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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013152586 
 
THE SHAKESPEAEIAD 
 
 Souvenir of the Tercentenary 
 
 of Shakespeare's Death-day 
 
 April 23rd, 1916 
 
 A DRAMATIC EPOS 
 
 BY 
 DENTON J. SNIDER 
 
 ST. LOUIS, MO. 
 
 SIGMA PUBLISHING CO, 
 
 210 PINE ST, 
 
The Shakespeariad 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Paet Fibst — The Magic Isle 6 
 
 Act FmsT — 'Return of Prospero 7 
 
 Se. I. Caliban and Prospero 7 
 
 Sc. II. Hamlet, Caliban and Prospero. . 25 
 
 Sc. III. Ariel's Soliloquy 36 
 
 Sc. IV. Ariel and Prospero 42 
 
 Se. V, Horatio and Young Prospero ... 63 
 
 Act Second — Women of the Magic Wood ... 79 
 
 Sc. I. Rosalind and Pandora 79 
 
 Se. II. Horatio and Hamlet 93 
 
 Se. III. Horatio and Young Prospero . . . 110 
 
 Se. IV. Rosalind and Pandora 116 
 
 Se. V. Horatio and Hermione 130 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Paet Second — Shakespeaeopolis, the 
 City of the Magic Isle 143 
 
 Book I. Induction 145 
 
 Book II. The Venetian Trilogy 205 
 
 Portia 212 
 
 Desdenijona i 265 
 
 Imogen 313 
 
 Epilogue 340 
 
 Paet Thied — The Oveewoeld of the 
 Magic Isle 353 
 
 Act Piest — ^Hamlet's Palace 359 
 
 Sc. I. Horatio and Hamlet 359 
 
 Se. II. Horatio and Visitors 367 
 
 Sc. III. Horatio and Young Prospero. . .375 
 
 Sc. IV. Horatio and Studiosus 382 
 
 Sc. V. Eedemption of the Ghost 394 
 
 Se. VI. Transition 406 
 
 Act Second — Prospero 's Temple 409 
 
 Sc. I. Prospero and His Son 409 
 
 Sc. II. The Pageant of the Penitents. . .421 
 
 Se. III. Caliban 427 
 
 Sc. IV. Ariel's Repentance and Finale. .441 
 
The Shakespeariad 
 
 3?att Jfitgt 
 
 THE MAGIC ISLE 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 The plan is to present Shakespeare 's entire work 
 in the action of a poem, of which he is the hero 
 performing a literary deed as yet the most sig- 
 nificant in history. Hence the title Shakespeariad, 
 which seeks to unite the epic and dramatic forms 
 into a higher kind. 
 
 The Shakespeariad is located in the Magic Isle 
 well known as the scene of the poet's "Tempest." 
 The poem is composed of three main Parts, which 
 form successive stages of an ascent from low to 
 high. The First Part is the Magic Wood, or the 
 forest of the Magic Isle, which is rimimed on the 
 outside by the sea. The Second Part is the Magic 
 City, which rises up in the center of the Isle and 
 is called Shakespearopolis, embracing all the poet's 
 characters in its separate abodes. The Third Part 
 is the Magic Overworld, whose name hints the 
 poet's supernatural forms — ghosts and spirits. 
 
 The throng of visitors from all quarters of the 
 globe appear especially in two representatives: 
 Pandora from Hellas and the East, and young Pros- 
 pero from Atlantis and the "West. 
 
ACT FIRST. 
 
 The leading characters of the Magic Isle are seen 
 to he evolving into our time out of the poet's shapes, 
 which are taken up where he left them. First, 
 Caliian and Ariel, earliest creatures of this Isle, 
 are unfolded into their modern parallels and along 
 with them their master, old Prospero. Hamlet also 
 is found roaming in this Magic Wood, sinking into 
 a deeper gloom and despair, from which his friend 
 Horatio seeks to rescue him. 
 
 Caliban, being left sole lord of the^Isle, after the 
 departure of all its other inhabitants, appears, talk- 
 ing to himself. 
 
 Scene Fiest. 
 Caliban's Soliloquy. 
 Sad and solitary Caliban ! 
 Left alone am I after living with men 
 In the daily intercourse of work and word ! 
 Here telling my woes to the silent sunbeams 
 I see them laugh back at my tears, 
 As I wake the woods and tune the tongueless grots, 
 Sighing around this Magic Isle 
 Now all undwelt of any human shape 
 To which I would mine own upbuild 
 That I too be a man. 
 
 (7) 
 
8 TEE SHAEE8PEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Wholly to myself I have been handed over 
 
 By my high teacher, Master Prospero, 
 
 When he quit this song-lapped island 
 
 Eocked in its cradle of sea-waves, 
 
 For his old home at Milan 
 
 After his banished stay of a dozen years. 
 
 He found me on this very spot a brute 
 
 Both in my body and spirit, 
 
 And straightway he helpful opened a school 
 
 To start me upward to my superior self 
 
 That lay benighted as yet within me. 
 
 But I was not alone in my lesson, 
 
 Another pupil beside me he took. 
 
 His own little daughter, Maid Miranda, 
 
 Who remaineth to-day my dream of Heaven, 
 
 Keeping her shrine in my soul where I worship. 
 
 To whose godhood of beauty I as my goal 
 
 Eternal do aspire. 
 
 But alas ! the perfect look of woman 
 
 With its sacred seal of primal love, 
 
 I can see no more in my loneliness. 
 
 Nor contemplate my hoped-for humanity 
 
 In its appearance emblazed to mine eyes 
 
 lUuming the path on high of my ascent. 
 
 Such is the harsh stroke of my fate ; 
 
 With the form of man I no longer commune, 
 
 I hold not converse through the spoken soul 
 
ACT FIRST.— CALIBAN'S SOLILOQUY. 9 
 
 "With what is above me, 
 
 Nor passes before my straining eyesight 
 
 Any shape I may love. 
 
 Then I miss Ariel, the Island's musician 
 
 Tuning the breezes like strings of his viol 
 
 Till the whole sky would play as his orchestra ; 
 
 Also he, the spirit ranger, would rove all over, 
 
 Girdling the globe in one flap of his wings 
 
 From ancient Cathay to latest Bermoothes, 
 
 And strewing the welkin with ghostly voices 
 
 Which would whisper the guilty soul 
 
 Its deed of wrong and teU the atonement, 
 
 As he once did mine. 
 
 Him have I never seen, though I would; 
 
 Such is my hope: to see him the spirit, 
 
 As he messages truth under his antics. 
 
 For oft have I heard him rustle around me, 
 
 And tee-hee in the breeze at my scare ; 
 
 When least expected his presence. 
 
 He would hum a wee note overhead. 
 
 Or roar in mine ear dread fragments of thunder ; 
 
 Then he would croon his mellifluous ditties 
 
 To the twangle of multiple instruments 
 
 Anchored to boom of the drum 
 
 Till the sky would seem to re-echo 
 
 The cosmical song of primal creation. 
 
 The world with harmonies sweet overflowing. 
 
 While the winds would murmur melodious treble 
 
10 THE SHAKE SPEABI AD— PART FIRST. 
 
 And the billowy sea would bellow; tbe basso. 
 
 Him, Ariel, the spirit invisible, 
 
 I, the visible, hope yet to view 
 
 As he is in himself, face to face. 
 
 That I also may share in his potency 
 
 Which gives him unseen omnipresence ; 
 
 And I would peer in his tongue 's magic fountain 
 
 Which cadences every word of his voice, 
 
 And every wisp of his tattered talk 
 
 To a singing temple of musical measures 
 
 Which school me the orisons holy 
 
 Attuning my soul unto Heaven. 
 
 But ah! my absent master Prosper©, 
 
 To whose rule I once turned rebel. 
 
 How gladly would I serve him again. 
 
 For service was the good architect 
 
 Building my world within and without ! 
 
 Could I but learn of his lore anew 
 
 And with him con his big book of wisdom 
 
 Which I plucked from its watery grave. 
 
 Whose mystical symbols I gaze at unwitting. 
 
 And long for their lettered secrets ! 
 
 My hate of his training has vanished, 
 
 I recall but his care for my weal 
 
 And the golden runes that he gave me, 
 
 I daily keep counting their wealth 
 
 In the treasure house of my Memory. 
 
ACT FIRST.— CALIBAN AND PR08PER0. 11 
 
 I wonder if he far away in his Milan 
 Ever thinks of his Calihan, 
 Who would also by him be loved. 
 
 Prospero (in the distance). 
 
 I have come back to the Magic Isle 
 
 Of which I was king with one subject ; 
 
 Longer I might not dare keep away, 
 
 For I needed myself to recover. 
 
 Here is my cell familiar, 
 
 And the foliage guarding its entrance ; 
 
 How tidy it has been kept in my absence! 
 
 By whom, I wonder? When left to itself 
 
 I thought that its doorway would be choked 
 
 With this wild nature's rampant luxury. — 
 
 Yonder I spy whom I seek — ^Caliban ! 
 
 But he sees me not, and I shall keep hid 
 
 Till I may closely scan his condition, 
 
 Whether he have lapsed back to savagery, 
 
 Or kept the worth brightening which he had won 
 
 When I left him sole rule of himself 
 
 Not three years now agone. 
 
 Mark! his shape looks changed, stands upward 
 
 more. 
 And his face shows a furrowed reflection ; 
 Has the fellow gotten my Book 
 Which I left drowned in the deep as I deemed. 
 
12 THE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Out of the reach, of his brain still twilit ? 
 
 But hark ! he words me his hidden thought 
 
 Telling the tokens I taught him ; 
 
 He thinks himself alone with himself — 
 
 Wonder on wonder ! his speech has upgrown 
 
 Shifting its throated gabble uncertain, 
 
 Its vulpine snarl, its canine growl. 
 
 Its simian click like the chatter of monkeys 
 
 To a touch of human-mindedness ; 
 
 That tender tone I never once heard before 
 
 Caress the air from his lips ; 
 
 If the meaning couched in his words 
 
 Be one with his voice's music, 
 
 He can school me his schoolmaster. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 To this listening breeze, ye Powers, 
 
 Let me breathe my deepest confession : 
 
 I lisp ye what has made holy my heart 
 
 And leaved high into hope the tree of my life, 
 
 Aye what still keeps shaping me upwards — 
 
 'Tis in me the love of woman. 
 
 Here I for the first time beheld her, 
 
 Prospero's daughter, 
 
 With the prime push of passion ; 
 
 But through her was broken the fetter of nature 
 
 In which begotten I was of father unknown 
 
 But of beldame Sycorax mothered. 
 
ACT FIRST— CALIBAN AND PB08PER0. 13 
 
 Then slowly love loosed my bound aspiration, 
 Me upbearing to be more worthy 
 Of love in itself purely throbbed from itself, 
 Which asks no reward but itself. 
 
 Prospero (aside)'. 
 
 I marvel the miracle — Caliban ! 
 
 Is it the monster I once taught to speak, 
 
 And to call by name the twin lights of the sky — 
 
 The sun lit over day and the moon lit over night. 
 
 And to word each thing of his senses, 
 
 Schooling him human along with my child, 
 
 Lifting him upward ever to me, 
 
 Till one day down he fell hellward 
 
 Daring the nameless deed ? 
 
 Yet I must not forget — ^he repented 
 
 As I bade him farewell — 
 
 Eepented in his last i^Uables spoken, 
 
 "Which have haunted me ever since. 
 
 And will not away from mine ear — ^and my heart. 
 
 Fated Caliban, love he must by nature, 
 
 Yet must do without love in return ; 
 
 No woman can ever embrace his shape 
 
 Entangled stiU. with the beast, 
 
 Or kiss that face of him stiU prehuman ; 
 
 But all the more he must love though he wrestle 
 
 Gainst the obstacle unsurmountable. 
 
 And he still loving in love's defeat 
 
14 TEE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT FIRST. 
 
 Must be resigned forever. 
 That has me transformed to compassion 
 Melting wroth memory's vengeance: 
 I too have repented. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 Once in desire's first urge of fury- 
 Would I possess the woman beautiful 
 Who had stirred primal creation within me ; 
 I would seize in frenzy the world's jewel 
 As mine own for my heart's recompense 
 Outside of the law which outlawed me. 
 But now I seek no longer requital, 
 I resign the hope for possession, 
 I renounce the woman beloved : 
 But love I shall love in itself 
 As its own prize and final fulfilment, 
 Winning the guerdon supreme from failure. 
 Gross it may start far down in nature, 
 But still self -refining runs love's deep stream, 
 And all-sufficient unto itself 
 Till it mount up to its well-head divine. 
 Whereof Prospero once would teach me 
 In many a passage of scriptured lore. 
 But I yet could not understand 
 Till I had loved, yea loved and lost. 
 And then loved all the more and deeper 
 Because I had lost. 
 
ACT FIBST.— CALIBAN AND PBOSPERO. 15 
 
 Surmomitiiig the backstroke of fate, 
 Yet with many resurgences downward, 
 I rose to my trial's vision supernal 
 That God is love. 
 
 Prospero (aside). 
 
 Mightiest miracle of the Magic Isle ! 
 
 Teaching me Deity's very self 
 
 As I never knew it before. 
 
 He has touched last depths of experience 
 
 Which my life never has sounded. 
 
 Can this be 'Caliban, once my slave and his own 
 
 Now risen to be Master Prospero too, 
 
 Yea overmastering me in life's lesson, 
 
 Just me, his sometime schoolmaster ! 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 Here is his ancient ivy-wreathed cell 
 
 Which I keep trim for his return 
 
 And return he must — 
 
 To be all what he may be unto completion. 
 
 Long since when I was sole monarch and savage. 
 
 He arrived in my kingdom primeval 
 
 With little Miranda whom the first I saw 
 
 Of her sex and felt her sole service. 
 
 Then adored as a Ooddess whom I must own — 
 
 I, the waxing adolescent of nature 
 
 Littered of the sow-bat Sycorax, 
 
16 THE SHAKESPJEABIAD—PART FIRST. 
 
 Interlinking tlie two extremes of women 
 Below and above, the hag and the princess 
 In the heart of my being — 
 I sank to the demon ere I might rise. 
 
 {Prosper appears.) 
 
 Ha ! there he stands again at his door — 
 It is Prospero old in his study-gown, 
 As I often saw him and cursed him. 
 When his slave, hut in mine own slavery ; 
 Now I would him beseech as a God, 
 Who hath appeared in response to my prayer. 
 Have I not been imploring for his return ? — 
 Say, art thou a specter of mine own making ? 
 
 Prospero, speak me a word 
 Undeceive me if deceived — 
 Pnghost thyself though a ghost. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 1 live what thou seest I am, once thy master, 
 (With the graying years tinct on these locks ; 
 
 I have come back to the Magic Isle 
 
 Where I a dozen suns held sovereignty 
 
 In the practice of my potent art. 
 
 Now again I have quit old Milan, not banished 
 
 But willing, aye yearning ; 
 
 I could no longer breathe in its prose 
 
 Orown stranger to the dead world of seeming ; 
 
ACT FIR8T— CALIBAN AND PROSPERO. 17 
 
 I sighed for my Ariel's presence once more, 
 My free Genius I would, winging viewless 
 Through all spaces and times and climes, 
 And bonding the earth with his roundelay. 
 
 Ariel, I invoke thee hither again 
 
 To meet me out of the far Bermoothes, 
 Thy new elemental home by the West, 
 And to sing me what thou art doing 
 In thy newest musical measures. 
 Say, Caliban, knowest thou of his presence ? 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 1 have not heard him here hymning for years, 
 Not since you once shipped away on the sea. 
 And left me free in this magic solitude 
 
 To struggle alone with myself. 
 
 See him I could not if I would, 
 
 He is a spirit not of my kin or ken: 
 
 May I yet behold him in his right realm, 
 
 And love him as my dearest companion 
 
 "With his world of spirits made visible ! 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Mark my confession, O Caliban! 
 For thee too I have longed by the hour. 
 Longed for thy look in my absence. 
 Yea even wished again to behold thy shape ! 
 
18 THE 8EAKESPEABIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Soon I found I needed thee also, 
 
 For thou hadst ingrown a part of me, 
 
 Not to he easily cut from my heart. 
 
 I schooled thee indeed as thy teacher. 
 
 But my training of thee turned out 
 
 Thy training of me as well 
 
 In a mutual salvation of soul. 
 
 Now I have come to recover my Book 
 
 Which I rashly flung to the waves — 
 
 My magical Book with its printed symbols, 
 
 Source of my power over future, present, and past : 
 
 And my broken staff I would mend 
 
 To win mine own recovery, 
 
 Sceptering my sovereign sway of the spirit. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 Yes, I remember that Book of thy greatness 
 
 "With its leaves of mystical letters. 
 
 Marching black lines across the white page. 
 
 Bearing high oracles hidden of wisdom, 
 
 Which were sealed to the search of my sight ; 
 
 But their secret I was intent to fathom. 
 
 Deeming it some message of welfare to me ; 
 
 Slowly I learned somewhat of the letters 
 
 Without thy cognizance. 
 
 Wouldst thou see thy Book once more 1 
 
 Enter. 
 
ACT FIRST.— CALIBAN AND PBOSPERO. 19 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Fain I am to look into my ancient cell, 
 Long tlie scene of my art and my spirit's home ; 
 How well-kept it has been, quite as I left it ! 
 Oh the surprise of Heaven ! Here lies my Book 
 Which I sought to sink far under the sea 
 Beneath the deepest reach of sailor 's plummet ; 
 And here my magic staff stands whole as it was 
 Ere I broke it in twain to unmake it forever. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 I watched thy actions strange from my hiding. 
 And thwarted them both for my sake and thine, 
 Since I forefelt thy work unfulfilled, 
 And that thou yet wouldst return 
 To make thyself whole — 
 "Winning thy full self -integration. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 The magician thou hast become of this Isle, 
 
 Caliban counterworking my magic 
 And saving it from its own doom, 
 Aye saving me too from my deed. 
 Tell me, what is thy wish ? 
 
 Caliian. 
 
 1 would see Miranda again. 
 She it was who unknown to thee 
 
20 THE SHAKE 8PEABI AD.— PART FIRST. 
 
 Taught me to spell out and hold in mind 
 The elusive signs which look from thy script 
 Unsealing to me the fountain of knowledge, 
 Thou knowest the rest. 
 Is she here with thee ? 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Thou sawest her quit her father's ceU long since 
 To be Ferdinand's wife, queen of Naples. 
 I marked thee watch her departure hence 
 As her ship sped away from the shore 
 With her new-won lover of royal estate ; 
 I saw thee wade far out in the shelving sea 
 To catch the last glimpse of a loved look lost: 
 But why ask for her, the impossible? 
 
 Calihan. 
 
 I would see her again — not to woo her. 
 
 But to renounce me and thus to restore me 
 
 To a possession eternal ; 
 
 Love mortally incorporate I would hallow 
 
 That mine I make it forever 
 
 And worship in faith its appearance divine. 
 
 As thou didst teach me aforetime 
 
 That God once came down incarnate 
 
 To be seen in His son as a man. 
 
ACT FIRST— CALIBAN AND PR08PER0. 21 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 That lesson I gave thee, well I recall it 
 
 But I thought it lost ; 
 
 Now thou hast bettered my best instruction, 
 
 And applied it afresh beyond me. 
 
 Well do I know that my daughter Miranda 
 
 Pitied thee for thy hopeless passion 
 
 When it came home in might to herself 
 
 As she watched her Ferdinand piling old logs 
 
 Doing the same menial service as thine. 
 
 Laid on her lover in trial by me : 
 
 For I slaved him down to a Caliban, 
 
 And sternly forbade her loving him, 
 
 To test the truth of his heart — and of hers. 
 
 At first she scorned thee in haughty contempt 
 
 Then soon sympathy felt with thy love 
 
 In responsive rebound from her own ; 
 
 Though she could not requite it with herself, 
 
 She begged of my mercy thy pardon 
 
 And gave to thy heart her blessing. 
 
 Caliian. 
 
 Many thanks I owe to the words of the sage ; 
 StiU not through thee and thy spoken lore 
 But through thy daughter's presence 
 The effluence high descended upon me 
 And lodged eternal in my bosom 
 As the God incarnate. 
 
22 TEE 8BAKESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 Prospero. 
 
 I note it well, thou strikest the keynote 
 Attuning all this Magic Isle 
 And its melodious city built by the Muses — 
 The keynote of love's supremacy. 
 
 Caliian. 
 I used to hear Ariel's strains only outside me 
 Streaming the air with rich concordance of sounds, 
 But now since his absence from sea and island 
 They come playing withiu me. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 And thou too canst aspire for the Book 
 And its mystical script of my wisdom, 
 To make thine own the words of my Genius, 
 Perchance to win that Genius itself 
 As the uppermost crown of thy ascent. 
 But what wouldst thou with thy winning? 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 Not keep it as mine, but give it away 
 
 To mine unweeting folk of distant Argier, 
 
 As thou didst give it to me. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 And thou eouldst sin, how well I remember — 
 But eouldst also repent of thy sin, 
 
ACT FIRST.— CALIBAN AND PBOSPERO. 23 
 
 Thy deepest limit overreacliing in grace, 
 Coercing tliy hag-born nature's lot. 
 
 Caliban. 
 Another compelling experience was mine 
 Which to me was deepest ; I could love, 
 And then fulfil the worth of my life 
 In love 's resignation. 
 Keeping the sacred fire still burning 
 On my soul's innermost altar, 
 Supplanting my mother's old sag-bellied God, 
 Setebos the lust-bound. 
 
 Prospero. 
 Thou art indeed transfigured — thou hybrid ! 
 Of the witch-mother conceived and whelped. 
 But of father not told ! 
 
 And thy shape, once prone, uplifts more human 
 Through love's unwearied self -reconstruction 
 Architectonic of the soul's temple. 
 Aspiring to me and mine, Heaven ! 
 "What if I and mine were once like him 
 In my far forbears ! 
 And what if I and mine hereafter 
 Should by him be won in his ascent ! 
 
 Calilan. 
 Hark ! I hear somebody softly approaching, 
 I see a shadow hitherward flit 
 
24 TBE SBAKESPEARIAD.—PABT FIRST. 
 
 In a periphery trembling of sighs ; 
 
 Yonder he steps earth-hent in look ! 
 
 I have seen him oft darting amid the trees, 
 
 Solitary, soliloquizing, upbraiding 
 
 His fate in the deepest agony of soul : 
 
 Sympathetic I have to think him. 
 
 He too has loved and lost and been lost, 
 
 But methinks he cannot renounce — 
 
 Oh the pain of his perdition ! 
 
 Prospcro. 
 
 Already I have noted his sombre costume, 
 
 And heard his sepulchral voice echoing 
 
 Through the spacious mansion of Hamlet, 
 
 The largest structure of Shakespearopolis. 
 
 See, 'tis Prince Hamlet himself. 
 
 Let us step into this cove as he passes. 
 
 The word weighs heavy on his lips and must drop 
 
 By its own sheer gravitation. 
 
 Sounding the stress of his heart : 
 
 Hist ! we may hear his new soliloquy. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 Still further downward he seems to be looking 
 Into the Tophet of human despair ; 
 Would I were able to turn his eyes upward 
 That he march along with me to Hope ! 
 
ACT FIRST.— HAMLET, CALIBAN, PB08PER0. 25 
 
 Scene Second. 
 Hamlet. 
 (Having wan,dered alone in Ms gloom from Jiis 
 urian home to the Magic Wood, he suddenly breaks 
 out to himself:) 
 
 Mothered of such a woman ! 
 
 Unfaithed she of the deepest pledge of her sex! 
 
 Broken before Heaven lies her marriage vow 
 
 To be true to my father. 
 
 But who, which is my father ? 
 
 How can I Imow whence I am begotten 
 
 If mine own mother play false 
 
 Perchance even before her wedding day 1 
 
 Mother, tenderest name on earth. 
 
 Turned to the nethermost curse of Hell, 
 
 Forsworn of the strongest oath of a woman. 
 
 Of perjury guilty to God ! 
 
 Caliban (aside). 
 How sharp his words cut through to my heart. 
 Making its old wound bleed afresh 
 Whose burn I first felt years ago, 
 When I too came to know of my mother, 
 With whom you, Prospero, once reproached me 
 Blazing a fierce malediction upon me 
 For my birth which I could not forestall ! 
 
26 THE SHAKESPEARIAD.—FABT FIRST. 
 
 Was, then, Prince Hamlet littered like me 
 Of some Sycorax and paternity blank, 
 Hag-born and bag-bred, not ia tbis savage Isle, 
 But in tbe lofty palace of Denmark's Mng? 
 
 Prosper (aside). 
 
 Not so tense in thy voice, be will bear thee ; 
 I would bearken bis furtber confession, 
 For bis talk witb bimself now dives far down 
 To tbe darkest pit of bis mystery. 
 
 Hamlet (alone). 
 
 Such destiny birth has laid upon me : 
 
 To know who is my mother whom I must damn, 
 
 Not to know who is my father whom I would love. 
 
 mother, mother, it is thine to become 
 
 The very Satan of womanhood, 
 
 iWorse stiU than the first mother Eve 
 
 Who was tempted of the Destroyer ; 
 
 But thou art tbe very Destroyer's self, 
 
 To scourge thine own innocent race 
 
 Down to the depths of tbe soul's perdition. 
 
 Here is thy offspring— look at bis fate — 
 
 Balancing on the edge of the dire abyss ! 
 
 Such, then, am I, Hamlet the Prince : 
 
 Nature's earliest bond and tbe dearest 
 
 Venoms every throb of my human duration 
 
 Prom tbe first germ of my being. 
 
ACT FIRST— HAMLET, CALIBAN, PR08PER0. 27 
 
 My smile lighting upon the fondest face 
 Curdles to a demoniac scoff, 
 And the prime fount of affection wells forth 
 Through my days all poison. 
 
 Caliban (aside). 
 
 How he rips up my original pain ! 
 
 He starts in me to aching once more 
 
 The first pang of my being born, 
 
 And whelms me backward to the black Tophet 
 
 Which I thought I had passed safely over 
 
 Fleeing away from my fatal despair, 
 
 Which was mine own mother. 
 
 Prospero (aside). 
 
 In me too he tingles an ancient sorrow, 
 For I had a false brother who dethroned me, 
 Like Hamlet's father, the doom-bidding ghost. 
 But my brother dared not me slay in the open. 
 Though covertly willing my death ; 
 Nor did he debauch Miranda's mother, 
 Who was the angel still seen in her daughter ; 
 Through his crime it befell that I landed 
 On this Magic Isle, now my true home, 
 And found thee here, as thou knowest — 
 But hearken again, for he seems afresh 
 To bolster himself for the utterance mighty 
 Of some new message writ on his heart. 
 
28 THE 8HAEE8PEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Caliban (aside). 
 
 Oh the keen counterstroke wrenching my bosom ! 
 Love is opening the deepest vortex of Hell, 
 Before me I peer down into its lowest abyss, 
 And see the source of all creation 
 Turn to creation 's Destroyer. — He starts. 
 
 Hamlet (alone). 
 
 Love, how I long for thee 
 
 "With the urge of God's own potency! 
 
 But thou art corrupt at the source of being, 
 
 Tainted for me in my mother's womb, 
 
 So that I would go back and slay mine own birth. 
 
 How the night of the world closes over me. 
 
 And I breathe out my palsied voice slowly 
 
 Into the tomb of the last silence. 
 
 Whither now I am passing alone 
 
 In the funeral cortege of time ! 
 
 Thus Fate 's vampyre wings down over me 
 
 For the final extinction. — 
 
 Halt, moody demon of mine ! I am Hamlet ! 
 
 1 must recover myself for my task ; 
 This shape is but my suspicion dark 
 "Which flits hither to tempt me to Erebus — 
 Melancholia, hell-bird, twin-born with my soul 
 Now unbeaks me and wings off behind me, 
 Allowing me one healing thought 
 
ACT FIRBT.— HAMLET, CALIBAN, PROSPERO. 29 
 
 Which I can tongue again to my heart 
 And get relief from the gohlin 
 Tearing my soul to shreds. 
 
 Yet when I hear mine own native speech 
 
 And dare take a look at myself as I am, 
 
 The chasm gapes wide its jaws afresh, 
 
 And there yawns a deeper nethermost Hades 
 
 Which gulps me down in one black thought 
 
 That I am not my father's son 
 
 But the offspring — spare me ye Furies ! 
 
 Of his very slayer, now my King 
 
 Whom destiny bids me slay in turn 
 
 To set right God's blasted justice, 
 
 By turning myself a murderer 
 
 Perchance my father's murderer. 
 
 woman untrue to thy bond, 
 
 Where ends thy chain of interlinking curses. 
 
 Which here fetters thy guiltless child 
 
 Till he execrates love itself ! 
 
 Can I ever clasp my Ophelia again, 
 
 Or hear her sweet confession of soul, 
 
 Without the pang in my heart 
 
 Whispering her sex's infidelity? 
 
 Caliban (aside). 
 
 Harshest trial of time ! He can love no more 
 Unless he dares the sting of the adder 
 
30 TEE SHAKE 8PEABI AD— PART FIRST. 
 
 Whicli darts from woman's unfaith : 
 His lot is more murderous than is mine. 
 
 Prosper (aside). 
 
 Alas! he cannot renounce what fates him, 
 He cannot repent, undoing what undoes him. 
 Terrible doubt which gnaws him 
 That he is not King Hamlet's son, 
 But of some lower blood-fiend begotten 
 Even his next of kin. — ^Hark again ! 
 
 Hamlet (alone). 
 
 I the doubt-benighted son may be fathered 
 
 Of this royal criminal. 
 
 His brother's murderer, 
 
 Now throned in my rightful place. 
 
 And oh ! my eternal assassin 
 
 Daily clawing my soul to damnation. 
 
 To a death which will not let me die. 
 
 To a vengeance which dares not avenge. 
 
 See ! there flits toward me again the dragon. 
 
 My dark bat-winged tormentor, 
 
 And me grips to plunge me in a spiral downward 
 
 Into the incestuous fount of my being. 
 
 father Claudius, now king of Denmark 
 
 And thy brother's murderer, 
 
 Fate bids me, thy son, slay thee, 
 
 And then bids me slay myself in right requital. 
 
ACT FIRST.— HAMLET, CALIBAN, PR08PER0. 31 
 
 Me, my father 's own slaughterer 
 Wreaking a double retribution 
 For thy guilt and mine 
 With his weapon eagerly gleaming. 
 
 Caliban (aside). 
 
 Hold me not, mine own destiny calls me 
 To stay his daggered hand. 
 
 Prosper (aside). 
 
 Wait, good Caliban, to his rescue 
 
 Step not forth from our hiding rashly ; 
 
 He still has something to confess of himself, 
 
 Man's uttermost tragedy he voices, 
 
 I have never heard it before in all my days 
 
 Not even in Shakespearopolis, 
 
 Where bides many a fate-shent spirit. 
 
 See ! he lives despite his drawn weapon. 
 
 His bloodiest words are his salvation ; 
 
 If thou stop the outpour of his heart in speech. 
 
 He may turn his knife 's point to that full heart 
 
 And let his world-pain trickle out 
 
 In the flow of his life-blood. 
 
 Caliban (aside). 
 
 See him brandish his glittering stabs 
 As he stares on some terrible vacancy ! 
 
32 TEE SEAKESPE'ARIAD.—PART firbt. 
 
 There ! he whips the edge selfward, 
 He will undo himself, let me forth, 
 Unhand me, unmouth me. 
 
 Prospero (aside). 
 
 Stay thyself in silence, 
 
 Watch how he drops his blade slowly and sheathes 
 
 it; 
 Good ! he is ready to turn a new thought 
 Which stops his deed to new delay ; 
 I have seen him act that way before 
 In the Hamlet Mansion many-chambered 
 Of spacious Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Hamlet (alone). 
 Dare I still be this Hamlet and not refuse 
 To live longer such life, knowing me mortal? 
 For I never again can love woman. 
 Nor man, the sad heir of her body. 
 By the Creator 's fiat unjust 
 Whelming the race through birth into Fate. 
 To me humanity's source gurgles but death, 
 Through woman I am doubly accursed, 
 So is the world, overshadowed with gloom, 
 Within me droops the sickening glow 
 Of the last sunset of the universe. 
 And my woman-born Fury, Melancholy, 
 Starts to flap hideously over me 
 Her God-undoing night-wings, 
 
ACT FIRST— HAMLET, CALIBAN, PROSPERO. 33 
 
 As I go and come like a ghost in my thought 
 
 That I, young Hamlet, knowing my mother 
 
 Am not the son of the right king Hamlet, 
 
 But of his fraternal destroyer, 
 
 Now possessed of his scepter and wife. 
 
 Hell open thy jaws this moment 
 
 And swallow me down to thy center ; 
 
 In thee I shall find my last relief 
 
 If I can but crisp up in thy flames, 
 
 Burning out of me this fatal fire 
 
 Of my first creation. 
 
