that he lived three and fiftie yeares : and others say 
 six and fiftie." But the action begins a decade, or 
 (for, as we shall see, there is a jumbling of dates in 
 the opening scenes like that which we have noted 
 in the corresponding ones of Julius Caesar) more 
 than a decade before the final catastrophe. Thus 
 Shakespeare would imagine Antony at the outset 
 as between forty-two and forty-six, practically on 
 the same niveau of life as himself, for in 1607- 1608 
 he was in his forty-fourth year. They had reached 
 the same stadium in their career, had the - same 
 general outlook on the future, had their great 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 315 
 
 triumphs behind them, and yet with powers hardly 
 impaired they both could say, 
 
 Though grey 
 Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha' we 
 A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can 
 Get goal for goal of youth. (iv. viii. 19.) 
 
 There would be a general sympathy of attitude, and 
 it even extends to something in the poet himself 
 analogous to the headlong ardour of Antony. In 
 the years that had elapsed since Shakespeare gave 
 the first instalment of his story in Julius Caesar, a 
 certain change had been proceeding in his art. The 
 present drama belongs to a different epoch of his 
 authorship, an epoch not of less force but of less 
 restrained force, an epoch when he works perhaps 
 with less austerity of stroke and less intellectualism, 
 but — strange that it should be so in advancing years 
 — with more abandonment to the suggestions of 
 imagination and passion. In all these respects the 
 fortunes of Antony and Cleopatra would offer him a 
 fit material. In the second as compared with the 
 first Roman play, there is certainly no decline. The 
 subject is different, the point of view is different, the 
 treatment is different, but subject, point of view and 
 treatment all harmonise with each other, and the 
 whole in its kind is as great as could be. 
 
 Perhaps some such considerations may explain 
 why Shakespeare, after he had been for seven years 
 expatiating on the heights of free tragic invention, 
 yet returned for a time to a theme which, with his 
 ideas of loyalty to recorded fact, dragged him back 
 in some measure to the embarrassments of the 
 chronicle history. It was all so congenial, that he 
 was willing to face the disadvantages of an action 
 that straggled over years and continents, of a multi- 
 plicity of short scenes that in the third act rise to a 
 total of thirteen and in the fourth to a total of fifteen, 
 of a number of episodic personages who appear 
 
3i6 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 without preparation and vanish almost without note. 
 He had to lay his account with this if he dramatised 
 these transactions at all, for to him they were serious 
 matters that his fancy must not be allowed to distort. 
 Indeed he accepts the conditions so unreservedly, 
 and makes so little effort to evade them, that his 
 mind seems to have taken the ply, and he resorts 
 to the meagre, episodical scene, not only when 
 Plutarch's narrative suggests it, but when he is 
 making additions of his own and when no very 
 obvious advantage is to be secured. This is the 
 only explanation that readily presents itself for the 
 fourth scene of the second act, which in ten lines 
 describes Lepidus' leave-taking of Mecaenas and 
 Agrippa.^ There is for this no authority ' in the 
 Life ; and what object does it serve ? It may 
 indicate on the one hand the punctilious deference 
 that Octavius' ministers deem fit to show as yet to 
 the incompetent Triumvir, and on the other his 
 lack of efficient energy in allowing his private 
 purposes to make him two days late at the 
 rendezvous which, he himself has advocated as 
 urgent. But these hints could quite %ell have been 
 conveyed in some other way, and this invented 
 scene seems theatrically and dramatically quite 
 otiose. Nevertheless, -and this is the point to 
 observe, it so fits into the pattern of the chronicle 
 play that it does not force itself on one's notice as 
 superfluous. 
 
 It is partly for this reason that Antony and 
 Cleopatra holds its distinctive place among Shake- 
 speare's masterpieces. On the one hand there is no 
 play that springs more spontaneously out of the 
 heart of its author, and into which he has breathed 
 
 1 Of course the division into scenes is not indicated in the Folio, 
 but a new " place " is obviously required for this conversation. Of 
 course, too, change of scene did not mean so much on the Elizabethan 
 as on the modern stage, but it must always have counted for something. 
 Every allowance made, the above criticism seems to me valid. 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 317 
 
 a larger portion of his inspiration ; and on the other 
 there Js none that is more piij^fly higtnnV^J, cn.,tV.ot 
 in this respect It is comparable among the Roman 
 dramas to Richard II. in the English series. This 
 was the double characteristic that Coleridge empha- 
 sised in his Notes on Shakespeare's Plays : " There 
 is not one in which he has followed history so 
 minutely, and yet there are few in which he 
 impresses the notion of angelic strength so much — 
 perhaps none in which he impresses it more 
 strongly. This is greatly owing to the manner in 
 which the fiery force is sustained throughout, and to 
 the numerous momentary flashes of nature counter- 
 acting the historical abstraction." The angelic 
 strength, the fiery force, the flashes of nature are 
 due to his complete sympathy with the facts, but 
 that makes his close adherence to his authority all 
 the more remarkable. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, A HISTORY, TRAGEDY, 
 AND LOVE POEM; AS SHOWN BY ITS RELA- 
 TIONS WITH PLUTARCH 
 
 The obligations to Plutarch, though very great, are 
 of a somewhat peculiar kind. Shakespeare does not 
 borrow so largely or so repeatedly from the diction 
 of North as in Coriolanus or even vn. Julius Caesar. 
 His literal indebtedness is for the most part confined 
 to the exploitation here and there of a few short 
 phrases or sentences, generally of a not very 
 distinctive character. Thus Octavia is described as 
 "having an excellent grace, wisedom and honestie, 
 joined unto so rare a beawtie " ; which suggests her 
 "beauty, wisdom, modesty," in the play (ii. ii. 246). 
 Thus, after the scourging of Thyreus, Antony sends 
 Caesar the message : 
 
 "If this mislike thee," said he, "thou hast Hipparchus^ 
 one of my infranchised bondmen with thee : hang him if thou 
 wilt, or whippe him at thy pleasure, that we may cry quittaunce." 
 
 This becomes : -.r, ■ ,., 
 
 If he mislike 
 
 My speech and what is done, tell him he has 
 
 Hipparchus, my enfranchised bondman, whom 
 
 He may at pleasure whip, or hang, or torture, 
 
 As he shall like, to quit me.'^ (in. xiii. 147.) 
 
 ' The irony of the proposal, which Plutarch indicates but does not 
 stress, is entirely lost in Shakespeare. We have already been told 
 that Hipparchus " was the first of all his (i.e. Antony's) infranchised 
 bondmen that revolted from him and yelded unto Caesar " ; so Caesar 
 is invited to retaliate on one of his own adherents. 
 
A HISTORY, TRAGEDY, LOVE POEM 319 
 
 So, too, Plutarch says of Dolabella's disclosure to 
 Cleopatra : 
 
 He sent her word secretly as she had requested him, that 
 Caesar determined to take his journey through Suria, and 
 that within three dayes he would sende her away before 
 with her children. 
 
 The words are closely copied in Dolabella's 
 statement : 
 
 Caesar thrpugh Syria 
 Intends his journey, and within three days 
 You with your children will he send before : 
 Make your best use of this : I have perform'd 
 Your pleasure and my promise. (v. ii. 200.) 
 
 It is only now and then that such small loans 
 stand out as examples of the "happy valiancy of 
 style" that characterises the drama as a whole. 
 For instance, at the end when Cleopatra is dead and 
 Charmian has applied the asp, the brief interchange 
 of question an4 answer which Plutarch reports could 
 not be bettered even by Shakespeare. 
 
 One of the souldiers seeing her, angrily sayd unto her : 
 "Is that well done, Charmion?" "Verie well," sayd she 
 againe, "and meete for a Princes discended from a race of 
 so many noble Kings." 
 
 Shakespeare knows when he is well off and accepts 
 the goods the gods provide. 
 
 1st Guard. Charmian, is this well done ? 
 
 Charmian. It is well dorie and fitting for a princess 
 Descended from so many royal kings. (v. ii. 238.) 
 
 Perhaps the noblest and one of the closest of 
 these paraphrases is in the scene of Antony's death. 
 With his last breath he persuades her 
 
 that she should not lament nor sorowe for the miserable 
 chaunge of his fortune at the end of his dayes: but rather 
 that she should thinke him the more fortunate, for the former 
 triumphes and honors he had received, considering that 
 while he lived he was the noblest and greatest Prince of the 
 world, and that now he was overcome, not cowardly but 
 valiantly, a Romane by an other Romane. 
 
320 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 Shakespeare's Antony says : 
 
 The miserable change now at my end 
 
 Lament nor sorrow at : but please your thoughts 
 
 In feeding them with those my former fortunes 
 
 Wherein I lived, the greatest prince o' the world, 
 
 The noblest : and do now not basely die. 
 
 Not cowardly put off my helmet to 
 
 My countryman, — a Roman by a Roman 
 
 Valiantly vanquish'd. (iv. xv. 51.) 
 
 As a rule, however, even these short reproductions 
 are not transcripts. Shakespeare's usual method is 
 illustrated in his recast of Antony's pathetic protest 
 to Caesar that 
 
 he made him angrie with him, bicause ne shewed him 
 selfe prowde and disdainfull towards him, and now specially 
 when he was easie to be angered, by reason of his present 
 miserie. 
 
 Shakespeare gives a more bitter poignancy to the 
 
 confession. 
 
 Look, thou say 
 He makes me angry with him, for he seems 
 Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am. 
 Not what he knew I was : he makes me angry ; 
 And at this time most easy 'tis to do 't, 
 When my good stars, that were my former guides. 
 Have empty left their orbs, and shot their fires 
 Into the abysm of hell. (in. xiii. 140.) 
 
 Much the same estimate holds good of the longer 
 
 1 - 
 
 passages derived from North, which for the rest 
 are but few. The most literal are as a rule 
 comparatively unimportant. A typical specimen 
 is the list of complaints made by Antony against 
 Octavius, and Octavius' rejoinder : 
 
 And the chiefest poyntes of his accusations he charged him 
 with, were these : First, that having spoyled Sextus Pompeius 
 in Sicile, he did not give him his parte of the He. Secondly, 
 that he did deteyne in his handes the shippes he lent him to 
 make that warre. Thirdly, that having put Lepidus their 
 
A HISTORY. TRAGEDY, LOVE POEM 321 
 
 companion and triumvirate out of his part of the Emoire 
 and haymg deprived him of all honors: he retayneTfo; 
 
 ined tn h- 'T'^l'"^ '■'^^""^^ ^'^"^^f' ''^^'^ had been 
 asMgned to him for his part Octavius Caesar aunswered 
 
 J^ tT"^,:- '^^' f^'-.LeP'*^"^' ^^ ^^^ '" d««d« deposed him" 
 overcrSv ' ^X' °^ 'u" ^^^^^ ^'"""^ b™' ^icause he did 
 auestrhi\"'/ ^'^^^"thontie. And secondly, for the con- 
 
 Antoni,?= K i^"f ^ ^1^°'''^ °f ^™^^' ^^ ""^^ contented 
 itkew^, f^l^ld have his part of them, so that he would 
 hkewise let him have his part of Armenia. 
 
 Shakespeare copies even Caesar's convenient reti- 
 cence as to the borrowed vessels. 
 
 Agrippd. Who does he accuse ? 
 
 Caesar. Caesar : and that, having in Sicily 
 Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we have not rated him 
 His part o' the isle : then does he say, he lent me 
 Some shipping unrestored : lastly, he frets 
 That. Lepidus of the triumvirate 
 Should be deposed ; and, being, that we detain 
 - All h)s revenue. 
 
 A^ippa. Sir, this should be answer'd. 
 
 Caesar. "Tis done already, and the messenger gone. 
 1 have told him Lepidus was grown too cruel : 
 That he his high authority abused, 
 And did deserve his change : for what I have conquer'd 
 I grant him part : but then, in his Armenia, 
 And other of his conquer'd kingdoms, I 
 Demand the like. (i„. ^i. 23.) 
 
 Less matter-of-fact, because more vibrant with its 
 fanfare of names, but still somewhat of the nature 
 of an official schedule, is the list of tributaries in 
 Antony's host. 
 
 (He) had with him to ayde him these kinges and subjects 
 following: Bocchus king of Lybia, Tarcondemus king of 
 high Cihcia, Archelaus king of Cappadocia, Philadelphus 
 king of Paphlagonia, Mithridates king of Comagena, and 
 Adallas king of Thracia. All the which were there every 
 man m person. The residue that were absent sent their 
 armies, as Polemon king of Pont, Hanchus king of Arabia 
 Herodes king of lury; and furthermore, i^myntas king of 
 Lycaonia, and of the Galatians : and besides all these he had 
 all the ayde the king of Medes sent' unto him!, 
 
322 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 The long bead-roll of shadowy potentates evidently 
 delights Shakespeare's ear as it would have delighted 
 the ear of Milton or Victor Hugo^: 
 
 He hath assembled 
 Bocchus, the king of Libya ; Archelaus 
 Of Cappadocia ; Philadelphos king 
 Of Paphlagonia ; the Thracian king, Adallas ; 
 King Malchus of Arabia ; king of Pont ; 
 Herod of Jewry ; Mithridates, king 
 Of Comagene ; Polemon and Amyntas; 
 The kings of Mede and Lycaonia, 
 With a more larger list of sceptres. (iii. vi. 68.) 
 
 Still, of the longer passages that show throughout 
 a real approximation to North's language, the two 
 already quoted, the soothsayer's warning to Antony, 
 and the description of Cleopatra on the Cydnus are 
 the most impressive : and even they, and especially 
 the latter, have been touched up and revised. 
 Shakespeare's general procedure in the cases where 
 he borrows at all is a good deal freer, and may be 
 better illustrated from the passage in which Octavius 
 recalls the bygone fortitude of Antony. 
 
 These two Consuls (Hircius and Pansa) together with 
 Caesar, who also had an armye, went against Antonius 
 that beseeged the citie of Modena, and there overthrew 
 him in battell : but both the Consuls were slaine there. 
 Antonius flying upon this overthrowe, fell into great miserie 
 all at once : but the chiefest want of all other, and that 
 pinched him most, was famine. Howbeit he was of such 
 
 1 It is interesting to note that it had already caught the fancy of 
 Jodelle, though being more faithful to the text in enumerating only 
 the kings who were actually present and taking no liberties with the 
 names and titles, he failed to get all the possible points out of it. 
 Agrippa says to Octavian : 
 
 Le Roy Bocchus, le Roy Cilicien 
 
 Archelaus, Roy Capadocien, 
 
 Et Philadelphe, et Adalle de Thrace, 
 
 Et Mithridate, usoyent-ils de menace 
 
 Moindre sus nous que de porter en joye 
 
 Nostre despouille et leur guerriere proye. 
 
 Pour a leurs Dieux joyeusement les pendre 
 
 Et maint et maint sacrifice leur rendre? Acte 11. 
 
A HISTORY, TRAGEDY, LOVE POEM 323 
 
 a strong nature, that by pacience he would overcome any 
 adversitie, and the heavier fortune lay upon him, the more 
 constant shewed he him selfe. ... It was a wonderfull ex- 
 ample to the souldiers, to see Antonius that was brought 
 up in all finenes and superfluitie, so easily to drink puddle 
 water, and to eate wild frutes and rootes : and moreover 
 it is reported, that even as they passed the Alpes, they did 
 eate the barcks of trees, and such beasts, as never man 
 tasted of their flesh before. 
 
 This is good, but Shakespeare's version visualises ^s 
 well as heightens Antony's straits and endurance, and 
 brings them into contrast with his later effeminacy. 
 
 When thou once 
 Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st 
 Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel 
 Did famine follow : whom thou fought'st against, 
 Though daintily brought up, with patience more 
 Than savages could suffer : thou didst drink 
 The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle 
 Which beasts would cough at : thy palate then did deign 
 The roughest berry on the rudest hedge : 
 Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets, 
 The barks of trees thou browsed'st ; on the Alps 
 It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh. 
 Which some did die to look on : and all this — 
 It wounds thine honour that I speak it now — 
 Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek 
 So much as lank'd not. (i. iv. 56.) 
 
 But including such elaborations, the number . of 
 passages repeated or recast from North is not 
 considerable. In the whole of the first act this 
 description of the retreat from Modena is the only 
 one of any consequence, and though the percentage 
 increases as the play proceeds, and they are much 
 more frequent in the second half, even in the fifth 
 act, the proportion of easily traceable lines is fifty- 
 seven to four hundred and forty-six, or barely more' 
 than an eighth. 
 
 Much more numerous and generally much more 
 noteworthy than the strictly verbal suggestions are 
 those that, conveyed altogether in Shakespeare's 
 
324 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 phrase, give such immediate Hfe to the play, whether 
 they supply episodes for acting or merely material 
 for the dialogue. Sometimes a whole paragraph is 
 distilled into a sentence, like that famous bit of 
 domestic chit-chat that must have impressed Plutarch 
 when a boy. 
 
 I have heard my grandfather Lampryas report, that one 
 Philotas a Physition, born in the citie of Amphissa, told him 
 that he was at the present time in Alexandria, and studied 
 physicke: and that having acquaintance with one of Antonius 
 cookes, he tooke him with him to Antonius house, (being a 
 young man desirous to see things) to shew him the wonderfull 
 sumptuous charge and preparation of one only supper. When 
 he was in the kitchin, and saw a world of diversities of meates, 
 and amongst others eight wilde boares rosted whole : he 
 began to wonder at it, and sayd, " Sure you have a great 
 number of ghestes to supper." The cooke fell a laughing, 
 and answered him : " No," (quoth he), " not many ghestes, 
 nor above twelve in all : but yet all that is boyled or roasted 
 must be served in whole, or else it would be marred straight. 
 For Antonius peradventure will suppe presently, or it may 
 be in a pretie while hence, or likely enough he will deferre 
 it longer, for that he hath dronke well to day, or else hath 
 had some other great matters in hand : and therefore we doe 
 not dresse one supper only, but many suppers, bicause we 
 are uncerteine of the houre he will suppe in." 
 
 In what strange nays has the gossip of the in- 
 quisitive medical student been transmitted through 
 Lampryas and his grandchild to furnish an arabesque 
 for Shakespeare's tapestry ! And, when we know 
 its history, what a realistic touch does this anecdote 
 lend to Mecaenas' badinage, though Shakespeare 
 has raised the profuse to the sublime by transferring 
 the banquet from the evening to the morning, sup- 
 pressing the fact of the relays, and insinuating that 
 this was nothing out of the common ! 
 
 & 
 
 Mecaenas. Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, 
 and but twelve persons there : is this true ? 
 
 Enobarlms. This was but as a fly by an eagle : we had 
 much more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily 
 deserved noting. (ii. ii. 183.) 
 
A HISTORY, TRAGEDY. LOVE POEM 325 
 
 Or again we are told of Cleopatra's precautions after 
 Actium. 
 
 Now to make proofe of those poysons which made men 
 dye with least paine, she tried it upon condemned men in 
 prison. For when she saw the poysons that were sodaine 
 and vehement, and brought speedy death with grievous 
 torments : and in contrary manner, that suche as were more 
 milde and gentle, had not that quicke speede and force to 
 make one dye sodainly : she afterwardes went about to prove 
 the stinging of snakes and adders, and made some to be 
 applied unto men in her sight, some in one sorte, and some 
 in an other. So when she had dayly made divers and sun- 
 drie proofes, she found none of all them she had proved so 
 fit as the biting of an Aspicke, the which only causeth a 
 heavines of the head, without swounding or complaining, 
 and bringeth a great desire also to sleepe, with a little swet 
 on the face, and so by little and little taketh away the sences 
 and vitall powers, no living creature perceiving that the 
 pacientes feele any paine. For they are so sorie when any 
 bodie waketh them, and taketh- them up; as those that 
 being taken out of a sound sleepe, are very heavy and 
 desirous to sleepe. 
 
 This leaves a trace only in three lines of Caesar's 
 reply when the guard detects the aspic's trail ; but 
 these lines gain in significance if we remember the 
 fuller statement. 
 
 Most probable 
 That so she died : for her physician tells me 
 She hath pursued conclusions infinite 
 Of easy ways to die. (v. ii. 356.) 
 
 Apart from the great pivots and levers of the action 
 Plutarch has supplied numbers of these minor 
 fittings. Including with them the more literal loans, 
 from which they cannot always be discriminated, we 
 find in addition to the instances already cited the 
 following unmistakable reminiscences : in Act i., 
 Antony's proposal to roam the streets with Cleo- 
 patra ; in Act 11., the motive assigned for Fulvia's 
 rising, Antony's ambiguous position as widower, 
 Sextus Pompeius' courtesy to Antony's mother, 
 Charmian's description of the fishing, the conditions 
 
326 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 of peace offered to Pompey, Pompey's flout at the 
 seizure of his father's house, the bantering of Antony 
 in regard to Cleopatra, the banquet on the galley, 
 Menas' suggestion and Pompey's reply ; in Act in., 
 Ventidius' halt in his career of victory and its reason, 
 
 Octavia's distraction bptwp^i7 fhe da.ijm;-ft.&»kH<thanrl 
 
 and brother, the overthrow of Pompey and deposi- 
 tion ofTTepidus, the account of the coronation of 
 Cleopatra and her children, Enobarbus' remonstrance 
 against Cleopatra's presence in the armament, the 
 allusion to the war being managed by her eunuch 
 and her maids, the comparison of Octavius' and 
 Antony's navies, the name Antoniad given to Cleo- 
 patra's admiral, Antony's challenge to Octavius, the 
 soldier's appeal to fight on land, many particulars 
 about the battle of Actium, Antony's dismissal of his 
 friends with treasure, the embassage of Euphronius 
 and Octavius' reply, Thyreus' commission, Antony's 
 renewed challenge, the birthday celebration ; in 
 Act IV., Octavius' answer to the challenge, Antony's 
 disquieting speech at the banquet, the supposed 
 departure of his divine patron, the. defection of 
 Enobarbus, the reference to the treason of Alexas 
 and others, Antony's successful sally, his return in 
 triumph and embrace of Cleopatra ere he doffs his 
 armour, her gift to the valiant soldier, the death of 
 Enobarbus, the posting of the footmen on the hills 
 before the final catastrophe, the presage of swallows 
 building on Antony's ship, the fraternization of the 
 fleets, Antony's rage at Cleopatra, her flight to the 
 tomb, the message of her death, Antony's revulsioit 
 of feeling at the news, Eros' plighted obligation and 
 his suicide, the mortal wound Antony gives himself, 
 the second message from Cleopatra, his conveyance 
 to the monument, Cleopatra's refusal to undo the 
 locks and her expedient of drawing him up, several 
 particulars in the last interview, such as the com- 
 mendation of Proculeius ; in Act v,, Dercetas' 
 
A HISTORY, TRAGEDY, LOVE POEM 327 
 
 announcement to Octavius of Antony's death, 
 Octavius' reception of the tidings and his reference 
 to their correspondence, his plans for Cleopatra, 
 the interview of Proculeius \yith Cleopatra at the 
 Monument, his unobserved entrance, the exclama- 
 tion of the waiting-woman, Cleopatra's attempted 
 suicide, the visit of Octavius, his threats concerning 
 Cleopatra's children, her concealment of her treasure, 
 the disclosure of Seleucus, her indignation at him 
 and apology to Octavius, Octavius' reception of it, 
 Dolabella's sympathy with the captive queen, the 
 arrival of the countryman with the figs, the dressing 
 in state, the death of Cleopatra and Iras before the 
 soldiers enter, Charmian's last service in adjusting 
 the diadem, Octavius' appreciation of Cleopatra's 
 courage and command for her burial beside Antony. 
 
 This enumeration shows JiQwJaECcel^-Sbakespeare 
 is L indebted to t^lu tarchT^and also how his obligations 
 are greatest in the later, portion of the play. They 
 becorirs^orispiCUOUS' alittle before the middle of the 
 third act, and the proportion is TnSnt£un^"tiIl the 
 close ; for though there are not so many in the fifth 
 act, it is considerably shorter than the fourth or than 
 the last eight scenes of the third. 
 
 Shakespeare however obtains from Plutarch not 
 merely a large number of his details, but the general ( 
 programme of the story and the presuppositions of 
 the portraiture, as will appear from a short summary 
 of Plutarch's narrative, into which, for clearness' 
 sake, I insert the principal dates. 
 
 After Philippi, Antony gave himself up to a life of 
 ostentation and luxury, interrupted by flashes of his 
 nobler mood, first in Greece and subsequently in 
 Asia. Then came his meeting with Cleopatra on 
 the Cydnus, and in his passion for her al[_that was^ 
 worthiest in his natu re^ was , smothered. Despite 
 pressing "piiBTic~3iutieS he accompanied her on her 
 return to Alexandria, where he wasted his time in 
 
S.28 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 "childish sports and idle pastimes." In the midst 
 of his dalliance the tidings arrive with which the 
 play opens, in 41 B.C., of the contest of his brother 
 Lucius and his wife Fulvia, first with each other and 
 then with Octavius, of their defeat and expulsion 
 from Italy ; as well as of the inroad of the Parthians 
 under Labienus as far as Lydia and Ionia. 
 
 Then began Antonius with much a doe to rouse him selfe 
 as if he had been wakened out of a deepe sleepe, and as a 
 man may say comming out of a great dronkennes. 
 
 He sets out for Parthia, but in obedience to the 
 urgent summons of Fulvia, changes his course for 
 Italy. On the way he falls in with fugitives of his 
 party who tell liim that his wife was sole cause of 
 the war and had begun it only to withdraw him 
 from Cleopatra. Soon afterwards Fulvia, who was 
 "going to meete with Antonius" fell sick and died 
 at Sicyon in 40 B.C. — "by good fortune" comments 
 Plutarch, as now the colleagues could be more 
 easily reconciled. The friends of both were indis- 
 posed to " unrippe any olde matters " and a composi- 
 tion was come to whereby Antony obtained the 
 East, Octavius the West, and Lepidus Africa. 
 This agreement, since Antony was now a widower 
 and "denied not that he kept Cleopatra, but so did 
 he not confesse that he had her as his wife," was 
 confirmed by Antony's marriage, which every one 
 approved, with Octavius' dearly loved half-sister 
 Octavia, and it was hoped that "she should be a 
 good meane to keepe good love and amitie betwext 
 her brother and him." 
 
 Meanwhile Sextus Pompeius in Sicily had been 
 making himself troublesome with his pirate allies, 
 and as he had showed great courtesy to Antony's 
 mother, it seemed good to make peace with him 
 An interview accordingly took place at Misenum in 
 39 B.C. as a result of which he was granted Sicily 
 
A HISTORY, TRAGEDY, LOVE POEM 329 
 
 and Sardinia on the conditions mentioned in the 
 play. 
 
 Antony was now able to resume his plans for 
 punishing the Parthians and sent Ventidius against 
 them while he still remained in Rome. But moved 
 by the predominance of Octavius and the warning 
 of th e soothsayer , he resolved to take up KTsTwh 
 jurisdiction, and with Octavia and their infant 
 daughter set out for Greece, where he heard the 
 news of Ventidius' success in 38 B.C. 
 
 In zy B.C., offended at some reports, he returned 
 to Italy with Octavia, who had now a second 
 daughter and was again with child. By her inter- 
 cession good relations were restored between the 
 brothers-in-law, each lending the other the forces of 
 which he most stood in need. Octavius employed 
 the borrowed ships against Sextus Pompeius,i 
 Antony was to employ the borrowed soldiers 
 against the Parthians. 
 
 Leaving his wife and children in Octavius' care, 
 Antony proceeded directly to Asia. 
 
 Then beganne this pestilent plague and mischiefe of 
 Cleopatraes love (which had slept a longe tyme and seemed 
 to have bene utterlie forgotten and that Antonius had geven 
 place to better counsell) againe to kindle and to be in force, 
 so soone as Antonius came neere unto Syria. 
 
 He sends for her and to the scandal of the Romans 
 pays her extravagant honours, showers kingdoms 
 upon her, and designates their twin children the 
 Sun and the Moon. 
 
 He does not, however, in seeming, neglect his 
 expedition to Parthia, but gathers a huge and well 
 appointed host wherewith to invade it. Neverthe- 
 less 
 
 this so great and puisant army which made the Indians 
 quake for feare, dwelling about the contry of the Bactrians 
 and all Asia also to tremble : served him to no purpose, and 
 all for the love he bore to Cleopatra. For the earnest great 
 desire he had to lye all winter with her, made him begin his 
 
330 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 warre out of due time, and for hast to put all in hazard, being 
 so ravished and enchaunted with the sweete poyson of her 
 love, that he had no other thought but of her, and how he 
 might quickly returne againe : more then how he might 
 overcome his enemies. 
 
 Not only did Antony choose the wrong season, but 
 in his hurry he left all his heavy engines behind him 
 and thus threw away his chances in advance. The 
 campaign was a series of disasters and ended in an 
 inglorious retreat. The only credit that can be 
 given to him from beginning to end is for efficiency 
 in misfortune and sympathy with his soldiers. Yet 
 even these were impaired by his fatal passion. 
 
 The greate haste he made to returne unto Cleopatra, 
 caused him to put his men to great paines, forcing them to 
 lye in the field all winter long when it snew unreasonably, 
 that by the way he lost eight thowsand of his men. 
 
 Arrived at the Syrian coast he awaits her coming. 
 
 And bicause she taried longer then he would have had her, 
 he pined away for love and sorrow. So that he was at such a 
 straight, that he wist not what to doe, and therefore to weare 
 it out, he gave him selfe to quaffing and feasting. But he was 
 so drowned with the love of her, that he could not abide to 
 sit at the table till the feast were ended : but many times 
 while others banketted, he came to the sea side to see if she 
 were comming. 
 
 Meanwhile, in 36 B.C., during the Parthian expedi- 
 tion, Sextus Pompeius had been defeated, his death, 
 not mentioned by Plutarch, following in the ensuing 
 year, and Lepidus had been deposed by Octavius, 
 who gave no account of the spoils. On the other 
 hand, in 34 B.C., Antony, who had overrun and seized 
 Armenia, celebrated his triumph not in Rome but in 
 Alexandria. 
 
 Grievances were thus accumulating on both sides, 
 and Octavia once more seeking to mediate, took 
 ship to join her husband with the approval of 
 Octavius, who foresaw the upshot, and regarded it 
 as likely to put his brother-in-law in the wrong. 
 
A HISTORY, TRAGEDY, LOVE POEM 331 
 
 Antony bade her stop at Athens, promising to come 
 to her, but afterwards, fearing lest Cleopatra should 
 kill herself for grief, he broke tryst, and Octavia 
 returned to Rome where she watched over his interests 
 as best she might. Antony in the meantime accom- 
 panied Cleopatra to Egypt and ga vejhe Romans 
 "gw_ oifen£&-,by paying her;;atg^ni^To^;;"an 
 parcelling out^e^a^rnmTaJTPr anTK^TTTTTfTr^n 
 
 Then came the "interchange ofunconTprcrmfsffig 
 messages in ^^ B-C, and Antony bade Octavia leave 
 his house. The appeal to arms was inevitable, and 
 as the taxation to which Octavius was compelled to 
 resort in view of his rival's great preparation roused 
 general discontent, it was Antony's cue to invade 
 Italy. But he continued to squander his time in 
 feasts and revels, and in such and other ways further 
 alienated his friends in Rome. 
 
 In 32 B.C. Octavius declared war against Cleopatra, 
 and had Antony deprived of his authority. The 
 battle of Actium followed on the 2nd September, 
 3 1 B.C. But' Antony, after his retirement to Egypt, in 
 some measure recovered from his first despondency 
 at the defeat, and even when he found himself for- 
 saken by allies and troops, continued to live a life of 
 desperate gaiety. After ah ignominious attempt at 
 negotiation and a flicker of futile success, the final 
 desertion of his fleet, for which he blamed Cleopatra, 
 put an end to his resistance, and he killed himself 
 in 30 B.C., less, however, in despair at his (Overthrow 
 than for grief at Cleopatra's alleged death. 
 
 (He) said unto him selfe : " What doest thou looke for 
 further, Antonius, sith spitefull fortune hath taken from thee 
 the only joy thou haddest, for whom thou yet reservedst thy 
 life." 
 
 After mentioning how Antony's son, Antyllus, and 
 Cleopatra's son, Caesarion, were betrayed to death 
 by their governors, Plutarch describes how Cleopatra 
 for a while is deterred from suicide chiefly by fears 
 
332 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 for her other children. Hearing, however, Octavius' 
 definite plans for her, she obtains leave to offer a last 
 oblation at Antony's tomb, and thereafter takes her 
 own life. The biography concludes with a notice of 
 Octavia's care for all Antony's children, not only 
 Fulvia's and her own, but those of whom Cleopatra 
 jjKas^ mother. 
 
 It will be seen from this sketch that no incidents 
 of political importance are added, few are altered, 
 and very few omitted by Shakespeare. Of course 
 the dramatic form necessitates a certain concentra- 
 tion, and this of itself, even were there no farther 
 motive, would account for the occasional synchronis- 
 ing of separate episodes. Thus the news of Fulvia's 
 death and Sextus Pompeius' aggression is run together 
 with the news of the wars of Fulvia and Lucius and 
 the advance of the Parthians. Thus between the 
 second marriage and the final breach it was con- 
 venient to condense matters, and, in doing this, to 
 omit Antony's flying visit to Italy, blend Octavia's 
 first and second attempts at mediation, and represent 
 her as taking leave of her husband at Athens. In 
 the same way the months between the battle of 
 Actium and the death of Antony, and the days 
 between the death of Antony and that of Cleopatra 
 might easily be compressed without any hurt to the 
 sentiment of the story. But even of this artistic 
 license Shakespeare avails himself far less systemati- 
 cally than m Julius Caesar. There, as we saw, the 
 action is crowded into five days, though with con- 
 siderable intervals between some of them. There 
 is no such arrangement in Antony and Cleopatra. 
 Superficially this play is one of the most invai^brate 
 in structure that Shakespeare ever wrote, fix. gives 
 one the impression of an anxious desireSrr avoid 
 tampering with the facts and their relations even 
 when history does not furnish ready - made the 
 material that best fits the drama. 
 
A HISTORY, TRAGEDY. LOVE POEM 333 
 
 And in the main this impression is correct. 
 Shakespeare supplies a panorama of some ten 
 eventful years in which he can not only cite his 
 chapter and verse for most of the official claia, but 
 reproduces, with amazing fidelity, the general contour 
 of the historical landscape, in so far as it was visible 
 from his point of view. And yet his allegiance to 
 the letter has often been exaggerated and is to a 
 great extent illusory. This does not mean merely 
 that his picture fails to approve itself as the truth, 
 the whole truth and nothing but the truth, when 
 tested by the investigations of modern scholars. 
 His position and circumstances were not theirs. 
 He t ook Plut arch^ Mgr cus Antonius as his chief 
 and almost sole authority, resortin g possibly for 
 suggestions of situation and phrase toTh5""Senecan 
 tragedies on the same theme, probably for the 
 descriptions of Egypt to Holland's translation of 
 Pliny or Cory's translation of Leo, and almost 
 certainly for many details about Sextus Pompeius^ 
 to the 1578 version of Appian ; but always treating 
 the Life not only as his inexhaustible storehouse, 
 but as sufficient guarantee for any statement that it 
 contained. In short he could give the history of the 
 time, not as' it was -btit- as^ "Plutarch represented it, 
 and as Plutarch's represehtatiori explained itself to 
 an Elizabethan. It is hardly to his discredit if he 
 underestimates Cleopatra's political astuteness, and 
 has no guess of the political projects that recent 
 criticism has ascribed to Antony, for of these things 
 his author has litde to say. It is hardly to his credit, 
 if, on Appian's hint, he realises the importance of 
 Sextus Pompeius' insular position and,, naval power, 
 for he lived in the days of Hawkins and Drake. 
 
 But he is not slavishly literal even in his adherence 
 to Plutarch. He adopts his essential and many of 
 his subsidiary facts : he follows his lead in the broad 
 
 ' See Appendix D. 
 
334 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 course of events ; he does not alter the main lines 
 of the story. But it is surprising to find how per- 
 sistently he rearranges and regroups the minor 
 details, and how by this means he gives them a new 
 significance. The portions of the play where he has 
 made the narrative more compact are also, roughly 
 speaking, those in which he has taken most liberties 
 in dislocating the sequence, and the result is not 
 merely greater conciseness but an original interpre- 
 tation. Yet on the other hand we must not either 
 misconstrue the meaning or overstate the importance 
 of this procedure. In the first place it affects not so 
 much the history of events as the portraiture of the 
 persons. In the second place, even in the charac- 
 terisation it generally adds vividness and depth to 
 the presentation rather than alters the fundamental 
 traits. Thus in Plutarch the soothsayer's warning 
 to Antony follows, in Shakespeare it precedes, the 
 composition with Pompey. From the chronicler's 
 point of view this transposition is abundantly unim- 
 portant, but it does make a difference in our estimate 
 of Antony : his consequent decision shows more levity 
 and rashness in the play than in the biography. Yet 
 in both his whole behaviour at this juncture is dis- 
 tinctly fickle and indiscreet ; so the net result of the 
 displacement is to sharpen the lines that Plutarch 
 has already drawn. And this is true in a greater or 
 less degree of most of the cases in which Shakespeare 
 reshuffles Plutarch's notes. Oh the whole, despite 
 dramatic parallax and changed perspective, Antony 
 and Cleopatra is astonishingly faithful to the facts 
 as they were supposed to be. Shakespeare could 
 hardly have done more in getting to the heart of 
 Plutarch's account, and in reconstructing it with all 
 its vital and essential characteristics disentangled 
 and combined afresh in their rational connection. 
 And since after all Plutarch "meant right" this 
 implies that Shakespeare is not only true to Plutarch, 
 
A HISTORY, TRAGEDY, LOVE POEM 335 
 
 but virtually true to what is still considered the spirit 
 of his subject.^ 
 
 Indeed his most far-reaching modifications concern 
 in the main the manner in which the persons appeal 
 to our sympathies, and in which he wishes us to 
 envisage their story ; and these perhaps in a pre- 
 liminary view can better be indicated by what he 
 has suppressed than by what he has added or recast. 
 There is one conspicuous omission that shows how 
 he deals with character ; there are several minor 
 ones that in their sum show how he prescribes the 
 outlook. 
 
 To begin with the former, it is impossible not to 
 be struck by the complete deletion of the Parthian 
 fiasco, which in Plutarch occupies nearly a fifth of 
 the whole Life, or a fourth of the part with which 
 Shakespeare deals in this play. It thus bulks large 
 in Antony's career, and though in the main it may 
 be unsuitable for dramatic purposes, it is neverthe- 
 less connected in its beginning, conduct and close, 
 with the story of his love for Cleopatra. Yet we 
 have only one far off and euphemistic reference to 
 it in the words of Eros, when Antony bids him 
 
 The gods withhold me ! 
 Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts, 
 Though enemy, lost aim, and could not ? (iv. xiv. 69.) 
 
 Why this reticence in regard to one of the most 
 ambitious enterprises with which the name of 
 Antony was associated .■* The truth is that the whole 
 management of the campaign detracts grievously I 
 
 ' This may be said even if we accept Professor Ferrero's arguments 
 that Antony's infatuation for Cleopatra was invented or exaggerated by 
 opponents, and that their relation was to a great extent suggested or 
 enjoined by their ambitions. Antony would still be the profligate 
 man of genius, captivated by Asiatic ideals and careless of the 
 interests of Rome. His policy at the close would still, by Professor 
 Ferrero's own admission, be traceable to the ascendancy which 
 Cleopatra had established over him. And the picture of contem- 
 porary conditions would still retain a large measure of truth. 
 
336 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 I from the glamour of "absolute soldiership" with 
 which the dramatist surrounds his hero and 
 through which he wishes us to view him. His 
 silence in regard to it is thus a hint of one far- 
 reaching and momentous change Shakespeare has 
 made in the impression the story conveys, and that 
 is in the character of Antony himself. In the 
 biography he is by no means so grandiose a figure, 
 so opulent and magnificent a nature, as he appears 
 in the play. Gervinus sums up the salient features 
 of Plutarch's Antony in the following sentence : 
 
 A man who had grown up in the wild companionship of a 
 Curio and a Clodius, who had gone through the high school 
 of debauchery in Greece and Asia, who had shocked every- 
 body in Rome during Caesar's dictatorship by his vulgar 
 excesses, who had made himself popular among the soldiers 
 by drinking with them and encouraging their low amours, 
 a man upon whom the odium of the proscriptions under 
 the rule of the triumvirate especially fell, who displayed a 
 cannibal pleasure over Cicero's bloody head and hand, who 
 afterwards renewed in the East the wanton life of his youth, 
 and robbed in grand style to maintain the vilest gang of 
 parasites and jugglers, such a man depicted finally as the 
 prey of an elderly and artful courtesan, could not possibly 
 have been made the object of dramatic interest. It is 
 wonderful how Shakespeare on the one hand preserved the 
 historic features of Antony's character, so as not to make 
 him unrecognisable, and yet how he contrived on the other 
 to render him an attractive personage. 
 
 The array of charges Gervinus compiles from 
 Plutarch is not exaggerated. Indeed it could be 
 enlarged and emphasised. Dishonesty in money 
 matters, jealousy of his subordinates, an occasional 
 lack of generalship that almost becomes inefficiency, 
 might be added to the list. But Plutarch's picture 
 contains other traits that he does not seek to 
 reconcile with those that repel us, but drops in 
 casually and by the way : and in Shakespeare 
 these are brought to the front. Valour, endurance, 
 generosity, versatility, resourcefulness, self- know- 
 
A HISTORY, TRAGEDY, LOVE POEM ^2,7 
 
 ledge, frankness, simplicity after a fashion, width 
 of outlook, power of self-recovery, are all attributed 
 to Antony even by his first biographer, though 
 these qualities are overweighted by the mass of 
 his delinquencies. Shakespeare shows them in 
 relief; while the more offensive characteristics, like 
 his youthful licentiousness, are relegated to his 
 bygone past, or, like his jealousy and vindictiveness, 
 are merely suggested by subordinate strokes, such 
 as the break in Ventidius' triumphant campaign, or 
 the merciless scourging of Thy reus. It is some- 
 times said that Shakespeare's Brutus is historically 
 correct and that his Mark Antony is a new creation. 
 The opposite statement would be nearer the truth. 
 We feel that both the biographer and the dramatist 
 have given a portrait of Cleopatra's lover, and that 
 both portraits are like ; but the one painter has 
 been content with a collection of vivid traits which 
 in their general effect are ignoble and repulsive : 
 the other in a sense has idealised his model, but 
 it is by reading the soul of greatness through the 
 sordid details, and explaining them by the con- 
 ception of Antony, not perhaps at his best but at 
 his grandest. He is still, though fallen, the Antony 
 who at Caesar's death could alter the course of 
 history ; a dissolute intriguer no doubt, but a man 
 of genius, a man of enthusiasms, one who is equal 
 or all but equal to the highest occasion the world 
 can present, and who, if he fails owing to the lack 
 of steadfast principle and virile will that results from 
 voluptuous indulgence and unscrupulous practisings, 
 yet remains fascinating and magnificent even in his 
 ruin. And by means of this transfiguration, Shake- 
 speare is able to lend absorbing interest to his 
 delineation of this gifted, complex, and faulty soul, 
 and to rouse the deepest sympathy for his fate. 
 Despite his loyalty to the historical record he lifts 
 his argument above the level of the Chronicle 
 
338 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 History, and makes it a true tragedy. In its 
 deference for facts, Antony and Cleopatra is to be 
 ranked with such pieces as Richard II. and Henry 
 VIII., but in its real essence it claims another 
 position. "The highest praise, or rather the highest 
 form of praise, of this play," says Coleridge, "is 
 the doubt which the perusal always occasions in 
 me, whether Antony and Cleopatra is not, in all 
 exhibitions of a giant power in its strength and 
 vigour of maturity, a formidable rival of Macbeth, 
 Lear, Hamlet, and Othello!' 
 
 In another aspect the more obvious of the minor 
 omissions are in their general tendency not less 
 typical of the way in which Shakespeare deals with 
 his subject. For what are those that strike us at 
 first sight ? To begin with, many instances of 
 Octavia's devotion, constancy and principle are 
 passed over, and she is placed very much in the 
 shade. Then there is no reference to the children 
 that sprang from her union with Antony, indeed 
 their existence is by implication denied, and she 
 seems to be introduced as another Iseult of the 
 White Hands. Antony cries to Cleopatra, 
 
 Have I my pillow left unpress'd in Rome, 
 
 Forborne the getting of a lawful race, 
 
 And by a gem of women, to be abused 
 
 By one that looks on feeders ? (iii. xiii. io6.) 
 
 Further, the tragic stories of Antony's son Antyllus 
 and of Cleopatra's son Caesarion are left unused, 
 Antyllus not being mentioned at all, Caesarion only 
 by the way ; though Daniel does not scruple to 
 include both accessories within the narrower limits 
 of a Senecan tragedy. More noticeable still, how- 
 ever, is the indifferenfce with which the children of 
 Antony and Cleopatra are dismissed. They are 
 barely alluded to, though the Queen's anxiety for 
 their preservation, which supplies acceptable matter 
 not only to Daniel but to Jodelle and Garnier, is 
 
A HISTORY, TRAGEDY, LOVE POEM 339 
 
 avouched by Plutarch's statement and driven home 
 by North's vigorous phrase. Plutarch describes her 
 distress of body and mind after Antony's death and 
 her own capture. 
 
 She fell into a fever withal : whereof she was very glad, 
 hoping thereby to have good colour to absteine from meate', 
 and that so she might have dyed easely without any trouble. 
 ... But Caesar mistrusted the matter, by many conjectures 
 he had, and therefore did put her in feare, and threatned hei' 
 to put her children to shameful death. With these threats 
 Cleopatra for feare yelded straight, as she would have yelded 
 unto strokes; and afterwards suflTred her selfe to be cured and 
 dieted as they listed. 
 
 Shakespeare makes no use. of this save in the 
 warning of Octavius : 
 
 If you seek 
 To lay on me a cruelty, by taking 
 Antony's course, you shall bereave yourself 
 Of my good" purposes, and put your children 
 To that destruction which I'll guard them from. 
 If thereon you rely. (v. ii. 128.) 
 
 But here the threat is significant of Octavius' char- 
 acter, not of Cleopatra's, who makes no reply to it, 
 and remains absolutely unaffected by it. Indeed 
 she shows more sense of motherhood in her dying 
 reference to the asp as "her baby at her breast," 
 than in all the previous play. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that the effect of all these 
 omissions is to concentrate the attention on the 
 purely personal relations of the lovers. And the 
 prominence assigned to them also appears if we 
 compare the Life and the drama as a whole. 
 
 It will be noted that in direct quotation, in incident 
 and allusion, in general structure, Shakespeare owes 
 far more to his authority in the last half of the play 
 than in the first : for the closer observance of, and 
 the larger loans from, the biography begin with the 
 central scenes of the third act. But it is at this 
 stage of the narrative that Cleopatra, for a while in 
 
340 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 the background, once more becomes the paramount 
 person ; and few are the allusions to her from the 
 period of Actium that Shakespeare suffers to escape 
 him. Moreover such independent additions as there 
 are in the latter portion of the play, have mostly to 
 do with her ; and in six of the invented scenes in 
 the earlier acts she has the chief or at least a leading 
 role. Clearly, when she is in evidence, Shakespeare 
 feels least need to supplement, and when she is absent 
 he has to fill in the gap. And this is significant of 
 his whole conception. Gervinus tries to express the 
 contrast between the Antony of Plutarch and the 
 Antony of Shakespeare by means of a comparison. 
 "We are inclined," he writes, "to designate the 
 ennobling transformation which the poet undertook 
 by one word : he refined the crude features of Mark 
 Antony into the character of an Alcibiades." In a 
 way that is not ill said, so far as it goes ; but it 
 omits perhaps the most essential point. The gre at 
 things about Shakespeare's Antony is his capacity 
 for^grand_passion. We cannot talk of Alcibiades 
 as a typical lover in the literature of the world, but 
 Antony has a good right to his place in the " Seintes 
 Legende of Cupyde." When three quarters of a 
 century after Shakespeare Dryden ventured to 
 rehandle the theme in the noble play that almost 
 justifies the audacity of his attempt, he called his 
 version, All for Love or the World well lost. We 
 have something of the same feeling in reading 
 Shakespeare, and we do not have it in reading 
 Plutarch. Plutarch has no eyes for the glory of 
 Antony's madness. He gives the facts or traditions 
 that Shakespeare reproduced, but he regards the 
 whole affair as a pitiable dotage, or, at best, as a 
 calamitous visitation — regards it in short much as 
 the Anti-Shakesperians do now. After describing 
 the dangerous tendencies in Antony's mixed nature, 
 he introduces his account of the meeting at the 
 
A HISTORY, TRAGEDY, LOVE POEM 341 
 
 Cydnus, with the deliberate statement which the 
 rest of his story merely works out in detail : 
 
 Antonius being thus inclined, the last and extreamest 
 mischiefe of all other (to wit, the love of Cleopatra) lighted 
 on him, who did waken and stirre up many vices yet hidden 
 in him, and were never seene to any ; and if any sparke of 
 . goodnesse or hope of rising were left him, Cleopatra quenched 
 it straight and made it worse than before. 
 
 Similarly his final verdict in the Comparison of 
 Demetrius and Marcus Antonius is unrelenting : 
 
 Cleopatra oftentimes unarmed Antonius, and intised him to 
 her, making him lose matters of importaunce, and verie 
 rieedeful jorneys, to come and be dandled with her about the 
 rivers of Canobus and Taphosiris. In the ende as Paris 
 fiedde from battell and went to hide him selfe in Helens 
 armes; even so did he in Cleopatraes armes, or to speak 
 more properlie, Paris hidde him selfe in Helens closet, but 
 Antonius to followe Cleopatra, fiedde and lost the victorie. 
 . . . He slue him selfe (to confesse a troth) cowardly and 
 miserably. 
 
 Shakespeare by no means neglects this aspect of the 
 case, as Dryden tends to do, and he could never 
 have taken Dryden's title for his play. Neverthe- 
 less, while agreeing with Plutarch, he agrees with 
 Dryden too. To him Antony's devotion to Cleo- 
 patra is the grand fact in his career, which bears 
 witness to his greatness as well as to his littleness, 
 and is at once his perdition and his apotheosis. And 
 so in the third place this is a love tragedy, and has 
 its relations with Romeo and Juliet and Troilus and 
 Cressida, the only other attempts that Shakespeare 
 made in this kind : as is indicated even in their 
 designations. For these are the only plays that are 
 named after two persons, and the reason is that in a 
 true love story both the lovers have equal rights. 
 The symbol for it is an ellipse with two foci not a 
 circle with a single centre.' 
 
 ' Even in Othello the conspicuous place is reserved for the Moor, 
 and in him it is jealousy as much as love that is depicted. 
 
342 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 It has sometimes been pointed out that what is 
 generally considered the chief tragic theme and 
 what was an almost indispensa^-le ingredient in the 
 classic drama of France, is very seldom the Leit- 
 motif of a Greek or a Shakespearian masterpiece. 
 In this triad however Shakespeare has made use of 
 it, and it is interesting to note the differences of 
 treatment in the various members of the group) In 
 Romeo and Juliet he idealises youthful love with its 
 raptures, its wonders, its overthrow in collision with 
 the harsh facts of life. Troilus and Cressida shows 
 the inward dissolution of such love when it is 
 unworthily bestowed, and suffers from want of 
 reverence and loftiness. In Antony and Cleopatra 
 love is not a revelation as in the first, nor an illusion 
 as in the second, but an infatuation. There is 
 nothing youthful about it, whether as adoration or 
 inexperience. It is the love that seizes the elderly 
 man of the world, the trained mistress of arts, and 
 does this, as it would seem, to cajole and destroy 
 them both. It is in one aspect the love that Bacon 
 describes in his essay with that title. 
 
 He that preferred Helena, quitted the gifts of Juno and 
 Pallas. For whosoever esteemeth too much of Amorous 
 Affection quitteth both Riches and Wisedom. This Passion 
 hath his Flouds in the very times of Weaknesse, which are 
 great Prosperitie and great Adyersitie, though this latter hath 
 beene lesse observed. Both which times kindle Love, and 
 make it more fervent, and therefore shew it to be the Childe 
 of Folly. They doe best, who, if they cannot but admit 
 Love, yet make it keepe Quarter, And sever it wholly from 
 their serious Affaires and Actions of life ; For if it checke 
 once with Businesse, it troubleth Men's Fortunes, and maketh 
 Men that they can no wayes be true to their owne Ends. . . . 
 In Life it doth much mischiefe. Sometimes like a Syren, 
 Sometimes like a Fury. You may observe that amongst all 
 the great and worthy Persons (whereof the themory remaineth, 
 either Ancient or Recent), there is not One that hath beene 
 transported to the mad degree of Love ; which shewes that 
 great Spirits and great Businesse doe keepe out this weake 
 Passion. You must except, never the lesse, Marcus Antonius 
 the halfe partner of the Empire of Rome. 
 
A HISTORY. TRAGEDY, LOVE POEM 343 
 
 Part Siren, part Fury, that in truth is precisely how 
 Plutarch would personify the love of Antony : and 
 
 Tj^etjtisjust^ this Invp that m alcps \ }im mptnnraKIp 
 
 Seductive and destructive in its obvious manifesta- 
 tions, nevertheless for the great reason that it was 
 30 engrossing and sincere, it reveals and unfolds a 
 lobility and depth in his character, of which we 
 should otherwise never have believed him capable. 
 j These three aspects of this strange play, as a jl 
 chronicle history, as a personal tragedy and as a 
 love poem, merge and pass into each other, but in . 
 a certain way they successively become prominent 
 in the following discussion. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY 
 
 The political setting oi Julius Caesar had been the 
 struggle between the Old Order arid the New. The 
 Old goes out with a final and temporary flare of 
 success ; the N ew asserts itself as the necessary 
 solution for the problem of the time, but is deprived 
 of its guiding genius who might best have elicited 
 its possibilities for good and neutralised its possi- 
 bilities for evil. In Antony and Cleopatra we see 
 how its mastery is established and confirmed despite 
 the faults and limitations of the smaller men who 
 now represent it. But in the process very much 
 has been lost. The old principle of freedom, which, 
 even when moribund, served to lend both the masses 
 and the classes activity and self- consciousness, has 
 quite disappeared. The populace has been dismissed 
 from the scene, and, ^whenever casually mentioned, 
 it is only with contempt. Octavius describes it : 
 
 This common body, 
 Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream, 
 Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide, 
 To rot itself with motion. (i. iv. 44.) 
 
 Antony has passed so far from the sphere of his 
 oratorical triumph, that he thinks of his late sup- 
 porters only as "the shouting plebeians," who 
 cheapen their sight-seeing " for poor'st diminutives, 
 for doits " (iv. xiii, T)^)- His foreign Queen has 
 
THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY 345 
 
 been taught his scorn of the imperial people, and 
 pictures them as "mechanic slaves, with greasy 
 aprons, rules, and hammers," and with "thei? thick 
 breaths, rank of gross diet " (v. ii. 208). Beyond 
 these insults there is no reference to the plebs, 
 except that, as we learn from , Octavius, he and 
 Antony have both notified it of their respfcc±ive~ 
 grievances against each other; but this is a mere 
 formality that has not the slightest effect on the 
 progress of events, and no citizen or group of 
 citizens has part in the play. 
 
 Even the idea of the State is in abeyance. The 
 sense of the majesty of Rome, which inspired both 
 the conspirators and their opponents, seems extinct. 
 No enterprise, whether right or wrong, is under- 
 taken in the name of patriotism. On the very 
 ' outposts of the Empire, where, in conflict with the 
 national foe, the love of country is apt to burn more 
 clearly than amidst the security and altercation of 
 the capital, we see a general, in the moment of 
 victory, swayed in part by affection for his patron, 
 in part by care for his own interest, but not in the 
 slightest degree by civic or even chivalrous con- 
 siderations. When Ventidius is urged by Silius 
 to pursue his advantage against the Parthians, he 
 replies that he has done enough : 
 
 Who does i' the wars more than his captain can 
 
 Becomes his captain's captain : and ambition. 
 
 The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss. 
 
 Than gain which darkens him. 
 
 I could do more to do Antonius good. 
 
 But 't would offend him ; and in his offence 
 
 Should my performance perish. (in. i. 21.) 
 
 And not only is Silius convinced ; he gives his full 
 approval to Ventidius' policy : 
 
 Thou hast, Ventidius, that 
 Without the which a soldier, and his sword, 
 . Grants scarce distinction. (in. i. 27.) 
 
346 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 Are things better with Octavius' undefrst 
 They serve him well and astutely, but there is no 
 hint that their service is prompted by any large 
 public aim, and its very efficacy is due in great 
 measure to i^ unscrupulousness. Agrippa and 
 Mecaenas are ready for politic reasons to suggest 
 'of support the marriage of the chaste and gentle 
 Octavia with a voluptuary like Mark Antony, whose 
 record they know perfectly well, and pay decorous 
 attentions toLepidus while mocking him behind his 
 back : Thyreus and ProculeiuS mak'e love to the 
 employment, when Octavius commissions them to 
 cajole and deceive Cleopatra ; Dolabella produces 
 the pleasantest impression, just because, owing to a 
 little natural manly feeling, he palters with his pre- 
 scribed obligations to his master. But in none of 
 them all is there a trace of any liberal or generous 
 conception of duty ; they are human instruments, 
 more or less efficient, more or less trustworthy, 
 who make their career by serving the purposes of 
 Octavius' personal ambition. 
 
 Or turn to the court of Alexandria with its 
 effeminacy, wine-bibbing, and gluttony. Sextus 
 Pompeius talks of its "field of feasts," its "epicu- 
 rean cooks," its "cloyless sauce" (ii. i. 22, et seq). 
 Antony palliates his neglect of the message from 
 Rome with the excuse that, having newly feasted 
 three kings, he did "want of what he was i' the 
 morning" (11. ii. 76). But even in the morning, 
 as Cleopatra recalls, he can be drunk to bed ere 
 the ninth hour, and then let himself be clad in 
 female garb (11. v. 21). 
 
 It is not indeed to Egypt that this intemperance 
 is confined. The contagion has spread to the West, 
 as we see from the picture of the orgy on board the 
 galley at Misenum ; a picture we may take in a 
 special way to convey Shakespeare's idea of the 
 conditions, since he had no authority for it, but 
 
THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY 347 
 
 freely worked it up from Plutarch's innocent state- 
 ment that Pompey gave the first of the series of 
 banquets on board his admiral galley, "and there 
 he welcomed them and made them great cheere." 
 But in the play all. the boon companions, and not 
 merely the home-comers from the East, cup each 
 other till the world goes round ; save only the sober 
 Octavius, and even he admits that his tongue " splits 
 what it speaks." " This is not yet an Alexandrian 
 feast," says Pompey. " It ripens towards it," answers 
 Antony (11. vii. 102). It ripens towards it indeed ; 
 but more in the way of crude excess than of curious 
 corruption. In that the palace of the Ptolemies 
 with its eunuchs and fortune-tellers, its male and 
 female time-servers and hangers-on, is still inimitable 
 and unchallenged. It is interesting to note how 
 Shakespeare fills in the previous history of Iras and 
 Charmian, whom Plutarch barely mentions till he 
 tells of their heroic death. In the drama they are 
 introduced at first as the products of a life from 
 which all modesty is banished by reckless luxury 
 and smart frivolity. Their conversation in the 
 second scene serves to show the unabashed proter- 
 vitas that has infected souls capable of high loyalty 
 and devotion.^ And their intimate is the absolutely 
 
 ^ If the ideas were in Shakespeare's mind that Professor Zielinski 
 of St. Petersburg attributes to him {Marginalien Philologus, 1905), 
 the gracelessness of Charmian passes all bounds. "(Die) muntre Zofe 
 wiinscht sich vom Wahrsager allerhand schone Sachen : ' lass mich 
 an einem Nachmittag drei Konige heiraten, und sie alle als Wittwe 
 iiberleben; lass mich mit fiinfzig Jahren ein Kind haben, dem Herodes 
 von Judaea huldigen soil : lass mich Octavius Caesar heiraten, etc' 
 Das ' Piippchen ' dachte sich Shakespeare jiinger als ihre Herrin : 
 fiinfzig wiirde sie also — um Christi Geburt. 1st es nun klar, was das 
 fur ein Kind ist, dem Herodes von Judaea huldigen soil.' 'Birdi' eBpijrc, 
 (liro77etto7-^ /ioi, Sttws Kq/fd ^SSai irfoaKwiiaui airif, sagt er selber, Matth. 
 ii. 1 3. Und wem sagt er es? Den Heiligen drei Konigen. Sollten 
 es nicht dieselben sein, die auch in Charmian's Wunschzettel stehen ? 
 Der Einfall ist einqr Mysterie wiirdig : Gattin der heiligen drei Konige, 
 Mutter Gottes, and romische Kaiserin dazu!" Worthy of a mystery, 
 perhaps ! but more worthy of a scurrilous lampoon. It might perhaps 
 be pointed out, that, if fifty years old at the beginning of the Christian 
 
348 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 contemptible Lord Alexas, with his lubricity, 
 officiousness and flatteries, who, when evil days 
 come, will persuade Herod of Jewry to forsake the 
 cause of his patrons and will earn his due reward 
 (iv. vi. 12). For there is no moral cement to hold 
 together this ruinous world. After Actium the 
 deserters are so numerous that Octavius can say : 
 
 Within our files there are, 
 Of those that served Mark Antony but late, 
 Enough to fetch him in. (iv. i. 12.) 
 
 There is not even decent delay in their apostasy. 
 The battle is hardly over when six tributary kings 
 show " the way of yielding " to Canidius, who at 
 once renders his legions and his horse to Caesar 
 (hi. X. ^^). Shakespeare heightens Plutarch's 
 statement in regard to this, for in point of fact 
 Canidius waited seven days on the chance that 
 Antony might rejoin them, and then, according to 
 Plutarch, merely fled without changing sides : but 
 the object is to set forth the universal demoralisation 
 and instability, and petty qualifications like that im- 
 plied in the week's delay or abandonment of the 
 post instead of desertion to the enemy are dismissed 
 as of no account. In another addition, for which he 
 has likewise no warrant, Shakespeare clothes the 
 prevalent temper in words. When Pompey rejects 
 the unscrupulous device to obtain the empire, Menas 
 
 is made to exclaim : t- .l- 
 
 For this, 
 
 I'll never follow thy pall'd fortunes more. (n. vii. 87.) 
 
 Menas is a pirate, but he speaks the thought of 
 the time ; for it is only to fortune that the whole 
 
 era, Charmian could only be ten at the opening of the play : but this 
 is a small point, and I think it very likely that Shakespeare intended 
 to rouse some such associations in the mind of the reader as Professor 
 Zielinski suggests. Mr. Furness is rather scandalised at the "frivolous 
 irreverence," but it fits the part, and where is the harm ? One remem- 
 bers Byron's defence of the audacities in Cain and objection to making 
 " Lucifer talk like the Bishop of London, which would not be in the 
 character of the former" 
 
THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY 349 
 
 generation is faithful. Everywhere the cult of 
 material good prevails, whether in the way of 
 acquisition or enjoyment; and that can give no 
 sanction to payment of service apart from the 
 results. 
 
 The corroding influence of the Zeitgeist even on 
 natures naturally honest and sound is vividly illus- 
 trated in the story of Enobarbus : and the study of 
 his character is peculiarly interesting and instructive, 
 because he is the only one of the more prominent 
 personages who is practically a new creation in the 
 drama, the only one in whose delineation Shake- 
 speare has gone quite beyond the limits supplied by 
 Plutarch, even while making use of them. Lepidus 
 and Pompey, with whom he proceeds in a somewhat 
 similar fashion, are mere subordinates. Octavius 
 and even Cleopatra are only interpreted with new 
 vividness and insight. Antony himself is exhibited 
 only with the threads of his nature transposed, as, 
 for example, when a fabric is held up with its right 
 side instead of its seamy side outwards. But for 
 Enobarbus, who often occupies the front of the 
 stage, the dramatist found only a few detached 
 sentences that suggested a few isolated traits, and 
 while preserving these intact, he introduces them 
 merely as component elements in an entirely originaf 
 and complex personality. It is therefore fair to 
 suppose that the character of Enobarbus will be 
 of peculiar importance in the economy of the piece. 
 Plutarch refers to him^Eric&>j The first mention 
 is not very noticeable. AWlyTduring his campaign 
 in Parthia, had on one occasion to announce to his 
 army a rather disgraceful composition with the 
 enemy, according to which he received permission 
 to retreat in peace. 
 
 But though he had an excellent tongue at will, and very 
 gallant to enterteine his souldiers and men of warre, and that 
 he could passingly well do it, as well, or better then any 
 
350 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 Captaine in his time, yet being ashamed for respects, he 
 would not speake unto them at his removing, but willed 
 Domitius ^nobarbus to do it. 
 
 Thus we see Enobarbus designated for a somewhat 
 invidious and trying task, and this implies Antony's 
 confidence in him, and his own efificiency. 
 
 Then we are told that when the rupture with 
 Caesar came, 
 
 Antonius, through the perswasions of Domitius, com- 
 maunded Cleopatra to returne againe into ^gypt, and there 
 to understand ^ the successe of this warre, 
 
 a command, which, however, she managed to over- 
 rule. Here again in Enobarbus' counsel we see 
 the hard-headed and honest officer, who wishes 
 things to be done in the right way, and risks ill 
 will to have them so done. It is on this passage 
 that Shakespeare bases the outburst of Cleopatra 
 and the downright and sensible remonstrance of 
 Enobarbus. 
 
 Cle. I will be even with thee, doubt it not. 
 Eno. But why, why, why ? 
 
 Cle. Thou hast forespoke my being in these wars, 
 And say'st it is not fit. 
 
 Eno. Well, is it, is it? (ni. vii. i.) 
 
 J More remotely too this gave i^akespeare the hint 
 / for Enobarbus' other censures on Antony's conduct 
 ' of the campaign. 
 
 Thirdly, in the account of the various misfortunes 
 that befell Antony before Actium, and the varying 
 moods in which he confronted them, Shakespeare 
 read : 
 
 Furthermore, he dealt very friendely and courteously with 
 Domitius, and against Cleopatraes mynde. For, he being 
 sicke of an agewe when he went and tooke a little boate to 
 goe to Caesars campe, Antonius was very sory for it, but yet 
 he sent after him all his caryage, trayne and men : and the 
 same Domitius, as though he gave him to understand that he 
 repented his open treason, he -died immediately after. 
 
 * Observe or await. 
 
-- THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY 351 
 
 This, of course, supplied Shakespeare with the 
 episodes of Enobarbus' desertion and death, though! 
 he altered the date of the first, delaying it till the 
 last flicker of Antony's fortune ; and the manner 
 of the second, making it the consequence, which 
 the penitent deliberately desires, of a broken' 
 heart. 
 
 But this is all that Plutarch has to say about the 
 soldier. He is capable ; he is honest and bold in 
 recommending the right course ; when Antony wil- 
 fully follows the wrong one, he forsakes him ; but, 
 touched perhaps by his magnanimity, dies, it may 
 be, in remorse. 
 
 Now see how Shakespeare fills in and adds to this 
 general outline. Practical intelligence, outspoken 
 honesty, real capacity for feeling, are still the funda- 
 mental traits, and we have evidence of them all 
 from the outset. But, in the first place, they have 
 received a peculiar turn from the habits of the camp. 
 Antony, rebuking and excusing his bluntness, says : 
 
 Thou art a soldier only, speak no more. (11. ii. 109.) 
 
 Indeed he is a soldier, if not only, at any rate chiefly 
 and essentially ; and a soldier of the adventurer type, 
 carrying with him an, initial suggestion of the more 
 modern gentlemen of fortune like Le Balafre or 
 Dugald Dalgetty, who would fight for any cause, 
 and offiered their services for the highest reward to 
 the leader most likely to secure it for them. He 
 has also their ideas of a soldier's pleasures, and has 
 no fancy for playing the ascetic. In Alexandria he 
 has had a good time, in his own sphere and in his 
 own way indulging in the feasts and carouses and 
 gallantries of his master. He tells Mecaenas, 
 thoroughly associating himself with the exploits of 
 Antony : 
 
 We did sleep day out "of countenance, and made the 
 night light with drinking. (ii. ii. i8i.) 
 
352 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA ^^ 
 
 He speaks with authority of the immortcii breakfast 
 at which the eight wild boars^wete served, but 
 makes little of it as by'iio means out of the way. 
 Similarly he identifies himself with Antony in their 
 love affairs when Antony announces his intention of 
 setting out at once : 
 
 Why, then, we kill all our women : we see how mortal an 
 unkindness is to them : if they suffer our departure, death's 
 the word. (i- ii. 137.) 
 
 And after the banquet on the galley, when the 
 exalted personages, " these great fellows," as Menas 
 calls them, have retired more than a little disguised 
 in liquor, he, fresh from the Egyptian Bacchanals, 
 stays behind to finish up the night in Menas' cabin. 
 
 Yet he has a certain contempt for the very vices 
 in which he himself shares, at least if their practi- 
 tioners are overcome by them and cannot retain 
 their self-command even in their indulgence. When 
 Lepidus succumbs, this more seasoned vessel jeers 
 at him : 
 
 There's a strong fellow, Menas ! [pointing to the attend- 
 Men. Why? ant who carries off Lepidus I\ 
 
 Eno. A' bears the third part of the world, man : see'st not ? 
 / ("• vii. 95-) 
 
 J Nor does he suffer love to interfere with business : 
 
 Under a compelling occasion, let women die : it were pity 
 to cast them away for nothing : though, between them and a 
 great cause, they should be esteemed nothing. (i. ii. 141.) 
 
 His practical shrewdness enables him, though of a 
 very different nature from Cassius, to look, like 
 Cassius, quite through the deeds of men. He 
 / always lays his finger on the inmost nerve of a 
 situation or complication. Thus when Mecaenas 
 urges the need of amity on the Triumvirs, Eno- 
 barbus' disconcerting frankness goes straight to 
 the point that the smooth propriety of the other 
 evades : 
 
THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY 353 
 
 If you borrow one another's love for the instant, you may 
 when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again 
 
 dse to do '™^ *° "^'^"^'^ '" "^^^^ ^°" ^^^^ "°^^'"g 
 
 (11. ii. 103.) 
 
 Antony silences him, saying he wrongs this presence • 
 
 but Octavms sees he has hit the nail on the head 
 
 though in a somewhat indecorous way : 
 
 I do not much dislike the matter, but 
 
 The manner of his speech. (n. ij. ji, \ 
 
 Just in the same way he takes the measure of the 
 arts and wiles and affectations of Cleopatra and her'' 
 ladies, and admits no cant into the consolations 
 which he offers Antony on Fulvia's dekth : 
 
 Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice . . . Your 
 old smock brmgs forth a new petticoat; and indeed the 
 tears live m an onion that should water this sorrow. 
 
 (I. ii. 167.) 
 Yet he is by no means indifferent to real charm, to 
 the spell of refinement, grace and beauty. Like 
 many who profess cynicism, and even in a way are 
 really cynical, he is all the more susceptible to what 
 m any kind will stand his exacting tests, especially 
 if It contrast with his own rough jostling life of the 
 barracks and of the field. It is in his mouth that 
 Shakespeare places that incomparable description of u 
 Cleopatra on the Cydnus, and there could be no 
 more fitting celebrant of her witchery. Of course 
 the poetry of the passage is supposed in part to be 
 due to the theme, and is a tribute to Cleopatra's 
 fascinations ; but Enobarbus has the soul to feel 
 them and the imagination to portray them. Indeed 
 she has no such enraptured eulogist as he. He may 
 object to her presence in the camp and to her inter- 
 ference in the counsels of war; but that is only 
 because, like Bacon, he believes that "they do best, 
 who if they cannot but admit Idve, make it keep 
 quarter, and sever it wholly from their serious 
 affairs and actions of life"; it is not because he 
 
354 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 underrates her enchantment or would advise Antony 
 to forego it. On the contrary, he seems to reproach 
 his general when, in a passing movertient of remorse, 
 Antony regrets having ever seen her : 
 
 O, sir, you then had left unseen a wonderful piece of 
 work ; which not to have been blest withal would have dis- 
 credited your travel. (i. ii. 159.) 
 
 And he not only sees that Antony, despite the most 
 sacred of ties, the most urgent of interests, will 
 inevitably return to her : the enthusiasm of his 
 words shows that their predestinate union has his 
 full sympathy and approval. 
 
 Mec. Now Antony must leave her utterly. 
 
 Eno. Never ; he will not ; 
 j Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 
 Her infinite variety : other women cloy 
 The appetites they feed : but she makes hungry 
 Where most she satisfies. (11. ii. 238.) 
 
 And this responsiveness to what is gracious, has 
 its complement in his responsiveness to what is 
 magnificent. He has an ardent admiration for his 
 " Emperor." He is exceeding jealous for his honour, 
 and has no idea of the mighty Antony stooping his 
 crest to any power on earth. When Lepidus begs 
 him to entreat his captain " to soft and gentle 
 speech " towards Octavius, he retorts with hot pride 
 and zeal, like a clansman's for his chief: 
 
 I shall entreat him 
 To answer like himself : if Caesar move him, 
 Let Antony look over Caesar's head 
 And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter, 
 Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard, 
 I would not shave't to-day. (11. ii. 3.) 
 
 j He glories even in Antony's more doubtful qualities, 
 his lavishness, his luxury, his conviviality, his success 
 in love, for in all these his master shows a sort of 
 royal exuberance ; and they serve in the eyes of this 
 practical but splendour-loving veteran to set off his 
 
THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY 355 
 
 more technical excellences, the "absolute soldier- 
 ship," the " renowned knowledge " on which he also 
 dwells (lu. vii. 43 and 46). But with all his 
 enthusiasm for Antony, he is from the first critical y 
 of what he considers his weaknesses and mistakes, 
 just as with all his enthusiasm for Cleopatra he has 
 a keen eye for her affectations and interferences. 
 Knowing Antony's real bent, he sees the inex- 
 pedience of the Roman marriage, and foretells the 
 result : 
 
 Men. Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together. 
 
 Eno. If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would not 
 prophesy so. 
 
 Men. I think the policy of that purpose made more in the 
 marriage than the love of the parties. 
 
 Eno. I think so too. But you shall find, the band that 
 seems to tie their friendship together will be the very strangler 
 of their amity. (ii. vi. 122.) 
 
 He is as contemptuous of Antony's easy emotion- 
 alism as of Octavius' politic family affection. At 
 the parting of brother and sister, Enobarbus and 
 Agrippa exchange the asides : 
 
 Eno. Will Caesar weep ? 
 
 Agr. He has a cloud in's face. 
 
 Eno. He were the worse for that, were he a horse ; 
 So is he, being a man. 
 
 Agr. Why, Enobarbus, 
 
 When Antony found Julius Caesar dead, 
 He cried almost to roaring : and he wept 
 When at Philippi he found Brutus slain. 
 - Eno. That year, indeed, he was troubled with a rheum ; 
 What willingly he did confound he wail'd, 
 Believe't, till I wept too. (iji. ii. 51.) 
 
 It is therefore not hard to understand how, when 
 Antony wilfully sacrifices his advantages and rushes 
 on his ruin, his henchman's feelings should be out- 
 raged and his fidelity should receive a shock. After 
 the flight at Actium, Cleopatra asks him : "Is Antony 
 or we in fault for this?" And Enobarbus, though 
 he had opposed the presence and plans of the 
 
356 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 Queen, is inexorable in laying the blame on the 
 right shoulders : 
 
 Antony only, that would make his will 
 
 Lord of his reason. (in. xiii. 3.) 
 
 He is raised above the common run of the legionaries 
 by his devotion to his master ; but his devotion is 
 half instinctive, half critical ; and, as a rational man, 
 he can suppress in his nature the faithful dog. For 
 the tragedy of Enobarbus' position lies in this : that 
 in that evil time his reason can furnish him with no 
 motive for his loyalty except self-interest and confi- 
 dence in his leader's Rapacity ; or, failing these, the 
 unsubstantial ^recompense of fame. He, is not 
 Antony's manMi©ift-priliciple, in order to^'uphold a 
 
 /great cause, — no one in the play has ch6sen his side 
 on such a ground ; and fidelity^ at all costs to a 
 person is a forgotten phrase among the cosmo- 
 politan materialists who are competing for the spoils 
 of the Roman world. So what is he to do ? His 
 
 . jnstinrts pull him one way^Jiis reas^Tn^ another, and in 
 such an one instincts unjustified_ by reason lose liiil£__ 
 ' thefr strengiit^j- At-first' he "fights valiantly on behalf 
 of his inarticulate natural feeling. When Canidius 
 deserts, he still refuses in the face of evidence to 
 accept the example : 
 
 I'll yet follow 
 The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason 
 Sits in the wind against me. (iii. x. 35.) 
 
 But Antony's behaviour in defeat, his alternations 
 between the supine and the outrageous, shake him 
 still more ; and only the allurement of future applause, 
 not a very cogent one to such a man in such an age, 
 wards off for a while the negative decision : 
 
 Mine honesty and I begin to square. 
 The loyalty well held to fools does make 
 Our faith mere folly : yet he that can endure 
 ^--'' To follow with allegiance a fall'n lord 
 
 Does conquer him that did his master conquer, 
 
 And earns a place i' the story. (ni. xiii. 41.) 
 
THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY 357 
 
 The paltering of Cleopatra however is a further object 
 lesson : 
 
 _, Sir, sir, thou art so leaky, 
 
 1 hat we must leave thee to thy sinking, for 
 
 Thy dearest quit thee. (,„. ^iii. 63.) 
 
 Then the observation of Antony's frenzy of wrath 
 and frenzy of courage finally convinces him that the 
 man is doomed, and he forms his resolution : 
 
 Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious 
 
 Is to be frighted out of fear : and in that mood 
 
 The dove will peck the estridge; and I see still 
 
 A diminution in our captain's brain 
 
 Restores his heart : when valour preys on reason, 
 
 It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek 
 
 Some way to leave him. (ni. xiii. 195.) 
 
 There is something inevitable in his recreancy, for 
 the principle that Menas puts in words is the presup- 
 position on which everybody acts ; and Antony 
 himself can understand exactly what has taken 
 place : 
 
 O, my fortunes have 
 Corrupted honest men ! (iv. v. 16.) 
 
 Enobarbus' heart is right, but in the long run it has 
 no chance against the convincing arguments of the 
 situation. And yet his heart has shown him the 
 worthy way, and, in his despair and remorse, it 
 recovers hold of the truth that his head had made 
 him doubt. Observe however that even his revulsion 
 of feeling is brought about by the appeal to his 
 woridly wisdom ; it is not by their unassisted power 
 that the discredited whispers of conscience make 
 themselves heard and regain their authority. Eno- , 
 barbus' penitence, though sudden, is all rationally 
 explained, and is quite different from the miraculous 
 conversions of some wrong-doers in fiction, who in 
 an instant are awakened to grace for no conceivable 
 cause and by no intelligible means. He is made 
 to realise that he has taken wrong measures in 
 
358 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 his own interest, by Octavius' treatment of the other 
 deserters. 
 
 Alexas did revolt ; and went to Jewry on 
 
 Affairs of Antony ; there did persuade 
 
 Great H erod to inclipe himself to Caesar 
 
 And leave his master Antony : for this pains 
 
 Caesar hath hang'd him. Canidius and the rest 
 
 That fell away have entertainment, but 
 
 No honourable trust. I have done ill : 
 
 Of which I do accuse myself so sorely. 
 
 That I will joy no more. (iv. vi. ii.) 
 
 Then the transmission to him of his treasure with 
 increase, makes him feel that after all loyalty might 
 have been a more profitable investment : 
 
 O Antony, 
 Thou mine of bounty, how would'st thou helve paid 
 My better service, when my turpitude 
 Thou dost so crown with gold ! (iv. vi. 31.) 
 
 But he does not stop here. It is only in this way 
 that his judgment, trained by the time to test all 
 things by material advantage, can be convinced. 
 But when it is convinced, his deeper and nobler 
 nature finds free vent in self-recrimination and self- 
 reproach. He goes on : 
 
 This blows my heart : 
 If swift thought break it tiot, a sVfifter mean 
 Shall outstrike thought : but thought will do't, I feel. 
 I fight against thee ! No : I will go seek 
 Some ditch wherein to die ; the foul'st best fits 
 My latter part of life. (iv. vi. 35.) 
 
 And this too is most natural. Antony's generosity 
 restores to him his old impression of Antony's mag- 
 nificence which he had lost in these last sorry days. 
 With that returns his old enthusiasm, and with that 
 awakes the sense of his own transgression against 
 such greatness. He is ready now in expiation to 
 sacrifice the one thing that in the end made him still 
 shrink from treason. He had tried to steady himself, 
 as we have Seen, with the thought that the glory of 
 
THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY 359 
 
 loyalty would be his, if he remained faithful to the 
 last. Now he demands the brand of treachery for 
 his name, though he fain would have Antony's 
 pardon for himself: 
 
 O Antony, 
 Nobler than my revolt is infamous, 
 Forgive me in thine own particular : 
 But let the world rank me in register 
 A master-leaver and a fugitive. (iv. ix. 18.) 
 