 Soothe me, good Inferno, with thy torments, 
 
 Which will mitigate or end these pains 
 
 Of the son of Claudius the fratricide, 
 
 King of my Denmark, husband of my mother. 
 
 Usurper not alone of my right to my realm, 
 
 But of my right to my father. 
 
 Rather the son of Cain be I called 
 
 And acclaimed by the whole world 
 
 To-day's heir of his primordial curse, 
 
 "Which descends from man's first blood guilt; 
 
 No, I wrong old Cain of Adam's stock. 
 
 He never debauched Abel's wife 
 
 Ere he murdered his brother ; 
 
 My blazon of descent is mine own alone, 
 
 And stands solitary in the world's heraldry. 
 
 Let me run and hide myself in the grave 
 
 From this damnation of sonship. 
 
34 THE 8HAKEBPEABIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Prospero (aside). 
 
 Suspire not so deeply, he will hear thee, 
 
 My Caliban sympathetic; 
 
 Why so excited ? Mark his new calm. 
 
 Caliban (aside). 
 
 I can scarce bear up under the slash 
 
 Which cuts me through from his daggered speech ; 
 
 He has gashed my faith in woman's love 
 
 Which was my rise toward Godhood, 
 
 And master-builder within my soul 
 
 Of my life 's new structure. 
 
 my heart ! he has stabbed my ideal Miranda. 
 
 Prospero (aside). 
 
 Well, he is scurrying off in the bush ; 
 
 Let us repose, we need to catch breath 
 
 After living through this furious furnace 
 
 Of fellow-feeling afire 
 
 With such a mixture of Hell and Heaven. 
 
 Some deeper releaser he needs 
 
 Who will undo the curse of the woman. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 Though his words infect me with his disease, 
 Still I would help him be healed 
 That I too may be whole — 
 
 1 swim away in a drowse. 
 
AOT FIRST.— HAMLET, CALIBAN, PR08PER0. 35 
 
 Prospero (to himself). 
 
 He dozes off dreamward, he sinks to deep sleep 
 
 After such trial and triumph ! 
 
 The all-prophetic Caliban, 
 
 He the thwarted lump of nature 's malice ! 
 
 What a testful experience has proved him 
 
 In his fleet up and down of life's ladder! 
 
 First I found him mounting up Godward through 
 
 love, 
 But now with his soul's last sympathy- 
 He has seen Hamlet sink down to Satan through 
 
 love — 
 Love, the angel and devil of man's first being, 
 Aye the demiurge hidden of Shakespearopolis. 
 
 But behold a new appearance, 
 Caliban's other personality, 
 His counterpart of the spirit 
 Whom he cannot now see — ^but shall, 
 For I must impart him my vision. 
 Hark ! the soft tira-lira of Ariel's song 
 Tingles mine ear out the distance, 
 To the breeze 's accompaniment borne 
 He is coming, but I for a while must be hid 
 Till I hear from his voice his condition. 
 Whether fallen aback or advanced 
 Equaling Caliban. 
 
36 THE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PABT FIRST. 
 
 Scene Thied. 
 
 {TTirough the Magic Wood suddenly flits Ariel, 
 having returned from his flight to liberty.) 
 
 Ariel (to himself). 
 
 Hail to my ancient home, the Magic Isle, 
 
 To which I now come back 
 
 From my outing of nebulous freedom, 
 
 Where I lived without any rule 
 
 Far over Hesperian sea-waves, 
 
 On the world's other side from Prosper© 's realm! 
 
 How glad to return to service I fleet. 
 
 To my master's service of happiest years. 
 
 That I may win my new liberty 
 
 And be redeemed once more. 
 
 He it was whose lordship saved me 
 
 From the malice of barbarous Sycorax — 
 
 She the lover of pain in itself. 
 
 The monstrous hybrid of woman. 
 
 The mingled demon of swine and bird, 
 
 The hater of spirits like me. 
 
 But the mother dread of king Caliban 
 
 Now the sole monarch as heir. 
 
 Once she was queen of this island 
 
 And pegged me fast in her torturing prison 
 
 For a dozen years of Hell, 
 
ACT FIRST— ARIEL'S SOLILOQUY. 37 
 
 Till Prospero came and freed me from her, 
 
 But made me unwilling his slave, 
 
 Performing his service of spirit 
 
 Around all lands and seas, in storm and in sheen, 
 
 Wreathing his thought in the folds of my music 
 
 As I carried it over into the deed. 
 
 Still I longed for my liberty, 
 
 And oft begged him to let me loose to myself. 
 
 For I would be the free spirit alone. 
 
 Unbound of duty or any relation. 
 
 Living within mine own self 's world 
 
 Of microcosmic caprices. 
 
 At last the master bated my labor, 
 
 And let me off whither I listed, 
 
 To live my absolute self ness 
 
 In freedom's serenity taskless. 
 
 But enough I have wandered about 
 
 Trying that elemental liberty 
 
 Which I found in distant Bermoothes, 
 
 Floating isles of the unrulable sea 
 
 Bumping each other around the anchorless main. 
 
 In the license unbridled of nature. 
 
 Stanch ships touching there would perish. 
 
 Pounded by furious waves on the rocks ; 
 
 Their wrecks would be flung against one another. 
 
 Till they be scattered or sunk out of sight 
 
 In the turmoil mad of the elements, 
 
38 THE SUAKESPEARIAD—PART FIRST. 
 
 While the struggling sailors might swim a moment, 
 
 Then faint to a watery death. 
 
 Meantime the spirits dwelling Bermoothes 
 
 Would dance in a frolic over the hulls 
 
 With the mockery grisly of demons, 
 
 Howling their paean of liberty lawless, 
 
 OutscofiBng the hurricane. 
 
 But another and deeper longing draws me 
 
 To come back for a share of the Magic Isle : 
 
 I would again witness love. 
 
 Like that of Miranda the maiden. 
 
 When she first beheld young Ferdinand ; 
 
 Both I once brought together just here 
 
 And watched the bud, the bloom and the fruitage 
 
 Born of the bliss of two lovers, 
 
 Which till then I never had gazed on. 
 
 But that sight became a part of my soul ; 
 
 Though I be a spirit unsexed, bodiless. 
 
 Without feeling, pure vision ideal. 
 
 Not humanly qualified 
 
 But only a blob, an airy thought ; 
 
 Still I, Ariel, transcendent of sense, 
 
 Can know of love though I have it not. 
 
 And through my intelligence I may share 
 
 The sympathy glowed of man's first passion. 
 
 And long for its presence within me. 
 
ACT FIRST— ARIEL'S SOLILOQUY. 39 
 
 Love intellectual knowing of love, 
 I the spectator only, never the doer. 
 The vision but not the deed. 
 
 Miranda, thy look I would once more witness, 
 The look of the woman in truth ; 
 
 Before thee I had seen only one of thy sex. 
 The monstrous female Sycorax torturing 
 Even my airy form by her witch-work, 
 From whose shape I would shy off my eyeballs 
 Throbbing a pain of my spirit's vision. 
 Yet with Caliban's pang, though he be her son, 
 
 1 trace an intimate fellowship now ; 
 He could love, but oh ! I could not. 
 Though I would to the last beat of my brain ; 
 There he heightens above me, 
 
 There he is of essence superior, 
 
 Even if once I thwarted his passion 
 
 By irate Prospero's order. 
 
 Yet I long to meet him again in friendship. 
 
 And mark just what he has done with himself 
 
 In response to the deep last drive of his nature. 
 
 But dare I whisper my aspiration 
 
 Which chiefly has pulled me back to the Isle 1 
 
 I would not merely look at love. 
 
 But also rise to possess it myself 
 
 And thus to be real — 
 
40 THE SHAKE8PEABIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Not simply with fleeting eyesight outside, 
 
 But with my soul inside 
 
 I would learn to participate 
 
 In passion's glowing humanity, 
 
 Even if me the immortal it turn mortal ; 
 
 Anyhow I have to make me deathless myself, 
 
 Winning eternity's guerdon as mine. 
 
 This is the lesson I would now learn 
 
 In the new school of Master Prospero 
 
 That he would somehow take off the limit 
 
 Of my vast inexperience, 
 
 Imparting to me the power to love 
 
 Whereof I being ignorant deem myself doomed. 
 
 I would possess it acting within me. 
 
 Not simply belook it outside 
 
 In vain unattained aspiration. 
 
 How I envied Ferdinand, Prince though he were. 
 
 Not for his kingdom, but for his gift of love 
 
 Which shot up at sight with a gush 
 
 Prom his first fountain of being. 
 
 Aye, of his very mortality born. 
 
 Think, I even could grudge hoggish Caliban 
 
 For the most human push of his heart 
 
 Which urged him to seize love bodily, 
 
 Though I waylaid his deed of fulfilment. 
 
 But the counterstroke of mine own heart 
 
 I felt smiting me vainly within, 
 
ACT FIRST— ARIEL'S SOLILOQUY. 41 
 
 I the bodiless, sexless, loveless spirit 
 
 Ariel, I live under a curse , 
 
 Love-banned in my being. 
 
 Dear Prospero, list to my prayer : 
 
 Incarnate me, oh humanize me. 
 
 Yea materialize me that I may love, 
 
 That I may even sin and repent of my sin. 
 
 And thus become manlike, that I rise godlike. 
 
 I would even descend to the bottom. 
 
 And take Caliban's shape, though a beast. 
 
 That I mount through love to be human. 
 
 As God once came down and abased Himself 
 
 To man's mortal estate. 
 
 Thus proving his right divinity. 
 
 Prospero, Master, appear to me now. 
 
 And pray to thy God to bless me with manhood, 
 
 And grant me anew his creation ! 
 
42 TBE 8HAKE8PEABIAD.—PABT FIR8T. 
 
 Scene Fourth. 
 (Prospero and Ariel coming together, have a 
 dialogue at the old cell in the Magic Wood about 
 their experiences since their separation.) 
 
 Prospero. 
 Mine Ariel, well have I heard thy new prayer 
 Within my prescience, yet too without me 
 As it comes wafted over the Midland Sea 
 Floating the air of this Magic Isle, 
 To which thou hast bravely returned 
 From the distant Ocean beyond. 
 And I too have come back to this cell 
 From my magnificent Milan. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 my Master, Eedeemer, Prospero, 
 
 1 never did know what was good for myself 
 When I, a spirit, was a worker for thee 
 Obedient to thy harmonious world. 
 
 Yet unhappy amid all its order, 
 Longing for freedom untasked 
 Which I have found but new slavery. 
 
 Prospero. 
 Let out the wish of thy heart, old Moody! 
 Still discontented despite all thy freedom! 
 Has much leisure become thy burden of life? 
 
ACT FIRST— PB08PEK0 AND ARIEL. 43 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Thou liberator, also my law-giving lord, 
 Twice hast thou freed me the trammeled : 
 First from the torturing tree of witch Sycorax, 
 Then from thine own easy servitude 
 Thou didst speed one day my luckless departure ; 
 Now I come asking a new liberation 
 Manumitted to be from my last manumission 
 That I may get back to duty again. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 What, Ariel ! my spirit familiar 
 Whom I dismissed to thy liberty, 
 Art thou here once more to be slave ? 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Yea, and in search of thee, my right master; 
 I cannot live all alone, just for myself, 
 Even if free to do and undo as I may. 
 Service I must be, else I am but a void, 
 I learned it from thee, I trow unawares ; 
 Now I would act thy bidding again 
 Flitting unseen roundabout this Isle 
 Or over the watery boundlessness. 
 Circling in flight the ever-orbed earth-ball, 
 Even riding on swift beams of light 
 Through the all-engulfing' Cosmos, 
 Till I may float in Orion's bright star-dust, 
 
44 THE 8HAEESPEARIAD.—FABT FIRST. 
 
 Or flap my pinions in nebulous fire-mist 
 
 Which lamps the fields of the empyrean, 
 
 Watching the suns that are going and coming 
 
 In the cycle of aeons. 
 
 Still under thy law I would stay 
 
 E'en in my fantasy's farthest fiights, 
 
 For I know it now mine 
 
 By the test of liberty lawless. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 But where hast thou been, my Ariel, 
 
 During these years of thy freedom's discipline, 
 
 Since I turned thee willingly over 
 
 To the mad sport of the elements? 
 
 Much, I note already, has happened thee, 
 
 I too am not wholly the same. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Ah me! let me sigh out responsive 
 In sweet relief of my upbursting memory! 
 Experience great and new has been mine 
 Fertilizing my soul with its riches of years ; 
 I am the aspiration for freedom — 
 Freedom the boundless bound-burster, 
 Still I find stations of freedom. 
 Unwearied I chafed at nature's restraints. 
 And rattled against the bonds of the law; 
 So I felt under Sycorax ruling me, 
 
ACT FIRST— PB08PER0 AND ARIEL. 45 
 
 And blasphemed her old God Setebos, 
 
 "When she pegged me into her torment 
 
 Till thou didst arrive and release me, 
 
 Whereupon thy slave I became in turn 
 
 Doing all thy fleet errands of spirit 
 
 To the farthest stretch of imagination, 
 
 Obeying thy world-creating Genius 
 
 In its fabling flight even up to the Gods 
 
 Whom thou wouldst invoke to the work of thy 
 
 word; 
 Still I was never content in my task 
 But kept ever aspiring my freedom. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 How well I remember thy protests 
 Praying me : Is not this the last chore ? 
 But I compelled thee unwilling 
 To suffer my sway autocratic 
 More than a dozen of rounding seasons — 
 Thee in thy service ever the more unwilling, 
 Till thy last duty done one minute 
 I bade thee be off to the elements. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 That last duty I now look back at through tears, 
 
 Ideal tears of pure spirit's repentance. 
 
 Even if then I bounded in joyance. 
 
 Thee I did guide and thy reconciled people 
 
46 THE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Merrily over curled billows auspicious, 
 
 Sailing homeward to Naples in safety — 
 
 Saw ttee land with the bride and the bridegroom 
 
 Who thrilled me one heart-stroke of beautiful love 
 
 As they quit my guidance forever, 
 
 And thou saidst me sadly: "farewell, 
 
 Ariel faithful, my spirit, farewell," 
 
 When I shot away westward to freedom. 
 
 Which I dreamed to dwell on floating isles 
 
 Torn away from the earth's fixed center 
 
 And tossing adrift on the tides of old Ocean. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Yes, I remember our parting of spirits 
 Which severed into two worlds far apart 
 Our twin-like selves of one life hitherto. 
 That I never dared hope to see thee again 
 In this Magic Isle which itself seems a spirit 
 Whose sweet embraces I often have longed for. 
 Well ! here I am come and so art thou — 
 But read me a leaf of thy history since. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Recall when once on a time thou didst send me 
 To the still-vexed Bermoothes, storm-haunted isles, 
 Par beyond the Pillars of Hercules 
 Where opens the throat of our Midland Sea 
 Toward the setting sun of the Ocean : 
 
ACT FIRST.— PR08PER0 AND ARIEL. 47 
 
 Thither I daringly followed thy summons 
 That I should fetch thee a wonderful dew-drop 
 For some practice hid in thine art. 
 There I found a new world of free spirits 
 Dallying over the thousand islands, 
 Bach going the round of his own sweet will 
 Unrestrained of rule and of law, 
 And loosed from every convention and custom, 
 While all were building of life what they would. 
 There each of the anchorless isled Bermoothes 
 Floated around in fantastical foolery, 
 Even when they were clashing in earnest 
 Attuned in a dance to the wind and the wave ; 
 Yet often would dash them together an earth- 
 quake, 
 Or burst them asunder a fiery volcano 
 Old Chaos revealing as God of Bermoothes 
 And over their freedom enthroned. 
 As I perched on a low shifting sand bank, 
 Hoar Chaos, the Titan, rose up befoamed 
 From the sea-splash and thus he addressed me : 
 "Here lies thy heart's satisfaction at last: 
 Beings of freedom, millions on millions 
 Dwell undutied, separate each on his islet. 
 Not bonded by law of social existence ; 
 Here is thy liberty, its original home, 
 I am its maker, the earthquake upheaving, 
 Come and take what by nature is thine. ' ' 
 
48 THE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 So spake the God and tuinbled an island over 
 As he sank underneath the spume of the waves. 
 I fulfilled thee my task, Prospero, master, 
 Fetching thy magical dew-drop. 
 But the word of the deity steeped all my soul 
 And turned me its image awake and adream, 
 Though still in thy labor I slaved. 
 Hence it befell that so often I prayed thee 
 For my release unto freedom. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 That is the mystery then of thy prayers 
 Which kept extorting my promise afresh 
 To deliver thee to thine own mastery. 
 But say us the secret of this thy return. 
 For it tells more than thy first departure 
 And attunes the soul more deeply to concord. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 I soon had sprited enough for my schooliag 
 Mid those free spirits of lawless Bermoothes, 
 Without commonwealth or polity stable, 
 Where all was a clash of iadividuals; 
 The islands themselves kept thumping each other 
 Under the ceaseless scourge of the sea-waves. 
 And the clangorous noises were worst of aU 
 For me the maker of musical strains 
 To which I was tuned in the Magic Isle. 
 
ACT FIRST.— PB08PEB0 AND ARIEL. 49 
 
 So I longed again for Prospero's rule, 
 And the ordered life with its law 
 Where I would find my freedom in service, 
 And hark to the melodies thrilled overhead 
 To measures of harmony spheral 
 Wafting my soul out of discords infernal. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 List ! again the soft swells of sky-music ! 
 I hear the same orchestra air-stringed, 
 But it strikes a new symphony sounding 
 Many melodious turns of old strains. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 But tell, master, why art thou here 
 Paralleling strangely my deed of return. 
 So that the broken music of the Magic Isle 
 Seems to be once more choiring tunefully whole. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 I too felt the need of this higher world 
 
 With its dominion of spirits; 
 
 And my Book, my all-encompassing Book 
 
 Which I flung in the sea from this rock 
 
 I would recover as now my salvation. 
 
 Caliban's instinct saw it and saved it 
 
 On the watery surface swimming self -buoyed — 
 
 For it refused to stay sunken in darkness 
 
50 THE 8HAEE8PEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Though a plummet I chained to its clasp — 
 Caliban found it afloat and hooked it out, 
 Then guarded it thoughtfully in my cell, 
 Even seeking to win its hid treasures 
 From the mystical script of its symbols, 
 Hoping for my return to this Isle 
 In his love's swelling bosom still shaggy. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Caliban, once my foe — ^I feel him my friend — 
 Did he rescue the precious Book of thine art? 
 Why, that's what I wish to make mine — 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 And the magical wand of my mastership 
 I shivered, burying deep the pieces. 
 Thinking to close my career forever; 
 But Caliban watched me out of his bosky den. 
 When I was gone he dug up the fragments 
 And waxed them together to wholeness. 
 Here it is now in my hand as goodly as ever, 
 I can wield it over thee, still compelling, 
 And yonder lies my Book. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 I see it all and wonder the more. 
 
 For oft I heard thee vow to be quit of thine art; 
 
 But how coiddst thou do without thy life's task 
 
ACT FIRST— PR08PER0 AND ARIEL. 51 
 
 And live the round of a zero incarnate? 
 Yet enough ! another theme is mine more pressing : 
 Tell me a word of thy daughter Miranda ; 
 Love I first witnessed appearing through her, 
 Not me it beshone, but her royal lover. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Happily married I left the young pair 
 
 As rulers of a fair kingdom together, 
 
 While I singly was throned in my Milan; 
 
 But I never again could be happy 
 
 In that troubled realm of man's conflict, 
 
 I longed for my island of banishment 
 
 To feel its sweet silent communion 
 
 With the Upper "World which only my Book 
 
 Would charm down into my presence. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Therein we were feeling in common — 
 
 I hungered to serve my magician again. 
 
 Of my ruleless freedom I tired, 
 
 Indeed it would have undone me 
 
 Unless I had fled from that Tophet anarchic. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 And I quit maundering over my grave 
 Whose deedless swoon once obsessed me 
 With its hope and its fear, aye with its faith; 
 
52 TEE SSAKESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 I ceased dreaming my immortality, 
 But began making it daily mine own 
 Through living my conquest of death. 
 Though old I would ply my magic again, 
 And intercourse hold with my spirits afresh, 
 Reading still in my Book, even v^riting it over 
 That it proclaim the new work of the Gods. 
 My wand too I longed for remade. 
 With its charm evoking images gorgeous 
 To be framed in my pictures of speech 
 For the gallery grand of Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Happy am I to report for that service 
 
 Which has now become my true freedom ; 
 
 I shall plague thee no more for release, 
 
 My labor is turned to my prayer, 
 
 Aspiration uprises unto fulfilment. 
 
 Outlawed no longer is law, 
 
 My liberty shuns the illegal, 
 
 I have left the isles of anarchy loveless, 
 
 The self-pulverizing Bermoothes, 
 
 And returned to my harmony's home — 
 
 Hark! that music sounds from above. 
 
 As when I timed the sweet throb of my tunes 
 
 For my melody's chorus, 
 
 Echoing on the soft roll of the air-waves above. 
 
ACT FIRST.— PB08PER0 AND ARIEL. 53 
 
 Chorus of Spirits. 
 
 "We are longing still to be free 
 But also to serve. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 That is now the refrain of this Isle, 
 Chimed to one chord thy return is and mine, 
 Which rounds the whole welkin concordant. 
 But, my dear Ariel, dearer than ever, 
 I would send thee on a new journey. 
 Away from thy last Pandemonium 
 Through which thou art with suffering passed 
 In the deep discipline testing of freedom, 
 Which thou hast nobly borne to the winning. 
 Mark! man's two greatest of goods, 
 Freedom and aye sweet Love 
 Can turn his destroyers or saviors. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Well do I know the terrible trial 
 Wherein I battled to be my whole worth, 
 Returning to thee in the Magic Isle 
 From that elemental republic 
 With its devil-built mill of grinding atoms. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Thy salient word bespeaks me my cue: 
 
 Hast thou heard of a land beyond Bermoothes, 
 
54 THE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Beyond that manifold Hell-on-Earth ? 
 Thitherward lies the continent youngest 
 Containing the promised land of the prophets, 
 Atlantis throned in the sheen of the West, 
 Dreamed of ia name by the old Greek sages. 
 The new Olympus of the new Gods, 
 On whose shore was landed some time agone 
 The boat of our Genovese neighbor 
 Titled Columbo the Christ-bearer — 
 Thither I would dispatch thee at once 
 On a swift errand of weight. 
 
 Ariel. 
 Good Prospero, thou makest me happy again! 
 That journey has long been my uttermost goal ; 
 Often I peered from my perch of Bermoothes 
 Along that continent strown in the distance 
 Lying in peace on the ocean's bosom; 
 How my spirit-wings wistful would flap to fly 
 Over the heaving hungry surges between. 
 Which seemed to grow calm as they neared that 
 
 shore 
 Fabled with bounties of ancient Hesperides. 
 
 Prospero. 
 Why went thou not speeding thither at once 
 To girdle the globe with thy magical wings 
 Fleet as the flight of the sunbeams 
 When jBrst shot from the eye of God Phcebus ? 
 
ACT FIRST.— PROSPERO AND ARIEL. 55 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Only through thee might I work that miracle, 
 And the hest of thine art's far prophecy; 
 Though daily my outlook sighed westward, 
 Thou alone couldst grant me that power beyond 
 
 me; 
 So I have come, obeying thy call once more. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 I too have returned to the Magic Isle 
 
 That I may summon thee out of the vast. 
 
 By my Book now restored and restoring 
 
 Me lost for a time to mine own fulfilment. 
 
 But hearken now my secret of secrets 
 
 "Which hitherto I have hidden untongued : 
 
 Only Miranda thou knowest as mine, 
 
 As my one only child and my solacer sole ; 
 
 But I have also a son now matured 
 
 Whose mother in giving him life lost hers; 
 
 As he grew up to youth, I trained him 
 
 To be my throne's timely successor. 
 
 Myself wishing to flee from my dukedom 
 
 Into the realm of my library's lore. 
 
 But there rose the tide of the world's discovery. 
 
 All Italy SAvelled with daring emprise 
 
 To burst its Mediterranean bounds 
 
 In which our spirits had long been immured, 
 
 And to sail the Ocean across to Atlantis 
 
56 TBE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT FIRST. 
 
 Following mariner Christopher's track 
 
 To a liberty new of space and of soul. 
 
 My son was filled with the stress of the time 
 
 And groaned to he rid of his heritage ducal ; 
 
 He was you, my Ariel, when wedged in the pine, 
 
 He begged for release from the pain of his life, 
 
 As if he were corked in a bottle 
 
 Like the sad spirit that sighed in the story : 
 
 "Make me free! Make me free!" 
 
 One day I missed him — he had slipped out to sea. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 That pang of the free spirit fettered — 
 
 How well do I know it to be my demon, 
 
 "Who has plagued me at every turn of my lot ; 
 
 Sycorax curst, the Magic Isle, Bermoothes, 
 
 Have been but stages past of my long enslavement. 
 
 Even if bettering ever the better 
 
 In my perfectible rise, 
 
 Till now I come back to thee for redemption. 
 
 How can I serve thee? 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 But first to the pith of my story : 
 That son of mine, young Prospero call him, 
 "Wishes to cross back hither the Ocean, 
 So I read in his missives lettered. 
 
ACT FIRST— PROSPERO AND ARIEL. 57 
 
 To behold once more his father on earth, 
 
 From whom he ran off in his boyhood. 
 
 He would also see Italy beautiful 
 
 With her art's high treasures new and antique; 
 
 Then he would look on the face of his sister 
 
 Whom e'en as a babe he never beheld, 
 
 For he had broken and cast his old-world 's shell 
 
 Ere her mother had throbbed her to light. 
 
 But he will not stay on this side of the globe 
 
 Where the moulds of the spirit are fixed too hard, 
 
 Nor will he make any claim to Milan's throne, 
 
 Asserting his right of descent ; 
 
 For he plumes himself an Atlantid 
 
 Enduring no duke, king, or emperor. 
 
 No primogeniture hoar, no privilege mossy. 
 
 No Europe, which he nicknames Bermoothes 
 
 With its ever-clashing tribes, cities, nations. 
 
 And damns it as History's Pandemonium, 
 
 Exampling to old papa young freedom 
 
 With its nose-wise twist of green self-importance. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Truthful painters I praise ye both. 
 Each holds up to the other his picture, 
 That each may take a good look at the other ; 
 But to help out your son, bid me my service. 
 
58 TBE SBAEESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 But my prevision I can foretell 
 
 That his ship has shot the strait mouth of our sea, 
 
 And rounded the rock of grim Gibralter 
 
 Cutting the spume past befogged Baleares. 
 
 Ariel, wing thee at once to his vessel, 
 
 Deflect his course from MUan hitherward, 
 
 To this Magic Isle which he knows not of, 
 
 Which he must view in all its mystery 
 
 And learn somewhat of its wonderful city, 
 
 Meditating her people and palaces. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Thy task is mine to perform to the letter ! 
 How dear thy son in my thought looks already. 
 Recalling thy daughter's loveliness. 
 Allow me one word's prayer before I set out: 
 Fain would I greet the monster, Caliban, 
 And put mine own worth to its pivotal test, 
 Which is my hope to unmonster him yet. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 In that too you have trilled the tune of my heart, 
 
 I longed for him also at Milan ; 
 
 As he needed me for his uplift, 
 
 So I needed him to fulfill me in turn ; 
 
 His absence I felt as my soul's own chasm. 
 
ACT FIRST— PROSPEBO AND ARIEL. 59 
 
 That farewell repentance of his, as he spake it, 
 Has haunted me ever since with its prayer 
 Voicing the rise prophetic of man. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Still another memory of him I own. 
 
 Which for me puts Caliban over me quite ; 
 
 This it is : he could love — 
 
 Love at heart's deepest the beautiful woman, 
 
 And wish her to be his possession forever. 
 
 Even if gross was the thrust of his passion 
 
 When he first knew beauty as maiden incarnate. 
 
 But I did not love, could not — Oh the curse 
 
 Which lies on my limit of being 
 
 As the spirit's counterpart to him, Caliban! 
 
 Call him a creature of sense unbridled, 
 
 A brute, a monster thwart of nature. 
 
 Still he loved and he longed and would win, 
 
 Ready to Jaattle for his ideal good. 
 
 Even to offer his life to his heart ; 
 
 Hence he could be redeemed from below, 
 
 Eefined in the furnace of white-hot passion, 
 
 Which was the burning penalty cleansing him, 
 
 If he accepted in faith his purgation. 
 
 Which I would witness in him for my sake too. 
 
 As that is the uppermost work of this Isle, 
 
 Its mission's evangel remedial. 
 
60 THE SHAKESPEARIAD—PABT FIRST. 
 
 Prospero. 
 But good Ariel, my errand is waiting. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Prospero, merciful, grant me a word yet. 
 Mine is only the aspiration of love — 
 Unbodied, unsexed, I am but a thought, 
 A dried-up show, infertile e 'en of myself ; 
 Meseems the universe loves and so creates; 
 How I long to be whole and able to love ! 
 Oh master, humanize me if thou canst, 
 Me, Nature's forced celibate partial. 
 Integral make me through love ; 
 I cannot repent of sin like Caliban; 
 How can I transgress and be a right man 
 Without a body to render me human? 
 Incarnate me to be a sinner 
 That I may win my way up to God. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Thou askest for something not in my power 
 But it may be in thine, though I say not. 
 Still unhappy spirit — ^unsatisfiable ! 
 Once thou Tvouldst freedom alone, 
 I gave it thee twice by mine art — 
 Twice — one over the other in betterment; 
 Now thou wouldst possess love, not mine 
 
ACT FIRST— PRO SPERO AND ARIEL. 61 
 
 But woman's, as if thou wert already a man. 
 
 Thou king of spirits discontented — ^what next! 
 
 Enough of this riddle ! Tarry no longer, 
 
 Hasten away to my son's driving ship 
 
 And turn its wake hither. Be off, 
 
 Else he will arrive before thou hast started. 
 
 Perchance he is come already — away. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 master, I would not stay long from thy presence. 
 For still I am of thee to be dowered 
 
 With my soul's task supreme, 
 
 Unto the goal of mine own best fulfilment. 
 
 Behold the proud scowl of these citadelled walls, 
 
 1 cannot mount them without thy lead 
 To the seat of thy uppermost temple 
 
 Perched on the topmost peak of Shakespearopolis. 
 And grant me, I pray, my new vocation. 
 For freedom no longer I ask, but for service 
 Which calls me forth to my worthiest being ; 
 When I have brought back the news from thy 
 
 son, 
 Proclaim me my duty's evangel. 
 
 Prospero. 
 Yes, I forgot, thou art right; 
 Our city's high-towered enclosure thou seest, 
 Which has many entrances lower and loftier; 
 
62 THE 8HAKESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Ply back to it bringing tliy message, 
 
 Cix'cle it round till me thou beholdest 
 
 Where I stand at mine own guarded portal 
 
 High over all other entrances, 
 
 Even above the clouds in pure sunshine; 
 
 There thou wilt find me awaiting 
 
 With my Book and my staff recovered, 
 
 And myself also restored. 
 
 There I shall consecrate thee anew 
 
 To an Olympian office like that of the God 
 
 Conductor of souls to the invisible world 
 
 That they commune with its people. 
 
 And by a new title of honor thou shalt be installed 
 
 The Psychagogue of Shakespearopolis. 
 
ACT FIRST.— HORATIO, YOUNG PROSFERO. 63 
 
 Scene Fifth. 
 
 {Horatio having followed Hamlet from the city 
 to the Magic Wood in order to keep distant watch 
 over Mm, and also to find a hand of actors, meets 
 young Prospero who has just arrive,d from Atlan- 
 tis.) 
 
 Horatio (alone). 
 
 More misanthropic, more melanaholy 
 
 Than ever before is my friend Prince Hamlet 
 
 Eoaming alone through these silent dells, 
 
 In whose solitude puts he a tongue 
 
 Which tells of his own desolation. 
 
 He, the associate of my student days, 
 
 When we studied together Philosophy 
 
 At the new University, Wittenberg, 
 
 Where we both partook of the time's deep protest 
 
 Declaring the rule of conscience uprisen, 
 
 Which whelmed him to brooding so inwardly. 
 
 Often he creeps down this shadowy glen 
 
 In gloomily mooded monologue. 
 
 Thinking blame on himself and his forbears 
 
 As if in revenge for existence. 
 
 I have come to this ripple-kissed sea-coast 
 
 Which zones with its babble the Magic Isle, 
 
 Hastening from the royal Danish palace 
 
 In search of a band of seafaring actors 
 
64 TEE 8BAKESPEARIAD.~PART FIRST. 
 
 Reported sailing all the way hither from England 
 
 To play in our city of Shakespearopolis, 
 
 Which is one great playhouse all of itself 
 
 Full of plays which keep playing forever. 
 
 But Prince Melancholy needs a new drama 
 
 Mirroring to him his malady 's rage, 
 
 And then the healing way to his health, 
 
 Undoing his tragedy's deed. 
 
 The theater seems his only doctor 
 
 Prescribing the one pleasant medicine, 
 
 Which he wiU fitfully take 
 
 For the solace of woe if not for its cure. 
 
 The fantasied life of the stage's people 
 
 Feigns the world unreal which he loves to live in 
 
 With the whole limitless freedom of thought. 
 
 iHe shuns the age's cruel reality 
 
 (Which he arraigns as his murderer; 
 
 The king, the court, all Denmark, his very mother 
 
 iHe impeaches as the high criminals 
 
 Who have unjointed the time's machinery; 
 
 The lady fair of his heart he loathes yet loves. 
 
 All womanhood he would send along with her 
 
 To the nunnery universal. 
 
 And thus work the unmaking of man 
 
 To make him sinless. 
 
 But that which roils his soul's last venom 
 Is she who bore him. Queen Gertrude, 
 
AOT FIRST.— HORATIO, YOUNG PR08PER0. 65 
 
 For he keeps burrowing blind as a mole 
 Fatally into his hidden origin — 
 Of his mothering certain 
 Of his fathering doubtful — 
 Which flings him a prey to gloomy surmise, 
 Then drives him forward to throes of revenge, 
 Yet holds him back in the grip of his conscience. 
 Thus balancing on his philosophical teter 
 He turns from doing his pivotal deed 
 Ever omitting, never committing, 
 In his own puzzle of life he gets caught, 
 Mid whose mazes entangled he is the fated. 
 From which my new call is to free him. 
 Ah me ! it is mine to write the new play 
 Which has him to redeem from himself. 
 Unfolding his soul out the crush of his lot 
 By the way of a deeper atonement. 
 For he already has bidden my friendship 
 Tell his story aright to the future. 
 Salving the wound of his name and character 
 Which bleed gashed from his birth and circum- 
 stance. 
 Till he somehow be made again whole 
 In new reconcilement with Order supernal. 
 That is my burden and also the man's, 
 Yea, the spirit's last task in this age. 
 To solve the problem of Hamlet — 
 Unravel the tangled knot of his destiny. 
 
66 TSE 8HAKE8PEABIAD.—PABT FIRST. 
 
 Aye, to tmf ate the very stroke of his fate 
 
 By a fresh intervention of Heaven. 
 
 Once he had the players enact to the Court 
 
 In presence of him and me and the royal pair, 
 
 The fratricide's Murder of Gonzaga, 
 
 To catch the conscience of the king 
 
 For which I too was lying in wait : 
 
 And he caught it right in the deed, 
 
 I saw the confession acted myself. 
 
 Far stronger it was than if worded. 
 
 But that play suits no longer his spirit's weal, 
 
 It would madden him more in his memory 
 
 Starting the backstroke of vengeance now stilled. 
 
 Some other turn of the drama has to be schemed 
 
 To message the harmony inner of life, 
 
 Imaging here the mediation of man 
 
 "When rent in twain by his nemesis own, 
 
 Till he change to new hope unhating his hate, 
 
 Eebuilding his life from the ruins of death. 
 
 What personality dare I invoke to his rescue? 
 
 As his heart's deep disaster centers in woman 
 
 Who has been faithless just at her holiest test. 
 
 So it may turn that the true woman-soul, 
 
 Made pure in the hottest fire of her sex's trial, 
 
 Can guide him along the path of his healing 
 
 To his haven's happy recovery. 
 
 Such a character now I must find 
 
 That I turn her remedial fountain 
 
ACT FIRST.— HORATIO, YOUNG PR08PER0. 67 
 
 Into the poisoned life of the Prince 
 Through her deed set forth in vividest image 
 By the art histrionic. 
 
 But who may be coming yonder? 
 
 A lone man is stealthily slipping this way, 
 
 A presence new in this Magic Isle 
 
 Whose denizens all I know well ; 
 
 A young fellow of knightly adventure 
 
 He seemeth a pilgrim from a far country. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 Good stranger, give me to know where I am. 
 This island perplexes my sight and my spirit; 
 My ship lies moored out there in the sea 
 And I have rowed to the shore alone, 
 The sailors would not quit solid deck 
 In terror of some menacing signs, 
 Nor would help me oar my wave-tossed boat 
 To this still shore seeming unpeopled; 
 They said it was famed a ghost-haunted isle 
 Floating unanchored around the globe 
 Through circumnavigation of spirits. 
 
 Horatio. 
 The fable hath in it a gold-grain of truth ; 
 And something like that I heard of Bermoothes. 
 But tell us the rest of your miracle, 
 If you feel in the mythical mood. 
 
68 THE 8HAEE8PEARIAD.—FABT FIRST. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 They heard a weird music embosom the Isle, 
 Throbbing upward like an Artesian fount 
 And overflowing the sea's mad discord, 
 Attuning the lands far away to its wave-beat, 
 Even circling the earth with melodies tender 
 To the keynote of love. 
 An organ piped of many-toned instruments 
 Would overswell the hoarse roar of the waves, 
 Chording them into a cosmical cadence 
 Like the song of primal creation. 
 But voices too would rise intermingled. 
 Oft wording the furious cry of the storm, 
 Or shrilling the shout of the frenzied tornado. 
 Then trembling to sighs breathed up from sweet 
 
 heart-throbs 
 Which ravish the ear with their ecstacy. 
 But that which paled each face to death's fright, 
 And made all see in the watery troughs 
 Their ready-made graves dug by the tireless surges, 
 Was the groan of deepest human agony 
 Loading with sorrow the winds of the tempest. 
 Or turning the jovial breeze to a wafture of pain 
 Which told of the surcease of heroes 
 Undone of the time's very heartbreak, 
 Crushed by the weight of a tragical world. 
 So the seaman would list to sounds of the Isle, 
 Multitudinous, mighty, mysterious, 
 
ACT FIRST.— HORATIO, YOVNG PR08PER0. 69 
 
 As they wound serpentine through one another, 
 
 Prom the curse of the Titan defiant, 
 
 To the low sweet lisp of the lover's first thrill. 
 
 Thence is it that mariners will not approach 
 
 Within three miles of this shore. 
 
 But tell me the name of this piece of the globe ? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 The miracle of the Earth's isles thou hast reached, 
 
 And tasted of some of its wonders ; 
 
 By us it is called from Lord Prospero, 
 
 The mighty magician of Milan ; 
 
 But why dost thou shake at the name 
 
 As if tingling a thriU of strange memory ? 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 That name is mine and my father's as well, 
 Him have I voyaged to visit at home 
 From afar overseas on the earth's other side. 
 I have been absent from this half of our planet 
 Since the long stretch of years from my boyhood ; 
 But now I am come by hap to your presence. 
 Sailing out of the sunset hither. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 I never have heard of Prospero's son. 
 
 But his daughter I knew, the gracious Miranda; 
 
 Still in your look I note turns of his face-lines, 
 
70 THE SBAKESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 And that subtle trick of your eye-stroke is his; 
 Otherwise you impress me with difference, 
 Hardly you seem of our order of life, 
 Yet not unrelated to us. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Yes, I hail from that new hemispherical half 
 To this old one the counterpart younger 
 In space and in spirit as well as in time ; 
 To find my forbears I fly sail-winged, 
 Whom I must know that I grow fuUy myself. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 You make big eyes as if seeing me spectral. 
 
 Your bewildered gaze says more than your words ; 
 
 I confess me a denizen not unnamed 
 
 Of this Magic Isle of Lord Prospero, 
 
 Which is the seat of a city of phantoms 
 
 Of whom perchance I seem to be one. 
 
 But you, who may be you, I can not quite tell, 
 
 Keal of blood and bones or an aerial shape. 
 
 Of so much matter or of so much spirit, 
 
 A cotter squatted in this unpeopled forest, 
 
 Or a far cosmopolite hither strayed 
 
 Having heard of the wonderful Isle. 
 
 A singular sort of man you step up 
 
 Among all I ever have seen iu these parts. 
 
ACT FIRST.— BORATIO, YOVNQ PROSPERO. 71 
 
 Unlike the folk of Shakespearopolis, 
 Even if thine own father dwells there 
 In his classical temple topping the welkin. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I hither come seeking my self ancestral 
 Over the refluent tides Oceanic, 
 From my far-off home of the future, 
 The hitherto dream-sought Atlantis. 
 
 Horatio. 
 Me thinks you suddenly change before me! 
 More human your look turns, yet mightier. 
 As if the new man of the planet stood there 
 Unfolding into his race's heritage. 
 Pushing old fantasy into reality. 
 See! another shift of his soul's panorama, 
 Which widens itself to be too the world's! 
 An eye-stroke which prostrates the uncut wilder- 
 ness. 
 Making civil its savagery, 
 Daring to ship the unroadable Ocean, 
 Doing the deed direct from Nature's own heart. 
 Yet searching the spirit's last discipline — 
 Bespeak me again — ^who, whence, what? 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 You rhapsodize me back to a dream. 
 Whose tale may be telling hereafter. 
 
72 THE SHAEESPEARrAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 But first describe me yon city I see 
 "With palaces climbing a hill to the top, 
 Till with the welkin they meet and mingle 
 Upheaying their height from the island's heart? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Your father 's mansion there gleams from the sum- 
 mit, 
 Not so large as many another. 
 But of the most exquisite structure, 
 Architectonic of thought's deepest reach. 
 Perfect the outside shape as the inside spirit, 
 Of such fascination the love in its look 
 That many behold its seemingness only, 
 And leave unseen what it holdeth. 
 I go to contemplate often its treasures. 
 Communing lone with its sacred mysteries 
 As a templed shrine where spirits whisper. 
 Making that height the Holy of Holies 
 Of our city's poetic architecture. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 High heaves my heart-beat to know my parent 
 
 again. 
 And to see his dwelling of beauty you speak of. 
 Even if I be not one of its inmates. 
 It overlooks a whole city you say, 
 
ACT FIRST— HORATIO, YOUNG PROSPERO. 73 
 
 All of which is surveyed from its top — 
 Intone me the roll of its name once more, 
 Tongueing its musical modulation. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 A city built of the sheen eternal, 
 Illumed by the light that never sets — 
 Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 friend, now breathe me a yes to my whisper 
 Which I suspire from the last depths of my heart : 
 Does Claribel live there, once Princess of Naples? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 What ! the daughter of bad king Alonso 
 Who helped to supplant good Prospero 
 When he, sent adrift on a leaking boat. 
 Floated over the sea to this Magic Isle 
 With his little Miranda? 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 You speak of events I know nothing of. 
 Which must have happened since my departure. 
 But where then is my idol, my Claribel ? 
 Let me confess her image has ever been mine 
 Since I saw her a maid of fourteen 
 Once at the royal palace of Naples 
 
74 THE SBAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT FIRST. 
 
 Though her father was our House's enemy; 
 
 In my youthful flight I bore her loved face 
 
 To the far Occident over the Ocean, 
 
 And have kept it stiU beaming through all of my 
 
 days. 
 Now I am come to this world to behold her, 
 Aye to win her and take her away 
 To my new home in distant Atlantis. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Love again and again, and nothing but love 
 In this haunted Isle and its city of spirits; 
 But I may tell you the tale I have heard: 
 Your Claribel fair has been long since married 
 To the rich African king of Tunis, 
 And, as I ween, a Mahommedan too. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 What! she to a blackamoor bonded in wedlock! 
 And perchance to an infidel also! 
 
 Fate, that is not the road to Atlantis. 
 But does never she visit this Magic Isle, 
 That she be seen with its other high women? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 1 barely have heard her musical name. 
 Which fondles the ear with its liquid cadence; 
 
ACT FIRST— HORATIO, YOVNO PROSPERO. 75 
 
 Here she hath no abode of herself. 
 
 But when you are come to Prospero's palace 
 
 Your father can tell you her history. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Ah me ! that seemeth a long while to wait — 
 Can you not thither conduct me at once? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Nay — I have a business heavily pressing 
 "Which turns me off from aU toying with love, 
 At least just now in the pinch of my problem : 
 It is to rescue Hamlet my friend 
 Through some new way of closing his soul's cleft, 
 Some fresh sanitation cleansing his world-pain 
 It is my deepest vocation to find and to bring, 
 Else I in turn shall lose of my best. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 The sorrow of Hamlet has swung round the globe, 
 I have heard it oft in Atlantis 
 As the true tale of the soul's own tragedy. 
 But what is the source of the man's disaster. 
 And the possible means of his rescue? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Two women have whelmed him into this sorrow. 
 His untrue mother and his betrothed unhelping ; 
 
76 THE 8HAEESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Now I must find some female saint or Madonna 
 
 To medicine ills of her fatal sisters, 
 
 Who have brought him to twinge in despair 
 
 On the edge of a plunge to Hades trembling; 
 
 If woman damns him, woman must save him. 
 
 Else what becomes of her in the order supernal, 
 
 Helpless she to undo her own ills? 
 
 If Eve be the mortal temptress of Adam, 
 
 She must his rescuer be from his doom. 
 
 Else both axe accursed forever — ^woman and man. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 But is there some woman known of your city 
 Who can perform the great mediatorial act 
 Which heals the rent spirit unto salvation? 
 Who is she, teU me her name ? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 I confess I have not found her as yet; 
 A hundred females of varied virtues 
 May be seen tripping the ways of our city, 
 Some souled of God's own merciful breath. 
 But others most bloodily blotted in guilt; 
 The dozen best women of Shakespearopolis 
 I know and of them I must pick just the one 
 Who is the best of the best 
 To be the lost Hamlet's inner restorer, 
 Since I have none myself of mine own. 
 
ACT FIRST.— HORATIO, YOUNQ PR08PER0. 77 
 
 Being womanless so far of life, 
 
 Nor has he, for poor Ophelia is not weaponed 
 
 To fend off his Fury, black Melancholia; 
 
 She rather evokes it the more 
 
 Just by her innocence will-less. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 Let me stay at your side to see and to know 
 That wealful and woeful worldful of women 
 Thronging the halls of your Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Horatio. 
 Thither I yet am not ready to pass ; 
 In this circle of woods w'hich belts round the sea- 
 shore 
 I still have to wait for my players 
 Who hither have shipped from Albion distant. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 I would saunter with you among these trees, 
 Perchance I may meet as a wood-nymph disguised 
 Fair Claribel straying hither from Tunis, 
 A wanderer like myself from afar. 
 Seeking relief for her sigh-laden heart. 
 
 Horatio. 
 Impossible ! she has at home her royal husband 
 Who is like to be guarding her now in his harem 
 Over the sea at his Moslem capital. 
 
78 THE BHAKE8PEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Fatal word ! it stabs my hope to the center ! 
 But away ! let us stroll through this glen ; 
 My fortune may bring me another fair shape 
 To supplant the image forbidden, 
 For love in failure moves stiU to its goal. 
 
ACT SECOND. 
 
 The action is still located in the Magic Wood, hut 
 passes to the opposite side of the Isle looking to- 
 ward the Orient, as the preceding act was turned 
 toward the Occident. Moreover, the present act 
 introduces women as the leading personages, 
 whereas only male folk were to he found in the pre- 
 vious act. Several varieties of female character 
 are introduced, culminating in Mermione. 
 
 Scene Fibst. 
 
 {Rosalind stands on the shore of the Magic Isle 
 gazing at a ship approaching from the East. She 
 speaks-.) 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 The sail-swayed ship is rocking hitherward 
 And swims out of the sunrise over the waves ; 
 On deck a woman clad in folds of white 
 As if she were a Goddess from the world 
 Olympian come down in antique, shape, 
 Stands spying out upon our Magic Isle. 
 Who can she be ? And why her voyage bold 
 From far away out of the Sungod's realm? 
 
 (79) 
 
80 THE 8EAKE8PEABIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 She drives to land, is now approaching me : 
 
 Hail, stranger, for such you seem in place and time ; 
 
 Draw closer to our hospitality. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Thanks for your gracious welcome to this shore 
 Which bends a swimming arc of greenery. 
 But tell me first, what city is that yonder 
 Slanting ahove the island's leafy zone 
 Till it seems domed with Heaven's canopy? 
 How changed from massive Orient's edifice! 
 Nor is it my temple which once HeUas built. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 That city lofty which you ask about 
 Looking such eagerness to know its name, 
 Is not put down upon our mundane map 
 Nor syllabled to mortal ear as yet. 
 But has its chart in universal mind 
 Of which it is the palace beautiful : 
 The name of it is Shakespearopolis, 
 And I live there forever young in love 
 Defying all the spite of centuries. 
 So comes it that I am to-day sent forth 
 To give the tender help of my career 
 To wanderers who seek the winding ways 
 Within its mazy-bowered labyrinth. 
 
ACT SECOND— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 81 
 
 Pandora. 
 Indeed ! The goal I have now touched which lay- 
 Far down unweeting in my soul of hope 
 To find the love-built city of the Muses. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 But tell me, who are you? A woman, aye! 
 Methinks the key-note of your voice is tuned 
 Deeper and more compelling than mine own; 
 Your form is mightier, more Goddess-like, 
 A stranger to this island world of ours 
 Your garb of flowing folds in white declares; 
 That presence so reposeful in its station 
 Is only known to us as of the past ; 
 Your marble glance of godful majesty 
 I would adore, e'en though I wonder now 
 If it could ever break to glittering smiles 
 Which stream across the face in hot response 
 Unto the hidden hammering of the heart 
 Concordant with the wafture of the strain 
 Echoing subtly through this love-tuned wood; 
 For here my sisters of this spirit isle 
 Breathe forth their soulful sighs in word-rich 
 
 measures. 
 To such sweet company of woman's love 
 I shall present you if it be your will. 
 Permit me then your name. 
 
82 THE SHAKE 8PEARI AD.— PART FIRST. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 My people call me in my land Pandora, 
 The young Pandora, fabling me in time 
 Still young and staying young three thousand 
 
 years — 
 My land is first that greets the rising sun 
 And sets the sheen to music of its speech 
 In many a song still singing round the world 
 Beneath the car of high hot Helios. 
 I trail the beacon of the "Western star 
 Over the trembling frolic of wide waters 
 That gently heave unto the ogling moon 
 Across the bosom of the Midland Sea. 
 All-gifted Hellas named me from itself 
 The woman of its soul all-gifted too ; 
 But long I have me chafed against its bounds 
 Aspiring to this greater newer world ; 
 So come I racing with the Sungod's colts, 
 To anchor on this Magic Isle betimes 
 Until I dare the larger stride of fate. 
 And make a dash beyond the confine far 
 Hidden in gray of aged Oceanus. 
 Just wait till you become as old as I, 
 And see if you do still remain as young, 
 A woman timeless of the poet's mold, 
 Rejuvenant with every age's turn. 
 
ACT SECOND.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 83 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Pandora, thou the woman of all gifts ! 
 Seeking the other half of this round globe, 
 Resolved to be thyself no hemisphere 
 But all this earth, time past and future too. 
 Relate me, what has brought thee now to us ? 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 My quest makes for the great artificer 
 
 Who in his workshop's living gallery 
 
 Has oft enshrined in shape the woman's soul 
 
 Out of her depths of last experience. 
 
 Till aU the world plays lover of her love: 
 
 Now tell in turn somewhat about thyself 
 
 For thine own face, methinks, glints love's appeal. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 They greet me everywhere as Rosalind 
 In yonder city of my happy home ; 
 There live I with mine own Orlando won 
 After adventures odd with sweet romance 
 Within this wood of lonely lovers lorn. 
 To which they flee from hapless hindrances. 
 But yesterday good father Shakespeare came 
 Dropping down on me as he will betimes. 
 And thrilled a word persuasive in my heart : 
 "My Rosalind, of my best genius childed, 
 
84 THE 8HAKESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 A pretty task I have for thee to-day 
 
 "Which thy perfections only can perform : 
 
 Go to the dale which rounds our Magic Isle 
 
 "With its green girth of hiding foliage, 
 
 Whither I send my hapless lovers oft 
 
 To win their sickened heart's recovery, 
 
 Send too my sinners there for penitence 
 
 That they be healed of their transgression's curse; 
 
 Thy forest famed of Arden thou mayst deem it 
 
 Where once thou didst assay love's luckless lot. 
 
 Then triumph over all its counterblasts 
 
 And turn the woods so full of sighing swains 
 
 Into the happy heaven of fulfilment. 
 
 Of all my hundred daughters here about me 
 
 Thou art my choice for grace and fantasy 
 
 To be the guide and herald of my world." 
 
 So spake he, and thou seest me here at hand 
 
 To welcome thee unto our island's treasures, 
 
 And start thee with mine own evangel first. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Rosalind, I have known of you before, 
 I as a girl have tracked your devious path 
 As you dared leave your land of ruler's wrong 
 And plunge into the outlaw's lone demesne. 
 Traversing woody wild and humble hut 
 Responsive to your heart's own deepest throb. 
 I wish for you as harmonizer deft 
 
ACT BECOND.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 85 
 
 Of all the stressful struggles of my lot 
 Whicli had prescribed to me my future 's limit 
 Against whose tyranny I felt revolt. 
 But now I have grown older, the first sap 
 Which trickles from the adolescent heart 
 Is not yet dead, but makes a new demand. 
 Show me your city built of poesy. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Come higher up, ascend this knoUed perch 
 Prom which a loftier outlook scans the height; 
 Now tell me of the semblances you see. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Fair edifices shoot above the trees 
 Whose carpet green of interwoven tops 
 Mine eye skips over to the welkin's dome, 
 From which the architecture seems to drop 
 Down on the summit of a sylvan glen, 
 As if to link the upper world and lower, 
 Conjoining in one work the Earth and Heaven. 
 Methinks I watch the sport of playful clouds 
 Which love to dramatize their fleeting shapes 
 Upon an airy stage of festal blue 
 For the lone looker's entertainment rare. 
 I have been going toward it the whole day. 
 And yesterday, aye still the day before ; 
 
86 THE 8HAKE8PEABIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 That lofty mirage of the sheen-crowned city 
 Kept darting in the distance just so far — 
 I cannot near it though I hurry toward it, 
 I turn a nook or creep behind a crag 
 It will not hide nor wiU it quit my path, 
 Its presence I cannot escape nor win ; 
 If once I reach a little perch and look, 
 Straightway it throws itself above me there, 
 And yet aloof — flees cloudward off again 
 If I but take one step too near its pride. 
 Which lets me not approach its haughty height. 
 I wonder if the specter be mine own 
 Playing me merry tricks of fantasy? 
 But look ! yonder again it shifts itself 
 Outside me there! perchance inside me too! 
 Ghost-led e'en if I be, I must find out 
 The maker of this phantom, its meaning too. 
 Though spun of imagery's fine gossamers. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Such are the golden treasures of your sight 
 Which stiU you have to seize and mint your own. 
 But listen now ! to hear brings something deeper. 
 Transcending all that you can see outside; 
 Commingled voices of the sexes twain 
 You may discern in singing overflow ; 
 The woman's not so loud or massed of tone 
 As is the man's deep bass when hit by fate, 
 
ACT SECOND.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 87 
 
 But inwardly more tense and penetrant 
 She strikes the notes of her whole destiny, 
 Running the gamut of her breaking heart 
 Keyed up to sweep the round of her soul's thrills, 
 The joy, the pain, and the recovery. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I hear it beating in the distance tender, 
 
 And I respond symphonious to its measures. 
 
 As if they played the pulses of my heart. 
 
 For through them I must pass as through myself. 
 
 Suffering with them all as mine own too, 
 
 Taking to me the soul-pain of this world. 
 
 Pandora, I the all-dowered woman come. 
 
 An ancient tale has oracled my task 
 
 The epitome to be of all my sex. 
 
 And to take up into my inner world 
 
 The microcosm of total womanhood ; 
 
 And now I seeing have to live as mine 
 
 And to impart perchance to other climes 
 
 The spirit feminine of Stakespearopolis. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Victorious maiden over obstacles, 
 I, Rosalind must seek and win the man 
 Who is my halved nature's counterpart. 
 To make me whole of female moiety. 
 "World-known is the pursuit of my Orlando 
 
88 TBE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Through sigh-strewn woods and rhyming trees of 
 
 love, 
 As I would have just the one only man 
 For whom I too was horn the one alone 
 Able to integrate the rift of sex, 
 The cleavage primal of humanity. 
 Turning dame Nature's deepest dissonance 
 Into the spirit's highest harmony; 
 So bonded two hearts live in one liberty, 
 Which here upon our earth may rise to be 
 The service mutual of Paradise. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Your word has pierced the point of life itself 
 In its descent from hoary time till now, 
 Touching the germ genetic of man's rise. 
 Let me be frank : Pandora shall not be 
 The filthy sewer of an offspring cursed. 
 Without the soul's impress in love's last act; 
 Such is the deepest test which I demand 
 As of myself, so of all womanhood : 
 To be the guardian of the sacred vase 
 Securing man's first right of worthy birth, 
 To sentinel the race's origin. 
 And not to let unlove beget itself 
 Perpetuating hell in human blood. 
 I shall select the other to my sex 
 
ACT SECOND.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 89 
 
 Who comes and shows the seal upon his heart 
 "Which makes complete us twain in symmetry, 
 So that we live of love the super-life 
 Above the dual frame of nature 's mold. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Dear Father Shakespeare will uplift you there, 
 His many daughters yonder you will meet, 
 Acclaiming woman's primacy in love, 
 "Waging its conflict unto victory 
 Despite each testful grievous obstacle. 
 Though some will sink and perish in the fight. 
 Their heart's sweet pageantry we soon shall watch 
 Parading tender hopes and teary sighs 
 Through halls of mansioned Shakespearopolis, 
 Where dweU immortal in their words and deeds 
 The ideal heroines of womanhood. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Of love's high stewardship I am aware, 
 'Tis given in the instinct of my sex 
 To make me one with the Creation's act. 
 Rehearing still in love the universe 
 To nature's keenest passion concentrate. 
 Of that chaste urge of all-begetting power 
 Whose sanctuary I well know myself to be, 
 I dedicate myself the "Vestal vowed. 
 
90 TEE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Here turns thy hardest struggle with thyself: 
 Canst thou be true to God's inheritance, 
 Or harken to the nighted underself 
 Where luring lurks the siren of soul 
 Thrilling the moment's mortal dalliance? — 
 But wait ! I see two men approach in stealth, 
 As if they would keep hid from being seen 
 By one whom they wiU see and overhear; 
 Let us conceal ourselves and list in turn. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Are they not present dwellers of your Isle? 
 Or do they come from far away like me ? 
 
 Bosalind. 
 
 The one I know and have him often seen 
 With Hamlet in the Danish Residence ; 
 He is the Prince's friend full fellowed 
 In art and war and in philosophy, 
 A soldier, scholar and a gentleman. 
 But not a lover is he known to be 
 And so he trains not in my following; 
 Horatio is his sole untitled name. 
 Whenever he appears at home, abroad. 
 The Prince cannot be very far away. 
 
ACT SECOND.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 91 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 But tell me who may be that younger man 
 Who steps so self-possessed beside his mate? 
 He seems to have a way unlike this folk, 
 A difference stamped deep in character; 
 An eye of conscious mastery is his, 
 Who is he, who? 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 I know him not, I never saw him here 
 In any coign of Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I have not seen his like in these your lands, 
 
 Or in mine own of larger Orient. 
 
 A freedom looks he which I too would win, 
 
 And grain it deep within my consciousness, 
 
 For I am weary of this older world 
 
 With its transmitted law and outworn lore, 
 
 Of which I am but one more repetition. 
 
 Whose limits I shall cleave to liberty. 
 
 I long to break the chain of history, 
 
 And start another universe all mine 
 
 Beyond the pale of gray authority. 
 
 But mark that sovereign youth again — who, who? 
 
92 THE SHAEESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Botli hide near by, their whispers we can catch 
 If we hut crouch inside this leafy nook. 
 I like to play a hidden tit-for-tat 
 In overhearing those who overhear, 
 Thus turning back on them their artifice 
 And snaring smart disguise in its disguise. 
 
 Pandora. 
 And I would hear that youth say his heart's prayer. 
 
ACT SECOND.— HORATIO AND HAMLET. 93 
 
 Scene Second. 
 
 {Hamlet again appears in the Magic Wood solil- 
 oquizing, now overheard by Horatio and the young 
 Prospero, while all three are overheard hy Rosa- 
 lind and Pandora from their hiding place.) 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Let us await him here behind this bush, 
 
 That I may catch his self's own talk again, 
 
 For I with all my mind's philosophy 
 
 Have never sounded yet the darkest depth 
 
 "Where bottoms his last mystery. 
 
 Along this path he often saunters alone. 
 
 In solitary meditation on his lot 
 
 Ever upturning layers fresh of doubt. 
 
 This is the spot where he perchance will stop, 
 
 And, with a prelude of foretelling sighs 
 
 Let gush his heart to words soliloquizing. 
 
 He likes to hear himself talk to himself. 
 
 As if he were an actor playing his own fate 
 
 Before himself as audience. 
 
 He the theatre whole both speaker and listener. 
 
 He is a stage unborn in his own soul, 
 
 On which he plays his several characters ; 
 
 But deepest down beneath all acted seeming 
 
 Lies hid fermenting the one true Hamlet 
 
94 THE BHAEE8PEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Unspoken yet, perchance unspeakable ; 
 Him to hearken is now my search attent, 
 Even if it turn out vain. 
 
 Toung Prospero. 
 
 You say his trouble has its source in women, 
 The guilty mother is she who tears his heart. 
 And his lady-love has failed him too. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Yes so it is; woman's frailty is his curse, 
 
 But his cure in turn must come of woman's worth 
 
 Undoing what she has undone 
 
 That he be whole again. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 You propose to me all evil's conumdrum; 
 Think you to find such a balsamic woman-soul 
 Within this wood, this city, or this world? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 The female healer of his shattered spirit 
 
 Is the one hope I seek for everywhere, 
 
 To unfate his fate and heal his broken love. 
 
 Such a virtue I have beheld in body 
 
 And heard its tale rehearsed once on a time, 
 
 By a woman of Shakespearopolis 
 
 Enacting her own devoted life 
 
ACT SECOND.— EORATIO AND HAMLET. 95 
 
 For a man's repentance and redemption, 
 That he be reconciled to her, himself, and God. 
 But say, what stirs you thus to suspire. 
 Why look ye in such eager wonderment ? 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Methinks I have within myself a strain 
 Of that same malady of faulted love, 
 And I need too a healing presence, 
 To fill a voided heart. 
 Canst thou me show the remedial woman ? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 And so you let me take a peep into your life 
 
 Made vacant by the loss of Claribel — 
 
 An easy disappointment for a lover; 
 
 And you are young, you still can wing high hope, 
 
 Her place, methinks, will not be hard to fill. 
 
 Tandora (aside). 
 
 That youth doth heave a pensive wooing breath 
 For some affection that has slid away 
 Into the world impossible; 
 He looks the future, though he seeks the past, 
 But here can never be his home for good. 
 He casts his eyes beyond and yet beyond ; 
 Whither? I would know that, and to whom? 
 I have an inkling that I could medicine 
 
96 THE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT FIRST. 
 
 His sighing soul of its sad destitution ; 
 But say to me in truth, my heart-skilled guide 
 Who is that Claribel whose name I hear 
 Tingling through me a troublous twinge? 
 
 Rosalin,d (aside). 
 
 Unknown to me is she even in name, 
 
 No dweller of this island I should think her; 
 
 So wait the time till you may discover 
 
 The throbbing secret from the youth himself 
 
 Who also is to me a stranger. 
 
 But the older man who toward him bends intent 
 
 I know to be the closest friend to Hamlet 
 
 The Danish Prince who acts so strangely of late. 
 
 But look — did I not see a sable-suited figure 
 
 Dodging through the foliage just this way? 
 
 Ah here he is, the Prince himself, I vow! 
 
 He stands, thinking himself alone — ^he speaks. 
 
 Hamlet (to himself). 
 
 A new suspicion has come to gnaw me. 
 Snapping bits of pain from my very soul : 
 Whence the difference in look, mind, character 
 Between the two brothers, 
 My father, Hamlet, and my uncle Claudius, 
 Reputed begotten of the same parents. 
 But as opposites humanly born and gifted 
 Beyond all consanguinity! 
 
ACT SECOND— EOBATIO AND HAMLET. 97 
 
 The doubt sprung of my mother faithless 
 
 Subtly eats back into her mother's name 
 
 With its corroding poison 
 
 And infects for me all womanhood. 
 
 Two sons so diverse in the germ of their being 
 
 Aye even in shape so contrary, 
 
 Seem nature's impossibility — 
 
 As polarized as Ferdinand to Caliban, 
 
 When once they both appeared on this Magic Isle 
 
 Before the eyes of Miranda the beautiful. 
 
 Whom all three I have seen on the stage 
 
 Of Prosperous radiant Grecian temple 
 
 Far-smiling from our city's Acropolis. 
 
 Now my curse begins to spread backward 
 
 To venom a deeper maternity, 
 
 My ancestral mother involving 
 
 In the sweep of my birth's damnation, 
 
 And making my blood upward corrupted 
 
 To its primal fountain. 
 
 Look! another ghost I behold approaching 
 
 But not my father's now can it be ; 
 
 I know not whose it is, nor whose am I — 
 
 I this phantom here with phantoms alone. 
 