 Thus he dies heart-broken and in despair. Personal 
 attachment to an individual, the one ethical motive'* 
 that lingers in a world of self-seekers to give existence 
 some dignity and worth, is the inspiration of his soul. 
 But even this he cannot preserve unspoiled: on 
 accepted assumptions he is forced to deny and dese- 
 crate it. He succumbs less through his own fault 
 than through the fault of the age ; and this is his 
 grand failure. When he realises what it means, 
 there is no need of suicide : he is killed by " swift 
 thoughty" by the consciousness that his life with this 
 ■on his record is loathsome and alien, a " very rebel 
 to his yill," that only "hangs on him" (iv. ix. 14). 
 
 Among the struggling and contentious throng of 
 worldlings and egoists who to succeed must tread 
 their nobler instincts underfoot, and even so do not 
 always succeed, are there any honest and sterling 
 characters at all ? There are a few, in the back- 
 ground, barely sketched, half hidden from sight. But 
 we can perceive their presence, and even distinguish 
 their gait and bearing, though the- artist's purpose 
 forbade their portrayal in detail. 
 
 First of these is Scarus, the simple and va.liant 
 fightingman, who resents the infatuation of Antony 
 and the ruinous influence of Cleopatra as deeply as 
 Enbbarbus, but whose unsophisticated soldier- nature 
 keeps him .to his colours with a troth that the less 
 naif Enobarbus could admire but could not observe. 
 It is from his mouth that the most opprobrious 
 epithets are hurled on the absconding pair, the 
 
36o ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 " ribaudred. nag of Egypt, whom leprosy o'ertake," 
 and "the doting mallard," "the noble ruin of her 
 magic" who has kissed away kingdoms and provinces. 
 But as soon as he hears they have fled toward 
 Peloponnesus, he cries : 
 
 'Tis easy to't ; and there will I attend 
 
 What further comes. (iii. x. 32.) 
 
 He attends to good purpose, and is the hero of the 
 last skirmish ; when Antony's prowess rouses him to 
 applause, from which he is too honest to exclude 
 reproach : 
 
 O my brave emperor, this is fought indeed ! 
 
 Had we done so at first, we had droven them home 
 
 With clouts about their heads. (iv. vii. 4.) 
 
 Then halting, bleeding, with a wound that from a T 
 has been made an H, he still follows the chase. It 
 is a little touch ofirony, apt to be overlooked, that 
 he, who has cursed Cleopatra's magic and raged 
 because kingdoms were kissed away, should now as 
 grand reward have his merits commended to "this 
 great fairy," and as highest honour have leave to 
 raise her hand — the hand that cost Thyreus so dear 
 — to his own lips. Doubtless, despite his late out- 
 break, he appreciates these favours as much as the 
 golden armour that Cleopatra adds. Says Antony, 
 
 He has deserved it, were it carbuncled 
 
 Like holy Phoebus car. (iv. viii. 28.) 
 
 He has : for he is of other temper than his nameless 
 and featureless original in Plutarch, who is merely a 
 subaltern who had fought well in the sally. 
 
 Cleopatra to reward his manlines, gave him an armor 
 and head peece of cleene gold : howbeit the man at armes 
 when he had received this rich gift, stale away by night and' 
 went to Caesar. 
 
 Not so Scarus. He is still at his master's side on 
 the disastrous morrow and takes from him the last 
 orders that Antony as commander ever gave. 
 
THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY 361' 
 
 In this Roman legionary the spirit of military- 
 obligation still asserts its power; and the spirit of 
 domestic obligation is as strong in the Roman matron 
 Octavia. Shakespeare has been accused of travesty- 
 ing this noble and dutiful lady. He certainly does 
 not do that, and the strange misstatement has arisen 
 from treating seriously Cleopatra's distortion of the 
 messenger's report, or from taking that report, when 
 the messenger follows Cleopatra's lead, as Shake- 
 speare's deliberate verdict. If the messenger says 
 that she is low- voiced and not so tall as her rival, is 
 that equivalent to the "dull of tongue, and dwarfish" 
 into which it is translated ? And finding it so trans- 
 lated, is it wonderful that the browbeaten informant 
 should henceforth adopt the same style himself, and 
 exaggerate her deliberate motion to creeping, her 
 statuesque dignity to torpor, the roundness of her 
 face to deformity — which Cleopatra at once inter- 
 prets as foolishness — the lowness of her forehead 
 to as much as you please, or, in his phrase, "as she 
 would wish it." Agrippa, on the other hand spfeaks 
 of her as one, 
 
 whose beauty claims 
 No worse a husband than the best of men : 
 Whose virtue and whose general graces speak 
 That which none else can utter. (n. ij. 130.) 
 
 Mecaenas, too, pays his tribute to her " beauty, 
 wisdom, modesty " (11. ii. 246). And if the praises 
 of the courtiers are suspect, they are not more so 
 than the censures with which Cleopatra flatters her- 
 self or is flattered. But if we dismiss, or at least 
 discount, both sets of overstatements, and with them 
 Antony's own phrase, " a gem of women," uttered in 
 the heat of jealous contrast, there are other con- 
 clusive evidences of the opinion in which she is held. 
 Enobarbus speaks of her " holy, cold, and still con- 
 versation " (11. vi. 131). Antony thinks of her as 
 patient, even when he threatens Cleopatra with her 
 
362 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 vengeance by personal assault (iv. xii. 38). Cleopatra, 
 with her finer intuition, even when recalling Antony's 
 threat, conjectures more justly what that vengeance 
 would be : 
 
 Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes 
 And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour 
 Demuring upon me. (iv. xv. 27.) 
 
 And elsewhere she asserts that she will not 
 
 once be chastised with the sober eye 
 Of dull Octavia. (v. ii. 54.) 
 
 It is easy to construct her picture from these hints. 
 Calm, pure, devout, submissive ; quite without viva- 
 city or initiative, she presents the old-fashioned ideal 
 of womanhood, that finds a sphere subordinate 
 though august, by the domestic hearth. J{\.nd this 
 is in the main Plutarch's conception of her too. But 
 there are differences. The sacrifice of the lady to 
 the exigencies of statecraft is emphasised by the 
 historian : " She was maryed unto him as it were 
 of necessitie, bicause her brother Caesars affayres so 
 required it," and that even in her year of mourning, 
 so that a dispensation had to be obtained ; since it 
 was " against the law that a widow should be,'maried 
 within tenne monethes after her husbandes death." 
 Nevertheless her association with Antony is far morfe 
 intimate in Plutarch than in Shakespeare ; she is 
 the mother of his children, feels bound to him, knd 
 definitely takes his side. When relations first become 
 strained between the brothers-in-law, and not as in 
 the drama, just before the final breach, she plays the 
 peace maker, but successfully and on Antony's behalf. 
 She seeks out her brother ;•■ teljls him she is now the 
 happiest woman in the world ; if war should break 
 out between therfi, " it is uncertaine to which of them 
 the goddes have assigned the victorie or overthrowe. 
 But for me, on which side soever victorie fall, my 
 state can be but most 'miserable still." In Shake- 
 
THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY 363 
 
 speare this petition, eked out with reminiscences 
 of the appeal of Blanch in King John, and with 
 anticipations of the appeal of Volumnia in Corioianus, 
 is addressed to Antony, and the even balance of her 
 sympathies is accented and reiterated in a way for 
 which Plutarch gives no warrant. 
 
 In the Life again, even when Antony has rejoined 
 Cleopatra, has showered provinces on her and his 
 illegitimate children, and, after the Parthian cam- 
 paign, is living with her once more, Octavia insists 
 on seeking him out and brings him 
 
 great store of apparell for souldiers, a great number of 
 horse, summe of money, and gifts, to bestow on his friendes 
 and Captaines he had about him : and besides all those, she 
 had two thowsand souldiers chosen men, all well armed, like 
 unto the Praetors bands. 
 
 She has to return from Athens without seeing 
 Antony, but, despite Caesar's command, she still 
 lives in her husband's house, still tries to heal the 
 division, looks after his children and promotes the 
 business of all whom he sends to Rome. 
 
 Howbeit thereby, thinking no hurt, she did Antonius 
 great hurt, ^or her honest love and regard to her husband, 
 niade every man hate him, when they sawe he did so un- 
 kindly use so noble a Lady. 
 
 And finally, when Antony sent her word to leave 
 his house, she took with her all his children save 
 Fulvia's eldest son who was with his father, and 
 instead of showing resentment, only bewailed and 
 lamented "her cursed hap that had brought her to 
 this, that she was accompted one of the chiefest 
 causes of this civill warre." 
 
 Her even more magnanimous care for ail Antony's 
 offspring without distinction, when Antony is no 
 more, belongs of course to a latfir date ; but all 
 the previous instances of her devotion to his interest 
 fall well within the limits of the play, and yet Shake- 
 speare makes no use of them. 
 
364 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 It does not suk him to ^uggesjMthat Antony ever 
 deviated from his passion for Cleopatra or bestowed 
 his affection elsewhere: indeed, bii the eve of his 
 marriage," he reveals his heart and intentions clearly 
 enough. But Shakespeare also knows that without 
 affection to bring it out, there will be no answering 
 affection in a woman like Octavia. She will be true 
 to all her obligations, so long as they are obligations, 
 but no love will he roused to make her do more than 
 is in her bond. And of loVe there is in the play as 
 little trace on her part as on Antony's. It is brother 
 and sister, not husband and wife, that exchange 
 the most endearing terms : " Sweet Octavia," " My 
 dearest sister," and "my noble brother," "most dear 
 Caesar"; while to Antony she is "Octavia," "gentle 
 Octavia," or at most " Dear Lady," and to her he is 
 " Good my lord." At the parting in Rome Caesar 
 has a cloud in his face and her eyes drop tears like 
 April showers. At the parting in Athens there is 
 only the formal permission to leave, on the one 
 hand, and the formal acknowledgment on the other. 
 Evidently, if, as she says, she has her 
 
 heart parted betwixt two friends 
 That do afflict each other, (ni. vi. 77.) 
 
 or if Antony describes her equipoise of feeling as 
 
 the swan's down-feather. 
 That stands upon the swell at full of tide. 
 And neither way inclines, (iii. ii. 48.) 
 
 it is not because she regards them both with equal 
 tenderness. Her brother has her love ; her husband, 
 so long as he deserves it, has her duty. But when 
 he forfeits his claim, she has done with him, unlike 
 Plutarch's Octavia, who pursues him to the end, and 
 beyond the end, with a self-forgetfulness that her 
 mere covenant could never call forth. Of all this 
 there is nothing in the play. Her appeal to Antony 
 in defence of Caesar is far warmer than her appeal 
 
THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY 365 
 
 to Caesar on behalf of Antony, and when she 
 definitely hears that Antony has not only joined 
 Cleopatra against her brother but has installed 
 Cleopatra in her own place, she merely says, "Is 
 it so ?" and falls silent. No wonder. She is 
 following Antony's instructions to the letter : 
 
 Let your best love draw to that point, which seeks 
 Best to preserve it. (iii. iv. 21.) 
 
 And again ; 
 
 When it appears to you where this begins, 
 
 Turn your displeasure that way ; for our faults 
 
 Can never be so equal that your love 
 
 Can equally move with them. (iii. iv. 33.) 
 
 But this tacit assumption, fully borne out by her 
 previous words, that the claims of husband and 
 brother are equal in her eyes, and that the pre- 
 cedence is to be determined merely by a comparison 
 of faults, shows how little of wifely affection Octavia 
 felt, though doubtless she would be willing to fulfil 
 her responsibilities to the smallest jot and tittle. 
 
 The hurried, loveless and transitory union, into 
 which Antony has entered only to suit his con- 
 venience, for as Enobarbus says, " he married but 
 his occasion here," and into which Octavia has 
 entered only out of deference to her brother who 
 " uses his power unto her," has thus merely a 
 political and moral but no emotional significance. 
 This Roman marriage lies further apart from the 
 love story of Antony than the marriage in Brittany 
 does from the love story of Tristram. This diplo- 
 matic alliance interferes as little with Octavia's 
 sisterly devotion to Octavius as the political alliances 
 of Marguerite d'Angoul^me interfered with her 
 sisterly devotion to Francis I. And much is gained 
 by this for the play. In the first place the hero no 
 longer, as in the biography, offends us by fickleness 
 in his grand idolatry and infidelity to a second 
 
366 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 attachment, on the one hand, or by ingratitude to 
 a long-suffering and loving wife on the other. But 
 just for that reason Octavia does not really enter 
 into his life, and claims no full delineation. She is 
 hardly visible, and does not disturb our sympathies 
 with the lovers or force on us moral regards by 
 demuring on them and chastising them with her 
 sober eyes. Nevertheless visible at intervals she is, 
 and then she seems to tell of another life than that 
 of Alexandrian indulgence, a narrower life of obliga- 
 tions and pieties beside which the carnival of impulse 
 is both glorified and condemned. And she does 
 this not less effectually, but a great deal less obtru- 
 sively, that in her shadowy form as she flits from 
 the mourning-chamber to the altar at the bidding of 
 her brother, and from Athens to Rome to preserve 
 the peace, we see rather the self-devoted sister than 
 the devoted wife. For in the play she is sister first 
 and essentially, and wife only in the second place 
 because her sisterly feeling is so strong. 
 
 Still more slightly sketched than the domestic 
 loyalty of Octavia or even than the military loyalty 
 of Scarus, is the loyalty of Eros the servant ; but it 
 is the most affecting of all, for it is to the death. 
 Characteristically, he who Obtains the highest 
 spiritual honours that are awarded to any person 
 in the play, is one of a class to which in the prime 
 of ancient civilisation the possibilty of any moral 
 life would in theory have been denied. Morality 
 was for the free citizen of a free state : the slave was 
 not really capable of it. And indeed it is clear that 
 often for the slave, who might be only one of the 
 goods and chattels of his owner, the sole chance of 
 escape from a condition of spiritual as well as 
 physical servitude would lie in personal enthusiasm 
 for the master, in willing self-absorption in him. 
 But in a world like that of Antony and Cleopatra 
 such personal enthusiasm, as we have seen, is almost 
 
THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY 367 
 
 the highest thing that remains. So it is the quondam 
 slave, Eros the freedman, bred in the cult of it, who 
 bears away the palm. Antony commands him to 
 slay him : 
 
 When I did make thee free, sworest thou not then 
 To do this when I bade thee ? Do it at once ; 
 Or thy precedent services are all 
 But accidents' unpurposed. Draw, and come. 
 
 (iv. xiv. 81.) 
 
 But Eros by breaking his oath and slaying himself, 
 does his master a better service. He cheers him in 
 his dark hour by this proof of measureless attach- 
 ment : 
 
 Thus do I escape the sorrow 
 Of Antony's death. (iv. xiv. 94.) 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE POLITICAL LEADERS 
 
 So much for the freedman whom Antony hails as 
 his master, thrice nobler than himself. But what 
 about his betters, the " great fellows " as Menas 
 calls them, his rivals and associates in Empire ? 
 
 Let us run through the series of them ; and 
 despite his pride of place we cannot begin lower 
 than with the third Triumvir. 
 
 Lepidus, the " slight unmeritable man, meet to be 
 sent on errands," as he is described in Julius Caesar, 
 maintains the same character here, and is hardly to 
 be talked of "but as a property." In the first scene 
 where he appears, when he and Octavius are discuss- 
 ing Antony's absence, he is a mere cypher. Even 
 in this hour of need, Octavius unconsciously and as 
 a matter of course treats Antony's negligence as a 
 wrong not to them both but only to himself. The 
 messenger never addresses Lepidus, and assumes 
 that the question is between Caesar and Pompey 
 alone. At the close this titular partner " beseeches " 
 to be informed of what takes place, and Octavius 
 acknowledges that it is his " bond," but clearly it is 
 not his choice. 
 
 No doubt on the surface he pleases by his mode- 
 rate and conciliatory attitude. When Octavius is 
 indicting his absent colleague, Lepidus is frank in 
 his excuse : 
 
THE POLITICAL LEADERS 369 
 
 I must not think there are 
 Evils enow to darken all his goodness : 
 His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven, 
 More fiery by night's blackness. (i. iv. 10.) 
 
 Knowing the zeal and influence of Enobarbus, he 
 recommends his mediation as a becoming and 
 worthy deed, and tries to mitigate his vehemence : 
 
 Your speech is passion : 
 But, pray you, stir no embers up. (11. ii. 12.) 
 
 And when the Triumvirs meet, the counsels of 
 forbearance, which Shakespeare assigns to him and 
 which in Plutarch are not associated with his name, 
 are just in the right tone : 
 
 Noble friends, 
 That which combined us was most great, and let not 
 A leaner action rend us. What's amiss 
 May it be gently heard ; when we debate 
 Our trivial difference loud, we do commit 
 Murder in healing wounds : then, noble partners, 
 The rather, for I earnestly beseech. 
 Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms. 
 Nor curstness grow to the matter. (ir. ii. 17.) 
 
 But all this springs from no real kindliness or public 
 spirit. Pompey understands the position : 
 
 Lepidus flatters both, 
 Of both is flatter'd : but he neither loves, 
 Nor either cares for him. (11. i. 14.) 
 
 It is mere indolence and flaccidity of temper that 
 makes him ready to play the peace-maker, and his 
 efforts are proof of incompetence rather than of 
 nobility. He is so anxious to agree with everybody 
 and ingratiate himself with both parties, that he 
 excites the ridicule not only of the downright 
 Enobarbus, but of the reticent and diplomatic 
 Agrippa : 
 
 £no. O, how he loves Caesar ! 
 
 Agr. Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony ! 
 Eno. Caesar ? Why, he's the Jupiter of men. 
 Agr. What's Antony? The god of Jupiter. 
 
 2 A 
 
370 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 Em. Spake you of Caesar ? How ! the nonpareil ! 
 
 Agr. O Antony ! O thou Arabian bird ! 
 
 Eno. Would you praise Caesar, say " Caesar " : go no further. 
 
 Agr. Indeed, he plied them both with excellent praises. 
 
 (ill. ii. 7.) 
 
 He will be all things to all men that he himself may 
 be saved ; and his love of peace runs parallel with 
 his readiness for good cheer. He likes to enjoy 
 himself and soon drinks himself drunk. The very 
 servants see through his infirmity : 
 
 Sec. Sen). As they pinch one another by the disposition, 
 he cries out "no more"; reconciles them to his entreaty 
 and himself to the drink.^ (11. vii. 6.) 
 
 And they proceed to draw the moral of the whole 
 situation. Lepidus' ineptitude is due to the same 
 circumstance that brings Costard's criticism on Sir 
 Nathaniel when the curate breaks down in the 
 pageant. " A foolish mild man ; an honest man, 
 look you, and soon dashed. He is a marvellous 
 good neighbour, faith, . . . but, for Alexander, — 
 alas, you see how 'tis, — a little o'erparted." Lepidus 
 too is a marvellous good neighbour, but for aTriumvir, 
 — alas, you see how 'tis, — a little o'erparted. He is 
 attempting a part or role that is too big for him. 
 He is in a position and company where his nominal 
 influence goes for nothing and his want of perception 
 puts him to the blush. 
 
 ' I take this much discussed passage to refer to the friction that 
 inevitably arises in such a gathering. The guests are of such different 
 disposition or temperament, that especially after their late misunder- 
 standings they are bound to chafe each other. We have an example 
 of it. Pompey plays the cordial and tactful host to perfection, but 
 even he involuntarily harks back to his grievance : 
 
 O, Antony, 
 You have my father's house, — But, what ? we are friends. 
 
 I think the meaning of the second servant's remark is that when such 
 \Mi\c contretemps occnx, as they could not but do in so ill-assorted 'a 
 company, Lepidus in his role of peace-maker interferes to check them, 
 and drowns the difference in a carouse. But the result is that he 
 befuddles himself. 
 
THE POLITICAL LEADERS 371 
 
 Sec. Sen). Why, this it is to have a name in great men's 
 fellowship : I, had as lief have a reed that will do me no 
 service as a partizan I could not heave. 
 
 J^irst Sera. To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be 
 seen to move in't, are the holes where eyes should be, which 
 pitifully disaster the cheeks. (11. vii. 12.) 
 
 In his efforts at bonhomie, he becomes so bemused 
 that even Antony, generally so affable and courteous, 
 does not trouble to be decently civil, and flouts him 
 to his wine-sodden face, with impertinent school-boy 
 jests about the crocodile that is shaped like itself, 
 and is as broad as it has breadth, and weeps tears 
 that are wet. Caesar, ever on the guard, asks in 
 cautious admonition : " Will this description satisfy 
 him } " But Antony is scornfully aware that he may 
 dismiss punctilios : 
 
 With the health that Pompey gives him; else he is a very epicure. 
 
 (11. vii. 56.) 
 
 His deposition, which must come in the natural 
 course of things, is mentioned only casually and 
 contemptuously : 
 
 Caesar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey, 
 presently denied him rivality : would not let him partake in 
 the glory of the action : and not resting here, accuses him of 
 letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey : upon his own 
 appeal, seizes him : so the poor third is up, till death enlarge 
 his confine. (m. y. 7.) 
 
 Accused of letters written to Pompey ! So he had 
 been at his old work, buttering his bread on both 
 sides. His suppression is one of the grievances 
 Antony has against Caesar, who has appropriated 
 his colleague's revenue; and it is interesting to 
 note the defence that Caesar, who never chooses 
 his grounds at random, gives for his apparent 
 arbitrariness : 
 
 I have told him, Lepidus was grown too cruel ; 
 
 That he his high authority abused, 
 
 And did deserve his change. (iii. vi. 32.) 
 
372 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 So this friend of all the world may be accused of 
 inhumanity and misrule. The charge is plausible. 
 Shakespeare could not here forget that at the pro- 
 scription, Lepidus is represented as acquiescing in 
 the death of his own brother-in-law to secure the 
 death of Antony's nephew. Still his alleged cruelty 
 may only have been a specious pretext on Octavius' 
 part to screen his own designs, and even to transfer 
 his own offences to another man's shoulders. Pompey 
 says, in estimating the chances of his^ venture, 
 
 Caesar gets money where 
 He loses hearts. (ii. i. 13.) 
 
 Appian refers to these exactions, but in Plutarch 
 there is as yet no mention of Octavius making him- 
 self unpopular by exorbitant imposts, and only at a 
 later time is he said to have done so in preparing 
 for his war with Antony. The subsequent passage, 
 which Shakespeare does not use, or hardly uses, in 
 its proper place, may have suggested the present 
 statement : 
 
 The great and grievous exactions of money did sorely 
 oppresse the people. . . . Hereuppon there arose a wonder- 
 full exclamation and great uprore all Italy over : so that 
 among the greatest faults that ever Antonius committed, 
 they blamed him most for that he dela5'ed to give Caesar 
 battell. . . . When such a great summe of money was de- 
 maunded of them, they grudged at it, and grewe to mutinie 
 upon it. 
 
 Does Shakespeare, by antedating Caesar's oppressive 
 measures, mean to insinuate his own gloss on the 
 charge of cruelty against Lepidus that he found in 
 Plutarch ? At any rate in that case Octavius would 
 be merely following the course that Antony had 
 already laid down : 
 
 Though we lay these honours on this man, 
 To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads. 
 He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold. 
 To groan and sweat under the business, 
 Either led or driven, as we point the way : 
 
THE POLITICAL LEADERS 373 
 
 And having brought our treasure where we will, 
 
 Then take we down his load, and turn him off, 
 
 Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears. 
 
 And graze in commons. (y. C. iv. i. 19.) 
 
 Octavius certainly carries out Antony's programme 
 in the result, and it would add to the irony of the 
 situation if he had also done so in the process, and, 
 while exploiting Lepidus' resources, had incidentally 
 eased himself of a slanderous load. No wonder that 
 Antony is annoyed. But if he frets at his colleague's 
 undoing, we may be sure that apart from personal 
 chagrin, it is only because Octavius' influence has 
 been increased and his own share of the spoils with- 
 held. Of personal regret there is nothing in his 
 reported reception of the news. Lepidus the man, 
 Antony dismisses with an angry gesture and 
 exclamation : he 
 
 spurns 
 The rush that lies before him ; cries, " Fool, Lepidus ! " 
 
 (in. V. 17.) 
 
 Sextus Pompeius who at one time had a fair 
 chance of entering into a position equal or superior 
 to that of Lepidus, comes higher in the scale than 
 he. He has a certain feeling for righteousness : 
 
 If the great gods be just, they shall assist 
 
 The deeds of justest men. (11. i. i.) 
 
 He has a certain nobility of sentiment that enables 
 
 him to rise to the occasion. When to his surprise he 
 
 learns that he will have to reckon with the one man 
 
 he dreads, he cries ; „ , 
 
 But let us rear 
 
 The higher our opinion, that our stirring 
 
 Can from the lap of Egypt's widow pluck 
 
 The ne'er-lust-wearied Antony. (n. i. 35.) 
 
 So, when told that he looks older, his reply is 
 
 magnanimous : „, „ ^ , 
 
 ^ Well, I know not 
 
 What counts harsh Fortune casts upon my face ; 
 
 But in my bosom shall she never come. 
 
 To make my heart her vassal. (11. vi. 55.) 
 
374 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 Antony confesses that he owes him thanks for 
 generous treatment : 
 
 He hath laid strange courtesies and great 
 
 Of late upon me. (ii. ii. 157.) 
 
 We presently get to hear what these were, and must 
 admit that he acted like a gejitleman : 
 
 Though I lose 
 The praise of it by telling, you must know, 
 When Caesar and your brother were at blows. 
 Your mother came to Sicily, and did' find 
 Her welcome friendly. (11. vi. 43.) 
 
 He has moreover a certain filial piety for the memory 
 of his father, and a certain afterglow of free 
 republican sentiment : 
 
 What was't 
 That moved pale Cassius to conspire ; and what 
 Made the all-honour'd, honest Roman, Brutus, 
 With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedopi, 
 To drench the Capitol : but that they would 
 Have one man but one man ? And that is it 
 Hath made me rig my navy : at whose burthen 
 The anger'd ocean foams ; with which I meant 
 To scourge the ingratitude that despiteful Rome 
 Cast on my noble father. (11. vi. 14.^ 
 
 But even if all this were quite genuine, it would not 
 suffice to form a really distinguished character. In 
 the first place Sextus never penetrates to the core 
 of things but lingers over the shows. Thus he has 
 no grip of his present strength or of the insignificance 
 to which he relegates himself by his composition. 
 For Shakespeare differs from Plutarch, and follows 
 Appian, in making his rising a very serious matter.^ 
 It is this that in the play, and in complete contra- 
 diction of the Life, is the chief motive for Antony's 
 return to Italy : and he gives his reasons. He says 
 that Pompey " commands the empire of the sea " (i. 
 ii. 191), — a great exaggeration of Plutarch's state- 
 ment that he " so scoored^ all the sea thereabouts 
 
 ' See Appendix D. ^ Scoured. 
 
THE POLITICAL LEADERS 375 
 
 {t.e., near Sicily) that none durst peepe out with a 
 sayle." He continues, that "the slippery people" 
 begin to throw all the dignities of Ponppey the Great 
 upon his son (i. ii. 1 93), though there is no hint of 
 this popular support in the history. And he con- 
 cludes that Pompey's 
 
 . . . quality, going on, 
 The sides o' the world may danger. (i. ii. 198.) 
 
 In Plutarch it is not prudence but courtesy that 
 moves the Triumvirs to negociate with him, His 
 hospitality to Antony's mother is expressly men- 
 tioned as the cause of their leniency ; "therefore they 
 thought good to make peace with him." Similarly 
 Shakespeare may have warrant from Appian, but he 
 certainly has not warrant from Plutarch, to represent 
 Octavius as listening in dismay to reports of mal- 
 contents " that only have fear'd Caesar " (i. iv. 38) 
 crowding to Pompey's banners from love of him ; or 
 as harassed by Antony's absence, when this occasion 
 " drums him from his sport " (i. iv. 29) ; or as driven 
 by fear of Pompey to "cement their divisions and 
 bind up the petty difference " (11. i. 48). In all these 
 ways Shakespeare treats the trifling disturbance of 
 Plutarch's account as a civil war waged by not 
 unequal forces. And even after the tension has been 
 somewhat relieved by Antony's arrival, Octavius 
 bears witness in regard to Pompey's strength by 
 land that it is 
 
 Great and increasing : but by sea 
 
 He is an absolute master. (11. ii. 165.) 
 
 Obviously then Shakespeare conceives Poinpey as 
 having much to hope for, and much to lose. But 
 Pompey does not realise his own power. By the 
 treaty he throws away his advantages. In the 
 division of the world he only gets Sicily and Sardinia, 
 which were his already ; and in return he must rid 
 all the sea of pirates, and send wheat to Rome. By 
 
376 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 the first provision he deprives himself of recruits like 
 Menas and Menecrates ; by the second, he caters for 
 his scarce atoned enemies. Surely there is justifi- 
 cation for Menas' aside ; " Thy father, Pompey, 
 would ne'er have made this treaty " (ii. vi. 84), and 
 his like remark to Enobarbus : " Pompey doth this 
 day laugh away his fortune" (11. vi. 109). He 
 practically gives over the contest which he has a fair 
 prospect of winning, and allows himself to be cajoled 
 of the means by which he might at least gain security 
 and power. But the most that he obtains is a paper 
 guarantee for a fraction of the spoils ; though he 
 ought to have known that such guarantees are rotten 
 bands with rivals like Octavius, who will only wait 
 the opportunity, that must now inevitably come, to 
 set them aside. 
 
 But besides, this magnanimity, which he is so fond 
 ^jo£-pargdingj^ is not only insufficient, even were it 
 quite sterling coin ; in his case it rings counterfeit. 
 We cannot forget that his noble sentiments about 
 justice are uttered to Menas and Menecrates, "great 
 thieves by sea." Is Pompeius Magnus to be 
 avenged, is freedom to be restored by the help of 
 buccaneers who find it expedient to "deny" what 
 they have done by water ? Surely all this is not 
 very dexterous make-believe, intended to impose on 
 others or himself Even his rejection of Menas' 
 scheme for doing away with the Triumvirs, though 
 it shows his regard for appearances, does not imply 
 any honourable feeling of the highest kind. For 
 listen to his words : 
 
 Ah, this thou should'st have done. 
 And not have spoke on't ! In me, 'tis villany ; 
 In thee 't had been good service. Thou must know, 
 'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour ; 
 Mine honour, it. Repent that e'er thy tongue 
 Hath so betray 'd thine act : being done unknown, 
 I should have found it afterwards well done ; 
 But must condemn it now. (11. vii. 79.) 
 
THE POLITICAL LEADERS 2>n 
 
 Here he shows no moral scruple, but onl y anxiety 
 about his reput ation. He would have no objection 
 to reap the reward/of crime, and would even after 
 ajdeco rous interva l approve it; but he will not 
 commit or authgnsejt^becauseJiel^IiEii^^ 
 in hi s own eyes -^[i^ ~the 'eyesof others as the 
 
 man "of justice, p rmcip te a nd chivalry. H e is' 
 
 one-of Llie people who '' wouici" noFplay false and 
 yet would wrongly win," and who often excite 
 more contempt than the resolute malefactor. And 
 the reason is that their abstention from guilt 
 arises not from tenderness of conscience but from 
 perplexity of intellect. They confound shadow 
 and substance ; for by as much as genuine virtue 
 is superior to material success, by so much is 
 material success superior to the illusion of virtue. 
 In the case of Pompey, the treachery of Octavius 
 is almost excused by the ostentation, obtuseness, 
 and half-heartedness of the victim. It is fittino- 
 that after being despoiled of Italy he should owe 
 his death to a mistake. This at least is the 
 story, not found in Plutarch, which Shakespeare in 
 all probability adopts at the suggestion of Appian. 
 It is not given as certain even by Appian, who 
 leaves it open to question whether he was killed 
 by Antony's command or not. But perhaps Shake- 
 speare considers that his futile career should 
 end futilely through the overzeal of an agent who 
 misunderstands his master's wishes ; so he makes 
 Eros tell how Antony 
 
 Threats the throat of that his officer 
 
 That murder'd Pompey. (iii. v. 19.) 
 
 It suits the dramatist too to free his hero from 
 complicity in such a deed, and exhibit him as 
 receiving the news with generous indignation and 
 regret. Yet such regret is very skin-deep. Even 
 Antony's chief complaint in regard to Pompey's 
 
378 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 overthrow is that he gets none of the unearned 
 increment ; or, as Octavius says, 
 
 that, having in Sicily 
 Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him 
 His part o' the isle. (iii. vi. 24.) 
 
 Higher still in our respect, if not in our affection, 
 but even in our respect not very high, is Octavius 
 at the head of his statesmen, politicians, men of the 
 world, his Mecaenases, Agrippas and the rest, with 
 their savoir /aire and savoir vivre. They never let 
 themselves go in thought or in deed ; all their words 
 and behaviour are disciplined, reserved, premeditated. 
 Antony's description of their principal is no doubt 
 true, and it breathes the contempt of the born 
 soldier, who has drunk delight of battle with his 
 peers, for the mere deviser of calculations and 
 combinations : 
 
 He at Philippi kept 
 His sword e'en like a dancer ; while I struck 
 The lean and wrinkled Cassius ; and 'twas I 
 That the mad Brutus ended : he alone 
 Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practice had 
 In the brave squares of war. (in. xi. 35.) 
 
 Nor is there any prestige of genius or glamour of 
 charm to conciliate admiration for such men. Theirs 
 are the practical, rather uninteresting natures, that 
 generally rise to the top in this workaday world. 
 They know what they wish to get ; they know what 
 they must do to get it ; and the light from heaven 
 never shines on their eyes either to glorify their path 
 or to lead them astray. 
 
 The most obvious trait, as Kreyssig remarks, in_ 
 the somewhat bourgeois personality of Octavius Ts~ 
 his sobriety, in eveiry sense of the word: a self- 
 contained sobriety, which, though supposed to be 
 a middle-class "virtue, is in him pushed so far as 
 to become_ almost. aristocratic. For it fosters and 
 cherishes his self-esteem ; and his self-esteem rises 
 
THE POLITICAL LEADERS 379 
 
 tp an enormous and inflexible pride, which finds 
 expression alike in his dignity and in his punc- 
 tiliousness. In both respects it is outraged by the 
 levity of Antony, which he resents as compromising 
 himself. His colleague must 
 
 No way excuse his soils, when we do bear 
 
 So great weight in his lightness. (i. iv. 24.) 
 
 A man like this, fast centred in himself, cannot but 
 despise the impulse-driven populace; he could never 
 have courted it to sway it to his purposes, as Antony 
 did of old ; to him it is a rotting water-weed. This 
 temper, lofty and imposing in some respects, is apt 
 to attach undue importance to form and etiquette, 
 as when the "manner" of Enobarbus' interruption, 
 not its really objectionable because all too incontro- 
 vertible matter, arouses his disapproval : but it is 
 a difficult temper to take liberties with. None of 
 his counsellors dreams of venturing with him on the 
 familiarity which Enobarbus, Canidius, and even the 
 common soldier, employ as a matter of course with 
 Antony. And this is partly due to his lack of 
 sympathy, to his deficient social feeling. Such an 
 one plumes himself on being different from and 
 superior to his fellows. He is like the Prince of 
 Arragon in the Merchant of Venice : 
 
 I will not choose what many men desire, 
 Because I will not jump with common spirits 
 And rank me with the barbarous multitudes. 
 
 {M.ofV. II. ix. 3.) 
 
 It is because Antony's vices are those of the common 
 spirits and the barbarous multitudes that Octavius 
 despises him : 
 
 You shall find there 
 
 A man who is the abstract of all faults 
 
 That all men follow. (i. iv. 8.) 
 
 His own failings do not lie in the direction, of vulgar 
 indulgence. He is a foe to all excess. When the 
 
38o ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 feasters pledge him, he objects to the compulsory 
 
 carouse : 
 
 I could well forbear 't. 
 It's monstrous labour, when I wash my brain, 
 And it grows fouler. . . . 
 
 I had rather fast from all four days 
 Than drink so much in one. (n. vii. 105.) 
 
 And he can address a dignified remonstrance and 
 rebuke to his less temperate associates : 
 
 What would you more ? Pompey, good night. Good brother, 
 Let me request you off : our graver business 
 Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let's part : 
 You see we have burnt our cheeks. . . . 
 
 The wild disguise hath almost 
 Antick'd us all. (n. vii. 126.) 
 
 A man of this kind will be externally faultless in all 
 the domestic requirements, a good husband and a 
 good brother, in so far as rigid fidelity to the nuptial 
 tie and scrupulous care for his sister's provision are 
 concerned. He is honestly shocked at Antony's 
 violation of his marriage bond. We feel that if 
 Cleopatra did really entertain the idea of subduing 
 him by her charms, it was nothing but an undevout 
 imagination. One might as well think to set on fire 
 " a dish of skim milk," as Hotspur calls men of this 
 sort. 
 
 But the better side of this is his genuine family 
 feeling. His love for his sister may be limited and 
 alloyed, but it is unfeigned. It has sometimes been 
 pointed out that his indignation at Octavia's scanty 
 convoy when she returns from Athens to Rome, is 
 stirred quite as much on his own behalf as on hers : 
 
 Why have you stolen upon us thus ? You come not 
 
 Like Caesar's sister. . . . You are come 
 
 A market-maid to Rome ; and have prevented 
 
 The ostentation of our love, which, left unshown, 
 
 Is often left unlov'd. (in. vi. 42.) 
 
 It is quite true that he thinks of what is due to 
 himself, but he does not altogether forget her claims ; 
 
THE POLITICAL LEADERS ctSi 
 
 o*- 
 
 and even when he regrets the defective "ostentation" 
 of love — a term that is apt to rouse suspicion, no 
 doubt, but less so in Elizabethan than in modern 
 ears — he bases his regret on the just and valid 
 ground that without expression love itself is apt 
 to die. That behind his own " ostentation " of 
 fondness (which of course he is careful not to 
 neglect, for it is a becoming and creditable thing), 
 there is some reality of feeling, is proved by the 
 parting scene. His affectionate farewell and even 
 his gathering tears might be pretence; but he 
 promises to send her regular letters : 
 
 Sweet Octavia, 
 You shall hear from me still. (in. ii. 58.) 
 
 It really means something when a man like Octavius, 
 busy with the affairs of the whole world, spares time 
 for frequent domestic correspondence. 
 
 And yet this admirable brother has not hesitated 
 to arrange for his sister a " mariage de convenance" i 
 with Antony, a man whom he disapproves and dis- 1 
 likes. From the worldly point of view it is certainly 
 the most brilliant match she could make ; and this 
 perhaps to one-of Octavius' arid nature, with its total 
 lack of sympathy, imagination and generous ideals, 
 may have seemed the main consideration. All the 
 same we cannot help feeling that he was thinking 
 mainly of himself, and, though with some regrets, 
 has sacrificed her to the exigencies of statecraft. 
 Menas and Enobarbus, shrewd and unsentimental 
 observers, agree that policy has made more in the 
 marriage than love. So much indeed is obvious, 
 even if its purpose is what on the face of it it 
 professes to be, the reconcilement of the men it 
 makes brothers-in-law. But, as we shall see, 
 Octavius may have a more tortuous device in it 
 than this. 
 
 Treating it meanwhile, however, as an expedient 
 for knitting the alliance with his rival, what inference 
 
382 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 does it suggest ? If for the sake of his own interests, 
 Octavius shows himself far from scrupulous in regard 
 to the sister whom he loves and whose material well- 
 being is his care, what may we expect of him in the 
 case of those who are indifferent or dangerous or 
 hostile ? 
 
 He has no hesitation about ousting his colleague 
 Lepidus, or ruining the reconciled rebel Pompeius, 
 despite his compacts with both. Then it is Antony's 
 turn ; and Antony is a far more formidable anta- 
 gonist, with all his superiority in material resources, 
 fertility of genius, proven soldiership and strategic 
 skill. It is not because Octavius is the greater man 
 that he succeeds. It is, in the first place, because 
 he concentrates all his narrow nature to a single 
 issue, while Antony with his greater width of out- 
 look disperses his interest on many things at once. 
 How typical of each are the asides with which 
 respectively they enter their momentous conference. 
 Antony is already contemplating other contingencies : 
 
 If we compose well here, to Parthia : 
 
 Hark, Ventidius. (n. ii. 15.) 
 
 Octavius will not be diverted from the immediate 
 business : 
 
 I do not know, 
 Mecaenas; ask Agrippa. (11. ii. 16.) 
 
 So, too, when the composition has taken place, 
 Antony squanders his strength in the invasion of 
 Parthia, the conquest of Armenia and other annexa- 
 tions, not to mention his grand distraction in Egypt. 
 But Octavius pursues his one purpose with the 
 dogged tenacity of a sleuth hound, removes Pompey 
 who might be troublesome, seizes the resources of 
 Lepidus, and is able to oppose the solid mass of the 
 West to Antony's loose congeries of Asiatic allies 
 and underlings, whose disunited crowd seems to 
 typify his own unreconciled ambitions. 
 
THE POLITICAL LEADERS 383 
 
 But even so it is not so much that Octavius wins, 
 as that Antony loses. In another sense than he 
 means, the words of the latter are true : 
 
 Not Caesar's valour hath o'erthrown Antony, 
 
 But Antony's hath triumph'd on itself. (iv. xv. 14.) 
 
 It is his extraordinary series of blunders, perversities, 
 and follies that play into his antagonist's hands and 
 give him the trick, though that antagonist holds 
 worse cards and is less expert in many points of the 
 game. 
 
 But in so far as Octavius can claim credit for 
 playing it, it is due to cunning and chicane rather 
 than to any wisdom or ability of the higher kind. 
 At the outset he prepares a snare for Antony, into 
 which Antony fa^s, and by the fall is permanently 
 crippled. It seems more than probable that the 
 marriage with Octavia was suggeste37not~t6 confirm 
 the alliance, but to provoke a breach at a more con- 
 venient season. The biographer expressly assi|fns 
 the same sort of ulterior motive to a later act of 
 apparent kindliness, when Octavia was again used 
 as the unconscious pawn. When she, just before the 
 final breach, insists on setting out to join her husband, 
 Plutarch explains : 
 
 Her brother Octavius was willing unto it, not for his {i.e. 
 Antony's) respect at all (as most authors doe report) as for , 
 that he might have an honest culler to make warre with 
 Antonius if he did misuse her, and not esteeme of her as 
 she ought to be. 
 
 This was quite enough to suggest to Shakespeare a | 
 similar interpretation of the marriage project from ' 
 the first. He does not indeed expressly state but 
 he virtually implies it, as appears if we realise the 
 characters and circumstances of those concerned. 
 At the time the match is being arranged, Enobarbus 
 quite clearly foresees and openly predicts the upshot 
 to Mecaenas and Agrippa. Will they, and especially 
 Agrippa, who is nominal author of the plan and 
 
384 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 announces it as "a studied not a present thought," 
 have overlooked so probable an issue? Will it 
 never have occurred to the circumspect and calcu- 
 lating Octavius, who evidently leads up to Agrippa's 
 intervention and proposal ? Or if through some 
 incredible inadvertence it has hitherto escaped them 
 all, will not the vigilant pair of henchmen hasten to 
 inform their master of the unexpected turn that 
 things seem likely to take ? Not at all. Despite 
 the convinced and convincing confidence of Eno- 
 barbus' prophecy, they waive it aside. Mecaenas 
 merely replies with diplomatic decorum : 
 
 If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle 
 
 The heart of Antony, Octavia is 
 
 A blessed lottery to him. (n. ii. 247.) 
 
 No doubt. But though Touchstone says, "Your If 
 is your only peacemaker," it can also be a very good 
 peace-breaker on occasion. In Enobarbus' opinion 
 (and in his own way Octavius is just as shrewd), 
 Octavia with her "holy, cold and still conversation" 
 is no dish for Antony. But though this is now 
 expressly pointed out to Octavius' confidants, the 
 marriage goes on as though nothing could be urged 
 against it. The reason is that nothing can, from 
 the point of view of the contrivers. If it turns out 
 well, so far good ; if it turns out ill, so much the 
 better. Only when it is an accomplished fact, does 
 Caesar give a glimpse of what it involves in the 
 sinister exhortation : 
 
 Let not the piece of virtue which is set 
 
 Betwixt us, as the cement of our love. 
 
 To keep it builded, be the ram to batter 
 
 The fortress of it. (ni. ii. 28.) 
 
 Thus when Antony returns to Cleopatra, as he was 
 bound to do, Octavius manages to represent himself 
 as the aggrieved party, as champion of the sanctity 
 of the hearth, the vindicator of old Roman pieties ; 
 
THE POLITICAL LEADERS 385 
 
 and in this way gains a good deal of credit at the 
 outset of the quarrel. 
 
 And for the fortunate conduct of it, he is indebted 
 apart from Antony's demoralisation, to his adroit- 
 ness m playing on the weakness of others, rather 
 than to any nobler strength in himseK' Thus he 
 irritates Antony's reckless chivalry, both vain and 
 grandiose, by defying him to give batde by sea at 
 Actium. Antony is not bound even by any punctilio 
 of honour to consent, for Octavius has twice declined 
 a similar challenge. 
 
 ■^"^- Canidius, we 
 
 Will fight with him by sea. 
 
 ^^- By sea! What else? 
 
 Can. Why will my lord do so ? 
 
 -i"^- ^' ^ , For that he dares us to't. 
 
 £.no. bo hath my lord dared him to single fight. 
 
 Can. Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia, 
 Where Caesar fought with Pompey; but these offers. 
 Which serve not for his vantage, he shakes off; 
 And so should you. („, yj; 28.) 1 
 
 But Octavius knows his man, and this appeal to his I 
 audacity, enforced by the command of Cleopatra, I 
 determines Antony like a true knight-errant to the 
 fatal course. 
 
 This passage is of great significance in Shake- 
 speare's delineation of Octavius, because, though 
 suggested by Plutarch, it completely alters the 
 complexion and some of the facts of Plutarch's story. 
 That records the two-fold challenge of Antony, but 
 represents it as answering, not preceding the message 
 of Octavius. Moreover that message contains no 
 reference to a naval combat and has nothing in 
 common with the shape it assumes in the play. 
 
 Octavius Caesar sent unto Antonius, to will him to delay 
 no more time, but to come on with his army into Italy : and 
 that for his owne part he would give him safe harber, to lande 
 without any trouble, and that he would withdraw his armie 
 from the sea, as farre as one horse could runne, until he had 
 put his army ashore, and had lodged his men. 
 
 2B 
 
386 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 That is, in the original Octavius takes the lead in 
 dare-devilry, and seems voluntarily to suggest such 
 terms as even Byrhtnoth at the Battle of Maldon 
 conceded only by request. Shakespeare could not 
 fit this in with his conception of the cold-blooded 
 politician, and substitutes for it a proposal that will 
 put the enemy at a disadvantage ; while at the 
 same time he accentuates Octavius' unblushing 
 knavery, by making him apply this provocation 
 after he has twice rejected offers that do not suit 
 himself 
 
 Again, having won his first victory through 
 Cleopatra's flight, Caesar cynically reckons for new 
 success on her corruptibility : 
 
 From Antony win Cleopatra : promise, 
 
 And in our name, what she requires ; add more, 
 
 From thine invention, offers : women are not 
 
 In their best fortunes strong; but want will perjure 
 
 The ne'er-touch'd vestal : try thy cunning, Thyreus. 
 
 (ni. xii. 24.) 
 
 This scheme indeed miscarries owing to Antony's 
 intervention, but meanwhile it has become unneces- 
 sary owing to the torrent of deserters. So Octavius 
 is sure of his case, and can dismiss with ridicule the 
 idea of a single fight. In Plutarch he does so too, 
 but with the implied brag that he would certainly 
 be victor : " Caesar answered him that he had 
 many other wayes to dye then so ;" when the he 
 stands for Antony : but owing to North's fortunate 
 ambiguity Shakespeare takes it as referring to the 
 speaker : 
 
 Let the old rufiSan know 
 I have many other ways to die ;' mean time 
 Laugh at his challenge. (iv. i. 4.) 
 
 A more subtle contumely ; for it implies that Caesar 
 with scornful impartiality acknowledges Antony's 
 superiority as a sabreur, but can afford to dismiss 
 that as of no moment. His response has already 
 
THE POLITICAL LEADERS 387 
 
 been annotated in advance by Enobarbus, when 
 Antony was inditing his cartel : 
 
 Yes, like enough, high-battled Caesat* will 
 Unstate his happiness, and be staged to the show, 
 Against a sworde^ ! . . . That he shdjuld dream. 
 Knowing all measures, the full Caesar will 
 Answer his emptiness ! Caesar, thou ha§t-subdued 
 His judgement too. (in. xiii. 29.) 
 
 Octavius has by this time the ball at his feet, and 
 can even cast the contemptuous alms of his pity 
 on "poor Antony," as he calls him (iv. i. 16). Nor 
 are" his expectations deceived, for he reckons out 
 
 ^ ° ' Go, charge Agrippa. 
 
 Plant those that have revolted in the van, 
 That Antony may seem to spend his fury 
 Upon himself. (iv. vi. 8.) 
 
 And though he suffers a momentary check, he pre- 
 sently achieves the final triumph through the treason 
 and baseness of Antony's Egyptian followers, on 
 which he rightly felt he might rely. 
 
 And when he has won the match he makes use 
 of his advantage with more appearance than, reality 
 of nobleness. He wishes to have not only the 
 substantial rewards of victory, but the shows and 
 trappings of it as well. He seeks to preserve 
 
 Cleopatra alive, " " ,, , ... . „ 
 
 '^ for her life m Rome 
 
 Would be eternal in our triumph. (v. i. 65.) 
 
 This is the secret of his clemency and generosity, 
 that he would have her " grace in captive bonds 
 his chariot wheels." And if he has another reason 
 for sparing her, it is not for the sake of clemency 
 and generosity in themselves, but for the parade of 
 these qualities : as indeed Proculeius unconsciously 
 lets out in the naif advice he gives her : 
 
 Do not abuse my master's bounty by 
 
 The undoing of yourself ; let the world see 
 
 His nobleness well acted, which your death 
 
 Will never let come forth. (v. ii. 44.) 
 
388 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 And ably does Octavius play his role : he " ex- 
 tenuates rather than enforces," gilds his covert 
 threats with promises, and dismisses the episode of 
 the unscheduled treasure with Olympian serenity. 
 His only fault is that he rather overacts the part. 
 His excess of magnanimity, when by nature he is 
 far from magnanimous, tells Cleopatra all she needs 
 to know, and leaves little for the definite disclosures 
 of Dolabella : 
 
 He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not 
 
 Be noble to myself. (v. ii. 191.) 
 
 But, though not magnanimous, he is intelligent : 
 and his intelligence enables and enjoins him to 
 recognise greatness when it is no longer opposed 
 to his own interest, and when the recognition re- 
 dounds to his own credit, by implying that the 
 conqueror is greater still. His panegyrics on 
 Antony, and afterwards on Cleopatra, are very 
 nearly the right things to say and are very nearly 
 said in the right way. When he hears of his 
 rival's suicide, his first exclamation does not ill 
 befit the occasion : 
 
 The breaking of so great a thing should make 
 
 A greater crack : . . . the death of Antony 
 
 Is not a single doom ; in the name lay 
 
 A moiety of the world. (v. i. 14.) 
 
 But this disinterested emotion does not last long. 
 The awe at fallen greatness soon leads to com- 
 parisons with the living greatness that has proved 
 its match. The obsequious bystanders find this 
 quite natural and point it out without a hint of 
 sarcasm : 
 
 Agr. Caesar is touch'd. 
 
 Mec. When such a spacious mirror's set before him, 
 He needs must see himself. 
 
 So Octavius proceeds to a recital of Antony's merits 
 in which he bespeaks a double portion of the praise 
 he seems to dispense : 
 
THE POLITICAL LEADERS 389 
 
 O Antony ! 
 I have follow'd thee to this ; but we do lance 
 Diseases in our bodies : I must perforce 
 Have shown to thee such a declining day, 
 Or look on thine : we could not stall together 
 In the whole world : but yet let me lament, 
 With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts, 
 That thou, my brother, my competitor. 
 In top of all design, my mate in empire, 
 Friend and companion in the front of war. 
 The arm of mine own body, and the heart 
 Where mine his thoughts did kindle,— that our stars, 
 Unreconciliable, should divide 
 Our equalness to this. (v. i. 35.) 
 
 And here, as business calls, he breaks off and post- 
 pones the rest to "some meeter season." Similarly 
 when he finds Cleopatra dead he has the insight 
 to do her justice : 
 
 Bravest at the last. 
 She levell'd at our purposes, and, being royal. 
 Took her own way. (v. ii. 238.) 
 
 Then follows the official valediction : 
 
 She shall be buried by her Antony : 
 
 No grave upon the earth shall clip in it 
 
 A pair so famous. High events as these 
 
 Strike those that make them ; and their story is 
 
 No less in pity than his glory which 
 
 Brought them to be lamented. (v. ii. 361.) 
 
 So the last word is a testimonial to himself. 
 
 These are eulogies of the understanding, not of 
 the heart. They are very different in tone from 
 the tributes of Antony to his patron Julius or his 
 opponent Brutus. The tears and emotion, genuine 
 though facile, of the latter are vouched for even by 
 the sarcasms of Agrippa and Enobarbus. Octavius' 
 utterance, when he pronounces his farewell, is broken, 
 we may be sure, by no sob and choked by no passion. 
 His kloge has been compared to a funeral sermon, 
 and will not interfere with the victor's appetite for 
 the fruits of victory. But though his feeling is 
 
390 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 not stirred to the depths, he is fairly just and fairly 
 acute. He is no contemptible character, this man 
 who carries off the palm from one of infinitely richer 
 endowment. The contrast between the two rivals, 
 and the justification of the success of the less gifted, 
 is summed up in a couple of sentences they exchange 
 at the banquet off Misenum. When Octavius shrinks 
 from the carouse, Antony bids him : " Be a child o' 
 the time" (ii. vii. io6). " Possess it, I'll make answer," 
 is Octavius' reply and reproof. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MARK ANTONY 
 
 " Be a child o' the time," says Antony, and he carries 
 out his maxim to the letter. Only that time could 
 bring forth such a devotee of the joys of life and 
 lavish on him such wealth of enjoyment. But the 
 time was one that devoured its own children. Those 
 who chose to be merely its products, must accept 
 its ordinances, and it was cruel as well as indulgent. 
 It was the manlier as well as the safer course for 
 the child to possess the time, to repudiate its stock, 
 and, if might be, to usurp the heritage. 
 
 We must bear the counter admonition of Octavius 
 in mind when we approach the personage to whom 
 it was addressed. All who have a wide range of 
 interests, and with these warmth of imagination and 
 spontaneity of impulse, must feel that their judgment 
 is apt to be bribed by the attractions of Mark 
 Antony. He is so many-sided, so many -ways 
 endowed, so full of vitality and vigour, potentially 
 so affluent and bright, that we look to find his life 
 a clear and abundant stream, and disbelieve our 
 senses when we see a turbid pool that loses itself 
 in the sands. If we listen to the promptings of 
 our blood, we hail him as demi-god, but the verdict 
 of our reason is that he is only a futility. And 
 both estimates base on Shakespeare who inspires 
 and reconciles them both. 
 
392 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 Of course we are apt to carry with us to the 
 present play the impression we have received from 
 the sketch of Antony in Julius Caesar. And not 
 without grounds. He is still a masquer and a 
 reveller, he is still a shrewd contriver. But we 
 gradually become aware of a difference. First, 
 the precedence that these characteristics takes is 
 reversed. In Julius Caesar it is the contriving 
 side of his nature that is prominent, and the other 
 is only indicated by the remarks of acquaintances : 
 in Antony and Cleopatra, it is his love of plea sure 
 that is emphasised, while of his contrivance we have 
 only casua Tglirjipses. And the contrast is not merely 
 an alteration in the point of view, it corresponds 
 to an alteration in himself; in the earlier drama 
 he subordinates his luxury to his schemes, and 
 in the latter he subordinates his schemes to his 
 l uxur y. But this is not all. In the second place, 
 his two main interests have changed in the degree 
 of what may be called their organisation. Yn Julius 
 Caesar he concentrates all his machinations on the 
 one object of overthrowing the tyrannicides and 
 establishing his power ; his pleasures, however 
 notorious, are random and disconnected dissipations 
 without the coherence of a single aim. In Antony 
 and Cleopatra, however manifpld they may be, they 
 are all subdued to the service of his master passion, 
 they are all focussed in his love for Cleopatra ; 
 while his strategy is broken up to mere shifts and 
 expedients that answer the demand of the hour. 
 Passion has become not only the regulative but 
 the constitutive force in his character. 
 
 When the action begins, he is indemnifying him- 
 self with a round of indulgence for the strenuous 
 life between the fall of Julius and the victories at 
 Philippi, some of the toils and privations of which, 
 passed over in the earlier play, Octavius now recalls 
 in amazement at the contrast. It is not so strange. 
 
■ MARK ANTONY 393 
 
 One remembers Professor von Karsteg's indictment 
 of the English that they spare no pains because 
 they live for pleasure. " You are all in one mass, 
 struggling in the stream to get out and lie and 
 wallow and belch on the banks. You work so 
 hard that you have all but one aim, and that is 
 fatness and ease !"^ Something similar strikes us 
 in Antony. It is natural that action should be 
 followed by reaction and that abstinence should 
 lead to surfeit. It is doubly natural, when effort 
 and discipline are not prized for themselves or 
 associated with the public good, but have only 
 been accepted as the means to a selfish aim. By 
 them he_has acquired more than mortal power : why 
 should he no t use it in his own behoot, oBlivious 
 of every call save" t he promptmg~or~3esIreT JV 
 vulgar attitude, we may say ; but it is lifted ab ove 
 vulgarity by the vast ne ssmlEhe orbit through which 
 his desire revolve sT It is grandiose, aiia alinost 
 divinej in^^so^^^ at least" as" it is "a circle "whose 
 centre is ^everywhere, and who§e_ ^cixcumiisxence is 
 TwwKere, ^"FTe has a gust for everythin g a nd for 
 everything, in the Jiighest degree, for each several 
 pleasure and its exact antithesis. In what does 
 he~not"leer"zest ? I-uxuryT Tjariqueting. dru nken- 
 ness, appeal to him, so that Pompey prays th ey, 
 " may keep his brain fuming" (ii. i. 24). Or he/ 
 acts the god, and with Cleopatra as Isis, dispenses 
 sovereignty from the "tribunal silver'd," as they 
 sit on their " chairs of gold " (iii. vi. 3). Or heV 
 finds a relish in vulgar pleasures, and with the 
 queen on his arm, mingles incognito in the crowd, 1 
 wandering through the streets "to note the qualities' 
 of people" (i. i. 52). Or he goes a-fishing, in which 
 art he is a novice and presently becomes a dupe, 
 when he pulls up the salt-fish "with fervency" 
 (11. V. 18). And a willing dupe, the conscious 
 
 ' T/te Adventures of Harry Richmond. 
 
{ 
 
 394 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 humorous dupe of love to his tricksy enchantress, 
 he is pleased to be in many other ways : 
 
 That time, — O times ! — 
 I laugh'd him out of patience ; and that night 
 I laugh'd him into patience ; and next morn, 
 Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed : 
 Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst 
 I wore his sword Philippian. (ii. v. i8.) 
 
 In short his breathless pursuit of all sorts of 
 experiences more than justifies the scandalised 
 summary of Octaviias : 
 
 He fishes, drinks, and wastes 
 The lamps of night in revel ; is not more manlike 
 Than Cleopatra ; nor the queen of Ptolemy 
 More womanly than he. (i. iv. 4.) 
 
 And he goes on to describe how Antony has been 
 so indiscriminate as 
 
 to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy ; 
 To give a kingdom for a mirth ; to sit 
 And keep the turn of tippling with a slave ; 
 To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet 
 With knaves that smell of sweat (i. iv. 17.) 
 
 Yet, however he may seem to sink in his pleasures, 
 he is never submerged ; such is his joyousness and 
 strength that they seem to bear him up and carry 
 him along rather than drag him down. As Cleo- 
 patra perceives : 
 
 His delights 
 Were dolphin-like ; they show'd his back above 
 The element they lived in. (v. ii. 88.) 
 
 It is this demand to share in all the Erdgeist has 
 to offer, that raises Antony above the -level of the 
 average sensualist. His dissipations impose by 
 their catholicity and heartiness. His blithe eager- 
 ness never flags and nothing mundane leaves him 
 unmoved : 
 
 There's not a minute of our lives should stretch 
 Without some pleasure now. (i. i. 46.) 
 
MARK ANTONY 395 
 
 This is hisJdjeaJ. ati 414(1 nii te-of pastimes under the 
 Presiden cy of his lovej^.3£±^m!Td^iir 'm'"^i^ ^ 
 w,hat, always aignmes those whom it inspi res. But 
 it al's6 d rmanda iLb ^^aL r i li ce ; and in the present 
 case Antony with a sort of inverse sublimity offers 
 up to it all that the ambitious, the honourable or the 
 virtuous man counts good. 
 
 For a life like his is hardly compatible even in 
 theory with the arduous functions of the commander, 
 the governor, the administrator ; and in practice it 
 inevitably leads to their neglect. In the opening 
 scene we see him leave unheard the momentous 
 tidings from Rome, and turn aside to embrace his 
 royal paramour. His followers are filled with angry 
 disgust : 
 
 Nay, but this dotage of our general's 
 
 O'erflows the measure : those his goodly eyes 
 
 That o'er the files and musters of the war 
 
 Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn. 
 
 The office and devotion of their view 
 
 Upon a tawny front. (i. i.li.) 
 
 The general voice cries out against him at home, 
 where his faults are taunted 
 
 With such full licence as both truth and malice 
 
 Have power to utter. (i. ii. 112.) 
 
 His newly arrived friends find the worst libels 
 verified, as Demetrius admits : 
 
 I am full sorry 
 That he approves the common liar, who 
 Thus speaks of him at Rome. (i. i. 59.) 
 
 Octavius is not unduly severe in his condemnation : ^ 
 
 To confound such time. 
 That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud 
 As his own state and ours, — 'tis to be chid 
 As we rate boys, who, being mature in knowledge, 
 Pawn their experience to their present pleasure, L 
 And so rebel to judgement. (i. iv. 28.) 
 
396 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 Nor is he without qualms himself. Sudden revul- 
 sions of feeling disturb his riots when " a Roma n 
 t hou p ^ht hath struck, ^him" (ij^ jj- 87)- He Tefels 
 tKaF^^png short in his laDoQ'fs'^ and relaxing his 
 energy, he gives his baser tendencies the sway, 
 and cries : 
 
 O, then we bring forth weeds. 
 When our quick minds lie still. (i. ii. 113-) 
 
 This, however, makes things worse rather than 
 better. It does not rouse him to any constant 
 course, it only perplexes his purpose. He does 
 not wish to give up anything : the life at Rome 
 and the life at Alexandria both tug at his heart- 
 strings ; and he cannot see that the Eastern and 
 the Western career are not to be reconciled. It 
 is still nominally open to him to make a choice, 
 but at any rate the choice must be made. It must 
 often have occurred to him to throw aside his civil 
 ties, and to set up as independent Emperor with his 
 Egyptian Queen. And apart from old associations 
 there were only two reasons why he should not : 
 lingering respect for his marriage with Fulvia, whom 
 in a way he still loved, and dread of the avenging 
 might of Rome directed by all the craft of Octavius. 
 These impediments are suddenly removed ; and 
 their removal belongs to Shakespeare's conception. 
 It may be traced in part to his own invention, in 
 part perhaps to the suggestion of Appian, but in 
 any case it is of far-reaching significance. 
 
 In the biography the situation is fundamentally 
 different, though superficially alike. There Antony 
 is threatened at once in the West and the East. 
 Octavius has driven his wife and brother out of 
 Italy ; Labienus, the old foe of Caesarism, has led 
 I the Parthians into the provinces. It is to meet 
 these dangers that Antony leaves Egypt, and to the 
 Parthian as the more pressing he addresses himself 
 
MARK ANTONY 397 
 
 first. Only at Fulvia's entreaty does he alter his 
 plan and sail for home with two hundred ships ; 
 but her opportune death facilitates a composition 
 with Octavius. Then the alliance between them 
 having been confirmed, and the petty trouble with 
 Sextus Pompeius having been easily settled, Antony 
 is able with ampler resources to turn against the 
 troublesome Parthians. 
 
 These are the facts as Plutarch narrates them ; and 
 according to them Antony had no option but to 
 break off his love affair and set out to face one or 
 both of the perils that menaced him ; the peril fro m 
 Octavius who has defeated him in his representatives, 
 the jerjIJlrom Labienus who has overrun the Near 
 East. These items are not wanting iff Shakespeare, 
 and as the news of them arrives, his Antony exclaims 
 as Plutarch's might have done : 
 
 These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,! 
 
 Or lose myself in dotage. ^ (i. ii. 120.) 
 
 But even as he speaks a second messenger arrives 
 who supplernents the tidings of the first with new 
 circumstances that are really of much later date and 
 quite different significance in Plutarch, and that 
 entirely alter the complexion of affairs. ' He hears 
 by wordjjfrnnnth that F ulvia is de ar), and^ apparpntJy 
 ' bylettet%~that Sextus Pompeius s ta nds up agains t 
 Caesar and co m mands the empire of the s ea. I n 
 Plutarch he is caIIeH"to Rome by the fact not of 
 Fulvia's being dead but of her being alive ; and her 
 death only prepares the way for a reconciliation 
 when he is already nearing home. Still less is his 
 return connected wit}3 fhe enterprise of Pompey 
 which is mentioned only after the reconciliation is 
 accomplished, and, as we have seen, is treated quite 
 as a detail. But Shakespeare, inserting these 
 matters here and viewing them as he does, dismisses 
 altogether or in part the motive which Plutarch 
 
398 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 implies for Antony's behaviour. Indeed they should 
 rather be reasons for his continuing and proceeding 
 further in his present course. One main objection 
 to his connection with Cleopatra is removed, and 
 the way is smoothed to marriage with his beloved. 
 All danger from Rome is for the time at an end ; 
 and the opportunity is offered for establishing him- 
 self in Egypt while Pompey and Octavius waste 
 each other's strength, or for making common cause 
 with Pompey, who, as we know, is well inclined to 
 him and takes occasion to pay him court. 
 
 But in Shakespeare's Antony, the very removal 
 of external hindrances gives new force to those 
 within his own heart. Regrets and compunctions 
 are stirred. The memory of his wife rises up with 
 new authority, the entreaties of his friends and the 
 call of Rome sound with louder appeal in his ears : 
 
 Not alone 
 
 I" The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches, 
 Do strongly speak to us : but the letters too 
 Of many our contriving friends in Rome 
 Petition us at home. (i. ii. i86.) 
 
 With a man of his emotional nature, precisely the 
 opportunity so procured to carry out one set of his 
 wishes, gives the other set the mastery. Of his 
 wife's death he exclaims : 
 
 I There's a great spirit gone ! Thus did I desire it : 
 / What our contempt doth often hurl from us. 
 
 We wish it ours again ; the present pleasure, 
 
 By revolution lowering, does become 
 
 The opposite of itself : she's good, being gone ; 
 
 The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on. 
 * I must from this enchanting queen break off. (i. ii. 126.) 
 
 I It is no doubt the nobler and more befitting course 
 I that he proposes to himself, but it is so only on the 
 ! condition that he follows it out with his whole heart. 
 I If he takes it up to let it go ; if one half or more 
 
MARK ANTONY 399 
 
 than one half of his soul lingers with the flesh-pots I 
 ot Jlgypt, then nothing could be more foolish and 
 calamitous. He merely throws away the grand 
 chance of realising his more alluring ambitioi? and 
 advances no step to the sterner and loftier heights f 
 ^or he will patch up the Roman Triumvirate andl 
 rehabilitate the power of Octavius to his own hurt i 
 unless he resolves henceforth to act as a Roman 
 1 riumvir and as the dominant partner with Octavius •< 
 and he will never again have so good an occasion^ 
 lor legitimising and thus excusing his relation withl 
 Cleopatra. This latter step was so obviously the! 
 natural one that Octavius almost assumes he must- 
 have taken It. On making his proposal for the 
 match with Octavia, Agrippa says : "Great Antony i 
 IS now a widower," but Octavius interrupts : 
 
 Say not so, Agrippa : 
 It Cleopatra heard you, your reproof 
 Were well deserved of rashness. (n. ii. 122.) 
 
 But though he thus shrinks from the irrevocable 
 choice, we see clearly enough at his departure from 
 Egypt that the impulse towards Rome .nust soon 
 be spent, and that therefore his refusal to commit 
 himself, and his whole enterprise, show rather weak- 
 ness and indecision than resolution and strength 
 To soothe Cleopatra he tells her : 
 
 Be prepared to know 
 The purposes I bear ; which are, or cease. 
 As you shall give the advice. By the fire 
 That quickens Nilus' slime, I go from thence 
 Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war 
 As thou affect'st. (i. jii_ 55 \ 
 
 He is speaking too true when he says : 
 
 Our separation so abides, and flies, \ 
 
 That thou, residing here, go'st yet with me, ) 
 
 And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee. (i. lii. 102.) 
 
400 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 And his last message runs : 
 
 Say, the firm Roman to great Egypt sends 
 
 This treasure of an oyster ; at whose foot, 
 
 To mend the petty present, I will piece 
 
 Her opulent throne with kingdoms : all the east, 
 
 Say thou, shall call her mistress. (i. v. 44.) 
 
 And with these pledges like so many mill-stones 
 round his neck, he sets off to swim in the dangerous 
 cross-currents of Roman politics. It is true that 
 pledges do not weigh over heavily with him, but in 
 this case their weight is increased by his inner 
 inclinations. 
 
 So the reconciliation with Octavius is hollow from 
 the first, and being hollow it is a blunder. Antony 
 of course is able to blind himself to its hollowness 
 and to conduct the negociations with great adroit- 
 ness. His dignified and frank apology is just what 
 he ought to say, supposing that the particular end 
 were to be sought at all, and it has an air of candour 
 that could not well be consciously assumed : 
 
 As nearly as I may, 
 I'll play the penitent to you : but mine honesty 
 Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power 
 Work without it. Truth is, that Fulvia, 
 To have me out of Egypt, made wars here ; 
 For which myself, the ignorant motive, do 
 So far ask pardon as befits mine honour 
 . To stoop in such a case. (11. ii. 91.) 
 
 But this is only another instance of the born orator's 
 faculty for throwing himself into a situation, an d 
 feeling for tEe~time what it is expedi e nt to expres s. 
 It is a fatar"giftrwhich betrays him oftener tha n it 
 helps! ii it prompts his moving utterances over 
 tKe" bodies of Caesar and Brutus, and in so far 
 directly or indirectly assists his cause, it neverthe- 
 less even then to some cynical observers like 
 Enobarbus suggests a spice of hypocrisy. Hypo- 
 crisy it is not, but it comes almost to the same 
 
MARK ANTONY 401 
 
 ^^'"g' for the easily aroused emotion soon subsides 
 atter it TT as done its work and yields to some qu ite 
 contrary impulsion. But meanwhile the worst of it 
 is, that It carries away the eloquent speaker, and 
 hurries him in directioiis- and" to distanced that are 
 not for hts good. With Antony's real and permanent 
 bias, even a' temporary reconcilement with Octavius a 
 IS a mistake ; but what shall we say of his marriacre ' 
 with Octavia ? Yet he jumps at it at once ; and 
 with that convincing air of sincerity that can only 
 be explained by his really liking it for the moment, 
 exclaims : 
 
 May I never 
 To this good purpose, that so fairly shows. 
 Dream of impediment ! Let me have thy hand : 
 Further this act of grace : and from this hoar 
 The heart of brothers govern in our loves 
 And sway our great designs. (ii. ji. 146.) 
 
 And again he realises just what is proper to feel 
 and say to his betrothed, and says it so that we are 
 sure he feels it so long as he is speaking : 
 
 My Octavia, 
 Read not my blemishes in the world's report : 
 I have not kept my square : but that to come 
 Shall all be done by the rule. (u. iii. 4.) 
 
 Yet she has barely left him, when, at the warning 
 of the soothsayer, and the thought of Octavius' 
 success in games of chance and sport, he resolves 
 to outrage the still uncompleted marriage and return 
 to his Egyptian bondage : 
 
 / I will to Egypt : 
 
 K For though I make this marriage for my peace, 
 '■ I' the East my pleasure lies. (11. iii. 38.) 
 
 But when this is his fixed determination, why make 
 the marriage at all ? Does he fail to see that it will 
 bring not peace but a sword ? Yet he is so hood - 
 winked by immediate opportunism that he bears h is 
 share in^ jnaking Pompey harmless to the mighty 
 brother-in-law he Is just a b"oirt to offend.— "^nTH 
 
402 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 knowing his own heart as he does, he can neverthe- 
 less assume an air of resentment at the veiled menace 
 in Octavius' parting admonition : " Make me not 
 offended in your mistrust " (in. ii. 33). 
 
 He has truly with all diligence digged a pit for 
 himself. Already he is the wreck of the shrewd con- 
 triver whose machinations Cassius so justly feared. 
 And this col|apse_of faculty, this access of pre- 
 sumption and n^ betu^ fe belong to Shakespeare's con- 
 ception of the case. In Plutarch the renewed agree- 
 ment of the Triumvirs is expedient and even 
 necessary ; the marriage scheme is adopted in good 
 faith and for a period serves its purpose ; the grant- 
 ing of terms to Pompeyis an unimportant act of grace. 
 
 Nevertheless some powers of contrivance Shake- 
 speare's Antony still retains. He despatches the 
 capable Ventidius on the Parthian campaign, and he 
 has the credit and eclat, when 
 
 with his banners and his well-paid ranks. 
 The ne'er-yet-beaten horse of Parthia 
 (Are) jaded out o' the field. (in. i. 32.) 
 
 He himself over-runs and conquers Armenia, and 
 other Asiatic kingdoms, and with his new prestige 
 and resources is able to secure the support of a 
 formidable band of subject kings. When Octavia 
 has returned to Rome and he to Egypt, and war 
 breaks out, he is still, thanks to these allies and to 
 his own veteran legionaries whom he has so often 
 led to victory and spoil, the master of a power that 
 should more than suffice to make the fortune his. 
 
 But in his infatuation he throws all his advantages 
 away. He pronounces on himself the verdict which 
 his whole story confirms : 
 
 When we in our viciousness grow hard — 
 O misery on't ! — the wise gods seel our eyes ; 
 In our own filth drop our clear judgements ; mike us 
 Adore our errors ; laugh at's, while we strut 
 To our confusion. (in. xiii. iii.) 
 
MARK ANTONY 403 
 
 Of the preliminary blunder, which Plutarch signalises 
 as "among the -greatest faults that ever Antonius 
 committed," viz., his failure to give Octavius battle, 
 when universal discontent was excited at home by 
 Octavius' exactions, there is no mention, or only a 
 very slight and doubtful one in the play. When Eros' 
 has told the news of Pompey's overthrow and Lepidus' 
 deposition, Enobarbus at once foresees the sequel : 
 
 Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more : 
 And throw between them all the food thou hast, 
 They'll grind the one the other. (in. v. 14.) 
 
 And presently he continues : 
 
 Our great navy's rigg'd. 
 
 Eros. For Italy and Caiesar. More, Domitius, 
 My lord desires you presently ; my news 
 I might have told hereafter. 
 
 Eno. 'Twill be nought : 
 
 But let it be. Bring me to Antony. (in. v. 20.) 
 
 Here we seem to have a faint reminiscence of 
 Plutarch's statement. Eros takes for granted as the 
 obvious course, that the great navy ready to start 
 will make an immediate descent on the enemy's 
 stronghold. Enobarbus, who understands Antony, 
 knows that nothing will come of it,, and that their 
 destination is Egypt. In point of fact we learn in 
 the next scene that Antony has arrived in Alexandria 
 and there kept his state with Cleopatra. 
 
 But if Shakespeare glides over this episode, he ' 
 dwells with all the greater detail on the array of 
 imbecilities with which Antony follows it up. First, 
 despite the advice of Enobarbus, he lets Cleopatra be 
 present in the war. Then to please her caprice, and 
 gratify his own fantastic chivalry, he sets aside the 
 well-based objections of Enobarbus, of Canidius, of 
 the common soldiers ; and accepts Octavius' challenge 
 to fight at sea, though his ships are heavy, his 
 mariners inexpert, and he himself and his veterans 
 are more used to the dry land. Even so the 
 
404 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 inspiration of his soldiership and generalship is giving 
 him a slight superiority, when the panic of Cleopatra 
 withdraws her contingent of sixty ships : 
 
 Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt, — 
 Whom leprosy o'ertake ! — i' the midst o' the fight. 
 When vantage like a pair of twins appear'd, 
 Both as the same, or rather ours the elder, 
 The breese upon her, like a cow in June, 
 Hoists sail and flies. (ni. x. lo.) 
 
 Not all is lost even then. But Antony follows the 
 fugitive, when, if he were true to himself, the day 
 might still be retrieved. I This is the view that 
 Shakeapeaie abhigus Lu Ca nidius ; and while all the 
 previous items he derived from Plutarch, only distri- 
 buting them among his persons, and adding to their 
 picturesqueness and force, this is an addition of his 
 own to heighten the ignominy of Antony's desertion: 
 
 Had our general 
 Been what he knew himself, it had gone well. (in. x. 25.) 
 
 And the explanation of his " most unnoble swerving," 
 if in one way an excuse, in another is an extra shame 
 to his manhood, and too well justifies Enobarbus' 
 dread of Cleopatra's influence : 
 
 Your presence needs must puzzle Antony ; 
 
 Take from his heart, take from his brain, from's time, 
 
 What should not then be spared. (m. vii. 11.) 
 
 The authority for the idea that Antony was in a 
 manner hypnotised by her love, Shakespeare found, 
 like so much else, in the Life, but he enhances the 
 effect immeasurably, first by putting the avowal in 
 Antony's own lips, and again by the more poignant 
 and pitiful turn he gives it. Plutarch says : 
 
 There Antonius shewed plainely, that he had not onely lost 
 the corage and hart of an Emperor, but also of a valliant man, 
 and that he was not his owne man : (proving that true which 
 an old man spake in myrth that the soule of a lover lived in 
 
 { 
 
MARK ANTONY 405 
 
 another body, and not in his owne) he was so caried away 
 with the vaine love of this woman, as if he had bene glued 
 into her, and that she could not have removed without 
 moving of him also. 
 
 Antony cries in the play : 
 
 O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt ? . . . 
 
 Thou knew'st too well 
 My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings, 
 And thou shouldst tow me after : o'er my spirit 
 Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that 
 Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods 
 Command me . . . 
 
 You did know 
 How much you were my conqueror : and that 
 My sword, made weak by my affection, would 
 Obey it on all cause. (in. x. 51.) 
 
 But in Shakespeare's view the final decision was 
 not reached even at the battle of Actium. Despite 
 that disaster and the subsequent desertions, Antony 
 is still able to offer no inconsiderable resistance in 
 Egypt. In direc t contradiction of Plutarch's state- 
 ment, he s^^aTg^IEiix^^IJo^^E^Eoa^slind th^. 
 
 Our force by land , 
 
 Hath nobly held ; our sever'd navy too /> 
 
 Have knit again, and fleet, threatening most sea-like. 
 
 (in. xiii. 169.) 
 
 Whether this be fact or illusion, it shows that in his 
 own eyes at least some hope remains : but in the 
 hour of defeat he was quite unmanned and seemed 
 to give up all thought of prolonging the struggle. 
 When for the first time after his reverse we meet 
 him in Alexandria, he prays his followers to "take 
 the hint which his despair proclaims" (iii. xi. 18), 
 and to leave him, with his treasure for their reward. 
 This circumstance Shakespeare obtained from Plu- 
 tarch, but in Plutarch it is not quite the same. There 
 the dismissal takes place at Taenarus in the Pelopon- 
 nesus, the first stopping-place at which Antony 
 
4o6 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 touches in his flight, and apparently is dictated by 
 the difficulty of all the fugitives effecting their escape. 
 At any rate he was very far even then from despair- 
 ing of his cause, for in the ^ /evious sentence we 
 read that he "sent unto Canidius, to returne with 
 his army into Asia, by Macedon "; and some time 
 later we find him, still ignorant of the facts, con- 
 tinuing to act on the belief ^'that his armie by 
 lande, which he left at Actium, was yet whole." ^ 
 Here on the other hand he has succeeded in reaching 
 his lair, and it is as foolish as it is generous to throw 
 away adherents and resources that might be of help 
 1 to him at the, last. But he is too despondent to 
 I think even of standing at bay. He tells his friends: 
 
 I have myself resolved upon a course 
 
 Which has no need of you. (iii. xi. 9.) 
 
 That course was to beseech Octavius by his 
 schoolmaster, 
 
 To let him breathe between the heavens and earth, 
 
 A private man in Athens. (in. xii. 14.) 
 
 Here he touches the bottom mud of degradation 
 and almost sinks to the level of Lepidus who did 
 obtain permission to live under surveillance at 
 Circeii "till death enlarged his confine." And here 
 too Shakespeare follows Plutarch, but here too with 
 a difference. For in the biography this incident 
 comes after some time has elapsed, and new dis- 
 appointments and new indulgences have made 
 deeper inroads in Antony's spirit. In^ one_aspect 
 no doubt he is less pitiable in thus "being brought 
 to mortification by degre es. " In~Shakespeare h e 
 adopts this course_before ever h^ has seen the 
 ^een^j_and_^n so far shows greater "weakness of 
 character. Like Richard II. he b ows his head at 
 
 ' He learns the truth however before he sends Euphronius as 
 delegate. 
 
MARK ANTONY 407 
 
 once, and without an effort takes "the sw eet way 
 ^despair." Y et jus t for that r easorThe is from 
 another ^nt ofvlew les slgHoEIe: Ttls the sudden 
 sense ot d is grace.'TKelLmaz ement, tKe~consteriTation 
 aLhisown poltroonery that tunisTiis'^neeslolviter. 
 Bunhi3:er3nmm eaiacy and " poignancy~of his-se TT- 
 tfisgust i s a guarantee of sin^iving nobility th at 
 needs only a JToccasion tocalHUorUi. Ihe occasi on 
 coni^ in the renjsaTo'f his own petition aii^l he 
 c onditional cpmplia nce with Cleopatra' s. Antony's 
 ans wer to "Tfiis~g ighti'rig:Z treatment islEIal'second 
 c hallen ge. This'"too Shakespeare obtained from 
 Plutarch, but of this too he altered the significance 
 and the date. In Plutarch it is sent after Antony's 
 victorious sally, apparently in elation at that trifling 
 success, and is recorded without other remark than 
 Octavius' rejoinder. In Shakespear eit is the retort 
 of Antony's self-consciousn ess to tHe^ept-eciatio n of 
 his rival, an d"" it is the hrst reboun d of hi s relax ed 
 valour. W hen" the victor counts "him a s nough t he->. 
 is stung to c omparisons, and "Teets^that apart from 
 succe ss and exte rnal advantage~sTie is stnTof g-reater 
 worth : -=»~™— 
 
 Tell him he wears the rose 
 Of youth upon him j from which the world should note 
 Something particular : his coin, ships, legions. 
 May be a coward's ; whose ministers would prevail 
 Under the service of a child as soon 
 As i' the command of Caesar : I dare him, therefore. 
 To lay his gay-comparisons apart, 
 
 And answer me declined, sword against sword, ^ 
 
 Ourselves alone. (in. xiii, zo.) 
 
 Of cou rse it is absurd and mad ; and the madness 
 a.nd absurdity are Hbrought out, in t he^play. rioTin 
 the I^t/e, by the comme nts of Enobarbus, Octavius 
 and Mecaenag: Indeed ^t this juncture Antony's 
 valour, or r ather his d esperation, does not cease to 
 prey on his reaSoIT His insult to Caesar in the 
 scourging of his messenger is less an excess of 
 
Q. 
 
 08 ) ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 audacity than the gnash of the teeth in the lasfe 
 agony : as Enobarbus remarks : 
 
 'Tis better playing with a lion's whelp 
 
 Than with an old one dying. (in. xiii. 94.) 
 
 Octavius may treat these transports of a great spirit 
 in the throes as mere bluster and brutality, and find 
 in them a warrant for his ruthless phrase, "the old 
 ruffian." There is a touch of the ruffian in Antony's 
 wild outbursts. Even the mettlesome vein in which 
 he commands another gaudy night on Cleopatra's 
 birthday is open to Enobarbus' disparagement : that 
 a diminution of his captain's brain restores his heart. 
 Truly the last shreds of prudence are whirled away 
 in his storm of recklessness and anguish and love. 
 At the defiant anniversary feast his soul is so wrung 
 with gratitude to his true servants and grief at the 
 near farewell, that he must give his feelings words 
 though they will discourage rather than hearten the 
 company. Cleopatra does not understand it, for 
 her own nature has not the depth of Antony's, and 
 deep Can only call to deep. " What means this ?" 
 she asks. 
 
 JSno. 'Tis one of those odd tricks which sorrow shoots 
 Out of the mind. (iv. ii. 14.) 
 
 Again, in amazement at his tearful pathos, she 
 exclaims: "What does he mean?" And with an 
 effort at cynicism, Enobarbus, who has scoffed at 
 Antony's emotion over the bodies of Caesar and 
 Brutus, replies : " To make his followers weep " ; 
 for Enobarbus tries to think that it is merely the 
 orator's eloquence that runs away with him in his 
 melting mood. Nevertheless his own sympathies 
 are touched for the moment : " I, an ass, am onion- 
 eyed." In truth none can mistake the genuine 
 feeling of Antony's words, though at the hint he can 
 
MARK ANTONY 409 
 
 at once change their tone and give them an heroic 
 and even a sanguine turn.^ 
 
 Know, my hearts, 
 I hope well of to-morrow ; and will lead you 
 Where rather I'll expect victorious life 
 Than death and honour. (iv. ii. 41.) 
 
 But whatever deduction s be made, A ntony's last 
 days m Alexandria bring "back a St. "Martm's summer 
 oTg^jaT^iower and genial TKrbrHty-riTart" are -dtnibly 
 cagnvating when set off againstl;he' foil of Caesar's 
 coIHnessr~'TKe grand proportions of his nafureTthat 
 are oSscured in the vintage time of success and 
 indulgence, show forth again when the branches are 
 bare. No doubt he again and again does the wrong 
 things, or at least the things that lead to no useful 
 result. His patron god deserts him as in Plutar ch, 
 but that god in Shakespeare is not Bacchus but 
 Hercules, and he depar ts earlier than in the biography 
 and not on the last night before the end : for the 
 withdrawal of~tKe~ Tiyine . friend is now Jess^tlie 
 preiage~ot Heat h than th£_^ symbol .^Jjoef&cacy. 
 Antony s insight and judgment may be failing ; hisl 
 flashes of power may be like his flashes of jealousy, ; 
 and indicate the dissolution of his being. Still when 
 all is said and done, he seems to become bolder, 
 grander, more magnanimous, as the fuel is cut off 
 from his inward fire and it burns and wastes in its 
 own heat. His reflux of heroism cannot save him 
 against the material superiority and concentrated 
 ambition of Octavius, for it is not the consequent 
 energy that commands success and that implies a 
 consequent purpose in life : but all the more im- j 
 pressive and affecting is this gallant fronting of fate.^ 
 
 ^ Which latter for the rest may be found in North but not in 
 Plutarch. " To salve that he had spoken he added this more unto it, 
 that he would not leade them to battell, where he thought not rather 
 safely to returne with victorie, then valliantly to dye with honor:" 
 
 Cf^ fiij irpod^eiv iirl t^v fidxW) i^ ^s a^r^ $6.yarov e&Kkea fiSiWoy ^ ffiaT'qpiav 
 fijTOK Kai vlxriv. 
 
4IO ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 As Cleopatra arms him for his last little victory, he 
 cries with his old self-consciousness : 
 
 O love, 
 That thou couldst see my wars to-day, and knew'st 
 The royal occupation ! thou shouldst see 
 A workman in 't. (iv. iv. 15.) 
 
 He welcomes the time for battle: 
 
 This morning, like the spirit of a youth, 
 
 That means to be of note, begins betimes. (iv. iv. 26.) 
 
 Cleopatra recognises his greatness and his doom : 
 
 He goes forth gallantly. That he and Caesar might 
 
 Determine this great war in single fight ! 
 
 Then, Antony, — but now — well, on. (iv. iv. 36.) 
 
 That day he does well indeed. He pursues the 
 recreant Enobarbus with his generosity and the 
 vanquished Romans with his valour. He returns 
 victorious and jubilant to claim his last welcoming 
 embrace. 
 
 O thou day o' the world, 
 Chain mine arm'd neck ; leap thou, attire and all. 
 Through proof of harness to my heart, and there 
 Ride on the pants triumphing. (iv. viii. 13.) 
 
 Then the morrow brings the end. His fleet de§ei:tS|- 
 and for the moment he suspects Cleopatra as the 
 cause, and overwhelms her with curses and threats. 
 The suspicion is natural, and his nature is on edge 
 at the fiasco, which this time is no fault of his. 
 
 The soul and body rive not more in parting 
 
 Than greatness going off.^ (iv. xiii. 5.) 
 
 ' A familiar thought with Shakespeare. Compare Anne's reference 
 to Katherine in Henry VIII. : 
 
 O, God's will ! much better 
 She ne'er had known pomp : though't be temporal. 
 Yet, if that quarrel, fortune, do divorce 
 It from the bearer, 'tis a sufferance panging 
 As soul and body's severing. (11. iii. 12.) 
 
 This scene is almost certainly Shakespeare's. 
 
MARK ANTONY 411 
 
 But his mood chang^es . Even before he hears 
 Cleopatra's disclaimer_angnEKe^news oTTTer alleged 
 death, he" has "beaDme calm, 'ahJ only feels the 
 futility orrt' all ; "tre-TS-to "him^self"" indistinct, as 
 ^^a^jjsjnjsvatsr^^^i-v. xiv. 10). Then comes the 
 message that his beloved is no more, and his 
 resolution is fixed : 
 
 Unarm me, Eros ; the long day's task is done. 
 
 And we must sleep. (iv. xiv. 36.) 
 
 His thoughts are with his Queen in the Elysian fields 
 where he will ask her pardon,^ and he only stays for 
 Eros' help. But when Eros chooses his own rather 
 than his master's death, Antony in his large-hearted 
 way gives him the praise, and finds in his act a 
 lesson. 
 
 Thrice-nobler than myself! 
 Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what 
 I should, and thou couldst not. ' (iv. xiv. 95.) 
 
 The wound he deals himself is not at once fatal. 
 He lives long enough to comfort his followers in the 
 heroic words : 
 
 Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp fate 
 To grace it with your sorrows : bid that welcome 
 Which comes to punish us, and we punish it 
 Seeming to bear it lightly. Take me up : 
 I have led you oft : carry me now, good friends, 
 And have my thanks for all.^ 
 
 ' Dido and her ^neas shall want troops. 
 
 And all the haunt be ours. (iv. xiv. 52.) 
 
 We have not got much further in explaining Shakespeare's allusion 
 than when Warburton made the Warburtonian emendation of Sichaeus 
 for .£neas. Shakespeare had probably quite forgotten Virgil's 
 
 Ilia solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat : 
 
 atque inimica refugit 
 
 In nemus umbriferum. (^. vi. 469.) 
 
 Perhaps he remembered only that ^neas, ancestor and representative 
 of the Romans, between his two authorised marriages with ladies of 
 the "superior" races, intercalated the love-adventure, which alone 
 seized the popular imagination and which of all the deities Venus alone 
 approved, with an African queen. 
 
 2 No word of this in Plutarch. 
 
412 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 He has heard the truth about Cleopatra, and only 
 importunes death that he may snatch that one last 
 interview sacred to his love of her, his care for her, 
 and to that serene, lefty dignity which now he has 
 attained. The world seems a blank when this full 
 life is out ; and looking at the race that is left, we 
 feel inclined to echo Cleopatra's words above the 
 corpse : 
 
 O, wither'd is the garland of the war, 
 
 The soldier's pole is fall'n : young boys and girls 
 
 Are level now with men ; the odds is gone, 
 
 And there is nothing left remarkable 
 
 Beneath the visiting moon. (iv. xv. 64.) 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CLEOPATRA 
 
 To Cleopatra, the lodestar, the temptress, the pre- 
 destined mate of Antony, we now turn : and 
 perhaps even Shakespeare has no more marvellous 
 creation than she, or one in which the nature that 
 inspires and the genius that reveals, are so fused in 
 the ideal truth. Campbell says : "He paints her as 
 if the gipsy herself had cast her spell over him, and 
 given her own witchcraft to his pencil." The witch- 
 craft everybody feels. It is almost impossible to 
 look at her steadily, or keep one's head to estimate 
 her aright. She is the in carnate p nf ^try nLJ.ii ie. 
 wfttinnl; dHty; glorified by beauty and grace ; of 
 impulse withou t principl e, ennobled by culture and 
 intelleCr — tJut however it may be with the reader, 
 Shakespeare does not lose his head. He is not the 
 adept mesmerised, the sprcerer ensorcelled. Such 
 avatars as the Egyptian Queen have often been 
 described by other poets, but generally from the 
 point of view either of the servile devotee or of the 
 unsympathetic censor. Here the artist is a man, 
 experienced and critical, yet with the fires of his 
 imagination still ready to leap and glow. He stands 
 in right relation to the laws of life ; and his delinea- 
 tion is all the more impressive and all the more 
 aesthetic, the more remorselessly he sacrifices the 
 
414 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 one-sided claims of the conception in which he 
 delights, to the laws of tragic necessity. 
 
 Cleopatra is introduced to us as a beauty of a 
 somewhat dusky African type in the full maturity, 
 or perhaps a little past the maturity, of her bloom. 
 The first trait is for certain historically wrong.^ 
 The line of the Ptolemies was of the purest Grecian 
 breed, with a purity of which they were proud, and 
 which they sought to preserve by close intermar- 
 riage within their house. But Shakespeare has so 
 impressed his own idea of Cleopatra on the world 
 that later painters and poets have followed suit ever 
 since. Tennyson, in the Dream of Fair Women 
 tells how she summons him : 
 
 I, turning, saw throned on a flowery rise 
 
 One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll'd, 
 
 A Queen with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes. 
 
 Brow-bound with burning gold. 
 
 Hawthorne in his Transformation, describing Story's 
 statue of Cleopatra, which here he attributes to 
 Kenyon, goes further : 
 
 The face was a marvellous success. The sculptor had not 
 shunned to give the full Nubian lips and the other charac- 
 teristics of the Egyptian physiognomy. His courage and 
 integrity had been abundantly rewarded : for Cleopatra's 
 beauty shone out richer, warmer, more triumphantly beyond 
 comparison, than if, shrinking timidly from the truth, he had 
 chosen the tame Grecian type. 
 
 Hawthorne goes astray through taking Shake- 
 speare's picture, or rather another picture which 
 Shakespeare's suggested to his own fancy, as a 
 literal portrait ; but his very mistake shows how 
 incongruous a fair Cleopatra would now seem to us. 
 Not often or obtrusively, but of set purpose and 
 beyond the possibility of neglect, does Shakespeare 
 
 ^ Wrong ; even if on numismatic evidence her features be considered 
 to fall short of and deviate from the Greek ideal. Professor Ferrero 
 describes her face as " bouffie." 
 
CLEOPATRA 415 
 
 refer to her racial peculiarities. Philo talks of her 
 "tawny front" (i. i. 6), and both he and Antony call 
 her a gipsy with reference not merely to the wily 
 and vagabond character with which these landlopers 
 in Shakespeare's day were stigmatised, but surely 
 to the darkness of her complexion as well. But the 
 most explicit and the most significant statement is 
 her own : 
 
 Think on me, 
 That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black, (i. v. 27.) 
 
 This is one of her ironical exaggerations ; but does 
 it not suggest something torrid and tropical, some- 
 thing of the fervours of the East and South, that 
 burn in the volcanic fires of Othello and the im- 
 pulsive splendours of Morocco ? Does it not recall 
 the glowing plea of the latter, 
 
 Mislike me not for my complexion. 
 
 The shadow'd livery of the burnish'd sun. 
 
 To whom I am a neighbour and near bred. 
 
 (M. of v., II. i. I.) 
 
 The sun has indeed shone on her and into her. 
 She has known the love and adoration of the 
 greatest. 
 
 Broad-fronted Caesar, 
 When thou wast here above the ground, I was 
 A morsel for a monarch : and great Pompey 
 Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow ; 
 There would he anchor his aspect and die 
 With looking on his life. (i. v. 29.) 
 
 Shakespeare magnifies the glories of her conquests, 
 for it was not Pompey the Great but his son who 
 had been her lover of old. But these experiences 
 were only the preparation for the grand passion of 
 her life. She has outgrown them ; and if the first 
 freshness is gone, the intoxication of fragrance, the 
 flavour and lusciousness are enhanced. However 
 much she believed herself engrossed by these early 
 
4i6 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 fancies, now that she is under the spell of her 
 Antony, her " man of men," she looks back on 
 them as of her 
 
 salad days 
 When (she) was green in judgement, cold in blood, (i. v. 73.) 
 
 Talking of her preparations to meet Antony, Plu- 
 tarch says : 
 
 Gassing by the former accesse and credit she had with 
 Julius Caesar and Cneus Pompey (the sonne of Pompey the 
 Great) only for her beawtie; she began to have good hope 
 that she might more easily win Antonius. For Caesar and 
 Pompey knew her when she was but a young thing, and knew 
 not then what the world ment : but now she went to Antonius, 
 at the age when a womans beawtie is at the prime, and she 
 also of best judgement. 
 
 "At the prime" are Plutarch's words; for in point 
 of fact she was then twenty-eight years of age. 
 In this Shakespeare follows and goes beyond his 
 authority ; he gives us the impression of her being 
 somewhat older. Pompey talks of her contemp- 
 tuously as " Egypt's widow," and prays : 
 
 All the charms of love. 
 Salt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip. (11. i. 20.) 
 
 She herself in ironical self-disparagement avows 
 that she is "wrinkled deep in time" (i. v. 29) and 
 exclaims : 
 
 Though age from folly could not give me freedom, 
 
 It does from childishness. (i. iii. 57.) 
 
 But what then ? Like Helen and Gudrun and 
 the ladies of romance, or like Ninon de Lenclos in 
 actual life, she never grows old. As even the cynical 
 Enobarbus proclaims, "age cannot wither her." She 
 has only gained skill and experience in the use and 
 embellishment of her physical charms, and with these 
 the added charms of grace, culture, expressiveness. 
 She knows how to set off her attractions with all the 
 
CLEOPATRA 41; 
 
 aids of art, wealth and effect, as we see from the 
 mise-en-scene at the Cydnus : and her mobility and 
 address, her wit, her surprises, her range of interest 
 do the rest. Again Shakesf)eare has got the clue 
 from Plutarch : 
 
 Now her beawtie (as it is reported) was not so passing, 
 as unmatchable of other women,i nor yet suche, as upon 
 present viewe did enamor men with her ; but so sweete was 
 her compame and conversacion, that a man could not pos- 
 sibhe but be taken. And besides her beawtie, the good grace 
 she had to talke and discourse, her curteous nature that 
 tempered her words and dedes, was a spurre that pricked to 
 the quick. Furthermore, besides all these, her voyce and 
 words were marvelous pleasant; for her tongue was an 
 mstrument of musicke to divers sports and pastimes, the 
 which she easely turned to any language that pleased her. 
 
 In one respect Shakespeare differs from Plutarch ; 
 he bestows on her surpassing and unmatchable 
 beauty, so that she transcends the artist's ideal as 
 much as that transcends mortal womanhood ; she 
 o'er-pictures 
 
 that Venus where we see 
 The fancy outwork nature.^ (n. y. 205.) 
 
 But he agrees with Plutarch in making her beauty 
 the least part of her spell. Generally speaking it is 
 taken for granted rather than pointed out ; and of 
 its great triumph on the Cydnus we hear only in the 
 enraptured reminiscences of Enobarbus. Thus it is 
 removed from the sphere of sense to the sphere of 
 imagination, and is idealised in the fervour of his 
 delight ; but, though this we never forget, it is of 
 her other charms that we think most when she is 
 present on the scene. 
 
 ' The sense is : " Her beauty was not so surpassing as to be beyond 
 comparison with other women's," etc. Compare the Greek : " k<lI ydp 
 
 1)v, (is \iyov<nv, airri /ih Kad' airb, rb KdWos airrTJs oi irivv SvarapdBXvTov 
 oiS otov ^/orXflfm toCs IS&rras." 
 
 ^^ " Plutarch in the corresponding passage merely says that she was 
 apparelled and attired like the goddesse Venus commonly drawen 
 m picture." 
 
 2 D 
 
4i8 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 She is all life and movement, and never the same, 
 so that we are dazzled and bewildered, and too 
 dizzy to measure her by any fixed standard. Her 
 versatility of intellect, her variety of mood, are in- 
 exhaustible ; and she can pass from gravity to 
 gaiety, from fondness to banter, with a suddenness 
 that baffles conjecture. We can forecast nothing 
 of her except that any forecast will be vain. At 
 her very first entrance the languishing gives place 
 in a moment to the exasperating vein : 
 
 If it be love indeed, tell me how much. (i. i. 14.) 
 
 Fulvia perchance is angry ; or, who knows 
 If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent 
 His powerful mandate to you. (i. i. 20.) 
 
 For she turns to account even the gibe and the 
 jeer, stings her lover with her venomous punctures, 
 and pursues a policy of pin-pricks not to repel but 
 to allure. The hint comes from Plutarch. 
 
 When Cleopatra found Antonius jeasts and slents to be but 
 grosse and souldier-like, in plairie manner ; she gave it him 
 finely and without feare taunted him throughly. 
 
 And on the other hand she can faint at will, weep 
 and sob beyond measure. 
 
 We cannot call her winds and waters sighs and tears : 
 they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can 
 report. (i. ii. 152.) 
 
 Here, too, the hint is given by Plutarch, but in a 
 later passage, when she fears Antony may return 
 to Octavia : 
 
 When he went from her, she fell a weeping and blubbering, 
 looked rufuUy of the matter, and still found the meanes that 
 Antonius should often tymes finde her weeping. 
 
 In the play, when he announces his departure, she is 
 ready to fall ; her lace must be cut ; she plays the 
 seduced innocent ; but she mingles wormwood with 
 her pathos and overwhelms him with all sorts of 
 
CLEOPATRA 419 
 
 opposite reproaches. Since he does not bewail 
 i-ulvia, that is proof of infidelity: 
 
 ,,„ , , O most false love ! 
 
 Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill 
 
 With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see, 
 
 In Fulvia's death, how mine received shall be. (i. iii. 62.) 
 
 When his distress is not to be confined, she taxes 
 nim with mourning for his wife : 
 
 I prithee, turn aside and weep for her j 
 
 Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears 
 
 Belong to Egypt. (l ;;; ^g j 
 
 When he loses patience, she mocks at him : 
 
 Ant. You'll heat my blood : no more. 
 
 Ck. You can do better yet; but this is meetly. 
 
 Ant. Now, by my sword, — 
 
 _ '^'^'r. . And target. Still he mends : 
 
 But this IS not the best. Look, prithee, Charitiian, 
 How this Herculean Roman does become 
 The carriage of his chafe. (i. jij. go \ 
 
 But at the word of his leaving she is at once all 
 wistful tenderness : 
 
 Courteous lord, one word. 
 Sir, you and I must part, but that's not it : 
 Sir, you and I have loved, but there's not it ; 
 That you know well : something it is I would, — 
 
 O, my oblivion is a very Antony, ^ 
 
 And I am all forgotten.^ (i. ijj, 35 \ 
 
 But thence again she passes on the instant to grave 
 and quiet dignity : 
 
 All the gods go with you ! upon your sword 
 Sit laurel victory ! and smooth success 
 Be strew'd before your feet ! (i. iij. g^ \ 
 
 It is the unexfl£ct£d n£ss of her transitl ons^^bf^-^. 
 
 possibil ity of foreseeing what she will .say or do jVip 
 
 ^rt^atylttiat. whatever sh£„gaja,iaLjto^4iil-5e a 
 
 'See Appendix E. 
 
420 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 surprdser-jJiat-Jkeeps—Antoiiy^aH 
 per petual ag^itation. ^ Tranquillity and dullness fly at 
 the sound of her name. Her love relies on provo- 
 cation in both senses of the word, and to a far greater 
 extent in Shakespeare than in Plutarch. Thus 
 Plutarch tells how Octavius' expedition in occupying 
 Toryne caused dismay among Antony's troops : 
 "But Cleopatra making light of it: 'And what 
 daunger, I pray you,' said she, ' if Caesar keepe at 
 Toryne ? ' " On which North has the long marginal 
 note : 
 
 The grace of this tawnt can not properly be expressed in 
 any other tongue, bicause of the equivocation of this word 
 Toryne, which signifieth a citie of Albania, and also, a ladell 
 to scoome the pot with : as if she ment, Caesar sat by the 
 fire side, scomming of the pot. 
 
 Shakespeare makes no attempt to find an equivalent 
 for the untranslatable jest, but substitutes one of 
 those bitter mocks before which Antony has so often 
 to wince. When he expresses wonder at his rival's 
 dispatch, she strikes in : 
 
 Celerity is never more admired 
 
 Than by the negligent. (iii. vii. 25.) 
 
 'The love she inspires and feels is of the kind described by La 
 Rochefoucauld : " L'amour, aussi bien que le feu, ne peut subsister, 
 sans un mouvement continuel ; et il cesse de vivre dfes qu'il cesse 
 d'esp^ier ou de craindre." He has another passage that suggests an 
 explanation of the secret of Cleopatra's permanent attraction for the 
 volatile Antony : " La Constance en amour est una inconstance per- 
 petuelle, qui fait que notre cceur s'attache successivement k toutes les 
 qualitds de la personne que nous aimons, donnant tant6t la prdf&ence 
 k I'une, tantot k I'autre ; de sorte que cette Constance n'est qu'une 
 inconstance arr^tee et renfei-m^e dans un meme sujet." It is curious 
 how often an English reader of La Rochefoucauld feels impelled to 
 illustrate the Reflections on Love and Women by reference to 
 Shakespeare's Cleopatra, but it is very natural. His friend the 
 Duchess of Longueville and the other great ladies of the Fronde 
 resembled her in their charm, their wit, their im'pulsiveness ; and 
 when they engaged in the game of politics, subordinated it like her to 
 their passions and caprices. So his own experience would familiarise 
 La Rochefoucauld with the type, which he has merely generalised, and 
 labelled as the only authentic one. 
 
CLEOPATRA 421 
 
 t^S^A?exas°^^ '^'^ ^°" °^ '^'"^ °" principle. She 
 
 See where he is, who's with him, what he does : 
 
 1 did not send you : if you find him sad, 
 
 Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report 
 
 That I am sudden sick. (i ^ ^ \ 
 
 Is it then all artifice? Are all her eddying whims 
 and contradictions mere stratagems to secure her 
 sway ? For a moment Antony seems to think so. 
 bhe IS cunning past man's thought," he says in 
 reference to her swooning : and perhaps it is because 
 ot her cunning as well as her sinuous grace that his 
 endearing name for her is his "Serpent of old Nile " 
 (I. V. 25). Enobarbus' reply is in effect that her 
 disp ays of emotion are too vehement to be the 
 results of art ; they are the quintessence of feeling • 
 "her passions are made of nothing but the finest part 
 of pure love (i. ii. 151). , 
 
 And both these views are correct. It is her deJ 
 liberate programme to keep satiety afar by the/ 
 swiftness and diversity of the changes she assumes ■' 
 but it IS a programme easy to carry out, for it corre- 
 sponds to her own nature. She is a creature of 
 ^vc' , .^^"'ement, restlessness, curiosity pulse in 
 her hfe-blood. In Antony's absence she is as flighty 
 with herself as ever she was with him. She feeds 
 on memories and thoughts of him, but they plague 
 rather than soothe her. In little more than a 
 breathmg-space she turns to music, billiards, and 
 hshing ; and abandons them all to revel once in her 
 day-dreams. 
 
 When the messenger arrives after Antony's 
 marriage, she in her ungovernable eagerness inter- 
 rupts him and will not let him disclose the tidings 
 for which she longs. When she hears what they 
 are, she loses all restraint; she stuns him with 
 th'jats, curses, blows; she hales him by the hair 
 and draws a knife upon him. Then, sinking down 
 
422 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 in a faint, she suddenly recovers herself with that 
 irrepressible vitality and inquisitiveness of hers, that 
 are bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh : < 
 
 Go to the fellow, good Alexas ; bid him 
 
 Report the feature of Octavia, her years, 
 
 Her inclination, let him not leave out 
 
 The colour of her hair. (ii. v. in.) 
 
 And while we are still smiling at the last little touch, 
 comes that moving outburst of a sensitive and sorely 
 stricken soul : 
 
 Pity me, Charmian, 
 But do not speak to me. (ii. v. ii8.) 
 
 Not long, however, is she in despair. Her know- 
 ledge of Antony's character, her knowledge of her 
 own charms, even her vanity and self-illusion combine 
 to give her assurance of final triumph ; and when we 
 next meet her, she is once more hopeful and alert. 
 "Why, methinks," she sums up at the close of her 
 not very scientific investigation, " this creature's no 
 such thing " (in. iii. 43) ; and she concludes, " All 
 may be well enough " (in. iii. 50). 
 
 The charm and piquancy of this nimble change- 
 fulness are obvious, and it is not without its value 
 as a weapon in the warfare of life. But it is equally 
 true that such shifting gusts will produce unreliability, 
 and even shiftiness. It is quite natural that Cleo- 
 patra, a queen and the daughter of kings, should, in 
 her presumptuous mood, insist on being present in 
 the campaign and on leading to battle her own sixty 
 ships. It is no less natural that amid the actual 
 horrors of the conflict, the luxuriously bred lady 
 should be seized with panic and take to flight. 
 Indeed it is precisely what we might expect. For 
 despite the royalty of soul she often displays, there 
 is in Cleopatra a strain of physical, tjmidity, for 
 which Shakespeare has already prepared us. When 
 
CLEOPATRA 423 
 
 the messenger of woe is to give his tidings to 
 Antony, he hesitates and says : 
 
 The nature of bad news infects the teller, 
 
 and Antony answers nobly and truly : 
 
 When it concerns the fool or coward. (i. ii. 99.) 
 
 We cannot help remembering Antony's words when 
 Cleopatra visits on the bearer the fault of the bad 
 news to her : 
 
 Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me 
 
 Thou wouldst appear most ugly. (11. v. 96.) 
 
 Such a reception according to Antony stamps the 
 fool or the coward. Cleopatra is no fool, but there 
 is a touch of cowardice in her, that appears over and 
 over again. 
 
 Thus it is perhaps fear, fear blended with worldli- 
 ness, that gains a hearing for Thyreus. There is 
 absolutely no indication that she is playing a part 
 and temporising, out of faithfulness to Antony. She 
 had already sent her own private petition to Caesar, 
 confessing his greatness, submitting to his might, 
 and requesting " the circle of the Ptolemies " for 
 her heirs. This, otherwise than in Plutarch, she 
 had done without Antony's knowledge, who tells 
 her, as though for her information, that he had 
 sent his schoolmaster to bear his terms ; with which 
 Cleopatra's were not associated. Her whole be 
 haviour shows that she dreads Octavius' power, and 
 dreads the loss of her own wealth and dignities, 
 But, in the scene with Thyreus, is she really pre- 
 pared to desert and betray her lover ? Antony 
 suspects that she is, and appearances are indeec 
 against her. Enobarbus believes that she is, anc 
 Enobarbus generally hits on the truth. Yet wc 
 have always to remember the temptation she woulc 
 feel to try her spells on Thyreus and his master 
 
424 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 and even after Enobarbus' desertion she remains 
 with Antony, clings to him, encourages him, arms 
 him, is proud of him. In any case it would not 
 be cold-blooded perfidy, but one of those flaws of 
 weakness, of fear, of self-pity, of self-interest, that 
 take her unawares.^ For the final treason of the- 
 fleet at any rate, of which Antony imagines her 
 guilty, she seems in no way responsible. Plutarch 
 mentions Antony's infuriated suspicion but adds no 
 word in confirmation, and Shakespeare, who would 
 surely not have left us without direction on so im- 
 portant a matter, is equally reticent. Such hints 
 a^ he gives, point the other way. We may indeed 
 discount the disclaimers of Mardian and Diomedes 
 who would probably say anything they were told 
 to say. But when Antony greets Cleopatra, "Ah, 
 thou spell ! avaunt !" her exclamation, 
 
 Why is my lord enraged against his love ? (iv. xii. 31.) 
 
 seems to express genuine amazement rather than 
 assumed innocence. And in her conversation with 
 her attendants her words, to all appearance, imply 
 that she cannot understand his rage : to her it is 
 merely inexplicable frenzy : 
 
 Help me, my women ! O, he is more mad 
 
 Than Telamon for-his shield ; the boar of Thessaly 
 
 Was never so emboss'd. (iv. xiii. i.) 
 
 Moreover, if she had packed cards with Caesar, 
 it is difficult to see why she should not claim a price 
 for her treachery, instead of locking herself up in 
 the Monument as she does, and trying to keep the 
 Romans out. All the negociations and interviews 
 after Antony's death seem to imply that she had 
 no previous understanding with Octavius. 
 
 But she recoils from her lover's desperation, as 
 she always does when he is deeply moved. She 
 
 ' " L'on fait plus souvent des trahisons par foiblesse que par un 
 dessein form^ de trahir."— Za Rochefoucauld. 
 
CLEOPATRA 425 
 
 has ever the tact to feel the point at which her 
 blandishments and vexations are out of place and 
 will no longer serve her turn. Just as after the 
 disaster of Actium she only sobs : 
 
 O my lord, my lord, 
 Forgive my fearful, sails ! (m. xi. 54.) 
 
 and then can urge no plea but "pardon"; just as 
 after her interview with Thyreus, with no hint of 
 levity, she solemnly imprecates curses on herself and 
 her offspring if she were false ; so now she bows 
 before his wrath and flees to the monument. Then 
 follows the fiction of her death, a fiction in which 
 the actress does not forget \}!\^ finesses of her art. 
 
 Say, that the last I spoke was " Antony," 
 
 And word it, prithee, piteously. (iv. xiii. 8.) 
 
 It is not the most candid nor dignified expedient, 
 but probably it is the most effective one; for 
 violent ills need violent cures; and perhaps there 
 was nothing that could allay Antony's storm of 
 distrust but as fierce a storm of regret. At any 
 rate it has the result at which Cleopatra aims ; but 
 she knows him well, and presently foresees that 
 the antidote may have a further working than she 
 intends. Diomedes seems to state the mere truth 
 when he says that her prophesying fear dispatched 
 him to proclaim the truth. 
 
 But it is too late; and there only remains the 
 lofty parting-scene, when if she still fears to open 
 the gates lest Caesar should enter, she draws her 
 lover up to the monument, and lightens his last 
 moments no less with her queenliness than with 
 her love. She feels the fitness and the pathos in 
 his ending, that none but Antony should conquer 
 Antony : she not obscurely hints that she will take 
 the same path. When he bids her : 
 
 Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety ; (iv. xv. 47.) 
 
/ 
 
 426 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 she answers well, " They do not go together." Her 
 passionate ejaculation ere she faints above his corpse, 
 her appeal to her frightened women, 
 
 what's brave, what's noble. 
 Let's do it after the high Roman fashion, (v. xv. 87.) 
 
 have a whole-heartedness and intensity that first 
 reveal the greatness of her nature. 
 
 And yet even now she seems to veer from the 
 prouder course on which she has set out. We soon 
 find her in appearance paltering with her Roman 
 decision. She sends submissive messages to Caesar ; 
 she delays her death so long that Proculeius can 
 surprise her in her asylum ; she accepts her con- 
 queror's condescension ; she stoops to hold back 
 and conceal the greater part of her jewels. 
 
 It is a strange riddle that Shakespeare has here 
 offered to the student, and perhaps no certain solu- 
 tion of it is to be found. In this play, even more 
 than in most, he resorts to what has been called 
 his shorthand, to the briefest and most hurried 
 notation of his meaning, and often it is next to 
 impossible to explain or extend his symbols. 
 
 The usual interpretation, which has much to com- 
 mend it, accepts all these apparent compliances of 
 Cl'feopatra for what on the face they are. They are 
 taken as instances of Shakespeare's veracious art 
 that abstains from sophisticating fact for the sake 
 of effect, and attains a higher effect through this 
 very conscientiousness and self-restraint. Just as 
 he makes the enthusiastic fidelity of Enobarbus fail 
 to stand the supreme test, so he detects a flaw in 
 the resolute yearning of Cleopatra. The body of 
 her dead past weighs her down, and she cannot 
 advance steadily in the higher altitudes. She wavers 
 in her determination to die, as is implied by her 
 retention of her treasure, and " the courtesan's in- 
 stj^cts of venality and falsehood "^ still assert their 
 
 ^ ' Boas, Shakespeare and his Predecessors. 
 
CLEOPATRA 427 
 
 sway. She has too easily taken to heart Antony's 
 advice, and is but too ready, despite all her brave 
 words, to grasp at her safety along with her honour, 
 or what she is pleased to consider her honour to be. 
 And, just as in the case of Enobarbus, an external 
 stimulus is needed to urge her to the nobler course. 
 The gods in their unkindness are kind to her. 
 Dolabella's disclosures and her own observations 
 convince her that Caesar^ spares h er_jnly f^r his 
 own glory and for l^ fshame ;.JtiiiIIas^she fore- 
 boded, her safety andJiHZ^^nou r do not go together. 
 Then, at the thought of the indignity, all her royal 
 and aristocratic nature rises 'in revolt, and she at 
 last chooses as she ought. 
 
 On the other hand it is possible to maintain that 
 all these apparent lapses are mere subterfuges forced 
 on Cleopatra to ensure the success of her scheme ; 
 and this interpretation receives some support not 
 only from the text of the play, but from the com- 
 parison of it with North, and a consideration of 
 what in the original narrative Shakespeare takes for 
 granted, of what he alters, and of what he adds.^ 
 
 After her more or less explicit statements in 
 Antony's death scene, her suppliant message from 
 the monument is an interpolation of the dramatist's ; 
 but so is the very different declaration which she 
 subsequently makes to her confidantes and in which 
 her purpose of suicide seems unchanged : 
 
 My desolation does begin to make 
 
 A better life. 'Tis paltry to be Caesar ; 
 
 Not being Fortune, he's but Fortune's knave, 
 
 A minister of her will : and it is great 
 
 To do the thing that ends all other deeds ; 
 
 Which shackle? accidents and bolts up change ; 
 
 Which sleeps, and never palates more the dung,2 
 
 The beggar's nurse and Caesar's. (v. ii. i.) 
 
 ' This was first suggested in A. Stahr's Cleopatra. I prefer to give 
 the arguments in my own way. 
 
 2 So in folio : some modern editions alter unnecessarily to " dug." 
 
428 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 Which of these two utterances gives the true 
 Cleopatra, the one transmitted at' second hand for 
 Octavius' consumption, or the one breaking from 
 her in private to her two women who will be true to 
 her till death ? Quite apart from the circumstances 
 in which, and the persons to whom, they are spoken, 
 there is a marked -difference in tone between the 
 ceremonious official character of the first, and the 
 spontaneous sincerity of the second. 
 
 Then just at this moment Proculeius arrives and 
 engages her in talk. It is not wonderful that she 
 should look for a moment to the man Antony had 
 recommended to her ; but, though she is deferential 
 to Octavius, her one request is not for herself but 
 for her son. And when the surprise is effected, 
 there is no question of the genuineness of her 
 attempt at self-destruction. Even when she is 
 disarmed, she persists, as with Plutarch, in her 
 resolution to kill herself if need be by starvation. 
 In Plutarch she is dissuaded from this by threats 
 against her children ; in Shakespeare events proceed 
 more rapidly, and she has no time to put such a 
 plan in practice ; nor is any serious use made of the 
 maternal "motif." From first to last it is, along, 
 with grief for Antony, resentment at the Roman 
 triumph that moves her. And these feelings are in 
 full activity when immediately afterwards she is left 
 in charge of Dolabella, This passage also is an 
 addition, and it is noteworthy that it begins with 
 her deification of Antony, and ends with Dolabella's 
 assurance, which in Plutarch only follows later where 
 the ptay repeats it, of her future fate. 
 
 Cle. He'll lead me, then, in triumph ? 
 
 Dol. Madam, he will ; I know't. (v. ii. 109.) 
 
 It is just then that Caesar is announced ; and it is 
 hard to believe that Cleopatra, with her two master 
 passions excited to the height, should really contem- 
 
CLEOPATRA 429 
 
 plate embezzling treasure as provision for a life 
 which surely, in view of the facts, she could not 
 care to prolong. Moreover, in Plutarch's narrative 
 there is a contradiction or ambiguity which North's 
 marginal note brings into relief, and which would be 
 quite enough to set a duller man than Shakespeare 
 thinking about what it all meant. 
 
 At length, she gave him a breefe and memoriall of all the 
 readie money and treasure she had. But by chaunce there 
 stoode Seleucus by, one of her Treasorers, who to seeme a 
 good servant, came straight to Caesar to disprove Cleopatra, 
 that she had not set in al, but kept many things back of 
 purpose. Cleopatra was in such a rage with him, that she 
 flew upon him and tooke him by the heare of the head, and 
 boxed him wellfavoredly. Caesar fell a laughing, and parted 
 the fray. " Alas," said she, " O Caesar : is not this a great 
 shame and reproche, that {hou having vouchsaved to take 
 the peines to come unto me, and hast done me this honor, 
 poore wret'che, and caitife creature, brought into this pitiefull 
 and miserable estate: and that mine owne servaunts should 
 come now to accuse irie, though it may be I have reserved 
 some juells and trifles meete for women, but not for me 
 (poore soule) to set out my selfe withall, but meaning to geve 
 some pretie presents and gifts unto Octavia and Livia, that 
 they making meanes and intercession for me to thee, thou 
 mightest yet extend thy favor and mercie upon ' me ? " 
 Caesar was glad to heare her say so, perswading Mm selfe 
 thereby that she had yet a desire to save her life. So he made 
 her answere, that he did not only geve her that to dispose of 
 at her pleasure, which she had kept backe, but further 
 promised to use her more honorably and bountifully then 
 she would thinke for: and so he tooke his leave of her, 
 supposing he had deceived her, but in deede he was deceived 
 him selfe. 
 
 And North underlines the suggestive clauses with 
 his comment : 
 
 Cleopatra finely deceiveth Octavius Caesar, as though she 
 desired to live. 
 
 It is not hard therefore to see how the whole episode 
 may be taken as contrived on her part. It would 
 be a device of the serpent of old Nile, one of her 
 
430 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 triumphs of play-acting, by means of which she gets 
 the better of her conqueror and makes him indeed 
 an ass unpolicied. And though the suggestion 
 would come from Plutarch, whom Shakespeare 
 follows in the main very closely throughout this 
 passage, it is pointed out that some of Shakespeare's 
 modifications in detail seem to favour this view. 
 
 And to begin with it should be noticed that in 
 all this episode he passes over what is abject or 
 hysterical or both in Plutarch's Cleopatra, and gives 
 her a large measure of royal self-respect and self- 
 command. This is how Octavius finds her in the 
 original story : 
 
 Cleopatra being layed upon a little low bed in poore estate, 
 when she sawe Caesar come in to her chamber, she sodainly 
 rose up, naked in her smocke, and fell downe at his feete 
 marvelously disfigured : both for that she had plucked her 
 heare from her. head, as also for that she had martired all 
 her face with her nailes, and besides, )ier voyce was small 
 and trembling, her eyes sonke into her heade with continuall 
 blubbering. 
 
 Thus, and with other traits that we omit, Plutarch 
 describes her "ougly and pitiefuU state," when 
 Caesar comes to see and comfort her. We cannot 
 imagine Shakespeare's Cleopatra ever so forgetting 
 what was due to her beauty, her rank, and herself. 
 Then the narrative proceeds : 
 
 When Caesar had made her lye downe againe, and sate by 
 her beddes side ; Cleopatra began to cleere and excuse her 
 selfe for that she had done, laying all to the feare she had of 
 Antonius. Caesar, in contrarie maner, reproved ^ her in 
 every poynt. 
 
 In the play this suggestion is put back to the inter- 
 view with Thyreus ; and is made, not refuted, on 
 the authority of Octavius. 
 
 Thy. He knows that you embrace not Antony 
 As you did love, but as you fear'd him. 
 Cle. O ! 
 
 ' i.e. confuted. 
 
CLEOPATRA 431 
 
 Thy. The scars upon your honour, therefore, he 
 Does pity as constrained blemishes, 
 Not as deserved. 
 
 Cle. He is a god, and knows 
 
 What is most right: mine honour was not yielded,' 
 But conquer'd merely. (in. xiii. 56.) 
 
 But this was before the supreme sorrow had come 
 to quicken in her her nobler instincts. Now she 
 has no thought of incriminating Antony and excul- 
 pating herself. She says with quiet dignity : 
 
 Sole sir o' the world, 
 I cannot project mine own cause so well 
 To make it clear : but do confess I have 
 Been laden with like frailties, which before 
 Have often shamed our sex. (v. n. 120.) 
 
 Even her wrath at Seleucus is less outrageous than 
 in Plutarch. She threatens his eyes, but does not 
 proceed to physical violence. She does not fly 
 upon him and seize him by the hair of the head and 
 box him well-favouredly. These vivacities Shake- 
 speare had remarked, but he transfers them to the 
 much earlier scene when she receives news of 
 Antony's marriage and strikes the messenger to the 
 ground, and strikes him again, and drags him up 
 and down. Now she has somewhat more self- 
 control, and is no longer carried beyond all limits of 
 decency by her ungovernable moods. Shakespeare, 
 therefore, gives her a new dignity and strength even 
 in this most equivocal scene ; and how could these 
 be reconciled with a craven hankering for life and a 
 base desire to retain by swindling a share of its 
 gewgaws ? 
 
 But a further alteration, we are told, gives a 
 definite though unobtrusive hint that all the while 
 she is in collusion with Seleucus, and that the whole 
 affair is a comedy arranged between them to keep 
 open the door of death. Not only does the treasurer 
 escape unpunished after his disclosure, but he is 
 
432 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 invited to make it. In Plutarch he merely happens 
 to stand by, and intervenes " to seeme a good 
 servant." Here Cleopatra calls for him ; bids Caesar 
 let him speak on his peril ; and herself orders him, 
 " Speak the truth, Seleucus." 
 
 Moreover his statement and her excuse point to 
 a much more serious embezzlement than Plutarch 
 suggests, and just in so far would give Octavius a 
 stronger impression of her desire to live. In the 
 biography Seleucus confines himself to saying that 
 "she had not set in al, but kept many things back 
 of purpose " : and she confesses only to " some juells 
 and trifles meete for women . . . meaning to geve 
 some pretie presents and gifts unto Octavia and 
 Livia." In the play to her question : "What have 
 I kept back ? " Seleucus answers : 
 
 Enough to purchase what you have made known : (v. ii. 148.) 
 
 and she, after the express proviso she makes in 
 advance, that she has not admitted petty things in 
 the schedule, now acknowledges that she has re- 
 served not only " lady trifles, immoment toys " — 
 these were already accounted for — but some " nobler 
 token " for Octavius' sister and wife. 
 
 If these clues are unduly faint, we are reminded 
 that such elliptical treatment is not without parallel 
 in other incidents of the drama. Octavius' policy in 
 regard to Octavia's marriage, for example, has, in 
 just the same way, to be gathered from the general 
 drift of events and the general probabilities of the 
 case, from an uniniportant suggestion in Plutarch, 
 from the opportunity furnished to Agrippa, and his 
 agency in that transaction, which are not more 
 explicit than the opportunity furnished to Seleucus, 
 and his agency in this. 
 
 These arguments are ingenious and not without 
 their cogency, but they leave one unconvinced. The 
 difficulties in accepting theni are far greater than in 
 
CLEOPATRA 433 
 
 the analogous question of Antony's marriage. For 
 in the latter the theory of Octavius' duplicity does 
 not contradict the impression of the scene. Nor 
 does it contradict but only supplements the statement 
 of the historian : the utmost we can say is that it is 
 not made sufificiently prominent. And, lastly, the 
 doubt that is thus left possible does not concern a 
 protagonist of the drama, but at most the chief or 
 one of the chief of the minor characters. But in the 
 present case the impression produced on the un- 
 sophisticated reader is certainly that Cleopatra is 
 convicted of fraud : and however that impression 
 may be weakened by a review of the circumstances 
 as a whole, there is no single phrase or detail that 
 brings the opposite theory home to the imagination. 
 Besides, the complicity of Seleucus would be a much 
 bolder fabrication than the complicity of Agrippa : 
 the latter is not recorded, but the opposite of the 
 former is recorded, and was accepted by all who 
 dealt with this episode from Jodelle to Daniel, and 
 probably by all who read Plutarch : the treasurer 
 was present by accident and used the opportunity to 
 ingratiate himself. So Shakespeare, without giving 
 adequate guidance himself, would leave people to the 
 presuppositions they had formed under the guidance 
 of his author. Surely this is a very severe criticism 
 on his art. But this is not all. The miscon- 
 struction which he did nothing to prevent and 
 everything to produce, would concern the heroine 
 of the piece, an even more important personage than 
 the hero, as is shown by her receiving the fifth 
 act to herself, while Antony is dismissed in the 
 fourth. 
 
 These objections, however, only apply to the view 
 that the suppression and discovery of the treasure 
 were parts of a deliberate stratagem. They do not 
 affect the arguments that Cleopatra has virtually 
 accepted death as the only practical solution, and 
 
434 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 that the rest of her behaviour at this stage accords 
 ill with mercenary imposture. 
 
 In a word both these antagonistic theories approve 
 themselves in so far as they take into account the 
 facts alleged and the impressions produced by the 
 drama. If we credit our feelings, it is quite true 
 that Cleopatra is taken by surprise and put out of 
 countenance, that she seeks to excuse herself and 
 passionately resents the disloyalty of Seleucus. And 
 again, if we credit our feelings, it is quite true that 
 frorti the time the mortally wounded Antony is 
 brought before her, she has made up her mind to 
 kill herself, and .that she is nobler and more queenly 
 for her decision than she was before or than Plutarch 
 makes her. 
 
 Of course, buoyant and versatile, feeling her life 
 in, every limb, and quick to catch each passing 
 chance, she may even now without really knowing 
 it, without really believing it, have hoped against 
 hope that she might still obtain terms she could 
 accept undisgraced. And the hope of life would 
 bring with it the frailties of life, for clearly it is 
 only the resolve to die that lifts her above herself. 
 So here we should only have another instance of 
 the complexity of her strange nature that can con- 
 sciously elect the higher path, and yet all the while 
 in its secret councils provide, if it may be, for fol- 
 lowing the lower. 
 
 But is there not another interpretation possible .■* 
 What are these "lady trifles" and "nobler tokens" 
 that together would purchase all the wealth of 
 money, plate and jewels she has declared. Plu- 
 tarch, talking of her magnificence when she obeyed 
 Antony's first summons, evidently does not expect 
 to be believed, and adds that it was such "as is 
 credible enough she might bring from so great a 
 house, and from so wealthie a realme as JEgypt 
 was." And now she is "again for Cydnus," and 
 
CLEOPATRA 435 
 
 needs her " crown and all." Already to all intents 
 and purposes she has resolved on her death, as is 
 shown by her frequent assurances. She has also 
 resolved on the means of it ; for scarcely has Caesar 
 left, than she tells Charmian : 
 
 I have spoke already, and it is provided. (v. ii. 195.) 
 Will she not also have resolved on the manner of it ; 
 and both in the self-consciousness of her beauty and 
 in memory of her first meeting with Antony, does 
 she not desire to depart life for the next meeting 
 with due pomp and state ? If we imagine she 
 was keeping back her regalia for this last display, 
 we can understand why Shakespeare inserted the 
 "nobler token" in addition to the unconsidered 
 trifles which she was quite ready to own she had 
 reserved, and of which indeed in Shakespeare 
 though not in Plutarch she had already made ex- 
 press mention as uninventoried.^ We can under- 
 stand her consternation and resentment at the dis- 
 closure ; for just in regard to the " nobler token " 
 she could not explain her real motives without 
 ruining her plan. And we can admire her "cunning 
 past man's thought " in turning the whole incident 
 to account as proof that she was willing to live on 
 sufferance as prot^gde of Caesar. 
 
 No doubt this suggestion is open to the criticism 
 that it is nowhere established by a direct statement ; 
 but that also applies to the most probable explanation 
 of some other matters in the play. And meanwhile 
 I think that it, better than the two previous theories 
 
 ' It is a rather striking coincidence that Jodelle, too, heightens Plu- 
 tarch's account of the treasures, she has retained, and includes among 
 them the crown jewels and royal robes. Seleucus finishes a panegyric 
 on her wealth : 
 
 Croy, Cesar, croy qu'elle a de tout son or 
 
 Et autres biens tout le meilleur cach^. 
 And she says in her defence : 
 
 Hd ! si j'avois retenu les joyaux 
 
 Et quelque part de mes habits royaux, 
 
 L'aurois-je fait pour moy, las ! malheureuse ! 
 
436 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 we have discussed, satisfies the conditions, by con- 
 forming with the data of the play, the treatment of 
 the sources, and the feelings of the reader. On the 
 one hand it fully admits the reality of Cleopatra's 
 fraud and of her indignation at Seleucus. On the 
 other it removes the discrepancy between her dis- 
 simulation, and the loftiness of temper and readiness 
 for death, which she now generally and but for the 
 usual interpretation of this incident invariably dis- 
 plays. It tallies with what we may surmise from 
 Shakespeare's other omissions and interpolations ; 
 and if it goes beyond Plutarch's account of Caesar's 
 deception by Cleopatra, it does not contradict it, 
 and therefore would not demand so full and definite 
 a statement as a new story entirely different from 
 the original. 
 
 Be that as it may, there is at least no trace of 
 hesitation or compliance in the Queen from the 
 moment when she perceives that Octavius is merely 
 " wording " her. Her self-respect is a- stronger or, 
 at any rate, a more conspicuous motive than her 
 love. Antony, when he believed her false had said 
 to her : 
 
 Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving, 
 
 And blemish Caesar's triumph. Let him take thee, 
 
 And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians : 
 
 Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot 
 
 Of all thy sex ; most monster-like be shown 
 
 For poor'st diminutives, for doits : and let 
 
 Patient Octavia plough thy visage up 
 
 With her prepared nails. (iv. xii. 32.) 
 
 These words of wrath have lingered in her memory 
 and she echoes them in his dying ears : 
 
 Not the imperious show 
 Of the full-fortuned Caesar ever shall 
 Be brooch'd with me ; if knife, drugs, serpents have 
 Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe : 
 Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes 
 And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour 
 Demuring upon me. (iv. xv. 23.) 
 
CLEOPATRA 437 
 
 The loathsomeness of the prospect grows in her 
 imagination, and compared with it the most loath- 
 some fate is desirable. She tells Proculeius : 
 
 Know, sir, that I 
 Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court ; 
 Nor once be chastised with the sober eye 
 Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up 
 And show me to the shouting varletry 
 Of censuring Rome ? Rather a ditch in Egypt 
 Be gentle grave unto me ! rather on Nilus' mud 
 Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies 
 Blow me into abhorring ! rather make 
 My country's high pyramides my gibbet, 
 And hang me up in chains. (v. ii. 52.) 
 
 And now in the full realisation of the scene, she 
 brings it home to her women : 
 
 C/e. Now, Iras, what think'st thou ? 
 
 Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown 
 
 \In Rome, as well as I : mechanic slaves 
 With greasy aprons, rules and hammers, shall 
 Uplift us to the view ; in their thick breaths, 
 Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded, 
 And forced to drink theit vapour. 
 
 Iras. The gods forbid ! 
 
 C/«. Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras : saucy lictors 
 Will catch at us, like strumpets ; and scald rhymers 
 Ballad us out of tune. (v. ii. 207.) 
 
 Such thoughts expel once for all her mutability and 
 flightiness : 
 
 My resolution's placed and I have nothing 
 
 Of woman in me : now from head to foot 
 
 I am marble constant ; now the fleeting moon 
 
 No planet is of mine. (v. ii. 238.) 
 
 And the scene that follows with the banalities and 
 trivialities of the clown who supplies the aspics 
 among the figs, brings into relief the loneliness of 
 a queenly nature and a great sorrow. Yet not 
 merely the loneliness, but the potency as well. 
 Who would have given the frivolous waiting-women 
 
438 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 of the earlier scenes credit for devotion and heroism ? 
 Yet inspired by her example they learn their lesson 
 and are ready to die as nobly as she. Iras has 
 spoken for them all : 
 
 Finish, good lady ; the bright day is done, 
 
 And we are for the dark. (v. ii. 193.) 
 
 Now she brings the robe and crown Cleopatra wore 
 at Cydnus, and then, like Eros, ushers the way. 
 Charmian stays but to close the eyes and arrange 
 the diadem of her dead mistress : 
 
 Downy windows, close ; 
 And golden Phoebus never be beheld 
 Of eyes again so royal. Your crown's awry ; 
 I'll mend it, and then play. (v. ii. 319.) 
 
 Thereupon she too applies the asp and provokes 
 its fang. 
 
 O, come apace, dispatch. (v. ii. 325.) 
 
 Even in the last solemn moment there is vanity, 
 artifice, and voluptuousness in Cleopatra. She is 
 careful of her looks, of her state, of her splendour, 
 even in death ; and doubtless would have smiled if 
 she could have heard Caesar's tardy praise : 
 
 She looks like sleep, 
 As she would catch another Antony 
 In her strong toil of grace. (v. ii. 349.) 
 
 And she does not depart quite in the high Roman 
 fashion. She has studied to make her passage easy, 
 and has taken all measures that may enable her to 
 liken the stroke of death to a lover's pinch and the 
 biting of the asp to the suckling of a babe, and to 
 say : 
 
 As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle. (v. ii. 314.) 
 
 None the less her exit in its serene grace and 
 dignity is imperial, and deserves the praise of the 
 dying Charmian and the reluctant Octavius. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 Hitherto this discussion of Antony and Cleopatra 
 has so far as possible passed over the most dis- 
 tinctive thing in the history of the hero and heroine, 
 the fatal passion that binds them together, gives 
 significance to their lives, and makes their memories 
 famous. Knowing their environment and their 
 nature we are in a better position to see in some 
 measure what it meant. 
 
 We have noted how in that generation all ties of 
 customary morality are loosed, how the individual 
 is a law to himself, and how selfishness runs riot 
 Jn^its quest of gratification, acquisition, material 
 ambition. Among the children of that day those 
 "maEe'the most sympathetic impression who import 
 into the somewhat casual and indefinite personal 
 relations that remain — -the relation of the legionary 
 to his commander, of the freedman to his patron, 
 of the waiting-woman to her mistress — something 
 of universal validity and worth. But obviously no 
 connection in a period like this at once arises so 
 naturally from the conditions, and has the possi- 
 bilities of such abiding authority, as the love of the 
 sexes. On the one hand it is the most personal 
 bond of all. Love is free and not to be compelled. 
 It results from the spontaneous motion of the in- 
 dividual. Were we to conceive the whole social 
 
440 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 fabric dissolved, men and women would still be 
 drawn together by mutual inclination 'in more or 
 less permanent unions of pairs. And yet this 
 at traction that seems to be and that is so co friT 
 pletely dictate d by choice, . that is certainly quit e 
 Beyond the domain ^f external compulsion, is in 
 another aspect quite inHepJn Hent of the will of 
 the persons concerned, "anosways them like a re- 
 sistless natural forc e. It has been said that the 
 highest compliment the lover can pay the beloved 
 is to say, " I cannot help loving you." Necessity 
 is laid upon him, and he is but its instrument. If 
 then the inclination is so pervasive and imperious 
 that it becomes a master passion, clearly it will 
 supply the grand effective bond when other social 
 bonds fail. When nothing else can, it will enable 
 a man and woman to overleap a few at least of 
 the barriers of their selfishness, and in some measure 
 to merge their egoism in sympathy. T his is w hat 
 justifies Antony's idolatry of C leopatra to o ur 
 feelings. ~ "TIie~_ BafislQa is enthusiastic, and m a 
 way is self^forgetful ; and_passion, enthusiasm, self- 
 forgetfulness, whatever their aberrations,^ways com- 
 mand respect. They especiaT l y'Hcrsb"irr"tiiis wo rld 
 of greeds and cra vings and calculating selt-intere st. 
 Thi^jnfin ite devotlofilEIiat shrinks Irom no sacrifice, 
 Is^at once the greatest thing wi thin Anto ny's 
 reach, and witness to his own greatness in recog- 
 nisiiig*its worth. The "greatest "thtng' Within his 
 reach : whefT^we remember what the ambitions 
 of his fellows and his rivals were, there is 
 truth in the words with which he postpones 
 all such ambitions to the bliss of the mutual 
 caress : 
 
 Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the. wide arch 
 Of the ranged empire fall ! l|ere is my space.] 
 Kingdoms are clay ; our dungy earth alike 
 Feeds beast as man : the nobleness of life 
 
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 441 
 
 Is to do thus : when such a mutual pair (embracing) 
 
 And such a twain can do't, in which I bind, 
 
 On pain of punishment, the world to weet 
 
 We stand up peerless. (i. i. 33,) 
 
 And only o ne of grand general outlook could jgel 
 liRe tEis/ wTien he'Had" tasted the sweets of conqugst 
 and power, and ~wKenalT"tKe kingdoms of the world 
 w^re'reache d~To'''Bis^ hand asTEe a for the 
 
 kingdom of hTs ToveT TF takes a" hero^'^with such 
 e'xperiences-behind hinraaid^ropportuimHeFTTielnre, 
 to make the disastrous cho ice. Heine tells us how 
 he read Flutarch at school and how the master 
 "impressed on us that Antony for this womdn 
 spoiled his pu blic care er, involved himsRlfltTdn- 
 mestic unpieasarit nesses, a nd at last plunged hirn - 
 seTTln rum . "In'TrutE my old master was" rigFt, ! 
 and it is extremely dangerous to establish intimate 
 relations with a person like Cleopatra. It may be 
 the destruction of a hero ; but only of a hero. 
 Here as everywhere there is no danger for worthy 
 mediocrity." 
 
 But despite the sympathy with which Shakespeare 
 regards Antony's passion both as an object of pursuit 
 and as an indication of nobility, he is quite aware 
 that it is pernicious and criminal. Relatively it may 
 be extolled: absolutely it must be- condemned. It 
 is rooted in breach of troth and duty, and it bears 
 within itself the seeds of infidelity and wrong. It 
 has none of the inviolability and security of a lawful 
 love. After all, Cleopatra's gibes about Antony's 
 relations with " the married woman " and herself, 
 despite their affectation of petulance, are only too 
 much to the point, so far as he is concerned ; and 
 when she has yielded to Julius, Pompey, and Antony 
 in turn, what guarantee has the last favourite that 
 she will not do so again to some later supplanter ? 
 In point of fact each is untrue to the other. A ntnny 
 by his j namagg— with Uctavia. Uleopa tra by her 
 
442 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 traffickings with Octa vius and Thyreus.^ She for- 
 feits in the sequel her right to be angry at his 
 truancy ; he has forfeited in advance the right to 
 be angry at hers. But it is their penalty that these 
 resentments should come between them ; and at the 
 very time when they most need each other's support, 
 their relation, being far from the perfect kind that 
 casts out mistrust, is vitiated by jealousy on the one 
 side and fear on the other. She flees to the Monu- 
 ment, shuts herself up from his blind rage in craven 
 panic, and seeks to save her life by lies. At the 
 si ght of the liberties she has allowfi dJHiJKeua^to 
 take, he loses himself in mad outbursts which have 
 but a partial foundation in the facts. Then he 
 jumps to the conclusion that she has arranged for 
 the desertion of the sailors, and dooms her to 
 death, when in reality she seems to know nothing 
 about it. 
 
 Betray'd I am : 
 O this false soul of Egypt ! this grave charm, — 
 Whose eye beck'd forth my wars and call'd them home ; 
 Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end, — 
 Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose. 
 Beguiled me to the very heart of loss. (iv. xii. 24.) 
 
 These terrors and suspicions are inevitable in such 
 
 love as theirs. 
 
 Or is their feeling for each other to be called love 
 
 at all ? The question has been asked even in regard 
 _to_Anton^^ From first to last he is aware not only 
 "ofher harmfulness but of her pravity. He is under 
 
 no illusions about her cunning, her boggling, her 
 
 falsity. And can this insight co-exist with devo- 
 i tio n ? 
 
 Much more frequently it has been asked in regard 
 
 to Cleopatra. She frankly avows even in retrospect 
 
 ' I take it as certain that with Thyreus she is for the moment at least 
 " a boggier," and then she has already sent her private message to 
 Caesar. 
 
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 443 
 
 her policy of making him her prey. Thus does she 
 mimic fact in her pastime : 
 
 Give me mine angle : we'll to the river ; there, 
 
 My music playing far off, I will betray 
 
 Tawny-iinn'd fishes ; my bended hook shall piercqf 
 
 Their slimy jaws ; and, as I draw them up, 
 
 I'll think them every one an Antony, 
 
 And say, "Ah, ha ! you're caught." ^\. v. 10.) 
 
 Moreover, her first capture of him at that banquet 
 where he paid his heart as ordinary, was a mere 
 business speculation. He has been useful to her 
 since, for he is the man to piece her opulent throne 
 with kingdoms. When he seems lost to her, she 
 realises that she can no longer gratify her caprices 
 as once she did. 
 
 Alex. Herod of Jewry dare not look upon you 
 But when you are well pleased. 
 
 Cle. That Herod's head 
 
 I'll have : but how, when Antony is gone 
 Through whom I might command it ? (in. iii. 4.) 
 
 Or, if other motives supervene, they belong to wanton 
 whim and splendid coquetry. Her deliberate allure- 
 ments, her conscious wiles, her calculated tenderness, 
 are all employed merely to retain her command of 
 the serviceable instrument, and at the same time 
 minister to her vanity, since Antony would accept 
 such a role only from her. 
 
 If both or either of these theories were adopted, 
 the whole interest and dignity of the theme would 
 be gone. If Antony were not genuinely in love, 
 his follies and delinquencies would cast him beyond 
 the pale of our tolerance. If Cleopatra were not 
 genuinely in love, she would at best deserve the 
 description of Ten Brink, "a courtesan of genius." 
 If the love were not mutual, Antony would be 
 merely the toy of the courtesan, Cleopatra merely 
 the toy of the sensualist. 
 
444 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 But in point of fact, it is mutual and sincere. 
 Antony's feeling has to do with much more than the 
 senses. It goes deeper and higher ; and even when 
 he doubts Cleopatra's affection, he never doubts his 
 own : 
 
 I (Her) heart I thought I had, for she had mine. (iv. xiv. 16.) 
 
 Cleopatra's feeling may have originated in self- 
 interest and may make use of craft. But in catching 
 A ntony she has be en caught her self ; and though 
 inter est and vanity are not expelled, they a re 
 swaTlowe g~1jp'''1n"v dh'igmgITr''sn^ the~ma n 
 
 "she has ensnare d^ Her artifices are successful, 
 "Because they are the means made use of by a heart 
 that is deeply engaged ; and it is no paradox to say 
 that they are evidence of her sincerity. So often as 
 she refers to her lover seriously, it is with something 
 like adoration. After the first separation, he is her 
 "man of men." In her first bitterness at his marriage, 
 she cannot let him go, for 
 
 Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon, 
 
 The other way's a Mars. (11. v. 116.) 
 
 Even when he is fallen and worsted, she has no 
 doubt how things would go were it a merely per- 
 sonal contest between him and his rival. When he 
 returns from his last victory, she greets him : " Lord 
 of lordis ! O infinite virtue ! " (iv. viii. 16). When he 
 dies, the world seems to her " no better than a sty " 
 (iv. XV. 62). When she recalls -his splendour, his 
 bounty, his joyousness, it seems not a reality, but a 
 dream, which yet must be, more than a dream. 
 
 If there be, nor ever were, one such, 
 
 It's past the size of dreaming : nature wants stuff 
 
 To vie strange forms with fancy ; yet, to imagine 
 
 An Antony, were nature's piece 'gainst fancy, 
 
 Condemning shadows quite. (v. ii. 96.) 
 
 Various interpretations have been given of these 
 lines, but on any possible interpretation they exalt 
 
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 445 
 
 Antony alike above fact and fancy.^ And when we 
 run through the whole gamut of the words and deeds 
 of the pair, from their squabbles to their death, it 
 seems to me possible to doubt their love only by 
 isolating some details and considering them to the 
 exclusion of the rest. 
 
 But the truth is that the love of Antony and 
 Cleopatra is genuine and intense ; and if it leads to 
 shame as well as to glory, this is to be explained, 
 apart from the circumstances of the time, apart from 
 the characters of the lovers, in the nature of the 
 variety to which it belongs. 
 
 Plutarch, whose thoughts when he is discussing 
 such subjects are never far from Plato's, has a 
 passage in which he characterises Antony's passion 
 by reference to the famous metaphor in the Phaedrus. 
 
 In the ende, the horse of the minde, as Plato termeth it, 
 that is so hard of rayne (I meane the unreyned lust of con- 
 cupiscence), did put out of Antonius' heade all honest and 
 commendable thoughts. 
 
 Certainly it is not the milder and more docile steed 
 that takes the lead in Antony's affection. But it is 
 perhaps a little surprising that Plutarch did not 
 rather go for his Platonic illustration to the Sym- 
 posium, where the disquisitions of Aristophanes and 
 Diotima explain respectively what Antony's love is 
 and is not. Aristophanes,- with his myth that men, 
 once four-legged and four-armed, were split in two 
 because they were too happy, and now are pining to 
 find their counterparts, gives the exact description of 
 what the love of Antony and Cleopatra is. -^ ^ 
 
 'To me the sense seems to be: "Supposing the Antony I have 
 depicted never existed, still the conception is too great to be merely 
 my own. It must be an imagination of Nature herself, which, she may 
 be unable to embody, but which shames our puny ideals." In other 
 words, Antony is the "form" or "type" which Nature aims at even if 
 she does not attain. I see no reason for changing the " nor" of the 
 first line as it is in the folio to " or." 
 
446 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 Each of us when separated is but the indenture of a man, 
 having one side only like a flat-fish, and he is always looking 
 for his other half. . . . When one of them finds his other 
 half, . . . the pair are lost in an amazement of love and 
 friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the 
 other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment. ^ 
 
 And, on the other hand, Diotima's opposite theory 
 does not apply to this particular case, at least, to 
 begin with or superficially : 
 
 You hear people say that lovers are seeking for their other 
 half ; but I say that they are seeking neither for the half of 
 themselves, nor for the whole, unless the half or the whole 
 be also a good. And they will cut off their own hands and 
 feet and cast them away, if they are evil. . . . For there is 
 nothing which men love but the good.^ 
 
 We may put the case in a somewhat more popular 
 and modern fashion. All love that really deserves 
 the name must base more or less completely on 
 sympathy, on what Goethe called Wahlverwand- 
 schaft, or elective affinity. But such affinity may 
 be of different kinds and degrees, and according to 
 its range will tend to approximate to one of two 
 types. It may mean sympathy with what is deepest 
 and highest in us, our aspiration after the ideal, our 
 bent towards perfection ; or it may mean sympathy 
 with our whole nature and with all our feelings and 
 tendencies, alike with those that are high and with 
 those that are low. The former is the more exact- 
 ing though the more beneficent. It implies the 
 suppression and abnegation in us of much that is 
 base, of much that is harmless, of much, even, that 
 may be good, for the sake of the best. In it we 
 must inure ourselves to effort and sacrifice for the 
 sake of advance in that supersensible realm where 
 the union took place. 
 
 The second is less austere, and, for the time being, 
 more comprehensive. It is founded on a corre- 
 spondence in all sorts of matters, great and small, 
 
 1 Jowett's Plato, Vol. ll., pages 42-43. 2 Ibid, pages 56-57. 
 
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 447 
 
 noble and base, of good or of bad report. If it lacks 
 the exclusive loftiness of the other, it affords many 
 more points of contact and a far greater wealth of 
 daily fellowship. And of this latter variety, the love" 
 of Antony and Cleopatra is perhaps the typical 
 example. At first sight it is evident that they are, 
 as we say, made for each other. They are both 
 past the first bloom of youth. Cleopatra, whom at 
 the outset Plutarch makes twenty-eight years of age, 
 and of whose wrinkles and waned lip Shakespeare, 
 though in irony and exaggeration, finds it possible 
 to speak, has relatively reached the same period of 
 life as Antony, whom Plutarch makes at the outset 
 forty-three or forty-six years of age, and whom 
 Shakespeare represents as touched with the fall of 
 eld. And they correspond in their experiences. 
 Neit her is a no vice in love and pleasure : Cleopatr a. 
 the woinatrwith~a ti istory, Antony, the masquer a nd 
 reveller of Clodius' set, have both seen life. The y 
 are ^Sike in their emotionaUsm,. their i mpressibilit y, 
 theirquick wits, their love of splendour, their genial 
 powerTlheir intellectual scope, 'ritetr~"zgg r"f6r ^Vd f-y- 
 thingT^Plutarch narrates— and it is strange that" 
 ^ propos of this he- did not quote Aristophanes' 
 saying in the Symposium — 
 
 She, were it in sport, or in matter of earnest, still devised 
 sundrie new delights to have Antonius at commaundement, 
 never leaving him night nor day, nor once letting him go out 
 of her sight. For she would play at dyce with him, drinke 
 with him, and hunt commonly with him, and also be with 
 him when he went to any exercise or activity of body. And 
 sometime, also, when he would goe up and downe the citie 
 disguised like a slave in the night, and would peere into 
 poore men's windowes and their shops, and scold and brawle 
 with them within the house : Cleopatra would be also in a 
 chamber-maides array, and amble up and downe the streets 
 with him, so that oftentimes Antonius bare away both mockes 
 and blowes. 
 
 Here we have a picture of the completes! camara- 
 derie in things serious and frivolous, athletic and 
 
448 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 intellectual, decorous and venturesome, with mem- 
 ories of which the play is saturated. We are 
 witnesses of Cleopatra's impatience when he is away 
 for a moment : we hear of her drinking him to bed 
 before the ninth hour, and of their outdoor sports. 
 Antony proposes to roam the streets with her and 
 note the qualities of the people. Perhaps it was 
 some such expedition that gave Enobarbus material 
 
 for his description : 
 
 I saw her once 
 Hop forty paces through the public street ; 
 And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted, 
 That she did make defect perfection. 
 And, breathless, power breathe forth. (ii. ii. 233.) 
 
 It Is such doings that raise the gorge of the 
 genteel Octavius, who has no sense for popular 
 pleasures, whether we call them simple or vulgar. 
 But the daughter of the Ptolemies is less fastidious, 
 and is as ready as Antony to escape from the 
 etiquette of the court and take her share in these 
 unceremonious frolics. Yet it is not only these 
 lighter moods and moments that draw them together. 
 In the depth of his mistrust, Antony recalls the 
 " grave charm " of his enchantress ; and she, when 
 he is no more, remembers that * 
 
 his voice was propertied 
 As all the tuned spheres. (v. ii. 83.) 
 
 But what of serious and elevated they have in com- 
 mon gains warmth and colour by their mutual 
 delight in much that is neither one nor other. He 
 tells her. 
 
 But that your royalty 
 Holds idleness your subject, I should take you 
 For idleness itself (i. iii. 91.) 
 
 And he pays homage to her in every mood : 
 
 Fie, wrangling queen ! 
 Whom everything becomes, to chide, to laugh, 
 To weep ; whose every passion fully strives 
 To make itself, in thee, fair and admired ! (i. i. 48.) 
 
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 449 
 
 It is as geuuine and catholic admiration as Florizel's 
 for Perdita : 
 
 What you do 
 Still betters what is done. . . . 
 
 Each your doing, 
 So singular in each particular, 
 Crowns what you are doing in the present deed. 
 That all your acts are queens. {IV.T. iv. iv. 135.) 
 
 But apart from their sincerity and range, how differ- 
 ent are the two tributes : Florizel's all innocence 
 and simplicity, Antony's raffine and sophisticated. 
 We feel from his words that he would endorse 
 Shakespeare's ambiguous praise of his own dark 
 lady : 
 
 Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill. 
 That in the very refuse of thy deeds 
 There is such strength and warrantise of skill. 
 That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds ? 
 
 {Sonnet CL. 5.) 
 
 Does not Enobarbus speak in almost exactly the 
 same way of the Cleopatra that Antony adores ? 
 
 Vilest things 
 Become themselves in her.; that the holy priests 
 Bless her when she is riggish. (11. ii. 243.) 
 
 Thus the two are alike not only in great and 
 indifferent things, but in their want of steadfastness, 
 their want of principle, their compliance with base- 
 ness. Hence they encourage each other in what 
 debilitates and degrades, as well as in what fortifies 
 and exalts. At its worst their love has something 
 divine about it, but often it seems' a divine orgy 
 rather than a divine inspiration. Not seldom does 
 it lead to madness and ignominy. That Antony 
 loses the world for it is a small matter and even 
 proves his grandeur of soul. But for it, besides 
 "offending reputation," he profanes his inward 
 honour as well ; and that unmasks it as the Siren 
 
 2 F 
 
450 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 and Fury of their lives.- Indeed, such love is self- 
 destructive, and for it the lovers sacrifice the means 
 of securing it against the hostile power of things. 
 Yet, just because it is so plenary and permeating, it 
 becomes an inspiration too. When its prodigal 
 largesse fails, at the hour when it is stripped of its 
 inessential charms, the lovers are thrown back on 
 itself; and at once it elevates them both. Antony, 
 believing Cleopatra dead, and not yet undeceived as 
 to the part that he fancies she played at the last, 
 thinks only of following her to entreat and obtain 
 a reconciliation. 
 
 I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and 
 
 Weep for my pardon. (iv. xiv. 44.) 
 
 When he learns that she still lives, no reproach 
 crosses his lips for the deceit ; his only wish as the 
 blood flows from his breast is to be borne " where 
 Cleopatra bides" to take a last farewell. He wrestles 
 with death till he receives the final embrace : 
 
 I -am dying, Egypt, dying : only 
 
 I here importune death awhile, until 
 
 Of many thousand kisses the poor last 
 
 I lay upon thy lips. (iv. xv. 18.) 
 
 /Thereafter he has no thought of himself but only 
 /of her, counselling her in complete self-abnegation 
 'to seek of Caesar her honour with her safety, and 
 recommending her to trust only Proculeius — one 
 who, as we soon learn, would be eager to preserve 
 her life. 
 
 And her love, too, though perhaps more fitfully, 
 yet all the more strikingly, is deepened and solem- 
 nised by trial. After Actium it quite loses its 
 element of mockery and petulance. Her flout at 
 Antony's negligence before the battle is the last we 
 hear her utter. Henceforth, whether she protests 
 her faith, or speeds him to the fight, or welcomes 
 him on his return, her words have a new seriousness 
 
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 451 
 
 and weight.^ Her feeling seems to become simpler 
 and sincerer as her fortunes cloud, and at her lover's 
 death it is nature alone that triumphs. In the first 
 shock of bereavement Iras, attempting consolation, 
 addresses her as " Royal Egypt, Empress " ; and 
 she replies : 
 
 No more, but e'en a woman, and commanded 
 
 By such poor passion as the maid that milks 
 
 And does the meanest chares. (iv. xv. 72.) 
 
 "Her grief for her great loss, a grief, perhaps, hardly 
 anticipated by herself, is in her own eyes her teacher, 
 and "begins to make a better life." Even now she 
 may falter, if the usual interpretation of her fraud 
 with the treasure is correct. Even now, at all 
 events, she has to be urged by the natural and royal 
 but not quite unimpeachable motive, the dread of 
 external disgrace. Cleopatra is very human to the 
 last. Her weaknesses do not disappear, but they 
 are but as fuel to the flames of her love by which 
 they are bred and which they help to feed. It is 
 still as the " curled Antony " she pictures her dead 
 lover, and it is in " crown and robe " that she will 
 receive that kiss which it is her heaven to have. 
 But even in this there is a striking similarity to 
 Antony's expectation of the land where " souls do 
 couch on flowers," and where they will be the cyno- 
 sure of the gazing ghosts. Their oneness of heart 
 and feeling is indeed now complete, and their love 
 is transfigured. It is at his call she comes, and his 
 name is the last word .she utters, before she lays the 
 second asp on her arm. The most wonderful touch 
 of all is that now she feels her right to be considered 
 his wife. This, of course, is due to Shakespeare, 
 but it is not altogether new. It occurs in Daniel's 
 
 * Le plus grand miracle de I'amour, c'est de gudrir de la coquet- 
 terie. — La Rochefoucauld. 
 
452 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 tragedy, when she calls on Antony's spirit to pray 
 the gods on her behalf : 
 
 O if in life we could not severd be, 
 
 Shall death divide our bodies now asunder ? 
 
 Must thine in Egypt, mine in Italy, 
 
 Be kept the Monuments of Fortune's wonder ? 
 
 If any powres be there whereas thou art 
 
 (Sith our country gods betray our case), 
 
 O worke they may their gracious helpe impart 
 
 To save thy wofull wife from such disgrace. 
 
 It also occurs twice in Plutarch, from whom Daniel 
 probably obtained it. In the Comparison of Deme- 
 trius and Marcus Antonius, he writes :^ 
 
 Antonius first of all married two wives together, the which 
 never Lomane durst doe before, but him self. 
 