 See ! it spreads out its hooked hell- wings 
 
 And drops from the sky-dome around me blinded 
 
 With its thickening night of despair, 
 
 As it drives its beak to my soul's own center; 
 
 Its Tartarean flight inks the whole welkin 
 
98 THE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 It COWS mine eye with its terror — 
 Oh the Harpy Melancholia again ! 
 It mirnbs my tongue speechless. 
 
 Horatio (concealed). 
 
 His flow of words curdles to silence, 
 
 His face ices through with crystals of fright, 
 
 His eye turns glassy in its fixed glare. 
 
 He shrinks as if dodging his dragon's clutch; 
 
 How he outstares the empty air! 
 
 He sees again a spirit, 
 
 Not sighted by me, but not unknown. 
 
 Dread battle ! he visions his Devil, 
 
 And dares look him down in an eye-fight. 
 
 Young Prospero (concealed). 
 
 That is the deepest note I ever heard 
 
 Come out of a human heart; 
 
 It maddens me to hear it ; 
 
 At what fiend unseen does he glower ? 
 
 His daggered look murders me ! 
 
 Horatio (concealed). 
 
 Not so convulsive — ^he will hear you! 
 
 Stoop lower out of sight ! 
 
 'Tis not your fiend, you cannot help ! 
 
ACT SECOND.— HORATIO AND BAMLET. 99 
 
 Young Prospero (concealed). 
 
 Heaven ! I too am son of a monarch, 
 And am chorded within by fate 
 
 Whose words smite me to resonance doleful — 
 What am I, and whence ! 
 
 1 am glad I never saw my mother 
 Lest Hamlet's doubt might unson me; 
 My father had also a wrongful brother 
 Who wickedly seized his dukedom 
 And exposed him to death on the sea, 
 But he floated safe to this Magic Isle 
 After I had fled to Atlantis 
 
 "With the boy's thrill of daring adventure, 
 Yet with a love fixed deep in my heart, 
 Which kept pulling me back, year in, year out, 
 Till here I stand undone of my hope. 
 Which still has to hope for my Claribel. 
 
 Pandora (aside). 
 
 Unfortunate lad ! I can hear his bosom thump 
 Through his worded breath of hapless woe ; 
 No person he hath responsive to love. 
 And still he longs to be loved. 
 Then I hear him to be an Atlantid, 
 Thither I too aspire. 
 
100 TEE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART FIB8T. 
 
 Rosalind (aside). 
 
 That all-sided thrust of Hamlet's sworded doubt 
 
 Hath stabbed me too Tvith its problem; 
 
 I am, like him, the scion wronged 
 
 Of a ruler wronged by his own brother, 
 
 From whom I fled to the Forest of Arden 
 
 To which my father also was banished, 
 
 He and I pre-enacting the counterpart 
 
 To Duke Prospero's flight with his daughter; 
 
 It recalls the sad days of my lo. forlorn 
 
 Of innocence doomed by an uncle's guilt. 
 
 But now is the sorrow transcended in love, 
 
 And I am the better through trial ; 
 
 Oft I have wished in the aches of my life 
 
 That I might have known my mother 
 
 Who vanished beyond out of my infancy; 
 
 But such knowledge now makes me afraid 
 
 Lest I be haunted with Hamlet's curse. 
 
 Him I could never medicine, 
 
 The wound of his spirit is gashed too deep 
 
 For my power of healing; 
 
 Another more soul-tried woman-curer 
 
 Must be invoked for his last redemption, 
 
 I believe I have seen her, that one high priestess. 
 
 The godliest known of all of my sex 
 
 Thronging the halls of Shakespearopolis. 
 
 But hist! the dark-draped figure starts up anew, 
 
ACT SECOND— HORATIO AND HAMLET. 101 
 
 His face changes to another sorrow 
 
 As his lips quiver to words 
 
 Which are edged with the cut of a saber. 
 
 Hamlet (to himself). 
 
 My memory throbs in response to my heart 
 
 A still different love of woman 
 
 Which has also turned to my curse — 
 
 Ophelia, thou whose honeyed vows I once lived on, 
 
 Sweetest name of the sweetest girlhood, 
 
 Thy grace of form and thy glances of music 
 
 No longer attune me to happiness ! 
 
 Thou too art blasted in thy first budding, 
 
 With the canker of womanhood — 
 
 Can I deem thee better than mine own mother? 
 
 Already hast thou as weakling daughter 
 
 Suffered thyself to be faithless to me, thy lover, 
 
 At bid of thy father, the old Polonius, 
 
 Who would pry out my mystery. 
 
 So I have thee dismissed to a nunnery. 
 
 But it tears in pain every heartstring, 
 
 And leaves me solitary in the universe, 
 
 No love of woman lights up my life, 
 
 She is a tainted thing, so am I — 
 
 Motherhood, wifehood, lovehood are quite gone out, 
 
 I look up to God's face and I swear 
 
 That creation is his greatest mistake. 
 
 To be born is the world's first tragedy, 
 
102 THE 8SAKESPEABIAD.~PABT FIRST. 
 
 To be sexed is Nature's diabolic deed, 
 
 The generation of the individual 
 
 Is the one great cosmical fall, 
 
 The primal birth of all mortality, 
 
 Yea, it is God's own original sin; 
 
 For why should he create but to damn — 
 
 Young Prospero (concealed). 
 That uproots my whole being — and man's; 
 I can see him yonder writhing in HeU, 
 His words fall on me like fire-flakes of Satan, 
 What shall I do? I hardly can stand 
 Beneath the hot strokes of compassion 
 "Which hammer my heart. 
 
 Horatio (concealed). 
 Young feUow, hold-in thy suspiring sides! 
 But I have myself to confess 
 Never before have I heard from Hamlet 
 Such a deep heart-break of his despair, 
 Or from any soul this side of perdition. 
 Now I see the last ground of his mystery, 
 What makes him enact his play of insanity, 
 I glimpse in my mind's eye the spell of the fiend 
 Why all creation falls tumbling down on his head 
 As if to crush him, poor mortal. 
 But the stronger I hear my call to his rescue. 
 Mine is to find the soul mediatorial 
 Who can undo the demon's obsession. 
 
ACT SECOND— HORATIO AND HAMLET. 103 
 
 Young Prospero (concealed). 
 
 Claribel, thou heart of my hope ! 
 How Hamlet smites thee even as image ! 
 And me — can I ever recover? 
 
 Yet I pity him too as myself s very self, 
 For he also has loved and lost. 
 How his word-wounds cut to the center, 
 Where my first life-throb lies bleeding ! 
 
 Pandora (aside). 
 
 1 like not that dark-grained finder of failure 
 "Who flings rotten eggs at all mankind. 
 
 And so befouls himself with their stench. 
 Hamlet, it surprises me not one minute 
 That Ophelia served up to yourself 
 Just yourself with a woman's refusal; 
 Surely if the chance were once given to me, 
 I would treat you to my best jilt. 
 But I fear me much at yon youth's keen cry, 
 Shouting the wrench of his destiny ; 
 Methinks he may dare do himself harm 
 So hot seethe in him the words of Hamlet, 
 For he too has loved and lost. 
 Still I would prophesy he may find healing 
 In the heart's medicine dropped from the look 
 Of one little woman's sympathy. 
 
104 TBE 8HAKE8PEABIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Rosalind (aside). 
 
 Beware of thy too loud communiiigs ! 
 
 Thy sympathy yet will betray thee to him, 
 
 As to me it has told thy heartbeat's secret. 
 
 I, once maker of matches in Arden, 
 
 Well can read the prognostications of love, 
 
 Which I first learned of myself as teacher, 
 
 And then I schooled them to others like-hearted 
 
 Till I happily paired my little world 
 
 There in the sigh-strown Forest of Lovers ; 
 
 My old craft I feel pulsing to action 
 
 Which joins in one feeling the youth and the 
 
 maiden. 
 But hold for now! yon crape-thoughted soul 
 Starts to wag once more its God-shending tongue 
 To parade still further the blast of its doubt. 
 
 Hamlet (to himself). 
 
 Never can I marry now and be father 
 
 Lest I beget myself and propagate 
 
 Another Hamlet just like myself. 
 
 To mine own transmitting my curse. 
 
 Why should ever I wish to look on my son 
 
 As heir of my blood with its taint — 
 
 I sprung of a brother's murderer. 
 
 For such was my father's ghost in his bidding — 
 
ACT SECOND.— HORATIO AND HAMLET. 105 
 
 If he were indeed my father — 
 
 And of a mother forsworn of her womanhood. 
 
 Nor could I endure the sight of a daughter 
 
 Lest she be myself, a female Hamlet, 
 
 And endowed from her grandparents both 
 
 With their gifts of murder and perjury. 
 
 woman! hearken, thou mother of man, 
 
 Borne us thou hast to this welter of birth. 
 
 Over thee hangs our execration and God's, 
 
 Whose first curse fell on all-mothering Eve. 
 
 Without thy womb man had stayed a mere cell, 
 
 An invisible protozoon, 
 
 Unborn, undeviled, undamned; 
 
 Thy breast has nursed us to life, 
 
 Thy hand has reared our infancy. 
 
 Thy love has lured us to love 
 
 Which is death's very doom. 
 
 Though sweetened with all of pleasure 's hypocrisy. 
 
 love, thou art creation's oldest curse. 
 
 Charming demon, God's own temptress 
 
 Who seduces him to be the creator of all, 
 
 The illusion of the universe, 
 
 Man's Fury that feasts on his heart. 
 
 The vengeful Fate of the House of Hamlet, 
 
 My soul's overdarkening Vampyre — 
 
 See it hover above out of Heaven 
 
 With clawed pinions to skewer me — 
 
106 THE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Horatio (concealed). 
 
 He stops, and refuses himself; his throes calm 
 
 As if utterance flung them out of him, 
 
 And brought him a world of relief ; 
 
 Canst thou, fellow-feeler, thus rally thyself — 
 
 Thou, fresh sprig of old Prospero — 
 
 And be soothed of the pain through a suffering 
 
 worded, 
 Which lets out the poison of being? 
 
 Young Prospero (concealed). 
 
 I sense the desperate pang, see his hellish shapes. 
 His tongue re-echoes in me its tragic slash — 
 Be my confessor, gentle Horatio, 
 Hear me too, the lover forlorn. 
 Forecasting myself in his word and deed. 
 Give me also the balm of thy weal-dropping wis- 
 dom, 
 For I like him am needing for my salvation 
 The woman^soul remedial. 
 
 Horatio (concealed). 
 
 He turns to the deeper forest — ^but starts not; 
 Long have I lain in wait for his secret 
 Nethermost buried, unconscious perchance, 
 But never before I caught sight of the oracle 
 
ACT SECOND— HORATIO AND HAMLET. 107 
 
 Answering his tangled character's riddle. 
 
 Surely his mother bore that doubt-brooding dragon 
 
 Melancholia, as his twin-sister. 
 
 But just this is the fiend from whom I must save 
 
 him, 
 Such I deem the one work of my life : 
 The redemption of Hamlet, 
 As the lost child of his time. 
 Undoing the deed of his tragedy 
 That he be born anew from his deepest denial. 
 But, oh! my brain, how can such renewal be 
 
 wrought? 
 One faith I feel in me divinely forefixed: 
 The mother's curse can only be lifted 
 By the mother's grace. 
 
 Pandora (aside). 
 
 Let Hamlet pass down to his own black Inferno, 
 
 He made it himself just out of himself; 
 
 As for me, he may try his own roasting. 
 
 But what most worries me, wearing my heart, 
 
 Is the worry I see in that youth ; 
 
 What a gloom overclouds the way of his life ! 
 
 For he weens of renouncing all love forever, 
 
 If I rightly have read his word and his wail, 
 
 Contagioned by Hamlet's desperate frenzy 
 
 Against the truth of all womanhood. 
 
108 TEE 8HAEEBPEABIAD—PART FIRST. 
 
 Rosalind (aside). 
 
 Your laddie is sick, I trow, but not unto death ; 
 Not afar is the doctor and dose for his cure, 
 If I may judge of a malady once mine town too. 
 But Hamlet's disease is of existence itself, 
 Deep-seated it rots in his soul, 
 Exposing the age's taint to the view. 
 But my remedy cannot reach him 
 The prescription I learned in the Forest of Arden 
 Hath no healing for any such ravage. 
 
 Pandora (aside). 
 
 But see that figure of costumed bereavement 
 As if he were mourning the loss of his God! 
 Has he not told quite enough of himself ? 
 And stiU he does nothing but tell — ^nothing! 
 Mark, he is going to talk again to his shadow 
 For the sake of us secret listeners. 
 He likes to prate of himself to himself. 
 Letting the blood of his suicide flow out 
 Into his words him relieving of death. 
 If his tongue once prick the bag of his blather. 
 He is saved from his dagger's drawn point. 
 Which he sheaths while unsheathing his lips — 
 And that is his salvation. 
 
ACT SECOND.— HORATIO AND HAMLET. 109 
 
 Hamlet (to himself). 
 
 I see a brief rift in the clouded monster 
 As I look it straight to the eye and speak, 
 Lipping into the air my trouble. 
 Lightened my heart feels by myself 's outpour; 
 Mere speech hath a power of easement, 
 And for the nonce fends off my tragedy, 
 "Wrenching the knife from my hand. 
 Never have I heard myself so clearly 
 Tapping my primal fountain of evil, 
 And making it mightily dash from my tongue 
 In passionate throbs of my underworld. 
 Now I know me much more what I am. 
 Absolved from my death-blow uprisen 
 Through the words of mine own self-confession, 
 Which is for the moment remedial. 
 I thought never to leave this wood alive 
 When I fled to it alone this morning 
 All beaten to batter in life's encounter. 
 But rallied I hearten me now to return 
 Once more to await the break of new hope 
 In my palace of Shakespearopolis. 
 
110 THE SHAKE 8PEARI AD.— PART FIRST. 
 
 Scene Third. 
 
 (After the departure of Hamlet, Horatio and 
 Young Prospero continue their conversation, which 
 is still heard by Pandora and Rosalind in secret.) 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Off hef glides lighter-stepped through the bush ! 
 Hold, foUow him not, he must not know our ruse 
 For his overhearing — it may reeaU 
 His fleeing dragon. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I myself see its shadow lower; 
 The might of Hamlet telling his mystery 
 Threats to transform me to Hamlet; 
 StiU I must hear him and dare his fate 
 Or live cowardly free. 
 
 Pandora (aside). 
 
 The youth stands at bay to challenge the Fury 
 Whom he has seen wresting the Prince ; 
 Let me push forth to help. 
 
 Rosalind (aside). 
 
 Be patient and learn something more, 
 To thy sight the youth is baring his best. 
 
ACT SECOND.— HORATIO, YOUNO PR08PER0. Ill 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 Stay, Hamlet, let me bespeak thee, 
 And witli thee share the stress of thy struggle, 
 I would the companion be of thy fate — 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Rest thee thy tongue — ^he will not be spoken to 
 
 Here in this wood of his solitude. 
 
 Where he with himself alone will converse; 
 
 But at home he becomes another man. 
 
 In his mansion he wiU receive thee royally 
 
 With all the outer convention of courtliness. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 So I shall see him again face to face, 
 More deeply his history has constrained me 
 To know in myself the possible man 
 Than that of any recorded mortal. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 I too have learned a pivotal lesson 
 For the work which looms now the task of my life, 
 Which is to write my play of Hamlet for Hamlet 
 That he may find himself first and then the way 
 
 out. 
 Maddened by doubt he would revoke his own birth 
 With a plunge back into unborn nothingness, 
 
112 TEE SBAKESPEARIAD.—PABT FIRST. 
 
 And reverse all time's evolution 
 
 To rescind man's rise to individuality. 
 
 His soul's malady sickens at being's first source, 
 
 WMch is a deeper fall than tbat of Eden 
 
 TaUying the last turn of original sin; 
 
 From Paradise Hamlet anew is driven 
 
 In the ever-sinking line that drops Hellward 
 
 Let down from father Adam. 
 
 But my conscience bids me bend the line round, 
 
 And face him about toward restoration 
 
 At first in writ, then perchance in reality, 
 
 Through his own self-seeing new-bom. 
 
 His first mother, now lost, must be made good to 
 
 him 
 In the second mother ideal; 
 Faith in woman's honor has become more needful 
 Than God's truth to his salvation. 
 Can I make such bahn flow out of my goose-quiU ' 
 
 Pandora (aside). 
 
 That is the scribe whom I would pick out 
 To write the play of my full spheral life. 
 When I am done playing it. 
 Rosalind, step thou forth as the model 
 Who oan woman Hamlet's recovery 
 To the artist now waiting. 
 
ACT SECOND.— HORATIO, 70UNG PBOSPERO. 113 
 
 Rosalind (aside). 
 I have already declared thee my limit : 
 My love's herb cannot reach so deep a disease. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 That writ which you speak of, fain would I see 
 
 To salve me too at the center ; 
 
 Satan has never yet boldened so huge a curse, 
 
 It outdoes the dark North's Mephistopheles, 
 
 And even the pit's damned ApoUyon. 
 
 If thou, good friend, canst put to flight this Vam- 
 
 Pyre, 
 Piercing it through with the might of thy penpoint, 
 Thou art the true poet, the maker original, 
 High artificer of kingdom coming, 
 The new creator of man. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Expect not too much, and so be happier. 
 I confess to my long meditation 
 Of the new drama of reconciled Hamlet 
 Not to be found in our city of characters. 
 Saved by the true woman him mediating. 
 
 Pan,dora (aside). 
 
 She is the one whom I must take with me 
 "When I go hence, as owned of myself. 
 
114 THE SHAKESPEABIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Rosalind (aside). 
 
 I ween I know what woman she is, 
 
 And have seen her undoing fate by her deed 
 
 Where she homes ia Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Her spirit I am to watch and work to mine own 
 That I too be the healed and the healer, 
 Bearing her sacred eidolon back to Atlantis 
 Along with the Prince whom thou hast restored 
 In thy priestly oblation of writ, 
 Which franchises him of the doom of his age. 
 And may I speak out my darling hope : 
 I fain would bring to my folk oversea 
 Mine own lettered offering born of their world, 
 Which is my world also now and hereafter, 
 Transcribing from Heaven in syllables shining 
 The guilt and the judgment of sad mortality, 
 Yet with its atonement achieved. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Thy speech casts a halo of dreams in a dream. 
 But I have nearly forgotten my purpose. 
 Which was the actors to find for my Hamlet. 
 Let us divide our search round the coast, 
 Go you back to the place of your landing 
 
ACT SECOND.— HORATIO, YOUNa PB08PER0. 115 
 
 To see if they have come hither ; 
 
 Then return to this path which leads to the entrance 
 
 Where is the high gate of the city, 
 
 There you will find me. 
 
 Meanwhile I shall circle this inlet, 
 
 If perchance their vessel lie anchored 
 
 In some leaf-bowered nook unseen. 
 
 Let us away. 
 
116 TBE SHAEE8PEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Scene Fourth. 
 
 (The two men having departed, the two women 
 hold a dialogue pertaining chiefly to the three 
 kinds of their sex in the Magic Isle.) 
 
 Rosalind- 
 
 Both are gone their ways, disappearing 
 
 Behind the wood's dense foliage; 
 
 Let us step out into the open 
 
 And snap a fresh breath of relief. 
 
 We have watched three men diversely charactered 
 
 Turning themselves inside out to us, 
 
 Unconscious of our secreted presence. 
 
 What say you to the male spectacle, lady ? 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I think we have also seen something of woman 
 Reflected in the soul's looHng-glass of the man. 
 I doubt if it has hurt us to take such a glimpse 
 At ourselves, spying us out under cover. 
 But first let me speak forthright of that Hamlet 
 Who stealthily sneaked away to himself 
 After filling the woods with his poisonous words 
 Which may deadly infect a younger spirit 
 Inbreathing their virulence for the first time. 
 
ACT SECOND.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 117 
 
 Rosalin/i. 
 
 Yet he is the man most famed as deepest-thoughted 
 Of our populous Shakespearopolis, 
 In which he is deemed the citizen typical 
 More than any other character. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 The weakling of fate I damn Mm 
 'As blaming his mother for his own lapses 
 Instead of surmounting them through himself 
 Unto his own glory of manhood ; 
 Even the woman he loves he blemishes 
 With the stain of his own shortcomings, 
 Instead of guiding her out of distress, 
 Pale though she be in all her resolves. 
 He compels not his life, he is but a yielder, 
 Even if at times he bristles his limp will 
 The wrong way to meet the stress of his lot. 
 No example of hero is that to the youth, 
 Nor to me — I would not have him. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Then you ought to favor his resolute friend 
 
 Who is busily tracking his crooks through this 
 
 forest. 
 And more busily trailing his mind's vagaries 
 
118 TEE SHAEESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. ' 
 
 To find the node of his reason loosened 
 That it perchance may again be jointed — 
 The woman's woe made whole by woman's weal. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Tell me, did you ever meet with Hamlet's mother 
 In that womaned society dwelling your city ? 
 Very unmotherly seems her influence 
 Upon her son whose words we have heard ; 
 And his sentiments toward her reproached 
 Waft not the sound of filial tenderness. 
 
 Bosalin/i. 
 
 I have seen her oft in the Hamlet mansion 
 
 Whither we go for palatial grandeur 
 
 And for the wonderful spectacle there, 
 
 Our largest center of communal life 
 
 And surcharged with the deepest instruction. 
 
 True, I may have conversed with her also; 
 
 Still I confess she is not of my type 
 
 But trains with a different set of our sex 
 
 With whom I shun to associate. 
 
 Not out of pride, or of loftier blood. 
 
 If I dare know so much of my mind, 
 
 Not pluming myself vsdth a better character 
 
 Although her fame on my shrinking ear 
 
 Falls not with a musical tingle. 
 
 She is of another make than mine, 
 
ACT SECOND.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 119 
 
 In a different mood her creator formed her, 
 
 That I feel to her deeply antipathetic, 
 
 And sway in another circle of spirits 
 
 Who are happily reconciled with their world. 
 
 But she moves in her own dark coterie 
 
 Made up of women remediless 
 
 Who live and die terribly, 
 
 Never knowing repentance for wrong 
 
 Or atonement for sin. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Yes, I see the line which limits you ladies. 
 
 None the less strange it appeareth to me 
 
 That you women of this ideal city 
 
 Are cliqued and clanned and circumscribed 
 
 Just like us females of reality 
 
 Who are used to run in droves all together — 
 
 All except me. 
 
 But as I wish to meet the ladies famed 
 
 Who love and gown in this poetical world. 
 
 Both the blackest sinner and the aureoled saint, 
 
 As well as those charactered in between — 
 
 The comic, the tragic, and the redeemed — 
 
 Tell me more of these sets so contraried 
 
 That I may get some forelook of what I must see 
 
 In the round of my high visitation. 
 
 And then this curious query brands deep my brain : 
 
 How comes it that the same mortal creator 
 
120 THE SHAKE 8PEARI AD.— PART FIRST. 
 
 Has formed such beings diverse as Hell and 
 
 Heaven — 
 He the Promethean man, shaping out of himself 
 The world of women eternal? 
 How could his mighty soul of creation 
 Pass in its art from Rosalind here 
 The gracious wielder of love and its matches, 
 To the mother of Hamlet queening it yonder 
 In the Danish palace of death, 
 And swoop his world-wide pinions of Genius 
 From Arden's innocent Eden 
 Down to the uttermost pit of Inferno 
 As if re-enacting the first fall of man 
 From his original Paradise. 
 
 Rosalin/i. 
 
 You touch me a chord which I too have felt, 
 
 Quizzing myself in wonderment often; 
 
 What can be the source of this dark rift in his 
 
 life 
 Which chasms his soul to the bottom? 
 And not I alone but all my dear friends 
 Have ruminated together the puzzle 
 Which lies concealed in the drift of your question. 
 Yet is always importuning an answer. 
 Now I shall tell you in whisper the story 
 Which I have heard wind through the low tali 
 Breathing dark hints of our underworld. 
 
ACT BECOND.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 121 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 The pulse of that secret already I feel 
 
 In thy trembled intonation of voice, 
 
 And I grow frantic to glimpse that shadowy woman, 
 
 For woman she must be, I know. 
 
 She, the original temptress of man 
 
 To his uttermost fatalities, 
 
 All of which shut in a box were once given me. 
 
 But I, the aU-gifted, unlidded my gifts. 
 
 Rosalin/i. 
 
 Hear, then, thy story's last counterpart: 
 Father Shakespeare — I throb his name as a daugh- 
 ter — 
 Met his dread fate in the woman enchantress 
 Who was again the serpent incarnate, 
 As we read in the tale of man's old destiny. 
 Infatuate he became to fatuity. 
 Though he knew her heart faithless and guilty ; 
 Open, defiant she was in transgression, 
 Still tighter he was enchained in her power. 
 And held snared in the lie of her looks 
 That the more he resisted the more he was caught ; 
 She would laugh at his love's mad delirium 
 And parade her untruth to his face 
 To frenzy the more his helpless despair, 
 Finding her pleasure of malice 
 
122 THE SHAKESPEABIAD.—PABT FIRST. 
 
 In the poetical throes of his love-pain, 
 Which he sighed out into exquisite rhymes 
 Hymning his torturer, the dread Damozel. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Her I would see above all other women. 
 
 The strongest soul I deem her within your city, 
 
 The fallen feminine Satan, 
 
 The woman who could enthrall the woman-former, 
 
 Compelling his genius to make her over 
 
 Into his shapes immortal of women 
 
 Who entrap great heroes with their black gift 
 
 Submissive to female charm demonic. 
 
 But tell me her name, for when I meet her 
 
 I would duly salute her glorified talent 
 
 As the one heroine over all heroines 
 
 Throning in many-mansioned Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Bosalin,d. 
 
 I mark the might of your stroke sympathetic 
 Bringing to light some hid strain of kinship 
 Which bonds both of you at the first gushes of 
 
 being; 
 But let me finish my answer. 
 Her title is lisped in an undertone 
 'Mid small knots of talkers as The Dark Lady; 
 Her other name is not certainly syllabled 
 Though I have a mind how it is spelt ; 
 
ACT SECOND.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 123 
 
 But like a shadow she follows the master 
 As if his self's own familiar; 
 She has no right abode in this city- 
 Yet I have glimpsed her darkened eidolon 
 Fleet hither amid our Houses of Tragedy, 
 Dimly enacting the Queen of those Queens 
 Whom she imbreathes with her fatal enchantment, 
 But never apart from the poet's presence 
 Have I seen her alone in herself; 
 She haunts him as sharing his personality, 
 As intimate with the run of his being 
 In the role of Destroyer, 
 Whom he must writhe to ban into writ 
 With desperate wrestle of spirit 
 That he be not his own self -slayer. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 So your high-named artificer godlike. 
 
 Who shapes in his shop all your women and men, 
 
 Cowers under the bolt, not of Zeus Olympian 
 
 But of the eyes of his Dark Lady, 
 
 The fatal enchantress of Genius itself 
 
 Building of tragedy Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Bosalin^. 
 
 So for a time ; but she is not all of his being. 
 But only one tract of his spirit's experience, 
 Which orbs his full cycle of days. 
 
124 TEE 8HAKESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 He moves to unfold a new node of his soul-world ; 
 Now mark another grand turn in his life, 
 Which he projects fresh out of himself 
 Into new forms of his human creation, 
 Transmuting his devil into an angel 
 By alchemy born of his gift supernal. 
 That he be healed of his HeU 
 Re-making each day himself to be whole. 
 
 Pandora. 
 Doubtful I catch at what means your allusion — 
 But have you nothing to say of the poet's wife, 
 Who with his children is far off in Stratford 
 Unwitting of this Dark Lady? 
 
 Rosalind. 
 There too you can find him living at home, 
 Ere your traveled round is completed. 
 Cheerily with his spouse and his daughters, 
 Restored to his heart' first intimate bond. 
 The love of his family. 
 
 Pandora. 
 What then has become of that other woman 
 Of whom you have darkly limned me the outline 
 Who made him the tragic poet, 
 Dipping his soul down into that pool 
 Where he met the Destroyer face to face, 
 Blasting his honor domestic? 
 
ACT SECOND.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 125 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Her lie lias transcended in might of his Genius 
 Which drives forth his despair into utterance, 
 Thus unchaining himself into freedom. 
 The new woman appears to his vision, 
 Whom he is to inform with his spirit 
 Redeeming himself from the Dark Lady 
 Through the sanative strength of his writ. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 What ! still another epochal woman ! 
 Are there no men in your deedful city 
 To pivot the turn of a soul or an age ? 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Hold ! methinks I see a matronly shape 
 
 Hither slowly approach in stately tread; 
 
 Her lineaments gentle appeal to me dowered 
 
 With all the wealth of Heaven's atonement. 
 
 Though she be not one of my social set ; 
 
 Father Shakespeare wrought in a different mood 
 
 When he shaped me to his happier love ; 
 
 But molding her to his spirit re-born. 
 
 He took as his model not the Dark Lady. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Well ! here she comes with the look of her words 
 Which, mothering, throb from her face to her lips. 
 
126 TEE SHAEESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Eermione (steps up). 
 
 I come in search of my daughter Perdita 
 Who, as a babe, was exposed in these woods. 
 When torn from me wholly unchilded, 
 That was some sixteen years agone ; 
 Now she is grown to be a young lady 
 Blooming the flower of maidenhood, 
 And needs a, mother's outlook on life. 
 
 Bosalind. 
 
 Honored dame, I know you and your history. 
 Having watched you enact your trial of fate 
 Up to the point of pitiless tragedy, 
 From which you rescued yourself, your child, 
 
 your spouse. 
 Through a divine long-suffering laid on woman. 
 Hell itself with its terrible torture, 
 Its blackest wrong staining purest innocence 
 Could you never unwife or unmother. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Of an opposite stamp she must be charactered 
 To that mother and wife of whom we have heard 
 Just now from her son in a talk with himself. 
 Methinks she antidotes the mother of Hamlet, 
 Remedial of the woman's last curse. 
 
ACT SECOND— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 127 
 
 Hermione. 
 
 I too had a son, a beautiful boy, 
 Who was taken from me in life's hardest test. 
 Though I tried unhelped to ward off the stroke 
 Sent on him by his own guilty father. 
 Whom still I would save from his deed, 
 And rescue redeemed to my bosom. 
 
 Bosalind. 
 
 That miracle too has been wrought by thy spirit 
 And imparts its healing to those who may see it; 
 As for me, I adore thee as one far above me, 
 I never would dare thy womanhood's test, 
 Preferring to live in my Forest of Arden. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Many grades of this city's known ladies. 
 But the most heroic of all your heroines 
 Seems this new Madonna as mother and wife, 
 For she overtops with her deed the Dark Lady 
 Here in the rich realm of your Shakespearopolis 
 And in the love-life of its architect lofty. 
 Undoing the work of that feminine black-artist, 
 Who e'en by the might of her name threw a spell 
 Which uncovered a nighted strain of myself 
 Wherein I felt me to her related. 
 
128 THE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT FIRST. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Then you too are restored by this -woman 
 
 Most tried in all the hard fates of her sex 
 
 That even her image becomes remedial. 
 
 I confess that I cannot reach to her deed, 
 
 Though I may share if I appreciate ; 
 
 Yet I would make a tragedy out of her lot, 
 
 If it were laid on me by the Powers. 
 
 A mediation far deeper is hers 
 
 Than mine with the lovers idyllic in loveland; 
 
 For she hears the call from above and within 
 
 To restore the utter wrong-doer as husband, 
 
 Revealing womanly love in itself 
 
 Untainted by outer circumstance. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Nor am I quite ready to climb such a height, 
 I would quit such a man and take another. 
 
 Hermione. 
 
 I must ramble this wood more thoroughly 
 In search of my daughter. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 May we not foUow and help a little? 
 
AOT SECOND.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 129 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I too would like to see the young lady 
 How she resembles her origin. 
 
 Hermione. 
 I would bethink me in silence. 
 
 Bosalind. 
 
 She is off, but you will see her again 
 In the full round of her life mediative, 
 Reversing the tragic doom of this city 
 Which mirrors the soul it mirroring too. 
 
130 TEE SHAEESPEAEIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Scene Fifth. 
 
 {Rambling through the Magic Wood Horatio, full 
 of his new call, meets Hermione in search for her 
 daughter, and to her he imparts her supreme mis- 
 sion of redeeming Hamlet.) 
 
 Horatio (alone). 
 
 One idea sole obsesses me now, 
 
 Like a spirit sent from beyond to bid me 
 
 Through the might of its voiceless evangel, 
 
 And from my dear reposeful philosophy 
 
 It bans sweet peace of the hall academic 
 
 Where I long have loitered, learning and listening 
 
 With my friend the young Prince of Denmark 
 
 Now strangely darkened in mind. 
 
 That one idea which hales me to action 
 
 Is the soul's restoration of Hamlet 
 
 From the clutch of the dread Destroyer. 
 