 In the biography, when Cleopatra has lifted him to 
 the Monument, we are told : 
 
 Then she dryed up his blood that had berayed his face, 
 and called him her Lord, her husband, and Emperour, for- 
 getting her owne miserie and calamity for the pitie and 
 compassion she tooke of him. 
 
 It is not, therefore, the invention of the idea, but the 
 new position in which he introduces it, that shows 
 Shakespeare's gen'" It has no great significance, 
 either in Plutarch or Daniel. In the one, Cleopatra 
 is speaking in compassion of Antony ; in the other, 
 she is bespeaking Antony's compassion for herself 
 But in Shakespeare, when she scorns life for her 
 love, and prefers honour with the aspic's bite to 
 safety with fhame, she feels that now at last their 
 union has the highest sanction, and that all the dross 
 of her nature is purged away from the pure spirit : 
 
 Husbind, I come : 
 Now to that name my courage prove my title ! 
 I am fire and air : my other elements 
 X.giye to baser life. (v. ii. 290.) 
 
 'Cleopatra was actually married to Antony, as has been proved by 
 Professor Ferrero. But Plutarch nowhere else mentions the circum- 
 stance, and it contradicts the whole tenor of his narrative. 
 
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 453 
 
 Truly their love, which at first seemed to justify 
 Aristophanes against Diotima, just because it is tjrue 
 love, turns out to answer Diotima's description after 
 all. Or perhaps it rather suggests the conclusion in 
 the Phaedrus : "1 have shown this of all inspirations 
 to be the noblest and the highest, and the offspring 
 of the highest ; and that he who loves the beautiful, 
 is called a lover, because he partakes of it." Antony 
 and Cleopatra, with a ll their errors, are lovers and 
 partake ot beauty, which we"~cannot say ot tEe~aFid 
 respectability ot Octav Ius7~~ It is~w ell and rigKTth at 
 they should perish as theyTHoT but so perishing they 
 have made their full ato nement ; and we can rejoice 
 that they have_^joncejrium over their victor, 
 and^Ieft ouFadmiratio n for them free .~ ~~ 
 
CORIOLANUS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 POSITION OF THE PLAY BEFORE THE ROMANCES. 
 ITS POLITICAL AND ARTISTIC ASPECTS 
 
 Coriolanus seems to have been first published in 
 the folio of 1623, and is one of the sixteen plays 
 described as not formerly "entered to other men." 
 In this dearth of information there has naturally 
 been some debate on the date of its composition, 
 yet the opinions of critics with few exceptions agree 
 as to its general position and tend more and more 
 to limit the period of uncertainty to a very few 
 months. 
 
 This comparative unanimity is due to the evidence 
 of style, versification, and treatment rather than of 
 reminiscences and allusions. Though a fair number 
 of the latter have been discovered or invented, some 
 of them are vague and doubtful, some inapposite or 
 untenable, hardly any are of value from their in- 
 herent likelihood. 
 
 Of these, one which has been considered to give 
 the terminus a quo in dating the play was pointed 
 out by Malone in the fable of Menenius. Plutarch's 
 account is somewhat bald : 
 
 On a time all the members of mans bodie, dyd rebell 
 against the bellie, complaining of it, that it only remained in 
 the middest of the bodie, without doing any thing, neither 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 455 
 
 dyd beare any labour to the maintenaunce of the rest: 
 whereas all other partes and members dyd labour payne- 
 fully, and was very carefuU to satisfie the appetites and 
 desiers of the bodie. And so the bellie, all this notwith- 
 standing, laughed at their foUie, and sayed : "It is true, 
 I first receyve all meates that norishe mans bodie : but 
 afterwardes I send it againe to the norishement of other 
 partes of the same. Even so (quoth he) O you, my masters, 
 and cittizens of Rome : the reason is a like betwene the 
 Senate, and you. For matters being well digested, and their 
 counsells throughly examined, touching the benefit of the 
 common wealth ; the Senatours are cause of the common 
 commoditie that commeth unto every one of you." 
 
 This is meagre compared with Shakespeare's full- 
 blooded and dramatic narrative, and though in any 
 case the chief credit for the transformation would be 
 due to the poet, who certainly contributes most of 
 the picturesque and humorous details and all of the 
 interruptions and rejoinders, it has been thought 
 that he owes something to the expanded version 
 in Camden's Remaines concerning Britaine, which 
 appeared in 1605, 
 
 All the members of the body conspired against the 
 stomacke, as against the swallowing gulfe of all their 
 labors ; for whereas the eies beheld, the eares heard, the 
 handes labored, the feete traveled, the tongue spake, and 
 all partes performed their functions, onely the stomrcke lav 
 idle and consumed all. Here uppon they ioyntly agreed 
 al to forbeare their labors, and to pine away their lasie 
 and publike enemy. One day passed over, the second 
 followed very tedious, but the third day was so grievous 
 to them all, that they called a common Counsel; the eyes 
 waxed dimme, the feete could not support the bodicjjhe" 
 armes waxed lasie; the tongue faltered, and could not lay 
 open the matter ; therefore they all with one accord desired 
 the advise of the Heart. Then Reason layd open before 
 them that hee against whome they had proclaimed warres, 
 was the cause of all this- their misery : • For he as their 
 common steward, when his allowances were withdrawne of 
 necessitie withdrew theirs fro them, as not receiving that 
 he might allow. Therefore it were a farre better course 
 to supply him, than that the limbs should faint with hunger. 
 So by the perswasion of Reason, the stomacke was served, 
 the limbes comforted, and peace re-established. Even so 
 
456 CORIOLANUS 
 
 it fareth with the bodies of Common-weale ; for albeit the 
 Princes gather much, yet not so much for themselves, as 
 for others : So that if they want, they cannot supply the 
 want of others ; therefore do not repine at Princes heerein, 
 but respect the common good of the whole publike estate. 
 
 It has been pointed out,^ in criticism of Malone's sug- 
 gestion, that in some respects Shakespeare's version 
 agrees with Plutarch's and disagrees with Camden's. 
 Thus in Camden it is the stomach and not the belly 
 that is denounced, the members do not confine them- 
 selves to words but proceed to deeds, it is not the 
 belly but Reason from its seat in the heart that sets 
 forth the moral. This is quite true, but no one 
 doubted that Shakespeare got from Plutarch his 
 general scheme ; the only question is whether he 
 fitted into it details from another source. It has 
 also been objected that Shakespeare was quite 
 capable of making the additions for himself ; and 
 this also is quite true as the other and more vivid 
 additions prove, if it needed to be proved. Never- 
 theless, when we find Shakespeare's expansions in 
 the play following some of the lines laid down by 
 Camden in the Remaines, occasionally with verbal 
 coincidence, it seems not unlikely that the Remaines , 
 were known to him. Thus he does not treat thel 
 members like Plutarch in the mass, but like Camden! 
 enumerates them and their functions ; the stomachi 
 in Camden like the belly in Shakespeare is called i 
 a gulf, a term that is very appropriate but that 
 would not occur to everyone ; the heart where 
 Reason dwells and to which Camden's mutineers 
 appeal for advice, is the counsellor heart in Shake- 
 speare's list.^ Moreover, it has been shown by 
 
 ^ E.g., by Delius. Shakespearis Coriolanus in seinem Verhdltniss 
 zum Coriolanus des Plutarch (Jahrbuch der D.-Sh. Geselhchdfl, xi. 
 1876). 
 
 2 In some respects Shakespeare's details remind me more of Livy 
 than either of Plutarch or Camden ; e.g., Inde apparuisse ventris 
 quoque baud segne ministerium esse, nee magis ali quam alere eum. 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 457 
 
 Mr. Sidney Lee that there were friendly relations 
 between the two men. So it is a conjecture no 
 less probable than pleasing that Shakespeare owed 
 a few hints to the great and patriotic scholar whom 
 Ben Jonson hailed as "most reverend head." 
 
 It is clear, however, that if the debt to Camden 
 was more certain than it is, this would only give us 
 the year before which Coriolanus could not have 
 been written, and it would not of itself establish 
 a date shortly after the publicatipn of the Remaines. 
 
 reddentem in omnis corporis paries hunc, quo vivimus vigemusque, 
 divisum pariter in venas maturum confecto cibo sanguinem." (li. 32.) 
 
 Cf. I receive the general food at first, 
 
 Which you do live upon ; . . . 
 
 . . . but, if you do remember, 
 
 I send it through the rivers of your blood, . . . 
 
 And through the cranks and offices of man, 
 
 The strongest nerves and small inferior veins 
 
 From me receive that natural competency 
 
 Whereby they live. (l. i. 135 seq.) 
 
 This certainly is liker Livy than Plutarch ; and besides the chances of 
 Shakespeare having read Livy in the original, we have to bear in mind 
 that in 1600 Philemon Holland published the Jiomane Historie written 
 by Titus Livius of Padua. His version, as it is difficult to procure, 
 may be quoted in full : 
 
 Whilome (quoth he) when as in mans bodie, all the parts 
 thereof agreed not, as now they do in one, but each member had 
 a several interest and meaning, yea, and a speech by it selfe ; so 
 it befel, that all other parts besides the belly, thought much and 
 repined that by their carefulness, labor, and ministerie, all was 
 gotten, and yet all little enough to serve it : and the bellie it selfe 
 lying still in the mids of them, did nothing else but enjoy the 
 delightsome pleasures brought unto her. Wherupon they mutinied 
 and conspired altogether in this wise. That neither the hands 
 should reach and convey food to the mouth, nor the mouth receive 
 it as it came, ne yet the teeth grind and chew the same. In this 
 mood and fit, whiles they were minded to famish the poore bellie, 
 behold the other lims, yea and the whole bodie besides, pined, 
 wasted, and fel into an extreme consumption. Then was it wel 
 seen, that even the very belly also did no smal service, but fed the 
 other parts, as it received food it selfe : seeing that by working 
 and concocting the meat throughlie, it digesteth and distributeth 
 by the veines into all parts, that fresh and perfect blood whereby 
 we live, we like, and have our full strength. Comparing herewith, 
 and making his application, to wit, how like this intestine, and 
 inward sedition, of the bodie, was to the full stomacke of the Com- 
 mons, which they had taken and borne against the Senatours, he 
 turned quite the peoples hearts. 
 
458 CORIOLANUS 
 
 Such a date has been suggested, but the reference 
 to Camden has been made merely auxiliary to the 
 argument of a connection between the play and the 
 general circumstances of the time. This surmise, 
 for it can hardly be called more, will presently be 
 noticed, and meanwhile it may be said that the 
 internal evidence is all against it. 
 
 On the other hand, an excessively late date has 
 been proposed for Coriolanus on the ground of its 
 alleged indebtedness to the fourth edition of North, 
 of which it is sometimes maintained that Shake- 
 speare possessed a copy. Till 1612, Volumnia says 
 in her great appeal : 
 
 Think now with thy selfe, how much more unfortunatly, 
 then all the women livinge we are come hether ; 
 
 but in the fourth edition this becomes unfortunate, 
 
 and so Shakespeare has it : 
 
 Think with thyself 
 How more unfortunate than all living women 
 Are we come hither. (v. iii. 96.) 
 
 But the employment of the adjectival for the ad- 
 verbial form is a very^ insignificant change, and is, 
 besides, suggested by the rhythm. Moreover, such 
 importance as it might have, is neutralised by a 
 counter argument on similar lines, which would go 
 to prove that one of the first two editions was used. 
 In them Coriolanus tells Aufidius : 
 
 If I had feared death, I would not have come hither to 
 have put my life in hazard : but prickt forward with spite and 
 desire I have to be revenged of them that thus have banished 
 me, etc. 
 
 In 1603, this suffers the curtailment, "pricked 
 forward with desire to be revenged, etc." But 
 Shakespeare says : 
 
 If 
 I had fear'd death, of all men i' the world 
 I would have 'voided thee, but in mere spite. 
 To be full quit of those my banishers. 
 Stand I before thee here. (iv. v. 86.) 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 459 
 
 This argument is no doubt of the same precarious 
 kind as the other; still in degree it is stronger, for 
 the persistence of spite is much more distinctive than 
 the disappearance of a suffix. 
 
 In any case this verbal detail is a very narrow 
 foundation to build a theory upon, which there is 
 nothing else to support, except one of those alluring 
 and hazardous guesses that would account for the 
 play in the conditions of the time. This, too, as 
 in the previous case, may be reserved for future 
 discussion. Meanwhile the dating of Coriolanus, 
 subsequently to 161 2, is not only opposed to internal 
 evidences of versification and style, but would 
 separate it from Shakespeare's tragedies and intro- 
 duce it among the romantic plays of his final period. 
 
 If, however, we turn to the supposed allusions 
 that make for the intermediate date of 1608 or 1609, 
 we do not find them much more satisfactory. 
 
 Thus it has been argued that the severe cold in 
 January, 1608, when even the Thames was frozen 
 over, furnished the simile : 
 
 You are no surer, no, 
 Than is the coal of fire upon the ice. (i. i. 176.) 
 
 But surely there must have been many opportunities 
 for such things to present themselves to Shake- 
 speare's observation or imagination, by the time 
 that he was forty-four years old. 
 
 Again Malone found a reference to James's pro- 
 clamation in favour of breeding silk-worms and the 
 importation of young mulberry trees during 1609, i" 
 the expression : 
 
 Now humble as the ripest mulberry 
 
 That will not hold the handling. (iii. ii. 79.) 
 
 But even in Venus and Adonis Shakespeare had 
 told how, in admiration of the youth's beauty, the 
 birds 
 
 Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries ; (1103.) 
 
46o CORIOLANUS 
 
 and in Midsummer - N igh£ s Dream, Titania orders 
 the fairies to feed Bottom 
 
 With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries, (iii. i. 170.) 
 
 A third of these surmises is even more gratuitous. 
 Chalmers calls attention to the repeated references 
 in the play to famine and dearth, and supposes they 
 were suggested by the scarcity which prevailed in 
 England during the years 1608 and 1609. But the 
 lack of corn among the people is one of the pre- 
 suppositions of the story, to which Plutarch also 
 recurs. 
 
 There is only one allusion that has strength to 
 stand by itself, though even it is doubtful ; and it 
 belongs to a different class, for, if authentic, it is 
 suggested not to Shakespeare by contemporary 
 events, but to a contemporary writer by Shake- 
 speare. Malone noticed the coincidence between 
 the line, "He lurch'd all swords of the garland " 
 (11. ii. 105), and a remark in Epicoene : "You have 
 lurched your friends of the better half of the garland 
 (v. i.) ; and considered that here, as not infrequently, 
 Ben Jonson was girding at Shakespeare. After- 
 wards he withdrew his conjecture because he found 
 a similar expression in one of Nashe's pamphlets, 
 and concluded that it was proverbial ; but it has 
 been pointed out in answer to this ^ that Nashe has 
 only the lurch and not the supplementary words, of 
 the garland, while it is to the phrase as a whole, not 
 to the component parts, that the individual character 
 belongs. This, if not absolutely beyond challenge, 
 is at least very cogent, and probably few will deny 
 that Coriolanus must have been in existence before 
 Epicoene was acted in January 1609, old style. 
 
 How long before ? And did it succeed or precede 
 Antony and Cleopatra} 
 
 ' Introduction to the Clarendon Press Edition. 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 461 
 
 Attempts have been made to find in that play 
 immediate anticipations of the mental attitude and 
 of particular thoughts that appear in Coriolanus. 
 Thus Octavia's dilemma in her petition has been 
 quoted : 
 
 A more unhappy lady, 
 If this division chance, ne'er stood between, 
 Praying for both parts : 
 The good gods will mock me presently, 
 When I shall pray, " O, bless my lord and husband ! " 
 Undo that prayer, by crying out as loud, 
 " O, bless my brother ! " Husband win, win brother, 
 Prays, and destroys the prayer ; no midway 
 'Twixt these extremes at all. (in. iv. 12.) 
 
 And this has been taken as a link with Volumnia's 
 
 perplexity : 
 
 And to poor we 
 Thine enmity's most capital : thou barr'st us 
 Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort 
 That all but we enjoy : for how can we, 
 Alas, how can we for our country pray. 
 Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory, 
 Whereto we are bound ? Alack, or we must lose 
 The countiry, our dear nurse, or else thy person. 
 Our comfort in the country. We must find 
 An evident calamity, though we had 
 Our wish, which side should win. (v. iii. 103.) 
 
 But then the same sort of conflict puzzles the Lady 
 Blanch in King John : 
 
 Which is the side that I must go withal ? 
 
 I am with both : each army hath a hand ; 
 
 And in their rage, I having hold of both. 
 
 They whirl asunder and dismember me. 
 
 Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win ; 
 
 Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose ; 
 
 Father, I may not wish the fortune thine ; 
 
 Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive : 
 
 Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose 
 
 Assured loss before the match be play'd. (in. i. 327.) 
 
 Could not this style of argument be used to prove 
 that Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra imme- 
 diately followed King John} 
 
462 CORIOLANUS 
 
 Or again the contemptuous descriptions of the 
 people by Octavius, Cleopatra and Antony himself 
 have been treated as preludes to the more savage 
 vituperations in Coriolanus. ^xA Julius Caesar gives 
 an equally unflattering account of mob law, and some 
 of Casca's gibes would quite fit the mouth of Corio- 
 lanus or Menenius. On these lines we should be as 
 much entitled to make this play the direct successor 
 of the first as of the second of its companions, a 
 theory that would meet with scant acceptance. The 
 truth is that whenever Shakespeare deals with the 
 populace, he finds some one to disparage it in the 
 mass. 
 
 Still there is little doubt that Coriolanus does 
 occupy the position these arguments would assign 
 to it, but the real evidence is of another kind. To 
 begin with there is what Coleridge describes in 
 Antony and Cleopatra as the " happy valiancy of 
 style," which first becomes marked in that play, 
 which is continued in this, and which henceforth 
 in a greater or less degree characterises all Shake- 
 speare's work. Then even more conclusive are the 
 peculiarities of metre, and especially the increase in 
 the total of weak and light endings together with the 
 decrease of the light by themselves. Finally, there 
 is the conduct of the story to a conclusion that 
 proposes no enigma and inflicts no pang, but even 
 more than in the case of Macbeth satisfies, and even 
 more than in the case of Antony and Cleopatra 
 uplifts the heart, without troublesome questionings 
 on the part of the reader. "As we close the book," 
 says Mr. Bradley, "we feel more as we do at the 
 close of Cymbeline than as we do at the close of 
 Othello." We cannot be far wrong in placing it in 
 the last months of 1608 or the first months of 1609. 
 
 Attempts have been made to find suggestions 
 of a personal kind for Shakespeare's choice of the 
 subject. The extreme ease with which they have 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 463 
 
 been discovered for the various dates proposed may 
 well teach us caution. Thus Professor Brandl who 
 assigns it an earlier position than most critics and 
 discusses it before Lear sees in it the outcome of 
 events that occurred in the first years of the century. 
 
 The material for Coriolanus was perhaps put in Shake- 
 speare's way by a contemporary tragedy which keenly excited 
 the Londoners, and especially the courtly and literary circleSj 
 about 1603 and 1604. Sir Walter Raleigh had been one of 
 the most splendid gentlemen at the court of EUzabeth, was a 
 friend of Spenser and Ben Jonson, had himself tried his hand 
 at lyric poetry, and in addition as adventurous officer had 
 discovered Virginia and annexed Guiana. He was the most 
 highly considered but also the best hated man in England : 
 for his behaviour was domineering, in the consciousness of 
 his innate efficiency he showed without disguise his contempt 
 for the multitude, the farm of wine-licenses granted him by 
 the Queen had made him objectionable to the pothouse 
 politicians, and his opposition in parliament to a bill for 
 cheapening corn had recently drawn on him new unpopu- 
 larity. He, therefore, shortly after the accession of James 
 succumbed to the charge, that he, the scarred veteran of the 
 Spanish wars, the zealous advocate of new expeditions against 
 Spain, had involved himself in treasonous transactions with 
 this, the hereditary foe of England. In November 1603 the 
 man who had won treasure-fleets and vast regions for his 
 country,/almost fell a victim to popular rage as he was being 
 transferired from one prison to another.^ A month later he 
 was condemned to death on wretched evidence : he was not yet 
 executed however but locked up in the Tower, so that men 
 were in suspense as to his fate for many years. To depict 
 his character his biographer Edwards involuntarily hit on 
 some lines of Shakespeare's Coriolanus. The figure of the 
 Romari, who had deserved well but incurred hatred, of the 
 patriot whom his aristocratic convictions drive to the enemy, 
 was already familiar to the dramatist from North's translation 
 of Plutarch ; and Camden's Remaines concerning Britaine, 
 which had newly appeared in 1605 contributed a more de- 
 tailed version of the fable of the belly and the members, 
 first set forth by Livy. From this mood and about this ti^ne 
 Coriolanus, for the dating of which only the very relative 
 evidence of metre and style is available, may most probably 
 have proceeded.^ 
 
 * Strictly speaking, from the Tower to Winchester for trial. 
 ^Shakespeare, in the Fiihrende Geister Series. 
 
464 CORIOLANUS 
 
 In this passage, Professor Brandl has brought out 
 some of the considerations that would lend the case 
 of Raleigh a peculiar interest in the eyes of men like 
 Shakespeare, and has made the most of the parallels 
 between his story and the story of Coriolanus.^ It 
 is necessary of course to look away from almost all 
 the points except those enumerated, for when we 
 remember Sir Walter's robust adulation of Elizabeth, 
 and tortuous policy at court, it is difficult to pair him 
 with the Roman who "would not flatter Neptune 
 for his trident," and of whom it was said, "his 
 heart's his mouth." Still the analogies in career 
 and character are there, so far as they go ; but they 
 are insufficient to prove that they actually suggested 
 the poetical tragedy, still less to override the internal 
 evidence, relative though that be ; for they could 
 linger and germinate in the poet's mind to bring 
 forth fruit long afterwards : as for example the 
 treason and execution of Biron in 1602 inspired 
 Chapman to write The Conspiracie and The Tragedie 
 which were 'acted in 1608. 
 
 Again, in connection with what seems to be the 
 actual date, an attempt has been made to explain 
 one prominent characteristic of the play from a 
 domestic experience through which Shakespeare 
 had just passed. His mother died in September 
 1608, and her memory is supposed to be enshrined 
 in the picture of Volumnia. As Dr. Brandes 
 puts it : ^ 
 
 The death of a mother is always a mournfully irreparable 
 loss, often the saddest a man can sustain. We can realise 
 bow deeply it would go to Shakespeare's heart when we 
 
 ' Rather more than the most. It is special pleading to interpret 
 Raleigh's arguments against the Act for sewing Hemp and the Statute 
 of Tillage in 1601, as directed against cheap corn. His point was 
 rather that coercive legislation in regard to, agriculture hindered pro- 
 duction and was oppressive to poor men. Nor am I aware that his 
 speeches on these occasions increased his unpopularity, — which, no 
 doubt, was already great. 
 
 ^ William, Shakespeare, a critical study. 
 
POSITION OF THE PLAY 465 
 
 remember the capacity for profound and passionate feeling 
 with which nature had blessed and cursed him. We know 
 little of his mother; but judging from that affinity which 
 generally exists between famous sons and their mothers, we 
 may suppose she was no ordinary woman. Mary Arden, 
 who belonged to an old and honourable family, which traced 
 its descent (perhaps justly) back to the days of Edward the 
 Confessor, represented the haughty patrician element in the 
 Shakespeare family. Her ancestors had borne their coat of 
 arms for centuries, and the son would be proud of his mother 
 for this among other reasons, just as the mother would be 
 proud of her son. In the midst of the prevailing gloom and 
 bitterness of his spirits,^ this fresh blow fell upon him, and 
 out of his weariness of life as his surroundings and experiences 
 showed it to him, recalled this one mainstay to him — his 
 mother. He remembered all she had been to him for forty- 
 four years, and the thoughts of the man and the dreams of 
 the poet were thus led to dwell upon the significance in a 
 man's life of this unique form, comparable to no other — his 
 mother. Thus it was that, although his genius must follow 
 the path it had entered upon and pursue it to the end, we 
 find, in the midst of all that was low and base in his next 
 work, this one sublime mother-form, the proudest and most 
 highly-wrought that he has drawn, Volumnia. 
 
 Thus Shakespeare, in a mood of pessimism, and in 
 the desolation of bereavement, turned to a subject 
 that he treated on its seamy side, but redeemed from 
 its meanness by exalting the idea of the mother in 
 obedience to his own pious regrets. Even, however, 
 if we grant the assumptions in regard to Mary 
 Arden's pedigree and her aristocratic family pride, 
 and the unique support she gave to her son, does 
 this statement give a true account of the impression 
 the play produces ? Is it the fact that, apart from 
 the figure of Volumnia, the story is " low and base," 
 and is it not rather the record of grand though per- 
 verted heroism ? Is it the fact that Volumnia stands 
 
 ' In point of fact "gloom and bitterness" can be less justly attributed 
 to Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus than to any of the later 
 tragedies, and less justly to Coriolanus than to Antony and Cleopatra ; 
 but Dr. Brandes treats Troilus and Cressida as coming between them, 
 and if that position could be vindicated for it, the phrase would be 
 defensible. 
 
 2G 
 
466 CORIOLANUS 
 
 out as a study of motherhood, such as the first heart- 
 ache at .a mother's death would inspire ? The most 
 sympathetic traits in her portrait are drawn by 
 Plutarch. Shakespeare's many touches supply the 
 harshness, the ambition, the prejudice. If these 
 additions are due to Shakespeare's wistful broodings 
 on his own mother, a woman with a son of genius 
 may well hope that he will never brood on her. 
 
 Then, especially by those who advocate a later 
 date for the play, a political motive for it has been 
 discovered. Mr. Whitelaw, who would assign it to 
 1610, when James's first parliament was dissolved, 
 conjectures that "jn Coriolantis Shakespeare in- 
 tended a two-fold warning, to the pride of James, 
 and to the gathering resistance of the Commons." ^ 
 Mr. Garnett,^ on the other hand, maintains that 
 " Coriolanus, to our apprehension, manifestly reflects 
 the feelings of a conservative observer of the contests 
 between James and his refractory parliaments," and 
 placing it after the Tempest, would connect it with 
 the dissolution of the Addled Parliarrient in 16 14. 
 But since the friction between King and Commons, 
 though it intensified with the years, was seldom 
 entirely absent, this theory adapts itself pretty well 
 to any date, and Dr. Brandes, while refusing to 
 trace the spirit of the play to any "momentary 
 political situation," adopts the general principle as 
 quite compatible with the state of affairs in 1608. 
 He puts the case as follows : 
 
 Was it Shakespeare's intention to allude to the strained 
 relations existing between James and his parliament ? Does 
 Coriolanus represent an aristocratically-minded poet's side- 
 glance at the political situation in England ? I fancy it does. 
 Heaven knows there was little resemblance between the 
 amazingly craven and vacillating James and the haughty, 
 
 ' Coriolanus. Rugby Edition. 
 
 ^ In the conclusion of his essay on the Date and Occasion of the 
 Tempest. Universal Review, i8Sg. 
 
POLITICAL ASPECTS 467- 
 
 resolute hero of Roman tradition, who fought a whole garrison 
 single-handed. Nor was it personal resemblance which 
 suggested the comparison, but a general conception of the 
 situation as between a beneficent power on the one hand, 
 and the people on the other. He regarded the latter wholly 
 as mob, and looked upon their struggle for freedom as mutiny, 
 pure and simple. 
 
 This theory, however, in all its varieties seems to 
 attribute too definite an influence to the controversies 
 of the hour, and to turn Shakespeare too much into 
 the politician prepense. Certainly Coriolamis is not 
 meant to be a constitutional manifesto ; probably it 
 does not, even at unawares, idealise a contemporary 
 dispute ; it is hardly likely that Shakespeare so much 
 as intrudes conscious allusions to the questions then 
 at issue. And this on account not only of the par- 
 ticular opinions attributed to him, but, much more, 
 of his usual practice in poetic creation. Do any of 
 these alleged incentives in the circumstances, public 
 or private, of his life go far to explain his attraction 
 to a story and sel^tion of it, its power over him and 
 his power over it ?3 Doubtless in realising the sub- 
 ject that took his fancy, he would draw on the stores < 
 of his experience as well as his imagination. In 
 dealing with the tragedy of a proud and unpopular 
 hero of antiquity, very possibly he would be helped 
 by what he knew of the tragedy of a proud and 
 unpopular worthy of his own time. In dealing with 
 the influence of a mother and the reverence of a son, 
 very probably the memories of his own home would 
 hover before his mind. In dealing with the plebeians 
 and patricians of Rome, he would inevitably fill in 
 the details from his knowledge of the burgesses and 
 nobles of England, and he might get hints for his 
 picture of the by- gone struggle, from the struggle 
 that he himself could watch. But it is the story of 
 Coriolanus that comes first and that absorbs all such 
 material into itself, just as the seed in its growth 
 assimilates nourishment from the earth and sunshine 
 
468 CORIOLANUS 
 
 and rain. These things are not the seed. The 
 experiences are utilised in the interest of the 
 play ; the play is not utilised in the interest of the 
 experiences. 
 
 It is particularly important to emphasise this in 
 view of the circumstance that Coriolanus has often 
 been regarded as a drama of principles rather than 
 of character, even by those who refrain from reading 
 into it any particular reference. But Shakespeare's 
 supreme preoccupation is always with his fable, which 
 explains, and is explained by, human nature in action. 
 He does not set out to commend or censure or ex- 
 amine a precept or a theory or a doctrine. Of course 
 the life of men is concerned with such matters, and 
 he could not exclude them without being untrue to 
 his aim. Thus, to take the most obvious example, 
 it is impossible to treat of character with a total 
 omission of ethical considerations, since character is 
 connected with conduct, and conduct has its ethical 
 aspect ; and, indeed, success in getting to the truth 
 of character depends very much on the keenness of 
 the moral insight. It is very largely Shakespeare's 
 moral insight that gives him his unrivalled position 
 among the interpreters of men ; and we may, if we 
 like, derive any number of improving lessons from 
 his works. But he is an artist, not a moralist ; and 
 he wrote for the story, not for the moral. Just in 
 the same way an architect seeks to design a beautiful 
 or convenient building, not to illustrate mechanical 
 laws. Nevertheless, in proportion as these are 
 neglected, the building will not rise or will not last ; 
 and if they are obeyed, however unconsciously, the 
 illustration of them will be provided. In Charlotte 
 Bronte's Shirley, when Caroline gives Robert Moore 
 this very play to read, he asks, " Is it to operate like 
 a sermon ? " And she answers : " It is to stir you ; 
 to give you new sensations. // is to make you feel 
 life strongly" — (that is the main thing, and then 
 
POLITICAL ASPECTS 469 
 
 comes the indirect consequence) — " not only your 
 virtues but your vicious perverse points." 
 
 Now just as in all Shakespeare's dramas, though 
 or rather because they are personal, the elhical^on- 
 siderations cannot be excluded ; so in a drama that 
 moves through- a -constitutional crisis, though or 
 rather because it, too, is personal, political considera- 
 tions cannot be excluded. They are there, though 
 on the second plane. And just as his general 
 delineation of character would be unsatisfactory if 
 his moral insight were at fault, so his delineation of 
 the characters that play their part in this history 
 would be unsatisfactory if his political insight were 
 at fault. He is not necessarily bound to appreciate 
 correctly the conditions that prevailed in reality 
 or by report : that is required only for historical 
 accuracy or fidelity to tradition. But he is bound 
 to appreciate the conditions as he imagines them, 
 and not to violate in' his treatment of them the 
 principles that underlie all political society. 
 
 Yet this he has been accused of doing. He has 
 been charged with a hatred of the people that is 
 incompatible even with a benevolent tyranny, and 
 with a glorification of the protagonist's ruthless dis- 
 regard of popular claims. Thus Dr. Brandes, in the 
 greater part of a chapter, dwells upon Shakespeare's 
 " physical aversion for the atmosphere of the people," 
 and " the absence of any humane consideration for 
 the oppressed condition of the poor"; and, on the 
 other hand, upon his " hero worship " for Marcius, 
 whom he glorifies as a demigod. Though admitting 
 the dramatist's detestation of the crime of treason, 
 this critic sees no implicit censure of what preceded 
 it. To him Shakespeare's impression of life as con- 
 veyed in the play is that " there must of necessity be 
 formed round the solitary great ones of the earth, a 
 conspiracy of envy and hatred raised by the small 
 and mean." 
 
470 CORIOLANUS 
 
 It is no doubt true that this and many other 
 Shakespearian plays abound in hostile or scornful 
 vituperation of the people ; and not only of their 
 moral and mental demerits ; their sweaty clothes, 
 their rank breaths, their "grossness and uncleanness 
 are held up to derision and execration. But are we 
 to attribute these sentiments to Shakespeare ? Such 
 utterances are ex hypothesi dramatic, and show us 
 merely the attitude of the speakers, who are without 
 exception men of the opposite camp or unfriendly 
 ■critics. Only once does- Shakespeare give his per- 
 sonal, or rather, impersonal estimate. It is in the 
 Induction^ to the second part of Henry IV., when 
 Rumour, whose words, in this respect at least, cannot 
 be influenced by individual bias, speaks of 
 
 the blunt monster of uncounted heads. 
 The still-discordant, wavering multitude. (line i8.) 
 
 That is, the populace as a whole is stupid, disunited, 
 fickle. And this is how, apart from the exaggerations 
 of their opponents, Shakespeare invariably treats 
 crowds of citizens, whether in the ancient or modern 
 world. He therefore with perfect consistency regards 
 them as quite unfit for rule, and when they have it 
 or aspire to it, they cover themselves with ridicule 
 or involve themselves in crime. But this is by no 
 means to hate- them. On the contrary he is kindly 
 enough to individual representatives, and he certainly 
 believes in the sacred obligation of governing them 
 for their good. Where then are the governors to 
 be found ? Shakespeare answers : in the royal and 
 aristocratic classes. It is the privilege and duty of 
 those born in high position to conduct the whole 
 community aright. Shakespeare can do justice to 
 the Venetian oligarchy and the English monarchy. 
 But while to him the rule of the populace is im- 
 possible, he also recognises that nobles and kings 
 may be unequal to their task. The majority of his 
 
POLITICAL ASPECTS 471 
 
 kings indeed are more or less failures ; his nobles — 
 and in this play, the patricians — often cut a rather 
 sorry figure. In short, popular government must be 
 wrong, but royal or aristocratic government need not 
 be right. 
 
 T^nd this was exactly what historical experience 
 at the time seemed to prove. The Jacqueries, the 
 Peasants' Wars, the Wat Tyler or Jack Cade 
 Insurrections, were not calculated to commend demo- 
 cratic experiments ; and, on the other hand, the 
 authority of king aftd nobles had often, though not 
 always, secured" the welfare of the state. 
 
 Now, holding these opinions, would Shakespeare 
 be likely to glorify Coriolanus ? Of course, in a 
 sense he does. There is a Lues BoSwelliana to 
 which the dramatist like the biographer should and 
 must succumb. He must have a fellow-feeling for 
 his hero and understand from within all that can 
 be urged on his behalf. So Shakespeare glorifies 
 Coriolanus in the same way that he glorifies Ham- 
 let or Brutus or Antony. That is, he appreciates 
 their greatness and explains their offences so -that 
 we sympathise with them and do not regard them 
 as unaccountable aberrations ; but offences they 
 remain and they are not extenuated. On the 
 contrary they receive all due prominence and are 
 shown to bring about the tragic catastrophe. This 
 is even more the case with Coriolanus than with 
 some of the others. So much stress is laid on 
 his violence and asperities that to many he is anti- 
 pathetic, and the antipathy is reflected on the cause 
 that he champions. Gervinus says very truly : 
 
 It will be allowed that from the example of Brutus many 
 more would be won over to the cause of the people, than 
 would be won over to aristocratic principles by Coriolanus. 
 
 Quite apart from the final apostasy he strikes the 
 unprejudiced reader as an example to eschew rather 
 
472 CORIOLANUS 
 
 than to imitate. Charlotte Bronte, not a Shake- 
 spearian scholar but a woman of no less common 
 sense than genius, gives the natural interpretation 
 of his career in the passage I have already referred 
 to. After Caroline and Moore have finished the 
 play, she makes the former ask concerning the hero : 
 
 " Was he not faulty as well as great ? " 
 
 Moore nodded. 
 
 " And what was his fault ? What made him hated by the 
 citizens ? What caused him to be banished by his country- 
 men?" 
 
 She answers her own question by quoting Aufidius' 
 estimate, and proceeds : 
 
 "And you must not be proud to your work people; you 
 must not neglect the chance of soothing them ; and you must 
 not be of an inflexible nature, uttering a request as austerely 
 as if it were a command." 
 
 That, so far as it goes, is a quite legitimate "moral " 
 to draw from the story ; and it is the obvious one. 
 
 How then does Shakespeare conceive the political 
 situation ? On the one side there is a despised and 
 famished populace, driven by its misery to demand 
 powers in the state that it cannot wisely use, and 
 trusting to leaders who are worse than itself. On 
 the other side there is a prejudiced aristocracy, num- 
 bering competent men in its ranks, but disorganised 
 and, to some extent, demoralised by pleBemn en- 
 croachments, so that it can no longer act with 
 its old efficiency and consistency. And there is 
 one great aristocrat, pre-eminently consistent and 
 efficient, but whose greatness becomes mischievous 
 to himself and others, partly because it is out of 
 harmony with the times, pardy because it is cor- 
 rupted by his inordinate pride. And to all these 
 persons, or groups of persons, Shakespeare's attitude, 
 as we shall see, is at once critical and sympathetic. 
 Admitting the conditions, we can only agree with 
 Coleridge's verdict : "This play illustrates the won- 
 
ARTISTIC ASPECTS 473 
 
 derfully philosophic impartiality of Shakespeare's 
 politics."! And there is no reason why the conditions 
 should not be admitted. It is easy to imagine a 
 society in which the masses are not yet ripe for 
 self-government, and in which the classes are no 
 longer able to steer the state, while a gifted and. 
 bigoted champion of tradition only makes matters 
 worse. Indeed, something similar has been ex- 
 emplified in history oftener than once or twice. 
 Whether in point of fact Shakespeare's conception 
 is correct for the particular set of circumstances he 
 describes is quite another question, that concerns 
 neither the excellence of Coriolanus as a drama 
 nor the fairness of its political views, but solely its 
 fidelity to antiquarian truth and the accuracy of its 
 antiquarian data. ^^ 
 
 Clearly it was impossible for Shakespeare to^ 
 revive the spirit of the times in Coriolanus, even 
 to the extent that he had done so m Julius Caesar 
 or Antony and Cleopatra, for the simple reason that 
 in them, with whatever trespasses into fiction on the 
 part of himself or his authority, he was following the 
 record of what had actually taken place, while now 
 he was dealing with a legend that seems to have the 
 less foundation in fact the more it is examined. The 
 tt-ibunate, with the establishment of which the whole 
 action begins, the opposition to which by Marcius is 
 his main offence, and the occupants of which play so 
 important a part in the proceedings, is now generally 
 held to be of much later origin than the supposed 
 date of the story. There is no agreement as to the 
 names of the chief persons ; Coriolanus is Cneius or 
 Caius, his mother is Veturia or Volumnia, his wife 
 is Volumnia or Vergilia, the Volscian leader Tullus 
 Aufidius or Amfidius or Attius Tullius. Even the 
 appellation Coriolanus rouses suspicion, for the be- 
 stowal of such titles seems to have been unknown 
 
 '^ Notes on Plays of Shakespere, 1818. 
 
 \ 
 
474 CORIOLANUS 
 
 till long afterwards, and, in the view of some, points 
 not to conquest but to origin ; and there are con- 
 tradictory accounts of the hero's end. It has been 
 conjectured ^ that the whole story arose in connection 
 with religious observances and contains a large 
 mythological admixture ; and we may remember 
 ' how at the end it is associated with the erection 
 of the temple to Fortuna Muliebris. 
 
 This much at least is beyond doubt, that the 
 account given by Plutarch, from whom Shakespeare 
 took his material, and even by Livy, whom he may 
 have read, has much less matter-of-fact reality than 
 characterises the later Roman lives. There are 
 many discrepancies and contradictions, especially in 
 vPlutarch's description. Now he gives what we may 
 consider an idealised picture of the plebs, attributing 
 to it extraordinary self-control and sagacity, and 
 again it is to him merely the rascal vulgar. Now 
 he seems to approve the pliancy which the Senate 
 showed on the advice of the older and wiser men, 
 and again he seems to blame it as undignified. And 
 the mixture of bravado and pusillanimity during the 
 siege is almost unintelligible. Now the city sends 
 the humblest embassages to the rebel, now it 
 haughtily refuses to treat till he has withdrawn from 
 Roman soil, and again it despatches what North 
 calls " a goodly rabble of superstition and priestes " 
 with new supplications. 
 
 Frorn a narrative that teemed with incongruities 
 like the above, Shakespeare was entitled to select 
 the alternatives that would combine to a harmonious 
 whole, and he rightly chose those that were nearest 
 to his own comprehension and experience, though 
 perhaps in doing so he failed to make the most of 
 such elements of historic truth as the tradition may 
 contain, and certainly effaced some of the antique 
 colouring. 
 
 ' By Ettore Pais. Storia di Roma. Vol. I. 
 
ARTISTIC ASPECTS 475 
 
 ^"i'^ Plutarch's Coriolanus has less foundation in 
 tact than some of the later Lives, it is not without 
 compensating advantages. The circumstance that 
 It IS in so large measure a legend, implies that the 
 popular imagination has been busy working it up, 
 and it already falls into great scenic crises which lend 
 themselves of their own accord to the dramatist's art. 
 It is rather remarkable in view of this that it had 
 received so little attention from the tragedians of the 
 time. Perhaps its two-fold remoteness, from world- 
 wide historical issues on the one hand, and from 
 specifically romantic feeling on the other, may have 
 told against it. The stories of Lucretia and Virginia 
 had as primitive and circumscribed a setting, and 
 were nevertheless populat enough : but they have 
 an emotional interest thaf appeals to the general 
 taste. The story of Julius Caesar lacks the senti- 
 mental lure, but concerns such mighty issues that it 
 was the best beloved of all. And next comes the 
 story of Antony and Cleopatra, which in a high 
 degree unites both attractions. But Coriolanus, 
 even as treated by Shakespeare, is unsympathetic 
 to many, and the legend is of so little historic signifi- 
 cance that it is often omitted from modern handbooks 
 of Roman history ; so, for these reasons, despite its 
 pre-eminent fitness for the stage, it was generally 
 passed over. 
 
 Not universally, however. It seems already to 
 have engaged the attention of one important drama- 
 tist in France, the prolific and gifted Alexandre 
 Hardy. Hardy began to- publish his works only in 
 1623, and the volume containing his Coriolan 
 appeared only in 1625 ; so there is hardly any 
 possibility of Shakespeare's having utilised this play. 
 And, on the other hand, it was certainly written 
 before 1608, probably in the last years of the six- 
 teenth century, but in any case by 1607, so there is 
 even less possibility of its being influenced by 
 
476 CORIOLANUS 
 
 Shakespeare's treatment. All the more interesting 
 is it to observe the coincidences that exist between 
 them, and that are due to their having selected a 
 great many of the same motifs from Plutarch's story. 
 It shows that in that story Plutarch met the play- 
 wright halfway, and justifies the statement of Hardy 
 in his argument that " few subjects are to be found 
 in Roman history which are worthier of the stage." ^ 
 The number of subsequent French dramas with 
 Coriolanus as hero proves that he was right, though 
 in England, as so frequently, Shakespeare's name 
 put a virtual veto on new experiments. 
 
 Hardy's tragedy in style and structure follows the 
 Senecan manner of Jodelle and Garnier, but he 
 compromised with mediaeval fashions in so far as to 
 adopt the peculiar modification of the "simultaneous" 
 or "complex" decoration which is usual in his other 
 plays. In accordance with that, several scenes were 
 presented at the same time on the stage, and actors 
 made their first speeches from the area appropriated 
 to that one of them which the particular phase of 
 the action required. There was thus considerable 
 latitude in regard to the unity of place, and even 
 more in regard to the unity of time ; but the freedom 
 was not so great as in the Elizabethan theatre, for 
 after all there was space only for a limited number 
 of scenes, or " mansions " as they would formerly 
 have been called. Generally there were five, two 
 at each side and one at the back. In the Coriolan 
 there were six, and there is as well a seventh place 
 indicated in the play without scenical decoration.'^ 
 Even so they are few, compared with the two and 
 twenty * that Shakespeare employs ; and though no 
 
 * See TMdtre d' Alexandre Hardy, ed. Stengel. 
 
 2 See M. Rigal's admirable treatise on Hardy. 
 
 ' Of course these scenes are not marked in the folio, but on the whole 
 there are good grounds for the division that has been adopted by- 
 modern editors. 
 
ARTISTIC ASPECTS 477 
 
 doubt that number might be considerably reduced 
 without injury to the effect, by running together 
 localities that approximate in character and position, 
 one street with another street, the forum with a 
 public place and the like, still it would in any case 
 exceed what Hardy allows himself. This may 
 account for some of his omissions as compared with 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 His scenarium includes the house of Coriolanus 
 and the forum at Rome, the house of Coriolanus and 
 the house of Amfidius at Antium, the Volscian camp 
 near Rome, the council-hall at Antium, and in 
 addition to these an indeterminate spot where 
 Coriolanus soliloquises after his expulsion.^ There 
 is no room for Corioli, and this may be why Hardy 
 begins somewhat later than Shakespeare with the 
 collision between the hero and the people, and gets 
 as far as the banishment by the end of the first act. 
 In the second, Marcius leaves Rome, presents him- 
 self to Amfidius, and obtains the leadership of the 
 Volscians. The third poi-trays the panic of the 
 Romans and the reception of their embassage by 
 Coriolanus. In the fourth, the Roman ladies make 
 ready to accompany Volumnia on her mission, 
 Amfidius schemes to use all Coriolanus' faults for 
 his destruction, Volumnia arrives in the camp and 
 makes her petition, which her son at length grants 
 though he foresees the result. The fifth is occupied 
 with his murder in the Senate House at Antium, and 
 concludes with his mother's reception of the news. 
 
 Thus the sequence and selection of episodes are 
 much the' same in the two tragedies, except that 
 Hardy, perhaps, as I have said, owing to the exi- 
 gencies of his decorative system, does not begin till 
 the exploit at Corioli is over, and adds, as he could 
 do by using once more Coriolanus' house in Rome, 
 the final scene with Volumnia. Otherwise the 
 
 ^ See footnote 2 on previous page. 
 
478 CORIOLANUS 
 
 scaffolding of the plays is much alike, and it is 
 because both follow closely the excellent guidance 
 of Plutarch. But it is interesting also to note that 
 some of their additions are similar, for when they 
 were independently made, it shows how readily 
 Plutarch's narrative suggested such supplements.' 
 Thus, as in Shakespeare, but not as in Plutarch, 
 Volumnia counsels her son to bow his pride before 
 the people, and he, though in the end consenting, 
 at first refuses. 
 
 Volomnie. Voicy le jour fatal qui te donne (mon fils) 
 Par une humility tes hayneurs deconfits ; 
 Tu vaincras, endurant, la fiere ingratitude 
 Et le rancoeur malin de ceste multitude. 
 Tu charmes son courroux d'une submission ; 
 Helas ! ne vueille done croire k ta passion. 
 Cede pour un moment, et la voila contente, 
 Et tu accoiseras une horrible tourmente, 
 Que Rome divis^e ^branle h. ton sujet : 
 La piete ne peut avoir plus bel objet, 
 Et faire mieux paroistre k I'endroit d'une mere, 
 A I'endroit du pais, qu'escoutant ma priere. 
 
 Coriolan. Madame, on me verroit mille morts endurer, 
 Plustot que suppliant sa grace procurer, 
 Plustot qu'un peuple vil a bon tiltre se vante 
 D'avoir en mon courage imprime I'epouvante, 
 Que ceux qui me devroient recognoistre seigneur, 
 Se prevallent sur moy du plus petit honneur : 
 Moy, flechir le genoiiil devant une commune ! 
 Non, je ne le. veux faire, et ne crains sa rancune. 
 
 Thus Coriolanus, again as in Shakespeare but not 
 as in Plutarch, accepts his banishment as a calamity 
 to those that inflict it. 
 
 Je luy obeirai, ouy ouy, je mettrai soin 
 
 De quitter ces ingrats plustost qu'ils n'ont besoin. 
 
 Thus the machinations of Amfidius before the final 
 cause of offence are amplified far beyond the limits 
 of Plutarch, and these are in part excused by his 
 previous rivalry with Coriolanus which,! as in 
 Shakespeare, is made ever so much more personal 
 and graphic ; 
 
ARTISTIC ASPECTS 479 
 
 Un esperon d'honneur cent fois nous a conduits, 
 Aveugles de fureur, k ces termes reduits 
 De sentre-deffier ' au front de chaque armee, 
 Vouloir mourir, ou seul' vaincre de renommee. 
 
 In short, though Hardy's drama, as compared with 
 Shakespeare's, is a work of talent as compared with 
 a work of genius, it shows that the Lt/e had in it 
 the material for a tragedy already rough-dressed, 
 with indications, obvious to a practised playwright, 
 of some of the processes that still were needed. 
 
 Shakespeare, then, was now dealing with a much 
 more tractable theme than in his previous Roman 
 plays, and this is evident in the finished product. 
 Technically and artistically it is a more perfect 
 achievement than either of them. \xi Julius Caesar 
 the early disappearance of the titular hero does not 
 indeed affect the essential unity of the piece, but it 
 does, when all is said and done, involve, to the 
 feelings of most readers, a certain break in the 
 interest. In Antony and Cleopatra the scattering 
 of the action through so many short scenes does not 
 interfere with the main conception, but it does 
 make the execution a little spasmodic. In both 
 instances Shakespeare had to suit his treatment to 
 the material. But that material in the case of 
 Coriolanus offered less difficulty. It lay ready to 
 the dramatist's hand and took the shape that he 
 imposed, almost of itself. The result is a master- 
 piece that, as an organic work of art, has been placed 
 on the level of Shakespeare's most independent 
 tragedies.^ 
 
 Thus it is easy to see how the personality of the 
 hero dominates the complex story, as the heart 
 transmits the life-blood through the body and its 
 
 * S'entre-defier. 
 
 ^E.g. by Viehoff, in his interesting essay, Shakespearis Coriolan 
 ijahrbuch der D.-Sh. Gesellschaft, Bd, iv. 1869), which has been used 
 in the following paragraphs. 
 
48o CORIOLANUS 
 
 members, and receives it back again ; how his 
 character contains in itself the seeds of his offence 
 and its reparation ; how the other figures are related 
 to him in parallel and contrast ; how the two grand 
 interests, the conflict between Coriolanus and 
 Aufidius, the conflict between Coriolanus and the 
 people, intertwine, but always so that the latter 
 remains the principal strand ; how the language is 
 suited to the persons, the circumstances, and the 
 prevailing tone. In short, whatever the relations in 
 which we consider the play, they seem, like the 
 radii of a circle, to depart from and meet in one 
 centre. 
 
 Hardly less admirable are the balance and 
 composition of the whole, which yet in no wise 
 impair the interest of the individual scenes. Dr. 
 Johnson indeed makes the criticism: "There is 
 perhaps too much bustle in the first act and too 
 little in the last." This possibly is more noticeable 
 when the play is acted than when it is read ; but it 
 is fitting that from the noise and hubbub of the 
 struggle there should be a transition to the outward 
 quietude of the close that harmonises with the 
 inward acquiescence in^ the mind of reader or , 
 spectator. Nor is the element of tumult entirely 
 lacking at the last. To the uproar in the street of- 
 Rome, where the life of Marcius is threatened, 
 corresponds the uproar in the public place of Antium 
 where it is actually taken. But Dr. Johnson was 
 probably thinking of those battle scenes beloved by 
 Elizabethan audiences and generally wearisome to 
 modern taste. Ther-e are no fewer than five of 
 them in the first act, a somewhat plentiful allowance. 
 But they are written by no means exclusively in the 
 drum-and-trumpet style. On the contrary they are 
 rich in psychological interest, and bring home to us 
 many characteristics of the hero that we have to 
 realise. Not only are we witnesses of his prowess, 
 
ARTISTIC ASPECTS 481 
 
 but his pride in Rome, his contempt of baseness, his 
 rivalry with Aufidius, his power of rousing enthu- 
 siasm in the field, are all shown in relief. Such 
 things lift these concessions to temporary fashion 
 above the level of outworn crudities. 
 
 And the construction is very perfect too. Perhaps 
 the crisis, understood as the acme of Coriolanus' 
 success, when he is voted to the consulship in the 
 middle of the third scene of the second act comes a 
 little early. But crisis may bear another meaning. 
 It may denote the decisive point of the conflict, and 
 this is only reached in the centre of the play. To 
 the supreme tension of the scenes that describe 
 Coriolanus' denunciation of the Tribunes, the con- 
 sultations in his house, his final condemnation, all 
 that goes before gradually leads up, and from that 
 all that follows after gradually declines. In the first 
 act we are introduced to the circumstances, the 
 opposition between the Romans and the Volsces, 
 the Senate and the Plebs. and to all the leading 
 characters, as well Coriolanus as his friends and 
 opponents, in an exposition that is not merely 
 declaratory but is full of action and life : and we see 
 that the situation is fraught' with danger. In the 
 second act we are shown more definitely how the 
 grand disaster will come from the collision of 
 Coriolanus with ' the people, and the cloud gathers 
 ■ even in' the instant of his success. In the third the 
 storm "breaks, and, despite a momentary lull, -m the 
 end. sweeps away all wonted land-marks. The 
 fourth presents the change that follows in the whole 
 condition of things : the rival of Aufidius has 
 recourse to his generosity, the champion of Rome 
 becomes her foe, and the people, after its heedless 
 triumph, is plunged into dismay. In the fifth we 
 proceed by carefully considered ways to the catas- 
 trophe : the deliverance of Rome from material 
 and the hero from moral perdition, the expiation of 
 
 2 H 
 
482 CORIOLANUS 
 
 his passion in death and the fruitless triumph of his 
 rival. 
 
 But through this symmetrical rise and fall of the 
 excitement, there is no abatement of the interest. 
 Attention and suspense are always kept on the alert. 
 They are secured partly by the diversity of the 
 details and the swiftness of the fluctuations. Dr. 
 Johnson says : 
 
 The Tragedy of Coriolanus is one of the most amusing of 
 our author's performances. The old man's merriment in 
 Menenius, the lofty lady's dignity in Volumnia, the bridal 
 modesty in Virgilia, the patrician and military haughtiness in 
 Coriolanus, the plebeian malignity and tribunitian insolence 
 in Brutus and Sicinius, make a very pleasing and interesting 
 variety ; and the various revolutions of the hero's fortune fill 
 the mind with anxious curiosity. 
 
 This is so because, while the agitation culminates in 
 the third act, the emotion is neither overtaxed in 
 the two that precede nor allowed to subside in the 
 two that follow. For though this movement, first 
 of intensification, then of relaxation, is discernible in 
 the play as a whole, it is not uniform or uninterrupted. 
 There is throughout a throb and pulse, an ebb and 
 flow. The quieter scenes alternate with the more 
 vehement : Coriolanus' fortune by turns advances 
 and retires. Only when we reflect do we become 
 aware that we have risen so high out of our daily 
 experience, and have returned " with new acquist " 
 of wisdom to a spot whence we can step back to it 
 once more. 
 
 But to produce so consummate a masterpiece 
 from the material of history, no matter how dramatic 
 that material was, Shakespeare was bound to 
 reshape it more freely than he was wont to do when 
 dealing with historical themes. We have seen from 
 Hardy's example what stores of half- wrought treasure 
 Plutarch's narrative offered to a dramatist who knew 
 his business. Still it was only half-wrought, and in 
 
ARTISTIC ASPECTS 483 
 
 working it up Shakespeare consciously or un- 
 consciously allowed himself more liberties than in 
 his other Roman plays. His loans indeed are none 
 the fewer or the less on that account ; nowhere has 
 he borrowed more numerous or so lengthy passages. 
 But it almost seems as though with the tact of 
 genius he had the feeling that he was at work, not 
 on fact, but on legend. Though he is far from 
 recasting the Roman tradition as he recast the 
 pseudo-historic traditions of his own island in Lear 
 and Macbeth, yet he gives a new colouring to the 
 picture as he hardly does to genuine histories like 
 Richard II. or Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 This will appear from a comparison of the play 
 with the Life. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 PARALLELS AND CONTRASTS WITH PLUTARCH 
 
 The first impression produced by a comparison of 
 the biography and the play is that the latter is little 
 more than a scenic replica of the former. Shake- 
 speare has indeed absorbed so many suggestions 
 from the translation that it is difficult to realise how 
 much he has modified them, or to avoid reading 
 these modifications into his authority when we try 
 to distinguish what he has received from what he 
 has supplied. And the illusion is confirmed by the 
 frequency with which we light on familiar words, 
 familiar traits, familiar incidents. For the similarity 
 seems at first to pervade the language, the character- 
 isation, and the action.^ 
 
 In the language it is most marked. Nowhere has 
 Shakespeare borrowed so much through so great a 
 number of lines as in Volumnia's appeal to the piety 
 of her son. This passage, even if it stood alone, 
 would serve to make the play a notable example of 
 Shakespeare's indebtedness to North.^ But it does 
 not stand alone. Somewhat shorter, but still longer 
 than any loan in the other plays, is Coriolanus' 
 announcement of himself to Aufidius, and in it 
 
 ' A good many of the parallels and contrasts noted in this chapter 
 are to be found in the excellent paper by Delius already cited. 
 
 ^ See Appendix B. 
 
PARA1.LELS WITH PLUTARCH 485 
 
 Shakespeare follows North even more closely than 
 in the former instance. 
 
 If thou knowest me not yet, TuUus, and seeing me, dost 
 not perhappes beleeve me to be the man I am in dede, I 
 must of necessitie bewraye my selfe to be that I am. I am 
 that Caius Martius, who hath done to thy self particularly, 
 and to all the Volsces generally, great hurte and mischief, 
 which I cannot denie for my surname of Coriolanus that I 
 beare. For I never had other benefit nor recompence, of all 
 the true and paynefuU service I have done, and the extreme, 
 daungers I have bene in, but this only surname : a good 
 memorie and witnes, of the malice and displeasure thou 
 showldest beare me. In deede the name only remaineth 
 with me : for the rest, the envie and crueltie of the people 
 of Rome have taken from me, by the suflFerence of the das- 
 tardlie nobilitie and magistrates, who have forsaken me, and 
 let me be banished by the people. This extremitie hath now 
 driven me to come as a poore suter, to take thy chimney 
 harthe, not of any hope I have to save my life thereby. For 
 if I had feared death, I would not have come hither to have 
 put my life in hazard : but prickt forward with strife and 
 desire I have to be revenged of them that thus have banished 
 me, whom now I beginne to be avenged on, putting my 
 persone betweene their enemies. Wherefore, if thou hast any 
 harte to be wrecked ^ of the injuries thy enemies have done 
 thee, spede thee now, arid let my miserie serve thy turne, and 
 so use it, as my service maye be a benefit to the Volsces : 
 promising thee, that I will fight with better good will for all 
 you, then ever I dyd when I was against you, knowing that 
 they fight more valliantly, who know the force of their enemie, 
 then such as have never proved it. And if it be so that thou 
 dare not, and that thou art wearye to prove fortune any more ; 
 then am I also weary to live any lenger. And it were no 
 wisedome in thee, to save the life of him, who hath bene 
 heretofore thy mortall enemie, and whose service now can 
 nothing helpe nor pleasure thee. 
 
 Shakespeare gives little else than a transcript, though, 
 of course, a poetical and dramatic transcript, of this 
 splendid piece of forthright prose, 
 
 Coriolanus. If, Tullus, 
 Not yet thou knowest me, and, seeing me, dost not 
 Think me for the man I am, necessity 
 Commands me name myself 
 
 ' wreaked, avenged. 
 
486 CORIOLANUS 
 
 Aufidius. What is thy name ? 
 
 Coriolanus. A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears, 
 And harsh in sound to thine. 
 
 Aufidius. Say, what's thy name ? 
 
 Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face 
 Bears a command in't : though thy tackle's torn, 
 Thou show'st a noble vessel : what's thy name ? 
 
 Coriolanus. Prepare thy brow to frown ; know'st thou me yet ? 
 
 Aufidius. I know thee not : thy name ? 
 
 Coriolanus. My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done 
 To thee particularly, and to all the Volsces 
 Great hurt and mischief : thereto witness may 
 My surname, Coriolanus : the painful service, 
 The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood 
 Shed for my thankless country are requited 
 But with that surname ; a good memory. 
 And witness of the malice and displeasure 
 Which thou should'st bear me : only that name remains ; 
 The cruelty and envy of the people. 
 Permitted by our dastard nobles, who 
 Have all forsook me, hath devoured the rest : 
 And sufifer'd me by the voice of slaves to be 
 Whoop'd out of Rome. Now this extremity 
 Hath brought me to thy hearth ; not out of hope — 
 Mistake me not — to save my life, for if 
 1 had fear'd death, of all men i' the world 
 I would have 'voided thee, but in mere spite. 
 To be full quit of those my banishers. 
 Stand I before thee now. Then if thou hast 
 A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge 
 Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims 
 Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight. 
 And make my misery serve thy turn : so use it 
 That my revengeful services may prove 
 As benefits to thee, for I will fight 
 Against my canker'd country with the spleen 
 Of all the under fiends. But if so be 
 Thou darest not this and that to prove more fortunes 
 Thou'rt tired, then, in a word, I also am 
 Longer to live most weary, and present 
 My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice ; 
 Which not to cut would show thee but a fool, 
 Since I have ever follow'd thee with hate, 
 Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast 
 And cannot live but to thy shame, unless 
 It be to do thee service. (iv. v. 60.) 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 487 
 
 As much material, though it is amplified and re- 
 arranged, has been incorporated, as we shall have 
 to point out, in Coriolanus' invective against the 
 tribunate and the distribution of corn. Within a 
 narrower compass we see the same adherence to 
 North's phraseology in Brutus' instructions to the 
 people, where, very notably, Shakespeare's fidelity 
 to his author has made it possible to supply an 
 omission in the text with absolute certainty as^s to 
 the sense and great probability as to the wording. 
 The opening sentences of the I^ife run as follows : 
 
 The house of the Martians at Rome was of the number of 
 the patricians, out of the which hath sprong many noble 
 personages-: whereof Ancus Martius was one. King Numaes 
 daughters sonne, who was king of Rome after Tullus Hos- 
 tilius. Of the same house were Publius, and Quintus, who 
 brought Rome their best water they had by conducts. Cen- 
 sorinus also came of that familie, that was so surnamed, 
 bicause the people had chosen him Censor twise. 
 
 Shakespeare puts the notifications in the Tribune's 
 mouth : 
 
 Say we read lectures to you, 
 How youngly he began to serve his country. 
 How long continued, and what stock he springs of. 
 The noble house o' the Marcians, from whence came 
 That Ancus Martius, Numa's daughter's son, 
 Who, after great Hostilius, here was king : 
 Of the same house Publius and Quintus were. 
 That our best water brought by conduits hither : 
 yind Nobly nam'd, so twice being Censor, 
 Was his 'great Ancestor. (ii. iii. 242.) 
 
 Many editors saw that something had dropped out, 
 but no attempt to fill the gap was satisfactory, till 
 Delius, having recourse to North, supplemented, 
 
 [And Censorinus, that was so surnamed] 
 And nobly named so, twice being censor. ^ 
 
 1 This seems preferable to the reading of the Cambridge Editors 
 And [Censorinus,] nobly named so. 
 Twice being [by the people chosen] censor. 
 In the first place it is closer to North, and agrees with Shakespeare's 
 usual practice of keeping to North's words so far as possible. In the 
 
488 CORIOLANUS 
 
 These lines also show how Shakespeare repro- 
 duces Plutarch's statements even when they are for 
 him not quite in keeping. Plutarch, writing in the 
 second century, could instance Publius, Quintus and 
 Censorinus as ornaments of the Marcian gens ; but 
 Brutus' reference to them is an anachronism, as they 
 come after the supposed date of the play. So too 
 Plutarch says of the attack on the Romans before 
 Corioli : 
 
 But Martius being there at that time, ronning out of the 
 campe with a fewe men with him, he slue the first enemies 
 he met withall, and made the rest of them staye upon a 
 sodaine, crying out to the Romaines that had turned their 
 backes, and calling them againe to fight with a lowde voyce. 
 For he was even such another, as Cato would have a souldier 
 and a captaine to be : not only terrible, and fierce to laye 
 about him, but to make the enemie afeard with the sounde 
 of his voyce, and grimnes of his countenaunce. 
 
 Shakespeare makes short work of chronology by 
 putting this allusion into the mouth of Titus Lartius : 
 
 Thou wast a soldier 
 Even to Gate's^ wish, not fierce and terrible 
 Only in strokes ; but, with thy grim looks, and 
 The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds, 
 Thou madest thine enemies shake, as if the world 
 Were feverous and did tremble. ' (i. iv. 56.) 
 
 Occasionally even mistakes in North's text or mar- 
 ginal notes, or in Shakespeare's interpretation or 
 recollection of what he had read, have passed into 
 the play. Thus it has been shown ^ that North, 
 owing to a small typographical error In the French, 
 misunderstood the scope of Cominius' offer to 
 Marcius. Amyot says : 
 
 second place, it is closer to the Folio text, involving only the displace- 
 ment of a comma. In the third place, it is simpler to suppose that a 
 whole single line has been missed out than that parts of two have been 
 amputated, and the remainders run together. 
 
 ' Here again Plutarch has furnished an emendation : Folio, Calues, 
 
 'By Buttner, Zti Cotiolan unci seiner Quelle {J/irbch. der D.-Sh. 
 Gesellschaft, Bd. xli. 1905). 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 489 
 
 " Et en fin lui dit, que de tous les cheveaux prisonniers, 
 et autres biens qui avoient este pris et gaignes en grande 
 quantite, il en choisist dix de chaque sorte \ sa volonte, avant 
 que rien en fust distribue, ni desparti aux autres. 
 
 There should be a comma after cheveaux, as appears 
 on reference to the Greek/ and Marcius is told to 
 select ten of the horses, prisoners, and other chattels ; 
 but North took the prisonniers as used adjectivally 
 in agreement with the preceding noun and translated : 
 
 So in the ende he willed Martius, he should choose out of 
 all the horses they had taken of their enemies, and of all the 
 goodes they had wonne (whereof there was great store) tenne 
 of every sorte which he liked best, before any distribution 
 should be made to other. 
 
 Further there is the quite incorrect abridgment in 
 the margin : 
 
 The tenth parte of the enemies goods offered Martius for 
 rewarde of his service by Cominius the Consul. 
 
 Shakespeare combines these misstatements : 
 
 Of all the horses, 
 Whereof we have ta'en good and good store, of all 
 The treasure in this field achieved and city, 
 We render you the tenth, to be ta'en forth. 
 Before the common distribution, at 
 Your only choice. (i. ix. 31.) 
 
 Of great frequency are the short sentences from 
 North that are embedded in Shakespeare's dialogue. 
 Thus, the preliminary announcement of Marcius' 
 hardihood is introduced with the remark : 
 
 Now in those dayes, valliantnes was honoured in Rome 
 above all the other vertues. 
 
 Cominius begins his panegyric : 
 
 It is held 
 That valour is the chiefest virtue, and 
 Most dignifies the haver. (ii. ii. 87.) 
 
 ' iroWCcv Xfll^'''''''^'' **' iTTUv yeyon&Tui' alxiui\iirruv koX dvOpiiiruy, iK^Xevrey 
 atriii i(e\ia6ai dixa irivra irpb rod vi/j^iv Tois TToXXoit. 'Avcv Si ixelvur apur- 
 Teiov a6r^ KCKOff/iTj/x^vov Xttttov iSwp^aaTO. 
 
490 CORIOLANUS 
 
 When Marcius drives the Volscians back to CorioH 
 and the Romans hesitate to pursue, we are told : 
 
 He dyd encorage his fellowes with wordes and deedes, 
 crying out to them, that fortune had opened the gates of the 
 cittie more for the followers, then for the flyers. 
 
 Compare his exhortation : 
 
 So, now the gates are ope : now prove good seconds : 
 
 'Tis for the followers fortune widens them, 
 
 Not for the fliers. (i. iv. 43.) 
 
 When the proposal to distribute the corn is being 
 discussed, many senators are in favour of it r 
 
 But Martius standing up on his feete, dyd somewhat 
 sharpely take up those, who went about to gratifie the people 
 therein, and called them people pleasers and traitours to the 
 nobilitie. 
 
 Brutus charges him with this in the play : 
 
 When corn was given them gratis, you repined ; 
 Scandal'd the suppliants for the people, call'd them 
 Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness, (in. i. 43.) 
 
 Sometimes the debt is confined to a single phrase or 
 word and yet is unmistakable. When Coriolanus 
 has reached Antium, Plutarch quotes Homer on 
 Ulysses : 
 
 So dyd he enter into the enemies towne. 
 
 In the play Coriolanus before the house of Aufidius 
 soliloquises : 
 
 My love's upon 
 This enemy town. I'll enter. (iv. iv. 23.) 
 
 Now and then some apparently haphazard detail can 
 be explained if we trace it to its source. Thus, 
 Cominius talks of the "seventeen battles" which 
 the hero had fought since his first exploit. Why 
 seventeen .■* Doubtless Shakespeare had in his mind 
 the account of the candidature, when Marcius showed 
 the wounds "which he had receyved in seventeene 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 491 
 
 yeres service at the warres, and in many sundrie 
 battells." In Plutarch the number of years is pre- 
 scribed by his mythical chronology, for he dates the 
 beginning of Marcius' career from the wars with 
 the Tarquins, which were supposed to have broken 
 out in 245 A.U.C., while Corioli was taken in 262 : 
 but when transferred to the batdes it becomes a 
 mere survival which serves at most to give apparent 
 definiteness. 
 
 But occasionally such survivals have a higher 
 value. It is instructive, for example, to notice how 
 Shakespeare utilises the tradition dear to Plutarch's 
 antiquarian tastes but not very interesting to an 
 Elizabethan audience of the acknowledgment-jnade 
 to the gddHess, Fortuna Muliebris, after the with- 
 drawal of Xoriolanus from Rome. 
 
 The Senate ordeined, that the magistrates to gratifie and 
 honour these ladyes, should graunte them all that they would 
 require. And they only requested that they would build a 
 temple of Fortune of the women, for the building whereof 
 they offered them selves to defraye the whole charge of the 
 sacrifices, and other ceremonies belonging to the service of 
 the goddes. Nevertheles, the Senate commending their good 
 will and forwardnes, ordeined, that the temple and image 
 should be made at the common charge of the cittie. 
 
 And the marginal note sums up : " The temple of 
 Fortune built for the women." This seems to be 
 the archaeological ore from which is forged Corio- 
 lanus' gallant hyperbole : 
 
 Ladies, you deserve 
 To have a temple built you. (v, ii, 206.) 
 
 From the worshippers they become the worshipped. 
 Sometimes in the survival the fact is transformed 
 to figure, the prose to poetry. After Marcius' 
 miracles of valour at Corioli, Cominius gives him, 
 " in testimonie that he had wonne that day the price 
 of prowes above all other, a goodly horse with a 
 
492 CORIOLANUS 
 
 capparison, and all furniture to him." This Shake- 
 speare does not omit. Cominius declares : 
 
 Caius Marcius 
 Wears this war's garland : in token of the which 
 My noble steed/ known to the camp, I give him 
 With all his trim belonging. (i. ix. 59.) 
 
 But the same episode furnishes Titus Lartius with 
 his imagery as he points to the wounded and 
 victorious hero : 
 
 O general, 
 Here is the steed, we the caparison ! (i. ix. 11.) 
 
 This illustrates the sort of sea-change that always 
 takes place in the language of North under the 
 hands of the magician, though it may not always be 
 equally perceptible. But it is never entirely lacking, 
 even where we are at first more struck by the 
 amount that Shakespeare has retained without 
 alteration. The Life, for instance, describes what 
 takes place after Marcius has joined Cominius, 
 before they hurry off to the second fight. 
 
 Martius asked him howe the order of their enemies battell 
 was, and on which side they had placed their best fighting 
 men. The Consul made him aunswer, that he thought the 
 bandes which were in the voward of their battell, were those 
 of the Antiates, whom they esteemed to be the war-likest 
 men, and which for valliant corage would give no place, to 
 any of the hoste of their enemies. Then prayed Martius 
 to be set directly against them. _ 
 
 Here is what Shakespeare makes of this : 
 
 Mar. How lies their battle ? Know you on which side 
 They have placed their men of trust ? 
 
 Com. As I guess, Marcius, 
 
 Their bands in the vaward are the Antiates, 
 Of their best trust ; o'er them Aufidius, 
 Their very heart of hope. 
 
 ' Shakespeare, following North (" Martius accepted the gift of hii 
 horse") makes it, instead of a horse, Cominius' own horse, which 
 would be a violation of antique usage. See Biittner as above. 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 493 
 
 Mar. I do beseech you, 
 
 By all the battles wherein we have fought, 
 By the blood we have shed together, by the vows 
 We have made to endure friends, that you directly 
 Set me against Aufidius and his Antiates ; 
 And that you not delay the present, but, 
 Filling the' air with swords advanced and darts. 
 We prove this very hour. (i. vi. 51.) 
 
 Here to begin with Shakespeare hardly does more 
 than change the indirect to the direct narrative and 
 condense a little, but presently he adds picturesque- 
 ness, passion, and, by the introduction of Aufidius, 
 dramatic significance. And this is invariably his 
 method. It is unfair to quote the parallel passages 
 without the context, for, apart from the subtle 
 transmutation they have undergone, they are 
 preludes to original utterance and almost every one 
 of them is a starting point rather than the goal. 
 Shakespeare's normal practice is illustrated in the 
 fable of Menenius, in which, with every allowance 
 made for possible assistanc^e from Camden, the words 
 of his authority or authorities are only so many spur- 
 pricks that set his own imagination at a gallop. And 
 what goes before and comes after is pure Shakespeare. 
 And it should be noticed that, his textual ap- 
 propriations from North, long or short, obvious or 
 covert, never clash with his more personal contribu- 
 tions, which in bulk are far more important. They 
 are all subdued to the tone that the purpose of the 
 dramatist imposes. Delius says with absolute 
 truth : " This harmonious colouring would make it 
 impossible for us, in respect of style, to discover real 
 or supposititious loans from Plutarch in Shake- 
 speare's drama, and definitely identify them as such, 
 if by chance North's translation were inaccessible." 
 Yet this harmonious colouring, that has its source in 
 the author's mind and that is required by the 
 theme, does not prevent an individualisation in 
 the utterance, whether wholly original or partly 
 
494 CORIOLANUS 
 
 borrowed, that fits it for the lips of the particular 
 speaker. The language, even when it is suggested 
 by North, is not only spontaneous and consistent, it 
 is dramatic as well, and apposite to the strongly 
 marked characters of whom the story is told. 
 
 To these characters, and their development by 
 Shakespeare, we now turn. It may be remarked 
 that all of them, except the quite episodical Adrian 
 and Nicanor, are nominally to be found in Plutarch, 
 by whom the hero himself is drawn at full length 
 and in great detail. For his delineation then there 
 was a great deal to borrow and Shakespeare has 
 borrowed a great deal. In his general bearing and 
 in many of his features the Coriolanus of the play is 
 the Coriolanus of the Life, though of course imagined 
 with far more firmness and comprehension. Only 
 on very close scrutiny do we see that each has a 
 physiognomy of his own, and that the difference in 
 the impressions they produce is due not merely to 
 the execution but to the conception. This will 
 become clear as the general discussion proceeds and 
 will incidentally occupy our attention from time to 
 time? Meanwhile it should be noticed that, Corio- 
 lanus excepted, Plutarch's persons are very shadowy 
 and vague. If we compare this biography with 
 those that Shakespeare had used for his earlier 
 Roman plays, it is obvious that it is much more of a 
 monograph. In the others room is found for 
 sketches of many subordinate figures in connection 
 with the titular subject, but Marcius stands out alone 
 and the remaining personages are scarcely more 
 than names. In the tragedy, too, he is in possession 
 of the scene, but his relatives, his friends, and his 
 enemies are also full of interest and life; and for 
 their portraiture Shakespeare had to depend almost 
 entirely on himself 
 
 Next to the hero, for example, it is his mother 
 who is most conspicuous in the play; and how much 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 495 
 
 did Plutarch contribute to the conception of her 
 concrete personality ? He supplies only one or two 
 hints, some of which Shakespeare disregards or 
 contradicts. They both attribute to her the sole 
 training of the boy, but Plutarch implies that her 
 discipline was slack and her instruction insufficient, 
 while in Shakespeare she incurs no such blame 
 except in so far as we infer a certain lack of 
 judiciousness from her peculiar attitude to her 
 grandson and from her son's exaggeration of some 
 of her own traits. But injudiciousness is not quite 
 the same as the laxity that Plutarch's apologetic 
 paragraph would insinuate : 
 
 Caius Martius, whose life we intend now to write, being 
 left an orphan by his father, was brought up under his 
 mother a widowe, who taught us by experience, that 
 orphanage bringeth many discommodities to a childe, but 
 doth not hinder him to become an honest man, and to excell 
 in vertue above the common sorte; as they, are meanely 
 borne, wrongfully doe complayne, that it is the occasion of 
 their casting awaye, for that no man in their youth taketh 
 any care of them to see them well brought up, and taught 
 that were meete. This man is also a good proofe to confirme 
 some mens opinions, that a rare and excellent witte untaught, 
 doth bring forth many good and evill things together; like 
 as a fat soile bringeth forth herbes and weedes, that lieth 
 unmanured.i For this Martius naturell wit and great harte 
 dyd marvelously sturre up his corage, to doe and attempt 
 notable actes. . But on the other side for lacke of education, 
 he was so chollericke and impacient, that he would yeld to 
 no living creature ; which made him churlishe, uncivill, and 
 altogether unfit for any mans conversation. 
 
 Again, in reference to Marcius' strenuous career, 
 Plutarch writes : 
 
 The only thing that made him to love honour, was the 
 joye he sawe his mother dyd take of him. For he thought 
 nothing made him so happie and honorable, as that his 
 mother might heare every bodie praise and commend him, 
 that she might allwayes see him returne with a crowne upon 
 his head, and that she might still embrace him with teares 
 ronning downe her cheekes for joye. 
 
 ' Unworked, uniilled, from manoeuvrer. 
 
496 CORIOLANUS 
 
 In the play, it is not with tears of joy that Volumnia 
 welcomes her warrior home. 
 
 Here is another instance of piety that Plutarch 
 cites : 
 
 Martius thinking all due to his mother, that had bene also 
 due to his father if he had lived ; dyd not only content him 
 selfe to rejoyce and honour her, but at her desire tooke a wife 
 also, by whom he had two children, and yet never left his 
 mothers house therefore. 
 
 In Shakespeare there is no word of Marcius' marry- 
 ing at his mother's desire, and though she apparently 
 lives with him, it is in his; not in her house. 
 
 All these notices occur in the first pages of the 
 Life. Thenceforward till her intervention at the 
 close there is only a passing mention of her affliction 
 at her son's banishment. 
 
 When he was come home to his house againe, and had 
 taken his leave of his mother and wife, finding them weeping, 
 and shreeking out for sorrowe, and had also comforted and 
 persuaded them to be content with his chaunce; he im- 
 mediately went to the gate of the cittie. 
 
 Even in regard to the intercession, where Shake- 
 speare follows Plutarch most closely, he makes one 
 significant omission. In the original, it is the 
 suggestion of Valeria " through the inspiration of 
 some god above," that the women should sue for 
 peace, and she visits Marcius' kinswoman to secure 
 their help : by the suppression of this circumstance, 
 the prorqinent place is left to Volumnia. And in 
 the appeal itself Shakespeare, besides the various 
 vivifying and personal touches, makes one important 
 addition. In Plutarch her words are throughout 
 forcible and impassioned, but they do not burst into 
 the wrathful indignation of the close, which alone is 
 sufficient to break down Coriolanus' resolution. 
 
 Now it is clear that the presence of Volumnia does 
 not pervade the Life as it does the play, and she has 
 not nearly so much to do. Moreover, besides being 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 497 
 
 less important, she is less masculine and masterful 
 Indeed, from Plutarch's hints it would be possible to 
 construct for her a character that differed widely 
 rom that of Shakespeare's heroine. She is like the 
 latter m her patriotism, her love for and delight in 
 her son, and, at, the critical moment, in her influence 
 over him. But even her influence is less constant, 
 and seems to be stronger in the way of unconscious 
 inspiration than of positive direction. It would be 
 quite legitimate to picture her as an essentially 
 womanly woman, high-souled and dutiful, but finding 
 her chosen sphere in the home, overflowing with 
 sympathy and affection, and failing in her obligations 
 as widowed mother only by a lack of sternness. 
 
 And if Shakespeare has given features to Volum- 
 nia. much more has he done so to Virgilia and young 
 Marcius. Both, of course, are presented in the 
 merest oudme, but in, Plutarch the wife is only once 
 named and the children are not named at all 
 Shakespeare's Virgilia, on the other hand, by the 
 few words she speaks and the few words spoken to 
 her, by her very restraint from speech and the 
 atmosphere in which she moves, produces a very 
 definite as well as a very pleasing impression. 
 Kuskin, after enumerating some other of Shake- 
 speare's female characters, concludes that they » and 
 last and perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are all faultless • 
 conceived in the highest heroic type of humanity.'' 
 1 his enthusiasm may be, as Ruskin's enthusiasms 
 sometimes were, exaggerated and misplaced, but it 
 could not be roused by a nonentity; and a nonentity 
 Plutarch's Virgilia is. 
 
 Young Marcius, again, is not merely one of the 
 two children mentioned in the Life. As Mr. Verity 
 remarks,! in this case " the half is certainly better 
 ^Coriolanm. (The Students' Shakespeare, Cambridge University 
 Press.) Volumn.a jndeed refers to "children" in her petition (v iii 
 lis;, but this seems merely a reminiscence of Plutarch's language for 
 everywhere else young Marcius is treated as an only child 
 
498 CORIOLANUS 
 
 than the whole " ; and the named half has a whole- 
 ness of his own that the anonymous brace can 
 lay no claim to. He is a thorough boy, and an 
 attractive though boisterous one. If he is cruel to 
 winged things, he is brave and circumspect withal. 
 He has a natural objection to be trodden on even 
 for a patriotic cause ; if the risk is too great, " he'll 
 run away till he's bigger, but then he'll fight." 
 
 Passing from Coriolanus' kinsfolk to his friends, 
 we meet with very similar results. Titus Lartius is 
 sketched very slightly in Shakespeare, but a good 
 deal more visually than in Plutarch, who says of him 
 in two sentences that he was " one of the valliantest 
 men the Romaines had at that time," and that, having 
 entered Corioli with Marcius, he, " when he was 
 gotten out, had some leysure to bring the Romaines 
 with more safetie into the cittie." Cominius is hardly 
 more distinct. As Consul he conducts the campaign 
 against Corioli ; welcomes Marcius from his first 
 exploit, and gives him the opportunity for his second, 
 in the double engagement that then took place ; 
 thereafter officially rewards and eulogises his gallan- 
 try, which " he commended beyond the moone '' ; 
 and that is practically all that is said about him. In 
 the play, though in it too his part is a small one, 
 he has characteristics of his own which Shakespeare 
 has created for him without much help from these 
 vague suggestions. Nor has Marcius, in the original 
 story, any intimate association with either of his 
 fellow soldiers. It is stated that at first he is in 
 Lartius' division of the army, and afterwards joins 
 Cominius and wins his praises, but it is only in the affair 
 of Corioli that their names are mentioned together. 
 
 In the drama, however, Menenius is undoubtedly 
 the chief of the young man's friends as well as one 
 of the most prominent persons ; and what has Plu- 
 tarch to say about him ? He is introduced only in 
 connection with the fable which he tells the seceders 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 499 
 
 to the Holy Hill, and, apart from the fable, all that we 
 hear of him is confined to the following fewsentences : 
 
 The Senate being afeard of their departure, dyd send unto 
 them certame of the pleasauntest olde men, and the most 
 acceptable to the people among them. Of those, Menenius 
 Agrippa was he, who was sent for chief man of the message 
 from the Senate. He, after many good persuasions and 
 gentle requestes made to the people, on the behalfe of the 
 Senate, knit up his oration in the ende, with a notable tale 
 . . . These persuasions pacified the people, conditionally, 
 that the Senate would graunte there should be yerely chosen 
 five magistrates, which they now call Tribuni Plebis. 
 
 Even the few particulars given in this passage 
 Shakespeare alters or neglects. It is not to the 
 secessionists on the Mons Sacer, but to a street mob 
 in Rome, that the fable is told. It not merely serves 
 to lubricate in advance the negotiations that result 
 m the tribunate, but effectually discomfits the mur- 
 murers, and Menenius learns only subsequently and 
 to his surprise that the Senate has meanwhile con- 
 ceded the political innovation. There is no hint in 
 Plutarch of his being himself one of the patricians, 
 and if Shakespeare glanced at Holland's Livy he 
 would see that in point of fact tradition assigned to 
 him a plebeian origin.^ Above all he has no dealings 
 whatever with Marcius, and, according to Livy, died 
 a year before his banishment. Plutarch thus fur- 
 nishes hardly anything for the portrait of the man, 
 and nothing at all for his relations with the hero. 
 
 And it is the same, or nearly the same, if we turn 
 from Marcius' friends to his enemies. 
 
 The tribunes, for example, are comparatively 
 colourless. On the institution of the new magis- 
 tracy, 
 
 Junius Brutus, and Sicinius Vellutus were the first tribunes 
 of the people that were chosen, who had only bene the causes 
 and procurers -of this sedition. 
 
 'Placuit igitur oratorem ad plebem mitti Menenium Agrippam, 
 facundum virum et, quod inde oriundus erat, plebi carum. (11.32 
 Weissenborn & Miiller's edition.) 
 
500 CORIOLANUS \ 
 
 Then we hear of their opposition to the colonisation 
 of Velitrae because it was infected with the plague, 
 and to a new war with the Volscians, because it 
 was in the interest only of the rich ; but they have 
 nothing to do with the rejection of Marcius when he 
 is candidate for the consulship. Only at a later time, 
 when he inveighs against the relief of the people 
 and the tribunitian power, do they stir up a popular 
 tumult and insist that he shall answer their charges, 
 adopting tactics not unlike those that are attributed 
 to them in the play. 
 
 All this was spoken to one of these two endes, either that 
 Martius against his nature should be constrained to humble 
 him selfe, and to abase his hawty and fierce minde : or els 
 if he continued still in his stowtnes, he should incurre the 
 peoples displeasure and ill will so farre, that he should never 
 possibly winne them againe. Which they hoped would rather 
 fall out so, then otherwise ; as in deede they gest unhappely, 
 considering Martius nature and disposition. 
 
 He answers not only with his wonted boldness, 
 but "gave him selfe in his wordes to thunder and 
 looke therewithall so grimly as though he made no 
 reckoning of the matter." This affords his opponents 
 their chance : 
 
 Whereupon Sicinius, the cruellest and stowtest of the 
 Tribunes, after he had whispered a little with his companions, 
 dyd openly pronounce in the face of all the people, Martius 
 as condemned by the Tribunes to dye. 
 
 Matters do not end here. A formal trial is agreed 
 to, at which the resourceful magistrates procure the 
 sentence of banishment, partly by arranging that 
 the votes shall be taken not by centuries but by 
 tribes, so that " the poore needy people " and the 
 rabble may be in the majority, partly by eking out 
 the indictments to which they are pledged to con- 
 fine themselves, with other accusations. Then they 
 drop out. 
 
 It may be observed that Brutus is only once 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 501 
 
 named, and nothing is said of his disposition or 
 ways. Even of Sicinius, who is more conspicuous, 
 we only read that he was "the cruellest and 
 stowtest " of the two. But it is less their character 
 than their policy that occupies Plutarch, and even 
 their policy is presented in an ambiguous light. 
 They are described as the only authors of the rising 
 which culminated in the exodus from the city ; but 
 with that exodus Plutarch on the whole seems to 
 sympathise. They are described as "seditious tri- 
 bunes" when they oppose the colonisation of Velitrae 
 and the renewal of the war ; but Plutarch shows 
 they had good grounds for doing so. Even their 
 action against Coriolanus for opposing the grant of 
 corn and advocating the abolition of their office, 
 was from their own point of view, and perhaps from 
 any point of view, perfectly legitimate. We can only 
 say that in the measures they took they were violent 
 and unscrupulous. Yet when we consider the bitter- 
 ness of party feeling and the exigencies of public life, 
 they seem no worse than many statesmen who have 
 been accounted great. Even their overt policy then 
 is more respectable than that of Shakespeare's pair 
 of demagogues, and of course it is Shakespeare who 
 has created, or all but created, for them their vulgar 
 but life-like characters. 
 
 Nor are things greatly different in the case of the 
 third of Marcius'. enemies, Tullus Aufidius, though 
 Plutarch tells us somewhat more about him, and 
 Shakespeare in the main fills in rather than alters 
 Plutarch's sketch. The first mention of him occurs 
 when the exile determines on his revenge. 
 
 Now in the cittie of Antium, there was one called Tullus 
 Aufidius, who for his riches, as also for his nobilitie and 
 valliantnes, was honoured emong the Volsces as a king. 
 Martius knewe very well that Tullus dyd more malice and 
 envie him, then he dyd all the Romaines besides : bicause 
 that many times in battells where they met, they were ever 
 at the encounter one against another, hke lustie coragious 
 
502 CORIOLANUS 
 
 youthes, striving in all emulation of hoi^our, and had encoun- 
 tered many times together. In so muche, as besides the 
 common quarrell betweene them, there was bred a marvelous 
 private hate one against another. Yet notwithstanding, con- 
 sidering that Tullus Aufidius was a man of a greate minde. 
 and that he above all other of the Volsces, most desired 
 revenge of the Romaines, for the injuries they had done unto 
 them ; he dyd an act that confirmed the true wordes of an 
 auncient Poet, who sayed : 
 
 It is a thing full harde, mans anger to withstand. 
 
 After the welcome at Antium, Tullus and Coriolanus 
 combine to bring on the war and are entrusted with 
 the joint command ; but Tullus chooses to remain at 
 home to defend his country, while Cori9lanus con- 
 ducts the^operations abroad, in which he is wonder- 
 fully successful. A truce he grants the Romans is 
 however the occasion for a rift in their alliance. 
 
 This was the first matter wherewith the Volsces (that most 
 envied Martins glorie and authoritie) dyd charge Martins 
 with. Among tho^e, Tullus was chief : who though he had 
 receyved no private injurie or displeasure of Martins, yet the 
 common faulte and imperfection of mans nature wrought 
 in him, and it grieved him to see his owne reputation 
 bleamished, through Martins great fame and honour, and so 
 him selfe to be lesse esteemed of the Volsces, then he was 
 before. 
 
 We do not hear of him after this till Coriolanus has 
 come back from the siege of Rome. 
 
 Now when Martins was returned againe into the cittie of 
 Antium from his voyage, Tullus that hated him and could no 
 lenger abide him for the feare he had of his authoritie ; 
 sought divers meanes to make him out of the waye, thinking 
 that if he let slippe that present time, he should never recover 
 the like and fit occasion againe. 
 
 So he contrives and effects the assassination of his 
 rival. 
 
 Thus the chief features of Aufidius' character 
 and the story of its development, the emulation 
 that is dislodged by generosity, the generosity that 
 is submerged in envy, were already supplied for 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 503 
 
 Shakespeare's use. But the darker hues are lacking 
 in the earHer picture. There is neither the un- 
 scrupulous rancour in his initial relations with 
 Marcius that Shakespeare attributes to them, nor 
 the hypocritical pretence at the close. Plutarch 
 does not bring the contrast with Coriolanus to a 
 head. And in connection with this it should be 
 observed that Tullus appears late and intervenes 
 only incidentally. Less than a sentence is spared 
 to his earlier antagonism with Coriolanus, nor is he 
 present in the march on Rome or during the siege. 
 And this is typical of Plutarch's treatment of all the 
 subordinate persons. They enter for a moment, and 
 are dismissed. But in Shakespeare they accompany 
 the action throughout, and do this in such a way 
 that they illustrate and influence the character and 
 career of the hero, and have their own characters 
 and careers illustrated and influenced by him. They 
 are all, even young Marcius by description, intro- 
 duced in the first four scenes, with an indication 
 of their general peculiarities and functions, and with 
 the single exception of Titus Lartius, they continue 
 to reappear almost to the end. 
 
 The recurrent presence of the agents of itself 
 involves considerable modification in the conduct of 
 the plot, but in this respect too we are at first more 
 struck by the resemblances than the differences 
 between the two versions ; and it is possible to 
 exhibit the story in such a manner that its main 
 lines seem the same in both. 
 
 The setting is furnished by the primitive Roman 
 state when it has newly assumed its republican form. 
 Less than a score of years before, it passed through 
 its first great crisis in its successful rejection of the 
 kingship, and ever since has been engaged in a 
 life-and-death struggle with representatives of the 
 exiled dynasty and with jealous neighbours some- 
 what similar in power and character to itself. It 
 
504 CORIOLANUS 
 
 has made good its position under the direction of a 
 proud and valiant aristocracy, but not without 
 paying the price. The constant wars have resulted 
 in widespread poverty and distress among the 
 lower classes till they can bear it no longer and 
 demand constitutional changes by which, as they 
 think, their misery may be redressed. Rome is thus 
 confronted with the internal peril of revolution as 
 well as the foreign peril of invasion, and the future 
 mistress of the world runs the risk of being cut off 
 at the outset of her career by tribal broils and 
 domestic quarrels. It is this that gives the legend 
 a certain grandeur of import. The Senate, finding 
 itself and its partisans in the minority, concedes to 
 the commons rights which have the effect of 
 weakening its old authority, and for that reason are 
 bitterly resented by upholders of the old order- 
 Meanwhile, however, Rome is able to take the field 
 against the Volscians and gains a decisive victory 
 over them, mainly owing to the soldiership of the 
 young patrician, Marcius, who wins for himself in 
 the campaign the name of Coriolanus. The ability 
 he has shown, the glory he has achieved, the 
 gratitude that is his due, seem to mark him out for a 
 leading role. He almost deserves, and almost 
 attains, the highest dignity the little state has to 
 confer : but he has already given proof of his scorn 
 for popular demands and opposition to the recent 
 innovations, and at the last moment he is set aside. 
 Not only that, but the new magistrates, in dread of 
 his influence, incite the people against him and 
 procure his condemnation to death, which, however, 
 is afterwards mitigated to banishment. His friends 
 of the nobility dare not or cannot interpose, and he 
 departs into exile. Then his civic virtue breaks 
 beneath the strain, and, reconciling himself with the 
 Volscians, he leads them against his country. 
 Nothing can stay his advance, nd he is on the 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 505 
 
 point of reducing the city, when, yielding to filial 
 affection what he had refused to patriotic obligation, 
 he relinquishes his revenge when he has it within 
 his grasp. But this gives a pretext to those among 
 his new allies who envy his greatness, and soon 
 afterwards he is treacherously slain. 
 
 This general scheme is common to the biography 
 and the play, and many of the details, whether 
 presented or recounted, are derived from the former 
 by the latter. Such, in addition to those already 
 mentioned in another connection, are Marcius' first 
 exploit in the battle with Tarquin, when he bestrides 
 a citizen, avenges his injury, and is crowned with 
 the garland of oak ; the dispersion of the soldiers to 
 take spoil in Corioli, and Marcius' consequent 
 indignation ; the response to his call for volunteers ; 
 his petition on behalf of his former host ; the initial 
 approval of his candidature by the plebs from a 
 feeling of shame ; the custom of candidates wearing 
 the humble gown and showing their old wounds at 
 an election ; the popular joy at his banishment ; the 
 muster of nobles to see him to the gates ; his 
 popularity with the Volscian soldiery and their 
 eagerness to serve under him ; the perturbation and 
 mutual recriminations in Rome at his approach ; his 
 reception of former friends when they petition him 
 for mercy ; the device of interrupting his speech in 
 Antium lest his words should secure his acquittal. 
 
 To this extent Shakespeare and Plutarch agree, 
 and the agreement is important and far-reaching. 
 Has the dramatist,, then, been content to embellish 
 and supplement the diction of the story, and give 
 new life to the characters, while leaving the fable 
 unchanged except in so far as these other modifi- 
 cations may indirectly affect it.-* On the contrary 
 we shall see that the design is thoroughly recast, 
 that each of the borrowed details receives a 
 new interpretation or a heightened colouring, that 
 
5o6 CORIOLANUS 
 
 significant insertions and no less significant omissions 
 concur to alter the effect of the whole. 
 
 Sometimes Shakespeare's innovations followed 
 almost necessarily and without any remoter result 
 from the greater fullness and concreteness of his 
 picture, and the care with which he grouped the 
 persons round his hero. Such are many of the 
 conversations and subordinate scenes, by means of 
 which the story is conveyed to us in all its reality 
 and movement ; the episode of Valeria's call, the 
 description and words of Marcius' little son, Aufidius' 
 self-disclosure to his soldiers and his lieutenant, even 
 the interview between the Volscian scout and the 
 Roman informer. 
 
 Still in this class, but more important, are the 
 inventions that have no authority in Plutarch, but 
 that are not opposed to and may even have been 
 suggested by some of his hints. Thus in the Life, 
 Volumnia's interposition is not required to make 
 Marcius submit himself to the judgment of the 
 people, and in this connection she is not mentioned 
 at all ; but at any rate her action in Shakespeare 
 does not belie the influence that Plutarch ascribes 
 to her. 
 
 Occasionally, again, the deviation from and obser- 
 vance of the biographer's statements follow each 
 other so fast, and are both so dominated by truth to 
 his spirit, that it needs some vigilance to note all the 
 points where the routes diverge or coincide. Take, 
 for example, the account of the candidature : 
 
 Shortely after this, Martius stoode for the Consulshippe ; 
 and the common people favored his sute, thinking it would 
 be a shame to denie, and refuse, the chiefest noble man of 
 bloude, and most worthie persone of Rome, and specially 
 him that had done so great service and good to the common 
 wealth. For the custome of Rome was at that time, that 
 such as dyd sue for any office, should for certen dayes before 
 be in the market place, only with a poore gowne on their 
 backes, and without any coate underneath, to praye the 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 507 
 
 cittizensto remember them at the daye of election: which 
 was thus devised, either to move the people the more, by 
 requesting them in suche meane apparell, or els bicause they 
 might shewe them their woundes they had gotten in the 
 warres in the service of the common wealth, as manifest 
 markes and testimonie of their valliantnes. . . Now 
 Martius following this custome, shewed many woundes and 
 cuttes upon his bodie, which he hard receyved in seventeene 
 yeres service at the warres, and in many sundrie battells 
 bemg ever the formest man that dyd set out feete io fight' 
 So that there was not a man emong the people, but was 
 ashamed of him selfe, to refuse so valliant a man : and one 
 of them sayed to another, "We must needes chuse him 
 Consul, there is no remedie." But when the daye of election 
 was come, and that Martius came to the market place with 
 great pompe, accompanied with all the Senate, and the 
 whole Nobihtie of the cittie about him, who sought to make 
 him Consul, with the greatest instance and intreatie they 
 could, or ever attempted for any man or matter : then the 
 love and good will of the common people, turned straight to 
 an hate and envie toward him, fearing to put this office of 
 soverame authoritie into his handes, being a man somewhat 
 partiall toward the nobilitie, and of great credit and authoritie 
 amongest the Patricians, and as one they might doubt would 
 take away alltogether the libertie from the people. 
 
 Now Shakespeare borrows from Plutarch the ex- 
 planation of the rather remarkable circumstance that 
 the people at first gave Martius their support, and, 
 like Plutarch, he emphasises it by giving it twice 
 over, though he avoids the dullness of repetition by 
 making one of the statements serious and one 
 humorous. The first is put in the mouth of the 
 official of the Capitol : 
 
 He hath so planted his honours in their eyes, and his 
 actions in their hearts, that for their tongues to be silent, and 
 not confess so much, were a kind of ingrateful injury : to 
 report otherwise, were a malice, that giving itself the lie, 
 would pluck reproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it. 
 
 (II. ii. 32.) 
 The second is given in the language of the plebeians 
 themselves : 
 
 First Citizen. Once, if he do require our voices, we ought 
 not to deny him. 
 
5o8 CORIOLANUS 
 
 Second Citizen. We may, sir, if we will. 
 
 Third Citizen. We have power in ourselves to do it, but it 
 is a power that we have no power to do : for if he show us 
 his wounds and tell us his deeds, we are to put our tongues 
 into those wounds and speak for them ; so, if he tell us his 
 noble deeds, we must also tell him our noble acceptance of 
 them. Ingratitude is monstrous, and for the multitude to be 
 ingrateful, were to make a monster of the multitude : of the 
 which we being members, should bring ourselves to be 
 monstrous members. (ii. iii. i.) 
 
 But this is only before he wears the candidate's 
 gown, for, otherwise than in Plutarch, he does not 
 show his wounds — " No man saw them," say the 
 citizens (in. iii. 173)— and gives such offence by his 
 contumacy that it is on this the tribunes are able to 
 take further action. In the biography he is rejected 
 only because the indiscreet advocacyjoLjhe nobles 
 makes the plebeians fear that lie will be toortuich of 
 a partizan. He shows no reluctance either to stand 
 or to comply with the conditions. All these things 
 are the inventions of Shakespeare, and are made to 
 bring! about the catastrophe which in his authority 
 was due to very different causes. Nevertheless, they 
 are suggested by Plutarch in so far as they are merely 
 additional illustrations of that excess of aristocratic 
 pride, on which Plutarch, too, insists as the source 
 of Marcius' offences and misfortunes. 
 
 But this example merges into another kind of 
 alteration which may primarily have been due to the 
 need of greater economy and dramatic condensation, 
 but which in its results involves a great deal more. 
 In Plutarch, Coriolanus' unsuccessful candidature 
 has, except as it adds to his private irritation, no 
 immediate result ; and only some time later does his 
 banishment follow on quite another occasion. Corn 
 had come from Sicily, and in the dearth it was 
 proposed to distribute it gratis : but Marcius in- 
 veighed against such a course and urged that the 
 time was opportune for the abolition of the Tribunate, 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 509 
 
 in a speech which, in the play, he " speaks again " 
 when his election is challenged. But the Life 
 reports it only as delivered in the Senate ; and the 
 tribunes, who are present, at once leave and raise a 
 tumult, attempt to arrest him and are resisted. The 
 senators, to allay the commotion, resolve to sell the 
 corn cheap, and thus end the discontent against 
 themselves, but the tribunes persist in their attack 
 on the ringleader, hoping, as we have seen, that he 
 will prove refractory and give a handle against him- 
 self. When he does this and the death-sentence is 
 pronounced, there is still so much feeling of fairness 
 that a legal trial is demanded, which the tribunes 
 consent to grant him, and to which he consents to 
 submit on the stipulation that he shall be charged 
 only on the one count of aspiring to make himself 
 king. But when the assembly is held the tribunes 
 break their promise and accuse him of seeking to 
 withhold the corn and abolish the Tribunate, and of 
 distributing the spoils of the Antiates only among 
 "hT5~?ywrr--feHowers. For shortly after the fall of 
 Corioli, the people had refused to march against the 
 Volsces, and Coriolanus, organising a private expe- 
 dition, had won a victory, taken great booty, and 
 given it to all those who had been of the party. So 
 the unexpectedness and injustice of this last indict- 
 ment throws him out. 
 
 This matter was most straunge of all to Martius, looking 
 least to have been burdened with that, as with any matter of 
 offence. Whereupon being burdened on the sodaine, and 
 having no ready excuse to make even at that instant : he 
 beganne to fall a praising of the souldiers that had served 
 with him in that jorney. But those that were not with him, 
 being the greater number, cried out so lowde, and made such 
 a noyse, that he could not be heard. To conclude, when 
 they came to tell the voyces of the Tribes, there were three 
 voyces odde, which condemned him to be banished for life. 
 
 Now there are several things to notice in Shake- 
 speare's very different version. The first is the tact 
 
5IO CORIOLANUS 
 
 with which he compresses a great many remotely- 
 connected incidents into one. He antedates the 
 affair about the corn with Marcius' speech against 
 the distribution and the Tribunate, and only brings 
 it in as a supplementary circumstance in the 
 prosecution. The real centre of the situation is 
 Coriolanus' behaviour when a candidate, and round 
 this all else is grouped : and this behaviour, it will 
 be remembered, is altogether a fabrication on 
 Shakespeare's part. Two other things follow from 
 this. 
 
 In the first place, the unreasonableness of the 
 Romans as a whole is considerably mitigated. More 
 prominence, indeed, is given to the machinations of 
 the tribunes, but on the other hand the body of 
 electors is not only acting less on its own initiative 
 than on the prompting of its guides, but it proceeds 
 quite properly to avenge grievances that do exist 
 and avert dangers that do threaten. And this 
 excuse is to some extent valid for the leaders too. 
 In Plutarch, the Senate has come to terms on the 
 question of the corn, yet Coriolanus is hounded down 
 for an opposition which has turned out to be futile. 
 In the play, though he has met with a check, both 
 he and his friends hope that even now he may win 
 the election, and the evils that would result to the 
 people from his consulship are still to be feared. 
 
 Again, Plutarch dwells on the unfairness of the 
 arrangements for taking the votes, which has the 
 effect of packing the jury : 
 
 And first of all the Tribunes would in any case (whatso- 
 ever became of it) that the people would proceede to geve 
 their voyces by Tribes, and not by hundreds : for by this 
 meanes the multitude of the poore needy people (and all such 
 rabble as had nothing to lose, and had lesse regard of honestie 
 before their eyes) came to be of greater force (bicause their 
 voyces were numbered by the polle) then the noble honest 
 cittizens : whose persones and purse dyd duetifuUy serve the 
 common wealth in their warres. 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 511 
 
 This is not exactly omitted in the drama, but it is 
 slurred over, and Plutarch's clear explanation is 
 entirely suppressed, so that few of Shakespeare's 
 readers and still fewer of his hearers could possibly 
 suspect the significance. 
 
 Sidnius. Have you a catalogue 
 
 Of all the voices that we have procured 
 Set down by the poll ? 
 
 ^dile. I have ; 'tis ready. 
 
 Sicivius. Have you collected them by tribes ? 
 
 -^dile. I have. (in. iii. 8.) 
 
 Above all, the accusations brought against Corio- 
 lanus, in Shakespeare, are substantially just. He 
 may not seek to wind himself into a power tyrannical, 
 if we take tyrant, as Plutarch certainly did but as 
 Shakespeare probably did not, in the strict classical 
 sense of tyrannus, but with his disregard of aged 
 custom and his avowed opinions of the people, there 
 can be no doubt that he would have wielded the 
 consular powers tyrannically, in the ordinary accepta- 
 tion of the word. For there can be as little doubt 
 about his ill-will to the masses and his abhorrence 
 of the tribunitian system. And it is on these grounds 
 that he is condemned. It is very noticeable that the 
 division of the Antiate spoil, which in Plutarch is the 
 most decisive and unwarrantable allegation against 
 him, is mentioned by Shakespeare only in advance 
 as a subordinate point that may be brought forward, 
 but, as a matter of fact, it is never urged. 
 
 Brutus. In this point charge him home, that he affects 
 Tyrannical power : if he evade us there. 
 Enforce him with his envy to the people, 
 And that the spoil got on the Antiates 
 Was ne'er distributed. (ui. iii. i.) 
 
 Shakespeare makes no further use of a circumstance 
 to which Plutarch attaches so great importance that 
 he dwells on it twice over and gives it the prominent 
 place in the narrative of the trial. This piece of 
 
512 CORIOLANUS 
 
 sharp practice becomes quite negligible in the play, 
 and the only chicanery of which the tribunes are 
 guilty in the whole transaction is that, as in the Life, 
 but more explicitly, they goad Coriolanus to a fit of 
 rage in which he avows his real sentiments — a 
 tactical expedient that many politicians would con- 
 sider perfectly permissible. Shakespeare, as has 
 often been pointed out, in some ways shows even 
 less appreciation than Plutarch of the merits of the 
 people ; so it is all the more significant that, at the 
 crisis of the play, he softens down and obliterates the 
 worst traits in their proceedings against their, enemy. 
 And the second thing we observe is that by all 
 this Shakespeare emphasises the insolence and 
 truculence of the hero. It is Coriolanus' pride that 
 turns his candidature, which begins under the 
 happiest auspices, to a snare. It is still his pride 
 that plays into the tribunes' hands and makes him 
 repeat in mere defiance his offensive speech. It is 
 again his pride, not any calumny about his mis- 
 applying the profits of his raid, that gives the signal 
 for the adverse sentence. Just as in this respect the 
 plebs is represented as on the whole less i^ibble than 
 Plutarch makes it, so Coriolanus' conduct is portrayed 
 as more insensate. 
 
 "~ And this two-fold tendency, to palliate the guilt of 
 Rome and to stress the violence that provoked it, 
 appears in the more conspicuous of Shakespeare's 
 subsequent deviations from his authority. 
 
 In Plutarch, Marcius and Aufidius have great diffi- 
 culty in persuading the magnates of Antium to renew 
 the war, and only succeed when the Romans expel 
 the Volscian residents from their midst. 
 
 On a holy daye common playes being kept in Rome, apon 
 some suspition, or false reporte, they made proclamation by 
 sound of trumpet, that all the Volsces should avoyde out of 
 Rome before sunne set. Some thincke this was a crafte and 
 deceipt of Martius, who sent one to Rome to the Consuls, 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 513 
 
 to accuse the Volsces felsely, advertising them howe they 
 had made a conspiracie to set upon them, whilest they were 
 
 afyrV" '^^'"^ ^^'"^'' ^"'^ *^'° *° '^"^ their cittie 
 
 At any rate the proclamation brings about a declara- 
 tion of hostilities, and war speedily follows. 
 
 Now in Shakespeare, Lartius, for fear of attack, 
 has to surrender Corioli even before Coriolanus 
 meets with his rebuff. 
 
 Coriolanus. TuUus Aufidius then had made new head? 
 
 J^arfius. He had, my lord, and that it was which caused 
 
 Uur swifter composition. (ju ; j \ 
 
 Moreover, all the preparations of the Volsces are 
 complete for a new incursion. Cominius, indeed 
 cannot believe that they will again tempt fortune so 
 soon, 
 
 1 hey are worn, lord consul, so 
 That we shall hardly in our ages see 
 Their banners wave again. (ni. i. 6.) 
 
 But Cominius is wrong. In the little intercalated 
 scene between the Roman and the Volsce, we learn 
 that they have mustered an army which the latter 
 thus describes : 
 
 A most royal one; the centurions and their charges, dis- 
 tmctly billeted, already in the entertainment, and to be on 
 root at an hour's warning. (iv. iij. a^\ 
 
 And Aufidius welcomes Coriolanus to the feast with 
 
 the words : ^ 
 
 O, come, go in, 
 And take our friendly senators by the hands : 
 Who now are here, taking their leaves of me, 
 Who am prepared against your territories, 
 Though not for Rome itself. (iv. v. 137.) 
 
 The arrival of such an auxiliary, however, at once 
 alters that plan, and we presendy learn that they 
 are now going to make direct for the city : 
 
 To-morrow; to-day; presently; you shall have the drum 
 struck up this afternoon : 'tis, as it were, a parcel of their 
 feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips. . 
 
 (iv. V. 229.) 
 
 2K 
 
514 CORIOLANUS 
 
 Now in Plutarch we cannot but be struck by the 
 pusillanimous part the Romans play when menaced 
 by their great peril. They answer the declaration 
 of war with a bravado which events quite fail to 
 justify, but, despite the warning they have received, 
 they make no resistance and do not even prepare for 
 it. In Shakespeare there is more excuse for them. 
 They are taken completely by surprise. Their foe 
 has almost been their match before, when they were 
 equipped to meet him, and had their champion on 
 their side. Now that champion is not only gone, 
 but is at the head of the invading army. 
 
 Nor is this all. In Plutarch, Coriolanus begins 
 operations by making a raid on the Roman terri- 
 tories with light-armed troops, retiring again with 
 his plunder. Still the Romans do not take any pre- 
 cautions. In a second campaign he gets within five 
 miles of the city, and still they do nothing but send 
 an embassage. Even when, at the peril of his 
 popularity, he grants them a truce of thirty days, 
 they make no use of it for defence, but only continue 
 to transmit arrogant or abject messages. This 
 further opportunity, too, which they so strangely 
 neglect, is wisely omitted by Shakespeare. With 
 him the irruption is swift and sudden beyond the 
 grasp of human thought. Coriolanus breaks across 
 the border and strikes straight for Rome. There is 
 no time for defensive measures, no possibility of aid. 
 Even so, the part the Romans play is not so 
 heroic as might be expected, but it is at least in- 
 telligible and much less dastardly than in the history. 
 
 Or take another instance. In describing the first 
 inroad of Coriolanus, Plutarch writes : 
 
 His chiefest purpose was, to increase still the malice and 
 dissention betweene the nobilitie, and the communaltie : and 
 to drawe that on, he was very carefull to keepe the noble 
 mens landes and goods safe from harme and burning, but 
 spoyled all the whole countrie besides, and would suffer no 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 515 
 
 man to take or hurte any thing of the noble mens. This 
 
 peoDleT/"" ''Tr'"'' ''^'^ ^^^^^^"^ 'he nobllUie and 
 
 the^oeonl. h^^' ''"Ir- u^}' '^^ ""'^'^ "«" fe" out with 
 
 o%S^ vat"''/^'^ ^^'^ so unjustly banished a man of 
 
 accused thPnnh^v Pr""- J^' P"°P'^ °" thother side, 
 accused the nobihtie, how they had procured Martius to 
 make these warres, to be revenged of them : bicauseirp eased 
 them to see the.rgoodes burnt and spoyled before theS eyes 
 whilest them selves were well at ease/and dyd beho d the 
 peoples losses and misfortunes, and knowing their owne goods 
 safe and out of daunger: and howe the warre was not made 
 
 r^Thef Ldt^sa^y'. ''" '^' ''^ ^^-'^ ^^-^^- ^ ^^P^ 
 
 In Shakespeare there is no word of Coriolanus 
 making any such distinction either from policy or 
 partisanship : he is incensed against all the inhabi- 
 tants of Rome, "the dastard nobles" quite as much 
 as the offending plebeians. And, on the other hand 
 though the patricians revile the populace and its 
 eaders, there is no division between the orders, and 
 they show no inclination to disregard the solidarity 
 their interests. This contrast becomes more 
 marked in the sequel. According to Plutarch, the 
 people in panic desire to recall the exile ; but the 
 
 Senate assembled upon it, would in no case yeld to that 
 Who either dyd .t of a selfe will to be contfarie to the 
 peoples desire : or bicause Martius should not returne through 
 the grace and favour of the people. ^ 
 
 Afterwards, however, when he encamps so near 
 Kome, the majority has its way : 
 
 For there was no Consul, Senatour, nor Magistrate, that 
 durst once contrarie the opinion of the people, for the calling 
 home againe of Martius. * 
 
 Accordingly, the first envoys are instructed to 
 announce to him his re-instatement in all his rights. ^ 
 
 In Shake.speare's account the action of Rome 
 becomes much more dignified. In none of the 
 negociations, in no chance word of citizen, tribune 
 or senator, is there any hint of the sentence on 
 
5i6 CORIOLANUS 
 
 Coriolanus being revoked. Only when peace is 
 concluded does his recall follow quite naturally, as 
 an act of gratitude, in the burst of jubilant relief: 
 
 Unshout the shout that banish'd Marcius, 
 
 Repeal him with the welcome of his mother. (v. v. 4.) 
 
 This, too, is one of the indications of Shakespeare's 
 feeling for Roman greatness, that we should bear in 
 mind when elsewhere he seems to show less sense 
 even than Plutarch of her civic virtue. 
 
 The last notable deviation of the play from the 
 biography occurs in the passage which deals with the 
 murder of Coriolanus, and the difference is such as 
 to make the victim far more responsible for the 
 crime. 
 
 In Plutarch, after his return to Antium, Tullus, 
 wishing to make away with him, demands that he 
 should be deposed from his authority and taken to 
 task. Marcius replies that he is willing to resign, if 
 this be required by all the lords, and also to give 
 account to the people if they will hear him. There- 
 upon a common council is called, at which pro- 
 ceedings begin by certain orators inciting popular 
 feeling against him. 
 
 When they had tolde their tales, Martius rose up to make 
 them aunswer. Now, notwithstanding the mutinous people 
 made a marvelous great noyse, yet when they sawc him, 
 for the reverence they bare unto his valliantnes, they 
 quieted them selves, and gave still audience to alledge with 
 leysure what he could for his purgation. Moreover, the 
 honestest nipn of the Antiates, and who most rejoyced in 
 peace, shewed by their countenaunce that they would heare 
 him willingly, and judge also according to their conscience. 
 Whereupon Tullus fearing that if he dyd let him speake, he 
 would prove his innocencie to the people, bicause emongest 
 other things he had an eloquent tongue, besides that the first 
 good service he had done to the people of the Volsces,"dyd 
 winne him more favour, then these last accusations could 
 purchase him displeasure : and furthermore, the offence they 
 layed to his charge, was a testimonie of the good will they 
 ought him, for they would never have thought he had done 
 
PARALLELS WITH PLUTARCH 517 
 
 them wrong for that they tooke not the cittie of Rome, if they 
 had not bene very neare taking of it, by meanes of his 
 approche and conduction. For these causes TuUus thought 
 he might no lenger delaye his pretence and enterprise, 
 neither to tarie for the mutining and rising of the common 
 people against him : wherefore those that were of the con- 
 spiracie, beganne to crie out that he was not to be heard, nor 
 that they would not suffer a traytour to usurpe tyrannicall 
 power over the tribe of the Volsces, who would not yeld up 
 his estate and authoritie. And in saying these wordes, they 
 all fell upon him, and killed him in the market place, none 
 of the people once offering to rescue him. Howbeit it is a 
 clear case, that this murder was not generally consented unto, 
 of the most parte of the Volsces : for men came out of all 
 partes to honour his bodie, and dyd honorablie burie him, 
 setting out his tombe with great store of armour and spoyles, 
 as the tombe of a worthie persone and great captaine. 
 
 Here the conspirators do not give him a chance, but 
 kill him before a word passes his lips. In the tra- 
 gedy, on the contrary, all might have been well, if in 
 his rage of offended pride at Tullus' insults and 
 taunts, he had not been carried away with his vaunts 
 and reminders to excite and excuse the passions of 
 his hearers. And thus with Shakespeare his un- 
 governable insolence is now made the cause of his 
 death, just as before it has been accentuated as the 
 cause of his banishment. 
 
 Still, though the exasperation against Coriolanus 
 in Rome as in Corioli is thus in a measure justified, 
 his own violence also receives its apology. In the 
 latter case it is the provocation of Aufidius that 
 rouses him to frenzy. In the former, it is the in- 
 eptitude of the citizens that fills him with scorn for 
 their claims. And it is with reference to this and 
 his whole conception of the Roman plebs that Shake- 
 speare has made the most momentous and remark- 
 able change in his story, the consideration of which 
 we have purposely left to the last. The discussion 
 of the difference in Plutarch's and in Shakespeare's 
 attitude to the people will show us some of the most 
 important aspects of the play. 
 
\ 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GRAND CONTRAST. SHAKESPEARE'S CON- 
 CEPTION OF THE SITUATION IN ROME 
 
 It is difficult to describe with any certainty the 
 reasons for Shakespeare's variations from Plutarch 
 in his treatment of the people. They may, like 
 some of those already discussed, be due to the 
 dramatic requirement of compression. They may 
 be due to the deliberate purpose of exonerating the 
 hero. They may, and this is more likely, have 
 arisen quite naturally and unconsciously from 
 Shakespeare's indifference to questions of consti- 
 tutional theory and his inability to understand the 
 ideals of an antique self-governing commonwealth 
 controlled by all its free members as a body. In 
 any case the result is a picture of the primitive 
 society, from which some of Plutarch's inconsis- 
 tencies, but with them some of the most typical 
 traits, have been removed. The grand character- 
 istic which the Tudor Englishman rejects, or all 
 but rejects, is the intuitive political capacity which 
 Plutarch, perhaps in idealising retrospect, attributes 
 to all classes of citizens in the young republic, and 
 which at any rate in after development formed the 
 distinctive genius of the Roman state. He has 
 indeed an inarticulate sense of it that enables him 
 to suggest the general impression. He could not 
 but have a sense of .it ; for few men have been so 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 519 
 
 penetrated with the greatness of later Rome as he, 
 and he seems to have felt, as the shapers of the 
 tradition and as Plutarch felt, that such a tree must 
 have sprung from a healthy seed. So when we 
 examine what his story involves, we have evidence 
 enough of a general spirit of moderation, accommoda- 
 tion, compromise, that flow from and minister to an 
 efficient practical patriotism ; an ingrafted love of 
 the city ; and a conviction of the community of 
 interests among high and low alike. Mr. Watkiss 
 Lloyd puts this with great emphasis, and on the 
 whole with great truth. 
 
 Rome is preserved from cleaving in the midst by the 
 virtues of the state, the reverence for the political majority 
 which pervades both contending parties. The senate averts 
 the last evil by the timely concession of the tribunitian power 
 first, and then by sacrifice of a favourite champion of their 
 own order, rather than civil war shall break out and all go to 
 ruin in quarrel for the privilege and supremacy of a part. 
 Rather than this they will concede, and trust to temporising, 
 to negociating, to management, to the material influence of 
 their position and the effect of their own merits and achieve- 
 ments, to secure their power or recover it hereafter. Among 
 the people, on the other hand, there is also a restraining 
 sentiment, a religion that holds back from the worst abuses 
 of successful insurrection and excited faction. The pro- 
 position to kill Marcius is easily given up. Even the tribunes 
 are capable of being persuaded to forego the extremity of 
 rancour against the enemy of the people and of their 
 authority, when he is fairly in their power, and commute 
 death for banishment ; and, the victory achieved, they 
 counsel tranquility, as Menenius, on the other hand, softens 
 down ; and all goes smoothly again like a reconciled house- 
 hold, after experience of the miseries of adjusting wrongs by 
 debate and anger. 
 
 Similarly the interests of the country are supreme 
 when Coriolanus, with his new allies, advances to 
 the attack : 
 
 . Some impatience of the people against the tribunes is 
 natural, but the tribunes with all their faults, take their 
 humiliation not ignobly, and the nobles never for a moment 
 dream of getting a party triumph by foreign aid. The danger 
 
520 CORIOLANUS 
 
 of the country engrosses all, and at last Volumnia presses 
 upon her son the right and the noble, and employs all the 
 influences of domestic and natural affection — but all entirely 
 to the great political and national end, — and is as disregardful 
 of the fortunes or interests of the aristocratical party, which 
 might have hoped to seize the opportunity for recovering lost 
 ground, as she is apparently unaware, unconscious, regardless 
 of what may be the consequences personally to her much 
 loved son. 
 
 And Mr. Lloyd clinches his plea by his estimate of 
 the catastrophe. 
 
 In the concluding scene we appear to see the supremacy 
 of R,ome assured ... In the senate-house of the Volscians 
 is perpetrated the assassination, from the disgrace of which 
 the better spirit of the Romans preserved their city : Aufidius 
 and his fellows with equal envy and ingratitude take the place 
 of the plotting tribunes, and the senators are powerless to 
 control the conspirators and mob of citizens who abet them. 
 
 They are, in short, in comparison with Rome self- 
 condernned ; and this becomes more manifest if we 
 contrast the finale of the play with the concluding 
 sentences in Plutarch, which Shakespeare leaves 
 unused. 
 
 Now Martius being dead, the whole state of the Volsces 
 hartely. wished him alive again. For first of all they fell out 
 with the .(Eques (who were their friendes and confederates) 
 touching preheminence and place : and this quarrell grew on 
 so farre betwene them, and frayes and murders fell out apon 
 it one with another. After that, the Romaines overcame 
 them in battell, in which TuUus was slaine in the field, and 
 the flower of all their force was put to the sworde : so that 
 they were compelled to accept most shameful conditions of 
 peace, in yelding them selves subject unto the conquerors, 
 and promising to be obedient at their commandement. 
 
 It is at first sight rather strange that Shakespeare 
 should give no indication that the Volscians, first 
 by condoning Tullus' crime, the breach of friendship 
 from desire for pre-eminence, then by repeating it 
 as a community, prepare the way for their own 
 downfall. Perhaps he felt that no finger-post was 
 necessary, and that all must see how in the long 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 521 
 
 run such a state must inevitably succumb to the 
 greater moral force of Rome. 
 
 Jn M^^'T f'^i^ qualifications would have to be made 
 in Mr. Lloyds statement of his thesis to render it 
 absolutely correct, but it is true in the main. Never- 
 theless, true though it be, it makes no account of 
 two very important considerations. One of these is 
 that despite the general appreciation which Shake- 
 speare shows for the attitude of the Roman Cwi^as 
 he has no perception of the real issues between the 
 plebeians and the patricians, or of the course which 
 the controversy took, though these matters constitute 
 the chief claim of the citizens of early Rome to the 
 credit they receive in Plutarch's narrative. And the 
 other consideration is, that Shakespeare's general 
 appreciation of the community he describes is per- 
 ceptible only when we view the play at a distance 
 and in its mass: the impression in detail as we 
 follow It from scene to scene is by no means so 
 favourable to either party. 
 
 The first point is well brought out by the total 
 omission in the drama of the initial episode in the 
 ■ dissension between the populace and the senate ■ 
 and between the populace and Marcius. And the 
 omission is all the more noticeable since Plutarch 
 gives It particular prominence as directly leading to 
 the establishment of the tribunate, which the drama, 
 as we shall see, ascribes merely to an insignificant 
 bread not. Here is what Shakespeare must have 
 read, and what slips from him without leaving more 
 than a trace, though to modern feeling it is one of 
 the most impressive passages in the whole Lz/e. 
 
 _ Now (Martius) being growen to great credit and authoritie 
 m Rome for his valliantnes, it fortuned there grewe sedition 
 in the cittie, bicause the Senate dyd favour the riche against 
 the people, who dyd complaine of the sore oppression of 
 userers. of whom they borowed money. For those that had 
 litle, were yet spoyled of that litle they had by their credi- 
 tours, for lack of abilitie to paye the userie : who offered their 
 
522 CORIOLANUS 
 
 goodes to be solde, to them that would geve most. And 
 suche as had nothing left, their bodies were layed holde of, 
 and they were made their bonde men, notwithstanding all the 
 woundes and cuttes they shewed, which they had receyved 
 in many battells, fighting for defence of their countrie and 
 common wealth : of the which, the last warre they made, 
 was against the Sabynes, wherein they fought apon the 
 promise the riche men had made them, that from thence- 
 forth they would intreate them more gently, and also upon 
 the worde of Marcus Valerius chief of the Senate, who by 
 authoritie of the counsell, and in the behalfe of the riche, 
 sayed they should performe that they had promised. But 
 after that they had faithfully served in this last battell of all, 
 where they overcame their enemies, seeing they were never a 
 whit the better, nor more gently intreated, and that the 
 Senate would geve no eare to them, but make as though they 
 had forgotten their former promise, and suffered them to be 
 made slaves and bonde men to their creditours, and besides, 
 to be turned out of all that ever they had ; they fell then 
 even to flat rebellion and mutinie, and to sturre up daunger- 
 ous tumultes within the cittie. The Romaines enemies, 
 hearmg of this rebellion, dyd straight enter the territories of 
 Rome with a marvelous great power, spoyling and burning 
 all as they came. Whereupon the Senate immediatly made 
 open proclamation by sounde of trumpet, that all those which 
 were of lawfuU age to carie weapon, should come and enter 
 their names into the muster masters booke, to goe to the 
 warres : but no man obeyed their commaundement. Where- 
 upon their chief magistrates, and many of the Senate, 
 beganne to be of divers opinions emong them selves. For 
 some thought it was reason, they should somewhat yeld to 
 the poore peoples request, and that they should a little 
 qualifie the severitie of the lawe. Other held hard against 
 that opinion, and that was Martius for one. For he alleaged, 
 that the creditours losing their money they had lent, was not 
 the worst thing that was thereby: but that the lenitie that 
 was favored, was a beginning of disobedience, and that the 
 prowde attempt of the communaltie, was to abolish lawe, 
 a.nd to bring all to confusion. Therefore he sayed ; if the 
 Senate were wise, they should betimes prevent, and quenche 
 this ill favored and worse ment beginning. The Senate met 
 many dayes in consultation about it : but in the end they 
 concluded nothing. The poore common people seeing no 
 redresse, gathered them selves one daye together, and one 
 encoraging another, they all forsooke the cittie, and encamped 
 them selves upon a hill, called at this daye the holy hill, 
 alongest the river of Tyber, offering no creature any hurte 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 523 
 
 or violence, or making any shewe of actuall rebellion ; saving 
 that they cried as they went up and down, that the riche men 
 had driven them out of the cittie, and that all Italic through 
 they should finde ayer, water and ground to burie them in. 
 Moreover, they sayed, to dwell at Rome was nothing els but 
 to be slaine, or hurte with continuell warres and fighting for 
 defence of the riche mens goodes. 
 
 Plutarch goes on to tell how in this crisis the Senate 
 adopts a conciliatory attitude, and how after the 
 fable of Menenius, the mutineers are pacified by 
 the concession of five Tribuni plebis, "whose office 
 should be to defend the poore people from violence 
 and oppression." Then he concludes this part of 
 his recital : 
 
 Hereupon the cittie being growen againe to good quiet 
 and unitie, the people immediatly went to the warres, shewing 
 that they had a good will to doe better than ever they dyd, and 
 to be very willing to obey the magistrates in that they would 
 commaund concerning the warres. 
 
 Now, in this account there is no question which side 
 is in the right and has a claim on our sympathies. 
 The plebs is reduced to distress by fighting for the 
 state and for the aristocratic rdgmte that was set up 
 some twenty years before : its misery is aggravated 
 by harsh and inadequate laws, the redress of which 
 it seeks by a policy of passive resistance ; its 
 demands are so equitable that they are approved by 
 a portion of the Senate, and so urgent that they are 
 conceded by the Senate as a whole : but such is the 
 strength of class selfishness, that when the hour of 
 need is past, the patricians violate their explicit pro- 
 mise, and the grievances become more intolerable than 
 before. Even now the plebeians break out in no 
 violent rebellion, and hardly show their discontent in 
 a casual riot. In their worst desperation they merely 
 secede, and in their very secession they are far from 
 stubborn. They admit Menenius' moral that the 
 Senate has an essential function in the state : and 
 as a preliminary to their return, only stipulate for a 
 
524 CORIOLANUS 
 
 machinery that will protect them against further 
 oppression. 
 
 But hardly a line in the description of this move- 
 ment which the plebeians conducted so moderately 
 and sagaciously to a successful end, has passed into 
 the picture of Shakespeare. He ignores the reason- 
 ableness of their cause, the reasonableness of their 
 means, and fails to perceive the essential efficiency 
 and steadiness of their character, though all these 
 things are expressed or implied in Plutarch's 
 narrative. This episode, in which the younger 
 contemporary of Nero favours the people, the elder 
 contemporary of Pym summarily dismisses, and 
 substitutes for it another far less important, in which 
 they appear in no very creditable light, but which 
 had nothing to do with the institution of the 
 Tribunate, and occurred in consequence of the dearth 
 only after the capture of Corioli. 
 
 Now when this warre was ended, the flatterers of the 
 people beganne to sturre up sedition againe, without any 
 newe occasion, or just matter offered of complainte. For 
 they dyd grounde this seconde insurrection against the 
 Nobilitie and Patricians, apon the people's miserie and mis- 
 fortune, that could not but fall out, by reason of the former 
 discorde and sedition, betweene them and the Nobilitie. 
 Bicause the most parte of the errable land within the 
 territorie of Rome, was become heathie and barren for lacke 
 of plowing, for that they had no time nor meane to cause 
 corne, to be brought them out of other countries to sowe, by 
 reason of their warres which made the extreme dearth they 
 had emong them. Now those busie pratlers that sought the 
 peoples good will, by suche flattering wordes, perceyving great 
 scarsitie of corne to be within the cittie, and though there 
 had bene plenty enough, yet the common people had no 
 money to buye it : they spread abroad false tales and rumours 
 against the Nobilitie, that they in revenge of the people, had 
 practised and procured the extreme dearthe emong them. 
 
 This circumstance, combined with the still later 
 demand for a distribution of corn, Shakespeare 
 transposes, and makes the surely rather inappro- 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 525 
 
 priate cause of the appointment of the tribunes. 
 Inappropriate, that is, to what the logic of the 
 situation requires, and to what the sagacity of the 
 traditional plebs would solicit. They ask for bread 
 and they get a magistrate. But not inappropriate 
 to the unreasoning demands of a frenzied proletariat. 
 Many parallels might be cited from the French 
 Revolution. But this is just an instance of Shake- 
 speare's inability to conceive a popular rising in 
 other terms than the outbreak of a mob. 
 
 And this leads us to the second point. The 
 general moderation and dignity implied in the atti- 
 tude of Rome, viewed broadly and comprehensively, 
 almost disappear when we are confronted with 
 the full concrete life of the participants in aiU its 
 picturesque and incisive details. 
 
 For consider first a little more closely the treat- 
 ment of the people. We have seen that in many 
 ways the proceedings which it and its representa- 
 tives take against Coriolanus are more defensible 
 in Shakespeare than in Plutarch : but, on the other 
 hand, they have less rational grounds for the original 
 insurrection, and are much less clear-sighted and 
 consequent in choosing the means of redress. They 
 are comparatively well-meaning and fair, neither 
 bitter nor narrow-minded, but they are quite 
 inefficient, far from self-reliant, very childish and 
 helpless. They are conspicuously lacking in political 
 aptitude, but they make up for it by a certain sound- 
 ness of feeling. Plutarch's plebeians go the right 
 wg,y about protecting themselves from unjust laws, 
 but they pursue Coriolanus with rancorous chicane 
 even when his policy has been overturned. Shake- 
 speare's plebeians seek to legislate against a natural 
 calamity, but at the crisis they turn quite justifiably, 
 if a little tardily, on a would-be governor who makes 
 no secret of his ill-will. Taken as separate units, 
 they may be unwashed and puzzle-headed, but they 
 
526 CORIOLANUS 
 
 are worthy fellows whom misery has driven des- 
 perate, yet whose misery claims compassion, though 
 their desperation makes them meddle in things too 
 high for them. In the opening scene, the First 
 Citizen, even when calling for the death of Marcius, 
 does so merely because he imagines that it is the 
 preliminary to getting cheap food : 
 
 The gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in 
 thirst for revenge. (i- i. 1 5.) 
 
 But even among the maddened and famishing 
 crowd, Marcius is not without his advocate. The 
 Second Citizen admonishes them : 
 
 Consider you what services he has done for his country ? 
 
 (i. i. 30.) 
 
 And though these the ringleader discounts on the 
 
 ground that they were due not to patriotism, but to 
 
 personal pride and filial affection, his apologist, 
 
 persisting in his defence, points out that he is not 
 
 responsible for his inborn tendencies. 
 
 What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in 
 him. (i. i. 42.) 
 
 All this is candid enough : a benevolent neutral 
 could not say more. These rioters have no thought 
 of libelling their adversary. They deny neither his 
 claims nor his merits ; they only assert that these 
 are outweighed by his offences. The Second 
 Citizen proceeds in his plea : 
 
 You must in no way say he is covetous ; 
 
 and the First rejoins : 
 
 If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations ; he 
 hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition. (i. i. 43.) 
 
 We have seen how Shakespeare adopts from 
 Plutarch the motive for the plebeians' initial support 
 of Coriolanus at the election, but he makes it a 
 more striking instance of their fairness, for he 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 527 
 
 represents them as quite aware and mindful of the 
 reasons on the other side. 
 
 Fourth Citizen. You have deserved nobly of your country 
 and you have not deserved nobly. 
 
 Cortolanus. Your enigma ? 
 
 Fourth Citizen. You have been a scourge to her enemies 
 you have been a rod to her friends; you have not indeed 
 loved the common people. (u. {\i „ . \ 
 
 It is-all very well for the candidate to turn this off 
 with a flout, but it is the sober truth. That the 
 despised plebeian should see both sides of the case 
 shows m him more sanity of judgment than Corio- 
 lanus ever possessed : that he should nevertheless 
 cast his vote for such an applicant shows more 
 generosity as well. And the generosity, if also the 
 simplicity, of the electors is likewise made more 
 pronounced than in Plutarch by their persevering in 
 their course despite the scorn with which Coriolanus 
 treats them ; of which Plutarch of course knows 
 nothing. Even that they forgive till the tribunes 
 irritate the wounds and predict more fatal ones from 
 the new weapon that has been put into such ruthless 
 hands. 
 
 Did you perceive 
 He did solicit you in free contempt 
 When he did need your loves, and do you think 
 That his contempt shall not be bruising to you, 
 When he hath power to crush ? (n. m. 207.) 
 
 All these instances of right feeling and instinctive 
 appreciation of greatness are in Shakespeare's 
 picture, while they are either not at all or in a much 
 less degree in Plutarch's. And these citizens are 
 capable of following good leadership as well as bad. 
 They listen to Menenius, and are "almost per- 
 suaded" by his argument, without, as in Plutarch, 
 making their acceptance of it merely provisional. 
 Under Cominius they quit themselves, as he says, 
 " like Romans," and he gives them the praise : 
 
 Breathe you, my friends : well fought. (i. vi. i.) 
 
528 CORIOLANUS 
 
 Afterwards too he recognises that they are earning 
 their share of the spoil, even as before they had 
 borne themselves stoutly : 
 
 March on, my fellows : 
 Make good this ostentation, and you shall 
 Divide in all with us. (i. vi. 85.) 
 
 This is said to the volunteers who come forward at 
 Marcius' summons, an episode for which there is 
 hardly a hint in Plutarch. There, indeed, we read 
 that he cannot call off the looters from the treasures 
 of Corioli : 
 
 Whereupon taking those that willingly offered them selves 
 he went out of the cittie : 
 
 which supplies the sentence, 
 
 I, with those that have the spirit, will haste 
 To help Cominius. (i. v. 14.) 
 
 But this hint, if hint it were, Shakespeare uses anew 
 with far stronger and brighter colouring in the 
 incident of Marcius' stirring appeal to Cominius' 
 men and their enthusiastic response : which is to be 
 found only in the drama : 
 
 If any such be here — 
 As it were sin to doubt — that love this painting 
 Wherein you see me smear'd : if any fear 
 Lesser his person than an ill report : 
 If any think brave death outweighs bad life 
 And that his country's dearer than himself; 
 Let him alone, or so many so minded. 
 Wave thus, to express his disposition. 
 And follow Marcius. 
 
 [TAey all shout and. wave their swords, take him up in 
 their arms, and cast up their caps.^ (i. vi. 67.) 
 
 If they are handled in the right way, these citizen 
 soldiers can play their part well. But they need to 
 be rightly handled, they need to have their feelings 
 stirred. They have no rational initiative of their 
 own, and cannot do without inspiration and guidance. 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME, 529 
 
 For, consider the grounds for their rising. Shake- 
 speare not only completely suppresses the remarkable 
 secession to the Mons Sacer, but barely mentions 
 the social grievances that led to it. The First 
 Citizen says indeed of the patricians : 
 
 [They] make edicts for usurj-, to support usurers: repeal 
 daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and 
 provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain 
 the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will. (i. i. 83.) 
 
 But this is a mere passing 'remark, and no stress is 
 laid on these, the real causes of the discontent, in 
 comparison with the dearth, which for the rest seems 
 to end \yith the Coriolan campaign, when there is,' 
 as Cominius promises, a " common distribution " of 
 the spoils. Now the dearth is represented as a 
 mere disastrous accident, for which no one is 
 responsible, and for which there is no remedy save 
 prayer— or such a foray as presently took place. 
 Menenius expressly says so : 
 
 For the dearth, 
 The gods, not the patricians, made it, and 
 Your knees to them, not arms, must help. (i. i. 74.) 
 
 It is alleged, no doubt, by the mutineers that the 
 "storehouses are crammed with grain," but there is 
 no confirmation of this in the play, and the way in 
 which " honest " Menenius reports the rumour, and 
 Marcius, who is never less than honest receives it, 
 implies that it is mere titrie tatrie and gossip of the 
 chimney corner. 
 
 Marcius. What's their seeking ? 
 
 Menemus. For corn at their own rates : whereof, they sav 
 The city is well stored. 
 
 Marcius. Hang 'em ! They say ! 
 
 They 11 sit by the fire, and presume to know 
 What's done i' the Capitol ; who's like to rise. 
 Who thrives and who declines ; side factions and give out 
 Conjectural marriages ; making parties strong 
 And feebling such as stand not in their liking 
 Below their cobbled shoes. They say there's grain enough ! 
 
 (i. i. 192.) 
 
 2 L 
 
530 CORIOLANUS 
 
 In short their temper is hardly parodied in the 
 modern skit, 
 
 Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies ? 
 
 And if they resemble the ignorant fanatics of later 
 days in the unreasonableness of their complaints, 
 they resemble them too, as we have seen, in the 
 unreasonableness of their remedies. If things were 
 as the play implies what help would lie in con- 
 stitutional reform ? They are no better than the 
 starving Sansculottes who sought to allay their 
 hunger by snatching new morsels of the royal 
 prerogative. It really reads like a scene in Carlyle's 
 Paris of 1790 A. D., and not like any scene in 
 Plutarch's Rome of 494 B.C., when Coriolanus 
 describes the delight of "the famine-stricken crowds 
 at, getting their representatives : 
 
 They threw their caps 
 As they would hang them on the horns o' the moon, 
 Shouting their emulation. (i. i. 216.) 
 
 Moreover, when left to themselves, or when their 
 sleeping manhood is not awakened, these plebeians, 
 otherwise than those of Plutarch, have not even 
 the average of physical courage. They can fight 
 creditably under the competent management of 
 Cominius, or heroically under the stimulus of 
 Marcius' rousing appeal : but if such influences are 
 lacking, they fail. Menenius says of them : 
 
 Though abundantly they lack discretion, 
 Yet are they passing cowardly. (i. i. 206.) 
 
 Marcius ironically invites them to the wars by 
 indicating what would be, and turns out to be, 
 provision for their needs : 
 
 The Volsces have much corn : take these rats thither 
 
 To gnaw their garners. Worshipful mutineers. 
 
 Your valour puts well forth : pray, follow. (i. i. 253.) 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 531 
 
 And the citizens steal away. In truth the low 
 opinion of their mettle seems justified by events. At 
 Corioli the troops under Cominius do well, but those 
 in Marcius' division, perhaps because his treatment 
 does not call out what is best in them, seem to deserve 
 a part at least of his imprecations : 
 
 All the contagion of the south light on you, 
 
 You shames of Rome ! You herd of . Boils and plagues 
 
 Plaster you o'er, that you may be abhorr'd 
 
 Further than seen, and one infect another 
 
 Against the wind a mile ! You souls of geese. 
 
 That bear the shapes of men, how have you run 
 
 From slaves that apes would beat ! Pluto and hell ! 
 
 All hurt behind ! backs red, and faces pale 
 
 With flight and agued fear ! (i. iv. 30.) 
 
 Nor do they appear in a better light in the moment 
 of partial victory, for they at once fall to plunder 
 instead of following it up and helping their fellows. 
 This touch, of course, Shakespeare derived from 
 Plutarch. 
 
 The inpst parte of the souldiers beganne incontinently to 
 spoyle, to carie awaye, and to looke up the bootie they had 
 wonne. But Martius was marvelous angry with them, and 
 cried out on them, that it was no time now to looke after 
 spoyle, and to ronne straggling here and there to enriche 
 them selves, whilest the other Consul and their fellowe 
 cittizens peradventure were fighting with their enemies ; and 
 howe that leaving the spoyle they should seeke to winde 
 them selves out of daunger and perill. Howbeit, crie, and 
 saye to them what he could, very fewe of them would hearken 
 to him. 
 
 But Shakespeare is not content with this. He quite 
 without warrant describes the articles as worthless, 
 to emphasise the baseness of the pillagers. 
 
 See here these movers that do prize their hours 
 
 At a crack'd drachma 1 Cushions, leaden spoons, 
 
 Irons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would 
 
 Bury with those that wore them, these base slaves, 
 
 Ere yet the fight be done, pack up. (i. v. 5.) 
 
 This strain of baseness appears in another way 
 afterwards, when they yell and hoot at their banished 
 
532 CORIOLANUS 
 
 enemy, like a pack of curs at a retreating mastiff, or 
 when at his threatened return they eat their words 
 and their deeds. 
 
 First Citizen. For mine own part, 
 
 When I said, banish him, I said 'twas pity. 
 
 Second Citizen. And so did I. 
 
 Third Citizen. And so did I : and, to say the truth, so did 
 very many of us. . . . 
 
 First Citizen. I ever said we were i' the wrong when we 
 banished him. 
 
 Second Citizen. So did we all. (iv. vi. 139 and 155.) 
 
 What then is Shakespeare's opinion of the people 
 as a whole ? Despite his sympathy with those of 
 whom it is composed, it is to him a giant not yet in 
 his teens, with formidable physical strength, with 
 crude natural impulses to the good and the bad, 
 kindly-natured and simple-minded, not incapable of 
 fair-dealing and generosity ; but rude, blundering, 
 untaught, and therefore subject to spasms of fury, 
 panic, and greed, fit for useful service only when it 
 finds the right leader, but sure to go wrong if aban- 
 doned to its own or evil guidance. 
 
 To the danger of evil guidance, however, it is 
 specially exposed, for it loves flattery and is imposed 
 on by professions of goodwill : so Shakespeare 
 reserves his severest treatment for those who cajole 
 it, the demagogues of the Tribunate. No doubt in 
 his tolerant objective way he concedes even to them 
 a measure of justification. He was bound to do so, 
 else they would have been outside the pale of 
 dramatic sympathy ; and also the culpability of 
 Coriolanus would have been obscured. So there is 
 something to be said even for their policy and 
 management. They are quite right in fearing the 
 results of Coriolanus' elevation to the chief place in 
 
 Sicinius. On the sudden, 
 
 I warrant him consul. 
 
 Brutus. Then our office may 
 
 During his power, go sleep. (11. i. 237.) 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 533 
 
 Their admonitions to the electors are such as the 
 organisers of a party are not only entitled but bound 
 to give to a constituency : 
 
 Could you not have told him 
 As you were lesson'd, when he had no power, 
 But was a petty servant to the state, 
 He was your enemy, ever spake against 
 Your liberties and the charters that you bear 
 I' the body of the weal : and now, arriving 
 A place of potency and sway o' the state. 
 If he should still malignantly remain 
 Fast foe to the pl'ebeii, your voices might 
 Be curses to yourselves. (n. iii. igo.) 
 
 These forebodings of what is likely to occur are not 
 only thoroughly justifiable but obvious. 
 
 Then, though their abandonment of the methods of 
 violence and acceptance of a trial are discounted 
 partly by the perils of open force, partly by their 
 confidence in and manipulation of a verdict to their 
 minds, their willingness to substitute the penalty of 
 banishment for the extreme sentence of death, must 
 stand, as we have seen, to the credit, if not of their 
 placability, at least of their moderation and prudence. 
 Moreover, if we could disregard the dangers of war, 
 their "platform," as we should now call it, seems 
 approved by its success. One cannot but sympathise 
 with the satisfaction of Sicinius at the results of 
 Marcius' expulsion : 
 
 We hear not of him, neither need we fear him : 
 
 His remedies are tame i' the present peace 
 
 And quietness of the people, which before 
 
 Were in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends 
 
 Blush that the world goes well, who rather had, 
 
 Though they themselves did suffer by 't, behold 
 
 Dissentious numbers pestering streets, than see 
 
 Our tradesmen singing in their shops and going 
 
 About their functions friendly. (iv. vi. i.) 
 
 And when the citizens pass with their greetings, the 
 tribune has a right to say to Menenius : 
 
534 CORIOLANUS 
 
 This is a happier and more comely time 
 
 Than when these fellows ran about the streets, 
 
 Crying confusion. (iv. vi. 27.) 
 
 Even Menenius has to give a modified and grudging 
 approval of the new position of things : 
 
 All 's well : and might have been much better, if 
 
 He could have temporised. (iv. vi. 16.) 
 
 And when the disastrous news comes in, after the 
 first outburst of incredulous wrath and terrified 
 impatience, the two colleagues bear themselves well 
 enough. There is shrewdness and good sense in 
 Sicinius' words to the citizens : 
 
 Go, masters, get you home : be not dismay'd ; 
 These are a side that would be glad to have 
 This true which they so seem to fear. Go home. 
 And show no sign of fear. . (iv. vi. 149.) 
 
 When this very natural and probable conjecture 
 proves false, they both rise to the occasion, or seek 
 to do so, the cross-grained Sicinius somewhat more 
 effectually than the glib-tongued Brutus, and show a 
 certain dignity and justness of feeling. Their remon- 
 strance with and petition to Menenius, if we grant 
 the patriotism on the one side as well as the other, 
 are not without their cogency : 
 
 Nay, pray, be patient : if you refuse your aid 
 
 In this so never-needed help, yet do not 
 
 Upbraid 's with our distress. (v. i. 33.) 
 
 When Menenius objects that his mission will be 
 futile, Sicinius' reply comes near being noble : 
 
 Yet your good will 
 Must have that thanks from Rome, after the measure 
 As you intended well. (v. i. 45). 
 
 When Menenius, returning from his fruitless mission, 
 describes Coriolanus in his unapproachable, inexor- 
 able power, the tribune's rejoinder is again the true 
 one : 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 535 
 
 Menenius. He wants nothing of a god but eterr.ity and a 
 heaven to throne in. 
 
 Sicinius. Yes, mercy, if you report him truly. (v. iv. 24.) 
 
 Yet these various traits so little interfere with the 
 general impression, that perhaps many tolerably 
 careful readers who are familiar with the play, hardly 
 take them into account. In the total effect they 
 both seem to us pitiful busybodies, whose ill-earned 
 influence only leads to disaster; of, as Menenius 
 -describes them : 
 
 A pair of tribunes that have rack'd for Rome, 
 
 To make coals cheap. (v. i. 16.) 
 
 The first feature we notice in them is their pride, 
 a vice which they blame in Coriolanus, and with 
 which their own is expressly contrasted. For his 
 is the haughty, unbending self-consciousness that is 
 based on the sense of indwelling force, and has a 
 shrinking. disgust for praise. Theirs, on the other 
 hand, revels in popularity, and their power depends 
 entirely on the support which that popularity secures 
 them. As Menenius tells them : 
 
 You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs. (11. i. 76.) 
 
 Your helps are many, or else your actions would grow 
 wondrous single : your abilities are too infant-like for doing 
 much alone. (11. i. 39.) 
 
 They are really consequential and overweening 
 rather than proud. And magnifying their import- 
 ance and their office, they are apt to take too 
 seriously any trifle in which they are concerned, 
 and to become irritated at any mishap to their own 
 convenience. Having no standard but themselves 
 by which to measure the proportion of things, they 
 are fussy over minor matters and lose their tempers 
 over petty troubles. This is the point of Menenius' 
 banter. 
 
 You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a 
 cause between an orange-wife and a^fosset-seller; and then 
 
536 CORIOLANUS 
 
 rejourn the controversy of three pence to a second day of 
 audience. When you are hearing a matter between party 
 and party, if you chanced to be pinched with the colic, you 
 make faces like mummers ; set up the bloody flag against 
 all patience ; and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss the 
 controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing : 
 all the peace you make in their cause is, calling both the 
 parties knaves. (ii. i. 77.) 
 
 This is, they are disposed to treat a mole-hill as a 
 mountain, but if they are galled, to break out in 
 indiscriminate and unjustified abuse. Menenius 
 gives it them home in respect of these foibles : 
 
 You talk of pride : O that you could turn your eyes toward 
 the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of 
 your good selves ! O that you could ! 
 
 Brutus. What then, sir ? 
 
 Menenius. Why, then you should discover a brace of un- 
 meriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as any 
 in Rome. (11. i. 41.) 
 
 This is the utterance of an enemy ; nevertheless it 
 is confirmed by their behaviour, and is moreover a 
 prophecy of their action in regard to Marcius. In 
 the first place their pride has been insulted by his : 
 
 Sicinius. Was ever man so proud as is this Marcius ? 
 
 Brutus. He has no equal. 
 
 Sicinius. When we were chosen tribunes of the people, — 
 
 Brutus. Mark'd you his lip and eyes ? 
 
 Sicinius. Nay, but his taunts. 
 
 Brutus. Being "moved, he will not spare to gird the gods — 
 
 Sicinius. Bemock the modest moon. (i. i. 256.) 
 
 A man who gibes at the gods, the moon, and above 
 all the tribunes, is evidently a profane and irreverent 
 fellow who should be got rid of. And perhaps it is 
 anxiety not only for the public good but for their 
 owrj authority that makes them dread their office 
 ma,y " go sleep," during his consulship. At any rate 
 the disrespect with which they have been treated is 
 one main motive of their indignation : " Our Aediles 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 537 
 
 smote, ourselves resisted!" they exclaim in pardon- 
 able horror (iii. 1. 319). ^ 
 
 Then the nteans they take to ruin Coriolanus, 
 though not without its astuteness, and similar enough 
 to what IS practised every day in parliamentary 
 tactics, IS altogether base : it is the device of mean 
 paltry, inferior natures. They speculate on the 
 defect of their enemy's greatness, they reckon on 
 his heroic vehemence and forcefulness to destroy 
 him, and lay plans to betray his nobility to a passion 
 that will embroil him with the people. It is as easy, 
 says Sicinius, to drive him to provocation " as to set 
 dogs on sheep" (11. i. 273). But easy though it is 
 they are careful to give minute directions to their 
 gang Sicmius tells them that any condition pro- 
 posed to him, ^ 
 
 ,,r,.- ,. ^o"!'^ have gall'd his surly nature, 
 
 Which easily endures not article 
 
 Tying him to aught; so putting him to rage, 
 
 You should have ta'en the advantage of his choler 
 
 And pass'd him unelected. (u. iii_ ^^,\ 
 
 Then, after engineering the disavowal of the elected 
 candidate, Brutus calculates 
 
 If, as his nature is, he fall in rage 
 
 With their refusal, both observe and answer 
 
 The vantage of his anger. („. iij. ^gg^ 
 
 And here are his final instructions for the behaviour 
 of the people at the trial : 
 
 Put him to choler straight : he hath been used 
 
 Ever to conquer, and to have his worth 
 
 Of contradiction : being once chafed, he cannot 
 
 Be rein'd again to temperance ; then he speaks 
 
 What's in his heart; and that is there which looks 
 
 To break his neck. (m jij^ ^^^ 
 
 The suggestion for these proceedings comes, as 
 we saw, from Plutarch ; but in this one respect his 
 tribunes are by no means so wily. They contrive 
 a dilemma in which Coriolanus will have either to 
 
538 CORIOLANUS 
 
 humble or to compromise himself ; but though they 
 would prefer the latter alternative, they do nothing 
 to bring it about. 
 
 Yet with all their activity in the matter, they are 
 meanly desirous of evading responsibility and saving 
 their own skins. 
 
 Brutus. Lay 
 
 A fault on us, your tribunes ; that we labour'd, 
 No impediment between, but that you must 
 Cast your election on him. 
 
 Sicinius. Say you chose him 
 
 More after our commandment than as guided 
 By your own true affections, and that your minds, 
 Pre-occupied with what you rather must do 
 Than what you should, made you against the grain 
 To voice him consul : lay the fault on us. (ii. iii. 234.) 
 
 And parallel with this is the crowning vulgarity of 
 their triumph : 
 
 Go, see him out at gates, and follow him. 
 As he hath follow'd you, with all despite ; 
 Give him deserved vexation. (in. iii. 138.) 
 
 This is perhaps the supreme instance of their head- 
 strong, testy and inconsiderate violence, for, as we 
 shall see, it embitters the wavering Marcius and 
 drives him to alliance with the foe. But the same 
 violence has abundantly appeared before. The rest 
 do all in their power to appease the tumult and 
 procure a hearing for Sicinius, he uses the oppor- 
 tunity to add fuel to the fire and deserves Menenius' 
 rebuke : 
 
 This is the way to kindle, not to quench. (in. i. 197.) 
 
 When Brutus proceeds in the same way, Cominius 
 interrupts : 
 
 That is the way to lay the city flat ; 
 
 To bring the roof to the foundation, 
 
 And bury all, which yet distinctly ranges. 
 
 In heaps and piles of ruin. (iii. i. 204.) 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 539 
 Menenius has to admonish them : 
 
 Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt 
 
 With modest warrant. (iii. i. 274.) 
 
 And again : 
 
 One word more, one word. 
 This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find 
 The harm of unscann'd swiftness, will too late 
 Tie leaden pounds to 's heels. (111. i. 31 1.) 
 
 They do yield at last, but clearly the game they 
 were playing in unreflecting impatience was most 
 hazardous for the populace itself. Indeed, even 
 when they have accepted more moderate counsels, the 
 expulsion of Coriolanus seems an act not only of 
 ingratitude but of recklessness. Their low cunning 
 has attained an end, good perhaps in itself for 
 the party they represent, but even for that party 
 of insignificant advantage in view of the wider 
 issues. Volumnia's taunt is very much to the point : 
 
 Hadst thou foxship 
 To banish him that struck more blows for Rome 
 Than thou hast spoken words? (iv. ii. 18.) 
 
 For after all, the pressing need in that period of 
 constant war, as Plutarch and Shakespeare imagine 
 it, was defence of the whole state, the plebs as well 
 as the senate, against the foreign enemy, and the 
 danger of an invasion was one of the ordinary, pro- 
 babilities of the case. Most men who had any 
 sense of proportion would, in the circumstances, 
 pause before they banished the sword and soldier- 
 ship of Rome. No doubt the tribunes were to be 
 excused for not foreseeing the renegacy of Coriolanus; 
 when it is announced as a fact Menenius can hardly 
 credit it. 
 
 This is unlikely : 
 He and Aufidius can no more atone 
 Than violentest contrariety. (iv. vi. 71.) 
 
540 CORIOLANUS 
 
 It is less excusable that they should neglect the 
 danger of a new attack from the Volsces, for though 
 Cominius, as we saw, makes a similar error, he does 
 so when Marcius is still on the side of the Romans. 
 Menenius' exclamation, when the invasion actually 
 takes place and when the news of it is first brought 
 to Rome, describes a situation, the possibility or 
 probability of which every public man should have 
 anticipated. 
 
 'Tis Auiidius, 
 Who, hearing of our Marcius' banishment. 
 Thrusts forth his horns again into the world : 
 Which were inshell'd when Marcius stood for Rome, 
 And durst not once peep out. (iv. vi. 42.) 
 
 This, though of course an understatement, for in 
 point of fact Aufidius did not wait for Marcius' 
 banishment, is at any rate the least that was to be 
 expected. But the tribunes, with a sanguine and 
 criminal shortsightedness that suggests a distin- 
 guished pair of British politicians in our own day, 
 refuse to admit as conceivable a fact the likelihood 
 of which the circumstances of the case and recent 
 experience avouch. 
 
 Brutus. It cannot be 
 The Volsces dare break with us. 
 
 Menenius. Cannot be ! 
 
 We have record that very well it can, 
 And three examples of the like have been 
 Within my age. (iv. vi. 47.) 
 
 Besides, the Volscians were not the only jealous 
 neighbours the young republic had to guard herself 
 against. 
 
 But their reception of the unwelcome tidings is 
 a new instance of the ignoble strain in the tribunes' 
 nature. The first effect they have on Brutus is to 
 enrage him against the informant : " Go see this 
 rumourer whipp'd"; and Sicinius seconds the 
 humane direction, but improves on it that the public 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 541 
 
 may be duly cautioned against telling unpalatable 
 truths : " Go whip him 'fore the people's eyes." 
 Menenius may well remonstrate : 
 
 Reason with the fellow, 
 Before you punish him, where he heard this. 
 Lest you shall chance to whip your information. 
 And beat the messenger who bids beware 
 Of what is to be dreaded. (iv. vi. 51.) 
 
 This is not merely an illustration of their habitual 
 touchiness and irritability at whatever thwarts them. 
 Once more we think of the words of the messenger 
 in Antony and Cleopatra when he fears to report 
 the worst : " The nature of bad news infects the 
 teller"; and of Antony's reply: "When it concerns 
 the fool and coward." There is beyond doubt 
 more than a spice of folly and cowardice in the self- 
 important quidnuncs, with their purblind temerity 
 and shifty meanness. We are very glad to hear in 
 the end of Brutus being mishandled by the mob and 
 very sorry that Sicinius goes free : but at least he 
 has had his dose of alarm and mortification, and in 
 the future his influence will be gone ; which is well. 
 Yet they are not bad men. They are very like the 
 majority of the citizens of Great and Greater Britain, 
 and no inconsiderable portion of those who govern 
 the Empire and its members. They have a certain 
 amount of principle, shrewdness, and, if the test of 
 misfortune comes, even of proper feeling. They 
 would have made very worthy aldermen of a small 
 municipality. But measured against the greatness 
 of Rome, or even of Coriolanus, they are as gnats to 
 the lion. 
 