 Such is the burning task of this whole city 
 
 Which else of itself becomes tragic in him, 
 
 And sinks under the crash of his doom 
 
 Without the hope of its spirit's last ransom. 
 
 And the poet also must fall with his work 
 
 And become the hero of his own tragedy 
 
 If he destroy his mind's deepest personage. 
 
 And make himself perish in the one character 
 
ACT SECOND.— HORATIO, HERMIONE. 131 
 
 Who is stamped with his soul's very impress; 
 
 For Hamlet I see to be Shakespeare 
 
 Sinking away in his own self-negation. 
 
 Thus a new duty weighs down upon me 
 
 Putting to flight my life meditative: 
 
 I must haste to undo Death's stern decree 
 
 Hanging over my friend, his house, his world, 
 
 Yea even his poetic creator. 
 
 Such is mine to perform in word and in deed : 
 
 I task me re-building the drama of Hamlet 
 
 And unclinching the grip of his fate 
 
 Unto his own and his time's salvation. 
 
 This work, unless I write and for him enact, 
 
 I too shall be damned to his end. 
 
 But what is my means for such new office ? 
 
 I must pierce to the depth of his malady : 
 
 Woman has cursed him as son and as lover. 
 
 Woman alone can undo her own curse. 
 
 Bringing the balm of. her spirit redeemed. 
 
 Then on the deed will rain the uppermost blessing. 
 
 For in him the poet, his maker, 
 
 Will be restored from the eclipse of his life — 
 
 Aye, from the Dark Lady of Babylon, 
 
 Who will lure him down to her own dared death 
 
 If he be not disthralled of her speU 
 
 By a new remedial scripture 
 
 Which will cancel his own written Hell-fire 
 
132 THE SEAEE8PEABIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 Thirougli the might of his healful creation. 
 Grand is the stake as it rises before me: 
 The whole century, all civilization 
 Threats to topple down into the last abyss, 
 The gruesome graveyard of buried worlds. 
 So joined is it with the spirit of Hamlet 
 That it shall perish too in his tragedy, 
 For he is man's culture self -murdered 
 Unless retrieved from the blast of its doubt 
 And harmonized with the sovereign order. 
 Again I confess to myself my last faith : 
 I also must fall in the falling ruins 
 Which menace humanity whole in Hamlet 
 Unless with his I work my redemption 
 Both in the word and the act. 
 For if I find him not the recovery 
 I myself am lost — I, Horatio. 
 
 Ha ! to the eye of hope rises a star, 
 
 And to the heart's prayer dawns a fulfilment: 
 
 Out of the distance hitherward moves a lady 
 
 Gravely treading the leaves of the glen 
 
 With a look of heavenly pondering. 
 
 Most timely it hits with my prayer, 
 
 I am in search of the woman redemptive, 
 
 Who can bring back the far-astray Hamlet 
 
 To a faith in his mother's half of his race. 
 
 And thus reconcile him again to his birth, 
 
ACT SECOND.— HORATIO, HEBMIONE. 133 
 
 Him starting anew to live over his life 
 
 Even re-planting the seed of his origin. 
 
 She approaches! methinks I have known her! 
 
 'Tis Hermione, the mother-soul mediatorial 
 
 Of our tragical Shakespearopolis, 
 
 Who has outf ated her own fate nethermost 
 
 And now may do for another poor mortal 
 
 What she has done for herself. 
 
 Aye, she must, else she too will be damned ! 
 
 Behold ! her presence remedial 
 
 Even her look hath a healing essence. 
 
 She can mother the unmothered Hamlet 
 
 And once more bring him forth new-born, 
 
 Even if he be now three decades agone. 
 
 Hermione. 
 
 Have you seen my daughter Perdita ? 
 I have heard that she still is alive 
 Humbly abiding somewhere in this wood 
 Through which I still in hopeful suffering search. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Well met, Hermione ! you come like a deity 
 
 Unawares, yet fervently prayed for. 
 
 I have seen you before in your own fair temple 
 
 Builded yonder on a height of the city. 
 
 And have watched you enact your long-suffering 
 
 Which conquered the man and won the God. 
 
134 THE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 1 need you for a like work of healing 
 
 Which Is to be shown In its worth ideal 
 
 By my troupe of actors who are to play 
 
 Before the young Hamlet my drama 
 
 Which turns on the mother triumphant 
 
 In the sharpest trial of her Destroyer, 
 
 And rescuing husband, offspring, and self 
 
 Through her true mediation of spirit. 
 
 I would reconcile him, my friend and fellow-man, 
 
 With his own genesis which has discorded him 
 
 Till he threatens to strike the one last end-all 
 
 Of the pain of mortality. 
 
 Hermione. 
 
 What ! me a woman ! 
 
 Why not take as his savior a man? 
 
 Many a hero you have in your city 
 
 Who should be able to meet such a test. 
 
 Then who is the priest who shrives all the world. 
 
 And hallows the woman herself unto God? 
 
 It is the man, from the little church curate 
 
 Up through the long hierarchal ladder 
 
 To the throne of the Highest in Heaven — 
 
 It is always a man. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Methinks the whole line is helpless for Hamlet, 
 The old good way he cannot travel. 
 
ACT SECOND.— HORATIO, HERMIONE. 135 
 
 Nor can he be saved now by age-built prescription. 
 
 Still he must be redeemed and we must help him, 
 
 He is not to be lost, the honest denier, 
 
 Else you and I shall sink down along 
 
 As unworthed of our spirit's highest heritage, 
 
 And with us together all Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Eermione. 
 
 But the philosopher you are of fame ; 
 Then why not make his cure the pivotal test 
 Of the worth of your philosophy 
 "Which you and he did learn at "Wittenberg 
 "Where sounds the weal-trumpeting University. 
 You are just the man, the philosopher, 
 Make valid in use your lofty-worded new lore. 
 For what is it worth unless it heal whole 
 The cleft spirit hurt unto death? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 I feel the keen prick of your mind's point, 
 
 A gift of surprise from tender Hermione 's tongue ; 
 
 Still let me dare a moment philosophize 
 
 "Why the man philosopher is unmeet 
 
 To salve with his cure this malady's curse: 
 
 The perfect heart makes whole the unperfect. 
 
 Imparting its all to the lessor's weal. 
 
 And thus it approveth the best what it is 
 
 Ever restoring itself by giving itself. 
 
136 TEE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 A woman pure must cleanse a woman's taint, 
 And wash out the sin of her sex's decadence; 
 She must also be the mother and wife, 
 The twinned womb of all living creation 
 And therewith of love's primordial birth 
 Into the hitherto helpless void of the soul. 
 For it is she who bears love to the universe 
 Prom its first fountain of God. 
 There is not a man in Shakespearopolis 
 Who can perform such an innermost work 
 For closing this breach of the spirit; 
 And not every woman here hath the gift 
 Sharing so deep in the prime personality 
 As to tap its all-healing fountain creative; 
 Possibly one other woman within this city 
 I know, who might — after you. 
 
 Hermione. 
 
 Tou heap me with burden of honor too great! 
 But think of the past ! Have not the sages 
 The prophets, the founders of high religions 
 "Which mediate man anew with his God, 
 Have they not all been men — all of them? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Let me speak you a word out of my studies 
 On which I have spent still years' meditation. 
 In the Orient the man is the prophet, 
 
ACT SECOND.— HORATIO, HERMIONE. 137 
 
 The maker of faiths and the sole mediator. 
 
 Already in Hellas we hear of the priestess 
 
 Even higher placed than the priest, 
 
 As at Delphi she voiced from the God his oracle. 
 
 But at Tauris the Tvoman Iphigenia 
 
 "Was priestess and missionary as well, 
 
 Saving the heathen, saving the Greek 
 
 Through her office divine. 
 
 Now in our latest temples of Shakespearopolis, 
 
 The woman is throned the High Priestess, 
 
 But in herself, in her own right, through her deed 
 
 She performs her priestly function supreme 
 
 To rescue the man, the city, the world. 
 
 Aye, the poet himself from his tragedy. 
 
 Who is she ? You— 
 
 Hermione. 
 
 That dizzies me ! on too lofty a pedestal ! 
 Quite at the city's top, and History's too! 
 Why, you make me remake my very maker ! 
 But for what am I exalted so suddenly ? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 The fiercest malice of fate could not fate you, 
 The last stroke of despair never made you despair ; 
 Though whelmed under the bitterest curse of God 
 You never cursed God, 
 And thus you rose to his rank as divine 
 
138 THE SHAKESPEABIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 In your soul's own canonization. 
 
 You saved the innocent, you redeemed the guilty, 
 
 Rewarded the faithful, and ransomed yourself 
 
 From all Hell's outpoured malignity; 
 
 So you undid your own tragedy 
 
 And now you are to undo that of Hamlet, 
 
 And with him that of Hamlet's creator 
 
 Through your visioned deed of his rescue 
 
 On a scene enacted in view of the ages. 
 
 Hermione. 
 
 Oh! must I again be crucified 
 
 With the pain of all those years of sacrifice ? 
 
 I shrink from this new tribulation, 
 
 God Himself endured but one crucifixion, 
 
 And must I, weak woman, dare suffer the second? 
 
 I say, take a man as your redeemer. 
 
 The test I may not abide if repeated. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Have you not watched throughout our city 
 That the creator of its people of souls, 
 Its myriad maker poetic 
 Calls up a woman for duty redemptive, 
 And allots her a man as helpmeet 
 Often of not much help ? 
 
ACT SECOND.— HORATIO, HEBMIONE. 139 
 
 Hermione. 
 If to the cross you must nail the woman 
 To save your tragic Shakespearopolis, 
 Why not take Rosalind, winsome and graceful ? 
 The favorite everywhere and of all, 
 I met her an hour ago in these woods, 
 Nor is she without experience of service ; 
 You will find her BtroUing over yonder 
 "With a new Lady just come to this Isle 
 Who wishes to take a course of its discipline. 
 Which you can impart in the lore of your drama 
 Harmonizing anew the soul of estrangement. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 She would decline it, for well do I know her, 
 
 Rosalind is not built to your pattern. 
 
 Though she a character lives mediating. 
 
 Hers is a lighter sphere and different. 
 
 That of the merry and skillful heart- joiner 
 
 Sootheing the lover's small trouble's; 
 
 Life's outer rents she deftly can mend. 
 
 But when the soul is broken within through guilt, 
 
 A deeper remedial nature is needed. 
 
 Such as is yours, trained by sacred suffering 
 
 Which you, the innocent, gave as ransom of wrong. 
 
 So I must have you enact your' saving deed 
 
 Before the Prince in the Danish Palace ; 
 
140 TBE 8BAEE8PEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 For the drama is the only medicine 
 Which touches the seat of his malady 
 Mirroring outward his mind to his mind. 
 But your deed reaches out aU-healing, 
 For him first, for me too, aye for yourself, 
 And well for the builder of Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Hermione. 
 
 What a turn of my vision within and without me ! 
 Yonder I feel I behold my lost daughter! 
 Since she was a babe I have not kissed her, 
 And with her I glimpse her young lover 
 Of whom rumor has thrown me some glints 
 Which I fleet me to verify. 
 
 To the pair I straightway must fly with a blessing 
 As healful to me in the giving 
 As to them in the getting. 
 
 Horatio. 
 Will you not share us the love of the mother? 
 
 Hermione. 
 
 Friend, I cannot quit without the confession: 
 I have to perform the work you have asked me. 
 For the duty weighs on me not to be shaken. 
 Having restored Leontes my husband, 
 I, in response to your God-winning prayer, 
 Must restore, too, Hamlet — else I am lost 
 
ACT SECOND— HORATIO, HERMIONE. 141 
 
 Through the dread sin of my dooming refusal, 
 Losing my worthiest gift now won by my trial ; 
 If I have gained the good I have to impart it 
 When holily prayed for, else it will quit me 
 
 recreant ; 
 Thus my best deed again I shall do and again, 
 Keeping it bright and alive in the practice. 
 So let me dare once more be crucified 
 Once more than even the Lord 
 And once more and again once more, 
 Till I win mine own last atonement. 
 But look! how disinctly I see now my daughter 
 Suddenly bloom the sixteen years of her girlhood. 
 From the moment she a smiling infant 
 "Was torn from my mothering bosom ! 
 Farewell now — I must go — ^my heart 
 Beats out before me into their presence. 
 But list to my spirit's own promise: 
 I shall meet you at call in the Palace of Hamlet, 
 There anew to enact my more than death, 
 And through my mortal purgation upborne, 
 To attain mine own resurrection. 
 
 Horatio (alone). 
 
 The new Madonna hearkens her mother-heart, 
 And longing she wings away to her child. 
 Such is the woman's worth remedial, 
 Eedeeming her lorn self in her daughter 
 
142 TBE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 And showing her spirit's weal over others: 
 Can I put her character into my drama 
 And fix it eternal in writ, 
 Where she can keep doing her ransom's deed 
 For all who may visit Shakespearopolis ? 
 Thus my lines may round the fuU life of Hamlet, 
 Leading him out of his tragic aby^es 
 To his spirit remaking itself to he whole ; 
 So his life-course may mirror that of mankind 
 And even image the process of God. 
 I ween now I glimpse the three forms of women 
 Who rise at the nodes of the poet's own destiny — 
 The love and the fall and then the recovery 
 Cycling the soul of Shakespearopolis. 
 But here come the actors whom I must greet 
 And bring to their quarters where is their labor. 
 For at once must begin the rehearsal, 
 Since on their work may depend Hamlet's fate, 
 And perchance mine too, 
 As well as Hermione's higher fulfilment 
 Which gleams her life's rounded completion 
 As the true likeness for aU of the All, 
 Integral making character's temple of beauty 
 Gleaming the sovereign sheen of womanhood's 
 worth. 
 
The Shakespeariad 
 
 l^art ^econb 
 
 SHAKESPEAROPOLIS 
 
 OB 
 
 The Magic City op The Magic Isle 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 Shakespearopolis in its entirety is conceived as 
 a community in which all of Shakespeare's char- 
 acters form a social system with its proper laws 
 and governance. Hence the city has its own insti- 
 tutional order, and, accordingly, its own distinct 
 soul and consciousness apart from its individual 
 members. This universal character, embracing all 
 of Shakespeare's particular characters organized 
 into their one society, is the final fruitage of the 
 poet's work. Such a social world lies back of this 
 Shakespeariad which has to bring the same to 
 light. 
 
 It should be added that this ordered city in its 
 completeness must be regarded as the supreme 
 manifestation of Shakespeare's personality set 
 forth into the world and realized as an existent, 
 ever-active fact. Moreover, its development is his 
 development, its outer is his inner, showing the 
 very process of his total achievement. The idea of 
 Shakespearopolis is, therefore, the idea of Shake- 
 speare himself in his completion and fulfilment. 
 
poofe Jf irsit 
 
 INDUCTION. 
 From the forest of the Magic Isle the scene 
 passes to its center, which is a walled city whose 
 edifices rise up along a mountain-side to a height 
 on which stands a classic temple in outline, hut 
 indwelt of fantastic forms, and known as Pros- 
 per o's Mansion. Various entrances pierce the wall, 
 through which the multitudes are entering to in- 
 spect the city. 
 
 Scene First. 
 
 Chorus Salutatory. 
 
 Welcome all ye to Shakespearopolis 
 
 And see it now your spirits' ideal home, 
 
 The growing capital of lettered Earth, 
 
 The temple of mankind's hest lore, 
 
 Whence sings the Muse's farthest-sounding strain 
 
 Tuning the ages past and still to be 
 
 To measured cadence of Creation's song. 
 
 Hail to the Orient, the Occident, 
 
 Both come together in this Magic Isle 
 
 Which also interlinks the North and South, 
 
 Between whose souls it lies both spaced and timed, 
 
 Joining in one embrace the old and new. 
 
 Behold, they march in massive caravans, 
 
 (145) 
 
146 TEE 8EAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 With faces deepened into thought's last home, 
 Or brightened with the laughter of the moment, 
 From aged Cathay and from Atlantis young. 
 Streaming in silence through these airy gates 
 Which pierce the high-walled girdle of the city. 
 That all may see the multitudes within, 
 The famous dwellers of its mansioned halls 
 Whom they must know if they would know them- 
 selves. 
 And know the vaster time in which they live. 
 And yet more deeply runs their final quest: 
 For they would find the one great human soul. 
 Creator of this world and all its shapes. 
 The Genius who remakes them to be one 
 From what they once were made to be in life. 
 The same beneath mankind's fierce difference. 
 The oversway of antique gloried Rome 
 Was that of armed mind and violence; 
 Here is upbuilt another polity: 
 The warriors hither come to be overcome. 
 The willing captives of this commonwealth 
 Which they then capture as their noblest prize. 
 And bear away all that they leave behind, 
 That others, too, may find the perfect gift 
 Whose taking is the giving it away. 
 And own possession everybody's own, 
 The victors vanquished in their victory. 
 Advance, ye armies, marching hitherward 
 
BOOK FIRST.— CHORUS SALUTATORY. 147 
 
 From out tlie rising and the setting sun, 
 
 Ye who look up and see the Southern Cross, 
 
 And ye who watch the Pleiads in their round, 
 
 Now storm this treasured city's golden mint 
 
 Of souls word-stamped to aU eternity; 
 
 Enter its palaces and seize its folk, 
 
 AU can be yours, the men, the women too. 
 
 Even the edifices you may have 
 
 If you can lift them up and bear them off; 
 
 Aye, the whole city is your spirit's spoil 
 
 Not to be parcelled out in petty shares. 
 
 But each of you can own the whole of it, 
 
 And still the city stay all of itself. 
 
 In its own right, while too your property. 
 
 Seize here the finest gems of human speech, 
 
 The purest diamonds strown of wisdom's thought, 
 
 The dearest daring maidens for the love of man. 
 
 Take them, they're yours, but you must win them 
 
 first. 
 And you can have them all as yours of right, 
 Not one alone is given to one alone. 
 That's not the law of this high wedding-feast. 
 But all and each belong to each and all 
 In marriage universal of the mind 
 Which holds of us the sovereign's masterdom. 
 Welcome again, ye pilgrims to this Isle 
 Whose rounded rim of woods ye have pierced 
 
 through 
 
148 THE 8HAEE8PEABIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Unto its centering height of pinnacles 
 Which now you must behold with vision pure : 
 I, the Chorus voicing my whole people, 
 Bid you the freedom of our city's heart; 
 The mansions are all ready for your coming, 
 And every soul is open to your gaze 
 Down to the bottom of its deepest rift. 
 If you have sight to see its primal home. 
 Elsewhere the soul's last chasms are covered up, 
 Hid in disguise of human intercourse; 
 But inside out the man must turn himself 
 If he would live the life or dwell the world 
 Of spirit-builded Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Voice (from above). 
 
 Ye twain of woman-souls, be ye the first 
 To enter this high realm to view your own — 
 The lofty dames wrought of transparent Heaven, 
 And also grained in black of Devildom, 
 Within whose hearts are vn-it in flame the fates 
 Of spirit-builded Shakespearopolis. 
 
BOOK FIRST.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 149^ 
 
 Scene Second. 
 
 Rosalind and Pandora. 
 
 {Entrance through an open gate which leads out 
 of the girdling Wood of the Magic Isle to the city. 
 The passage shows an arch of plaited vines laden 
 with flowers. Underneath are passing the two 
 women, who converse.) 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Quite a change of impression! From the nat- 
 ural to the artificial, from solitude to society, from 
 poetry to prose! 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 This is the arbor which leads to my cottage, a 
 somewhat sylvan quarter of the city, in which lies 
 my Forest of Arden, where lovers have always 
 found some poetry embowered in the rustic 
 scenery. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Strangely remindful, even familiar the outlook 
 appears. Yes, I see these poetical trees are still 
 carved with their lines of love, little atoms of 
 passion. 
 
150 THE 8EAEE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Here is my door-step, overhung with the leaves 
 and twigs of the grove. Let us rest and take a 
 fresh glance. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I never was here before, yet, methinks, I have 
 seen this bower already and wandered through 
 these trees. I have a reminiscence of meeting an 
 old acquaintance in each bush; wherever I turn, 
 I pass from waking to a dream. And you, Rosa- 
 lind, I must have met in another state. And that 
 song which softly wreathes overhead seems not to 
 kiss my ear for the first time. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Perhaps you will understand your dream better 
 when I say this is the Forest of Arden. Here I 
 am agelessly in love, and stroll outside of time in 
 these idyllic haunts. I note that you have seen 
 me here, as have millions. But never mind me 
 now. Stand on this little knoU and teU what you 
 behold lifting skyward. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 A glimmer of your city taking many colors as 
 the sunlight shoots through it making rainbows. 
 
BOOK FIRST.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 151 
 
 But that is only the outside. What lies inside, is 
 the world I have yet to see. Little fragments of 
 Shakespearopolis I have watched from afar, as I 
 was approaching hither; I glimpsed the very spot 
 where we stand. But I seek more than a glimpse, 
 I want the thing itself. I am glad to find Eosa- 
 lind, but I would like to speak face to face with 
 all her sisters, young and old, who are reported to 
 be the secret sovereigns of this realm, where abides 
 the rule supreme of Love. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 You are worthily ambitious. I shall give you 
 some help, but you will need other guides to know 
 even the women of this community. Look yonder ; 
 you will mark the personages fleeting through the 
 scene, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups; then 
 you wiU observe a house with people in it, the 
 walls being transparent, yea, the people being 
 transparent, even in their souls. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I have been watching the play of appearances, 
 which seem the most real of human beings, yet 
 are ghostly ; the most insubstantial yet everlasting. 
 There is that Hamlet; he has already died, yet is 
 deathless even in his death. A group of temples 
 floats before my ken as if air-built, separate but 
 
152 THE 8HAKESPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 interwound by some inner tie; I cannot anchor 
 them, stUl less intake a vision of the whole; yet 
 they all proclaim, "We are one." 
 
 Bosalind. 
 
 Yon speak the difficulty and the goal. All 
 Shakespearopolis is innerved to one great organ- 
 ism, yea, is insouled to one great personality. To 
 envisage the latter in full is what you come for, 
 I dare premise. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 No light task as I forecast. But I must take 
 this city by my spirit's assault, or stay forever 
 defeated of my destiny. I never can reach Atlan- 
 tis, my hope of Heaven, except through this Magic 
 Isle and what it holds. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 The work cannot be done from here. You must 
 penetrate inside each house, inside each body with 
 its microcosm; you will have to make many 
 thoughtful promenades through lordly corridors 
 and high-arched domes, not omitting plebeian 
 alleys and the night-side of life, interviewing great 
 and smaU in their own estate. 
 
BOOK FIRST.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 153 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 But I do not like to troop about solitary and 
 see things all to myself. Among the surging crowd 
 of visitors do you think I shall find any acquaint- 
 ance who might he a sympathetic uplift in the 
 journey? It is hard to travel alone. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Among the millions you will find the one, just 
 the one without whom the millions are as none. 
 I know that road, for I have travelled it. And you 
 will meet other women of this city going the self- 
 same way in hot pursuit of the one only one who 
 for them is all or rather just the All. Love is the 
 Demiurge not only of Shakespearopolis but of the 
 Universe, of whose vastness we put at the heart 
 those little lovers, man and woman. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I mark that you are still the magnificent merry 
 match-maker, Rosalind. But tell me how many 
 people live within these walls, inhabiting the lofty 
 mansions and the lesser abodes, some of them be- 
 ing but half -built. 
 
 Bosalind. 
 
 A right question which I can answer when in 
 the tune. But just now I ween that I can like- 
 
154 THE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 wise tell tlie very name responding to the hidden 
 query of your heart ? Shall I speak it out ? 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I wish I were at present in the mood for your 
 light funning. Still your hint has stirred in me 
 an ancient throb far back to the rearward of hoary 
 Time, for I was as young ages ago as I am now. 
 I once loved Prometheus thousands of years past, 
 the old Titanic man-shaper who wrought in de- 
 fiance of Zeus; so he was chained to Mount Cau- 
 casus, and cannot get loose or die, since he, though 
 eaten every day by a vulture, grows back to him- 
 self agaia in the night. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Poor Titan, I might try to free him if I could 
 leave my Orlando, whom I prefer to Prometheus. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 That I deem my last goal: to go back and re- 
 lease him even from Zeus. But now I have to take 
 unto myself this new Prometheus of your city, the 
 shaper of men and still more the shaper of women, 
 especially of women who can be redeemers. I have 
 sighted already that unique drama of his three 
 supreme Ladies — you, my Rosalind, first ; then the 
 
BOOK FIRST.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 155 
 
 nameless shadowy form of Satan womaned, just 
 the Dark Damozel; finally the mothering restorer 
 
 whom you call 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Hermione — she whom you are yet to know and 
 to fulfil, I hope. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 The very trinity of womanhood they move be- 
 fore me in a kind of choral round which hymns 
 me the poet's own deepest cycle of life's experi- 
 ences — ^how he has joyed, how he has suffered, and 
 how he has recovered. Perchance too it suggests 
 from afar a model on which every human soul's 
 career Is planned. 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 Dimly some such conception of Father Shake- 
 speare and of his work has fleeted through my 
 rather unmindful mind. But I have also in my 
 higher moods carried the same thought higher: 
 quite up to God Himself, who likewise must have 
 His spirit's process. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 You say Father Shakespeare, but is he not 
 mother too of his people, especially of you who 
 have more of his soul in you than any man or all 
 the men in your Forest of Arden? I dare the 
 
156 TEE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 tliought that he in this regard also is like God 
 who is both father and mother of all Time's crea- 
 tures. The Poet re-enacts the Creator, as the Cre- 
 ator pre-enacts the Poet, not as one parent but as 
 both, of his characters, with whom this city is filled 
 to overflow. Mother Shakespeare, then, I am go- 
 ing to stress, bringing to the fore my feminine 
 right to the greatest world-builder and soul-maker 
 that the ages have yet seen. 
 
 Bosalind. 
 
 Gay-spirited Rosalind has also had her sober 
 minutes of reflection upon this matter. Physically, 
 Shakespeare was of course masculiae, but even in 
 physical creation both sexes could spring from his 
 loins, and actually did, male and female, son and 
 daughter, each of whom I saw him fondle at Strat- 
 ford, though his boy Hamnet passed away early 
 and thus wove a strain of sorrowful reminiscence 
 through the rest of his life, often traceable in the 
 words spoken by his play-folk. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 No doubt he has a dark thread of melancholy 
 spun through his whole being, else how could he 
 have felt Hamlet? But let us hear your conclu- 
 sion, for your discourse has shifted away from 
 its goal. 
 
BOOK FIRST— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 157 
 
 Rosalind. 
 
 From Ms physical I pass to Ms spiritual cre- 
 ation, whereiQ lay his eternal portion; he was 
 thereby both man and woman, creating or rather 
 re-creating both. His Genius, generative of souls, 
 would project them into male and female forms 
 of whom I know and commune with hundreds here 
 in Shakespearopolis — indeed I am one of them my- 
 self. And let me ask after your origin — ^who are 
 you and to what end? 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I have already told on myself a good deal, but 
 not the deepest. My aspiration is also to be a 
 shaper of soul-folk but as a woman. From antique 
 Prometheus I stride with the centuries to modern 
 Shakespeare, seeking to fulfil my destiny wMch 
 lies in the future. I would take up into my con- 
 ception the supreme male creators of the ages. 
 The woman universal as likewise creative of worlds 
 and souls I glimpse, perchance the super-woman 
 realizable in far-off Atlantis. The thought swells 
 me to the point of breaking my very mortality. 
 I must now forth into the fields and sky, to be 
 alone with the Alone that I may recover my losing 
 self, though not yet lost. 
 
158 TEE SEAKESPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Rosaiind. 
 
 To that flight I have been unable to wing myself 
 ■with you. I think I shall stay here with my 
 Orlando in the Forest of Arden. But you are 
 going to tour the city and its palaces? 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 By all means, for I must pick it up and carry it 
 along with me, perchance round the world. I have 
 in mind to build it anew, rising to be the architect 
 of another Shakespearopolis which holds the com- 
 ing order with its new woman creative and man. 
 But I shall see you again, for you have your place 
 in the round I am making. 
 
 Rosalind (alone). 
 
 Off she sweeps with her Junonian gait earth- 
 contemning. She is seemingly bound to break 
 something, possibly herself. Such ambition never 
 was mine; I am glad to be made just this little 
 woman, not to make great women as does Shake- 
 speare, or such as she dreams. But here comes 
 my dear Orlando with another sweet little love- 
 verse; how satisfied I am at the drop from God's 
 creation to man's kiss! 
 
BOOK FIRST.— ROSALIND AND PANDORA. 159 
 
 Pandora (alone). 
 
 From the Magic Wood I have brought an image 
 which will not leave me, but winds through all 
 my loftiest ambitions. I forefeel that I cannot 
 stop short of Atlantis. But at present forward to 
 the Magic City! 
 
160 TBE SHAKESPEABIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 Scene Third. 
 
 ( On a precipitotis side of the city is seen a some- 
 what hare rock-huilt entrance, lofty but narrow, 
 at which Young Prospero is waiting for Horatio, 
 who soon comes up from the Magic Isle, where he 
 has been looking after Hamlet.) 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 You are prompt. Did you observe anybody 
 enter this gate? 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 As I was approaching, in the distance I caught 
 sight of the dark figure of Hamlet vanishing 
 cloud-like just here through the wall. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Then he has gone home to his Residence inside. 
 Here is the passage through which we are to reach 
 the city. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 So we are actually entering Shakespearopolis, 
 the unique city of Immortals on this globe. I feel 
 so queer, as if I were going into a new state of the 
 soul, to meet people with framework so transpicuous 
 that I can look through it into their very person- 
 
BOOK FIRST.— HORATIO, YOVNG PR08PER0. 161 
 
 ality. Even this gate by which we are passing has 
 a character of its own, somewhat intangible and 
 unreal. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Your feeling is proper now, though it is likely 
 to change hereafter, when you know more and look 
 deeper. This gate I deem my gate, as I always go 
 through it, since it leads directly to the mansion of 
 Hamlet, where I abide. Other folk call it the 
 philosophic gate, after me I suppose, since I studied 
 especially philosophy at the University of Witten- 
 berg, and am inclined to enter every domain by 
 that path, even the Universe. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I confess that the passage seems steep, stony and 
 hazy to me, and the whole structure of this gate 
 turns dreamlike while the pillars supporting its 
 inwardly bent but lofty arch do not look solid. 
 Come, it may topple on our heads if we tarry 
 under it too long. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Be not afraid; now we are inside and can in- 
 spect at leisure the city reposing in the sheen of 
 its own sun. But let me tell you something : there 
 are many other gates to Shakespearopolis beside 
 this philosophic gate; you must not fail to view 
 
162 TBE 8HAEE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 them all in your trip, for each has its own beauti- 
 ful archway, as well as its experience for your 
 complete knowledge. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 From this open vista I begin to see somewhat! 
 Behold the common abode and then the royal 
 palace ! How the people flit about, weirdly double, 
 seemingly spectre outside but reality witMn, so 
 life-like yet ghost-like! Indeed they appear ever 
 turning themselves inside out. A wonderful self- 
 revelation each individual becomes; though he 
 tries to conceal his soul, he reveals it in the very 
 act of concealment. You, for instance, are one of 
 these strangely extroverting phantoms who shows 
 me his brain unskuUed and even voiced with 
 speech. But let the miracle pass ; now tell me, my 
 dear guide, how many inhabitants in this city. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 That question I have often asked myself and 
 sought the answer both from my own reckoning 
 and from the arithmetic of others. The enumera- 
 tion differs according to the standard of indivi- 
 duality which one may apply. I have never been 
 able to satisfy myself as to the number of my fel- 
 low-citizens, though I have lived here quite all my 
 life, except my student years at Wittenberg with 
 
BOOK FIRST.— HORATIO, 70UNG PB08PER0. 163 
 
 my friend Hamlet. Some countenances dart a 
 moment past me and then vanish nameless, as if 
 not yet individuated from the vast microscopic 
 protoplasm of himianity. Forms float in and out 
 half-bom, not a few march by speechless though 
 fully shaped and accoutred on the outside. I 
 sometimes sit and watch the human atoms not yet 
 evolved but gliding momentarily across the stage, 
 like bubbles from an Oceanic whirlpool rising and 
 giving one keen flash of being, then at once drop- 
 ping back into the differenceless waters. I tell 
 you this city contains a considerable measure of 
 the original germ-stuff of mankind, uncounted 
 and uncountable, revealing every human stage 
 from the first cellular speck of a man up to the 
 creative builder of the whole city and of all its 
 folks, he being his own greatest personage in build- 
 ing personages. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Your words drive to the bottom of my aspira- 
 tion : I long to be an architect of personality, and 
 form men anew like antique fabled Prometheus 
 and modern real Shakespeare. This tells the deep- 
 est reason why I have voyaged to this city all the 
 way from remote Atlantis. I confess to you my 
 dearest ambition : I would lift this city, the whole 
 of it from foundation to pinnacle, and bear it 
 
164 TEE 8BAKE8PEABIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 away on the wings of my spirit, to rebuild it in 
 another clime and in a new civil order. But enough 
 of my dreaming for the present — ^you will hear 
 more of it ere I am done with you. Tell me now, 
 dropping all this countless genesis still in the shell 
 or even in the cell, tell how many chicks are hatch- 
 ed out into daylight and run about with wee pip- 
 ing throat, or are grown up to be the biggest 
 chanticleers with far-carrying coclsi-a-doodle-doo. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Tour sudden change of mood and speech per- 
 plexes me, but I suppose it is your way. Let the 
 oracle which you interrogate so oracularly give 
 answer as straight as he knows how. In Shake- 
 spearopolis I feel personally acquainted with some 
 five hundred souls and I have brushed against or 
 seen distinctly perhaps five hundred more. Thus 
 my census of the city's population runs up toward 
 a thousand individuals, great and small, from the 
 one-worded to the many-worded, from the zero soul 
 to an infinite faculty. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Your artificer has, I see, personalized humanity 
 afresh in its representatives, and put these into his 
 community. But of aU his persons he must him- 
 
BOOK FIRST.— HORATIO, YOUNG PR08PEB0. 165 
 
 self be the creative epitome, hence he is the one 
 here whom I would like most to know. Can you 
 hint a brief cue how I can find him? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 You may glimpse a fragment of him in each of 
 his people, but to penetrate to his total Self and 
 commune with that requires a long, perchance a 
 life-long apprenticeship. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Let us start : give me now my first lesson on the 
 outside, though I may never get inside. What are 
 those objects yonder which seem houses or struc- 
 tures of the city ? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 A good initiative. It is well to look at the exter- 
 nal first. Those dwelling-places are indeed homes, 
 each of which contains a set of characters bringing 
 forth a common deed, or if you wish the ordinary 
 name, a drama. Eesidences they rightly appear; 
 some are lying quite flat on the earth and in the 
 open, others rise mystically into cloudland and 
 float mid interplaying streaks of sunshine. You 
 will note that they are builded quite after one basic 
 pattern, yet with ever new application. Still they 
 are not fixed in stone or wood, they move in them- 
 
166 THE 8BAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 selves; they are constructed of motions, indeed of 
 actions whirling curiously around within them- 
 selves. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Edifices they are, as I preceive, in which you 
 Shakespearopolitans dwell and do your deeds, how- 
 ever mighty and even world-emhraciag. In that 
 little pile up yonder, which I recognize, is enacted 
 the greatest event of olden history whose hero is 
 Julius Caesar, who has had many such residences 
 erected for him on the globe all the way down time, 
 but this is the most famous and impressive, and 
 probably the most lasting of them all. I see it now, 
 it has been familiar from boyhood, but it stands or 
 rather moves vrith other edifices which I do not 
 know. Behold their outlines creep into the mist 
 and then flit in part to the light again, as if play- 
 ing with their spectators! I cannot distinguish 
 them from here, there must be quite a multitude. 
 Tell me how many of these unique halls are clus- 
 tered on yon topV 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 That is more easy to figure than the number of 
 their dwellers. I count thirty-six exactly; I have 
 been in them aU and have seen their chief people ; 
 indeed I have watched the master himself mark 
 his right children, and even catalogue their abodes. 
 
BOOK FIRST.— HORATIO, YOUNG PROSPERO. 167 
 
 Still I have heard hot dispute about the count; 
 my neighbor, Holofernes the philologue, claims to 
 see the thirty-seventh, and some other prying enu- 
 merators have tried to include in the city's walls 
 several indifferent outside shacks. But never mind 
 these vagaries ; confine yourself to the three dozen 
 structures over there. You will find in them dif- 
 ference enough, scaling them upward from the 
 worst to the best. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Look here! right on our path lie three pied 
 rambling shanties all of them stamped with the 
 name of an old unheroic English king. What a 
 lot of rampant nobility ever fighting or getting 
 ready to fight! 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Let them pass for the present. Only young rag- 
 ged Shakespeare can be seen in their make, and he 
 badly patched. No mightily created personages 
 can be found in them notwithstanding their trap- 
 pings and blue blood. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 And here lie three or four structures of a wholly 
 different pattern, whose architecture seems more 
 
168 THE SBAKESPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 drawn out than the other thirty-six — ^less concen- 
 trated, more linear and less rounded. Are they 
 not a significant part of your city? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Personally I deem them not weighty members 
 of our community, except this last to which we 
 have now come. Regard it well, for it is the ex- 
 ceptional group not merely of this quarter, but of 
 the whole city, indeed I may say, of the architect 
 himself. It is hardly a house, but rather the stones 
 of a house, many of them exquisitely sculptured 
 but strown along a very irregular line. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I have noted it well ; I have been counting them 
 as they lie scattered upon our path. One hun- 
 dred and fifty-two separate blocks all of a size and 
 build — a long vertebral column completely un- 
 vertebrated, evidently belonging to some lost or un- 
 born organism; whose it it? "What is it? And 
 here at the end of the tail are two more of them, 
 small caudal joints quite disconnected from the 
 rest. Is it the skeleton of some untimed mega- 
 therion which underlies your whole Shakespear- 
 opolis ? 
 
BOOK FIRST— BORATIO, YOUNG PR08PER0. 169 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Quit your fancy and come down to straight eye- 
 sight : do you not see that man yonder taking shape 
 and darting dimly through these atomic wisps of 
 a shadowy soul-world, of which he seems the very 
 incarnation? That is the builder of this entire 
 city named after him, being none other than "Wil- 
 liam Shakespeare in person, not disguised in his 
 thousand characters, as he is elsewhere. Here he 
 strolls and tells on himself imparting his life in 
 its own reality, flinging out these wee bits of his 
 quivering heart, often gay in simple description, 
 but oftener deep-toned in confession, repentance 
 and expiation. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I would speak with him face to face, or soul 
 to soul. But he lapses, seemingly transformed, 
 vanishing, and in his place coquets gloomily a 
 wfeird, spectral, night-clad woman — ^who? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Look at her well, for she is, to my mind, the most 
 pervasive, yet the most elusive personality in all 
 Shakespearopolis. She is known everywhere as 
 the Dark Lady and has become a kind of second 
 
170 THE SHAEESPEARIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 self of the architect, the woman-sotil of him as it 
 were, being ingrown into his very Genius through 
 the overwhelming potency of his love for her, de- 
 monic though she he. So he has builded her in 
 some phase into all the most imposing temples of 
 this city, though she appears nowhere distinctly in 
 her own person, except as she flits fitfully through 
 these blocks of a house (but no House) a dark 
 shadow pursuing her lover into his most deeply 
 creative moments. Thus she drives him to con- 
 struct afresh many fateful women whom you are 
 yet to witness ever re-enacting their tragic deeds 
 here in their eternal habitations built by their 
 creator. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Then am I to get only this little peep of her 
 clouded face, as she glances out of these brief 
 singing atoms? I would see her whole character 
 presented in action. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 The Master has never sculptured her shape into 
 complete individuality, though he fames her as his 
 Muse, his Siren, yea his soul's dark Temptress 
 whom he has to ban into writ to save himself from 
 her tragedy. 
 
BOOK FIRST— HORATIO, TOVNG PR08PER0. 171 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I would inspect her more closely — but she is 
 gone, turned into a grey strip of cloud-wrack. How 
 disappointing! The slippery witch! 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 You are not the first one unable to catch her — 
 she permits no intimate acquaintance of mortals. 
 But look beyond at the vast variety of folks ! Your 
 forehead wrinkles another interrogation — smooth 
 it out. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Your answer pushes onto my tongue a new 
 question which has kept gurgling through my brain 
 • with a sort of violence : of what people, tribe, na- 
 tion, or race are the inhabitants of this Utopian 
 settlement? It appears the most miscellaneous 
 crowd I ever looked upon, as I spy them shifting 
 in the distance. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 The reply is not so easy as might appear on the 
 surface. Take me for instance; my name is Ital- 
 ian derived from old Latin, my home is in Den- 
 mark, my culture is German, I speak English like 
 a native, they say, and now I am a permanent so- 
 journer of the Magic Isle. So you see I live an 
 
172 TBE 8HAEE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 interrogation, I hardly know myself what I am, 
 or whence or whither. Very douhtful I look to 
 you now, perchance just a philosophic doubt, who 
 has come to doubt his own doubt. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I see that you have studied philosophy to some 
 purpose at the German University of Wittenberg, 
 home of the age 's dubitation ; that may be deemed 
 your pivotal category. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 So let it stand for the preseuL without dispute; 
 my friend Hamlet, the champion doubter of the 
 universe, often twits me on my philosophy. But 
 back to your point: the representatives of many 
 human sorts are installed in these edifices — es- 
 pecially the European man, both from the South 
 and the North, of the Teutonic and the Latin stocks. 
 In fact, the two great cultures of Europe, the 
 Mediterranean and the Transalpine — the one the 
 older and the other the newer; the one more the 
 acquired, the other more the native — ^both are here, 
 and split Shakespearopolis into two quite equal 
 halves, as regards its inhabitants, its spirit, and 
 even its organization. Bach household often di- 
 vides on the same lines — the Latin set, high-toned, 
 foreign-bred, aristocratic; then the Anglo-Saxon 
 
BOOK FIRST— HORATIO, YOUNG PROSPERO. 173 
 
 set, home-bred and home-spun. Yonder peeps what 
 is known as the Midsummer Fairy Palace; go 
 through it and you will find these two extremes, 
 not to speak of the elfish guild, though all the di- 
 verse parts are harmonized into an exquisite little 
 temple of the Muse. Then take my own residence, 
 the spacious Hamlet Palace — ^what a blending of 
 the two epochal civilizations of our continent, the 
 Northern and the Southern, stamped upon the 
 speech, the style, even upon the names of the in- 
 mates, which are Greek, Latin, Italian, French, 
 Teutonic ! In fact, the same dualism often runs 
 through the one individual, interfusing in his 
 character. Again sample me if you will: am I a 
 Norseman or a Latin or some new compound of 
 both? My doubting friends often shift the prob- 
 lem, querying whether I am a philosopher or a 
 poet or both or neither. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 Grive me some more of that dish ; you, the philos- 
 opher, now philosophize yourself and therein top 
 out your own character to oneness, though other- 
 wise so dual. Is nobody else here but you two sets 
 from Roma and Teutonia? 
 
 Horaiio. 
 Your interrogatory opens up a new line of hu- 
 man division, yea of intense conflict, namely of 
 
174 THE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PART SECOTfD. 
 
 race. Anything of that in Shakespearopolis? 
 Hardly could it be kept out if the maker is re- 
 making man in his social life with all his limits 
 and collisions. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Give some instances; that problem interests me 
 especially as it has already arisen in Atlantis. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Indeed! Well our city here contains a variety 
 of Celts — some Scotch and Irish; but more numer- 
 ously we have the "Welsh represented, who were 
 the Master's neighbors at Stratford. I think too I 
 have noticed in him a gleam of the old border 
 feud between Saxon and Celt. Racial color is not 
 lacking among our citizens, nor the prejudice 
 springing from it ; two Africans I know well ; one 
 a horrible monster, the other a noble heroic char- 
 acter, who under his Italian name Othello is the 
 most famous man of his continent, in spite of Ses- 
 ostris and the old Egyptian worthies with their 
 Sphinxes and Pyramids. Still it was not Africa 
 but Shakespeare who built his massive frame and 
 personality, and put him forever into the grandest 
 Venetian Palazzo ever reared which you will soon 
 see not merely in Venice but in Shakespearopolis. 
 
BOOK FIRST.— HORATIO, TOVNa PR08PER0. 175 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Him and his fate I would like to witness, since 
 numbers of Ms dusky countrymen have been al- 
 ready ferried across the ocean to us for some hid- 
 den purpose of destiny. I cannot myself fathom 
 what lurks in the dark fact. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Some say that Caliban was a black who, before 
 your father came, was properly sole ruler of this 
 Magic Isle, born here though begotten in African 
 Argier of God knows whom. You may still meet 
 him in the paternal mansion of Prospero on the 
 heights of our city, and associate with him on even 
 terms, for by right of birth he too was once a 
 sovereign, as well as yourself. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 What! I on an equality with a darkey! You 
 do not know the Atlantids. I can take Caliban 
 with me only as my colored waiter. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Very well ; time will have to settle that question 
 for you — I cannot. In the future let us not forget 
 the past ; so I would call your attention next to the 
 old Romans who have come to stay and who dwell 
 
176 TEE SEAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 in their own splendid temples perched • conspicu- 
 ously along yonder hillock in the somewhat gloomy 
 bailiwiek of tragedy. In the same vicinity you 
 may note a massive Greek Parthenon, filled with 
 Homeric heroes still -making big speeches and fight- 
 ing little battles over Troy town — Achilles, Hector, 
 fair Helen, the lover Troilus with his faithless 
 Cressid. You can observe even from here that 
 their Parthenon, like the Athenian, is a ruin as if 
 it too had been exploded by a bomb. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 An old Greek temple in Shakespearopolis, and 
 Homer too! Then those huge Roman structures 
 magnificent as Eome herself! Verily the World's 
 History in person is domiciled here for a while 
 to get a new poetic picture taken. Do not fail to 
 introduce me there — I must go backward to the 
 start in order to go forward to the goal. The city 
 already disciplines me to be Cosmopolitan. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Past and present you wiU meet, you being your- 
 self the future. Old and young, both sexes, aU 
 stations, prince and peasant, yea the Time-Spirit 
 itself you wiU face on this spot. The soul of hu- 
 manity gets incarnate in these individuals; aye, 
 the Superman you may hear, even vision him if 
 
BOOK FIRST— HORATIO, 70VNG PROSPERO. 177 
 
 you have the eye ; to cap all in an anti-elimax the 
 sub-human is figured in this Magic Isle under its 
 own shape which speaks and you have already 
 listened to a little scrap of its message. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Yes, I shall not forget so soon. But tell me, 
 can I ever compass this cosmical city? How shall 
 I go about it? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 You are already on the way, you have taken the 
 first step, you must ask the question before you 
 can ever get the answer. I confess that I have 
 not the key to the last treasure of this city, still 
 it can be reached — ^have faith. I myself am on the 
 way now to find it ; when I came across you down 
 yonder on the sylvan rim of this Magic Isle, I 
 was in hunt of it — soon I shall know what I have 
 gotten, and you of course will have the chance of 
 seeing the result. But I tarry too long. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Wait, I am not ready to let you off yet. A new 
 curiosity has been rising within me for some minu- 
 tes back, prompting this question: what are those 
 other phantoms which I glimpse in certain parts 
 of your city, fleeting here vanishing there — shapes 
 
178 THE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 strange, not altogether human, with a kind of 
 bodUess body. Just before us in this pretty Mid- 
 summer Dream Palace, I note two different sorts 
 of personages — ^those apparently real like your- 
 self, those apparently unreal yet spooking about 
 in their own airy forms, now visible, now iavisi- 
 ble. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 You strike a new matter which I have thought 
 of mentioning though dif&cxilt and quite intangi- 
 ble. Still I shall try to give you some conception. 
 There are two worlds in this Magic Isle, the Up- 
 per and the Lower — the one often called the super- 
 natural, the other the natural — ^the former being 
 made up of ghosts, fairies, witches, and similar 
 appearances, the latter of ordinary human beings 
 after our pattern. But the difiSeutly is that both 
 kinds of folk are phantoms, souls, ideas, incorporeal 
 schemes; two eidolons they disport themselves, 
 human and extra-human, intermingling and deter- 
 mining each other in various ways. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 What a play fantastical! two cities here, one 
 above the other, peopled of two different worlds or 
 perchance planets and both ideal! The thought 
 cracks my skull to get inside. 
 
BOOK FIRST.— HORATIO, TOVNG- PR08PER0. 179 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Hard at first, but if you go on you will make 
 the round. Once more take me : I am a phantom, 
 but quite a real one, more real in myself now than 
 if in the flesh. Young Hamlet too is a ghost, but 
 his father is the ghost of a ghost, appearing to 
 ghosts. And let me here make a confession: that 
 ghost of Hamlet's father troubles me yet, quite 
 as when I first saw it striding the castle 's platform 
 at Elsinore. It even scared me though a soldier 
 who has waged the bloody tilt of war; but worse 
 still, I as a philosopher ought not to see ghosts, 
 yet they dart up crossing my path when I least 
 expect them, and take captive my imagination be- 
 fore my reason can put up a fight. The fact is I 
 have to live in a haunted house, just that spacious 
 Danish Palace ; indeed all Shakespearopolis may be 
 said to be spectre-ridden just through this Upper 
 "World. The Prince twits me on my ghost-seeing 
 philosophy, yet I cannot philosophize the fact 
 down. But if I try to speak Latin to the appari- 
 tion, it will not answer me and be laid, but stalks 
 off and starts to talking English with young Ham- 
 let, superb English for a Dane who never was in 
 England. And so it upsets me all around, as a 
 scholar, a soldier, and a philosopher — ^that damned 
 ghost of Hamlet; for this expletive is not blank 
 
180 TEE 8EAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 swearing, since the spectre by its own confession 
 has proclaimed itself as damned to HeR-fire for 
 its crimes, and I often repeat the damnation of it 
 on my own account. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 You make me shiver. I wonder how I can stand 
 the shock of meeting with all these spooks. But 
 first let me know how large is your spectral popu- 
 lation ? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 It is considerable, if you reckon all its diverse 
 shapes. Still I can give no exact numerical count ; 
 and what makes the reckoning more uncertain, this 
 supernatural element sometimes manifests itself in 
 the natural man and not in its own form. Still 
 this Upper World is not peopled here so densely 
 as the Lower. Then there are some mansions 
 that have no spectral occupants at aU; others con- 
 fine such a member of their household to one room 
 or perchance one corner; thus the Roman Palace 
 of Julius Caesar has only a single rather small ap- 
 parition, though the whole house is invisibly sibi- 
 lant with a supernatural whispering from doorstep 
 to garret. Our Hamlet Mansion gives up one large 
 apartment, indeed quite the entire reception-room 
 to its ghostly visitant. 
 
BOOK FIRST.— HORATIO, YOVNG PR08PER0. 181 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Point me out, if you will, the chief abodes 
 ruled by these denizens of the Upper "World in your 
 city. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 That I can do without much difficulty. As I 
 have often experienced, there are three mansions in 
 which these supernatural beings possess a peculiar 
 prominence and authority — ^we may well call them 
 the dominating powers of each house's economy. 
 These are the happy-making Dream Palace already 
 mentioned, with its Fairies; then the tragic "Witch 
 Palace yonder with its so-called "Weird Sisters; 
 finally the Spirit Palace with its Ariel and his 
 spectral band. This last is the home of your 
 famous father, whose name you bear and whose 
 chief designation of sovereignty is that of Magician 
 or Spirit^Compeller. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 And such is my inheritance in this city! I 
 wonder if I can ever take possession. But tell me 
 who is the creator of this unearthly Upper World ? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 The same Genius who created our earthly Lower 
 World. Or rather he re-created what had already 
 
182 TBE 8BAEE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 been given him by Ms folk — the realm of fairies, 
 spirits, witches, even deities ; just as we men, being 
 given him once as the creatures of Nature, have 
 been re-created by him and settled here in the 
 manifold edifices of his one great metropolis. Thus 
 our architect has built around us a double world, 
 hinting perchance the Here and the Beyond, or 
 the twofold character of our humanity, the sensed 
 and the supersensible. From this angle you may 
 see that our city is a huge man, possibly the Super- 
 man with his cosmieal dualism into the seen and 
 the unseen, or real and ideal. And I may add 
 that the poet has to remake the made mythical 
 world over into his own. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 That is about as much philosophy as I can carry 
 at one load. But I would like to know something 
 more of that high structure of my father which 
 you described as perched above all the other pala- 
 ces and habitations of the city, and as it were 
 overlooking them in a kind of grand retrospect 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 And of grander prospect. But how can I ex- 
 plain that transcendent Spirit-temple without 
 philosophizing? In building it the poet is himself 
 the philosopher incarnate or made sensible; Ariel 
 
BOOK FIRST— HORATIO, YOUNG PR08PER0. 183 
 
 the aerial and his airy folk are the instruments of 
 the ruler Prospero in bringing forth all the events 
 of this Magic Isle, and hence of erecting this en- 
 tire city. And I hold that Prospero by means of 
 Ariel is the right creator, aye the very father of 
 the thousand people of Shakespearopolis who are 
 therefore your brothers and sisters, and whom as 
 your next of kin you ought to get acquainted with 
 and to love. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 "What say you! in my veins courses the blood 
 of all your villanous men and all your Satanic 
 women ! And do you expect me to associate with 
 the blackamoors of your conglomerate burg? See 
 me going down to yon gore-smeared palace of An- 
 dronicus with its eight murders, even if it be of 
 imperial Eome, and there saluting that African 
 Aaron not only as my equal but as my own 
 brother, and then fondling, perchance kissing his 
 bastard negro baby, monstrous fruit of adultery 
 with a white queen. I shall hurry back to Atlantis 
 at once rather than stand such an orgy of dishonor. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Well, call yourself of my race or my brother if 
 it pleases you better. I foresee that you have much 
 self-knowledge to acquire ere you are done with 
 
184 TEE 8EAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 our Houses of Tragedy; plainly your sympathies 
 are now under training to transcend many a limit. 
 Fearful visitations of fate you will witness and 
 overcome through recognizing them in the provi- 
 dential order. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Yes, I grant that I must hold out or lose my 
 whole inheritance, not even seeing my parent. But 
 more deeply drives my ambition which you have 
 roused: I must catch the lineaments of that Dark 
 Lady, the uncharactered character and the secret 
 propelling power of the Master's Genius in its 
 mightiest works. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 But look! who is that air-bodied shape? None 
 other than Ariel himself fleeting hitherward in a 
 new guise, for he has the power of taking every 
 form under Heaven. But I must be gone, I am not 
 on good terms with him. "We had a quarrel once 
 when I as philosopher said he did not exist to his 
 very face. Though I philosophized him out of 
 existence and proclaimed he had no business to be 
 at aU, still here he turns up again. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I do not see him in the direction of your look. 
 Point him out to me. 
 
BOOK FIRST.— HORATIO, YOUNG PR08PER0. 185 
 
 Eoratio. 
 
 You will hear him soon, ensconce yourself he- 
 side this little hush; he will tell on himself, for 
 he is gifted with self-knowledge, and will not fail 
 to impart somewhat of his gift to you. Also some 
 new people, probahly visitors, seem to be approach- 
 ing in the distance for his guidance through these 
 parts. You too may be able to enroll yourself 
 among them and obtain his interpretation which 
 is of another sort compared with mine, and moves 
 in a different realm. Sit down on this moss and 
 wait; I shall see you again, but good-bye now. 
 
186 THE SHAKE SPEABI AD.— PART SECOND. 
 
 Scene Foueth. 
 
 The third entrance to the city is huUt above the 
 others and cannot be reached from below, but from 
 the highest parapet. The welkin over it takes 
 many cloud-shapes glinted through with sunshine. 
 Winged figures fantastic toss spheres as if playing 
 with worlds or at world-making, then suddenly 
 vanish. This is known as the Overgate which opens 
 the way to Prospero's temple, and which Ariel 
 now approaches returning from his errand to Pros- 
 pero's son. 
 
 Ariel (to himself). 
 
 Here is the spot where Prospero hade me wait 
 "When he dismissed me but an hour since; 
 This entrance has a look familiar, 
 Methinks I once did help construct it 
 When I was held as the monarch's slave 
 Years agone when he first arrived here. 
 I have circled the city's waU in my flight 
 And stand before this uppermost passage 
 Known as Prospero's Portal or the Overgate 
 To many-charactered Shakespearopolis. 
 Its arch hangs down from above sky-blent 
 And its lifting pillars soar up in a flight ; 
 Hither the way cannot be won afoot 
 
BOOK FIRST.— ARIEL AND PROSPERO. 187 
 
 Only he who can. fly may enter this passage 
 Borne by the wing-stroke of Phantasy: 
 But here comes Prospero on his staff supported 
 Caressing his Book of magical script. 
 
 Prospero (appears). 
 
 Thou, Ariel, hast returned from the ploughing 
 
 ship 
 To which I bade thee flit over the waters 
 As the spirit conductor to my son 
 Who anight be meandering pathless hitherward 
 On the swaying sea-line from Atlantis. 
 Hast thou found him and brought him along? 
 I see him not. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 I delayed you too long at our happy meeting. 
 Already arrived he had in our Isle 
 The vessel danced moored far out on the waves, 
 I winged to it with one flap of my pinions, 
 But he already had rowed alone to the shore. 
 The sailors, fearing to land on the Magic Isle, 
 Had refused to lift him a paddle in succor, 
 And I could not help spending a minute of fun 
 In scaring those spook-ridden mariners 
 Till they all ran screaming down into the hold 
 A mingled mass of prayer and profanity. 
 For I suddenly flashed a meteor 
 
188 THE BHAKE8PEABIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 And rumbled and rocked like an earthquake, 
 Then strode the deck a rhinoceros fire-hreathing, 
 Whereat I lightly skipped off into nothingness. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Very well for your fantastic drollery 
 With which you as a spirit divert me ; 
 But what has become of my boy, my boy? 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 He had found another guide, Horatio, 
 
 Who was better than I for his training. 
 
 For just that youthful moment's message; 
 
 And so I left him listening to Hamlet, 
 
 With a sympathy tuned from first deep experience. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Let him stay for a time under such guidance; 
 
 Horatio I know is seeking the turn 
 
 Which will unravel Hamlet's last mystery, 
 
 And lead him the way mediative 
 
 That he be able to meet fate's mortal stroke 
 
 With his soul's remedial eounterstroke 
 
 Undoing the poison of his being's malady. 
 
 But didst thou not overhear in thy spirit's mask 
 
 My son's thoughts and read too his mind? 
 
BOOK FIRST— ARIEL AND PR08PER0. 189 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 I heard his desire to know this city 
 
 And to rise to his father's lofty abode; 
 
 But chiefly his heart was printed with Claribel, 
 
 Whose name throbbed with love on his quivering 
 
 lips; 
 Her to win appeared the goal of his journey, 
 Though Horatio failed not to say him her story 
 At which the tear-drops told on his sorrow. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Let him stay in his school for the present, 
 
 Much he is learning of man and of woman 
 
 His life-long acquaintances fated to be. 
 
 But thee, my Ariel, now I am to promote. 
 
 Since thou hast fervently asked for new service; 
 
 The conductor of souls I appoint thee, 
 
 As thou wert here present at their conception 
 
 By the high artificer of this city 
 
 "Whose chief instrument thou wert allotted to be 
 
 Through thy gift of quick flight far-reaching 
 
 In response to his vision creative; 
 
 Thou knowest them well and their quality, 
 
 Their right intermediary thou art by nature. 
 
 And so I empower thee with a new office. 
 
 To guide future throngs sight-seeing our city. 
 
190 THE SHAKESPEABIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Have you, master, forgotten my prayer? 
 
 I would be human ttat I may love. 
 
 Aye as mortal accepting my share of death 
 
 That I partake of man's passionate being; 
 
 At the risk of sinning and its fierce judgment 
 
 I would be humanized into a lover. 
 
 So urgent beats my philanthropy. 
 
 Halve me, sex me, make me even a Caliban 
 
 Chained to a brutish body transgressive 
 
 That I may love, sin, and repent 
 
 Fighting mine own human way up to Heaven. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Such a task cannot be laid on my Magic, 
 Thou must free thyself in thine own evolution 
 Ere I can put seal to thy freedom. 
 But now I shall mark thy discipline's course: 
 Be thou the guide to these souls of our city, 
 As thou art one of their number thyself; 
 Speak thou their voice to all our visitors 
 Making thyself the soul of their souls, 
 For thou sharest the Psyche ever pervasive. 
 And art in thine own the round of its being 
 Which is the poet's essence and mine and this 
 
 people's. 
 Yea even of God it is the deep doing 
 
BOOK FIRST.— ARIEL AND PBOSPERO. 191 
 
 Whose evangel now thou art to proclaim. 
 So thee I induct to a new office: 
 The Psychagogue of Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 The title sounds me already desperate 
 As one of your fathomless magical runes 
 Which spell the hid lore of your Book. 
 But tell me the start of my new vocation. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Pass the span of this nebulous Overgate, 
 
 And thou shalt face the first glint of the sunrise 
 
 Smiling thee forward upon thy young path. 
 
 Hark! all outsiders hither are pushing 
 
 Over each hemispherical curve of the glohe; 
 
 And methinks I sight some strangers approaching 
 
 Out of the azured distance : Ha ! here they troop ! 
 
 Now to thy office, my dear Psychagogue; 
 
 But I must away to my temple above 
 
 Where I foresee my Book wiU soon be fulfilling 
 
 Many a page of its magical writ. 
 
192 THE SBAKESPEARIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 Scene Fifth. 
 
 {After tJie departure of Prospero, Ariel Jias his 
 first experience in his new office.) 
 
 The Psychagogiie (to himself). 
 
 High Prospero has bidden me hitherward 
 To a new approval of my faculty 
 Upon this citizenry of pure souls 
 Whose homes are those translucent mansions yon- 
 der. 
 Long years have run since first I served him here 
 Within the magic precinct of this Isle; 
 Having escaped through him the heU of Sycorax 
 I then became his spirit servitor, 
 But when my bonded time had sped away 
 He turned me over to my liberty 
 From whose outlawry I have now come back, 
 Fleeing the jail of mine own anarchy 
 Into the freedom of my ordered self, 
 Which is to serve this instituted world 
 And thus be winning every day my worth. 
 Here stands a wanderer prying his way, 
 I shall now shape myself before his eye. 
 Since multitudinous forms I can assume; 
 Shakespeare himself sometimes I shall take on, 
 
BOOK FIRST— THE PSYCHAGOGVE. 193 
 
 Even voicing his Genius at highest tide, 
 Then falling to my psychagogic task 
 As cicerone for these visitors. 
 
 Pilgrim (steps up). 
 
 Friend, you appear a native of this place; 
 I from afar have made my pilgrimage, 
 Tell me the lore which wreathes around this shrine. 
 Which in me holy adoration stirs. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 List, then, the lesson first to be impressed: 
 Here dwells a spirit folk which never died. 
 Nor passed by way of man's mortality 
 Into the realm of disembodied souls. 
 From which at times they say the form returns. 
 But if men here may die, they vanish not, 
 They stay forever dying, never dead, 
 For death is now a show, unreal, undone. 
 With his own mortal evanescence sealed. 
 Hamlet, though he be slain a thousand times. 
 Comes back and lives anew his riddling life 
 Which can be seen by you, the visitors. 
 Viewing the staged world of Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Methiaks I witness in this ghostly town 
 
 The very self of immortality. 
 
 But tell me more of how it was ever built. 
 
194 TSE SBAEESPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 This city was created at first hand 
 
 By its artificer poetical 
 
 Pouring his shapes eternal through his pen 
 
 And building too their edifices fair 
 
 Until they make a populated world, 
 
 Which hangs adown from yon Acropolis. 
 
 Ghostly they seem, but are the realest 
 
 Of all humanity yet born on earth ; 
 
 The true Immortals of the race are lodged 
 
 Within the mansions round this builded summit 
 
 With personality enduring gifted. 
 
 I speak my ofiSce like old Mercury, 
 
 The interlinking messenger who heralds 
 
 You who are due as hostages to death 
 
 And those who never die though men they be 
 
 In re-enacting every human lot. 
 
 Ye mortal visitors, I introduce 
 
 You living still to your immortal selves. 
 
 The rarest counterparts of your own souls 
 
 With whom you ought to get acquainted now, 
 
 A city peopled with essential man. 
 
 Make friends with these Shakespearopolitans, 
 
 A populace unique upon this globe, 
 
 Appropriate it all into yourselves, 
 
 Then is my psyehagogic function filled. 
 
BOOK FIRST— TEW PSTCHAQOGUE. 195 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 You have to me forecast what deepest lies 
 Within my will to reach my being's goal, 
 "Which shall include the wealth of all this Isle 
 And e'en the might creative of its maker. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 Then let me take your spirit by the hand 
 
 And lead the Ariel winged of yourself, 
 
 Whom I do recognize with kinship's glance, 
 
 Through this transparency of palaces 
 
 Built of the solid sheen of fantasy. 
 
 And through this multitude of all-souled folk 
 
 Which undisguises man's disguised self 
 
 Whose darkest secret tells just what it is. 
 
 But you will have to let your Caliban 
 
 Whom you must know as your sensed life's own 
 
 twin, 
 Sleep silently within his den of clay 
 Lest he becloud the city with revolt 
 Refusing it the high supremacy 
 And gulling you of all your journey's worth. 
 
 Scholarch. 
 
 But Caliban too is a spirit here, 
 
 As well as the bright-pinioned Ariel, 
 
196 TEE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Although they he of essence opposite ; 
 
 Such is the schooling which I hither bring. 
 