 The picture, then, of the people and its elect is not 
 flattering if we follow it in detail, but a similar 
 examination is hardly more favourable to the nobles. 
 Of course their behaviour is to a certain extent 
 accounted for by the peculiarity of their position. 
 Hitherto, since the expulsion of the kings, the 
 
542 CORIOLANUS 
 
 " honoured number " have had it all their own way in 
 the state, and Shakespeare imputes no blame to their 
 management, unless it be their excessive arrogance 
 towards the populace they rule and employ. But 
 now bad times have made that populace seditious, 
 and they have discovered that, rightly or wrongly, 
 they must give it a share of the power. Their pride, 
 their traditions, the consciousness of their faculty 
 for government, pull them one way, the necessities 
 of the case pull them another. A dominant caste is 
 placed in a false position when it is forced to capitu- 
 late to assailants for whom it feels an unreasonable 
 contempt and a reasonable mistrust. When we 
 consider the difficulties of the situation and the 
 broad results, the patricians, as we saw, come off 
 respectably enough, and we must give them credit 
 for circumspection, adaptability, and civic cohesion. 
 But in detail their attitude betrays the uncertainty 
 and weakness that cannot but ensue in a man or a 
 body of men when there is a conflict between con- 
 viction and expediency, and an attempt to obey 
 them both. Their scorn of the plebeians, followed 
 by the very brief effort for their champion and very 
 prompt acquiescence in his expatriation, makes an 
 unpleasant impression ; and this is more noticeable 
 in the drama than in the biography. Plutarch 
 repeatedly states that they disagreed among them- 
 selves, many of them sympathising with the popular 
 demands and only the younger men favouring the 
 harsh and reactionary views of Coriolanus.-' This 
 distinction has left no trace in the play except in the 
 
 ' See especially the passage that describes his behaviour after he 
 has been rejected for the consulship : " Coriolanus went home to his 
 house, full fraighted with spite and malice against the people, being 
 accompanied with all the lustiest young gentlemen, whose mindes. 
 were nobly bent, as those that came of noble race, and commonly 
 used for to foUowe and honour him. But then specially they floct 
 about him, and kept him companie, to his muche harme ; for they dyd 
 but kyndle and inflame his choUer more and more, being sorie with 
 him for the injurie the people offred him." 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 543 
 
 stage-direction which represents him as departing 
 into exile escorted to the gates by his friends, his 
 relatives, and " the young nobility of Rome " : but 
 otherwise Shakespeare makes no use of it. Corio- 
 lanus is mouthpiece for the ideals not of heedless 
 youth but of all the aristocracy, though most of them 
 may be more politic than he and not so frank. 
 Nevertheless his presuppositions are theirs, and 
 therefore they seem temporisers and poltroons 
 beside their outspoken advocate. Indeed, through 
 Menenius, they admit they have been to blame : 
 
 We loved him ; but, like beasts 
 And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters, 
 Who did hoot him out o' the city. (iv. vi. i2i.) 
 
 Nor do they act very vigorously when destruction 
 threatens Rome. They do not indeed seek to 
 separate their cause from that of the whole com- 
 munity and make terms with their former friend 
 for their own class. Beyond some naturally bitter 
 gibes at the "clusters" and their leaders, not 
 unaccompanied for the rest by bitter outbursts 
 against themselves, there is no trace of the dissen- 
 sions with the people which Plutarch describes. 
 But they have no thought of organising any attempt 
 at resistance. True, there are circumstances in 
 Shakespeare that account for this supineness as 
 it is not explained in his authority. It is partly 
 due to the feeling that they are in the wrong, 
 which Shakespeare in a much greater degree than 
 Plutarch attributes to them. As their own words 
 show : 
 
 Cominius. For his best friends, if they 
 
 Should say, " Be good to Rome," they charged him even 
 As those should do that had deserved his hate. 
 And therein show'd like enemies. 
 
 Menenius. 'Tis true : 
 
 If he were putting to my house the brand 
 That should consume it, I have not the face 
 To say, ''Beseech you, cease." (iv. vi. iii.) 
 
544 CORIOLANUS 
 
 And again : 
 
 If he could burn us all into one coal, 
 
 We have deserved it. (iv. vi. 137.) 
 
 Partly, too, there has been no time for preparation, 
 for, as we have seen, the invasion is a bolt from the 
 blue, and after it has first struck there is no con- 
 venient truce of thirty days before its recurrence. 
 Entreaty, says Sicinius, might help 
 
 More than the instant army we can make; (v. i. 37.) 
 
 and it is the opinion of all. 
 
 Partly, too, the inertness of Rome is a tribute to 
 the greatness of the adversary, which is enhanced 
 beyond the hyperboles of Plutarch, and with which 
 to inspire them the Volscians are irresistible. 
 
 He. is their god : he leads them like a thing 
 
 Made by some other deity than nature 
 
 That shapes men better : and they follow him, 
 
 Against us brats, with no less confidence 
 
 Than boys pursuing summer butterflies. 
 
 Or butchers killing flies. (iv. vi. 90.) 
 
 But contrition, unpreparedness, despair of success 
 hardly excuse the palsy of incompetence into which 
 this proud aristocracy has now fallen. It does not 
 of course sink so low as in Plutarch. Of the first 
 of the repeated deputations he narrates : 
 
 The ambassadours that were sent, were Martius familliar 
 friendes and acquaintaunce, who looked at the least for a 
 curteous welcome of him, as of their familliar friende and 
 kyiiesman. Howbeit they founde nothing lesse. For at their 
 comming, they were brought through the campe, to the place 
 where he was set in his chayer of state, with a marvelous and 
 unspeakable majestie, having the chiefest men of the Volsces 
 about him : so he commaunded them to declare openly the 
 cause of their comming. Which they delivered in the most 
 humble and lowly wordes they possiblie could devise, and 
 with all modest countenaunce and behaviour agreeable for 
 the same. When they had done their message; for the 
 injurie they had done him, he aunswered them very hottely 
 and in great choller. 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 545 
 
 This is evidently the foundation of the inter- 
 views with Cominius and Menenius respectively, 
 and it is worth while noting the points of differ- 
 ence. 
 
 In the first place single individuals are substituted 
 for an unspecified number. Just in the same way 
 the final deputation consists of " Virgilia, Volumnia, 
 leading young Marcius, Valeria, and Attendants," 
 without any of "all the other Romaine Ladies" 
 that accompany them in Plutarch. In the last case 
 it is the members and the friend of Coriolanus' 
 family, in the previous cases it is his sworn comrade 
 Cominius and his idolatrous admirer Menenius who 
 make the appeal : and this at once gives their 
 intercessions more of a personal and less of a public 
 character. One result of this with which we are not 
 now concerned, is that the rigour of Coriolanus' first 
 two answers is considerably heightened ; but at 
 present it is more important to observe that the 
 impression of a formal embassy is avoided. Com- 
 inius and Menenius strike us less as delegates from 
 the Roman state, than as private Romans who may 
 suppose that their persuasions will have special 
 influence with their friend. There is nothing to 
 indicate that Cominius was official envoy of the 
 republic, and we know that Menenius went without 
 any authorisation, in compliance with the request 
 made by Sicinius and Brutus in the street. Shake- 
 speare's senate is spared the ignominy of the recurring 
 supplications to which Plutarch's senate condescends. 
 If these are not altogether suppressed, the references 
 to them are very faint and vague. 
 
 And also the suppliants bear themselves more 
 worthily. Menenius is far from employing "the 
 most humble and lowly wordes " that could possibly 
 be devised or " the modest countenaunce and be- 
 haviour agreeable for the same." Cominius indeed 
 tells how at the close of the interview, we may 
 
 2 M 
 
546 CORIOLANUS 
 
 suppose as a last resort, he "kneeled before" 
 Coriolanus, but there was no more loss of dignity 
 in his doing so, consul and general though he had 
 been, than there was afterwards in Volumnia's doing 
 the same ; and his words as he repeats them do not 
 show any lack of self-respect. 
 
 Still the inactivity, the helplessness, the want of 
 n^rve in the Roman nobles in the hour of need are 
 somewhat pitiful. It was the time to justify their 
 higher position by higher patriotism, resourceful- 
 ness and courage. They do not make the slightest 
 effort to do so. Remorse for their desertion of 
 Coriolanug need not have lamed their energies, 
 since now they would be confronting him not for 
 themselves but for the state. Even their " instant 
 armies " might do something if commanded and 
 inspired by devoted captains. At the worst they 
 could lead their fellow-citizens to an heroic death. 
 One cannot help feeling that if a Coriolanus, or 
 anyone with a tithe of his spirit, had been among 
 them, things would have been very different. But 
 while they retain much of the old caste pride, they 
 have lost much of the old caste efficiency. 
 
 Thus Shakespeare, when he comes to the concrete, 
 views with some severity both the popular and the 
 senatorial party. They show themselves virulent and 
 acrimonious in their relations with each other, yet 
 inconsequent even in their virulence and acrimony : 
 then, -after having respectively enforced and permitted 
 the banishment of their chief defender, they are 
 ready to succumb to him without a blow when, 
 it has well been said, he returns not even as an 
 ^migrd using foreign aid to restore the privileges 
 of his own order and the old regime, but as a 
 barbarian bringing the national foe to exterminate 
 the state and all its members. And we cannot 
 help asking : Is this an adequate representation of 
 the young republic that was ere long to become 
 
THE SITUATION IN ROME 547 
 
 the mistress of the world ? We must look steadily 
 at those general aspects of the story which we have 
 noticed above, as well as at the doings of the persons 
 and parties amidst which Coriolanus is set, if we 
 would get the total effect of the play. T^en it 
 produces something of the feeling which prompted 
 Heine's description of the ancient Romans : 
 
 They were not great men, but through their position they 
 were greater than the other children of earth, for they stood 
 on Rome. Immediately they came down from the Seven 
 Hills, they were small. ... As the Greek is great through 
 the idea of Art, the Hebrew through the idea of one most 
 holy God ; so the Romans are great through the idea of their 
 eternal Rome ; great, wheresoever they have fought, written 
 or builded in the inspiration of this idea. The greater 
 Rome grew, the more this idea dilated : the individual lost 
 himself in it : the great men who remain eminent are borne 
 up by this idea, and it makes the littleness of the little men 
 more pronounced.^ 
 
 The Idea of Rome ! It is the triumph of that which 
 yields the promise and evidence of better things that 
 the final situation contains. The titanic intolerance 
 of Coriolanus after being expelled by fear and hatred 
 from within, has threatened destruction from without, 
 and the threat has been averted. The presumptuous 
 intolerance of the demagogues, after imperilling the 
 state, has been discredited by its results, and their 
 authority is destroyed. The Idea of Rome in the 
 patriotism of Volumnia has led to her self-conquest 
 and the conquest of her son, and is acclaimed by all 
 alike. Thus we have borne in upon us a feeling of 
 the majesty and omnipotence of the Eternal City, 
 and we understand how it not only inspires and 
 informs the units that compose it, but stands out 
 aloft and apart from its faulty representatives as a 
 kind of mortal deity that overrules their doings to 
 its own ends, and against which their cavilling and 
 
 ^Reisebilder, 2ter Theil ; " Italian, Reise nach Genua," Cap. xxiv. 
 
548 CORIOLANUS 
 
 opposition are vain. What Menenius says to the 
 rioters appHes to all dissentients : 
 
 You may as well 
 Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them 
 Against the Roman state, whose course will on 
 The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs 
 Of more strong link asunder than can ever 
 Appear in your impediment. (i. i. 69.) 
 
 This, then, is the background against which are 
 grouped with more or less prominence, as their im- 
 portance requires, Coriolanus' family, his associates, 
 his rival, round the central figure of the hero 
 himself. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE KINSFOLK AND FRIENDS OF CORIOLANUS 
 
 Of the subordinate persons, by far the most im- 
 posing and influential is Volumnia, the great-hearted 
 mother, the patrician lady, the Roman matron. The 
 passion of maternity, whether interpreted as maternal 
 love or as maternal pride, penetrates her nature to 
 the core, not, however, to melt but to harden it. In 
 her son's existence she at first seems literally wrapped 
 up, and she implies that devotion to him rather than 
 to her dead husband has kept her from forming new 
 ties : 
 
 Thou hast never in thy life 
 Show'd thy dear mother any courtesy. 
 When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood. 
 Has cluck'd thee to the wars and safely home, 
 Loaden with honour. (v. iii. i6o.) 
 
 Marcius is thus the only son of his mother and she 
 a widow ; but these reminiscences show how strictly 
 the tenderness, and still more the indulgence, usual 
 in such circumstances, have been banished from that 
 home. In Plutarch the boy seeks a military career 
 from his irresistible natural bent : 
 
 Martius. being more inclined to the warres, then any young 
 gentleman of his time : beganne from his Childehood to geve 
 him self to handle weapons, and daylie dyd exercise him 
 selfe therein. 
 
 In Shakespeare the direction and stimulus are much 
 
550 CORIOLANUS 
 
 I more directly attributed to his mother, and it is she 
 
 who first despatches him to the field. This she 
 
 I herself expressly states in her admonition to Virgilia: 
 
 Volumnia. I pray you, daughter, sing \ or express yourself 
 in a more comfortable sort : if my son were my husband, I 
 should freelier rejoice in that absence wherein he won honour, 
 than in the embracements of his bed where he would show 
 most love. When yet he was but tender-bodied and the only 
 son of my womb, when youth with comeliness plucked all 
 gaze his way, when for a day of kings' entreaties a mother 
 should not sell him an hour from her beholding, I, consider- 
 ing how honour would become such a person, that it was no 
 better than picture-like to hang by the wall, if renown made 
 it not stir, was pleased to let him seek danger where he was 
 like to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him ; from whence 
 he returned, his brows bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, 
 I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child 
 than now in first seeing he had proved himself a man. 
 
 Virgilia. But had he died in the business, madam j how 
 then? 
 
 Volumnia. Then his good report should have been my 
 son ; I therein would have found issue. Hear me profess 
 sincerely : had I a dozen sons, each in my love alike, and 
 none less dear than thine and my good Marcius, I had rather 
 had eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously 
 surfeit out of action. (i. iii. i.) 
 
 He is the object of her love because he is to be the 
 ideal which she adores. She trains him to all the 
 excellence she understands, and would have him a 
 captain of Rome's armies and a force in the state. 
 She has to the full the sentiment of noblesse oblige, 
 and is inspired by the same feeling which in Plutarch 
 moves Marcius to bid the patricians show that 
 
 they dyd not so muche passe the i)eople in power and riches 
 as they dyd exceede them in true nobilitie and valliantnes. 
 
 She is full of the virtues and prejudices of her class, 
 and, with the self-consciousness of an aristocrat, looks 
 from the plebs only for the obedience and approval 
 due to their betters. They are quite unqualified for 
 self-government or for the criticism of those above 
 
KINSFOLK AND FRIENDS 551 
 
 them. In comparison with the noble Coriolanus, 
 the people, whom she calls the rabble, are " cats " 
 (iv. ii, 34). Naturally she is tenacious of the 
 supremacy of her order, and would fain see it make 
 good its threatened privileges. She remonstrates 
 with her son for his contumacy : 
 
 I am in this, 
 Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles ; 
 And you will rather show our general louts 
 How you can frown than spend a fawn upon 'em, 
 For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard 
 Of what that want might ruin. (m. ii. 64.) 
 
 Her dream has been that Marcius shall be consul 
 to establish once more the power of the patricians. 
 When he enters in his great triumph from Corioli, 
 she exclaims in expectation of that result : 
 
 I have lived 
 To see inherited my very wishes, 
 And the buildings of my fancy : only 
 There's one thing wanting, which I doubt not but 
 Our Rome will cast upon thee. (11. i. 214.) 
 
 Yet she has one feeling that outweighs both her 
 maternal and her aristocratic instincts, and that is 
 devotion to her country. This is the first and last 
 and noblest thing in her. It is the basis and main- 
 spring of the training of her son ; she wishes him to 
 serve the fatherland. It is the basis and mainspring 
 of her patrician partisanship ; she honesdy believes 
 that the nobles alone are fit to steer Rome to safety 
 and honour. And to it she is willing to sacrifice the 
 two other grand interests of her life. When the call 
 comes she is ready for Rome, with its mechanics and 
 tribunes as well as its senators and patricians, to per- 
 suade her son to the step that will certainly imperil 
 and probably destroy him. It is public spirit of no 
 ordinary kind that makes such a nature disregard 
 the dearest ties of family and caste, and all personal 
 
552 CORIOLANUS 
 
 motives of love and vengeance, to intercede for the 
 city as a whole. But she puts her country first, and 
 her words show that she never even questions the 
 sacredness of its claim : 
 
 Thou know'st, great son, 
 The end of war's uncertain, but this certain, 
 That, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit 
 Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name, 
 Whose repetition will be dogg'd with curses ; 
 Whose chronicle thus writ : " The man was noble. 
 But with his last attempt he wiped it out : 
 Destroy'd his country, and his name remains 
 To the ensuing age abhorr'd." (v. iii. 140.) 
 
 She feels, as well she may, that she is basing her 
 plea on eternal right, and is willing to stake her 
 success on the irresistible truth of her argu- 
 ment. 
 
 Say my request's unjust, 
 nAnd spurn me back : but if it be not so. 
 Thou art not honest. (v. iii. 164.) 
 
 Such a woman is made to be the mother of heroes. 
 It is no wonder that she has bred that colossal tJber- 
 mensch, her son. But she has the defects of her 
 qualities. Her devotion is narrow in its intensity, 
 and in normal circumstances spares little recognition 
 or tolerance for those beyond its pale. Her con- 
 tempt for the plebeians is open and unrestrained. 
 She was wont, says Coriolanus, 
 
 To call them woollen vassals, things created 
 
 To buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads 
 
 In congregations, to yawn, be still and wonder. 
 
 When one but of my ordinance stood up 
 
 To speak of peace or war. (in. ii. 9.) 
 
 Even when trying to pacify her son, she cannot 
 bridle her own resentment. When he recklessly 
 cries of his opponents : " Let them hang ! " she 
 
KINSFOLK AND FRIENDS 553 
 
 instinctively approves : "Ay, and burn too."^ The 
 energy of her love of glory has nothing sentimental 
 about it, but often becomes savage and sanguinary. 
 She gloats over her robust imaginings of the fight : 
 
 Methinks I hear hither your husband's drum, 
 See him pluck Aufidius down by the hair, 
 As children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him : 
 Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus : 
 " Come on, you cowards ! you were got in fear, 
 Though you were born in Rome " : his bloody brow 
 With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes, 
 Like to a harvest-man that's tasked to mow 
 Or all or lose his hire. 
 
 Vtrgilia. His bloody brow ! O Jupiter, no blood ! 
 
 Volumnia. Away, you fool ! it more becomes a man 
 Than gilt his trophy : the breasts of Hecuba, 
 When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier 
 Than Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood 
 At Grecian sword, contemning. (i, iii.'32.) 
 
 And when she has heard the actual news, she trium- 
 phantly exclaims : 
 
 O, he is wounded; I thank the gods for't. (11. i. 133.) 
 
 As Kreyssig points out, even great-hearted mothers, 
 proud of their warrior sons, do not often like to dwell 
 so realistically on havoc and slaughter and blood. 
 But tenderness and humanity are alien to her nature. 
 When Valeria narrates how young Marcius tore in 
 pieces the butterfly, she interrupts with obvious satis- 
 faction: "One on's father's moods" (i. iii. 72). At 
 her hearth Coriolanus would not be taught much 
 kindliness for Volscians or plebeians or any other 
 of the lower animals. Indeed, her own relations with 
 her son depend on his reverence rather than on his 
 fondness. In the two collisions of their wills he 
 resists all her entreaties and endearments, but yields 
 in a moment to her anger and indignation. She 
 
 ' There is no authority for taking this most characteristic utterance 
 from Volumnia and assigning it to " a patrician " as some editions do. 
 
554 CORIOLANUS 
 
 beseeches him to submit to the judgment of the 
 people — all in vain till she loses patience : 
 
 At thy choice, then : 
 To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour 
 Than thou of them. Come all to ruin : let 
 Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear 
 Thy dangerous stoutness, for I mock at death 
 With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list. (iii. ii. 123.) 
 
 At this his efforts to propitiate her are almost 
 
 Pray, be content : 
 Mother, I am going to the market-place : 
 Chide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves, 
 Cog their hearts from them, and come home beloved 
 Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going. 
 
 (ill. ii. 130.) 
 
 Similarly, at the end, all argument and complaint, all 
 pressure on the affections of Coriolanus are with- 
 out avail, till she turns upon him with a violence for 
 which, as in the previous case, Shakespeare found 
 no authority in Plutarch : 
 
 Come, let us go : 
 This fellow had a Volscian to his mother ; 
 His wife is in Corioli, and his child 
 Like him by chance. Yet give us our dispatch ; 
 I am hush'd until our city be afire. 
 And then I'll speak a httle. (v. iii. 177.) 
 
 And the great warrior and rebel cannot bear her 
 rebuke. 
 
 These are instances both of the degree and the 
 manner in which Volumnia's forceful character in- 
 fluences her son. Indeed it is easy to see that for 
 good and evil he is what she has made him. She 
 is entitled to say : 
 
 Thou art my warrior : 
 I holp to frame thee. (v. iii. 62.) 
 
 And though elsewhere she puts it. 
 
 Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst from me, 
 
 But owe thy pride thyself; (iji. ii. 129.) 
 
KINSFOLK AND FRIENDS 555 
 
 the impartial onlooker cannot make the distinction. 
 He IS bone of her bone and blood of her blood ; and 
 all her master impulses reappear in him, though not 
 so happly conimmgled or in such beneficent propor- 
 tion. The joint operation is different and in some 
 respects opposite, but there is hardly a feature in 
 him that cannot be traced to its origin in Volumnfa 
 whether by heredity or education. This is just what 
 we might expect. Modern conjecture points to the 
 mother rather than the father as the source of will- 
 power and character in the offspring ; and in the 
 up-bringing of the boy Volumnia has had it all her 
 own way Plutarch, as we saw, in his simple fashion 
 notices this as a disadvantage : and though we may 
 be sure that Plutarch's insinuation of laxity could 
 never be breathed against Shakespeare's Volumnia 
 still she could not give her son more width and 
 flexibility than her own narrow and rigid ideals 
 enjoined. Moreover, her limitations when trans- 
 ferred to the larger sphere of his public efforts 
 would cramp and congest his powers, and displace 
 his interests. 
 
 Nor was there any other agency to divide the 
 young man's allegiance to his mother or to counter- 
 act or temper her authority. Generally the most 
 powerful rivals of home influence are the com- 
 panionship of friends, and the love that founds 
 a new home in marriage. But both of these 
 are either wanting in Coriolanus' life, or serve 
 only to deepen the impressions made on him by 
 Volumnia. 
 
 If, for example, we consider the relation of friend- 
 ship, we cannot but notice that Shakespeare gives 
 him no intimate of his own years. A French' 
 tragedian would infallibly have placed by his side 
 the figure of a confidant. Shakespeare was dis- 
 pensed from the necessity by the freer usage of the 
 Elizabethan stage and was at liberty to follow out 
 
556 CORIOLANUS 
 
 the hints which he found in Plutarch. Marcius was 
 
 churlishe, uncivill, and altogether unfit for any mans conver- 
 sation. . . . They could not be acquainted with him, as one 
 cittizen useth to be with another in the cittie. His behaviour 
 was so unpleasaunt to them, by reason of a certaine insolent 
 and Sterne manner he had, which bicause it was to lordly, 
 was disliked. 
 
 So in Shakespeare he has no personal relations with 
 any of the younger generation, even their resort 
 to him as their congenial leader surviving, as has 
 already been pointed out, only in the desiccated 
 phrase of a stage direction ; and his only associates 
 are old or elderly men like Titus Lartius, the 
 Consul Cominius, and Menenius Agrippa. What 
 sort of antidote could they supply against his 
 mother's intolerant virtue ? As Shakespeare con- 
 ceives them, they respectively follow in Marcius' wake, 
 or are powerless to change and check his course, or 
 even urge him forward. 
 
 Take Lartius, whom Shakespeare has drawn in 
 a few rapid and vigorous strokes. He is old and 
 stiff, but ready if need be to lean on one crutch and 
 fight with the other, prompt to take a sporting 
 wager, and, when he wins, eager to remit the stake 
 in his admiration for the noble youngster, to whom 
 with all his years he grants priority, whom on his 
 supposed death he laments as an irreplaceable jewel, 
 whom he hails as the living force that dwells within 
 the trappings of their armament. Clearly from this 
 cheery old fighting man, with his reverential en- 
 thusiasm for Marcius' fighting powers in voice, looks 
 and blows, we need not expect much correction of 
 Marcius' restiveness at the civic curb. 
 
 Cominius would seem more likely to prove a 
 fitting Mentor, for to his love and esteem he adds 
 discretion. In Shakespeare, though he "has years 
 upon him," he is the avowed friend and comrade- 
 in-arms of the younger man ; the brave and prudent 
 
KINSFOLK AND FRIENDS 557 
 
 general, "neither foolish in his stands, nor cowardly 
 in retire " ; who, perhaps from seniority, holds the 
 position to which the other might aspire, but who 
 confidently appeals to his promise of service. For 
 their mutual affection is untouched by jealousy, 
 and Cominius not only extols his heroism in the 
 camp, but is his warmest advocate in the Senate. 
 He resents the citizens' fickleness and the tribunes' 
 trickery at the election as unworthy of Rome as well 
 as insulting to her hero, and is indignant at the 
 attempt to arrest Coriolanus ; but he abhors civil 
 brawls, and, just as in the field so in the city, he 
 bows to "odds beyond arithmetic," and considers 
 that 
 
 Manhood is call'd foolery, when it stands 
 
 Against a falling fabric. (iii. i. 246.) 
 
 So he counsels Marcius' withdrawal from the hostile 
 mob, and afterwards dispassionately states the three 
 courses open to him, with some hesitation sanction- 
 ing the method of compromise if the hothead can 
 bring himself to give it fair play. When his doubts 
 prove true, he interposes first with a remonstrance 
 to his friend, and then with a solemn appeal to 
 the people ; and though in neither case is he allowed 
 to finish, his efforts do not flag. He wishes to 
 accompany the exile for a month, and maintain a 
 correspondence with him and have everything in 
 readiness for his recall. -And if, when the invasion 
 takes place, he rails at those who have brought 
 about the calamity, that does not hinder him from 
 his vain but zealous a.ttempt at intercession. Alto- 
 gether a sagacious, loyal, generous, but somewhat 
 ineffective character, who wins our respect rather 
 for what he essays than for what he achieves ; for 
 he brings nothing to a successful issue. With the 
 best will in the world, which he has, and with more 
 freedom from class prejudice than can in point of 
 
558 CORIOLANUS 
 
 fact be attributed to him, such an one could do little 
 to tame or bridle his friend. 
 
 There remains Menenius, with his much more 
 strongly marked character, and with the fuller op- 
 portunities that a close intimacy could procure. 
 Were Marcius and he of the same flesh and blood, 
 their affection could hardly be greater. When 
 debating with himself whether to try his mediation, 
 this thought encourages the old man : "He call'd 
 me father" (v. i. 3). He tells the Volscian sentinel: 
 
 You shall perceive that a Jack guardant cannot office me 
 from my son Coriolanus. (v. ii. 67.) 
 
 And when they meet, he hails him : 
 
 The glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy particular 
 prosperity, and love thee no worse than thy old father Men- 
 enius does ! O, my son, my son ! (v. ii. 72.) 
 
 Nor are these statements idle brags ; they are borne 
 out by Coriolanus' own words when he dismisses 
 him : 
 
 For I loved thee, 
 Take this along ; I writ it for thy sake, [ Gives a letter 
 And would have sent it. (v. ii. 95.) 
 
 And again he tells Aufidius : 
 
 This last old man. 
 Whom with a crack'd heart I have sent to Rome, 
 Loved me above the measure of a father ; 
 Nay, godded me, indeed. (v. iii. 8.) 
 
 But the last expression may give an explanation 
 both of the young man's condescension to fondness 
 and of the unprofitableness of Menenius' influence. 
 He is too much dazzled by the glories of his splendid 
 adoptive son. His enthusiasm knows no bounds. 
 No lover is more enraptured at receiving a billet 
 doux from his mistress, than is the old man when the 
 youth on whom he dotes, deigns to write to him. 
 
KINSFOLK AND FRIENDS 559 
 
 A letter for me! it gives me an estate of seven years' 
 health ; m which time I will make a lip at the physician ; the 
 most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic, and, 
 to this preservative, of no better report than a horse-drench. 
 
 (II. i. 125.) 
 He may occasionally interpose a mild hint of re- 
 monstrance against Marcius' vehemence, but it is 
 solely on the ground of expediency, not at all on the 
 ground of principle ; and on the whole he belongs to 
 that not very edifying class of devotees who can say 
 of a friend, 
 
 Whate'er he does seems well done unto me. 
 
 Of which he himself is not altogether unaware. He 
 tells the Volscian sentinel : 
 
 I tell thee, fellow, 
 Thy general is my lover : I have been 
 The book of his good acts, whence men have read 
 His fame unparallel'd, haply amplified : 
 For I have ever verified my friends. 
 Of whom he's chief, with all the size that verity 
 Would without lapsing suffer : nay, sometimes, 
 Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground, 
 I have tumbled past the throw ; and in his praise 
 Have almost stamp'd the leasing. (v. ii. 13.) 
 
 This attitude, then, accounts for Coriolanus' pre- 
 dilection for the old senator, and also reduces the 
 value of the relation as an educative agency. Youth- 
 ful recklessness will meet with no inconvenient 
 thwarting, i.e. with no salutary rebuke, from such 
 an adorer. But of course in the blindest friendship 
 there is always the unconscious influence and criti- 
 cism of the admirer's own walk and conversation. 
 And at first sight it might seem that this influence 
 and criticism M enenius was well fitted to supply. H e, 
 too, like Volumnia, puts Rome before all other con- 
 siderations, as is shown not only by his undertaking 
 the mission to the Volscian camp, but by his action 
 all through the drama. He is ever willing to play 
 the part of mediator. Now we find him soothing 
 
56o CORIOLANUS 
 
 the people, now we find him soothing Coriolanus. 
 When the banishment is an accomplished fact, he 
 endeavours to mitigate the outbursts of Volumnia ; 
 and Sicinius bears witness : 
 
 O, he is grovm most kind of late. (iv. vi. ii.) 
 
 During all the tumult of the election and the dmeute 
 he keeps his head and his heart ; for he is inspired 
 by the right civic feeling that there must be no civil 
 war. 
 
 Proceed by process ; 
 Lest parties, as he is. beloved, break out, 
 And sack great Rome with Romans. (in. i. 314-) 
 
 And with this patriotism, partly as its result, he 
 combines singular moderation, at least in principle 
 and thought, if not in language. He is always 
 ready to commend and accept compromises. He 
 says to the tribune. 
 
 Be that you seem, truly your country's friend, 
 
 And temperately proceed to what you would 
 
 Thus violently redress. (iii. i. 218.) 
 
 On the other hand, when Marcius draws he sees the 
 mistake and interposes : " Down with that sword " 
 (hi. i. 226); and only when, the tribunes persist in 
 their attack does he himself resort to force, which, 
 however, he is glad to abandon at the first opportunity. 
 And this moderation comes the more easily to him 
 that he has a real kindliness even for the plebeians. 
 It is assuredly no small compliment that at the very 
 height of the popular violence this patrician and 
 senator, the known and avowed friend of Coriolanus, 
 should be chosen by the tribunes themselves as their 
 own delegate : 
 
 Noble Menenius, 
 Be you then as the people's officer. (ni. i. 329.) 
 
 This confirms the testimony given him by the First 
 Citizen in the opening scene : " He's one honest 
 
KINSFOLK AND FRIENDS 561 
 
 enough " (i. i. 54) ; and the Second Citizen describes 
 him as 
 
 Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved 
 the people. (i. i. 52.) 
 
 He has indeed a sympathy with them, that shows 
 itself in the russet and kersey of his speech. The 
 haughty Coriolanus despises the household words of 
 the common folk, and cites them only to ridicule 
 them, but Menenius' phrases of their own accord 
 run to the homespun and proverbial. He addresses 
 the obtrusive citizen : " You, the great toe of this 
 assembly" (i. i. 159). The dissension at Rome is a 
 rent that " must be patch'd with cloth of any colour " 
 (in. i. 252). Coriolanus' rough words he excuses on 
 the ground that he is 
 
 ill school'd 
 In bolted language : meal and bran together 
 He throws without distinction. (ni. i. 321.) 
 
 He figures the relentlessness of the returned exile 
 as "yon coign o' the Capitol, yon corner-stone" 
 (v. iv. i), and is at no loss for illustrations of the 
 change that has come over the outcast : 
 
 There is a diflferency between a grub and a butterfly, yet 
 your butterfly was a grub. (v. iv. 11.) 
 
 And with similes for Coriolanus* present temper he 
 positively overflows : 
 
 He no more remembers his mother now than an eight- 
 year-old horse. The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes. 
 
 (v. iv. 16.) 
 
 There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a 
 male tiger. (v. iv. 29.) 
 
 All his thoughts clothe themselves in the pat, familiar 
 image, and this is no doubt a great help to him in 
 persuading his auditors, for which he has an undeni- 
 able talent. His famous apologue, besides being a 
 masterpiece in its kind, worthy of La Fontaine at 
 his best, completely answers its immediate purpose ; 
 
 2 N 
 
562 CORIOLANUS 
 
 and in the later scene he is able to lull the storm 
 that Coriolanus and the tribunes have raised, and 
 obtain from the infuriated demagogues what are in 
 some sort favourable terms. But he is assisted in 
 this by his genuine joviality and bonhomie. He is 
 one of those people who permit themselves a little 
 indulgence that we hardly blame, for it is only one 
 side of their pervasive good nature. Menenius is 
 in truth something of a belly-god and wine-bibber. 
 When he hears news of Marcius he promptly decides 
 how to celebrate the occasion : 
 
 I will make my very house reel to-night ; (ii. i. 121.) 
 
 and he has already confessed that he is known to be 
 
 one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying 
 Tiber in't ; . . . one that converses more with the buttock 
 of the night than with the forehead of the morning. 
 
 (11. i. 52 and 56.) 
 
 It is almost comic to hear him consoling Volumnia 
 on her son's banishment when she moves off to 
 lament "in anger, Juno-like," with an invitation: 
 "You'll sup with me?" (iv. ii. 49). And wholly 
 comic is his explanation of Cominius' rebuff by 
 Coriolanus, an explanation suggested no doubt by 
 subjective considerations : 
 
 He was not taken well ; he had not dined : 
 
 The veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then 
 
 We pout upon the morning, are unapt 
 
 To give or to forgive ; but when we have stufPd 
 
 These pipes and these conveyances of the blood 
 
 With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls 
 
 Than in our priest-like fasts ; therefore I'll watch him 
 
 Till he be dieted to my request. 
 
 And then I'll set upon him. (v. i. 50.) 
 
 But the worthy bon-vivant is thoroughly in earnest, 
 and in the crisis of his altercation with the sentinel 
 harks back to this key of the position, as he supposes 
 it to be : 
 
 Has he dined, canst thou tell ? for I would not speak with 
 him till after dinner. (v. ii. 36.) 
 
KINSFOLK AND FRIENDS 563 
 
 All these, however, are very human weaknesses, that 
 sort well with the geniality of the man, and, just 
 because they are very human weaknesses, might 
 have a wholesome rather than a prejudicial effect 
 on the overstrained tensity of Marcius. . So far then, 
 despite the excessive and uncritical in Menenius' 
 love, his patriotism, his moderation, his popular 
 bent, commended by his persuasive tongue and 
 companionable ways, might tend to supplement the 
 defects and transcend the limitations of Volumnia's 
 training. But Menenius has other qualities akin to, 
 or associated with, those that we have discussed, 
 which would have a more questionable and not less 
 decisive influence. He admits that he is 
 
 said to be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint. 
 
 ("■ i- S3) 
 
 That is, he neglects the wise counsel, " Hear the 
 other side," and jumps to his conclusion at once. 
 This is quite in keeping with the partiality that 
 makes him magnify the virtues of his friends, 
 and with his assumption that, since his own inter- 
 cession has failed, that of Volumnia can have no 
 effect. He prejudges, in other words he is pre- 
 judiced. We do not have any instance of this in 
 his acts, but we have many in his unconsidered 
 sayings, that, as he imagines, are to have no conse- 
 quence beyond the moment. 
 
 Then he goes on to confess that he has the 
 reputation of being "hasty and tinder-like upon too 
 trivial motion" (11. i. 55), which means that he loses 
 patience and fires up without adequate ground ; and 
 of this too we have ample evidence. He is wonder- 
 fully forbearing and longsuffering if matters df any 
 moment are at stake, but if he has carried his point, 
 or if there is nothing to gain and nothing to lose, he 
 rails and mocks in Coriolanus' own peculiar vein. 
 Thus, when he has convinced the mob, he feels free 
 
564 CORIOLANUS 
 
 to make the ringleader his butt. When the tribunes 
 profess to "know him," that is, to understand his 
 character, he overwhelms them with peppery banter. 
 When the news of Coriolanus' invasion arrives, in 
 unrestrained indignation he upbraids the people and 
 their blind guides with their imbecility. But it will 
 be observed that no harm ever comes from any of 
 these ebullitions. They have no after-effects. If 
 something has to be done, no one could be more 
 sagacious and conciliatory than Menenius. Dr. 
 Johnson said of him, perhaps more in exercise of 
 his right as a sturdy old Tory to twit those in high 
 places, than in deliberate appreciation of the facts : 
 " Shakespeare wanted a buffoon and he went to the 
 Senate House for that with which the Senate House 
 would certainly have supplied him." Similarly, in 
 the play Brutus is rash enough to answer him back : 
 
 Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter 
 giber for the table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol. 
 
 (II. i. 90.) 
 
 But Menenius deserves neither taunt. It was no 
 parliamentary wag or social lampooner whom the 
 Senate entrusted with the task of addressing the 
 rioters, or who persuaded the triumphant tribunes 
 to a compromise. The charges nevertheless have a 
 foundation in so far that Menenius, partly in jest, 
 partly in irritation, gives his tongue rein unless he 
 sees reason to curb it, and allows his choleric 
 impulses full expression. These random ejaculations 
 are taken at their proper value by himself and 
 others. As he says : 
 
 What I think I utter, and spend my malice in my breath. 
 
 (n. i. 58-) 
 He is obviously one of those estimable and 
 deservedly popular people whose deliberate views 
 are just and penetrating, and who are gifted with 
 the power of commending them, but who are none 
 
■KINSFOLK AND FRIENDS 565 
 
 the less liked because they do not always think it 
 necessary to have themselves in hand, but let 
 themselves go on the full career of their own half- 
 jocular, half-serious likes and dislikes, when for the 
 moment they are free from graver responsibilities. 
 
 Now this of itself was no very good example fdr 
 Coriolanus. He adopts Menenius' headlong frank- 
 ness, but without Menenius' tacit presupposition of 
 good-humoured hyperbole. He utters what he 
 thinks but he does not spend his malice in his 
 breath. His friend' would do nothing to teach him 
 restraint and reserve, but would rather, if he in- 
 fluenced him at all, influence him to surcharge his 
 invectives and double-barb his flouts. 
 
 But not only so. These instinctive likes and 
 dislikes, which the old patrician could not but feel 
 but which he never allowed to interfere with his 
 practical policy, were the guiding principles of his 
 less cautious friend. It must be admitted that there 
 is no abuse of the citizens or their officers to which 
 Coriolanus gives vent, but can be paralleled with 
 something as strong from the mouth of Menenius. 
 This worthy senior who hath always loved the 
 people, turns from the tribunes with the insult : 
 
 God-den to your worships : more of your conversation 
 would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly 
 plebeians. (11. i. 103.) 
 
 ^ In this mood he asks them in regard to Coriolanus : 
 
 Your multiplying spawn how can he flatter — 
 
 That's thousand to one good one ? (ii. ii. 82.) 
 
 He has to the full the aristocratic loathing for the 
 uncleanly populace : You are they 
 
 That made the air unwholesome, when you cast 
 
 Your stinking greasy caps in hooting at 
 
 Coriolanus' exile. (iv. vi. 129.) 
 
 You are the musty chaff: and you are smelt 
 
 Above the moon. (v. i. 31.) 
 
566 CORIOLANUS 
 
 These are His authentic innate prejudices that .he 
 controls and represses by the help of his reason and 
 his patriotism, when the emergency requires : but 
 they are there ; and Jie would be no more careful to 
 restrain them in his familiar. circle than a squatter at 
 his club feels called upon to restrain his opinions 
 about the Labour Party, though he may be very 
 proud of Australia, and a very kindly master, and 
 though he would neither publish them in an election 
 address nor perhaps justify them in his serious 
 moments to himself. And this, we may suppose, 
 was the sort of conversation Marcius would hear as 
 a lad from his old friend. There would be little in 
 it to modify the pride and prejudice he derived from 
 his mother. 
 
 And lastly, coming to the other possible corrective, 
 would his wife be likely to soften the asperities of 
 temper and opinion that were his by nature and by 
 second nature ? At first we might say Yes. She 
 takes comparatively little pleasure in the brilliance 
 of his career and is more concerned for his life than 
 for his glory. When Volumnia recalls how she sent 
 him forth as a lad to win honour, Virgilia's heart 
 pictures his possible death, and how would that have 
 been compensated ? For she loves in the first place 
 not the hero but the husband, and her love makes 
 her timorous. She has none of her mother-in-law's 
 assurance that his prowess is without match and 
 beyond comparison. When " wondrous things " are 
 told of him how characteristic are their respective 
 comments : 
 
 Virgilia. The gods grant them true ! 
 
 Volumnia. True! pow, wow. (ii. i. 154.) 
 
 How differently they feel about his contest with his 
 rival ; 
 
 Virgilia. Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius ! 
 Volumnia. He'll beat Aufidius' head below his knee 
 And tread upon his neck. (i. iii. 48.) 
 
KINSFOLK AND FRIENDS 567 
 
 So she shrinks from the thoughts of blood anc 
 wounds over which Volumnia gloats, and trembles 
 at the dangers of the campaign. Devoured by 
 suspense, she is in no mood to meet the ordinary 
 social claims on her rank and sex, but shuts herseli 
 up within her four walls, and wears out the time) 
 over household tasks. Her seclusion, and the 
 attempts to withdraw her from it, must not be 
 misunderstood. They have sometimes been taken 
 as pictures of domestic narrow-mindedness on the 
 one hand, and callous frivolity on the other. But 
 frivolity is unthinkable in Volumnia; we may be' 
 sure she would never advise or do anything 
 unbefitting the Roman matron. And it is quite 
 opposed to the impression Valeria produces; we 
 may be sure she would never suggest it. In 
 Plutarch's story it is she who proposes and urges the 
 deputation of women to Coriolanus, and though 
 Shakespeare, to suit his own purpose, transfers by 
 implication the credit of this to Volumnia, Plutarch's 
 statement was enough to prevent him from trans- 
 forming the true authoress of the idea into the 
 fashionable gadabout that some critics have alleged 
 her to be. On the contrary, with him she calls forth 
 the most purely poetical passage in the whole play, 
 -and she does so by the vestal dignity and severity of 
 her character. Coriolanus greets her in the camp : 
 
 The noble sister of Publicola, 
 The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle 
 That's curdied by the frost of purest snow 
 And hangs on Dian's temple : dear Valeria ! 
 
 (v. iii. 65.) 
 
 The woman to whom this splendid compliment is 
 paid by one who never speaks otherwise than he 
 thinks, is assuredly no more obnoxious than 
 Volumnia herself to the charge of levity. They are 
 both great high-hearted Roman ladies who do not 
 let their private or public solicitudes interfere with 
 
568 CORIOLANUS 
 
 their customary social routine, and Valeria visits 
 
 her friend to cheer her in her anxiety, as she would 
 
 have her, in turn, visit and comfort their common 
 
 acquaintance. But Virgilia is cast in a gentler 
 
 mould ; though neither is she lacking in character, 
 
 spirit and magnanimity. Of course she is not an 
 
 aggressive woman, and she feels that the home is 
 
 [the place for her. She speaks seldom, and when 
 
 Vshe does her words are few. It is typical that she 
 
 [greets her husband when he returns a victor with 
 
 ' no articulate welcome, but with her more eloquent 
 
 tears. He addresses her in half humorous, half 
 
 tender reproach : 
 
 My gracious silence, hail ! 
 Wouldst thou have laugh'd had I come cofiSn'd home. 
 That weep'st to see me triumph? (ii. i. 192.) 
 
 A wonderful touch that comes from a wonderful 
 insight. It may well be asked, as it has been asked, 
 how Shakespeare knew that Virgilia's heart was too 
 full for words. 
 
 I But with all this, she shows abundant resolution, 
 readiness and patriotism. She is adamant to the 
 commands of her imperious mother-in-law and the 
 entreaties of her insistent friend when they urge her 
 to break her self-imposed retirement. She, too, has 
 her rebuke for the insolent'tribunes. Above all, she, 
 too, plays her part in turning Coriolanus from his 
 revenge. In that scene, after her wont, she does 
 not say much, less than two lines in all, that serve 
 to contain the simple greeting and the quick answer 
 to her husband's warning that he no longer sees 
 thinofs as he did : 
 
 »'■ 
 
 The sorrow that delivers us thus changed 
 
 Makes you think so. (v. iii. 39.) 
 
 But who shall say that 
 
 those dove's eyes 
 Which can make gods forsworn, (v. iii. 27.) 
 
KINSFOLK AND FRIENDS 569 
 
 did not shed their influence on his mother's demand, 
 and help him to break his vindictive vow? Re- 
 member, too, that the sacrifice this impHed would 
 mean more to her than to Volumnia, for (though she 
 likewise can dedicate what she holds dearest on the 
 altar of her country). her affections, her home. Mar- 
 cius as an individual, bulk more largely in her life. 
 
 And if she loves him, we see how fondly he loves 
 her. More than once or twice he alludes to his 
 happiness as bridegroom, husband, and father 
 When she appears before him, his ejaculations and 
 the tenderness of his appeal, 
 
 „ . Best of my flesh, 
 
 Forgive my tyranny, (y_ ijj ^^^ 
 
 speak volumes in a mouth like his for the keenness 
 of his affection. To express the bliss that he feels 
 in the salute of re-union, this hero-lover can find 
 analogues only in his banishment and his vengeance : 
 
 O, a kiss 
 Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge ! 
 Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss 
 I carried from thee, dear : and my true lip 
 Hath virgin'd it e'er since. (v. iii. 44.) 
 
 ■This woman, then, with her love and sweetness,/ 
 that strike such responsive chords in the rude breast/ 
 of her lord, is apparently well fitted to smooth the! 
 harshness of his dealings with his fellow-men : and! 
 this would seem all the more likely since her gentle- 1 
 ness is not of that flabby kind that cannot hold orf 
 bind, but is strengthened by firmness of will and V 
 largeness of feeling. | 
 
 All the same, she exerts no influence whatever 1 
 before the very end on her husband's public life or/ 
 even on his general character, because she has no 
 interest in or aptitude for the concerns of his busy, prac- 
 tical career. She has chosen her own orbit in her 
 home, and her love has no desire to step beyond. 
 
570 CORIOLANUS 
 
 We have seen that, according to Plutarch, Volumnia 
 was entrusted with the selection of her son's wife. 
 This Shakespeare omits, perhaps as incongruous 
 with the spontaneousness of the relation between 
 his wedded lovers, but it may have left a trace in the 
 position he assigns to Virgilia. The mother-in-law 
 has and claims the leading place ; and, as Kreyssig 
 remarks, with a woman of the daughter-in-law's 
 steady inflexibility, collisions more proper for comedy 
 than for tragedy must inevitably ensue, unless there 
 were a strict delimitation of spheres. Volumnia 
 continues to be prompter and guide in all matters 
 political. She has all the outward precedence. On 
 his return from Corioli, her son gives her the prior 
 reverence and salutation, and, only as it were by her 
 permission, turns to his wife. When the deputation 
 of ladies appears in his presence before Rome, he 
 seems for a moment to be surprised out of his de- 
 corum, and his first words of passionate greeting are 
 for Virgilia,; but he presently recovers, and, with a 
 certain accent of reproof, turns on himself : 
 
 You gods ! I prate. 
 And the most noble mother of the world 
 Leave unsaluted : sink, my knee, i' the earth : 
 Of thy deep duty more impression show 
 Than that of common sons. (v. iii. 48.) 
 
 Evidently, his love for his wife, intense though it be, 
 is a thing apart, a sanctuary of his most inmost 
 feeling, and is quite out of relation with the affairs 
 of the josding world. In them his mother has 
 supreme sway, and Virgilia's unobtrusive gracious- 
 ness does not exercise even an indirect influence 
 on his ingrained principles arid prejudices. She 
 is no makeweight against the potent authority of 
 Volumnia. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE GREATNESS OF CORIOLANUS. AUFIDIUS 
 
 In the atmosphere then of Volumnia's predominance 
 we are to imagine young Marcius growing up from 
 infancy to boyhood, from boyhood to youth, en- 
 vironed by all the most inspiring and most exclusive 
 traditions of an old Roman family of the bluest 
 blood. After the expulsion of the Tarquins, we 
 must suppose that there was no more distinguished 
 gens than his. The tribune Brutus gives the long 
 bead roll of his ancestry, the glories of which, as has 
 already been shown, are even exaggerated in his 
 statement through Shakespeare's having made a 
 litde mistake in regard to Plutarch's account, and 
 having included representatives of later among those 
 of former generations. But Volumnia is not the 
 mother to let him rest on the achievements of his 
 prede cessor s ; he must make thern^HiF ow'n by 
 equalling or excelling them. He begins as a boy, 
 and already in his maiden fight his exploits rouse 
 admiration. Plutarch describes the circumstance : 
 
 The first time he went to the warres, being but a strippling, 
 was when Tarquine surnamed the prowde . . . dyd come to 
 Rome with all the ayde of the Latines, and many other 
 people of Italic. ... In this battell, wherein were many 
 hotte and sharpe encounters of either partie, Martius valliantly 
 fought in the sight of the Dictator ; and a Romaine souldier 
 being throwen to the ground even hard by him, Martius 
 straight bestrid him, and slue the eneraie with his owne 
 
572 CORIOLANUS 
 
 handes that had overthrowen the Romaine. Hereupon, 
 after the battell was wonne, the Dictator dyd not forget so 
 noble an acte, and therefore first of all he crowned Martius 
 with a garland of oken boughs. 
 
 This furnishes Cominius with the prologue to his 
 
 eulogy : 
 
 At sixteen years, 
 When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought 
 Beyond the mark of others : our then dictator, 
 Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight, 
 When with his Amazonian chin he drove 
 The bristled lips before him : he bestrid 
 An o'erpress'd Roman and i' the consul's view 
 Slew three opposers : Tarquin's self he met 
 And struck him on his knee : in that day's feats. 
 When he might act the woman in the scjene. 
 He proved the best man i' the field, and for his meed 
 Was brow-bound with the oak. (ii. ii. 91.) 
 
 But it will be noticed that in Shakespeare's version 
 Marcius' prowess is enhanced : not one opponent 
 but three fall before him ; he confronts the arch- 
 enemy himself, and has the best of it. Similarly 
 his derring-do at Corioli is raised to the super- 
 human. Plutarch's statement, as he feels, makes 
 demands, but it is moderate compared with Shake- 
 speare's. 
 
 Martius being in the throng emong the enemies, thrust 
 him selfe into the gates of the cittie, and entred the same 
 emong them that fled, without that any one of them durst 
 at the first turne their face upon him, or els offer to slaye 
 him. But he looking about him and seeing he was entred 
 the cittie with very fewe men to helpe him, and perceyving 
 he was envirouned by his enemies that gathered round about 
 to set apon him, : dyd things then as it is written, wonderfuU 
 and incredible : ... By this meanes, Lartius that was gotten 
 out, had some leysure to bring the Romaines with more 
 safetie into the cittie. 
 
 Here he is accompanied at least by a few, among 
 whom, it is implied, the valiant Lartius is one, and 
 Lartius having extricated himself, comes back with 
 reinforcements to help him. But in Shakespeare he 
 
HIS GREATNESS. AUFIDIUS 573 
 
 is from beginning to end without assistance, and his 
 boast, "Alone I did it," is the literal truth. The 
 first soldier says, discreetly passing over the dis- 
 obedience of the men : 
 
 Following the fliers at the very heels. 
 
 With them he enters ; who, upon the sudden, 
 
 Clapp'd to their gates : he is himself alone 
 
 To answer all the city. (i. iv. 49.) 
 
 And Cominius reports : 
 
 Alone he enter'd 
 The mortal gate of the city, which he painted 
 With shunless destiny j aidless came off. (11. ii. 114.) 
 
 But he is not merely, though he is conspicuously, a 
 soldier. He is also a general who once and again 
 gives proof of his strategic^kill. Nor do his qualifi- 
 cations stop here. He has the forethought and 
 insight of a statesman, at^any rate in matters of 
 foreign and rnilitarj^ policy. He has anticipated the | 
 attack of the Volsces with which the play begins, as ] 
 we learn from the remark of the First Senator : j 
 
 Marcius, 'tis true that you have lately told us ; ' 
 
 The Volsces are in arms. (i. i. 231.) 
 
 So after their disaster at Corioli, he estimates the 
 situation aright, when even Cominius is mistaken, 
 and conjectures that the enemy is only waiting an 
 opportunity for renewing the war : 
 
 So then the Volsces stand but as at first. 
 
 Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road 
 
 Upon 's again. (m. i. 4.) 
 
 And this, as we presently learn, is quite correct. 
 
 Even in political statesmanship, the department 
 in which he is supposed to be specially to seek, he 
 has a sagacity and penetration that show him the 
 centre of the problem. This does not necessarily 
 mean that his solution is the true one ; and still less 
 does it mean that he is wise in proclaiming his views 
 when and where he does so : but the views them- 
 selves are certainly deep-reaching and acute, and 
 
574 CORIOLANUS 
 
 such as would win approval from some of the 
 greatest builders of states, the Richelieus, the 
 Fredericks, the Bismarcks. He is quite right in 
 denying that his invectives against the policy of 
 concession are due to "choler": 
 
 Choler ! 
 
 Were I as patient as the midnight sleep, 
 
 By Jove, 'twould be my mind ! (iir. i. 84.) 
 
 His objections are in truth no outbreaks of momen- 
 tary exasperation, though that may have added 
 pungency to their expression, but mature and sober 
 convictions, that have a worth and weight of their 
 own. As we might expect ; for Shakespeare derives 
 almost all of them from Plutarch ; and Plutarch, 
 who had thought about these things, puts several 
 of his favourite ideas in Coriolanus' mouth, even 
 while condemning Coriolanus' bigotry and harsh- 
 ness ; and while, for dramatic fitness, suppressing the 
 qualifications and provisos that he himself thought 
 essential. 
 
 To Marcius the root of the matter is to be found 
 in the fact that the Roman Republic is not a de- 
 mocracy but an aristocracy, and in this respect he 
 contrasts it with some of the Greek communities. 
 
 Therefore sayed he, they that gave counsell, and persuaded 
 that the corne should be geven out to the common people 
 gratis, as they used to doe in citties of Graece, where the 
 people had more absolute power; dyd but only nourishe 
 their disobedience, which would breake out in the ende, to 
 the utter ruine and overthrowe of the whole state. 
 
 Shakespeare's transcription is, but for the inter- 
 polated interruption, fairly close : 
 
 Coriolanus. Whoever gave that counsel, to give forth 
 The corn o' the storehouse gratis, as 'twas used 
 Sometime in Greece, — 
 
 Menenius. Well, well, no more of that. 
 
 Coriolanus. Though there the people had more absolute 
 power, 
 I say, they nourished disobedience, fed 
 The ruin of the state. (m. i. 113.) 
 
HIS GREATNESS. AUFIDIUS 575 
 
 That being so, he regards it as a kind of treason to 
 the constitution to pay court to the plebs, or let it 
 have a share of the government. 
 
 He sayed they nourished against them selves, the naughty 
 seede and cockle of insolencie and sedition, which had bene 
 sowed and scattered abroade emongest the people, whom they 
 should have cut of, if they had bene wise, and have prevented 
 their greatnes. 
 
 This is only a little more explicit in Shakespeare : 
 
 I say again, 
 In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate 
 The cockle of rebellion, insolerice, sedition, 
 Which we ourselves have plough'd for; sow'd, and scatter'd, 
 By mingling them with us, the honour'd number, 
 Who lack not virtue,, no, nor power, but that 
 Which they have given to beggars. (iii. i. 68.) 
 
 For, and this is one of Shakespeare's additions, if 
 they have any share at all, being the majority they 
 will swamp the votes of the superior orBeri 
 
 You are plebeians, 
 If they be senators ; and they are no less. 
 When, both your voices blended, the great'st taste 
 Most palates theirs. (m. i. loi.) 
 
 And their magistrate, strong in the support he re- 
 ceives, dictates his ignorant will to the experience 
 and wisdom of the senate. 
 
 [They should] not to their owne destruction to have suffered 
 the people, to stablishe a magistrate for them selves, of so 
 great power and authoritie, as that man had, to whom they 
 had graunted it. Who was also to be feared, bicause he 
 obtained what he would, and dyd nothing but what he listed, 
 neither passed for any obedience to^the Consuls, but lived 
 in all libertie acknowledging no superiour to commaund him, 
 saving the only heades and authors of their faction, whom he 
 called his magistrates : . . . [The Tribuneshippe] most mani- 
 festly is the embasing of the Consulshippe. 
 
 This arraignment of the populace and its elect as 
 mischief-makers whenever they try to rule and inter- 
 fere with competent authority, goes to Shakespeare's 
 
576 CORIOLANUS 
 
 heart, and he makes the passage much more nervous 
 and vivid ; but the idea is the same. 
 
 O good but most unwise patricians ! why, 
 
 You grave but redkless senators, have you thus 
 
 Given Hydra here to choose an officer, 
 
 That with his peremptory " shall," being but 
 
 The horn and noise of the monster's, wants not spirit 
 
 To say he'll turn your current in a ditch, 
 
 And make your channel his. (m. i. 91.) 
 
 By Jove himself ! 
 It makes the consuls base. (iii. i. 107.) 
 
 The result must be division and altercation with all 
 the resulting anarchy. 
 
 The state [of the cittie] as it standeth, is not now as it was 
 wont to be, but becommeth dismembred in two factions, which 
 mainteines allwayes civill dissention and discorde betwene 
 us, and will never suffer us againe to be united into one 
 bodie. 
 
 Here, too, with some variation in the wording Shake- 
 speare keeps close to the sense. 
 
 My soul aches 
 To know, when two authorities are up, 
 Neither supreme, how soon confusion 
 May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take 
 The one by the other. (in. i. 108.) 
 
 The grand mistake was the distribution of corn, for, 
 as Plutarch puts it very clearly : 
 
 They will not thincke it is done in recompense of their 
 service past, sithence they know well enough they have so 
 ofte refused to goe to the warres, when they were com- 
 maunded : neither for their mutinies when they went with 
 us, whereby they have rebelled and forsaken their countrie : 
 neither for their accusations which their flatterers have pre- 
 ferred unto them, and they have receyved, and made good 
 against the Senate : but they will rather judge we geve and 
 graunt them this, as abasing our selves, and standing in feare 
 of them, and glad to flatter them every waye. 
 
 These weighty arguments, which Coriolanus is quite 
 
HIS GREATNESS. AUFIDIUS 577 
 
 entitled to call his "reasons," for reasons they are, 
 are substantially reproduced in Shakespeare : 
 
 ,„ ^ They know the corn 
 
 Was not our recompense, resting well assured 
 
 They ne er did service for't : being press'd to the war, 
 
 tven when the-navel of-tbe-state was touched 
 
 Thej^ would not thread the gates. This kind of service 
 
 Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i' the war. 
 
 Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they show'd 
 
 Most valour, spoke not for them : the accusation 
 
 Which they have often made against the senate. 
 
 All cause unborn, could never be the motive 
 
 Of our so frank donation. Well, what then ? 
 
 How shall this bisson multitude digest 
 
 The senate's courtesy? Let deeds express 
 
 What's like to be their words : " We did request it • 
 
 We are the greater poll, and in true feaf ' 
 
 They gave us our demands." Thus we debase ' 
 
 The nature of our seats and make the rabble 
 
 Call our cares fears : which will in time 
 
 Break ope the locks o' the senate, and bring in 
 
 The crows to peck the eagles. (m. j. 120.) 
 
 That seems convincing enough. Their refusal of 
 military service shows that the citizens merited no 
 leniency from the state, the charge that the patricians 
 were hoarding stores was universally known to be 
 baseless, so the malcontents can only infer that 
 the senate gave the largesse in fright, and find in 
 this encouragement for their usurpations. And in 
 the meantime, while doubt exists as to the real 
 centre of authority, the effect must be vacillation in 
 the policy of the republic and neglect of the most 
 urgent measures. This was a consideration that 
 came home to Shakespeare, who never forgot the 
 weakness and misery of his own country when it 
 was torn by civil strife, so he calls urgent attention 
 to it at the close. This is the only port;ion of the 
 speech that is quite original so far as the thought 
 is concerned. 
 
 This double worship, 
 Where one part does disdain with cause, the other 
 2 o 
 
578 CORIOLANUS 
 
 Insult without all reason, where gentry, title, wisdom, 
 
 Cannot conclude but by the yea and no 
 
 Of general ignorance, — it must omit 
 
 Real necessities, and give way the while 
 
 To unstable slightness : purpose so barr'd, it follows. 
 
 Nothing is done to purpose. (m. i. 142-) 
 
 Your dishonour 
 Mangles true judgment and bereaves the state 
 Of that integrity which should become 't. 
 Not having the power to do the good it would. 
 For the ill which doth control't. (in. i. 157-) 
 
 All this contains a measure of truth that is valid 
 in all times ; from the point of view of the aristo- 
 cratic republican it is absolutely true. Coriolanus' 
 diagnosis of the case is minutely correct and every 
 one of his prognostics is fulfilled. The plebs does 
 proceed with its encroachments ; the power of Rome 
 is strangely weakened as the immediate result of 
 the struggle ; the foreign policy is short-sighted 
 and unwise ; the pressing need of defence is over- 
 looked. Of course the answer is that his uncom- 
 promising suggestions might have led to a worse 
 revolution, and that in the long run a great deal 
 more was gained than lost : but the important point 
 to note is that his views are certainly arguable, that 
 much could be said for them, that at the very 
 least they assert one aspect of the real facts, and are 
 as far as possible from being the mere tirades of 
 a brainless aristocratic swashbuckler. As already 
 pointed out they give just the sort of estimate that 
 some of the wisest statesmen who have ever lived 
 would have formed of the situation. It is quite 
 conceivable that his proposals if carried through with 
 vigour and ruthlessness would have settled things 
 satisfactorily at least for the moment. So besides 
 his pre-eminence in war and generalship and his 
 foresight in foreign affairs, we may claim for Corio- 
 lanus not indeed political tact but political grip. 
 And to these qualifications of physical prowess 
 
HIS GREATNESS. AUFIDIUS 579 
 
 and intellectual force he adds others of a more 
 distinctively moral description. 
 
 Among these the most obvious is his extreme 
 truthfulness. He has no idea of equivocation or ^ 
 even of reticence. Menenius says of him : 
 
 His heart's his mouth : 
 What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent. 
 
 (in. i. 257.) 
 
 Nor is his veracity confined to words ; he is honest 
 and genuine to the core of his nature and will not 
 stoop to a gesture that belies his feeling : 
 
 I will not do 't 
 Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth 
 And by my body's action teach my mind 
 A most inherent baseness. (ui. ii. 120.) 
 
 And following on this is his innate loyalty. Nothing / 
 revolts him like a breach of that obligation, and 
 in the crises of his career it is the accusation of 
 treason that rouses him to a frenzy. Thus, after 
 his imprudent speech, Sicinius cries : 
 
 Has spoken like a traitor, and shall answer 
 
 As traitors do. (iii. i. 162.) 
 
 And Coriolanus bursts out : 
 
 Thou wretch, despite o'erwhelm thee. 
 
 It is the same word that scatters his prudent resolu- 
 tions in the trial scene : 
 
 Sicinius. You are a traitor to the people. 
 
 Coriolanus. How ! traitor ! 
 
 Menenius. Nay, temperately ; your promise.. 
 
 Coriolanus. The fires i' the lowest hell fold-in the people ! 
 Call me their traitor ! Thou injurious tribune ! 
 Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths. 
 In thy hands clutch'd as many millions, in 
 Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say 
 " Thou liest " unto thee with a voice as free 
 As I do pray the gods. (in. iii. 66.) 
 
58o CORIOLANUS 
 
 And similarly when Aufidius calls him traitor, he 
 repeats the word " Traitor ! how now ! " in a wrath 
 that is for the moment almost speechless, till it over- 
 flows in a torrent of reckless abuse. It is part of 
 the tragic irony of the play that with his ingrained 
 horror of such an offence, he should yet in very truth 
 let himself be hurried into treason against his country. 
 For all his instincts are on the side of faith and troth 
 and obligation. When he wishes to express his 
 hostility to Aufidius he can think of no better com- 
 parison than this : 
 
 I'll fight with none but thee ; for I do hate thee 
 
 Worse than a promise-breaker. (i. viii. i.) 
 
 One result of this is that he has a simple reverence 
 for all prescriptive ties, which suffuses his stern nature 
 with a certain tinge of kindly humanity. His piety 
 to his mother comes of course from Plutarch ; but 
 his tenderness for his wife and delight in his son, 
 lightly but strongly marked, are Shakespearean traits. 
 So is the intimacy with Menenius, which greatly 
 removes the impression of " churlishness " and 
 " solitariness " that Plutarch's portrait conveys ; and 
 his self-effacement in obedience to the powers that 
 be and to the word that he has pledged, appears in 
 his willing acceptance of a subordinate rank. The 
 tribunes wonder that 
 
 His insolence can brook to be commanded 
 
 Under Cominius; (i. i. 266.) 
 
 and attribute it to base calculation in keeping with 
 
 their own natures ; but to this view Shakespeare's 
 
 story gives no support. The real explanation is 
 
 simpler : it is his former promise and he is constant 
 
 (i. i. 241). 
 
 j Even more pleasant is the famous instance of his 
 
 , respect for the claims of hospitality. This episode 
 
 ; is obtained from Plutarch, but in several respects it 
 
HIS GREATNESS. AUFIDIUS 581 
 
 is completely altered. After describing how Corio- 
 lanus declined all special reward, the original narrative 
 proceeds : 
 
 " Only this grace (sayed he) I crave, and beseeche you to 
 graunt me. Among the Volsces there is an olde friende and 
 hoste of mine, an honest wealthie man and now a prisoner, 
 who Hving before in great wealthe in his owne countrie, liveth 
 now a poore prisoner in the handes of his enemies : and yet 
 notwithstanding all this his miserie and misfortune, it would 
 do me great pleasure if I could save him from this one 
 daunger : to keepe him from being solde as a slave." The 
 souldiers hearing Martius wordes, made a marvelous great 
 showte among them. 
 
 Compare this with the scene in Shakespeare : 
 
 Coriolanus. The gods begin to mock me. I, that now 
 Refused most princely gifts, am bound to beg 
 Of my lord general. 
 
 Cominius. Take 't ; 'tis yours. What is 't ? 
 
 Coriolanus. I sometime lay here in Corioli 
 At a poor man's house: he used me kindly : 
 He cried to me ; I saw him prisoner ; 
 But then Aufidius was within my view, 
 And wrath o'erwhelmed my pity : I request you 
 To give my poor host freedom. 
 
 Cominius. O well begg'd ! 
 
 Were he the butcher of my son, he should 
 Be free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus. 
 
 Lartius. Marcius, his name ? 
 
 Coriolanus. By Jupiter ! forgot. 
 
 I am weary ; yea, my memory is tired. 
 Have we no wine here? (i. ix. 79.) 
 
 The postponement of pity to wrath is a new charac- 
 teristic detail which shows how these gentler impulses 
 in Coriolanus must yield to his ruling passions. On 
 the other hand his host is transformed from a rich to 
 a poor man, and thus his humanity acquires a wider 
 range, and we see how it can extend beyond his own 
 class if only there is a personal claim on it. Above 
 all there is the new illuminating touch of the lapse of 
 memory. Sometimes this has been taken as betray- 
 ing the indifference of the aristocrat for an inferior 
 
582 CORIOLANUS 
 
 whose name he does not think it worth while to 
 remember. Surely not. Coriolanus is experiencing 
 the collapse that follows his superhuman exertions, 
 the exhaustion of body and mind when one cannot 
 think of the most familiar words : but he rallies his 
 strength for a last effort, and is just able to intercede 
 for his humble guest-friend ere he succumbs. 
 
 And this last passage brings before us another of 
 his magnanimous qualities. He has refused most 
 princely gifts. No one can accuse him of covetous- 
 ness. His patrician bigotry aims at power and 
 leadership, not at material perquisites. After the 
 double battle, won almost entirely by his instrumen- 
 tality, when Cominius offers him the tenth, he makes 
 the generous answer : 
 
 I thank you, general ; 
 But cannot make my heart consent to take 
 A bribe to pay my sword : I do refuse it. (i. ix. 36.) 
 
 He deserves the encomium of the consul : 
 
 Our spoils he kick'd at, 
 And look'd upon things precious as they were 
 The common muck of the world : he covets less 
 Than misery itself would give ; rewards 
 His deeds with doing them, and is content 
 To spend the time to end it. (11. ii. 128.) 
 
 He " rewards his deeds with doing them," without 
 thought of ulterior profit or of anything beyond the 
 worthy occupation of the moment. This leads to 
 the next point, his cult of honour ; and it must be 
 confessed that he conceives it in a very lofty and 
 noble way. His view of it reminds one of Arthur's 
 saying in Tennyson's Idylls : 
 
 For the deed's sake my knighthood do the deed. 
 Not to be noised of 
 
 Honour, of course, is not the highest possible prin- 
 ciple. It implies a certain quest for recognition, and 
 in so far has a personal and even selfish aspect. But 
 
HIS GREATNESS. AUFIDIUS 583 
 
 in the right kind of honour the recognition is sought, 
 in the first place, for real excelleiices that, in the 
 second place, are determined only by competent 
 judges, in some cases only by the individual's own 
 conscience. In both respects Coriolanus bears 
 examination. 
 
 Moreover, when there is any pursuit of honour at 
 all, it is almost impossible to exclude some admixture 
 of rivalry and emulation : for the desire of recog- 
 nition, if only by oneself, carries with it the desire of 
 being recognised as having achieved the very best : 
 and rivalry and emulation must to that extent have 
 an egoistic direction. Coriolanus has these feelings 
 to the full, and often gives them extreme expression 
 in regard to his one possible competitor Aufidius. 
 He calls him " the man of my soul's hate "^ (i. v. 11) ; 
 and tells him : "I have ever followed thee with hate" 
 (iv. V. 104). Aufidius has equal animosity against 
 Coriolanus. His correspondent, to give an idea of 
 his rival's unpopularity with his townsmen, writes of 
 
 Marcius your old enemy. 
 Who is of Rome worse hated than of you. (i. ii. 1 2.) 
 
 Lartius reports how the Volscian has said. 
 
 That of all things upon the earth, he hated 
 
 Your person most. (m. i. 14.) 
 
 Marcius, hearing he is at Antium, sums up for both : 
 
 I wish I had a cause to seek him there. 
 
 To oppose his hatred fully. (iii. i. 19.) 
 
 As Tullus sums up on his side : 
 
 We hate alike ; 
 Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor 
 More than thy fame and envy. (i. viii. 2.) 
 
 Still, it is precisely in his relations with Aufidius, and \ 
 in comparison with Aufidius' passions and purposes, 
 that Coriolanus' finer conception of honour becomes 
 apparent. The true warrior values these encounters 
 
584 CORIOLANUS 
 
 for themselves, and has a rapture in them second to 
 
 none that he knows. He exclaims : 
 
 Were half to half the world by the ears, and he 
 
 Upon my party, I'ld revolt, to make 
 
 Only my wars with him : he is a lion 
 
 That I am proud to hunt. (i. i. 237.) 
 
 This has sometimes been regarded as a hint in 
 advance of Marcius' readiness to desert the national 
 cause. But that seems to be taking au pied de la 
 lettre one of those conversational audacities that 
 much discreeter men than he often permit them- 
 selves. It is rather an exaggerated expression of 
 his delight in the contest, and an ironical comment 
 on his later abandonment of it for the sake of 
 revenge. At anyrate, even if the worst interpreta- 
 tion be put on it, it suggests a more respectable 
 motive for desertion than the parallel outburst of 
 Aufidius : 
 
 I would I were a Roman ; for I cannot. 
 
 Being a Volsce, be that I am. (i. x. 4.) 
 
 For Coriolanus would change sides in order to con- 
 front the severest test, Aufidius would do so in order 
 not to be of the defeated party. There is a mean- 
 ness and bitterness in Tullus from which his rival is 
 wholly free. All through, Marcius shows the gener- 
 osity of conscious heroism. He is very handsome 
 in his acknowledgment of Aufidius' merits : 
 
 They have a leader, 
 Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to 't. 
 I sin in envying his nobility, 
 And were I anything but what I am, 
 I would wish me only he. (i. i. 232.) 
 
 In their trials of valour he takes no advantage, but 
 rather makes a point, first of facing his foe though 
 he himself is wearied and wounded, and, second, of 
 rousing him to put forth all his strength. 
 
 The blood I drop is rather physical 
 
 Than dangerous to me : to Aufidius thus 
 
 I will appear, and fight. (t. v. 19.) 
 
HIS GREATNESS. AUFIDIUS 585 
 Then, when they meet, he dissembles his hurts, and 
 
 cries 
 
 Within these three hours, TuUus, 
 Alone I fought in your Corioli walls, 
 And made what work I pleased : '/is not my blood 
 Wherein thou seest me mask'd : for thy revenge 
 Wrench up thy power to the highest. (i viii. 7.) 
 
 They are pledged to slay each other or be slain. 
 1 ullus has told the senators : 
 
 If we and Caius Marcius chance to meet, 
 'Tis sworn between us we shall ever strike 
 Till one can do no more. (i. jj. , . \ 
 
 And to this he adds boasts of his own, which Corio- 1 
 lanus omits. Nevertheless, though his professions/ 
 are the loudest, Aufidius makes good neither pledge 
 nor boasts, but lets himself be driven back despite 
 the assistance of his friends. And then, just as he 
 would rather be a successful Roman than a defeated 
 Volsce, his thoughts turn to getting the better of his 
 victor by whatever means ; he cannot take his beat- 
 ing in a sportsmanlike way, and thus shows finally [ 
 how hollow IS the Honour after which he strives. I 
 Whether intentionally or not, Lartius' report gives i 
 a true description of hig feeling : 
 
 He would pawn his fortunes 
 To hopeless restitution, so he might 
 Be call'd your vanquisher. (m. i. 15.) 
 
 "Be call'd"; as though the vain ascription of 
 superiority were all that he desired. But in truth he 
 has already made the same confession in so many 
 words, with the more damaging admission that he 
 now feels as though he no longer cared by what foul 
 play such ascription is won. 
 
 ^ By the elements. 
 
 If e er again I meet him beard to beard, 
 He's mine, or I am his : mine emulation 
 Hath not that honour in't it had : for where 
 I thought to crush him in an equal force,. 
 
586 CORIOLANUS 
 
 Trxie sword to sword, I'll potch at him some way 
 
 Or wrath or craft may get him. (i. x. lo.) 
 
 My valour's poison'd 
 With only suffering stain by him : for him 
 Shall fly out of itself : nor sleep, nor sanctuary, 
 Being naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol, 
 The prayers of priests, nor times of sacrifice, 
 Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up 
 Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst 
 My hate to Marcius : where I find him, were it 
 At home, upon my brother's guard, even there. 
 Against the hospitable canon, would I 
 Wash my fierce hand in's blood. (i. x. 17.) 
 
 On this passage Coleridge comments : 
 
 I have such deep faith in Shakespeare's heart-lore, that I 
 take for granted that this is in nature, and not as a mere 
 anomaly ; although I cannot in myself discover any germ of 
 possible feeling, which could wax and unfold itself into such 
 a sentiment as this. 
 
 It seems strange that Coleridge should say this, for 
 it is proved by not a few examples that baffled 
 emulation may issue in an envy which knows few 
 restraints. Perhaps it was the avowal rather than 
 the temper which struck him as verging on the 
 unnatural or abnormal. Those who deliberately 
 adopt such an attitude do not usually admit it to 
 themselves, still less to their victims, and least of all 
 to a third party. Which may admonish us that 
 Aufidius' threats were not deliberate, but mere 
 frantic outcries wrung from him in rage and mortifi- 
 cation. Yet they spring from authentic impulses in 
 his heart, and though they may for a time be hidden 
 by his superficial chivalry, they will spread and 
 thrive if the conditions favour their growth. When 
 they have overrun his nature and choked the whole- 
 some grain, he will not point to them so openly and 
 will name them by other names. But they are the 
 same and differ from what they were only as the 
 thorny thicket differs from its parent seeds. They 
 
HIS GREATNESS. AUFIDIUS 587 
 
 have always been there and it is well that we should 
 be aware of their presence from the first. Coleridge 
 concludes his criticism : " However I perceive that 
 m this speech is meant to be contained a prevention 
 of the shock at the after-change in Aufidius' 
 character." In short, it is not to be taken as his 
 definite programme from which he inconsistendy 
 deviates when the opportunity is offered at Antium 
 for carrying it out, but as the involuntary presenti- 
 ment, which the revealing power of anguish awakens 
 in his soul, of the crimes he is capable of committing 
 for his master passion, a presentiment that in the 
 end is realised almost to the letter. 
 
 And in the fulfilment, as in the anticipation, he 
 has an eye merely to the results, and seeks only to 
 obtain the first place for hiinself whether he deserve 
 it or no. When Coriolanus consents to the peace 
 with Rome, Aufidius soliloquises : 
 
 I am glad thou hast set thy mercy and thy honour 
 
 At difference in thee : out of that I'll work 
 
 Myself a former fortune. (v. iii. 200.) 
 
 It is the adventitious superiority and the judgment 
 by appearances that always appeal to him. Listen 
 to the interchange of confidences between his accom- 
 plice and himself : 
 
 Third Conspirator. The people will remain uncertain whilst 
 'Twixt you there's difference ; but the fall of either 
 Makes the survivor heir of all. 
 
 Aufidius. I know it : 
 
 And my pretext to strike at him admits 
 A good construction. (v. vi. 17.) 
 
 He will be heir of all, and his action will admit a 
 good construction ; that is enough for him. It only 
 remains to keep another construction from being 
 suggested ; and he approves the conspirator's advice : 
 
 When he lies along, 
 After your way his tale pronounced shall bury 
 His reasons with his body. (v. vi. 57.) 
 
588 CORIOLANUS 
 
 It has sometimes been questioned whether such a 
 man would give his fugitive rival a welcome which 
 at the first and for some time seems so magnanimous, 
 and if he did, whether the magnanimity was sincere. 
 But Aufidius, though he is above all a lover of pre- 
 eminence at whatever cost and therefore cannot for 
 long stand the ordeal of being surpassed, is not 
 without a soldier's generosity ; and moreover, the 
 course which he was moved to adopt (and this is a 
 more important consideration) would be one con- 
 genial to his meretricious love of ostentation and 
 display. There is no role more soothing to worsted 
 vanity and at the same time more likely to gain it 
 the admiration it prizes, than that of patron to a 
 formerly successful and now unfortunate rival. In 
 the reflected glory, the benefactor seems to acquire 
 the merits of the other in addition to a magnificence 
 all his own. This, we may assume, was in part the 
 motive of Aufidius ; as appears from his own words, 
 in which he shows himself well aware of his own 
 generous behaviour : 
 
 He came unto my hearth ; 
 Presented to my knife his throat : I took him ; 
 Made him joint-servant with me ; gave him way 
 In all his own desires ; nay, let him choose 
 Out of my files, his projects to accomplish. 
 My best and freshest men ; served his designments 
 In mine own person ; holp to reap the fame 
 Which he did end all his ; and took some pride 
 To do myself this wrong; till, at the last, 
 I seem'd his follower, not partner, and 
 He waged me with his countenance, as if 
 I had been mercenary. (v. vi. 30.) 
 
 The hasty flash of generosity, the hope of winning 
 new credit, would soon be extinguished or trans- 
 muted by such persistent success, superiority and 
 pride. And Coriolanus' popularity with the troops 
 at the expense of his Volscian colleague, would be 
 bitter to the most high-minded benefactor. It is 
 
HIS GREATNESS. AUFIDIUS 589 
 
 brought out to us by his question to his lieutenant 
 in the camp near Rome : " Do they still fly to the 
 Roman?" (iv. vii. i). Evidently the soldiers of 
 Antium flock to the banners of this foreigner rather 
 than to those of their own countrymen. The 
 suggestion for this is furnished by Plutarch, but 
 with Shakespeare a sting is added. In the Life 
 TuUus stays behind as reserve with half the army 
 to guard against any inroad, while Coriolanus acts 
 on the offensive and captures a number of towns. 
 Thereupon, 
 
 the other Volsces that were appointed to remaine in garrison 
 for defence of theur countrie, hearing this good newes, would 
 tary no lenger at home, but armed them selves, and ' ranne 
 to Martius campe, saying they dyd acknowledge no other 
 captaine but him. 
 
 It is much less wounding to Aufidius that his men 
 should wish to exchange inaction for the excitement 
 of war, than that he should witness their resort to 
 his rival who is, in name, only his equal in command. 
 Indeed his lieutenant in the play regrets that he 
 did not do precisely what he did do according to 
 Plutarch. 
 
 I wish, sir, — 
 I mean for your particular, — you had not 
 Join'd in commission with him ; but either 
 Had borne the action of yourself, or else 
 To him had left it solely. . (iv. vii. 1 2.) 
 
 Thus Shakespeare gives TuUus a stronger motive, 
 and in so far a better apology for his treason. On 
 the other hand he bases it more exclusively on per- 
 sonal envy. For in Plutarch the truce of thirty 
 days which Coriolanus grants Rome is the original 
 occasion of the movement against him, in which 
 other Volscians besides Aufidius share ; and this 
 movement culminates only after he has conceded 
 peace on conditions which even Plutarch considers 
 unfair to his employers. But in the play, as we have 
 
590 CORIOLANUS 
 
 seen, the truce is omitted, and TuUus has determined 
 on the destruction of his supplanter even at a time 
 when he confidently expects that Rome cannot save 
 herself : 
 
 When, Caius, Rome is thine, 
 Thou art poor'st of all : then shortly art thou mine. 
 
 (iv. vii. 56.) 
 
 Thus the last shred of public spirit is torn away from 
 his selfish ambition and spite. 
 
 In contrast with all this lust for precedence and 
 vainglorious egotism, we cannot but feel that Marcius 
 is striving for the reality of honour and is eager to 
 fulfil the conditions on which honour is due. 
 
 And connected with this is another point which 
 we might regard as the natural and inevitable con- 
 sequence, but which Shakespeare only inferred and 
 did not obtain from Plutarch, who gives no indication 
 of it. This is Marcius' indifference to or rather 
 detestation of all professed praise. His distaste for 
 eulogy does not of course lead him to reject a dis- 
 tinction and acknowledgment like the surname of 
 Coriolanus that he is conscious of having deserved. 
 On the contrary he prizes it and clings to it, and 
 among the circumstances that overthrow his self- 
 control in the final scene, the fact that Aufidius 
 withholds from him this appellation has a chief 
 place. 
 
 Aufidius. Marcius ! 
 
 Coriolanus. Marcius ! 
 
 Aufidius. -Ay, Marcius, Caius Marcius ; dost thou think 
 I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name 
 Coriolanus in Corioli ? 
 
 Just in the same way, his aversion from mercantile 
 profit does not lead him to refuse a gift from a friend 
 when he feels that he has earned that friend's 
 approval. So when Cominius bestows on him the 
 charger, and bids the host hail him with his new 
 
HIS GREATNESS. AUFIDIUS 591 
 
 title, he answers graciously enough if a little 
 awkwardly : 
 
 I will go wash ; 
 
 And when my face is fair, you shall perceive 
 
 AVhether I blush or no : howbeit I thank you. 
 
 I mean to stride your steed, and at all times 
 
 To undercrest your good addition 
 
 To the fairness of my power. (i. ix. 68.) 
 
 But except on such semi-official occasions, which 
 he is obliged to recognise, any sort of commenda- 
 tion abashes him and puts him out. Even Lartius' 
 burst of admiration he immediately checks : 
 
 Pray now, no more : my mother. 
 Who has a charter to extol her blood. 
 When she does praise me, grieves me. (i. ix. 13.) 
 
 When Cominius persists, he would fain cut him 
 short : 
 
 I have some wounds upon me, and they smart 
 
 To hear themselves remember'd. (i. ix. 28.) 
 
 When the host spontaneously breaks out in acclam- 
 ation, he feels it is over much, and is more irritated 
 than pleased : 
 
 May these same instruments, which you profane. 
 
 Never sound more ! When drums and trumpets shall 
 
 I' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be 
 
 Made all of false-faced soothing ! 
 
 When steel grows soft as the parasite's silk, 
 
 Let him be made a coverture for the wars ! 
 
 No more, I say ! For that I have not wash'd 
 
 My nose that bled, or foil'd some debile wretch, — 
 
 Which, without note, here's many else have done, — 
 
 You shout me forth 
 
 In acclamations hyperbolical ; 
 
 As if I loved my little should be dieted 
 
 In praises sauced with lies. (i. ix. 42.) 
 
 So, too, with the welcome of the crowd at his 
 home-coming : 
 
 No more of this ; it does offend my heart ; 
 
 Pray now, no more. (n. ii 185.) 
 
592 CORIOLANUS 
 
 When the formal, and therefore up to a certain 
 point, conventional panegyrics have to be pro- 
 nounced in the senate, he is honestly ill at ease 
 and would rather go away. To the senator who 
 seeks to stay him, he answers : 
 
 Your honour's pardon : 
 I had rather have my wounds to heal again 
 Than hear say how I got them. (n. ii. 72.) 
 
 And he adds, as he actually leaves his seat : 
 
 I had rather have one scratch my head i' the sun 
 
 VVhen the alarum were struck, than idly sit 
 
 To hear my nothings monster'd. (n. ii- 79.) 
 
 He can dispense with the admiration of others, 
 because he seeks " the perfect witness " of his own 
 approval, and abhors any extravagant applause 
 because he measures his actions by the standard 
 of absolute desert. In other words, both his self- 
 respect and his ideal of attainment are abnormally, 
 one might say morbidly, developed. And this 
 explains both his humility and his self-assertion. 
 Volumnia tells him : 
 
 Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour, 
 
 To imitate the graces of the gods. (v. iii. 149.) 
 
 If that is the goal, how far must even the mightiest 
 fall short of it, and how much must he resent the 
 adulation of his prowess as the highest to be attained. 
 On the contrary he " waxes like the sea," sets him- 
 self to advance 
 
 From well to better, daily self surpassed ; 
 
 and every glory he achieves is, as Shakespeare read 
 in Plutarch, less a wage that he has earned than a 
 pledge that he must redeem. 
 
 It is daylie seene, that honour and reputation lighting on 
 young men before their time, and before they have no great 
 corage by nature, the desire to winne more, dieth straight in 
 
HIS GREATNESS. AUFIDIUS 593 
 
 them, which easely happeneth, the same having no deepe 
 roote m them before. Where contrariwise, the first honour 
 tnat valhant mmdes doe come unto, doth quicken up their 
 appetite, hasting them forward as with force of winde, to 
 enterprise things of highe deserving praise. For they esteeme, 
 not to receave reward for service done, but rather take it for 
 a remembraunce and encoragement, to make them doe better 
 in time to come : and be ashamed also to cast their honour 
 at their heeles, not seeking to increase it still by like deserte 
 of worthie valhant dedes. This desire being bred in Martius 
 he stramed still to passe him selfe in manlines : and being 
 desirous to shewe a daylie increase of his valliantnes his 
 noble service dyd still advaunce his fame. 
 
 But, on the other hand, though he, as not having 
 attained, presses forward to the mark of his high 
 calling,^ he has but to spend a glance on his fellows, 
 and being an honest man he must perceive that his 
 performance quite eclipses theirs. When the citizen 
 asks him what has brought him to stand for the 
 consulship, his reply is from the heart : "Mine 
 own desert" (ir. iii. 71). He feels poignantly the 
 mdignity of having to ask for what seems to him. his 
 due, and this partly explains the reluctance, which 
 Shakespeare invents for him, to face a popular 
 election. 
 
 Better it is to die, better to starve, 
 
 Than crave the hire which first we do deserve. 
 
 (n. iii. 120.) 
 
 In bitter self-irony he belies the disinterestedness of 
 Tiis exploits, and libels them as mere contrivances 
 to win favour : 
 
 Your voices : for your voices I. have fought ; 
 
 Watch'd for your voices ; for your voices bear 
 
 Of wounds two dozen odd ; battles thrice six 
 
 I have seen and heard of; for your voices have 
 
 Done many things, some less, some more. (n. iii, 133.) 
 
 His fault lies in an opposite direction. His sense 
 of dignity and self-esteem makes him inflexible to 
 
 9 19 
 
594 CORIOLANUS 
 
 any concession that would seem to disparage himself 
 and the truth. 
 
 His nature is too noble for the world : 
 
 He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, 
 
 Or Jove for's power to thunder. (iii. i. 255.) 
 
 And he is entitled to this consciousness of his 
 worth, for it is not merely individual. It collects in 
 a focus the most valued traits of various social 
 fellowships that are greater and wider than himself. 
 He is — he has been taught to consider himself and 
 to become — the peculiar representative of the great 
 family of the great aristocracy of the great city of 
 Rome. If he transcends the dimensions of ordinary 
 human power and human error, this consideration 
 enables us to see how he has come to do so, and 
 brings him back to our ordinary human sympathies. 
 These are the three concentric orbits in which his 
 universe revolves, the three well-heads that feed the 
 current of his life. They give impetus to his love 
 of honour and volume to his pride. 
 
 His civic patriotism he lives to abjure, but at first 
 it is eager and intense. It is this feeling that is 
 affronted by the retreat of his townsmen before 
 Corioli and that boils over in curses and abuse : he 
 is wroth with them because they are " shames of 
 Rome." The climax to his appeal for volunteers is 
 to ask if any thinks "that his country's dearer than 
 himself" (i. vi. 72) : and in the moment of triumph 
 he classes himself unreservedly among all his com- 
 rades who have been actuated by his own and the 
 only right motive, love for the. patria. 
 
 I have done 
 What you have done ; that's what I can : induced 
 As you have been ; that's for my country : 
 He that hath but effected his good will 
 Hath overta'en my act. (i. ix. 15.) 
 
 ^He cherishes a transcendent idea of the state, and 
 
HIS GREATNESS. AUFIDIUS 595 
 
 is wounded to the heart that its members fall short 
 
 of it. 
 
 I would they were barbarians — as they are, 
 
 Though in Rome litter'd — not Romans — as they are not, 
 
 Though calved i' the porch o' the Capitol, (m. i. 238.) 
 
 And he is similarly, but more closely bound up in 
 his own order. The nobles, the patricians, the 
 senate, are to him the core of the commonwealth, 
 the very Rome of Rome. They are, as he says, 
 "the fundamental part of state" (iii. i. 151). His 
 first thought on his return from the campaign is to 
 pay his due respects to their dignity : 
 
 Ere in my own house I do shade my hfad, 
 
 The good patricians must be visited. (ii. i. 211.) 
 
 He is scandalised by the insolence of the plebs in 
 revolting against such authority : 
 
 What's the matter, 
 That in these several places of the city 
 You cry against the noble senate, who. 
 Under the gods, keep you in awe? (i. i. 188.) 
 
 His gorge rises at the thought of a representative 
 of the people imposing his mandate on so august a 
 body. 
 
 They choose their magistrate. 
 And such a one as he, who puts his " shall," 
 His popular " shall " against a graver bench 
 Than ever frown'd in Greece. (in. i. 104.) 
 
 He hates any innovation that is likely 
 
 To break the heart of generosity 
 
 And make bold power look pale. (1. i. 215.) 
 
 For to him the power that is vested in the generous, 
 that is, the high-born classes, is a sacred thing. 
 
 But the domestic tie is the closest of all. The 
 whole story brings out its compulsive pressure and 
 no particular passages are needed to illustrate it. 
 Yet in some passages we are made to realise with 
 
596 CORIOLANUS 
 
 special vividness how it binds and entwines him, as 
 in that exclamation when he sees the deputation of 
 women approaching : 
 
 My wife comes foremost ; then the honour'd mould 
 
 Wherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand 
 
 The grandchild to her blood. (v. iii. 22.) 
 
 It is as son, husband and father that the depths 
 of Coriolanus' nature can be reached. In his 
 greetings to his wife, in his prayers for his boy, we 
 have glimpses of his inward heart; but of course 
 this family feeling is concentrated on his mother 
 who, as it were, sums up his ancestry to him, and 
 who, by her personal qualities and her parental 
 authority, fills his soul with a kind of religious 
 reverence. We have seen how she has fashioned 
 him, how she commands and awes him. When she 
 inclines her head as she appears before him, he 
 already feels that it is incongruous and absurd : 
 
 My mother bows : 
 As if Olympus to a molehill should 
 In supplication nod. (v. iii. 29.) 
 
 When she kneels, it is prodigious, incredible ; he 
 cannot believe his eyes : 
 
 What is this ? 
 Your knees to me ? to your corrected son ? 
 Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach 
 Fillip the stars ; then let the mutinous winds 
 Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun : 
 Murdering impossibility, to make 
 What cannot be, slight work. (v. iii. 56.) 
 
 Not only then is Coriolanus in other respects a 
 singularly noble personality, but even his pride is 
 certainly not devoid of ethical content when it 
 embodies the consciousness of the city republic, the 
 governing estate, the organised family, with all their 
 claims and obligations. These are the constituent 
 elements that have supplied matter for his self- 
 
HIS GREATNESS. AUFIDIUS 597 
 
 esteem, and all of them are formative, and capable, 
 as we saw, of producing such a lofty, though limited 
 moral character as that of Volumnia. Yet it is 
 precisely to them, or at least to the way in which 
 they are mingled in his pride, that Coriolanus' faults 
 and misfortunes may be traced. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS AND THEIR 
 CAUSES 
 
 Feeling for his country, feeling for his caste, feeling 
 for his family thus form the triple groundwork of 
 Coriolanus' nobleness, but they fail to uphold it in 
 the storm of temptation. As furnishing the founda- 
 tions of conduct they have dangers and defects, 
 inherent in themselves, or incident to their combina- 
 tion, and these it is to which the guilt and ruin of 
 Coriolanus are due. 
 
 These drawbacks may be illustrated under three 
 heads. They are unfit completely to transfigure 
 egoism, for they have all an egoistic aspect, and are 
 indeed merely extended forms of selfishness. They 
 are primarily the products of nature, instinct, 
 passion ; and may exist without being raised to the 
 rank of rational principles and without having their 
 just scope delimited and defined. And, lastly, for 
 that reason their relative importance may be 
 mistaken, and one that is the stronger natural 
 impulse may usurp the place of one that is of more 
 binding moral authority. 
 
 It has often been pointed out, and sometimes as a 
 matter of complaint, that family affection is very 
 restricted in its range and may conflict with the 
 larger interests of mankind. It produces an intense 
 unity within the one household, but it is apt to be 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 599 
 
 jealous, repellent, aggressive as regards other house- 
 holds and their members. Further, in so far as it is 
 my parents, my brothers, my children, whose welfare 
 I promote, the ground of preference has nothing t6 
 do with impartial equity: it is determined by thp 
 nearness of the persons to me, by my fondness for 
 them, by my looking on them as appurtenances of 
 mine; in short it is selfish. And those who 
 maintain the sacredness of the family give this no 
 absolute denial, but reply, first, that in the long ruh 
 the true interests of one family, righdy understood, 
 do not conflict with the true interests of other 
 families, of the state, or the rest of mankind ; and, 
 second, that even before the true interests are 
 rightly grasped, the family relation forms at least a 
 stage in the process by which the individual learns 
 to enlarge his self-interest, a preliminary stage but 
 an inevitable stage, and still for the vast majority of 
 men the stage of most practical importance. Many 
 a one is ready to give up his personal pleasure or 
 advantage for those of his own house, who would be 
 deaf to all more general appeals. Thus the family 
 so widens self-love as to include in it some other 
 people, but in one of its aspects it nevertheless 
 depends on self-love. 
 
 And the same thing holds good of the enlarged 
 kindred that we call an aristocracy. The nobility 
 of blood forms a sort of family on a large scale, 
 a family of caste, an amplified household united by 
 common pursuits, privileges, education and ideals, 
 and often further blended by frequent intermarriage. 
 The aristocrat finds himself born into this artificial, 
 which is in some respects almost like a natural 
 fraternity ; and his ethos to his order, ethos though 
 it be, is largely the ethos of the individual who 
 recognises his own reflection in his fellow nobles. 
 
 Nor is it otherwise with the state, especially, we 
 may say, the antique city state, where often the 
 
6oo CORIOLANUS 
 
 aristocracy really was the native nucleus, and which 
 in the greatest expansion of which it was capable, 
 did not exceed the dimensions of a modern munici- 
 pality. The patriotism of the citizens had the fervour 
 of domestic piety, their disputes had the bitterness 
 of family quarrels. In the community its sons 
 exulted and lived and moved and had their being : 
 it was theirs and they were its, in opposition to the 
 alien states, the states of other people, to which they 
 were apt to be indifferent or hostile. 
 
 Now it is evident that all these principles in the 
 case of a man with a strong consciousness of his 
 own worth and superlative self-respect, might give 
 substance and validity to his egoism, but would 
 rather encourage than counteract it. And so with 
 Coriolanus. His independent, individual, isolated 
 sufificiency passes all bounds. He derives sustenance 
 for it from the three layers of atmosphere that 
 envelope him, but he thinks he can if necessary 
 dispense with these external aids. In so far as he 
 can separate the people in his mind from the whole 
 body politic of Rome, he excludes them from his 
 sympathy, or even his tolerance, and glories in his 
 ostentation of antagonism. Take his speech about 
 the popular demonstration : 
 
 They said they were an-hungry, sigh'd forth proverbs, 
 
 That hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat. 
 
 That meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not 
 
 Corn for the rich men only : with these shreds 
 
 They vented their complainings. (i. i. 209.) 
 
 In reference to this Archbishop Trench has a very 
 true remark. He points out that where there is a 
 marked and conscious division of ranks, 
 
 [proverbs] may go nearly or quite out of use among the so- 
 called upper classes. No gentleman, says Lord Chesterfield, 
 " ever uses a proverb." And with how true a touch of nature, 
 Shakespeare makes Coriolanus,- the man who with all his 
 greatness, is entirely devoid of all sympathy with the people, 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 6oi 
 
 to utter his scorn of them in scorn of their proverbs and of 
 their frequent employment of them. 
 
 He has indeed no sense of their homely wisdom or 
 their homely virtues. He has no common charity 
 for them, and his attitude to them if they venture 
 to assert themselves, is that of a less humane slave- 
 holder to refractory slaves. 
 
 Would the nobility lay aside their ruth. 
 
 And let me use my sword, I'ld make a quarry 
 
 With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high 
 
 As I could pick my lance. (i. i. 201.) 
 
 After such counsel, we feel that the exclamation of 
 Sicinius is not without its warrant : 
 
 Where is this viper 
 That would depopulate the city, and 
 Be every man himself? (m. i. 263.) 
 
 His self-centred confidence and egotism culminates 
 in his retort to his sentence : 
 
 You common cry of curs ? whose breath I hate 
 
 As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize 
 
 As the dead carcasses of unburied men 
 
 That do corrupt my air, I banish you. (in. iii. 120.) 
 
 But it is characteristic of this spirit which really 
 makes a man a law to himself and the measure of 
 things, that though by all his training and prejudices 
 inclined to the traditional and conservative in politics, 
 yet, if use-and-wont presses hard against his own 
 pride, he shows himself an innovator of the most 
 uncompromising kind. He objects once and again 
 to the prescriptive forms of election, and at last 
 
 breaks out : 
 
 Custom calls me to t ! 
 
 What custom wills, in all things should we do 't, 
 
 The dust on antique time would lie unswept 
 
 And mountainous error be too highly heapt 
 
 For truth to o'er-peer. (11. iii. 124.) 
 
 Here he blossoms out as the reddest of radicals, 
 though a radical of the Napoleonic type. 
 
6o2 CORIOLANUS 
 
 But, further, his feeling for family, class and 
 country is pre-eminently feeling. It belongs to those 
 natural tendencies that almost seem to come to us 
 by heredity and environment, and have analogies 
 with the instincts of animals. It is, at least in the 
 form it assumes with him, not to be ranked among 
 the moral convictions which can stand the exami- 
 nation of conscience and reason, and in the production 
 of which conscience and reason have co-operated. 
 It is rather an innate impulse, a headlong passion, 
 and resembles a blind physical force of which he 
 can give no account. His understanding is without 
 right of entry into this part of his life. We have 
 seen, no doubt, that his presuppositions once granted 
 he can form a very acute estimate of the situation. 
 But lie never uses his judgment either in examining 
 his presuppositions or in discovering the treatment 
 that the situation requires. He has not the width 
 of outlook or the self-criticism that enable Menenius 
 and Cominius, and even the ordinary senators, to see 
 the relative importance of the principles for which 
 they contend, and prefer any compromise to laying 
 the city flat and sacking great Rome with Romans. 
 He has not the astuteness of Volumnia, who perceives 
 that strategy is to be used in government as in war 
 and bids hirn stoop to conquer : 
 
 I have a heart as little apt as yours, 
 
 But yet a brain that leads my use of anger 
 
 To better vantage. (ni. ii. 29.) 
 
 If it be honour in your wars to seem 
 
 The same you are not, which, for your best ends, 
 
 You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse, 
 
 That it shall hold companionship in peace 
 
 With honour, as in war, since that to both 
 
 It stands in like request ? (in. ii. 46.) 
 
 Both in regard to end and means, he listens to the 
 counsels not of his reason but of his passion and 
 hot blood. As how could he do otherwise .■' It is 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 603 
 
 passion not reason that oversways his nature, deter- / 
 mining everything in him from these first funda- / 
 mental principles to the most transitory mood. 
 More particularly, that tyrannous self-respect of his, 
 the personal flame in which all his interests, domestic^ 
 aristocratic, national, are fused, is his central passion, 
 and one that gives more heat than light. Some- 
 times, indeed, it kindles him to great things. When 
 the Volscian army abandons the shelter of Corioli 
 he feels it an insult to his country, therefore to 
 himself; and the outrage to his amour pt^opre incites 
 him to do wonders. 
 
 They fear us not, but issue forth their city. 
 
 Now put your shields before your hearts, and fight 
 
 With hearts more proof than shields. Advance, brave Titus: 
 
 They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts. 
 
 Which makes me sweat with wrath. (i. iv. 23.) 
 
 But again, it may make it impossible for him to take 
 the right path. When asked to show some outward 
 submission to the people, he answers : 
 
 To the market- place ! 
 You have put me now to such a part which never 
 I shall discharge to the life. (iii. ii. 104.) 
 
 He was justified in objecting to methods of dis- 
 simulation and flattery, but, if only he had been 
 reasonable, a middle course would not have been 
 hard to find, which should safeguard his self-respect 
 while pacifying the populace. It is because his 
 self-respect is of passion not of reason, that he is so 
 unconciliatory, and therefore almost as culpable as 
 if he were guilty of the opposite fault. Plutarch, 
 indeed, thinks he is more so. In his comparison 
 between him and Alcibiades, he is in this matter 
 more lenient to the latter : 
 
 He is lesse to be blamed, that seeketh to please and 
 gratifie his common people; then he that despiseth and 
 disdaineth them, and therefore offereth them wrong and 
 injuria, bicause he would not seeme to flatter them, to winne 
 
6o4 CORIOLANUS 
 
 the more authoritie. For as it is an evill thing to flatter the 
 common people to winne credit; even so it is besides dis- 
 honesty, and injustice also, to atteine to credit and authoritie, 
 for one to make him selfe terrible to the people, by offering 
 then)' v/rong and violence. 
 
 This passage has inspired the criticism of the officer 
 of the Capitol ; who, however, impartially holds the 
 scales. 
 
 If he did not care whether he had their love or no, he 
 waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm : 
 but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can 
 render it him ; and leaves nothing undone that may fully 
 discover him their opposite. Now, to seem to affect the 
 malice and displeasure of the people is as bad as that which 
 he dislikes, to flatter them for their love. («: ii. i8.) 
 
 With this temper it is natural that the arrogance 
 of success, lack of nous, and want of adaptability 
 - — which is often merely another form of self-will — 
 should bring about his ruin ; and it is these three 
 characteristics, or a modicum of them, to which 
 Aufidius in point of fact attributes his banishment. 
 
 First he was 
 A noble servant to them ; but he could not 
 Carry his honours even : whether 'twas pride, 
 Which out of daily fortune ever taints 
 The happy man ; whether defect of judgement, 
 To fail in the disposing of those chances 
 Which he was lord of ; or whether nature. 
 Not to be other than one thing, not moving 
 From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace 
 Even with the same austerity and garb 
 As he controll'd the war ; but one of these — 
 As he hath spices of them all, not all, 
 For I dare so far free him — made him fear'd, 
 So hated, and so banish'd. (iv. vii. 35.) 
 
 But, lastly, not only are the three objective ethical 
 principles that give Coriolanus his moral equipment, 
 inadequate in so far as their range is largely selfish 
 and their origin largely natural ; he misplaces the 
 order in which they should come. In the case of 
 Volumnia, despite all her maternal preference and 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 605 
 
 patrician prejudice, Rome is the grand consideration, 
 as her deeds unequivocally prove. Nor is she 
 singular ; she is only the most conspicuous example 
 among others of her caste. Cominius, too, post- 
 pones the family to the state : 
 
 I do love 
 My country's good with a respect more tender, 
 More holy and profound, than mine own life, 
 My dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase. 
 And treasure of my loins. (iii. iii. 1 1 1.) 
 
 And this is more or less the attitude of the rest. 
 But Coriolanus reverses the sequence, and gives his 
 chief homage precisely to the most restricted and 
 elementary, the most primitive and instinctive 
 principle of the three. He loves Rome indeed, 
 fights for her, grieves for her shames, and gloried in 
 her triumphs ; but he loves the nobility more, and 
 would by wholesale massacre secure their supremacy. 
 He loves the nobihty indeed, but when they, no 
 doubt for the common good, suffer him to be 
 expelled from Rome, they become to him the 
 "dastard nobles"; and he makes hardly any account 
 of his old henchman and intimate Menenius, and 
 none at all of his old comrade and general Cominius. 
 But he loves his family as himself, and though he 
 strives to ro9t out its claims from his heart, the 
 attempt is vain. He may exclaim : 
 
 Out, affection ! 
 All bond and privilege of nature, break ! (v. iii. 24.) 
 
 I'll never 
 Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand, 
 As if a man were author of himself 
 And knew no other kin. (v. iii. 34.) 
 
 But it is mere histrionic make-believe and pretence : 
 at the first words of Virgilia he cries : 
 
 Like a dull actor now, 
 1 have forgot my part, and I am out, 
 Even to a full disgrace. (v. iii. 40.) 
 
6o6 CORIOLANUS 
 
 How could this man, whose personal pride and family- 
 pride are so interwoven, whose self-love and whose 
 virtues are so much an inheritance of his line, ever 
 hope to sever himself from what makes up his 
 very being ? The home instincts must triumph. 
 
 It is well that they should, and this is the redeem- 
 ing touch that cancels much of the guilt of apostasy 
 which brands the close of his career. But all the 
 same we feel that his self-surrender to the obligations 
 of the family is a less noble thing than his mother's 
 self-surrender to the obligations of the state. Qf 
 course, in a way, family and class must with all 
 come before the whole community. Men, that is, 
 are bound to be more interested in those of their own 
 circle and their own set than in their fellow-citizens 
 with whom they have less relation. That gives a 
 very good ground for a man's constant unremitting 
 occupation with his nearest and dearest. But, never- 
 theless, when the call comes, it is the wider com- 
 munity that has the more imperative claim. 
 
 And it is easy to see that Volumnia, though at the 
 supreme moment she shows that she herself has 
 the right feeling for the relation, is responsible for the 
 inverted order in the conception of her son. Her 
 contempt for the masses, her exaltation of the 
 patricians, her high-handed insistence on the family 
 authority were almost bound to be exaggerated in a 
 child growing up under her influence and subjected 
 to no corrective views. And she must have added 
 to the dangers of her tuition by dangling before 
 his eyes the ideal of personal honour as the grand prize 
 of life. He wins it and lets it slip again and again, 
 and when he grasps it at last, it is rent and mangled 
 in his hands. There is something typical in the 
 episode of his son and the butterfly, as Valeria 
 narrates it :> 
 
 I saw him run after a gilded butterfly ; and when he caught 
 it, he let it go again ; and after it again ; and over and over 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 6or 
 
 he comes, and up again ; catched it again ; or whether his 
 fall enraged him, or how 'twas, he did so set his teeth and 
 tear it : O, I warrant, how he mammocked it ! (i. iii. 65.) 
 
 Young Marcius is described as the facsimile ^nd 
 "epitome" of his father, and Volumnia is well 
 pleased with this example of the family bent. She 
 must not disclaim her share in the preparation, when 
 the father enacts the apologue in the larger theatre 
 of life. 
 
 And she is even responsible for some of the mis- 
 taken courses that directly lead to the disaster. 
 
 For Coriolanus, with all his blind sides and rough 
 corners, might still be the faithful and honoured 
 champion of Rome if he were left to follow his own 
 predestined and congenial path as military leader. 
 In the field he can rouse the courage of the citizens 
 and fire their enthusiasm, while on his part, when he 
 wins their recognition and devotion, he lays aside 
 some of his asperity to them, and is even gracious 
 in his awkward, convincing way. They forget their 
 hatred, he forgets his scorn. And to him as warrior 
 the whole population, not only the portion of it 
 that has the franchise, is ready to do honour. The 
 description which the chagrined tribune gives of 
 his triumphal progress through the streets shows 
 with what cordial pride all ranks were eager to 
 pay him homage. There is no reason why he should 
 not continue to discharge in this his proper sphere 
 the functions that none could discharge so well. 
 His political weight is from the first small. Despite 
 his urgent dissuasion he has been powerless to 
 prevent the distribution of corn or the concession of 
 the tribunate. And when he does not intrude into 
 this outlying domain, where he effects nothing, he 
 seems to go his own way peaceably enough, occupied 
 mainly in watching for the common good the 
 movements of Aufidius and the Volscians ; so that, 
 so far as his antipathy to the people is concerned, 
 
6o8 CORIOLANUS 
 
 his bark is worse than his bite. That is the point of 
 the similes that Brutus and Menenius exchange 
 about him when Menenius has compared the plebs 
 to a wolf and Coriolanus to a lamb. Says the 
 tribune : 
 
 He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear. 
 
 And the senator answers : 
 
 He's a bear indeed, that lives like a lamb. (ii. i. 12.) 
 
 But thrust him into a position that involves political 
 authority, and all will be changed. It will be 
 impossible for him to confine himself to harmless 
 growls ; the bear will have the people in his hug, 
 and they are not to blame if -they take to their 
 weapons. In short the antagonism, which before 
 was, so to speak, academic and led to nothing, must 
 become a matter of life and death. Now it must 
 not be overlooked that it is in obedience to 
 his mother's ambitions and in opposition to his 
 own better judgment that Coriolanus stands for the 
 consulship. Of course, in a way, it is the natural 
 goal of his career. Even Menenius is so blinded by 
 the glamour of the situation that he interposes no 
 prudent warning. Nevertheliess, if he had only 
 exercised his accustomed shrewdness he would 
 have seen the mischievousness of such a course ; for 
 in a remark to the tribune he sums up admirably 
 the perils it involves : 
 
 He loves your people ; 
 But tie him not to be their bedfellow ; (11. ii. 68.) 
 
 yet for all that, Menenius is the candidate's most 
 active electioneering agent. When his sagacity so 
 neglects its own suggestions, it is perhaps not won- 
 derful that Volumnia's narrower intellect should 
 ignore everything but her visions of glory for herself 
 and her son. And yet she might have laid to heart 
 his sincere remonstrance : 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 609 
 
 Know, good mother, 
 I had rather been their servant in my way, 
 Than sway with them in theirs. (ii. i. 218.) 
 
 She cannot be acquitted of driving him into the false 
 position. 
 
 And she is equally responsible for the fiasco and 
 disaster in which his attempted submission ends. 
 Observe that this is not the only course he might 
 have adopted. Cominius, entering in the middle of 
 the discussion, suggests two others : 
 
 I have been i' the market-place ; and, sir, 'tis fit 
 
 You make strong party, or defend yourself 
 
 By calmness or by absence. (in. ii. 93.) 
 
 The first expedient of making strong party and 
 resorting to force is out of the question, both because, 
 as Cominius has already pointed out, it i^ practically 
 hopeless in face of the odds, and because, as he and 
 others have also pointed out, even if successful it 
 would ruin the state. The second expedient of 
 calmness and conciliation is the one that Volumnia 
 and Menenius in their pertinacious craving to see 
 Coriolanus consul, strongly advocate ; and in the 
 abstract it is the right one. But it suffers from a 
 drawback which makes it worse than hopeless, and 
 which Cominius has the foresight to recognise. 
 " Only fair speech," says Menenius, and Cominius 
 rejoins very doubtfully : 
 
 I think \ will serve, if he 
 Can thereto frame his spirit. (in. ii. 95.) 
 
 That is just the point ; and one wonders how anyone 
 who knew Coriolanus could expect of him so impos- 
 sible a feat. There remains the expedient of absence, 
 which Cominius, from the third place he assigns to it, 
 himself seems to prefer. And in the circumstances 
 it is obviously the best. If only the accused had 
 withdrawn for a time, he would soon have been 
 recalled. It is inconceivable that when the new 
 
 2Q 
 
6io CORIOLANUS 
 
 expedition of the Volscians, which he alone foresaw^ 
 broke into Roman territory, the state would not at 
 once have had recourse to the great commander. 
 Nor would there have been much difficulty in doing 
 so, since he would merely have betaken himself to 
 voluntary retirement ; and even had he been exiled 
 in default, the mutual exasperation on both sides, 
 which the last collision was to produce, would have 
 been avoided. But again it is Volumnia's overbearing 
 self-will that imposes on him the pernicious choice. 
 And though, as I have said, this proposal is ideally 
 the best, for in such cases management and compro- 
 mise are legitimate enough and may be laudable, it 
 is not only the worst in the present instance, but she 
 gives it a turn that must have made it peculiarly 
 revolting to her son. In her covetousness for the 
 consular dignity she recommends such hypocrisy, 
 trickery and base cringing as the self-respect of no 
 honest man, much less of a Coriolanus, could 
 tolerate : 
 
 I prithee now, my son, 
 Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand ; 
 And thus far having stretch'd it — here be with them — 
 Thy knee bussing the stones — for in such business 
 Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant 
 More learned than the ears — waving thy head. 
 Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart,' 
 Now humble as the ripest mulberry 
 That will not hold the handling : or say to them. 
 Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils 
 Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess. 
 Were fit for thee to use as they to claim, 
 In asking their good loves, but thou wilt frame 
 Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far 
 As thou hast power and person. (in. ii. 72.) 
 
 The amicable policy need not have been painted in 
 such colours as these. It is inevitable that Coriolanus, 
 already inclined to regard it as a degradation, should 
 after these words construe it in the most humiliating 
 sense : 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 6ii 
 
 . Well, I must do 't : 
 
 Away, my disposition, and possess me 
 Some harlot's spirit ! My throat of war be turn'd, 
 Which quired with my drum, into a pipe 
 Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice 
 That babies lulls asleep ! The smile of knaves 
 Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys' tears take up 
 The glasses of my sight ! a beggar's tongue 
 Make motion through my lips, and my arm'd knees, 
 Who bow'd but in the stirrup, bend like his 
 That hath received an alms. (in. ii. no.) 
 
 What wonder that his conclusion is to reject such 
 tactics lest they should dishonour his integrity and 
 degrade his soul ? His mother's anger indeed makes 
 him abandon this decision, but his instincts are right. 
 It is a part that of course he could not play under 
 any circumstances, but she has done nothing to show 
 it in its more honourable aspect, and everything to 
 confirm and increase his feeling of its vileness. His 
 sourness and recalcitrance at being false to himself 
 makes him boil over the more fiercely at the first 
 provocation, and all is lost. 
 
 It is sometimes said that defeat and the desire for 
 vengeance teach him the lessons which his mother 
 had inculcated in vain, and that henceforth he shows 
 himself a master of dissimulation, flattery, and decep- 
 tion. In proof of this it is usual to cite, in the first 
 place, the fare weir scene, when he breathes no word 
 to Cominius, Menenius, Virgilia, or Volumnia of his 
 intention to join the Volscians and return to over- 
 throw Rome. But was any such intention as yet in 
 his mind ? In Plutarch he has adopted no definite 
 plan before he sets out. After telling how he com- 
 forts his family, the biography proceeds : 
 
 He went immediatly to the gate ot the cittie, accompanied 
 with a great number of Patricians that brought him thither, 
 from whence he went on his waye with three or foure of his 
 friendes only, taking nothing with him, nor requesting any 
 thing of any man. So he remained a fewe dayes in the 
 countrie at his houses, turmoyled with sundry sortes and 
 kynde of thoughtes, suche as the fyer of his choller dyd sturre 
 
6i2 CORIOLANUS 
 
 up. In the ende, seeing he could resolve no waye, to take a 
 profitable or honorable course, but only was pricked forward 
 still to be revenged of the Romaines, he thought to raise up 
 some great warres against them, by their neerest neighbours. 
 
 Of course it is quite true, and it has been one 
 
 purpose of this essay to show, that Shakespeare 
 
 often completely recasts Plutarch. But it is also 
 
 true that, when he does not expressly do so, he 
 
 often keeps Plutarch's statements in his mind, even 
 
 when, as in the case of the voting by tribes, he does 
 
 not cite them. It counts for something, then, that 
 
 in the Life, Coriolanus on leaving Rome has no 
 
 fixed purpose of seeking foreign help. And if we 
 
 turn to the parting scene in the tragedy, and let it 
 
 make its own impression, without reading into it 
 
 suggestions from subsequent occurrences, I think we 
 
 feel not so much thdt he is still undecided as that 
 
 the idea has not yet entered into his head. We 
 
 seem to hear the very accent of sincerity in his 
 
 repetition of the maxims that erewhile he learned 
 
 from his mother's own lips, and that he clinches with 
 
 the reminder : ,^ , , , 
 
 You were used to load me 
 
 With precepts that would make invincible 
 
 The heart that conn'd them. (iv. i. 9.) 
 
 Surely it is a real attempt at consolation, when he 
 interrupts her maledictions on the plebeians who 
 have banished him : 
 
 What, what, what ! 
 I shall be loved, when I am lack'd. (iv. i. 14.) 
 
 He seems to hint at seeking out new adventures and 
 a new career in new regions beyond the reach of 
 Rome, when he says : 
 
 My mother, you wot well 
 My hazards still have been your solace : and 
 Believe 't not lightly — though I go alone, 
 Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen 
 Makes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen — your son 
 Will or exceed the common or be caught 
 With cautelous baits and practice. (iv. i. 27,) 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 613 
 
 It was not cautelous baits and practice that he would 
 have to fear, but the open violence of Aufidius if he 
 already thought of going to Antium/ and the simile 
 ot the lonely dragon more talked of than seen would 
 be abundantly inappropriate if it referred to his re- 
 appearance at the head of the Volscian forces : but 
 the expressions would be quite apt if he meant to 
 make his name redoubtable by his single prowess in 
 strange places amidst the risks of an errant life. It 
 is in professed anticipation of this that he rejects the 
 companionship which Cominius offers : 
 
 Thou hast years upon thee ; and thou ^rt too full 
 
 Of the wars' surfeits, to go rove with one 
 
 That's yet unbruised. (iv. i. 45.) 
 
 Are these utterances mere pretence ? And have 
 not his last farewells the genuine note of cordiality 
 and good will ? If we could imagine that he would 
 bring himself to address those whom he afterwards 
 called the "dastard nobles" as "my friends of 
 noble touch," it would still be impossible to believe 
 him guilty of cold-hearted deceit to Virgilia and 
 Volumnia. 
 
 Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and 
 My friends of noble touch, when I am forth 
 , . Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you, come. 
 
 While I remain above the ground, you shall 
 Hear from me still, and never of me aught 
 But what is like me formerly. (iv. i. 48.) 
 
 It would not be like the former champion of Rome 
 to return as its assailant ; but we may take it that at 
 this moment he is expecting to carve his way to 
 glory in a different world and perhaps eventually be 
 recalled to his country, but in any case to proceed 
 merely on the old lines in so far as that is possible, 
 and meanwhile to be reported of, as Menenius con- 
 tinues, " worthily as any ear can hear." 
 
 If, then, he is speaking honestly in this scene, how 
 are we to account for his change of purpose when 
 
6i4 CORIOLANUS 
 
 we next meet him a renegade in Antium ? No 
 explanation was needed in Plutarch, for the circum- 
 stances were not quite the same. There he had 
 only not resolved to join the enemy ; here he 
 apparently has resolved to do something else. In 
 the Life after leaving the city he merely comes to a 
 decision, in the play he reverses the decision he has 
 formed. So some statement is needed of the cause 
 for the alteration of his plans, and at first sight there 
 seems to be none. Yet there is a hint and a fairly 
 emphatic one, though it has not been worked out ; 
 a hint, moreover, which is the more significant that it 
 is one of Shakespeare's interpolations. 
 
 When the sentence of banishment is pronounced 
 and Coriolanus has retired to his house, there follows 
 a passage which has no parallel or foundation in Plu- 
 tarch. It is the one already referred to in another 
 connection in which Sicinius gives his mean and 
 malicious order to the people : 
 
 Go, see him out at gates, and follow him. 
 As he hath follow'd you, with all despite : 
 Give him. deserved vexation. (in. iii. 138.) 
 
 And the citizens promptly agree : 
 
 Come, come ; let's see him out at gates ; come. (in. iii. 141.) 
 
 This is at the very close of the Third Act, and the 
 Fourth Act begins in "Rome, before a gate of the 
 city " with the scene of leave-taking discussed above. 
 We naturally expect that it will be interrupted by the 
 popular demonstrations which the tribunes have con- 
 trived, especially as these exist only in Shakespeare's 
 imagination ; but it passes off without any hint of 
 them. Only patrician persons appear by whom 
 Coriolanus is beloved and who are beloved by him : 
 and no hostile murmur jars on the solemnity of their 
 grief. But that does not mean that it may not do 
 so even now. He is not yet beyond the walls, and 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 615 
 
 towards the close bids his friends : " Bring me out 
 at gate"; which, we assume, they do forthwith. 
 1 here is still time for the plebeians to execute their 
 masters' orders, and though we witness nothing of 
 the kind, there is no reason to believe that they 
 failed to do so. It is easy to conjecture why Shake- 
 speare thought it unnecessary to present this incident 
 to eye and ear. It would have disturbed the quiet 
 dignity of the parting interview ; it would have 
 repeated at a lower pitch, without the accompani- 
 ment of suspense, and therefore with the risk of 
 monotony and flatness, the tumultuary motif ol pre- 
 ceding scenes. 'But Shakespeare's variations from 
 his authority are not idle, and we cannot suppose 
 that the tribune's direction, though we do not 
 actually see it carried out, was a meaningless tag. 
 There is room enough in the economy of the play 
 for its fulfilment beyond the stage. We may imagine 
 that just as Coriolanus' friends proceed to " bring 
 him out at gate " the insulting irruption takes place ; 
 and in the next scene, "a street near the gate," 
 we find the tribunes, the work done, dismissing their 
 agents : 
 
 Bid them all home; he's gone, and we'll no further, (iv. ii. i.) 
 
 It seems probable that this last indignity, a hurt to 
 his pride more galling than any refusal of office or 
 sentence of banishment, drives Coriolanus to his 
 fury of vindictiveness ; and that the failure of the 
 nobles to protect him from the outrage has in his 
 eyes confounded them with his more ignoble enemies. 
 Indeed, he almost says as much in his speech to 
 Aufidius. In that speech, as we have seen, Shake- 
 speare adheres more closely to North than in any 
 other continuous passage in the play, and the greatest 
 variation occurs in a line that would apply with 
 peculiar aptness to the purely Shakespearian episode 
 of the last affront, and that sets forth the main cause 
 
6i6 CORIOLANUS 
 
 of the exile's resentment. In Plutarch, after saying 
 that only the surname of Coriolanus remains to him, 
 he continues : 
 
 The rest the envie and crueltie of the people of Rome have 
 taken from me, by the sufferance of the dastardly nobilitie 
 and magistrates, who have forsaken me, and let me be 
 banished by the people. 
 
 This becomes : 
 
 The cruelty and envy of the people, 
 
 Permitted by our dastard nobles, who 
 
 Have all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest : 
 
 And suffer' d me by the voice of slaves to be 
 
 Whooji'd out of Rome. (iv. v. 80.) 
 
 Considering all these things there seems to be no 
 evidence in Marcius' parting professions of acquired 
 duplicity. 
 
 But, again, it is said that for his revenge he con- 
 descends to fawn upon Aufidius and the Volscians. 
 This is not very plausible. His speech of greeting 
 certainly shows no servile propitiation, and according 
 to Tullus it is conspicuously absent in his subsequent 
 behaviour : 
 
 He bears himself more proudlier, 
 Even to my person, than I thought he would 
 When first I did embrace him : yet his nature 
 In that's no changeling ; and I must excuse 
 What cannot be amended. (iv. vii. 8.) 
 
 And elsewhere Tullus complains that his guest has 
 "waged him with his countenance." The only 
 ground for saying that he paid court to the Volsces 
 is alleged in Tullus' speech that just precedes this 
 accusation of haughtiness to himself : 
 
 He water'd his new plants with dews of flattery,- 
 
 Seducing so my friends ; and, to this end. 
 
 He bow'd his nature, never known before 
 
 But to be rough, unswayable and free. (v. vi. 23.) 
 
 But the speaker is an enemy, and an enemy who 
 has to account for the disagreeable circumstance 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 617 
 
 that his own adherents have gone over to his rival, 
 and who, moreover, at the time is looking for a plea 
 that "admits of good construction." There is nothino- 
 that we see or hear of Coriolanus elsewhere tha*t 
 supports the charge. We are told, indeed, that the 
 Volscians throng to him and do him homage. The 
 very magnates of Antium, Aufidius included, treat 
 him like a demi-god : 
 
 Why, he is so made on here within, as if he were son and 
 heir to Mars ; set at upper end o' the table : no question 
 asked by any of the senators, but they stand bald before him : 
 our general himself makes a mistress of him ; sanctifies him- 
 self with 's hand and turns up the white o' the eye to his 
 discourse. (iv. y. 203.) 
 
 Recruits throng to his standard and the army wor- 
 ships him. The Lieutenant tells Aufidius : 
 
 I do not know what witchcraft's in him, but 
 
 Your soldiers use him as the grace 'fore meat. 
 
 Their talk at table, and their thanks at end. (iv. vii. 2.) 
 
 Doubtless this enthusiasm would have its effect on 
 Marcius. Eagerness of service, coupled with confi- 
 dence in himself, has before now warmed him to 
 graciousness, and in his own despite wrung from 
 him inspiring compliments. When at Cominius' 
 camp before Corioli the volunteers crowded round 
 him, waved their swords, and took him up in their 
 arms, he was almost hyperbolical in his praises : 
 
 O, me alone ! make you a sword of me ? 
 
 If these shows be not outward, which of you 
 
 But is four Volsces ? none of you but is 
 
 Able to bear against the great Aufidius 
 
 A shield as hard as his. (i. vi. 76.) 
 
 So we may well believe that his soldierly spirit would 
 respond promptly and lavishly when the Volscians 
 rallied round him. But such appreciation, however 
 his outstripped competitor might interpret it, would 
 have nothing in common with the arts of the 
 
6i8 CORIOLANUS 
 
 sycophant and the time-server ; nor is there any- 
 thing else in Coriolanus' conduct that explains or 
 confirms ever so slightly the charge of the interested 
 and envious Aufidius. 
 
 On the contrary he remains true, and even too 
 true, to his original nature. It is the outrage on his 
 self-respect that drives him to the Volscians, and his 
 self-respect still gives the law to his life, and would 
 forbid all petty vices, though it enjoins heroic crime. 
 A man like this could not be expected to palliate or 
 overlook the profanation of his cherished dignity. 
 The passion of pride at his ear, he sets himself to 
 rupture all weaker ties of passion or instinct. And 
 yet he himself is half aware of his mistake, and he 
 has to fortify himself in his obstinate perversity. 
 This is shown in two ways : first, he has a smothered 
 sense of the inadequacy of his justification ; and, 
 second, he cannot with all his efforts be quite con- 
 sistent in his revenge. 
 
 Of his repressed feeling that the offence does not 
 excuse the retaliation, we have repeated confessions 
 on his part, all the more striking that they are 
 involuntary and perhaps unconscious. Thus, just 
 after he has sought out the enemy of his country, 
 he soliloquises : 
 
 O world, thy slippery turns ! Friends now fast sworn, 
 
 Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart, 
 
 AVhose hours, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise, 
 
 Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love 
 
 Unseparable, shall within this hour, 
 
 On a dissension of a doit, break out 
 
 To bitterest enmity : so, fellest foes, 
 
 Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep 
 
 To take the one the other, by some chance, 
 
 Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends 
 
 And interjoin their issues. So with me : 
 
 My birth-place hate I, and my love's upon 
 
 This enemy town. (iv. iv. 12.) 
 
 Here he acknowledges that his change of sides has 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 619 
 
 the most trivial occasion. Friends fall out on a 
 dissension of a doit while foes are reconciled for 
 some trick not worth an egg ; and he applies this 
 prhvciple to his own case: "So with me." After 
 all he has infinitely more in common with the 
 Romans than he can ever have in common with 
 the Volscians, infinitely more reason for hating this 
 €nemy town than he can ever have for hating his 
 own birthplace. 
 
 Or again, when on the point of dismissing- 
 Menenius, he says : 
 
 That we have been familiar 
 Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison, rather 
 Than pity note how much. (v. ii. 91.) 
 
 He admits, then, that his wilful oblivion is "ingrate," 
 
 and realises that pity would consider the old 
 
 relations. 
 
 • Or, once more, almost at the close, when he feels 
 
 himself in danger of yielding to the voice of nature, 
 
 he utters the truculent prayer : 
 
 Let it be virtuous to be obstinate ; (v. iii. 26.) 
 
 which implies that he knew it was not. 
 
 On the other hand, with all his doggedness, he 
 cannot be quite consequent in his rancour. He may 
 lead her foes against his " thankless country " as he 
 calls it, but he has a lurking kindliness even for the 
 Rome he thinks he detests. As we learn from 
 Aufidius' speech : 
 
 Although it seems. 
 And so he thinks, and is no less apparent 
 To the vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly. 
 And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state. 
 Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon 
 As draw his sword ; yet he hath left undone 
 That which shall break his neck or hazard mine. 
 Whene'er we come to our account. (iv. vii. 19.) 
 
 This is no doubt suggested by the incident of the 
 thirty days' truce, of which Plutarch makes so much 
 
620 CORIOLANUS 
 
 and which Shakespeare totally suppresses. But the 
 vague reference becomes all the more pregnant, 
 when we are to understand that Coriolanus has at 
 unawares and against his purpose granted some little 
 concessions to the victims of his wrath. That 
 Aufidius' statement has some foundation, is made 
 probable by the words of the First Antian Lord, 
 who is no enemy to Marcius, but reproaches Tullus 
 with his murder and reverently bewails his death : 
 
 What faults he made before the last, I think, 
 
 Might have found easy fines. (v. vi. 64.) 
 
 Faults, then, from the Volscian point of view he 
 has committed in the opinion of a sympathetic and 
 impartial onlooker : which means that as a Roman 
 he has shown forbearance. 
 
 So much for the toll that he pays to his patriotism ; 
 but neither can he quite uproot the old associations 
 with his class. He may denounce the " dastard 
 nobles," but he does concede something to Menenius, 
 the patrician whose aristocratic prejudices are most 
 akin to his own : 
 
 Their latest refuge 
 Was to send him ; for whose old love I have, 
 Though I show'd sourly to him, once more offer'd 
 The first conditions, which they did refuse 
 And cannot now accept : to grace him only 
 That thought he could do liiore, a very little 
 I have yielded to. (v. iii. 11.) 
 
 And, coming to the chief in his trinity of interests, 
 he may seek to break all bond and privilege of 
 nature and refuse to be such a gosling to obey 
 instinct, but the natural instinct of the family is too 
 strong for him ; before it his resolution crumbles to 
 pieces, though he foresees the result. 
 
 O mother, mother ! 
 What have you done ? Behold, the heavens do ope, 
 The gods look down, and this unnatural scene 
 They laugh at. O my mother, mother ! O ! 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 621 
 
 You have won a happy victory to Rocne ; 
 
 But for your son,— believe it, O, believe it, 
 
 Most dangerously you have with him prevail'^. 
 
 If not most mortal to him. (v. iii, 182.) 
 
 Still this collapse of Coriolanus' purpose -means 
 nothing more than the victory of his strongest 
 impulse. There is no acknowledgment of offence, 
 there is no renovation of character, there is not 
 even submission to the highest force within his 
 experience. Our admiration of his surrender is not 
 unmixed. It is a moving spectacle to see a man, 
 despite all the solicitations of wrath and revenge, 
 of interest and fear, obedient to what is on the 
 whole so salutary an influence as domestic affection. 
 But loyalty to this will not of itself avail to safeguard 
 anyone from criminal entanglements, or to equip 
 him for beneficent public action, or to change the 
 current of his life. It may mean the triumph of a 
 natural tendency that happens to be good over other 
 natural tendencies that happen to be bad, but it 
 does not mean acceptance of duty as duty, or 
 anxiety to satisfy the claims that different duties 
 impose. Hence Coriolanus, to the very end, leaves 
 unredeemed his inherited obligations to Rome, while 
 he leaves unfulfilled his voluntary pledges to his 
 allies. Even in Plutarch's narrative Shakespeare's 
 insight is not required to detect this underlying 
 thought, but in the Comparison, which there is proof 
 that Shakespeare had studied, it is set forth so 
 clearly that he who runs may read. 
 
 He made the Volsces (of whome he was generall) to lose 
 the oportunity of noble victory. Where in deede he should 
 (if he had done as he ought) have withdrawen his armie with 
 their counsaill and consent, that had reposed so great affiance 
 in him, in making him their generall : if he had made that 
 accompt of them, as their good will towards him did in duety 
 binde him. Or else, if he did not care for the Volsces in the 
 enterprise of this warre, but had only procured it of intent to 
 be revenged, and afterwards to leave it of, when his anger 
 was blowen over ; yet he had no reason for the love of his 
 
622 CORIOLANUS 
 
 mother to pardone his contrie ; but rather he should in 
 pardoning his contrie have spared his mother, bicause his 
 mother and wife were members of the bodie of his contrie 
 and cittie, which he did besiege. For in that he uncurteously 
 rejected all publike petitions ... to gratifie only the request 
 of his mother in his departure ; that was no acte so much to 
 honour his mother with, as to dishonour his contrie by, the 
 which was preserved for the pitie and intercession of a 
 woman, and not for the love of it selfe, as if it had not bene 
 worthie of it. And so was this departure a grace, to say 
 truly, very odious and cruell, and deserved no thanks of 
 either partie, to him that did it. For fie withdrew his army, 
 not at the request of the Romaines, against whom he made 
 warre : nor with their consent, at whose charge the warre was 
 made. 
 
 That Shakespeare, with his patriotism and equity, 
 perceived the double flaw in Coriolanus' act of grace 
 can hardly be doubted. He was the last man to 
 put the household above the national gods, or to 
 glorify breach of contract if only it were sanctioned 
 by domestic tenderness. In point of fact, he does 
 not acquit his hero on either count. 
 
 On the one hand, if Coriolanus remits the extreme 
 penalty, he neither forgets nor forgives, and has no 
 thought of return to the offending city or resumption 
 of the old ties. Scarcely has he granted the ladies 
 their boon, when he addresses Aufidius : 
 
 For my part 
 I'll not to Rome, I'll back with you. (v. iii. 197.) 
 
 And his speech to the senators of Antium shows no 
 revival of former loyalties : 
 
 Hail, lords ! I am return'd your soldier. 
 
 No more infected with my country's love 
 
 Than when I parted hence, but still subsisting 
 
 Under your great command. You are to know 
 
 That prosperously I have attempted and 
 
 With bloody passage led your wars even to 
 
 The gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home 
 
 Do more than counterpoise a full third part 
 
 The charges of the action. We have made peace 
 
 With no less honour to the Antiates 
 
 Than shame to the Romans. (v. vi. 71.) 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 623 
 
 The insolent announcement of the invasion carried 
 to the gates of the capital, of the plunder that 
 substantially exceeds the cost, of the humiliatina 
 terms imposed on his countrymen, is ample proof 
 that in Coriolanus there is no recrudescence of 
 patriotism. 
 
 Yet despite his words, he has been false to 
 the Volscians. However base were his motives 
 Aufidius speaks the truth when he says : 
 
 Perfidiously 
 
 He has betray'd your business, and given up, 
 
 For certain drops of salt, your city Rome, 
 
 I say ^'your city," to his wife and mother; 
 
 Breaking his oath and resolution like 
 
 A twist of rotten silk, never admitting 
 
 Counsel o' the war. (v. vi. 91.) 
 
 It is the opinion of the First Lord, despite his 
 impartiahty and his sympathy with Marcius : 
 
 There to end 
 Where he was to begin, and give away 
 The benefit of our levies, answering us 
 With our own charge ; making a treaty where 
 There was a yielding, — this admits no excuse, (v. vi. 65.) 
 Thus both his native and his adopted country have 
 reason to complain. He remains a traitor to the 
 one, while yet he breaks faith with the other. 
 
 Of course, in theory there was a middle course 
 possible, which would have served the best interests 
 of the two states equally. He might have used his 
 influence to establish a lasting and intimate alliance ; 
 and this was the policy that Volumnia outlined in 
 her plea : 
 
 If it were so that our request did tend 
 
 To save the Romans', thereby to destroy 
 
 The Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us 
 
 As poisonous to your honour : no ; our suit 
 
 Is, that you reconcile them : while the Volsces 
 
 May say, " This mercy we have show'd " ; the Romans, 
 
 " This we received " ; and each in either side 
 
 Give the all-hail to thee, and cry " Be blest 
 
 For making up this peace ! " (v. iii. 132.) 
 
624 CORIOLANUS 
 
 But such an all-hail was not for Coriolanus to win. 
 It is one of the charges which Plutarch brings 
 against him in the Comparison, that he neglected 
 the opportunity. 
 
 By this dede of his he tooke not away the enmity that was 
 betwene both people. 
 
 But how could he, when he had no special desire 
 for the well-being of either, and when his heart was 
 unchanged? His family affection has got the better 
 of his narrower egoism, but even after sacrificing a 
 portion of his revenge, he remains essentially the 
 man he was, and is no more capable of pursuing a 
 judicious and conciliatory policy now for the good of 
 the whole and his own good, than of old in the 
 market-place of Rome. 
 
 For to the end he is imprudent, headstrong, and 
 violent as ever. He sees quite clearly that his, 
 compliance with his mother's prayer must be 
 dangerous, if not mortal, to him. Dangerous it 
 is, mortal it need not be. With a little more 
 self-restraint and circumspection, a little less ag- 
 gressiveness and truculence, he might still preserve 
 both his life and his authority. It is his unchastened 
 spirit, not the questionable treaty, that is the direct 
 cause of his death. Indeed, in a sense, the treaty 
 had nothing to do with it. In Shakespeare, though 
 not in Plutarch, Tullus, as we have seen, when he 
 still anticipated the capture of Rome, determined to 
 make away with his rival so soon as that should take 
 place ; and from what we know of Coriolanus' 
 character, and Tullus' comprehension of it^ and 
 general astuteness in management, we feel sure that 
 the scheme was bound to succeed, if Coriolanus 
 persisted in his old ways. Even as things have 
 turned out, Marcius has all the odds in his favour. 
 His triumphal entry into Antium is a repetition of 
 
 ' See Appendix F. 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 625 
 
 his triumphal entry into Rome. When, according 
 to the stage direction, " Drums and trumpets sound, 
 with great shouts of the People," the malcontents 
 turn to Aufidius : 
 
 A ^^'''^^''"'^''■f'"-- Your native town you enter'd like a post, 
 And had no welcomes home; but he returns 
 Splitting the air with noise. - ' 
 
 Second Conspirator. And patient fools. 
 
 Whose children he hath slain, their base throats tear 
 With giving him the glory. (v ^i ^^^ 
 
 That is, the admiration of the populace, constrained 
 by his prowess, is the same sort of obstacle to these 
 factionanes as it formerly was to the tribunes ; and 
 With that, and his great services as well, he com- 
 mands the situation. He needs only a minimum of 
 skill and moderation to carry all before him. So 
 the problem of his antagonists is the same in both 
 cases: namely, to neutralise these advantages by 
 rousing his passion, and provoking him to show his 
 pride, his recklessness, his uncompromising rigour 
 In both cases he falls into the trap, and converts the 
 popular goodwill to hatred by defiantly harpino- on 
 the injuries he has inflicted on his admirers He is 
 the unregenerate "superman" to the last. The 
 suppression of his victorious surname, the taunts of 
 traitor and "boy," drive him mad. He lets 
 himself be transported to a bravado that must 
 shake from sleep all the latent hostility of the 
 Volscians. 
 
 Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart 
 
 Too great for what contains it. Boy ! O slave ! 
 
 Pardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever 
 
 I was forc'd to scold. Your judgements, my grave lords, 
 
 Must give this cur the lie : and his own notion— 
 
 Who wears my stripes impress'd upon him ; that 
 
 Must bear my beating to his grave— shall join 
 
 To thrust the lie unto him. 
 
 First Lord. Peace, both, and hear me speak. 
 
 2 R 
 
626 CORIOLANUS 
 
 Coriolanus. Cut me to pieces, Volsces ; men and lads, 
 Stain all your edges on me. Boy ! false hound ! 
 If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there, 
 That like an eagle in a dove-cote, I 
 Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli ; 
 Alone I did it. Boy ! 
 
 The patient fools, whose children he had slain, are 
 not patient now, and no longer tear their throats in 
 acclaiming his glory. Their cries, " Tear him to 
 pieces," " He killed my son," and the like, give the 
 conspirators the cue, and Aufidius is presently stand- 
 ing on his body. 
 
 It is not, then, as a martyr to retrieved patriotism 
 that Coriolanus perishes, but as the victim of his 
 own passion. In truth, the victory he won over 
 himself under the influence of his mother, though 
 real, is very incomplete. His piety to the hearth 
 saves him from the superlative infamy of destroying 
 his country, which is something, and even a good 
 deal ; but it is not everything ; and beyond that it 
 has no result, public or personal. On the contrary, 
 Coriolanus' isolated and but partly justified act of 
 clemency receives its comment from the motives 
 that induced it, the troth-breach that accompanied 
 it, and the rage in which he passed away. If, like 
 his son with the butterfly, he did grasp honour at the 
 close, it was disfigured by his rude handling. But 
 at least he never belies his own great though mixed 
 nature, and it is fitting that his death, needless but 
 heroic, should have its cause in his nature and be 
 such as his nature would select. Indeed, it is both 
 his nemesis and his guerdon. For he would not be 
 a Roman, he could not be a Volsce ; what part could 
 he have played in the years to come ? Perhaps 
 Shakespeare read in Philemon Holland's rendering 
 the alternative account that Livy gives of the final 
 scene. 
 
 I find in Fabius, a most ancient writer, that he lived untill 
 he was an old man : who repeateth this of him : that often- 
 
DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS 627 
 
 times iirhis latter daies he used to utter this speech • A heavie 
 case and most wretched, for an aged man to /ive Tanisht. 
 
 At all events some such feeling as his regrets in this 
 variant tradition suggest, makes us prefer the version 
 that Flutarch followed and that Shakespeare adapted. 
 Coriolanus deserves to be spared the woes that the 
 future has in store. As it is, he falls in the fulness 
 of his power, inspired by great memories to greater 
 audacity, and, no doubt, elated at the thought of 
 challenging and outbraving death, when death is 
 sure to win. 
 
APPENDIX A 
 
 NEAREST PARALLELS BETWEEN GARNIER'S CORNELIE, 
 IN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH VERSIONS, AND 
 JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 It should be remembered that it is not on these par- 
 ticular equivalents, mostly very loose, that those who 
 uphold the theory of connection between the two plays 
 rely, but on the general drift of the corresponding scenes 
 which in this respect strikingly resemble each other and 
 in no way produce the same impression as the narrative 
 of Plutarch. 
 
 French. English. 
 
 Cassie. Miserable Cite, tu armes Cassius. Accursed Rome, that 
 
 contre toy arm'st against thy selfe 
 
 La fureur d'un Tyran pour le faire A Tyrants rage, and mak'st a 
 
 ton Roy : wretch thy King : 
 
 Tu armes tes enfans, injurieuse For one mans pleasure (O in- 
 
 Romme, jurious Rome !) 
 
 Encontre tes enfans, pour le plaisir Thy chyldren gainst thy chyldren 
 
 d'un homme : thou hast arm'd : 
 
 Et ne te souvient plus d'avoirfaict And thinkst not of the riners of 
 
 autrefois theyr bloode, 
 
 Tantruisselerde sang pour ti avoir That earst were shed to saue thy 
 
 point de Rois, libertie, 
 
 Pour n'esfre point esclave, et ne Because thou euer hatedst Mon- 
 
 porter flechie archie.^ . . . 
 Au service d'ufi senl, le joug de 
 
 Monarchic.^ (line 1065.) 
 
 . . . Quoy Brute ? et nous faut-il But, Brutus, shall wee dissolutelie 
 
 trop craignant le danger, sitte 
 
 Laisser si laschement sous un And see the tyrant liue to tyranize? 
 
 Prince ranger ? 
 
 ' Shall Rome stand under one man's awe ? What, Rome ? 
 My ancestors did from the streets of Rome 
 The Tarquin drive when he was call'd a King. (11. i. 51.) 
 
PARALLELS 
 
 629 
 
 Faut-il que tant de gens maris 
 
 Pour nostre franchise 
 Se plaignent aux tombeaux de 
 
 nostre couardise f 
 Et que les peres -vieux voisent 
 
 disant de nous, 
 "Ceux-IA ont mieux aim^, tant 
 
 Us ont le coeur mous, 
 Honteusement servir en demen- 
 
 tant leur race, 
 Qf^armez pour le pais mourir 
 
 dessus la place!'''- (line iioi.) 
 
 Or shall theyr ghosts, that dide to 
 
 doe us good, 
 Plaine in their Tombes of our base 
 
 cowardi'se . . . 
 
 "See where they goe that haue 
 theyr race forgot ! 
 
 And rather chuse, {unarMd) to 
 serue with shame. 
 
 Then, {flrnid), to saue their free- 
 dom and their fame ! " ' 
 
 Brute. Je jure par le Ciel, throne 
 
 des Immortels, 
 Par leurs images saincts, leurs 
 
 temples, leurs autels, 
 De ne soufFrir, vray Brute, aucun 
 
 maistre entreprendre 
 Sur nostre liberte, si je la puis 
 
 defendre. 
 J'ai Cesar en la guerre ardente- 
 
 ment suyvi, 
 Pour maintenir son droit, non 
 
 pour vivre asservi . . . 
 ... II verra que Decime a 
 
 jusques aujourdhuy 
 Port^ pour luy I'estoc qu'il trou- 
 
 vera sur luy. 
 . . . fe I'aime cherement,je Vaime, 
 
 mats le droit 
 Off on doit a son pais, qiioL sa 
 
 naissance on doit. 
 Tout autre amour surmonte? . . . 
 (line 1 109.) 
 
 Brutus. I swear by heauen, th' 
 Immortals highest throne. 
 
 Their temples, Altars, and; theyr 
 Images, 
 
 To see (for one) that Brutus suffer 
 not 
 
 His ancient liberty to be represt. 
 
 I freely marcht with Caesar in hys 
 
 warrs, 
 Not to be subject, but to ayde his 
 
 right, . . . 
 But he shall see, that Brutus thys 
 
 day beares 
 The self-same Armes to be aueng'd 
 
 on hym. ... 
 / hue, I hue him deerely. But 
 
 the loue 
 That men theyr Country and theyr 
 
 birth-right bearcy 
 Exceeds all loues? - . . 
 
 Cassie. Tandisque Cassie aura Cassius. . . . Know, while Cas- 
 
 goutte de sang sius hath one drop of blood 
 
 En son corps animeux, il voudra To feede this worthies body that 
 
 vivre franc, you see, 
 
 // fuira le servage ostant la What reck I death, to doe so 
 
 tyrannie, many good ? 
 
 ' Age, thou art shamed ! 
 
 Rome, thou bast lost the breed of noble bloods ! (i. ii.- 150.) 
 
 Our fathers' minds are dead 
 And we are govem'd by our mothers' spirits^ 
 Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish. (i. iii. 82.) 
 
 "If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say, 
 that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand 
 why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer : — Not that I loved Caesar 
 less but that I loved Rome more. ("'• ii- •90 
 
630 
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 Ou latne de son corps il chassera In spite of Caesar, Cassius will be 
 
 hn.nnip\ free. 
 
 Brutus. 
 
 bannie. 
 Brute. Toute ame 
 indocile a servir 
 Deteste les Tyrans. 
 
 genereuse 
 
 Cassie. Je ne puis 
 
 m'asservir, 
 Ny voir que Rome serve, et 
 
 plustost la mort dure 
 M'enferre mifle fois, que vivant je 
 
 I'endure. . . . 
 O chose trop indigne ! Un homme 
 
 effemind . . . 
 Commande a I'Univers, la terre 
 
 tient en bride? 
 Et maistre donne loy au peuple 
 
 Romulide, 
 Aux enfants dudieu Mars. . . . 
 
 O Brute, O Servilie, 
 Qu'ores vous nous laissez une r'ace 
 avilie ! 
 
 Brute est vivant, il sgait, il voit, il 
 
 est present, 
 Que sa chere patrie on va tyran- 
 
 nisant : 
 Et comma s'il n'estoit qu'une 
 
 vaine semblance 
 De Brut son ayeul, non sa vraye 
 
 semence, 
 S'il n'avoit bras ny mains, sens 
 
 ny coeur, pour oser, 
 Simulacre inutile, aux Tyrans 
 
 s'opposer : 
 II ne fait rien de Brute, et d'heure 
 
 en heure augmente 
 Par trop de laschet^ la force 
 
 violente. (line 1201.) 
 
 A generous or true 
 enobled spirit 
 Detests to leame what tasts of 
 seruitude. 
 Cassius. Brutus, I cannot seme 
 nor see Rome yok'd : 
 No, let me rather die a thousand 
 deaths. . . . 
 
 O 
 
 A beardles 
 
 base indignitie ! 
 
 youth^ ... 
 Commaunds the world, and bridel- 
 
 eth all the earth? 
 And like a prince controls the 
 
 Romulists ; 
 Braue"" Roman Souldiers, steme- 
 
 borne sons of Mars. . . . 
 O Brutus, speake ! O say, Ser- 
 
 vilius ! " 
 Why cry you aime,* and see us 
 
 used thus ? 
 But Brutus liues, and sees, and 
 
 knowes, and feeles. 
 That there is one that curbs their 
 
 Countries weale. 
 Yet (as he were the semblance, 
 
 not the Sonne, 
 Of noble Brutus, his great Grand-' 
 
 father) ; 
 As if he wanted hands, sence, 
 
 sight or hart, 
 He doth, deuiseth, sees, nor dareth 
 
 ought, 
 That may extirpe or raze these 
 
 tyrannies : 
 Nor ought doth Brutus that to 
 
 Brute belongs, 
 But still increaseth by his negli- 
 gence 
 His owne disgrace and Caesars 
 violence. 
 ' Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius . . . 
 Life being weary of these worldly bars 
 Never lacks power to dismiss itself. (i. iii. 90.) 
 
 ^ Notice the inept rendering. 
 
 ' It doth amaze me, 
 
 A man of such a feeble temper should 
 So get the start of the majestic world. 
 And bear the palm alone. (l. ii. 128.) 
 
 * Approve or agree. 
 
APPENDIX B 
 
 THE VERBAL RELATIONS OF THE VARIOUS VERSIONS 
 OF PLUTARCH ILLUSTRATED BY MEANS OF 
 VOLUMNIA'S SPEECH 
 
 This passage, though it does not show the successive 
 modifications of the text quite so fully and strikingly as 
 some others, is the most interesting in so far as it is the 
 longest in which Shakespeare closely follows the lead of the 
 original. 
 
 The Latin version of the Renaissance is placed first, both 
 because in definite form it is chronologically the earliest, 
 and because for the reasons already given it cannot be held 
 to have had much influence on Amyot, North and 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 It is of course impossible to reconstruct the Greek text 
 that Amyot put together for "himself. I have taken that of 
 the edition of 1599, published half a dozen years after his 
 death, as a fair approximation. The chief variations from 
 the Latin -are given in spaced type. 
 
 In the extract from Amyot the chief variations from the 
 Greek are printed in Italics ; the few phrases or words in 
 which the influence of the Latin may be suspected are 
 underlined. 
 
 In the extract from North the chief variations from the 
 French are printed in Italics. 
 
 In the extract from Shakespeare, it is, as we might expect, 
 more convenient to reverse the process and italicise what he 
 has taken over. 
 
 [The Version 
 
632 APPENDIX B 
 
 The Version! of the elder Guarini, styled 
 GuARiNus Veronensis, in the Edition of the 
 Vitae Parallelae ISSUED BY Udalricus Gallus 
 IN 1470 (?) 
 
 Turn pueros ac Vergiliam unacum reliquis secum mulieri- 
 bus ducens castra Volscorum adiit. Earum miseranda 
 facies hosti reverentiam injecit atque silentium. Hie 
 Martius in suggesto inter Volscorum proceres sedens, ubi 
 eas adventare mulieres vidit, admiratione confectus est, 
 imprimis venientem uxorem noscitans immoto et obstinate 
 persistere animo^ voluit: verum consternatus afifectu et ad 
 ipsarum confusus intuitum baud tulit ut se sedentem 
 adirent/ ac pernici devotas gradu obviam prodiit. Et 
 matre primo diutissimeque salutata, inde uxore ac filiis, 
 nullo jam pacto frenare lacrimas poterat. Ut vero dulces 
 incepti sunt amplexus, virum parentis amore perinde ac 
 secundo fluminis cursu deferri cerneres.* Caeterum cum 
 inchoantem jam verba matrem intelligeret, acceptis Vols- 
 corum primoribus Volumniam talia orantem audivit. " Etsi 
 fili taceamus, ipse, tum veste, tum miseri corporis apparatu, 
 cernis qualem domesticae rei conditionem tuum nobis 
 confecerit exilium. Existima vero quam caeteris longe 
 mulieribus infeliciores accessimus, quibus dulcissimum 
 aspectum fecit fortuna terribilem : te mihi filiuni, huic vero 
 maritum, patriae muros obsidentem aspicimus. Et quod 
 caeteris calamitatis et malorum solet esse solacium, deos 
 orare, quam procul nobis ablatum est : non enim et patriae 
 victoriam et tibi salutem implorare fas est : quaeque atrociora 
 quispiam nobis impraecaretur hostis, ea nostris insunt* 
 praecibus. Uxorem enim ac liberos aut patria aut te orbari 
 necesse est. Ego vero, dum haec viventi mihi bellum di- 
 judicet, baud morabor, teque nisi positis inimicitiis ad pacem 
 atque concordiam conciliavero ; ita ut utrique ® potius 
 beneficum quam alteri perniciosum te reddas. Hoc tibi 
 persuade sicque conformatus et paratus accede, ut non ante 
 hostiles patriae manus conferas quam caesam calcaveris 
 parentem. Nee enim ea mihi expectanda dies est qua 
 filium aut in triumpho tractum a civibus aut de patria 
 triumphantem aspiciam. Quod si pro conservanda patria 
 
 ^ I have modernised the punctuation.'and extended the contractions through- 
 out, but wherever there is any possibility of misinterpretation I have noted it. 
 
 *aio. 'adiret. 'cernes. *I sinit. ^uterque. 
 
VERSIONS OF PLUTARCH 633 
 
 profligari a te Volscos exorarem, grave fili iniquumque tibi 
 fateor imminere consilium ; namque necque cives perdere 
 bonum est, necque tuos commissos fidei perdere justum. 
 Nunc malorum finem imploramus simulque populis utrisque 
 salutem. Quae res maximam Volscis gloriam comparabit : 
 quod cum ingentia nobis bona et victores quidem tribuerint, 
 non minus jocundam ipsi pacem et amicitiam sint consecu- 
 turi : qiiae si effecta fuerint, tu tantorum profecto dux eris 
 et causa bonorum : sin ea infecta permanserint, utrique 
 noxam in te solum crimenque rejicient. Cumque incertus 
 belli sit eventus, hoc certi secum affert : ut siquidem vincas 
 immanissimus patriae vastator appellandus sis, sin victus 
 succumbas, ob tuam videberis iracundiam benefactoribus et 
 amicis ingentium origo malorum extitisse." Haec dum 
 oraret Volumnia, nullum respondens verbum Martins in- 
 tentis excipiebat auribus. Ut vero desierat, cum is 
 diuturnum teneret silentium, rursus Volumnia ; " Quid 
 siles," inquit. " Nate, num irae receptarumque injuriarum 
 memoriae omnia concedere satius arbitraris an depraecanti 
 talia matri largiri pulcherrimum munificentiae genus non 
 est? Magnine interesse viri putas acceptorum meminisse 
 malorum ? Suscepta autem a parentibus beneficia eorum 
 cultui ac venerationi reddere num excelso potius ac bono 
 dignissimum viro munus censes? Caeterum gratiam habere 
 tuerique magisquam tu debuit nemo, cum tamen per 
 acerbissimam adeo ingratitudinem eas. Et cum permagnas 
 jam patriae paenas exegeris acceperisque, nullas adhuc 
 matri grates retulisti. Erat vero aequissimum atque 
 sSinctissimum ut abs te vel nulla ingruenti necessitate tam 
 honesta tamque justa postulans impetrarem. Quid cum in 
 meam te verbis sententiam deflectere nequeam, extremae 
 jam parco spei ? " Haec affata cum uxore simul ac liberis 
 pedibus advoluta procumbit. Tum conclamans Martius, 
 "Qualia mihi" ait "factitasti mater"; et jacentem sustulit: 
 et pressa dextera inquit; " Vicisti patriae quidem prosperam, 
 nimis atque nimis perniciosam autem '^ mihi victoriam. 
 Abs te tantum superatus abscedam." 
 
 Plutarch's Greek in the Edition of 1599 
 
 'Ek tovtov, to. Te iraiSia koi rr/v OvepyiXiav avaa-rriaracra 
 fiera twv aXKoov ywouKoav, e/SdSi^ev ety to (rrpaToireSov tuiv 
 Ov6\ovarK(iov. ^ S' o\lris avTwv Tore otKTpav Kai tois TToXe/uLiois 
 
 ^aiil. 
 