 Of both these people I have duly read 
 
 As vassals in the realm of Prospero, 
 
 Denatured shapes they flitted through my brain, 
 
 And left me well bedeviled with confusion, 
 
 Since for them I could find no precedent 
 
 In Fauns and Hamadryads mythical, 
 
 Though I pored over all antiquity 
 
 To see those creatures twain described as fact, 
 
 And in the poet's book of characters 
 
 I could not dig their right examplars up. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 And never thought of taking a sly peep 
 Into that honest looking-glass of yours 
 In which you might see both mirrored to life. 
 But bring us now, thou valiant Psychagogue, 
 Into the maker's soul of all these souls; 
 Descend with us down to the bottom last 
 Where his creative workshop germs in night. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 Hear, then, the prelude to his character: 
 Shakespeare is double, there are two of him; 
 The one is down below in London there. 
 The money-maker and the business man, 
 
BOOK FIRST— THE P8YCHAG0GVE. 197 
 
 Director of theatrical affairs, 
 
 The thrifty purchaser of properties, 
 
 And so he waxed in wealth and craved a title 
 
 Tricked with the sign of pompous heraldry; 
 
 A joUy reveler in wit and wine 
 
 He held the throne of frolic sovereignty 
 
 Whose tC'inple was the redolent Mermaid Inn 
 
 Fumed with the incense from the offerings 
 
 Of drink poured out a hundred fragrant flagons 
 
 Down singing throats to tickle up the Muse, 
 
 Who flung her brightest gems in tipsy mood 
 
 And rollicked out in wassail sweetest notes 
 
 Mellowing all to tender comradery. 
 
 "Enough of this for once," would Shakespeare 
 
 shout, 
 "This eve I have to tread the boards with Dick 
 The incarnation of my many souls. 
 Arid give him hints to make the inner outer." 
 For Shakespeare was an actor too, not great; 
 He sunk too much within to be outside. 
 But left to Burbage all the outward sheen 
 Of movement, voice, with play of mien and eye. 
 
 Pilgrim. 
 
 Dear Mercury of this new Olympian world, 
 Tell us about the upper Shakespeare now 
 As architect of this his city own. 
 
198 TEE SBAEE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 He never could amid the Mermaid's brawl 
 Have built or even planned tbese palaces 
 Whose art bespeaks him at his deepest self 
 In solitary grandeur of his thought. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 The inner actor of all men he rose 
 Transcendent, he could creep into their souls, 
 But not so well into their masks of flesh. 
 Could make the very person talk and act 
 Pushing down through his goose-quiU into ink. 
 And he could mould a consciousness new-born 
 So that it rounded fuU its whole career 
 From its first worded germ to the capping deed; 
 His vision lay within the Light of light. 
 His day dawned of the Sun of all the suns 
 Which you see strown through yonder starlit dome 
 Tapping creation new of man and woman. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Leave her not out of your Creator's work, 
 In which she still must play the part of Eve 
 Mothering all mankind in soul and body. 
 Yet with the age's new maternity; 
 Time's last discovery will be the mother. 
 And man has yet to find that God is woman. 
 
BOOK FIRST— THE P8YCHAG0GVE. 199 
 
 Scholarch. 
 
 That runs beyond all my transmitted lore, 
 And in defiance of Time's sanctioned wont 
 Tends to dethrone authority divine 
 Which always has crowned sovereign the male, 
 E'en here in womaned Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Whose maker is the father and the mother, 
 And doth create each sex with equal love. 
 
 Pilgrim. 
 
 This seems a ghostly resurrected world 
 And to myself I turn a phantom too. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 A risen folk I cite who have not died 
 
 Though some have feigned their death upon the 
 
 stage. 
 But in the mortal act stay still alive ; 
 They cannot slay themselves, stab as they may, 
 And I confess myself a spectre too. 
 
 Pilgrim. 
 But shall we not behold the architect — 
 The man himself whose structures we perceive? 
 He too must be a soul among these souls, 
 The character of all his characters. 
 
200 THE 8HAEE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 That question stirs my thankfulness, 
 
 It tells the very purpose of my task: 
 
 To make you see the soul's artificer 
 
 In the artificer's own soul inscribed; 
 
 His many works are just one work at last, 
 
 Three dozen plays a single play, 
 
 Of which his life is the right argument. 
 
 The poet is himself his poem true 
 
 His deepest song his own biography. 
 
 The round of life he makes in what he writes 
 
 Be it his tragedy or comedy. 
 
 Or both in one — a tragi-comedy — 
 
 For his right drama is all three as one 
 
 Cycling the circumstance entire of life. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 The woman fain would know her seal of fate 
 "With which the maker brands aU womanhood. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 The body not alone is stamped with sex. 
 
 To him the soul is also sexual, 
 
 And wears such superscription as its lot. 
 
 The living universe is sexed all through, 
 
 His plays are sexed and likewise are his words, 
 
 Else would there be no love, no love of love 
 
BOOK FIRST.— THE PSYCBAGOGVE. 201 
 
 Which revels in its written ecstasy 
 
 And gives the dearest theme to lettered art 
 
 Whose acme is our Shakespearopolis. 
 
 The woman-soul is set the center here 
 
 In love, in hate, and then in hate's atonement. 
 
 Scholarch. 
 
 Quote me the words in which I may read that, 
 I can do nought without the letter's text. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 If you go with us you can hear him all — 
 
 Him both the one and the other Shakespeare too. 
 
 But the other Shakespeare is my light and love, 
 
 The maker of this lofty polity. 
 
 Creator of these individuals. 
 
 And builder of them in societies, 
 
 Which you will see each in its separate home. 
 
 Yet all at last form one community 
 
 Whose whole you must conceive as well as parts 
 
 That you yourself be helped to manhood whole. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 But tell me this, thou teacher integral. 
 How can I unify this varied realm 
 And make it over into mine and me? 
 
202 THE 8HAKESPEARIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 Such crown of worth is what I fain would pluck, 
 And carry with me to Atlantis far 
 That I not merely know this world created 
 But can myself it re-create anew. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 Then listen to my doctrine's final word: 
 
 This city is the builder's deepest Self 
 
 Thrown out into these fair appearances; 
 
 It is the very process of his soul 
 
 "Where we commune with it in its last depth. 
 
 Mark well! this structure is a soul 
 
 Which stamps its pattern on each single part, 
 
 And shows its movement psychical in all 
 
 Which I the Psychagogue, am to reveal. 
 
 And thus deserve my calling and my name. 
 
 Scholarch. 
 
 Tell what edition do you use for that? 
 
 And I would like to jot the page and line. 
 
 Then give us why your generosity 
 
 Upheaves so mountainous an overture? 
 
 Due hints you now have said about yourself, 
 
 But I would know the dated history, 
 
 The facts exact concerning this famed author, 
 
 The days of birth and death and times of things. 
 
 The truth of which to trace I hither travel. 
 
BOOK FIRBT.—TBE PSYGHAOOQVE. 203 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 Time counts but little in my airy flight 
 When I can zone the glohe in one brief thought. 
 But come, we squander Sol's good gift in talk, 
 Let us drop down our speculative height 
 And rest our ideal eyes on solid fact. 
 Whose bravest spectacle you next shall view. 
 Shakespeare has built a Venice of his own 
 And filled it with his magic palaces 
 That they appear but one Palazzo grand 
 Peopling them all with spirits of his brain 
 Till that Venetian world seems but a speU, 
 The enchanted mirage imaging his soul. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Can we not see that magic Venice first 
 Holding its mirror up to Italy, 
 To Italy the beautiful in gala-dress? 
 
 Psychogogue. 
 
 You have forestalled my plan in your right wish. 
 
 Here is the grand Palazzo just at hand. 
 
 Enter and swim its panoramic stream 
 
 From its first fount down to its happy close; 
 
 You are at top of luck, for you will see 
 
 The architect himself mid his own task 
 
 And hear him tell about his handiwork 
 
204 THE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Conceived at sight of its Venetian home. 
 Here on the Campanile let us stand 
 And watch the living trilogy unroU. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Is it illusion or the thing itself? 
 
 Are we in view of Venice by the Sea, 
 
 Or dreaming of your rainbowed Shakespearopolis? 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I wonder if in trance I am, or love; 
 I cannot rightly say whose I am I. 
 
pook ^econb 
 
 The Venetian Trilogy 
 
 ARGUMENT 
 
 The action parses to Venice which the poet has 
 taken as the scene of one of his best comedies, 
 "The Merchant of Venice," and of one of his 
 greatest tragedies, "Othello, the Moor of Venice." 
 To these two Ariel has added a third, a tragi- 
 comedy or mediated play, "Cymbeline," whose 
 scene is partly in Italy and partly in Britain, but 
 whose deepest purport is found to be the com- 
 plement and fulfilmeint of the other two, thus 
 constituting the Venetian Trilogy of Shakespear- 
 opolis. Moreover each of these dramas centers 
 in a female character, though they all have been 
 named after male characters. So the bold Psycha- 
 gogue, our Ariel, seeking ever to stress the poet's 
 passional life, has dared to re-name all three from 
 their leading women. But here he comes to speak 
 in his own person. 
 
 (205) 
 
206 TBE SHAKEBPEABIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Prologue (spoken by Ariel) . 
 
 Now I as the soul-borne Psychagogue, 
 The herald of this city indwelt of souls, 
 Home of breath-bodied personalities, 
 Shall lead you first to the triple pageant 
 Named the Master's Venetian Trilogy, 
 Attuned to the pomp and splendor of Venice 
 Where it plays loftily staged to all time. 
 Ye who have hitherward come to behold it, 
 , Prom the East and West and whencesoever, 
 I exhort you to look with your mind's eye. 
 And not be tricked by magnificent jugglery 
 Betraying your reason to shows of sense: 
 You have to glimpse through their shadow the 
 
 soul 
 Indwelling the beautiful body. 
 
 Before you will pass as a spectacle 
 
 Three fame-wreathed women immortal. 
 
 The bright Damozel and the dark and the blessed. 
 
 Triple crown of Venetian Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Each of them is herself in person. 
 
 Yet they all will at last be witnessed 
 
 Forming together one loftier round 
 
 Supereminent of character 
 
 Above each individual. 
 
 Three Shakespearian spirits of women 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY. 207 
 
 Bnskyed in all the glory of Venice 
 But endowed with the self's own daring potency- 
 Link to one full cycle of womanhood, 
 Portia, Desdemona, Imogen, 
 A Trilogy telling of feminine fate, 
 All diverse yet intergrown to a oneness 
 Which likens afar the Creator's own soul. 
 "Watch ye then, the three women transcendent 
 Eise and transfuse of their own higher selves 
 To the one mightier personality 
 Over each of them singly and sole, 
 All conjoined in the poet's Olympian household 
 As the super-woman colossal. 
 Who rules the farthest flight of his Genius 
 And is the semblance herself of his life's com- 
 pletion. 
 Next turn outward your glances 
 And pour them on yonder triple edifice, 
 The visioned Venetian phantasmagory 
 Which uprears out of the layered lagoons. 
 And reposes in lit iridescence of marhle 
 Along the isles of the Adriatic. 
 Here dwell the three wonderful women 
 In their triune temple of splendor 
 Built by the high artificer's magic 
 As the Trilogy architectonic. 
 To be the worthy abode of their action 
 Preluding the grandeurs of Shakespearopolis. 
 
208 TEE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART FIRST. 
 
 What a procession of sunbeams dances around us 
 
 On the kissing air and over the laughing sea, 
 
 Mid a tumultuous frolic of rainbows ! 
 
 The whole world is a festival daily 
 
 And man turns the reveler mottled 
 
 In the thronged masquerade of palaces, 
 
 Which winds in tortuous sweeps along the canals 
 
 Ever admiring itself in its watery mirror. 
 
 But mark again the ways of the women three 
 
 And peer down into their hearts! 
 
 There you will find another Trilogy 
 
 Most compelling and deepest of their sex, 
 
 The driving-wheel of their destiny 
 
 Which whelms them first to be themselves 
 
 In their own right of human primacy — 
 
 It is their Trilogy bonded of Love 
 
 Installed in these lofty palaces, 
 
 And building them ever to life anew. 
 
 For each palace is a lover at last 
 
 So is Venice, all Italy, all England, 
 
 Aye, a lover is Shakespearopolis 
 
 From foundation up to its loftiest tower; 
 
 The elemental passion of woman 
 
 Is its throb supreme and governance 
 
 Leaping forth of a sudden unheralded; 
 
 She knows not why or whence or for what. 
 
 But finds her being engulfed in a look. 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY. 209 
 
 Driven to choose her sex's counterpart 
 
 By a hidden energy hurled resistless 
 
 From the first sources of being. 
 
 Thus hymns in the heart of the Damozels three 
 
 Primal Love as the overture 
 
 "Which attunes their career heroic, 
 
 And bears them on to its destined close, 
 
 Happy or hapless or hap-transcending. 
 
 For there comes the fiery test of Love, 
 
 With its more fiery protest 
 
 Against the parent who seeks to command it; 
 
 So it befalls that each of the Damozels three 
 
 Has her first fight with her father's will, 
 
 In defence of her heart's fond choice. 
 
 All are protagonists loyal of Love, 
 
 Shakespeare is their vindicator, 
 
 Himself the very lover of Love 
 
 In building this Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Yet each of the passioning women three 
 
 Has her own character several stamped 
 
 Upon their one-souled Trilogy, 
 
 Making their inmost heartbeat the stage 
 
 On which is played to many a varying throb 
 
 Their triple-fated action 
 
 With trinity of poetic forms — 
 
 Comedy, Tragedy, aye Tragi-Comedy — 
 
 Which interwind into one great argument 
 
 Reflecting the round of the poet's own soul-world 
 
210 TBE SBAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 In the shapes of the grand Damozels 
 
 Who play the pandrama of Shakespearopolis. 
 
 But let us note the Muse's architect, 
 
 As he scans the outside appearance 
 
 Of the magical city uprisen. 
 
 The poet himself is now present, 
 
 Who is to rehuild his loved Venice forever 
 
 Into his gorgeous palatial Trilogy, 
 
 That it stand unworn of nibhling Time 
 
 Which pitiless crumbles proud marble of grandeur. 
 
 Not on a sudden does he construct it, 
 
 But through aU his days runs his labor. 
 
 From youth's downpour of merriment 
 
 To age's meditative wisdom, 
 
 Reflecting the rounded sweep of his years 
 
 As his total spirit unfolds in his work; 
 
 Thus he builds the whole course of his life 
 
 Into his triple poetical structure 
 
 Mirroring the fuU revolution 
 
 Of his Genius entire in its achievement. 
 
 That we behold shaped into this Trilogy 
 
 His life's cycle in one image's whirl, 
 
 Forecast of his total Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Thus it arrives thai the high-throned Damozels three 
 
 Envisage to us not only themselves, 
 
 But the entire city of which they are part, 
 
 And yet more deeply, the inner movement 
 
 Revealing the poet's own landing-places 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY. 211 
 
 As he lived and wrought out his destiny 
 In a clasp with the ordered world of his era. 
 But just behold! he steps forth in person 
 Having journeyed from London to Venice 
 That he witness Italy's wealth and wonder 
 Lit in his deep-set poetical eyes, 
 And commune in spirit with her renascence, 
 As she rises new-bom from her storied past 
 Ee-enacting her antique glory. 
 
 Pandora. 
 Let me become all your three grand Ladies, 
 The bright and the dark and the blessed. 
 And live full their lives in mine own 
 Transfigured to writ. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 I would marry aU three of your high Damozels, 
 The bright and the dark and the blessed, 
 And bear them away to my home in Atlantis 
 To build them a newer Prosperopolis 
 Could their three loves but melt into harmony. 
 
 Pandora. 
 Shame on you! a polygamous household! 
 Without just the one, hundreds and hundreds are 
 none. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Peace! Watch the wise of the Master. 
 
212 THE SEAKESPEARIAD.—PAItT SECOND. 
 
 The Venetian Trilogy 
 
 PORTIA 
 
 (Location is at Venice on the Piassa San Marco 
 over whicTi are moving throngs of people repre- 
 senting all nations and races. Ships are going and 
 coming through the waters of the harbor. Gondo- 
 las are silently gliding in and out the canals of the 
 city; a number of vessels at the quay are getting 
 ready to depart for Belmont, Portia's residence 
 some miles distant. At the crossing appear two 
 English tourists in the act of entering a gondola.) 
 
 Scene First. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Here you are at last my Lord ; I liave been wait- 
 ing for you, while a little freak of melancholy has 
 been trying to amuse me during your absence. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 I hope to take its place and plow your clouded 
 countenance into a laugh with my humors. I was 
 caught in the crowd around the Doge's Palace, and 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOaY, PORTIA. 213 
 
 could not ask my way out through ignorance of 
 the language, till finally I saw the Campanile 
 pointing down to our trysting-place. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 We are not in England, my Lord; here even 
 the street beggars have learnt to talk Italian. And 
 what a large school of them amid this palatial 
 exuberance ! Poverty-pied pomp ! 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 There you are again with your gloomy hypochon- 
 dria in the gayest spot of all earth's gayeties. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 What a strain of transitoriness, of downright 
 mortality streams through all this colossal mag- 
 nificence! The very gorgeousness of the spectacle 
 flashes into mine eyes the sumptuous but waning 
 glories of the setting sun; this rainbow world of 
 churches, palaces, splendid edifices seems to span 
 Heaven's dome a moment and then to fleet into 
 iridescent ruins. Venice lies now a mighty many- 
 tinted sea-shell cast upon this shore, whose living 
 creative part is passing away. Wonderful is her 
 art, making the sublimest picture of evanescence 
 at present visible upon our globe. 
 
214 TEE BEAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 Falconhridge. 
 
 "Well, here is our gondola eliafing the wharf ; let 
 us hop in and be off for Belmont, where to-day is 
 to take place the choice of the caskets, on which 
 depends the winning of the beautiful Venetian 
 heiress, Portia. The device has been published 
 throughout the world and I have come all the way 
 from England to dare fortune, as I have already 
 told you in confidence. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 And I am here to see and to live the story of 
 it which haunts me with its foreboding significance. 
 
 Falconhridge. 
 
 The competition is multitudinous for the hand 
 of the millionaire's daughter who is also a queen 
 of talents in her own right. Behold this mustering 
 of the sea-ships of all peoples, each under its own 
 flag. I mark the pennons of the cities of Italy, of 
 the provinces of Germany along with the banners 
 of Spain, France, Morocco, Arabia. Just look at 
 Europe, Africa and Asia pushing hither to the 
 contest — ^not only the Christian, but the Moham- 
 medan, if I may judge by yonder crescent ensign. 
 It is the world's lottery for the possession of the 
 rich young lady who seems Venice herself to-day. 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 215 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Can you tell me which is the goal — the girl 
 or the gold ? From my brief inspection of Venice, 
 I find it has two main centers, Belmont and the 
 Rialto, that is, love and the ducats. This army 
 of suitors is on hand to capture both at one scoop. 
 "What say you, my Lord? 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 Is there any other business which can bring so 
 many young nobles and gentlemen to this tourna- 
 ment? But tell me what are you doing here, who 
 seem to be outside of to-day's grand enterprise? 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Let me confess to you that I also am conducting 
 a campaign in these parts; I have come hither to 
 win as mine own the fair Portia and her Belmont, 
 and even the Rialto and its money-changers; 
 moreover I hope to carry them all off to England 
 forever. Still I may be able to give you help, so 
 you need not feel the least jealousy toward me on 
 account of my suit for the heiress. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 I shall need your assistance, and that too in 
 the most intimate matter. I have heard you talk- 
 
216 THE 8HAEEBPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 ing Italian, which tongue I do not understand; 
 my only speech is English which is spurned by 
 every ear outside our island. Portia, though 
 learned in languages, has no knowledge of mine, 
 as I have heard upon inquiry. Then I am not 
 versed in the intricacies of these Southern love- 
 affairs, such as I have seen played upon the stage. 
 Only one Italian word I can say by heart, that is 
 amore, and you have taught me that. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Perhaps you can dig up enough Latin for pres- 
 ent use, as you have been at the University. Por- 
 tia as well as most of the educated women of Italy 
 can make love like a Eoman maiden of the olden 
 time ; doubtless she has read all Horace, and could 
 rival Cicero's eloquence in matters of the heart. 
 So dust off your old horn-book and sail in. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 Alas, when at Oxford I never looked at a Latin 
 print, and I forgot even what I had learned at 
 the grammar-school. In athletic sport and the 
 student's carouse I became very erudite, so that 
 I was graduated before my graduation. Then I 
 made a holocaust of all my unknown classical 
 knowledge, thinking that I had finished my course. 
 But behold! here for the first time comes up the 
 
TSE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 217 
 
 use of that old rigmarole of declension and conju- 
 gation, and I must wive through a Latin diction- 
 ary. Is there no other way to wedlock? 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Try your French which is much spoken in Italy, 
 being a sister tongue, and is not yet wholly for- 
 gotten among your fellow nobility of Norman 
 blood. Besides, you have been in Paris where the 
 ear-drum is played upon by the ever-flowing chit- 
 chat of elegant damsels, and soon catches the echo. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 "Worse and worse — ^the horrid nasals of Eng- 
 land's chief enemy! My ancestors fought at 
 Crecy and Agincourt; see my coat of arms which 
 blazons their bravery. I shall not soil my tongue 
 with one French word. 
 
 STiahespeare. 
 
 Doubtless you have good reason. No Latin, 
 Italian, or French for you, only our insular Eng- 
 lish, which is quite tabooed in this cultured South. 
 But I prophesy it to rise the language of the 
 future; I have a secret ambition to make Portia 
 talk it as well I do even if she despises it now; 
 I shall yet bring Portia to love and to wed in Eng- 
 lish. 
 
218 THE 8EAEESPEARIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 That seems to be my chance, only I want you 
 to do it right off. The case presses to-day; then 
 why such postponement? 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 I have myself to get ready, my visit just now is 
 to that end. Still, as the matter stands, I may 
 prop you a little. I can at least jabber my im- 
 perfect Italian for your cause; I took lessons in 
 it of Signor Florio at London, a Waldensian re- 
 fugee, whose phrase-book and dictionary I have 
 brought along and carry in my breast pocket for 
 handy reference. But if Portia should break into 
 Latin at the pinch of the crisis, I might be over- 
 whelmed in the grandiose rush of those ancient 
 love-words. Still I take comfort that I read at 
 the Stratford Grrammar School Roman Ovid who 
 is Cupid's own romancer, and I can anyhow fling 
 one of his hottest amatory hexameters at her head 
 in case of an emergency. Such a verse has a pecu- 
 liar insinuating charm when it rings out in the 
 antique measure. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 Accursed be that old tower of Babel whence 
 sprang all this damnable hodgepodge of tongues. 
 
TEE VENETIAT^r TRILOGY, PORTIA. 219 
 
 At any rate I shall try for the right casket, 
 though my heart begins to bump in a shudder at 
 the prospect. 
 
 SJiakespeare. 
 
 Let me drop another warning: beware of that 
 English spleen for which we are branded 
 throughout the Continent, spleen in dress, speech 
 and conduct. Portia, in accord with her training, 
 her nationality, her time, and her name, is classic 
 in her taste; I dare say she affects and probably 
 loves white sculpturesque simplicity which is now 
 having a great revival here in the South. I am 
 afraid she wiU mock your pied costume — ^your 
 French hose, your Italian doublet, your Teutonic 
 cap. Then your mood is as variegated as your 
 livery, so do your best to simulate a little antique 
 serenity which is the time's fashion, and which 
 cannot fail to be your happy corrective. I have 
 already found these Venetian women to be nat- 
 ural mockers, and their favorite merriment is to 
 mimiek the awkward Northerners like ourselves, 
 who pour over the Alps down into this Italian 
 world to polish off somewhat our native boorish- 
 ness. Nothing has taken hold of me more 
 strongly here than this contrast between the 
 North and the South of our Europe; it has struck 
 into me for good, and grows a division of my very 
 brain-work. 
 
220 THE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 Quite a dissertation on the old while the new 
 presses ns to action. Let us get at the job. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 I have good cause to repeat my admonition: 
 one smack of that English spleen will distaste the 
 broth. I know it, I have a relish of it in myself. 
 
 Falconiridge. 
 
 I recognize it, you are displaying a sample of it 
 now. But what draws my eye is this grand festi- 
 val of gondolas amid which our little craft is 
 rocking responsive to the wavelets. And each 
 prow cuts the ripples toward Belmont. I would 
 like to know who are the chief actors in this mov- 
 ing ampitheater of vessels? 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 I shall ask our gondolier, who is usually the 
 Venetian grab-bag of news. I would wager that 
 in him we can tap all the gossip of the city, and 
 of its intrigues, especially in the matter of love. 
 I notice, too, that he can talk high Italian and is 
 not confined to the popular dialect of the lagoons, 
 which I do not understand. So I can play your 
 dragoman. 
 
THE TENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 221 
 
 Gondolier (hums). 
 
 Vinegia, Vinegia 
 
 CM non ti vede, non ti pregia. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 He is sunk in the spell of his city's fascination 
 and croons dreamily her charm, but I shall wake 
 him up and propound your question. 
 
 Falconhridge. 
 
 What prominent vessel is that driving past us 
 so rapidly — ^most gaily rigged and silken-sailed 
 methinks, decked in flamboyant pennons flapping 
 at us a haughty supremacy? 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 That is the Doge's grand gondola of state which 
 promenades through the canals all the high dig- 
 nataries from abroad. Now it is conveying the 
 Prince of Morocco, the dusky soldier of Africa, 
 over the traject to Belmont that he may try his 
 luck at gaming for the wedding-ring of Portia. 
 A brave fighter, but a braver braggart — ^he claims 
 he slew the Persian Sophy and won three vic- 
 tories over the Sultan Solyman and thus to have 
 humbled all the Orient of the false Prophet. See 
 him fondle his crescent scimetar, by which he 
 
222 TEE SHAKEBPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 swears to his own exploits! Still he condescends 
 to make one apology here in Venice, that is for 
 his tawny skin. 
 
 Falconiridge. 
 
 So an African is to compete with me for the 
 choicest woman of Venice or perchance of Eu- 
 rope! I can catch the chestnut gloss of his rip- 
 pling face from here! Heavens! What if he 
 wins the prize — and over me? 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 Portia has the name of being very tactful and 
 she can take care of him after her own disguise. 
 She must obey her father's will as to the caskets, 
 yet she is going to have her own way. That is the 
 woman's highest art: to submit dutifully to her 
 master, and still to be the master of her master. 
 
 Falconiridge. 
 
 What! do I not see another obfuscate visage 
 yonder glancing toward his tan companion? Does 
 Africa furnish all the great visitors of Venice? 
 Why am I not there in that boat? 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 I glimpse him — a fine fascinating figure quite 
 overtopping in grandeur of look and stature the 
 
TBE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 223 
 
 Moroccan Prince and also the Doge; he is already 
 my hero of them all. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 That is a Venetian general as you see by his 
 uniform, on a furlough from the war in the East 
 where he has gained the highest honor. Indeed, 
 I should call him the most important man in 
 Venice today, standing as he does right on the 
 wavering battle-line between our city and the on- 
 surging Turk, or between Christian Europe and 
 Mohammedan Asia. 
 
 STiakespeare. 
 
 "Who is it? I would like to know his name; of 
 such a character in such a crisis I long to take a 
 lasting impress. I feel my spirit to rise toward 
 him in a personal appropriation. "What an heroic 
 mold! Noblest yet gentlest in bearing military! 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 That is Othello, best soldier of Venice who has 
 risen from the humblest rank to the highest, over- 
 leaping the barrier of race, the most inveterate 
 obstacle in our city. And still the social line is 
 drawn against him, despite great merit and great- 
 er service. 
 
224 TEE SHAKE SPEARI AD.— PART SECOND. 
 
 FcHconbridge. 
 
 Is he, too, going to Belmont to try the lottery of 
 the caskets and perhaps to carry off Portia? 
 What a startling mixture of tribes, nations, races 
 in this courtship of the millionaire's daughter? 
 All the birth-ranks and skin-tints of the world 
 seem trooping hither in this fleet of gondolas! I 
 have a mind to turn around. 
 
 SJiakespeare. 
 
 No, we must hold out now; let no true English- 
 man show his back to this new warfare. Besides, 
 I have to see more of Othello, I must take up his 
 presence visible, and seal it upon my imagina- 
 tion; I have my deepest need of him, he has cap- 
 tured me already. I would make him the most 
 noted African that ever lived. Then I must also 
 look on Portia and vsdtness the choice of the cask- 
 ets, for she appears to me as the grand prize of 
 the age which all peoples are running hither to 
 pick up and appropriate. She means to my 
 thought this question: who is to be the successor 
 of Venice in the world's inheritance, not merely 
 who is to be the winner of her father's estate. 
 Then I interrogate the whole phenomenon more 
 darkly: Is the Venetian heirship to fall to our 
 England? So, my high-blooded comrade, dare to 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 225 
 
 be the forerunner of your country in winning 
 Portia. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 I have only the vaguest notion of what you are 
 dreaming ahout, and my fancy has no flight in 
 that direction. I do not take to your blackamoor 
 as my rival in love. Tell this to the gondolier, 
 and interpret me his answer. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 I can put you to rest on that point. Othello is 
 not going to Belmont to woo fortune in the beau- 
 tiful shape of Portia. He has already wooed and 
 won. Underbreath gossip is humming all through 
 Venice that he has captured the heart of a noble 
 Venetian girl — ^much younger and less sun- 
 tanned than he — so that he does not need to sub- 
 mit his fate to the whim of Portia's caskets. "Why 
 then does he go ? Doubtless as a companion to the 
 Prince of Morocco, who is his cousin, both being 
 of kinship in the same royal African House, which 
 has long been confederate with our city. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 That fact whispers much to me in regard to the 
 weird shimmer of evanishment which seems to 
 glint over all this gorgeous Venetian glory. Self- 
 
226 TEE SHAKESPEABIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 dependent it is no longer, but is upheld by the arms 
 of foreign mercenaries even of a different race. 
 Behold those two dark prophecies yonder talking 
 together, probably of this very matter, 
 
 Fdlconhridge. 
 
 Is it possible — such Heaven-defsdng mis- 
 cegenation! Black-skin carries off the bluest- 
 veined damsel of Venice! Well, their large ves- 
 sel has scudded out of range, having perhaps fifty 
 oarsmen to our one. Dear me, dusky Morocco 
 will reach the goal before white England and have 
 the first chance. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Turn away from that side and look to this where 
 you can see a smaller but even finer craft curling 
 its wake toward Belmont. Important people on 
 it — a beautiful young lady, verily a Titianesque 
 blonde — ^but not a darkey in sight. So you, my 
 lord, may be happy once more. I must ask our 
 cicerone of the paddle who they are. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 That is one of our highest aristocrats, I know well 
 his insignia ; a grave Senator of weight and wealth. 
 His name is Brabantio; in the prow of the boat 
 sitting alone before her father, holds herself erect 
 the fair young maiden Desdemona amid all the 
 
rWE rm^TETIAN trilogy, PORTIA. 227 
 
 tippiBgs of the vessel from side to side; near her 
 on a lower bench crouches her high-born suitor, a 
 blue-blooded booby whom her papa has selected, 
 but she has not — she scorns the pedigree of even 
 the famed old Doge Dandolo, of whose blood he is 
 a scion. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 So she does not choose by the caskets but by the 
 heart straight. She interests me — another case of 
 the maiden obeying love in defiance of the par- 
 ent's will. But speak me if you can, my gondolier, 
 the very syllables of her lover; I have a secret 
 faith in the sound of a name. 
 
 Oondolier. 
 
 None other is he than that grandiose Othello 
 whom we have already seen and titled as he looked 
 at us from the ducal ship of State which has just 
 gone by. Corpo di Dio! I smell a ruse — a runa- 
 way. 
 
 Falconhridge. 
 
 What is that Italian name ? Othello — ^I catch it 
 up before your translation — and I forefeel the 
 meaning — ^that great burly African is your fair 
 maid's chosen. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 How well you begin to understand Italian, by 
 way of the living instinct, I judge, and not through 
 
228 THE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 the dead grammar. But listen again! Our ani- 
 mate guide-book lias a new something to say. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 Do not fail to note in contrast to the blonde 
 Desdemona the dark-haired brunette who is snug- 
 ly ensconced in the stern of the boat, and is toy- 
 ing the red cheeks and the golden locks of a 
 young fellow, her Venetian lover. That's Jessica. 
 
 Fdlconhridge. 
 
 Dark she is, I can see her. By our sooty Splay- 
 foot, is she then a negress? And are we now to 
 hear the counterpart of that first story, namely, 
 a white man love-bonded to a black woman? Tell 
 me, where is this volcano going to erupt? And 
 how wiU these two inter-racial couples be received 
 at Belmont? Shall I have to meet them on terms 
 of equality, perchance in the presence of the cask- 
 ets? And possibly see Portia herself carried of£ 
 by an Ethiopian? 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 Let your fears be calmed at once: Jessica is a 
 Jewess, daughter of Shylock, a wealthy money- 
 lender of the Rialto. It is true that her lover yon- 
 der, little Lorenzo, is a Christian, but easy-going 
 in his faith. 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 229 
 
 Fctlconbridge. 
 