634 APPENDIX B 
 
 eveirolfia-ev alSu) koi crmTrt'iv. ervxe S" 6 Mdp<c(o; eiri. ^ijnaros 
 Ka6e^6fievos fiexa tuiv ^yefioviKcJov. coy oiv eiSe irpoariovcrai 
 Tag yvvaiKas, eOavfiaaev' eiriyvovg 8e ti/v yvvaiKa irpurrriv 
 l3aSl^ov(rav, e/Soi/Xero fiev i/ifieveiv tok uTpeTTTOii cKeivois 
 Kui aTrapaiTTjTois Xoyurfioig' yevofievog Se tov vaOovs 
 eXaTTOnv Koi a-vvrapaxOeh Trpos t^v oyjriv, ovk erkri KaQe^ofnevw 
 irpoa-eXdeiv, aSXa KaTaj3as Outtov ^ paStpi, Koi airav- 
 T^crai, Trpwrriv fiev fiairaa-aro Tt]V firjTepa, koi TrXeicrTOV 
 Xpovov, ert ^e Triv yvvaiKa koi tu tskvu, fJirire Soucpvwv 
 en, fJLijTe tov (jtiXo^poveicrdai (peiSop-evoi;, aXX 
 tocnrep vtto pevfiaTOS (jtepeuQai tov iradovi eavTOV evSeSioKooi. 
 e-Tret Se toiitwv aSijv e'x^' '^'"^ '''^'' IJ^'JTepa ^ovXo/jLevriv 
 ^St] Xoyoov apxeiv ?cr0eTO, tow tSiv OvoKov<rKU)v irpo^ovKovq 
 •7rapacrTrj(rafJi.evog, rjKOVtre Tijt OuoXoyyCtway TOiavTa Xeyoi/frijf, 
 "'0/oa? fJiev, & iral, Krlv avToi ftr/ Xeyajfiev, ecrOiJTi kui fioptpi] 
 Twv aOXioov cra)/j,dTwv TeK/j-atpofievos, olav oiKOvpiav t/fuv t) 
 trri <pvyi] irepiiro'irjo-e. Xoyiirai 8e vvv <09 aTvxecrraTai iracruv 
 a^lyfieOa yuvaiKwv, a?y to ijSia-TOv Oeap-a, (ftofiepuyraTOv rj 
 Tvxv TceiroittKev, efioi fxev viov, tuutt] S avSpa TOtf Ttjs 
 TraTplSos Teixeo'iv ISeiv avTiKaQrifxevov. o S' ecrTi Tolf aXXoi? 
 uTvxiai Trdcrrif km KaKOirpaylag irapafivOiov, evxeardai Oeoif, 
 tlfuv aTToparraTOV yeyovev. ov yap oTov re xal Ty iraTpiSi 
 vU^v a/JLa KOI (To\ a-amipiav aiTettrOai irapd twv dewv, aXX 
 a Tis av riixlv KOTapaa-aiTO twv exOpwv, TavTa tok ^/j-erepaif 
 evecTTiv evxah- dvayKt] yap i T^y iraTpiSog ij <rov arepeaOai 
 yuvaiKi cry Kai TtKvoii. ey<o S' ov irepifievw TavTiju fxoi 
 SiaiTtjaai Trjv tuxv t'^'^V '''ov TroXe/nov' aXX' el firi tre 
 ireiaatfjLi <piXiav /cat ofiovoiav 6ia(j)opd^ itai KaKwv defitvov, 
 dfi^OTepaiv yeveaOai evepysTtjv p-aXXov, rj Xv/mewva Tftii' 
 ■eTepwv, ovTW Siavoov Kai irapaaiceva^e aeavTOv, o)y tj/ iraTpiSi 
 p.ri irpocTfiiiai Svvafievog nrpiv tj veicpav virep^rp/ai Trjv TeKOvaav. 
 ov yap eKUvrjv fie Set Tt]v rj/jiepav ava/xeveiv ev y tov viov 
 ^■7r6\Uo/J,ai 6piap.j3ev6fievov vtto twv ttoXItwv, t] Qpiafi^evovTa 
 KaTa Ttji iraTpiSoi. ei fiev oSv a^iw ore tijv iraTplSa trwa-ai 
 OvoXova-KOVi atroXeffavTa, x«Xe7r)j croi Kai SvaSiatTrjTOi, w 
 ■Tai, TrpoKSiTai crKe^lris, ovTe yap SiatpOeipai TOvi TroXtras 
 xaXov, ovTe tov? TreirtarTevKOTai irpoSovvai StKaiov. vvv S 
 onraXXayiv kokwv aiTtovfieda, (rwTijpiov fxev dfKpoTepon 
 Ofiolwi, evSo^ov Se (cat KaXrjv fiaXXov OvoXovctkok, oti toi 
 KpaTelv So^ovai StSovai tu fieyuTTa twv dyaOwv, ovx 
 rJTT ov XafjL ^av ovTBis, elp^vr/v Kai ^iXiav, wv p.dXiaTa 
 jmev aiTios ea-rj yivofievwv, fir} yivofievwv Se, fiovos aiTiav 
 •e^fety Trap fifi<j)OTepoii. aSrjXot S' &v 6 TroXe/xoy tout 
 exei TrpoSrjXov, oti <roi vikwvti fiev, aXacrTopi T^y TraTpiSoi 
 
VERSIONS OF PLUTARCH 635 
 
 ejvai 'TrepUa-Tiv- .jTrto/ucoy^ Se, Soiei^ vir o'py^y eJepyeVaiy 
 avSpacri Kai ^/Xoif toov fieyla^wv avjui^opwv amoi yeyovivai." 
 -ravra TJji OuoXoufxvia^Xeyova-iis 6 MapKioi ^KpoaTO fi^Sev 
 aTOKptvofievoi. eTrel Se koi iravcraiuLevtis, eia-r^Kei (rmirwv 
 TToXvv xpovov,^ aSdis ri OvoXovfivia, " Tl o-jyay (el-n-ev) w iral, 
 irorepov opyg koi fivrjaiKOKia iravTa crvyxoopetv kuXov ; ov . 
 KoXov 8e p.rprpi X"/""'"'''^"' Seofjievy irep'i TrjXuiovTwm', rj to 
 ftefiv^adai ireirovdoTa KaKooi avSpt p-eyaXw irpoa^Kei, to 8' 
 €vepye(nai at? evepyerovvrai iraiSe^ inro twv TeKoinrwv 
 <Tepea-6ai Koi Ti/mv, ovk avSpoi epyov eorrJ fieyaXov koi 
 ayaQov; km fxriv ovSevt fiaXXov eirpeire Trjpeiv X'^P'" '•'? f"'' 
 vikpwi ovTCOi ax<i ptcTT lav eire^lovTi. kuitoi 
 irapa Tiji TrurpiSoi ^St] fieyaXas SfKUf ctTre/Xj/^ay, Trj p.tjTp\ 
 S ovSepiav X**/"" a'TO(Se(Sto/cay. ^p ixev oiiv ocriwraTOv avev 
 Tivoy ai/ay/o/y Tvxeiv fie irapa trov Seofievriv ovtus koXwv kou 
 Sucaiwv' fit] Treidoua-a 8e tI ^eiSoftai T^y ecrxaTtis eXiriSoi ; " 
 KOI TauT enrovcra irpoannirTei tois ttoct/i/ avTOv fxera T^y 
 yvvaiKOi afia kou twv tckvoov. 6 Se Map/cioy avajSor'icrai, 
 " Ola eipyacrai /ae, eb fiaTep ; " e^avKnTjcrtv avTr/v, Kai Trjv 
 Se^iav irtea-as a-<p6Spa-i " NewKi/zcaS (efxei/) ewrux? /^ei' Tg 
 varpiSi vucriv, efioi S' oXeOpiov' aireip.t yap vtto crov fiovrig 
 ^TTUifievos." 
 
 Amyot's Version. 
 
 Elle prit sa belle fille et ses enfans quand et^ elle, et avec 
 toutes les autres Dames Romaines s'en alia droit au camp 
 des Volsques, lesquelz eurent eulx-mesmes une compassion 
 meslee de reverence quand ils la veirent de maniere qiiil tiy 
 etit personne (Teulx qui luy ozast rien dire. Or estoit lors 
 Martius assis en son tribunal, avec les marques de souverain 
 Capitaine} et de tout loing" qu'il apperceut venir des femmes, 
 s'esmerveilla que ce pouvoit estre ; mais peu apres recog- 
 noissant sa femme, qui marchoit la premiere, il voulut du 
 commencement perseverer en son obstinee et inflexible 
 rigueur ; mais a la fin, vaincu de I'afifection naturelle, estant 
 tout esmeu de les voir, il ne pent avoir le coeur si dtir que de 
 les attendre en son siege, ains * en descendant plus viste que 
 le pas, leur alia au devant, et baisa sa mere la premiere, et 
 la teint assez longuement embrassee, puis sa femme et ses 
 
 ' together with, 
 
 ^ A mistranslation of the Greek phrase, pierii. rSiv iiyeiiovi.Kwv, from which it 
 must come. The Latin is cdrrect and unmistakable. 
 
 'But. 
 
636 APPENDIX B 
 
 petits enfants, ne se pouvant plus tenir que les chaul 
 larmes ne luy vinssent aux yeux, ny se garden de leur fa 
 caresses, ains se laissant aller a raflfection du sang ne p 
 ne moins qu'a la force d'un impetueux torrent. M 
 apres qu'il leur cut assez faict daimable recueil, et q 
 apperceut que sa mere Volumnia vouloit commencer a 1 
 parler, il appella les principaux du conseil des Volsqi 
 pour ouyr ce qu'elle proposeroit, puis elle parla en ce 
 maniere : " Tu peux assez cognoistre de toy mesme, m 
 filz, encore que nous ne t'en dissions rien, a voir noz accoi 
 tremens, et I'estat auquel sont noz pauvres corps, quellf 
 este nostre vie en la maison depuis tu en es dehors ; m 
 considere encore maintenant combien plus mal heureuses 
 plus infortunees nous sommes icy venues que toutes 
 femmes du monde, attendu que ce qui est a toutes les auti 
 le plus doulx a voir, la fortune nous I'a rendu le pi 
 effroyable, faisant voir a moy mon filz, et a celle-ci, s 
 mary, assiegeant les murailles de son propre pais ; tel 
 ment que ce qui est a toutes autres le souverain renconfc 
 en leurs adversitez, de prier et invoquer les Dieux a le 
 secours, c'est ce qui nous met en plus grande perplexi 
 pource que nous ne leur sgaurions demander en noz priet 
 victoire a nostre pais et preservation de ta vie tout ensemb 
 ains toutes les plus griefves maledictions que scaun 
 imaginer contre nous un ennemy sont necessairemt 
 encloses en noz oraisons, pource qu'il est force a ta femr 
 et a tes enfans qu'ilz soyent privez de I'un de deux, ou 1 
 toy, ou de leurs pais : car quant a moy, je ne suis pas de 
 beree d'attendre que la fortune, moy vivante, decide Fiss 
 de ceste guerre : car si je ne te puis persuader que tu vueill 
 plus tost bien faire a toutes les deux parties, que d'en ruin 
 et destruire I'une, en preferant amitie et concorde ai 
 miseres et calamitez de la guerre, je veux bien que tu sach 
 et le tienes pour asseure que tu n'iras jamais assaillir 1 
 combattfe ton pals que premierement tu ne passes p 
 dessus le corps de celle qui t'a mis en ce monde, et ne d( 
 point dlfferer jusques a voir le jour, ou que mon filz priso 
 titer soit men^ en triumphe par ses citoyens, ou que I1 
 mesme triumphe de son pais. Or si ainsi estoit que je 
 requisse de sauver ton paJs en destruisant les Volsques, 
 te serait certainement une deliberation trop mal-aisee 
 resoudre ; car comme il n'est point licite de ruiner son pa 
 aussi n'est-il point juste de trahir ceulx qui se sont fiez 1 
 toy. Mais ce que je te demande est une delivrance 1 
 
VERSIONS OF PLUTARCH 637 
 
 qu ayans la victoire en main, ils nous 
 auront^ de grace donne deux souverains biens, la paix et 
 I'amitie, encore qu'ilz n'en prennent pas moins pour eulx 
 duquel tu seras principal autheur, s'il se fait ; et, s'il ne se 
 fait, tu en auras seul le reproche et le blasme ^ total envers 
 Tune et I'autre des parties : ainsi estant Tissue dc la guerre 
 incertaine,^ cela neantmoins est bien tout certain que, si tu 
 en demoures vaincueur, il t'en restera ce profit, que tu en 
 seras estime la peste et la ruine de ton pals : et si tu es 
 vaincu, on dira que pour un appetit de venger tes propres 
 injures tu auras este cause de tres griefves calamitez a 
 ceulx qui t'avoient humainement et amiablement recueilly." 
 Martius escouta ces paroles de Volumnia sa mere sans 
 I'interrompre, et apres qu'elle eut acheve de dire demoura 
 longtemps tout picqui sans luy respondre. Parquoy elle 
 reprit la parole et recommencea a luy dire : "Que ne me 
 respons-tu, mon filz ? Estimes-tu qu'il soit licite de con- 
 ceder tout a son ire et a son appetit de vengeance, et non 
 honeste de condescendre et indiiier aux prieres de sa mere 
 en si grandes choses ? Et cuides-tu qu'il soit convenable a 
 un grand personnage, se souvenir des torts qu'on luy a faits 
 et des injures passees, et que ce ne soit point acte d'homme 
 de bien et de grand cueur, recognoistre les bienfaicts que 
 refoyvent les enfans de leurs peres et meres, en leur portant 
 honneur et reverence ? Si * n'y a il homme en ce monde 
 qui deust mieux observer tous les poinds de gratitude que 
 toy, veu que tu poursuis si asprement une ingratitude : et 
 si^ y a davantage, que tu as ja fait payer a ton pals de 
 grandes amendes pour les torts que Ton t'y a faits, et n'as 
 encore fait aucune recognoissance a ta mere; pourtant 
 seroit-il plus honeste que sans autre contrainte j' impetrasse * 
 de toy une requeste si juste et si raisonnable. Mais puis 
 que par raison je ne le te puis persuader, a quel besoing 
 espargne-je plus, et differe-je la derniere esperance." En 
 disant ces paroles elle se jetta elle mesme, avec sa femme 
 et ses enfans, a ses pieds. Ce que Martius ne pouvant sup- 
 porter, la releva tout aussi tost en s'escriant : " O mere, que 
 m'as tu faict?" et un luy serrant estroittement la main 
 
 ' Greek ahlav, Latin noxam crimenque. 
 
 ■•' Latin : cumque incertus belli sit eventus. " Yet. 
 
 ■■An unusual word in French. Compare the impetrare of the Latin. 
 
638 APPENDIX B 
 
 droite:-" Ha," dit il, " Mere, tu as vaincu una victoire heureuse 
 pour ton pals mais bien malheureuse et mortelle pour ton 
 filz, car je m'en revois ^ vaincu par toy seule. 
 
 North's Version. 
 
 She tooke her daughter in lawe, and Martius children 
 with her, and being accompanied with all the other 
 Romaine ladies, they went in troupe together unto the 
 Volsces camp : whome when they sawe, they of them selves 
 did both pitie and reverence her, and there was not a man 
 amonge them that once durst say a worde unto her. Nowe 
 was Martius set then in his chayer of state, with all the 
 honours of a generall, and when he had spied the women 
 coming a farre of, he marveled what the matter ment : but 
 afterwardes knowing his wife which came formest, he 
 determined at the first to persist in his obstinate and 
 inflexible rancker. But overcomen in the ende with 
 naturall affection, and being altogether altered to see 
 them; his harte wotild not serve him to tarie their comming 
 to his chayer, but comming down in hast, he went to meete 
 them, and first he kissed his mother, and imbraced her a 
 pretie while, then his wife and litle children. And Nature 
 so tvrotight with him, that the^ teares fell from his eyes, 
 and he coulde not keepe him selfe from making much 
 of them, but yeelded to the affection of his bloode as if he 
 had bene violently caried with the furie of a most swift 
 running streame. After he had thus lovingly received 
 them, and perceiving that his mother Volumnia would 
 beginne to speake to him, he called the chiefest of the 
 counsell of the Volsces to heare what she would say. Then 
 she spake in this sorte : " If we held our peace, (my sonne) 
 and determined not to speake, the state of our poor bodies, 
 and present sight of our rayment, would easely bewray to 
 thee what life we have led at home, since thy exile and 
 abode abroad. But thinke nowe with thy selfe, how much 
 more unfortunatly,^ then all the women livinge we are 
 come hether, considering that the sight which should be 
 most pleasaunt to all other to beholde, spitefuU fortune 
 hath made most fearefull to us: making my selfe to see my 
 Sonne, and my daughter here, her husband, besieging the 
 
 ' dircini, revais =tetouine. 2 jJq c/tauMes. 
 
 'Adverb for adjective, omission of one duplicate. 
 
VERSIONS OF PLUTARCH 639 
 
 walks of his native countrie: So as that which is thonly 
 comforte to all other in their adversitie and miserie, to pray 
 unto the goddes and to call to them for aide ; is the onely 
 thinge which plongeth us into most deepe perplexitie. For 
 we can not (alas) together pray, both for victorie, for our 
 countrie, and for safetie of thy life also : but a worlde of 
 grievous curses, yea tnore then any mortall enemie can 
 heape uppon us, are forcibly wrapt up in our prayers. For 
 the bitter soppe of most hard choyce is offered thy wife and 
 children, to forgoe the one of the two : either to lose the 
 persone of thy selfe, or the nurse of- their native contrie. 
 For my selfe (my sonne) I am determined not to tarie, till 
 fortune in my life time do make an ende of this warre. 
 For if I cannot persuade thee, rather to doe good unto 
 both parties than to overthrowe and destroye the one, 
 preferring love and nature before the malice and calamitie 
 of warres : thou shalt see, my sonne, and trust unto it,^ thou 
 shalt no soner marche forward to assault thy countrie, but 
 thy foote shall treade upon thy mothers wonibe, that 
 brought thee first into this world. And I maye not deferre 
 to see the daye, either that my sonne be led prisoner in 
 triumphe by his naturall country men, or that he him 
 selfe doe triumphe of them, and of his naturall countrie. 
 For if it were so, that my request tended to save thy 
 countrie, in destroying the Volsces : / must corifesse, thou 
 wouldesi hardly and doubtfidly resolve on that. For as to 
 destroye thy naturall countrie it is altogether unmete and 
 unlawfull ; so were it not just, and lesse honorable, to betraye 
 those that put their trust in thee. But my only demaunde 
 consisteth to make a gayle^ deliverie of all evills, which 
 delivereth equall benefit and safety both to the one and the 
 other, but most honorable for the Volsces. For it shall 
 appeare, that having victorie in their hands, they have of 
 speciall favour graunted us singular graces; peace, and 
 amitie, albeit them selves have no lesse parte of both, then 
 we. Of which good, if so it came to passe, thy selfe is 
 thonly authour, and so hast thou thonly honour. But if it 
 faile, and fall out contrarie : thy selfe alone deservedly shall 
 carie the shameful reproche and burden of either partie. 
 So, though the ende of warre be uncertaine, yet this 
 notwithstanding is most certaine : that if it be thy chaunce 
 to conquer, this benefit shalt thou reape of thy goodly 
 conquest, to be chronicled the plague and destroyer of thy 
 ' of, appositional. '- Not so clear as the French. "gaol. 
 
640 APPENDIX B 
 
 countrie. And if fortune also overthrowe thee, then the 
 worlde will saye, that through desire to revenge thy private 
 injuries, thou hast for ever undone thy good friendes, who 
 dyd most lovingly and curteously receyve thee." Martius 
 gave good eare unto his mothers wordes, without interrupting 
 her speache at all: and after she had sayed what she would, 
 he held his peace a prety while,^ and annswered not a worde. 
 Hereupon she beganne again to speake unto him, and sayed : 
 " My sonne, why doest thou not aunswer me ? Doest thou 
 think it good altogether to geve place unto thy choUer and 
 desire of revenge, and thinkest thou it not honestie for thee 
 to graunt^ thy mothers request in so weighty a cause? 
 doest thou take it honorable for a noble man, to remember 
 the wrongs and injuries done him : and doest not in like 
 case thinke it an honest noble man's parte, to be thankefuU 
 for the goodnes that parents doe shewe to their children, 
 acknowledging the duety and reverence they ought to beare 
 unto them'i^ No man living is more bounde to shewe him 
 selfe thankefuU in all partes and respects then thy selfe : 
 who so unnaturally sheweth all ingratitude.* Moreover 
 (my Sonne) thou hast sorely taken of thy countrie, exacting 
 grievous payments apon them, in revenge of the injuries 
 offered thee : besides, thou hast not hitherto shewed thy 
 poore mother any curtesie.^ And therefore it is not only 
 honest, but due unto me, that without compulsion I should 
 obtaine my so just and reasonable request of thee. But 
 since by reason I cannot persuade thee to it, to what 
 purpose do I deferre® my last hope?" And with these 
 wordes her selfe, his wife and children fell downe upon their 
 knees before him. Martius seeing that could refraine no 
 longer but went straight and Hfte her up, crying out : " Oh 
 mother, what have you done to me ? " And holding her 
 hard by the right hand, " Oh mother," sayed he, " You have 
 wonne a happy victorie for your countrie, but mortall and 
 
 ' picqu^ not translated. 
 
 ^ One of Amyot's duplicates wanting. 
 
 ^ Important connective particle omitted. 
 
 * Quite wrong. The French means : " Since you so bitterly pursue in- 
 gratitude." 
 
 "In this sentence North again misses the point of the argument. The 
 meaning is " And there is this further point as well, that you have already in a 
 measure requited your wrongs, but never yet shown your gratitude." 
 
 ^ One of Amyot's duplicate expressions omitted. 
 
VERSIONS OF PLUTARCH 641 
 
 happy for your sonne : for I see ^ myself vanquished by 
 u alone." 
 
 Shakespeare's Version 
 
 The narrative which ushers in the speech is of course 
 t to the actors. It is interesting, however, to observe 
 it Shakespeare varies from his authorities in making 
 )riolanus embrace not his mother but his wife in the first 
 stance. He inserts too the conversation, that, at first 
 :rely personal, leads up to the grand question. Then 
 jlumnia proceeds with her speech. It is impossible to 
 te all the minute changes that Shakespeare makes. The 
 ilics in the following reprint represent most generously 
 lat he has borrowed, for even in the clauses and phrases 
 dicated as loans there is abundant evidence of his own 
 epressible dramatic and poetic originality. 
 
 Vol. Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment 
 And state of bodies would bewray what life 
 We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself 
 How more unfortunate than all living women 
 Are we come hither : since that thy sight, which should 
 Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts, 
 Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow ; 
 Making the mother, wife, and child to see 
 The son, the husband, and the father tearing 
 His country's bowels out. And to poor we 
 Thine enmity s most Capital: thou barr'st us 
 Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort 
 That ail but we enjoys for how can we, 
 Alas, how can ivefor our country pray, 
 Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory. 
 Whereto we are bound ? alack, or we must lose 
 The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,. 
 Our comfort in the country. We must find 
 An evident calamity, though we had 
 Our wish, which side should win :,for either thou 
 Must, as a foreign recreant, be led 
 With manacles thorough our streets, or else 
 Triumphantly tread on thy country's ruin 
 And bear the palm for having bravely shed 
 Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son, 
 I purpose not to wait on fortune till 
 These wars determine : if I cannot persuade thee 
 Rather to show a noble grace to both parts 
 Than seek the end ofoTie, thou shall no sooner 
 March to assault thy country than to tread — 
 
 ^A pardonable mistranslation of the French; which, however, proves that 
 this passage at least North consulted neither the Greek nor the Latin. 
 
 2S 
 
642 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 Trust to 't thou shalt not — on thy mother's womb, 
 That brought thee to this world. 
 
 Vir. Ay, and mine, 
 
 That brought you forth this boy, to keep your name 
 Living to time. 
 
 Young Mar. A' shall not tread on me ; 
 I '11 run away till I am bigger, but then I '11 fight. 
 
 Cor. Not of a woman's tenderness to be, 
 Eequires nor child nor woman's face to see. 
 I have sat too long. [Rising. 
 
 Vol. Nay, go not from us thus, 
 
 If it were so that our request did tend 
 To save the Romans, thereby to destroy 
 The Volsces whotnyou serve, you might condemn us. 
 As poisonous of your honour : no ; our suit 
 Is, that you reconcile them. : while the Volsces 
 May say " This mercy we have show'd"j the^Romans, 
 " This we received" j and each in either side 
 Give the all-hail to thee; and cry " Be blest 
 For making up this peace ! " Thou know'st, great son. 
 The end of war's uncertain, but this certain 
 That, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit 
 Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name. 
 Whose repetition will be dogg'd with curses ; 
 Whose chronicle thus writ : " The man was noble. 
 But with his last attempt he wiped it out ; 
 Destroy' d his country, and his name remains 
 To the ensuing age abhorr'd." Speak to me, son : 
 Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour, 
 To imitate the graces of the gods j 
 To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air. 
 And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt 
 That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak ? 
 ThinKst thou it honourable for a noble man 
 Still to remember wrongs f Daughter, speak you : 
 He cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy : 
 Perhaps thy childishness will move him more 
 Than can our reasons. There's no man in the world 
 More bound to 's mother ; yet here he lets me prate 
 Like one i' the stocks. Thou hast never in thy life 
 Shoit/d thy dear mother any courtesy, 
 When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood, 
 Has cluck'd thee to the Wars and safely home, 
 Loaden with honour. Say my request's unjust, 
 And spurn me back : but if it be not so. 
 Thou art not honest ; and the gods will plague thee. 
 That thou restrain'st from me the duty which 
 To a mother's part belongs. He turns away : 
 Down, ladies ; let us shame him with our knees. 
 To his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride 
 Than pity to our prayers. Down : an end ; 
 This is the last : so we will home to Rome, 
 And die among our neighbours. Nay, behold 's : 
 This boy, that cannot tell what he would have, 
 
VERSIONS OF PLUTARCH 643 
 
 But kneels and holds up hands for fellowship. 
 
 Does reason our petition with more strength 
 
 Than thou hast to deny 't. Come, let us |o : 
 
 Ihis fellow had a Volscian to his mother • 
 
 His wife is in Corioli and his child 
 
 Like him by chance. Yet give us our dispatch • 
 
 I am hush'd until our city be afire, 
 
 And then I 'II speak a little [/fe holds her by the hand, silent. 
 
 '-<"'• O mother, motfier ' 
 
 What have you done f Behold, the heavens do ope 
 The gods look down, and this unnatural scene ' 
 
 They laugh at. O my mother, mother ! O ! 
 You have won a happy victory to Romej 
 But, for your jow,— believe it, O, believe it, 
 Most dangerously you have with himprevaiPd, 
 If not most mortal to him. But, let it come. 
 
APPENDIX C 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S ALLEGED INDEBTEDNESS TO 
 APPIAN IN JULIUS CAESAR 
 
 Plutarch gives little more than the situation and the 
 motif for Antony's oration. He has two accounts of the 
 incident. 
 
 (a) When Caesars body was brought into the Market Place, 
 Antonius making his funeral oration in praise of the dead accord- 
 ing to the ancient custom of Rome, and perceiving that his wordes 
 moved the common people to compassion ; he framed his eloquence 
 to make their harts yerne the more, and taking Caesars gowne all 
 bloudy in his hand, he layed it open to the sight of them all, shew- 
 ing what a number of cuts and holes it had upon it. Therewithal! 
 the people fell presently into such a rage and mutinie, that there 
 was no more order kept amongs the common people. 
 
 {Marcus Brutus^ 
 
 ip) When Caesars body was brought to the place where it should 
 be buried, he made a funeral oration in commendacion of Caesar, 
 according to the auncient custom of praising noble men at their 
 funerals. When he saw that the people were very glad and 
 desirous to heare Caesar spoken of, and his praises uttered : 
 he mingled his oration with lamentable wordes, and by amplifying 
 of matters did greatly move their harts and affections unto pitie 
 and compassion. In fine to conclude his oration, he unfolded 
 before the whole assembly the bloudy garments of the dead; 
 thrust through in many places with their swords, and called 
 the malefaictors, cruell and cursed murtherers. With these words 
 he put the people into ... a fury. {Marcus Antonius^ 
 
 Shakespeare certainly did not get much of the stuff for 
 Antony's speech from these notices. 
 
 Appian, on the other hand, gives a much fuller report, 
 which was quite accessible to ordinary readers, for Appian 
 had been published in 1578 by Henrie Bynniman.^ 
 
 ^ Under the title : " An auncient Historie and exquisite Chronicle of the 
 Romanes warres, both Ciuile and Keren. Written in Greeke by the noble 
 Orator and Historiographer Appian of Alexandria." 
 
APPIAN 645 
 
 The English version of the most important passages runs 
 thus: 
 
 Antony marking how they were affected, did not let it slippe, 
 but toke upon him to make Caesars funeral E2rmon, as Consul, 
 of a Consul, friend of a friend, and kinsman, of a kinsman (for 
 Antony was partly his kinsman) and to use craft againe. And 
 thus he said : " I do not thinke it meete (O citizens) that the 
 buriall praise of suche a man, should rather be done by me, than 
 by the whole country. For what you have altogither for the loue 
 of hys vertue giuen him by decree, aswell the Senate as the people, 
 I thinke your voice, and not Antonies, oughte to expresse it." 
 
 This he uttered with sad and heauy cheare, and wyth a framed 
 voice, declared euerything, chiefly upon the decree, whereby he 
 was made a God, holy and inuiolate, father of the country, bene- 
 factor and gouemor, and suche a one, as neuer in al things they 
 entituled other man to the like. At euery of these words Antonie 
 directed his countenance and hands to Caesars body, and with 
 vehemencie of words opened the fact. At euery title he gaue an 
 addition, with briefe speach, mixte with pitie and indignation. 
 And when the decree named him father of the country) then he 
 saide : " This is the testimony of our duety." 
 
 And at these wordes, holy, inuiolate and untouched, and the 
 refuge of all other, he said : "None other made refuge of hym. 
 But he, this holy and untouched, is kylled, not takyng honoure by 
 violences whiche he neuer desired, and then be we verye thrall 
 that bestowe them on the unworthy, neuer suing for them. But 
 you doe purge your selves (O Citizens) of this unkindnesse, in 
 that you nowe do use suche honoure towarde hym being dead." 
 
 Then rehearsing the othe, that all shoulde keepe Caesar and 
 Caesars body, and if any one wente about to betraye hym, that 
 they were accursed that would not defende him : at this he 
 extolled hys voice, and helde up his handes to the CapitoU, 
 saying : 
 
 "O Jupiter, Countries defendour, and you other Gods, I atn 
 ready to reuenge, as I sware and made execration, and when it 
 seemes good to my companions to allowe the decrees, I desire 
 them to aide me." 
 
 At these plaine speeches spoken agaynst the Senate, an uproare 
 being made, Antony waxed colde, and recanted hys wordes. " It 
 seemeth, (O Citizens)," saide hee, " that the things done haue not 
 bin the worke of men but of Gods, and that we ought to haue 
 more consideration of the present, than of the past, bycause the 
 thyngs to come, maye bring us to greater danger than these 
 we haue, if we shall returne to oure olde [dissentions], and waste 
 the reste of the noble men that be in the Cittie. Therefore let 
 us send thys holy one to the number of the blessed, and sing to 
 him his due hymne and mourning verse." 
 
 When he had saide thus, he pulled up his gowne lyke a man 
 beside hymselfe, and gyrded it, that he might the better stirre his 
 handes : he stoode ouer the Litter, as from a Tabernacle, looking 
 into it and opening it, and firste sang his Himne, as to a God m 
 heauen. And- to confirme he was a God, he held up his hands, 
 and with a swift voice he rehearsed the warres, the fights, the 
 
646 APPENDIX C 
 
 victories, the nations that he had subdued to his countrey, and 
 the great booties that he had sent, making euery one to be a 
 maruell. Then with a continuall crie, 
 
 " This is the only unconquered of all that euer came to hands 
 with hym. Thou (quoth he) alone di ' 'est reuenge thy countrey 
 being iniured, 300 years, and those fierce nations that only 
 inuaded Rome, and only burned it, thou broughtest them on their 
 knees." 
 
 And when he had made these and many other inuocations, he 
 tourned hys voice from triumphe to mourning matter, and began 
 to lament and mone him as a friend that had bin uniustly used, 
 and did desire that he might giue hys soule for Caesars. Then 
 falling into moste vehement affections, uncouered Caesars body, 
 holding up his vesture with a speare, cut with the woundes, a:nd 
 redde with the bloude of the chiefe Ruler, by the which the 
 people lyke a Quire, did sing lamentation unto him, and with this 
 passion were againe repleate with ire. And after these speeches, 
 other lamentations wyth voice after the Country custome, were 
 sung of the Quires, and they rehearsed again his acts and his hap. 
 
 Then made he Caesar hymselfe to speake as it were in a lament- 
 able sort, to howe many of his enimies he hadde done good by 
 name, and of the killers themselves to say as in an admiration, 
 "Did I saue them that haue killed me?" This the people could 
 not abide, calling to remembraunce, that all the kyllers (only 
 Decimus except) were of Pompey's faction, and subdued by hym, 
 to whom, in stead of punishment, he had giuen promotion of 
 offices, gouernments of prouinces and armies, and thought 
 Decimus worthy to be made his heyre and son by adoption, 
 and yet conspired his death.' 
 
 Now, this is not very like the oration in the play. It may 
 be analysed and summarised as follows : 
 
 Antony begins by praising the deceased as a consul a 
 consul, a friend a friend, a kinsman a kinsman. He recites 
 the public honours awarded to Caesar as a better testimony 
 than his private opinion, and accompanies the enumeration 
 with provocative comment. He touches on Caesar's sacro- 
 sanct character and the unmerited honours bestowed on 
 those who slew him, but acquits the citizens of unkindness 
 on the ground of their presence at the funeral. He avows 
 his own readiness for revenge, and thus censures the policy 
 of the Senate, but admits that that policy may be for 
 the, public interest. He intones a hymn in honour of the 
 deified Caesar; reviews his wars, battles, victories, the 
 provinces annexed and thfe spoils transmitted to Rome, 
 and glances at the subjugation of the Gauls as the pay- 
 ment of an ancient score. He uncovers the body of Caesar 
 and displays the pierced and blood-stained garment to the 
 
 'In Schweighauser's Edition II. cxliii. to cxlvi. 
 
APPIAN 647 
 
 Tvrath of the populace. He puts words in the mouth of 
 the dead, and makes him cite the names of those whom he 
 had benefited and preserved that they should destroy him. 
 And the people brook no more. 
 
 Thus Appian's Antony differs from Shakespeare's Antony 
 in his attitude to his audience, in the arrangement of his 
 material, and to a considerable extent in the material itself. 
 Nevertheless, in some of the details the speeches correspo nd. 
 
 rit is quite possible that Shakespeare, while retaining I 
 Plutarch's general scheme, may have filled it in with | 
 suggestions from Appian. The evidence is not very con- / 
 vincing, but the conjecture is greatly strengthened by the I 
 apparent loans from the same quarter in Antony and 1 
 Cleopatra, which would show that he was acquainted with \ 
 the English translation. See Appendix D. 
 
APPENDIX D 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S LOANS FROM APPIAN IN 
 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 I DO not think there can be any serious doubt about 
 Shakespeare's having consulted the 1578 translation 
 of the Bella Civilia for this play, at any rate for 
 the parts dealing with Sextus Pompeius. The most 
 important passage is the one {A. and C. III. v. 19) which 
 records Antony's indignation at Pompey's death. Now 
 of that death there is no mention at all in the Marcus 
 Antonius of Plutarch ; and even in the Octavius Caesar 
 Augustus by Simon Goulard, which was included in the 
 1583 edition of Amyot and in the 1603 edition of North, 
 it is expressly attributed to Antony. Here is Goulard's 
 statement : ^ 
 
 Whilst Antonius made war with the Parthians, or rather infor- 
 tunately they made- war with him to his great confusion, his 
 lieutenant Titius found the means to lay hands upon Sextus 
 Pompeius ; that was fled into the ile of Samos, and then forty 
 years old : whom he put to death by Antonius' commandment. 
 
 Appian at least leaves it an open question whether Antony 
 was responsible or not, and thus gives his apologist an 
 opportunity : 
 
 Titius commaunded hys {i.e. Pompey's) army to sweare to 
 Antony, and put hym to death at Mileto, when he hadde lyved 
 to the age of forty e yeares, eyther for that he remembered late 
 displeasure and forgot olde good turnes, or for that he had such 
 commaundemente of Antony. 
 
 There bee that saye that Plancus, and not Antony did commaunde 
 hym to dye, whyche beeyng president of Syria had Antonyes signet, 
 and in greate causes wroti letters in hys name. Some thynke it 
 
 ^ I quote from Shakespeare's Plutarch (Prof. Skeat), the 1603 edition of 
 North being at present inaccessible to me. 
 
LOANS FROM APPIAN 649 
 
 was done wyth Antonyes knowledge, he fearyng the name of 
 Pompey, or for Cleopatra, who fauoured Pompey the Great. 
 
 Some thynke that Plancus dyd it of hymselfe for these causes, 
 and also that Pompey shoulde gyve no cause of dissention 
 between Caesar and Antony, or for that Cleopatra would turn 
 hyr favour to Pompey. (v. cxiv.) 
 
 I do not think indeed that there is any indication that 
 Shakespeare had read, or at all events been in any way 
 impressed by, Goulard's Augustus: no wonder, for com- 
 pared with the genuine Lives, it is a dull performance. 
 The only other passages with which a connection might 
 be traced, do no more than give hints that are better 
 given in Appian. Thus Sextus Pompeius' vein of chivalry, 
 of which there is hardly a suggestion in Plutarch's brief 
 notices, is illustrated in Goulard by his behaviour to the 
 fugitives from the proscription. 
 
 Pompeius had sent certain ships to keep upon the coast of 
 Italy, and pinnaces everywhere, to the end to receive all them 
 that fled on that side ; giving them double recompence that 
 saved a prescript, and honourable offices to men that had been 
 consuls and escaped, comforting and entertaining the others with 
 a most singular courtesy. 
 
 But Appian says all this too in greater detail, and adds the 
 significant touch : 
 
 So was he moste profitable to hys afflicted Countrey, and wanne 
 greate glory to hymselfe, not inferioure to that he hadde of hys 
 father. (iv. xxxvi.) 
 
 Note particularly this reference to his father's reputation, 
 for which there is no parallel in Plutarch or Goulard ; and 
 compare 
 
 Our slippery people 
 
 begin to throw 
 
 Pompey the Great, and all his dignities 
 
 Upon his son. {A. and C. I. ii. 192.) 
 
 and 
 
 Rich in his father's honour. {Il>. I. iii. 50.) 
 
 Again, Goulard, talking of the last struggle, says : 
 
 After certain encounters, where Pompey ever had the better, 
 insomuch as Lepidus was suspected to lean on that side, CaesSr 
 resolved to commit all to the hazard of a latter battle. 
 
 The insinuation in regard to Lepidus might be taken as 
 
650 APPENDIX D 
 
 the foundation for Shakespeare's statement, which has no 
 sanction in Plutarch, that Caesar 
 
 accuses him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey. 
 
 (A. and C. ill. v. lo.) 
 
 But it seems a closer echo of a remark of Appian's about 
 some transactions shortly after Philippi : 
 
 Lepidus was accused to favour Pompey's part. (v. iii.) 
 
 There are, moreover, several touches in Shakespeare's 
 sketch, that he could no more get from Goulard than 
 from Plutarch, but that are to be found in Appian. Thus 
 there is Pompey's association with the party of the " good 
 Brutus " and the enthusiasm he expresses for " beauteous 
 freedom" {A. and C. II. vi. 13 and 17). Compare passages 
 like the following in Appian : 
 
 Sextus Pompey, the seconde son of Pompey the Great being 
 lefte of that faction, was sette up of Brutus friends. (v. i.) 
 
 Pompey's friends hearing of this, did marvellously rejoyce, crying 
 now to be time to restore their Countrey's libertie. (ill. Ixxxii.) 
 
 Thus, too, Shakespeare refers to Pompey's command of 
 "the empire of the sea" (^A. and C. I. ii. 191), which, if 
 Plutarch were his authority, would be an unjustifiable 
 exaggeration. Yet it exactly corresponds to the facts of 
 the case as Appian repeatedly states them, and perhaps 
 one of Binniman's expressions suggested the very phrase. 
 
 Pompey being Lorde of the Sea . . . caused famine in the cittie 
 all victual! beyng kepte away. (v. xv.) 
 
 The Citie in the raeane time was in great penurie, their 
 provision of corne beyng stopped by Pompey. (v. xviii.) 
 
 In the meane time the cytie was oppressed with famine, for 
 neyther durst the Merchauntes bring any com from the East 
 bicause of Pompeis beeing in Sicelie, nor from the Weast of 
 Corsica and Sardinia, where Pompeis ships also lay: nor from 
 Africa, where the navies of the other conspiratours kepte their 
 stations. Being in this distresse, they (i.e. the people) alleaged 
 that the discorde of the rulers was the cause, and therefore 
 required that peace might be made with Pompey, unto the whiche 
 when Caesar woulde not agree, Antonie thought warre was neede- 
 fuU for necessitie. (v. Ixvii.) 
 
 Then there are the frequent references of Antony (^4. and C. 
 I. ii. 192, I. iii. 148), of the messenger (l. iv. 38, I. iv. 52), 
 of Pompey himself (II. i. 9), to Pompey's popularity and the 
 
LOANS FROM APPIAN 651 
 
 rush of recruits to his standard. Neither Goulard nor 
 Plutarch makes mention of these points, but Appian does 
 often, and most emphatically in the following passage : 
 
 rn?Z^ilT^l-f *'"&^^'«'"e °°t quiet, for Pompey by resorte of 
 condemned Citizens, and auntient possessioners was greatlv in- 
 creased, both in mighte, and estimation r for they that feared 
 
 w"" jf^S"" '^'f,''^ ^^.''y'^'^ °^^^^" S°°^^^> °'^ ^yked not the present 
 state, fledde all to hym. And this disagreemente of Lucius aue- 
 mented his credite : beside a repayre of yong men, desirous of 
 gayne and seruice, not caring under whome they went, because 
 they were all Romanes, sought unto him. And among other 
 hys cause seemed most just. He was waxed rich by booties of 
 the Sea, and he hadde good store of Shyppes, with their furniture 
 ■ •. V Wherefore me thynke, that if he had then inuaded Italy, he 
 might easily have gotte it, which being afflicted with famine and 
 discord Joked for him. But Pompey of ignorance had rather 
 defend his owne, than inuade others, till so he was ouercome also. 
 
 (V. XXV.) 
 
 It should be noted too that Menas, to whom Appian 
 
 -always gives his full formal name of Menodorus, not only 
 
 -as in Plutarch proposes to make away with the Triumvirs 
 
 after the compact, but as in the play (11, vi. 84 and 109) and 
 
 not as in Plutarch, disapproves the cessation of hostilities. 
 
 All other persuaded Pompey earnestly to peace, only Menodorus 
 wrote from Sardinia that he should make open warre, or dryve 
 off^ whyles the dearth continued, that he might make peace with 
 the better conditions. (v. Ixxi.) 
 
 I have not noticed any other points of importance in 
 which there is an apparent connection between the drama 
 and the Roman History, unless indeed Antony's passing 
 compunction for Fulvia's death may be so regarded. 
 
 Newes came that Antonies wyfe was dead, who coulde not bear 
 his unkyndenesse, leavyng her sicke, & not bidding hyr farewell. 
 Hir death was thought very commodius for them both. For 
 Fulvia was an unquiet woman, & for ielousie of Cleopatra, raysed 
 suche a mortall warre. Yet the matter vexed Antony bicause he 
 was compted the occasion of her death. (v. lix.) 
 
 Here, however, the motive of Antony's regret differs from 
 that which Shakespeare attributes to him; and on the 
 whole the references to Fulvia in the play deviate even 
 more froni Appian's account than from Plutarch's. So far 
 as I am in a position to judge, Shakespeare derived all 
 his other historical data, as well as the general scheme into 
 ■which he fitted these trifling loans, from Plutarch's Life, 
 
 ' i.e. put off. Greek, PpaSvvetv. 
 
6s2 APPENDIX D 
 
 and can be considered a debtor to Appian only for those 
 points, illustrated in my previous extracts, that refer to 
 Sextus Pompeius. 
 
APPENDIX E 
 
 CLEOPATRA'S ONE WORD 
 
 Professor Th. Zielinski of St. Petersburg suggests a 
 peculiar interpretation of this passage in his Marginalim 
 {Philologtts, N.F., Band xviii. 1905). He starts from the 
 assertion that Shakespeare had in his mind Ovid's Epistle 
 from Dido {Heroid. vii.) when he composed the parting 
 scene between Antony and Cleopatra. This statement is 
 neither self-evident nor initially probable. Shakespeare 
 was no doubt acquainted with portions of Ovid both in the 
 original and in translation, but there is not much indication 
 that his knowledge extended to the Heroides. Mr. Churton 
 Collins, indeed, in his plea for Shakespeare's familiarity 
 with Latin, calls attention to the well-known pair of quo- 
 tations from these poems, the one in j Henry VI., the 
 other in the Taming of the Shrew. But though Mr. 
 Collins makes good his general contention, he hardly 
 strengthens it with these examples : for Shakespeare's 
 share in both plays is so uncertain that no definite infer- 
 ence can be drawn from them. Apart from these more 
 than doubtful instances, there seems to be no reference in 
 Shakespeare to the Heroides, either in the Latin of Ovid or 
 in the English of Turberville ; and it would be strange to 
 find one cropping up here. 
 
 But Professor Zielinski gives his arguments, and one of 
 them is certainly plausible. He quotes : 
 
 What says the married woman ? You may go : 
 Would she had never given you leave to come ; 
 
 (A. and C. I. iii. 20.) 
 
 and compares 
 
 " Sed iubet ire deus." Vellem vetuisset adire. 
 
 (Jler. VII. 37.) 
 
654 APPENDIX E 
 
 There is a coincidence, but it is not very close, and scarcely 
 implies imitation. Moreover, it becomes even less striking 
 in the English version ; which, after all, Shakespeare is 
 more likely to have known, if he knew the poem at 
 all: 
 
 But God doth force thee flee ; would God had kept away 
 
 Such guileful! guests; and Troians had in Carthage made no stay.' 
 
 Professor Zielinski's next argument is singularly uncon- 
 vincing. He says : " The situation {i.e. in the Epistle and 
 in the Play) is parallel even in details, as everyone will tell 
 himself: moreover the poet himself confesses it : 
 
 Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hatid in hand. 
 
 And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze : 
 
 Dido and her Aneas shall want troops 
 
 And all the haunt be ours." (IV. xiv. 51.) 
 
 But in the first place this has reference not to the separation 
 but to the reunion : and in the second place, of the reunion 
 there is no word in the Epistle. I cannot therefore see how 
 Shakespeare's lines can be taken as a confession of indebted- 
 ness to Ovid. But these analogies, real or imaginary, lead 
 up to Professor Zielinski's main point. He quotes as what 
 he calls the " Motiv des Kindes " and considers the dis- 
 tinctive feature of Ovid's treatment. Dido's reproach : 
 
 Forsitan et gravidam Didon, scelerate, relinquas, 
 Parsque tui lateat corpore Clausa meo. 
 
 (line 131.) 
 
 He admits that it is not easy to find this " Motiv " in the 
 play, but argues that Shakespeare was always very reticent 
 in such regards. Then he proceeds : " Hier nun war Kleo- 
 patrS tatsachlich schwanger, als Antonius sie verliess: 
 Plutarch setzt es c. 36 voraus, und Shakespeare wird es 
 gewusst haben, da er Act HI. die Kinder erwahnt. Sollte 
 er in der grossen Abschieds-scene das dankbare Motiv 
 haben entgehen lassen? Sehn wir zu. Kleopatra spielt 
 die nervose, ihr ist bald gut, bald schlecht : ' schniir m ;h 
 auf . . . nein, lass es sein.' Ihre ungerechten Vorwurfe 
 bringen den Antonius endlich auf; er will gehn. Sie halt 
 
 ' The Heroycall Epistles of the learned poet Publius Ouidius Naso in English 
 verse : set otit and translated by George Turberville, gent, etc. Transcribed 
 from a copy in the Bodleian, which Malone, who owned it, conjecturally 
 dated 1569. 
 
CLEOPATRA'S ONE WORD 655 
 
 ihn zuruck : courteous lord, one word. Wir erwarten eine 
 wichtige Erklarung ; was wird das 'eine Wort ' sein ? 
 
 Sir, you and I must part— but that's not it : 
 Sir, you and I have loved— but there's not it ; 
 That you know well : something it is I would— 
 O, my oblivion is a very Antony, 
 And I am all forgotten. 
 
 Es istfur den klassischen Phllologen erheiternd und trost- 
 lich, die Commentare zum hervorgehoben verse zu lesen : 
 dieselben Torheiten, wie bei uns, wenn einer das erklaren 
 muss, was er selber nicht versteht. Man wollte sogar 
 oblivion hinausconjiciren : andere befehlen GS = memory zu 
 nehmen. Was wird dadurch gewonnen ? Ich verlange 
 das versprochene ' eine wort.' — ' Ja, das hat sie eben ver- 
 gessen ' — Ich danke. Nein, sie hat es ausgesprochen : ihr 
 'Vergessen' war in der Tat 'ein echter Antonius,' wenn 
 auch ein ganz kleiner. Und als der Freund die Anspielung 
 nicht versteht — / should take you for idleness itself— iahrt 
 sie bitter fort : 
 
 'Tis sweating labour 
 To bear such idleness so near the heart. 
 As Cleopatra this. 
 
 (das this mit discret hinweisender Geberde) . . . Es ware 
 Mangel an Zartgefuhl, mehr zu verlangen. — Und wirklich, 
 besser als die Erklarer hat ein Dichter den Dichter ver- 
 standen; ich meine Puschkin, der in einer Stelle seiner 
 lieblichen 'Nixe' (Rusalka) die oben ausgeschriebenen 
 Worte der Kleopatra offenbar nachahmen wollte : 
 
 Fiirst. Leb' wohl. 
 
 Madchen. Nein, wart . . . ich muss dir etwas sagen . . 
 Weiss nimmer was. 
 
 Fiirst. So denke nach ! 
 
 Madchen. Fiir dich 
 
 War ich bereit . . . Nein das ist's nicht ... So wart doch. 
 Ich kann's nicht glauben, dass du mich auf ewig 
 Verlassen willst . , . Nein, das ist's immer nicht . . . 
 Jetzt hab' ich's : heut war's, dass zum ersten Mai 
 Dein Kind sich unter'm Herzen mir bewegte." 
 
 This is very ingenious, and the parallel from Puschkin is 
 very interesting. What makes one doubtful is that from 
 first to last Shakespeare slurs over the motherhood of 
 Cleopatra, to which the other tragedians of the time give 
 great prominence. On the whole he obliterates even those 
 references that Plutarch makes to this aspect of his heroine. 
 
656 APPENDIX E 
 
 and it would therefore be odd if he went out of his way to 
 invent an allusion which does not fit in with the rest of the 
 picture, and which is without consequence and very obscure. 
 If one were forced to conjecture the " missing word," it 
 would be more plausible to suppose that she both wishes 
 and hesitates to suggest marriage with Antony. At the 
 close, her exclamation : 
 
 Husband, I come : 
 Now to that name my courage prove my title ! (v. ii. 290.) 
 
 shows that she recognises the dignity of the sanction. At 
 the outset, she feels the falsity of her position, as we see 
 from her reference to " the married woman " ; and in 
 Plutarch Shakespeare had read the complaint of her 
 partisans, that " Cleopatra, being borne a Queene of so 
 many thousands of men, is onely named Antonius Leman." 
 In Rome the marriage is assumed to be quite probable ; 
 and in this very scene Antony, after announcing the removal 
 of the grand impediment by Fulvia's death, has just pro- 
 fessed his unalterable devotion to his Queen. Why should 
 there not be a marriage, unless he regards her merely as a 
 mistress ; and why should she not propose it, except that 
 she fears to meet with this rebuff ? The " sweating labour " 
 she bears would thus be her unsanctioned love and its 
 disgrace. 
 
 This, however, is not put forward as a serious interpreta- 
 tion, but only as a theory quite as possible as Professor 
 Zielinski's. The most obvious and the most satisfactory 
 way is to suppose, as probably almost every reader does 
 and has done, that she is merely making pretexts to post- 
 pone the separation. And there is surely no great difficulty 
 about the phrase : " My oblivion is a very Antony." Here 
 too the obvious explanation is the most convincing : " My 
 forgetfulness is as great as Antony's own." 
 
APPENDIX F 
 
 THE "INEXPLICABLE" PASSAGE IN CORIOLANUS 
 
 Coleridge, in his Notes on Shakespeare {iZiZ, Section IV.), 
 calls attention to the difficulty of Aufidius' speech to his 
 lieutenant : 
 
 All places yield to him ere he sits down ; 
 
 And the nobility of Rome are his : 
 
 The senators and patricians love him too : 
 
 The tribunes are no soldiers ; and their people 
 
 Will be as rash in the repeal, as hasty 
 
 To expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome 
 
 As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it 
 
 By sovereignty of nature. First he was 
 
 A noble servant to them ; but he could not 
 
 Carry his honours even : whether 'twas pride, 
 
 Which out of daily fortune ever taints 
 
 The happy man ; whether defect of judgement, 
 
 To fail in the disposing of those chances 
 
 Which he was lord of ; or whether nature. 
 
 Not to be other than one thing, not moving 
 
 From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace 
 
 Even with the same austerity and garb 
 
 As he controU'd the war ; but one of these — 
 
 As he hath spices of them all, not all, 
 
 For I dare so far free him — made him fear'd, 
 
 So hated, and so banish'd, but he has a merit. 
 
 To choke it in the utterance. So our virtues 
 
 Lie in the interpretation of the time ; 
 
 And power, unto itself most commendable. 
 
 Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair 
 
 To extol what it hath done. 
 
 One fire drives out one fire ; one nail, one nail ; 
 
 Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail. 
 
 Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine. 
 
 Thou art poor'st of all : then shortly art thou mine. 
 
 (iv. vii. 28.) 
 
 Here there are puzzling expressions in detail, but they 
 have on the whole been satisfactorily explained, and it is 
 
 2T 
 
658 APPENDIX F 
 
 not to them that Coleridge refers.^ He says : " I have 
 always thought this in itself so beautiful speech the least 
 explicable from the mood and full intention of the speaker 
 of any in the whole works of Shakespeare." It strikes one 
 indeed as a series of disconnected jottings that have as 
 little to do with each other as with the situation and 
 attitude of Aufidius. First he gives reason for expecting 
 the capture of Rome ; then he enumerates defects in Corio- 
 lanus that have led to his banishment with a supplementary 
 acknowledgment of his merits ; next he makes general 
 reflections on the relation of virtue to the construction put 
 upon it, and on the danger that lies in conspicuous power : 
 thereafter he points out that things are brought to nought 
 by themselves or their likes ; and finally he predicts that 
 when Rome is taken, he will get the better of his rival. 
 
 Is there here a mere congeries of thoughts as one chance 
 suggestion leads to another with which it happens to be 
 casually associated; or does one thread of continuous 
 meaning run through the whole? I would venture to 
 maintain the latter opinion with more confidence than I do, 
 if Coleridge had not been so emphatic. 
 
 In the first place we have to remember what goes before. 
 The report of the Lieutenant confirms the jealdusy of 
 Aufidius, who is further embittered by the hint that he is 
 losing credit, but reflects that he can bring weighty 
 charges against Coriolanus, and concludes: 
 
 He hath left undone 
 That which shall break his neck or hazard mine. 
 Whene'er we come to our account. 
 
 Thereupon the Lieutenant meaningly rejoins : 
 
 Sir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry Rome ? 
 
 It is a contingency to be reckoned with, for clearly if 
 Rome falls, any previous mistakes or complaisances alleged 
 against the conqueror will find ready pardon. So Aufidius 
 discusses the matter in the light of these two main con- 
 siderations: (i) that he must get rid of his rival, and (2) 
 that his rival may do the state a crowning service. He 
 
 • Of these the most perplexing to me is the distinction Shakespeare makes 
 between "the nobility" on the one hand, and "the senators and patricians" 
 on the other. What was in his mind? I fail to find an explanation even on 
 trying to render his thought in terms of contemporary arrangements in England. 
 "Peers," " parliament men," and "gentry" would not do. 
 
CORIOLANUS 659 
 
 admits that Coriolanus, what with his own efficiency, what 
 with the friendliness of one class in Rome and the helpless- 
 ness of the remainder, is likely to achieve the grand 
 exploit. How then will Aufidius^. chances stand ? For- 
 merly Marcius deserved as well of his own country when 
 he had overthrown Corioli, yet that did not secure him. 
 What qualities in himself discounted his services to Rome 
 and may again discount his services to Antium } Pride of 
 prosperity, disregard of his opportunities, his unaccommo- 
 dating peremptory behaviour — all of these faults which in 
 point of fact afterwards contributed to his death — brought 
 about his banishment, though truly he had merit enough to 
 make men overlook such trifles. This shows how worth 
 depends on the way it is taken, and how ability, even when 
 of the sterling kind that wins its own approval, may find 
 the throne of its public recognition to be, more properly, 
 its certain grave. Thus likes counteract likes ; the greater 
 the popularity, the greater the reaction ; the greater the 
 superiority, the more certainly it will balk itself. So, and 
 this is the conclusion of the whole matter, even when 
 Marcius has won Rome by a greater conquest than when 
 he won Corioli, the result will be the same. His proud, 
 imprudent and overbearing conduct will obscure his high 
 deserts. These will be construed only by public opinion, 
 and the very prowess in which he delights will rouse an 
 adulation, which, when he is no longer required, will swing 
 round to its opposite. So his success will correct itself. 
 His very triumph over Rome will be guarantee for Aufidius' 
 triumph over him. 
 
 If this amplified paraphrase give the meaning, that 
 meaning is coherent enough and is quite suitable to the 
 mood and attitude of the speaker. 
 
 2 T 2 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acciaiuoli, additional lives to Plut- 
 arch, note 144. 
 
 Agv'rpf a.{\n Antony andCleopaira), 
 346. 
 
 Alexander (Sir William) [Earl of 
 Stirling], Julius Caesar, 35 ; 
 Julius Caesar compared with 
 Garnier, 39 ; Julius Caesar and 
 Shakespeare, 207. 
 
 Alexas (Lord), (in Antony and 
 Cleopatra), 348. 
 
 Ammonias (the Philosopher)^ 95-. 
 
 Amyot (Jacques), 119-141 ; b.ith, 
 etc., 120; translation of Heli- 
 odorus, 121; of D iodorus Siculus, 
 123; and Longus, 124; tutor 
 to Dukes of Orleans and Anjou, 
 124 ; Grand Almoner of France, 
 124 ; Bishop of Auxerre, 125 ; 
 Commander of Order of Holy 
 Ghost, 126; various disasters, 
 126 ; Projet de V Eloquence 
 Royal, 128 ; modifications of 
 Plutarch, 138. 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, 300- 
 453 ; date of composition, 300 ; 
 and Appian, 648-652. 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra (the two 
 characters), 439-453- 
 
 Apius atid Virginia, 2-10, 70. 
 
 Appian zaA Antony and Cleopatra, 
 648-652 ; and Julius Caesar, 
 644-647. 
 
 Appian's Chronicle, translated by 
 Bynniman, note 644 ; Sextus 
 Pompeius, 333. 
 
 Aufidius (Tullus), [in Coriolanus\ 
 SOI, 584. 
 
 B. (R.), 2, 9. 
 
 Baker, Dei'eloptnent of Shake- 
 speare as a Dratnatist, note 
 267. 
 
 Bernage (S.), on Julius Caesar 
 and Corn/lie, 60. 
 
 Berners (Lord), part translation, 
 Guevara (Antonio de), Marco 
 Aurelio con el Relox de Prin- 
 cipes, 148. 
 
 Bidpai, Fables of, 1 50. 
 
 Bligriiferes (Auguste de), Essai on 
 Amyot, 119. 
 
 Blount (Edward), a printer, 300. 
 
 Boas (F. S.), Shakespeare and his 
 Predecessors, 426. 
 
 Boner (Hieronymus), version of 
 Plutarch's Lives, note 132. 
 
 Boswell (James), quotation from 
 Plutarch, 116. 
 
 Bower (Richard), ? author of a 
 New Tragicall Comedie of 
 Apius and Virginia, 2. 
 
 Bradley (A. C), on the Roman 
 Plays, 80 ; Julius Caesar, note 
 26j ; Shakesperian atmosphere 
 after Othello and Lear, 305 ; 
 Antony and Cleopatra, note 
 312 ; Coriolanus, 462. 
 
 Brandes (Dr. George), Julius 
 Caesar, note 217 ; on Tieck's 
 Dramas (in Romantic School 
 in Germany), note 280 ; Antony 
 and Cleopatra, 307 ; Coriolanus, 
 464 and 466. 
 
 Brandl (Professor Alois), Corio- 
 lanus, 464. 
 
 Brandon (Samuel), Vertuous 
 Octavia, 71. 
 
 Bronte (Charlotte), on Coriolanus, 
 .|68, 472. 
 
INDEX 
 
 66 1 
 
 Brooke (Lord), Antony and Cleo- 
 i>a/fa— destroyed tragedy on, 
 70. 
 
 Buchanan (George), Baptistes and 
 
 Jephtkes, 21. 
 Butler (Professor), on Appius and 
 
 Virginia^ note 9. 
 Biittner, Zu Coriolan und seiner 
 
 Quelle, 488. 
 
 Caesar's Fall, a play by Drayton, 
 Webster and others, 170. 
 
 Calvin (John), prose of, 135. 
 
 Camden (William), Remaines, 455. 
 
 Caractacus, Elizabethan Plays on, 
 I. 
 
 Carlyle (Thomas), on the Histori- 
 cal Plays, 89. 
 
 Casca i^a Julius Caesar), 286. 
 
 Cassius (in Julius Caesar), 275, 
 284. 
 
 Cisar, by Jacques Grevin, 31. 
 
 Cdsar, by Grevin and Muretus, 
 compared, 30-33. 
 
 Chalmers (Alexander), on Corio- 
 lanus, 460. 
 
 Chapman (George), French plays, 
 77 ; Bussy d'Amdois, 303 ; TAe 
 Conspiracie and The Tragedie 
 of Charles, Duke of Byron, 464. 
 
 Charmian (in Antony and Cleo- 
 patra), 347. 
 
 Chaucer (Geoffrey), on Brutus and 
 Cassius, 27 ; Legend of Good 
 Women, 308. 
 
 Chenier (Marie-Joseph), Brutus 
 et Cassius, Les Derniers 
 Romains, 27. ' 
 
 Cicero {m Julius Caesar), 287. 
 
 Cinthio (Giovanni Battista Gir- 
 pldi),play on Cleopatra,note 310. 
 
 Cleopatra (in Antony and Cleo- 
 patra), 413-438.; relations be- 
 tween Antony and Cleopatra, 
 439-4S3 ; "One Word," 653-656. 
 
 Cleopatra, by Samuel Daniel, 48. 
 
 Coleridge (Samuel Taylor), Brutus 
 (in Julius Caesar), 201, 202, 
 204, 205 ; Julius Caesar, 256 ; 
 Antony and Cleopatra, 305, 3i7> 
 338 ; Coriolanus, 462, 473 ; on 
 Auiidius (in Coriolanus), 486 ; 
 "Inexplicable" passage in Corio- 
 lanus, 657-659. 
 
 Collins (John Churton), Studies in 
 Shakespeare,i^; Shakespeare's 
 Latinity, 653. 
 
 Colli schonn (G. A. O.), I ntroduction 
 to Grevin's Caesar, note 27 ; and 
 Muretus' Julius Caesar, note 27 ; 
 coincidences between Grdvin 
 and Shakespeare, 34. 
 
 Cominius (jn Coriolanus), 498,556. 
 
 Complaint of Rosamond, by Sam- 
 uel Daniel, 48; parallelisms 
 with Romeo and fuliet and 
 ^ Rape of Lucrece, 56. 
 
 Confreres de la Passion, 30. 
 
 Coriolanus, 454-627 ; date of 
 composition, 454 ; " Inexplic- 
 able " passage in, 657-659. 
 
 Cornelia, by Thomas Kyd, 54. 
 
 CornSlie, compared with Muretus, 
 
 Cory, translation of Leo, 333. 
 
 Courier (P. L.), on Plutarch, 106, 
 119. 
 
 Cruserius, Latin version of Plut- 
 arch, 133. 
 
 Cymbeline, 312. 
 
 Daniel (Samuel), Cleopatra, 48, 
 
 338, 45 J- 
 
 Dante, on Brutus and Cassius, 26. 
 
 Decius {ya. Julius Caesar), 286. 
 
 Defence of Ryme, by Samuel 
 Daniel, 50. 
 
 de I'Escluse (Charles), additional 
 lives to Plutarch, 144. 
 
 Delia, by Samuel Daniel, 48. 
 
 Delius (Nicolaus), Shakespeare 
 and Plutarch, 165 ; on Corio- 
 lanus, 456, 487 ; Coriolanus 
 and Plutarch, 493. 
 
 Demogeot, on Amyot, 139. 
 
 De Quincey (Thomas), on Plut- 
 ar<:h, note 114. 
 
 Diail of Princes, by Thomas 
 North, 143. 
 
 Digges (Leonard), on the Roman 
 Plays, 85 ; onfulius Caesar, 255. 
 
 Dodsley (Robert), Old English 
 Plays, 4. 
 
 Dolabella (in Antony and Cleo- 
 patra), 346. 
 
 Doni(Antonio Francesco), Morale 
 Filosqfia (same as Bidpai's 
 Fables), 144, 150. 
 
662 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Dowden (Professor Edward), 
 Shakespeare s Mind and Art, 
 214. 
 
 Drayton (Michael), Mortimeri- 
 ados or The Baron^ War, 169. 
 
 Dryden (John), on Plutarch, 106 ; 
 Life of Plutarch, 1 10 ; All for 
 Love or The World Well Lost, 
 256, 340. 
 
 Eccerinis, by Mussato, 11. 
 
 Eedes (Dr.), lost Latin play, 180. 
 
 English and Roman , plays com- 
 pared, 74. 
 
 Enobarbus (in Antony and Cleo- 
 patra), 349-359- 
 
 Eros (in Antony and Cleopatra), 
 366. 
 
 Fabula Praetexta,\\. 
 Faguet (Emile), on Corndlie, 37. 
 Famous Victories of Henry v., 2. 
 Farmer (John S.), reproduction, 
 
 of Appius and Virginia, 3, 
 Favorinus (the Philosopher), loi. 
 Fenelon (Frangois de Salignac de 
 
 la Mothe), on Amyot, 136. 
 Ferrero (Professor Guglielmo), on 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, note- 
 
 335 ; on Cleopatra, note 414 
 
 and 452. 
 Filelfo, Latin version of Plutarch, 
 
 134- , 
 
 Florus (Mestrius) [fnend of 
 Plutarch], 97. 
 
 French Senecans, 19-44. 
 
 Fulvia (in Antony and Cleopatra), 
 396. 
 
 Furness (Frances Howard), An- 
 tony and Cleopatra, note 59 ; 
 on Charmian, note 347. 
 
 Garnett (Dr. Richard), Date and 
 Occasion of The Tempest, 466. 
 
 Gamier (R.), Comelie, 35 ; Drama 
 about Portia, 35 ; Marc An- 
 toine, 41 ; Antonius, English 
 translation by Countess of 
 Pembroke, 46 ; Antony and 
 Cleopatra, 338 ; parallels be- 
 tween Cornelie and fulius 
 Caesar, 628-630. 
 
 Gassner (H.), edition of Kyd's 
 Cornelia, note 55. 
 
 Geddes (Dr.), a lost Latin play, 
 
 180. 
 Gellius (Aulus), on Plutarch, loi. 
 Gen& (Rudolph), Shakespeare's 
 
 Leben und Werke, 198. 
 Gervinus (Georg Gottfried), 
 
 Shakespeare Commentaries, 
 
 fulius Caesar, 224 ; Antony 
 
 and Cleopatra, 305, 307, 340 ; 
 
 Plutarch's Antony, 336 ; Corio- 
 
 lajius, 471. 
 Goethe, on " love," 446. 
 Gorboduc, 45, 70. 
 Goulard (Simon), Octavius Caesar 
 
 Augustus, 648. 
 Greene (Robert), fames IV., note 
 
 62. 
 Grdvin (Jacques), Cisar, note 27, 
 
 31- 
 
 Grosart (Dr. Alexander), edition 
 of Daniel's Cleopatra quoted 
 from, 51. 
 
 Guevara(Antoniode), TheFavored 
 Courtier, 148 ; El Libro Aureo 
 de Marco Aurelio, Emperador 
 y eloquentissimo Orator, other- 
 wise called Marco Aurelio con 
 el Relox de Principes or The 
 Diall of Princes, 147 and 148. 
 
 Halliwell - Phillips (J." O.), 
 
 Weever's Mirror of Martyrs, 
 
 170. 
 Hamlet, 78, 173. 
 
 Hardy (Alexandre), Coriolan, 475. 
 Hazlitt fW. Carew), notes 4 and 5. 
 Heine (H[einrich), on Cleopatra, 
 
 441 ; on Rome, 547. 
 Henry V., 172. 
 Heywood (Thomas), Pape of 
 
 Lucrece, 68. 
 Holden (Rev. Dr. H. A.), on 
 
 Plutarch, «<7fe 114; on Amyot, 
 
 note 133. 
 Holland (Philemon), translation 
 
 of Pliny, 333, note 456 ; Livy 
 
 on Coriolanus, 626. 
 Hudson (Dr. Henry Norman), 
 
 Shakespeare, his Life, Art and 
 
 Characters, 224. 
 Hughes (Thomas), Misfortunes of 
 
 Arthur, 45. 
 Hugo (Victor), Historical Plays, 
 
 87. 
 
INDEX 
 
 663 
 
 Ingram (Professor), on "endings " 
 
 (of verses), 304. 
 Iras (in Antony and Cleopatra), 
 
 347» 438. 
 
 Jacobs (Joseph), Fables of Sidpai, 
 note ijo. 
 
 Jaggard (the Younger), a printer, 
 301. 
 
 Jodelle (Etienne), Cleopatra Cap- 
 tive, 28, note 322 ; Antony and 
 Cleopatra, 338 ; Cleopatra, note 
 435- 
 
 Johnson (Dr. Samuel), Julius 
 Caesar, 256 ; Coriolanus, 480, 
 482 ; Menenius Agrippa, 564. 
 
 Jonson (Ben),Catiline, 54 ; Sejanus 
 and Catiline, 85 ; Discoveries 
 and Staple of News, on Julius 
 Caesar, 174 and 175 ; Epicoene, 
 note 303, 460. 
 
 Jowett (Benjamin), Plato, Vol. I., 
 note 237 ; Plato, Vol. II., 446. 
 
 Julius Caesar, date of com- 
 position, 168 ; Plutarch, i8o ; 
 the lives of Brutus, Caesar and 
 Antony, 188 ; should it be named 
 Marcus Brutus, 212 ; Julius 
 Caesar is himself analogous to 
 the King in the English His- 
 torical Plays, 213. 
 
 Julius Caesar, character in other 
 plays, 177. 
 
 Julius Caesar and Appian, 644-647. 
 
 Julius Caesar and Garnier's 
 Cornilie, 60 ; parallels between, 
 628-630. 
 
 Julius Caesar, by Muretus, 11. 
 
 Junius Brutus (in Coriolanus), 
 499- 
 
 Kahnt (Paul), Gedankenkreis 
 
 in Jodell^s und Garnier's 
 
 Tragodien, note 19. 
 K^rsteg (Prof, von), in Harry 
 
 Richmond, 393. 
 King John, 82. 
 King Lear, 78. 
 Klein, on Cinthio's Cleopatra and 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, note 310. 
 Kreyssig (Friedrich Alexo Theo- 
 
 dor), on Octavius, 378 ; on 
 
 Volumnia, 553 ; on Virgilia, 
 
 S70. 
 
 Kyd (Thomas), translation of 
 Cornilie (under name Cornelia), 
 54 ; Boas' edition, note 55. 
 
 Lamprias, brother of Plutarch, 98. 
 Landman (Dr. Friedrich), on 
 
 Euphues, 149. 
 Lanson, on Amyot, 141. 
 La Rochefoucauld (Ffangois, VI. 
 
 Due de), notes -420, 424 and 
 
 451- 
 Lartius (in Coriolanus), 513. 
 Le Due (Viollet), Ancien Thdatre 
 
 Francois, note 7.%. 
 Lee (Sidney), Shakespeare and 
 
 Camden, 457. 
 Lepidus Qn Julius Caesar), 297. 
 Lepidus(in.^»^<7n)' and Cleopatra), 
 
 368. 
 Lessing . (Gotthold Ephraim), 
 
 Hamburg Dramaturgy on the 
 
 Roman Plays, 86. 
 Ligarius (m Julius Caesar), 286. 
 " light " endings, 304. 
 Lily (John), Euphues and The 
 
 Diall of Princes, 149. 
 Lloyd (Watkiss), on Coriolanus, 
 
 519. 
 Lodge' (Thomas), The Wounds of 
 
 Civill War, 62 ; A Looking 
 
 Glass for London and England, 
 
 62 ; translator of Josephus and 
 
 Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 68. 
 Lord Alexas, see Alexas. 
 Lotze, on Historical Plays, 89. 
 " Love," in three plays, 342. 
 Luce (Alice), edition of Countess 
 
 of Pembroke's translation of 
 
 R. Garnier's Antonius, note 46. 
 Lueilius fya Julius Caesar), 285. 
 Lucina^ Elizabethan plays on, i. 
 Lucretia, Elizabethan plays on, i. 
 
 Macbeth, 78, and Antony and 
 
 Cleopatra, 302. 
 Malone (Edmund), date oi Antony 
 
 and Cleopatra, 303 ; date of 
 
 Coriolanus, 454, 459, 460. 
 " Mansions " (another name for 
 
 " scenes '.'), 476. 
 Marcius (in Coriolanus), 497, 549. 
 Marcus Aurelius, 104. 
 Mark Antony (in Julius Caesar), 
 
 289-298. 
 
664 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mark Antony (in Antony and 
 Cleopatra), 390-412. 
 
 Marlowe (Christopher), Ed-ward 
 //., 2 ; Tamiurlaine, note 62, and 
 Shakespeare, Henry VI., 93. 
 
 Massihissa, Elizabethan plays on, 
 I. 
 
 Mecaenas (in Antony and Cleo- 
 patra), 346, 361. 
 
 Menas (in Antony and Cleopatra), 
 348, 376. 
 
 Menecrates (in Antony and Cleo- 
 patra), 376. 
 
 Menenius Agrippa (in Julius 
 Caesar), 558. 
 
 Meres (Francis), list of plays, 171 ; 
 Palladis Tamia, 172. 
 
 Messala (\n Julius Caesar), 285. 
 
 Mdziriac (Bachet de), on Amyot, 
 128. 
 
 Misfortunes of Arthur, by 
 Thomas Hughes, 45. 
 
 "Mixed" plays, 18. 
 
 Moeller, Kleopatra in der Trago- 
 dien-Literatur, note, 310. 
 
 Montaigne (Michael, Lord of), on 
 Muretus, 20 ; on Amyot, 129. 
 
 Montreuil, Cleopatre, note 310. 
 
 yiviXtXMS, Julius Caesar, ii, 20. 
 
 M\i&s?Ao, Eccerinis, 11. 
 
 Nashe (Thomas), use of word 
 "lurched," 460. 
 
 Nicholson (S.), Acolastus his 
 Afterwit, 171. 
 
 North(SirThomas),i4i-l67 ; birth 
 and education, 142 ; Diall of 
 Princes, 143; Lord Lieutenant 
 of Cambridgeshire and Isle of 
 Ely, 143 ; Doni's Morale Filo- 
 sofia, 144 ; command at Ely, 
 146 ; dignities and pensions, 
 146 ; his style in translating 
 Plutarch, 1 54 ; ? as to the Greek 
 text, note 155. 
 
 Nuce (Thomas), English version 
 of Octavia, 12. 
 
 Octavia, ? by Seneca, 10-19. 
 Oc\xna.{yci Antony and Cleopatra), 
 
 362-366. 
 Octavius (in Julius Caesar), 298. 
 Octavius (in Antony and Cleo- 
 patra), 373, 378. 
 
 Othello, 78. 
 
 Ovid, Epistle of Dido, 653. 
 
 Pais (Ettore), on story of Corio- 
 lanus, 474. 
 
 Pembroke (Countess of), trans- 
 lation of Gamier's Antonius, 2 ; 
 Momay's Discourse on Life and 
 Death, note 46. 
 
 Philotas, by Samuel Daniel, 49. 
 
 Pindarus (in Julius Caesar), 284, 
 285. 
 
 Plays named after two persons, 
 
 341- 
 
 Plutarch and Shakespeare, 92 etc., 
 95-119; ancestry and educa- 
 tion, 95 ; Isis and Osiris, 96 ; 
 Moralia, 97 ; marriage, 98 ; 
 priest of Apollo, 102 ; Ajrchon 
 of Chaeronea, 104 ; ? a consul, 
 104 ; .' governor of Greece, 104 ; 
 and Plato, 108 ; Neo-Platonism, 
 108 ; his philosophy, 108 ; 
 Praecepta gerendae Reipublicae, 
 113; Latin version of his Lives, 
 published at Rome by Cam- 
 pani, 132 ; other translations, 
 132 ; editions of North's version, 
 151 ; various versions and 
 Volumnia's speech, 631-643. 
 
 Portia (}a Julius Caesar), 271-274. 
 
 Preston (Thomas), King Cam- 
 byses, 8. 
 
 Proculeius (in Antony and Cleo- 
 patra), 346. 
 
 Puschkin, parallel with Cleo- 
 patra's " One Word," 655. 
 
 Quarterly Reinew (1861), on 
 Plutarch, 162. 
 
 Rabelais (Frangois), prose of, 135. 
 
 Racine (Jean), on Amyot, 136. 
 
 Richard III., 177. 
 
 Rigal (Eugfene), on Alexandre 
 Hardy, 476. 
 
 Roman and English plays com- 
 pared, 74. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, 177. 
 
 Ronsard (Pierre de) Roman plays 
 by the School of, 1 1 ; on Grevin's 
 Char, 33. 
 
 Rousseau (Jean Jacques), on 
 Plutarch, 117. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Ruhnken, edition of Muretus, note 
 27. ' 
 
 Ruskin aohn), on Virgilia, 497- 
 Rusticus (Arulenus), fH4nd of 
 Plutarch, 97. 
 
 Sachs (Hans), play on Cleopatra, 
 
 note 310. 
 St. Evremond, on Plutarch, 112. 
 Scams (in Antony and Clee^atra), 
 
 359- 
 Schiller, historical plays of, 87. 
 Schweighauser (Johann), version 
 
 of Appian quoted, 645. 
 Scott (Sir WalterX on Dryden's 
 
 All for Love, 256. 
 Seneca, ? author of Octavia, 10. 
 Senecio (Sosius),friend of Plutarch, 
 
 97-, 
 Serapion, a poet, loi. 
 Sextus of Chaeronea, 104. 
 Sextus Pompeius (in Antony and 
 
 Cleopatra), 346, 373. 
 Shakespeare (William), Roman 
 plays influenced by Senecan 
 pieces, 56,and Thomas Kyd, 56 ; 
 Midsummer-Nigh fs- Dream and 
 Merchant of Venice show traces 
 of North's Plutarch, 151; various 
 editions of North's Plutarch, 
 note 152, and North, 163. 
 Sicinius Vellutus (in Coriolanus), 
 
 .499- 
 Sidgwick (Henry), on Julius 
 
 Caesar, 176. 
 Silius (in Antony and Cleopatra), 
 
 345- 
 Skelton (John), Garland of Laurel, 
 
 309- 
 Sonnets — Daniel's Delia, 56 ; sor- 
 rows in the, 313. 
 Stahr (A.), on Cleopatra, 427. 
 Stengel, Theatre d'Alexandre 
 
 Hardy, 476. 
 Stirling (Earl oQ, see Alexander 
 
 (Sir William). 
 Stokes (Henry Paine), Chronologi- 
 cal OrderofShakespearefs Plays, 
 note 168. 
 Stone (Boswell), Shakespearis 
 
 Holinshed, note 180. 
 Strato (in Julius Caesar), 285. 
 Swinburne (Algernon Charles), 
 Trilogy on Mary Stuart, 89. 
 
 665 
 
 Taylor (Sir Henry), Philip van 
 Artevelde, 89. 
 
 Ten Brink (Bernhard), on Cleo- 
 patra, 443. 
 
 Tennyson, Harold, 89. 
 
 '^^yxi!o&(;aiAntonyandCleopatra), 
 346. 
 
 Timaeus, treatise on the, by 
 Plutarch, loi. 
 
 Timon, 82, 307. 
 
 Timon, brother of Plutarch, 98. 
 
 Titinius (in Julius Caesar), 284, 
 285. 
 
 Titus Andronicus, 177. 
 
 Titus Lartius (in Coriolanus), 498, 
 556. 
 
 Trench (Richard Chenevix), Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, on Plutarch, 
 114 ; on Shakespeare and Plut- 
 arch, 164 ; on Coriolanus, 600. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, 84. 
 
 TuUus Aufidius, see Aufidius 
 (Tullus). 
 
 Turberville (George), translation 
 of Ovid, 654. 
 
 Vaugelas (Claude Favre de), on 
 Amyot, 136. 
 
 Ventidius (in Antony and Cleo- 
 patra), 345. 
 
 Verity (A. W.), edition ol Julius 
 Caesar, 175 ; edition of Corio- 
 lanus, note 497. 
 
 Viehoff, on Shdkespear^s Coriolan, 
 479- 
 
 Virgilia (in Coriolanus), 497, 566. 
 
 Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet 
 de), on Brutus, 239. 
 
 Volumnia (in Coriolanus), 494, 
 S49 ; her speech and various 
 versions of Plutarch, 631-643. 
 
 Warburton (William), a reading 
 in Antony and Clec^atra, 411. 
 
 Ward (Prof. A. W.), on Coun- 
 tess of Pembroke's version of 
 Garnier's Antonius, note 46; 
 on Lodge's The Wounds of 
 Civill War, note 62. 
 
 Warning to Fair Women, 171. 
 
 " weak " endings, 304. 
 
 Weever (John), Mirror of Mar- 
 tyrs, 170, 172. 
 
 Whitelaw, date of Coriolanus, 466. 
 
666 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Wordsworth (William), on Plut- 
 arch, note 1 14. 
 
 Wright (W. Aldis), edition of 
 Julius Caesar, 172. 
 
 Wyndham (the Right Honble. 
 George), on Plutarch, 112 ; on 
 Amyot's Plutarch's Morals, 
 note 1 44 ; 0x1 Julius Caesar, 239. 
 
 Xylander, Latin version of Plut- 
 arch, 133. 
 
 Zielinski (Professor Thaddaus), 
 Marginalia Philologus on 
 Antony and Cleopatra, note 
 347 ; on Cleopatra's " One 
 Word," 653. 
 
 Printed by Lowe 4 Brydone, Printers Ltd., London. N.W.l.