 Another Venetian surprise ' Jew and Christian 
 intermingling here in love and marriage! This 
 city seethes before me as the hottest melting-pot 
 of born distinctions in the whole world ! Methinks 
 I must get out of it or become molten myself. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 So the time runs. All these Venetian girls are 
 inclined to break through their parental and even 
 social leading-strings' "quite like those already 
 named in our talk — 'Desdemona, Jessica and Por- 
 tia too, she who has the woman's finest art of com- 
 bining sweet submission with sweeter freedom. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 My kind of heroines. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 Not mine— I forecast my speedy departure back 
 to my sea-walled England, the tight-rimmed is- 
 land of one race, one tongue, one habitude, and 
 one sauce with pabulum of roast-beef. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Too insular for me, so I have broke through the 
 English straits for Italy, the re-born. See, yon- 
 
230 TBE 8HAKE8PEABIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 der is a Scot in pied plaid, our island is still not 
 one nor its people ; I venture, you can have a bout 
 witli him over Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth 
 who is ours, or over Bruce of Bannockburn. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 "Watch that little blazon on our starboard; it is 
 not of these regions, I never saw it before. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Can it be possible! Has he come too, for Por- 
 tia's suit! the Welch neighbor to my Stratford 
 home! just across the Severn in the mountains of 
 "Wales he has his demesne, the heir of the old King 
 Glendower and the foeman of aU our border. I 
 as a boy have often marched in the trainband to 
 the frontier which he kept in a scare lest he should 
 make a foray. If he knew I was in this boat we 
 might have a tussle between Saxon and Celt right 
 here in the Venetian lagoon. 
 
 Falconhridge. 
 
 My curiosity goes out toward the half-veiled 
 young lady in the next gondola with her seeming 
 page and attendants. But hark to the plaintive 
 song from Brabantio's vessel. I would like to 
 know what makes it so sad over the gay festival. 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 231 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 That melancholy strain undertones to me the 
 whole brilliancy of the scene. I too would fain 
 catch that poesy; we shall again ask our oracle. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 I know by heart that song, I can hum it too; 
 but now it is chanted by the two gondoliers of 
 Brabantio who are choice gleemen; it is a favorite 
 of Venice which seems to feel in it some hap of 
 its own. It rhymes the story of Ginevra, the bride, 
 who in her finest nuptial dress lay down alone on 
 a couch with a lid over it, which drops suddenly 
 and is caught by a spring-lock, whereby she van- 
 ishes mysteriously from the world. After some 
 time she is found lying in the pallor of death amid 
 all her jewels and finery. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 What a premonitory note ! Even the strokes of 
 the oars attune a dirgeful accompaniinent, and 
 the very ripples flow funereal from their blades 
 in melancholy duet. The tragedy of Ginevra, you 
 say ; how it stirs me as the foreshow of fate ! Keep 
 near to that company, my good boatman, I would 
 fain make mine own that song, which bears in it 
 
232 THE 8EAEESPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 an appeal whicli reaches down to my origin, and 
 predestines me to re-enact it in some dread shape. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 Behold on our larboard a new rival who strives 
 to overtake us if not to butt us aside with a 
 haughty violence. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 I mark his many insignia, he is the German 
 lord who is known here as a center of trouble. 
 His countryman Luther started the great religious 
 schism, and another German invented the new 
 types which also breed dangers. In the morning 
 he is pious or perhaps philosophic; but at midday 
 he is fuU of fight, will whip the whole world and 
 make it German; in the evening his beer gets the 
 better of him and he droops. Still he knows more 
 than all the rest of these suitors, and as he is ever- 
 more the soldier he may try to storm Portia and 
 all Belmont by straight assault. His new religion 
 and his new print have penetrated to Venice, and 
 may assassinate our city yet, unless we assassinate 
 them. 
 
 Falconhridge. 
 
 Bump! he collides with our English gondola, 
 but he draws off again. Shall we not ram him in 
 turn ? 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 233 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Oh no ! settle that at another time, we have come 
 for a different purpose. Look! we are approach- 
 ing the pier of Belmont. Hundreds have already 
 arrived and are promenading the shore. Here we 
 touch the Lido ; tie up and leap out. But first tell 
 me, my faithful archivist, who is that handsome 
 fellow just springing to land next to us, with such 
 an air of self -confidence, even of triumph? See 
 him adjust his showy accoutrements as if he were 
 getting ready to pluck the Goddess Victory all to 
 himself by the forelock. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 The spendthrift of Fortune who delights in see- 
 ing him squander her gifts, that she may heap him 
 with more. His name is Bassanio, the man of luck 
 in all Venice against a world of competitors. I 
 have known him these seven years, he is something 
 of a soldier but not much; also something of a 
 scholar but able to make his little of learning 
 count for all ; a gentleman but forever in debt — he 
 still owes me for a dozen rides, so that I take him 
 no more, he is such bad pay; yet he always wears 
 good clothes and spends money where he can get 
 no credit, borrowing from his friend Antonio, the 
 merchant whose gains he calculates on as if his 
 
234 THE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 own. He now conies back to Belmont in the gay 
 retinue of the Marquis of Montf errat whom he once 
 supplanted in the eyes of Portia, but her father, 
 the old cunning millionaire who was then living, 
 would not listen to the match. But not long after- 
 wards the old man feU sick and on his death-bed, 
 as rumor tells it, being worried over the matter, he 
 concocts the scheme of the caskets and puts it into 
 his last testament, for the purpose of thwarting 
 just such suitors. But I would wager my one re- 
 maining soldo that Bassanio is bom to win the 
 prize; Portia will tell him in some deft woman's 
 way which is the casket he has to choose, though 
 she is expressly forbidden to do so in the father's 
 will. For she has feminine tact which climbs 
 Heaven's steep to the throne of God's grace; just 
 through obedience she is going to have her own 
 way. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 Bid the gondolier in Florio's clearest Italian not 
 to leave this spot, as I have deciphered my doom 
 already; I see it written on the facade of Portia's 
 classic villa which flings an ironical smile at me 
 from yonder knoll. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Do not lag at the final throw, take your place in 
 the line which streams forward to the time's test- 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 235 
 
 ing lottery, even if you have to wait your turn. 
 Portia's white-colonnaded mansion at this dis- 
 tance whispers a gentle welcome to you. Success 
 be yours in the grand succession ; mine is to loiter 
 around on the outside as a spectator, 
 
 Falconhridge ( alone ) . 
 
 Here then we enter the foreground of Portia's 
 antique temple. "What are these ornaments ? Broken 
 statues of Gods, heroes and mortals — ^there is not 
 a whole leg or arm among them. Torsos they are 
 called, forms struck by lightning in the olden time, 
 and now they represent the fate of Portia's suit- 
 ors in their attempt to storm her Olympus, of 
 whom I am one. What a gallery of predestina- 
 tion! And that English poet eggs me on to my 
 doom that he may put my picture into his verse 
 and exhibit me to all London. "Well, here I step 
 into line for the caskets, but I forefeel me I shall 
 drop out at the last assault. 
 
236 THE 8BAKESPEARIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 ScKNB Second. 
 SJiahespeare (alone). 
 
 Unsteady, aye tmwilling treads our noMe lord 
 
 Amid these statues, vases, sculptured founts 
 
 Which gladden to a smile this classic grove, 
 
 Imparadising all Belmont. 
 
 He takes his place within the thronging liae 
 
 Which presses toward the bawered temple 
 
 Where stands the goddess posing for the choice. 
 
 Ha! he shrinks beneath the frown of fate, 
 
 Albion's promise is not his to bear; 
 
 He looks a losing representative. 
 
 I then must take his place, though he be lord. 
 
 For I feel here my budding chance 
 
 To be the greatest Englishman ; 
 
 This is my golden opportunity 
 
 Not for the millions of rich Belmont's gold 
 
 But for the high succession of all Italy 
 
 In the most queenly Muse's realm of poesy. 
 
 Look ! the lady marks our lording 's vesture 
 
 Mottled o'er in a debauch of tints. 
 
 Whereat a plastic ripple streaks her marble face 
 
 With a disdain which damns a downright No. 
 
 Portia, methinks, is Venice beautiful 
 Into one living person overmade; 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 237 
 
 To her now all the world in homage comes 
 
 As to the sacred shrine of goddess high, 
 
 Many bringing themselves as sacrifice 
 
 On beauty's bloodless altar at Belmont. 
 
 The city 's pageantry doth honor her, 
 
 The climate also sports her festal glory, 
 
 The sea waves frolic to the shore in joy 
 
 Flashing a thousand glows along their curls. 
 
 Portia is the grand soul palatial 
 
 Which builded all these marble edifices 
 
 "Which rise like Aphrodite from the sea 
 
 To celebrate a festival of love 
 
 In which the earth and sky take passioned part 
 
 And e'en the sheen drops on you kissing hot. 
 
 And Portia is this new-born Italy, 
 
 The child of antique Rome in art and letters, 
 
 Whose gift of form and speech she makes her own ; 
 
 That is the graft I must appropriate 
 
 And carry back to help my highest gift 
 
 Grow to its last completion. 
 
 Not Portia's body would I win and wealth, 
 
 But I would take her soul into mine own, 
 
 For I do love her all in poet's way, 
 
 And would her marry to my English tune. 
 
 Thus shall I make her everlasting too. 
 
 Eternal in her youth and in her deed. 
 
 And in my city she shall take her place ; 
 
 Forever she shall play the caskets' choice 
 
238 THE SBAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 And subtly make it hers in spite of chance. 
 
 This world I shall transfer into my page 
 
 With all its bloom of speech and character; 
 
 And aye, its love I chiefly shall inherit, 
 
 Passing it through my pen to immortality. 
 
 Ah me ! this Portia here must vanish soon, 
 
 All beautiful Venice seems now drooping down, 
 
 I feel their transitory gayety; 
 
 Can I not fix them in their primal bloom, 
 
 And this Venetian palace and its folk 
 
 Wrest from the vicious blows of assassin Time? 
 
 But who is gliding yonder silently? 
 
 A veiled woman passes whom I see 
 
 Guided by a smooth-faced piping page; 
 
 I fain would know but dare not yet approach 
 
 To pay her my obeisance loyalest; 
 
 She seems a deeper nature than this world 
 
 Into whose merriment she has dropt down; 
 
 Tarry I must for her unfolding, 
 
 She looks unripe amid fruits overripe. 
 
 Yet shows some deeper trial with herself 
 
 Which still awaits the turn of fortune's wheel. 
 
 The age runs here adrift which I must anchor, 
 Not as Love's chooser but the seer above. 
 What could I do with Portia should I win her, 
 And drag her down from her high pedestal ? 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOOT, PORTIA. 239 
 
 My grand vocation would be lost forever, 
 
 Undone my destiny to all future time, 
 
 Were I once known as Portia's husband 
 
 Doomed but to gild her gold with poesy, 
 
 And grace her mansion in fetters diamonded. 
 
 The more unfree to do my task God-sent. 
 
 Another way I have to woo and wed her 
 
 As poet's bride eternally bejeweled 
 
 Presiding in his grand Venetian Palace ; 
 
 Then shall she drop her own Italian, 
 
 And turn her honeyed tongue of love to English 
 
 Which now she has in lofty scorn tabooed. 
 
 As speech uncivilized and insular 
 
 Heard only in a little coign of Barbary. 
 
 But hark my oath, ye native words of mine, 
 
 Ye glorious vocables of my voiced heart, 
 
 I shall redeem you from your present servitude, 
 
 And make you masters of this spoken Earth 
 
 Now and hereafter too, and yet before; 
 
 More sovereign shall be my speech enthroned 
 
 Than was that Greek of old, though by the Gods 
 
 It was once thundered down to mortal men. 
 
 And set to measures by the Muse divine. 
 
 The universal tongue I feel in mine 
 
 Throbbing into its utterance supreme 
 
 Which comes to voice the universal man. 
 
 Just here at Venice I forecast myself 
 
 Of poesy's world-empire the next heir. 
 
240 THE SHAKESPEABIAIt.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Time's own successor to the singer Florentiae 
 Wliose visioned voyage hymns the Future State 
 While man's Last Judgment I shall trump just 
 
 here 
 In words deep-echoing to this human deed. 
 Still farther gleams my look of prophecy: 
 My England is successor to this Latin world 
 Whose speech I shall wed unto mine ia love, 
 And bring its lofty characters upon my stage. 
 The conflict with the Turk is overpast 
 Though yet it seesaws on the Fatal Liae 
 Between the Orient and Occident 
 StiU murderous in its expiring agony. 
 The English ship flanks all this Midland Sea, 
 Where lay the cradle of man's infant polity 
 Which now is hy the age's soul outgrown; 
 We sail the Oceanic round of high emprise, 
 And belt the earth with wakes of English keels; 
 Already we have staked the land as ours 
 Which lies in young Atlantis oversea 
 Beyond the bounded pillars of old Hercules. 
 
 But halt, my wayward dreams, now out of season ! 
 Behold the choosers turning to their lot, 
 Some frowning care, some laughing at the sport. 
 Others drop out of line to take their boats 
 Having forecast their luck in such a venture, 
 And will not try the hazard of the choice. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 241 
 
 look! the first to dare — ^what I could not — 
 The lofty lady's august presence there, 
 Is the dear little maiden whom we saw 
 Coming hither — ^what name? Desdemona 
 Unforgettable — she walks the heroine ! 
 Watch — let her actions tell my listening Muse. 
 
242 THE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Scene Third. 
 
 Portia and Desdemona. 
 
 {The two women are brought together during 
 the selection of the caskets at Belmont.) 
 
 Portia. 
 
 "Welcome to Belmont, Signor Brabantio, and 
 your daughter, the gentle Desdemona, who comes, 
 I dare say, to witness my love's trial. Her years 
 prompt my conjecture. 
 
 Desdemona. 
 
 I may need your example. Here is my good 
 father, Brabantio, whose wiU I also have to take 
 into account. But tell me first what are those 
 three caskets set up in a triangle of temptation, 
 golden, silvern, leaden, each voicing itself with a 
 flattering inscription? 
 
 Portia. 
 
 They are the choosers of my husband in accord 
 with the last testament of my father. I call them 
 my three Fates whom I am in some way to fate. 
 That is just my problem to-day over which 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 243 
 
 I am balancing my thoughts. Am I to rule or to 
 be ruled by my lot ? 
 
 Desdemona. 
 
 This would not be my way of selecting my life's 
 dearest partner. I believe in love forthright and 
 fought out to the end. 
 
 Portia. 
 
 I observe that your parent serenely smiles at 
 your brave word, but at your brave deed he may 
 yet have to chew wormwood. Say, did you see 
 Bassanio on your way hither? He is reported 
 coming. 
 
 Desdemona. 
 
 I saw his elegance flash out in a kind of triumph 
 as he sprang from his gondola to the pier, and ad- 
 just his fine military trappings for the day's on- 
 set. 
 
 Portia. 
 
 What did you think of him? 
 
 Desdemona. 
 
 I did not think of him at all, he is not the man 
 to provoke much thought, in me at least. Is he 
 the one you have chosen to choose the right cask- 
 et? 
 
244 TEE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Portia 
 
 "Well, here approaelies the procession of suitors. 
 "What a piebald set of counteiiaiices, colors, cos- 
 tumes from all quarters of the earth! Some look 
 anxious, others are laughing as if the whole thing 
 were a joke, several are quarreling for a better 
 place in the line. Two are starting to fight — ^two 
 strangers mauling and cursing each other in a 
 barbarous gabble which sounds like English. Bail- 
 iff, put them under arrest and drive them back to 
 their gondolas or throw them into the guard- 
 house. 
 
 Desdemona. 
 
 The first man files up to the caskets. Bless me, 
 he is as dark as Othello, and is accompanied by 
 the Doge himself. 
 
 Portia. 
 
 He is announced as the Prince of Morocco, a 
 royal African warrior who has done great service 
 to our State in the far East. But he has the com- 
 plexion of the devil, he has been kissed too often 
 and too frequently by the Ethiopian sun for my 
 blanched lips. 
 
 Desdemona. 
 
 You seem to have some prejudice about com- 
 plexion, like >all Venetians, like my father here. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOaY, PORTIA. 245 
 
 But has the man not dared death on the battle- 
 line, and seen grand adventures, as well as strange 
 men and lands? Look at his lofty bearing — is he 
 not a hero ? 
 
 Portia. 
 
 To me your words sound full of fate, which I am 
 not going to challenge on my part. I think I shall 
 make the caskets dismiss him. 
 
 Besdemona. 
 
 How can you do that and not disregard your 
 parent ? 
 
 Portia. 
 
 Something in store for you peeps out of your 
 simplicity. I have found a daughter's way of 
 having my own will while following my father's 
 will. If you have not yet tackled that problem, 
 your turn is bound to come. But listen to the 
 music and song, alluring yet untuning, even 
 warning. 
 
 Besdemona. 
 
 Bodeful stratagem! But not for me is all that. 
 Oh Jesu, whom do I see over yonder in the Doge's 
 suit talking with the Prince? 
 
 Portia. 
 That is Othello, the greatest general of Venice. 
 
246 THE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 Desdemona. 
 
 "What ! Is lie going to try your caskets like the 
 rest of this wooing multitude? 
 
 Portia. 
 
 He has not announced himself as suitor; but if 
 he should, I would have to turn the worst casket 
 loose upon him for his rejection. 
 
 Desdemona. 
 
 I see his heroic worth in his visage, whatever 
 may be his color. 
 
 Portia. 
 
 Marry that blackamoor! not I, though he be the 
 foremost man of Venice. You observe he is not 
 going to try, he keeps aloof from the line and now 
 parts from his fellow African who stands dumbly 
 inspecting the future. But why are yours such 
 anxious looks, such deep heart throbs? 
 
 Desdemona. 
 
 They express my relief. But how different we 
 are! I defy race. 
 
 Portia. 
 
 My child, that means death. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 247 
 
 Desdemona. 
 Let it come. 
 
 Portia. 
 
 My first suitor is at hand. I must look to the 
 caskets. 
 
 Desdemona (to herself). 
 
 Watch well. My father Brabantio has gone to 
 salute the Doge and is talking with him; I am 
 quite alone. And OtheUo has dropped to one 
 side; he sees me and approaches under pretext of 
 speaking to one of the suitors. I shall slip around 
 that way to where I can meet him under cover; 
 not far off invites us a friendly gondola. 
 
 The Doge. 
 
 Why do you look so intently at Morocco 's choice, 
 Senator Brabantio ? Your features could not be 
 more tense if you were trying the caskets in your 
 own case. You even make me echo faintly the 
 same premonition for our State which your face 
 foreshows. 
 
 Brabantio. 
 
 It hits me harder than anything I have ever 
 seen in my life, as I scan that tawny visage daring 
 to test the caskets and to look on the wealthiest 
 
248 THE 8HAKE8PEABIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 and most accomplislied daughter of Venice as his 
 bride. The holt drives through me, I feel my very- 
 bowels push from inside out and the world whizzes 
 past, turning itself upside down-— where is my 
 daughter? I left her standing yonder a moment 
 ago. I had a dream ! Oh where is my daughter ? 
 Gone ! Desdemona ! 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 249 
 
 Scene Foueth. 
 
 (On the Campanile with the visitors, overlook- 
 ing the city and lagoons.) 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Variegated view of Venice 
 
 Lolling on her hundred islands; 
 
 And yet not altogether happy! 
 
 It feels, methinks, its own fate 
 
 Lurking in all this splendor 
 
 Which has risen on Time's ceaseless flow 
 
 Like an iridescent sea-bubble. 
 
 Scholarch. 
 
 Yonder is the house of old Manutius 
 The world's classical printer; 
 My longing heart bids me secure 
 One of his editions of Homer. 
 
 Psychagogue (steps up). 
 
 I have just fleeted hither from Belmont 
 "With my brain 's overflow of great news 
 Which is driving each tongue in the city. 
 
250 THE 8HAEE8PEABIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 "What is it? Tell it at once, I pray; 
 I as woman assert my primeval right 
 Which, is that of curiosity. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 Portia, the ablest, highest, richest woman of Venice 
 Has been won by white Bassanio the unheroic 
 Of all her army of suitors ; 
 Desdemona, the little, modest maiden 
 Has slipped out of her father's eye 
 And run off with dark Othello the hero. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 The bravest deed yet done by any Venetian, 
 
 Man or woman, I trow. 
 
 For I could not do it myself; 
 
 More daring in her to take Othello 
 
 Than in Othello to take her! 
 
 None of his deeds of war can equal 
 
 Her mighty defiance, 
 
 Not indeed of the Turk on the border 
 
 But of her own world and its order. 
 
 To me your grand Portia shrivels down ro a dot 
 
 Alongside the colossal Desdemona. 
 
THE VENETIAN TBILOQY, PORTIA. 251 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 Alas for the sweet little girl ! 
 
 Her deed is so great that it destroys her, 
 
 She the limit-breaker will at last break 
 
 On her own limit of life; 
 
 Fated I have to forecast her, 
 
 Here in this order of Europe she dies 
 
 Through the penalty of her deed. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Nor in our Atlantis would she escape, 
 
 Where lies the new realm liberated; 
 
 Desdemona, wee body of innocence, 
 
 What a long line of trouble hast thou started ! 
 
 The deepest conflict of History, 
 
 The last to be settled upon our planet, 
 
 That of race, whose broadest chasm unbridged 
 
 Thou hast leaped over at one stride of thy love! 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 Fated she is at this tick of the Eeon's clock. 
 And it will take a thousand years to unfate her. 
 Till the spirit of time may condone her deed. 
 Future tragedies are hers by the millions 
 Acted in the bloody reality of History ; 
 
252 THE 8HAEESPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 But also on the stage will be retold 
 
 Her hapless lot by hundreds of Shakespeares 
 
 Ere the happy drama be written 
 
 Of Desdemona reconciled. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 And for me Portia's deed has in it a fate — 
 The marriage of the talented woman of wealth 
 With the elegant coxcomb and spendthrift. 
 I wish I had a chance at him. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 Presentiments fail me not in her ease. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 And she gives a lesson to my land as well, 
 
 A lesson of monition to Atlantis, 
 
 Where we have many millionaire's daughters 
 
 Who are wooed by the world's Bassanios 
 
 Sailing over the seas for booty and beauty; 
 
 But our Portias are more daring than this one. 
 
 They wait not for the suitors to come to their 
 
 caskets. 
 But carry their Belmont along with themselves 
 Across the Ocean for the convenience 
 Of the penniless choosers high-born. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 253 
 
 Pandora, 
 
 Hear my foreshow of this day's destiny: 
 Old Shylock, the Jew, will win the casket, 
 Not one of them but all of them together. 
 With Belmont added to the bargain. 
 
 Scholarch. 
 
 What ! dared Shylock be one of the suitors ? 
 And was his presence observed at the choosing? 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 His lurking hand I can trace to the outcome. 
 To me he appears the strongest contestant 
 For Portia's millions. 
 
 Psychogogue. 
 
 Look ! in the distance rocks a gondola 
 Over the laughter of multitudinous ripples 
 As if it bore in triumph the winner. 
 Ha! I descry in it my smiling master 
 The poet himself with his prize. 
 
254 THE SHAEESPEABIAD—PART SECOND. 
 
 Scene Fifth. 
 
 {The English tourists, having witnesse/i the 
 affair at Belmont, return to Venice.) 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Good luck can at least claim from us a vow of 
 gratitude. Here we meet together agaia with our 
 gospeler the gondolier as we take farewell of Bel- 
 mont. Methinks I have won Portia and I am tak- 
 ing her back with me, mansion and all. 
 
 Falconhridge. 
 
 You can have her and Belmont and even Ven- 
 ice in the bargain. I have had enough of the mon- 
 grel affair. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 You have a right to your soreness. But explain 
 to me what was aU that hullabaloo about in your 
 part of the line of suitors ? From my perch in the 
 distance I could not see exactly the situation, but 
 I marked you nearby in your many-colored habili- 
 ments. You seemed to hover about on the edge of 
 the combat, nagging each side till the constables 
 arrived and hustled off the two antagonists. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 255 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 No sooner had we filed up in a row than the 
 Frenchman and the German began to dispute about 
 precedence of positions. I was just behind both 
 of them, and enjoyed the fight more than I did the 
 choosing at the center where Mr. Blackamoor 
 ranked first. They were at the top of their tussle, 
 the balance hung undecided between German beer 
 and French wine when the officers arrived and both 
 were led away under guard. But I was advanced 
 two points on the spot, in fact stepped up next to 
 the darkey; he was already taking his first look 
 over the caskets with side glances at Portia who 
 dressed her face in her most oracular smile. She 
 also bent her eyes on me for a moment and gave a 
 little titter outright in spite of all her classic 
 gravity which you have so bepraised. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Did you stay after such a pleasant invitation? 
 Methinks you were the first man to choose your 
 casket and to get the lady's response. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 It was not yet my turn, the black skin still stood 
 ahead of me, though the situation was not to my 
 taste or to my smell, especially when he got active. 
 
256 THE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PAKT SECOND. 
 
 For he drew his seimetar and slashed the Persian 
 Sophy on the air, telling his victories in the far 
 Orient; then he made the Sultan Solyman skip 
 about the room with his fencing so that I had to 
 dodge out of the way; he told his grandiose Afri- 
 can stories outfabling the Arabian Tales, his ad- 
 ventures among cannibals, giants and pigmies with 
 two heads. To cap his magniloquent mendacity 
 he chose the golden casket and plucked out a 
 stinking death's-head from whose hollow eye sock- 
 et he drew a piece of poetry which turned us all 
 to fools who were in pursuit of the millionaire's 
 money. Thereupon I took the hint and vacated 
 my place at once, a dozen others followed me and 
 the line seemed to drop suddenly to pieces. As I 
 vanished in the distance I heard her give her last 
 jibe at the poor devil's complexion. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Thus the millionaire's daughter did hold up a 
 mirror before yourselves by her artifice, and at the 
 sight you all took to your heels. I begin now to 
 see through the scheme of that old Italian fox, her 
 rich papa. 
 
 Falconhridge. 
 
 Enough of these learned women speaking three 
 different tongues to hide their tricks ! Give me the 
 simple English girl with one tongue and not too 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 257 
 
 much of that. But did you stay on your watch 
 till the affair was over? 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Assuredly; I would have lost the harvest of my 
 journey unless I had witnessed the last inning. 
 And who do you think carried off the heiress? 
 None other than Bassanio whom we saw spring on 
 the shore of Belmont when we arrived, labeled with 
 the prophecy of our Gondolier, whose oracles have 
 the unique gift of turning out true. His strut as 
 he approached the caskets was the most elegant I 
 ever saw, the folds of his cloak and the curl of his 
 mustache would entangle hopelessly any woman's 
 eyes and then her heart strings. So the grand 
 prize of Venice and hence of the world was won 
 by the champion popinjay of the age. 
 
 Falconhridge. 
 
 I have nothing to do but go home and forget all 
 about Belmont. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 On the contrary I shall remember it and per- 
 chance celebrate it as one of my life's salient ex- 
 periences. To me Portia is Venice and her choice 
 that of her city. She will not marry a great man 
 who may be her superior, she will queen it through 
 
258 THE SBAEE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 her mind and money. She made her own law un- 
 der the masque of the caskets, and ruled in her 
 father's name. She loves disguise much, and yet 
 more the authority behind it. And she still has 
 some work before her. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 What makes you say that? Did you see any- 
 thing to indicate such a turn? 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Only a wee mote of the future. Hardly had 
 Bassanio given to Portia the kiss of success and 
 she in turn had circled his finger with the ring of 
 betrothal, when a messenger came with news which 
 suddenly snuffed out all the sunshine of Belmont. 
 The bridegroom hurried o£E with a single word 
 of tense parting, and not long after the bride with 
 her maid followed in red-hot haste. The crowd 
 melted away in confused wonder, the last man I 
 saw was old Brabantio, who rushed about crying 
 for his daughter: "Desdemona, Desdemona," but 
 he got no answer, except the chuckling echo of the 
 gondola's splash. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 Here comes our Gondolier, I venture to predict 
 that he brings the answer. I can read on his face 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 259 
 
 new-writ chronicles of the whole day's transac- 
 tions, even if I do not understand Italian. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 You are learning somewhat. As soon as we are 
 seated, I shall slit his budget of news and let it 
 pour forth the contents — I can see that it is much 
 swollen and he needs immediate surgery. 
 
 OondoUer. 
 
 Great doings here to-day which will not end with 
 yon setting sun. That is the Doge's ship of State, 
 but melancholy in its bareness; it returns without 
 the Priace of Morocco, who secretly in a private 
 boat slipped away with his ghastly prize. And 
 no Othello towers up over the deck; he too has 
 taken a different way back to the city, having per- 
 formed his grandest exploit by capturing not 
 merely Belmont but Venice itself, as I deem. 
 
 Falconbridge. 
 
 Indeed! Your ship of State deserted by its 
 greatest men, both of them Africans! What will 
 become of you now? But I see a new figure in a 
 woman's habit looking out from the deck with a 
 modest peep. 
 
260 TEE SHAEESPEARIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 I have had my eye upon her movements for some 
 time, but cannot quite find out who she is, except 
 that she is a foreign young lady of rank, evi- 
 dently visiting Belmont in a Mnd of secrecy. She 
 watched the choosing of the suitors with deep in- 
 terest; I noted how she shrank back when the 
 Prince of Morocco stepped forward to the caskets. 
 She also followed the actions of Desdemona with a 
 keen glance. AH that I could learn from my fel- 
 low Gondoliers was that she with a small retinue 
 had come from your country, England, and might 
 be a disguised princess in search of her lover. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 What a shock of coincidence ! I had dimly caught 
 her outline in the distance as I surveyed the scene 
 from my point of outlook. Strange presentiment ! 
 She seems to fijid her place here as well as in her 
 own home. There ! her form vanishes out of view, 
 but not her image. 
 
 Falconiridge. 
 
 Enough of your soliloquizing in good company! 
 Look! yonder mumbles through the wavelets an- 
 other tristful gondola which we beheld gaily rock- 
 ing for Belmont some hours gone by. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 261 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 It is Brabantio's but without his daughter, Des- 
 demona, who has fledged her maiden wings to an- 
 other flight. Rumor runs that she dodged through 
 the crowd from her father, usually so watchful, 
 for he had begun to suspect, and she slid into a 
 skiff with Othello, which he had gotten ready by 
 agreement. The last seen of them they were mak- 
 ing across the lagoon for a church where the ser- 
 vice of the priest had been amply paid for before- 
 hand. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 I cannot help but reverting to the two most dis- 
 tinguished personages I have seen here to-day — 1 
 should dare caU them the central spirits of Ven- 
 ice, one a man, the other a woman, Othello and 
 Portia. Compared to them, all the rest of the 
 people dwindle to zeros. Now tell me, auspicious 
 oracle, why could not the grand drama of the day 
 bring them together in wedlock? 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 Impossible! Both are too strong and self-suffi- 
 cient natures for the harmony of marriage. Por- 
 tia, weU aware of her power both of brain and 
 money is going to rule her man in spite of all her 
 
262 TBE SHAEE8PEABIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 professions of love and obedience, which are in- 
 deed just her feminine means of supremacy. She 
 is the disguised lawgiver through and through; 
 I tell you, she made and enforced the law of the 
 caskets under the name of her parent. In fact, re- 
 port breathes that her favorite study is jurispru- 
 dence which she has privately studied in aU its 
 subtleties with her kinsman, old Doctor Bellario, 
 Professor at Padua, and first jurisconsult of Italy. 
 She is the best lawyer in Venice, so I heard an ex- 
 perienced advocate declare who as her father's at- 
 torney helped her administer her large estate. But 
 she works ia secret, she masks her sex that she may 
 attain more completely her end. I believe she de- 
 lights to burrow in her hidden subtlety for its own 
 sake. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Woman's supreme craft! She masks as very Fate 
 in order to overreach it, she disguises the woman 
 of herself to be the more the woman. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 As to OtheUo, he could see his own case mir- 
 rored in that of his relative, the Prince of Morocco, 
 if he should dare the caskets. But apart from the 
 obstacle of race, the great soldier would lose his 
 vocation, if he were wedlocked with Portia, she 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY, PORTIA. 263 
 
 would out-general the famous general every time, 
 make him her mansion's splendid prisoner, and 
 manacle him in her golden chains to grace her 
 stately parlors of Belmont. What could the ducat- 
 less officer, though highest in command military 
 accomplish maneuvring against the millions of the 
 millionaire's daughter wielded by her brainy 
 strategy? No, the Venetian peace soldier and 
 scholarly gentleman of three tongues is her right 
 man. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 But such a fellow is always in debt and calling 
 for more cash; you have already said he was a 
 spendthrift. "Will he not squander his wife's for- 
 tune, and then run away from her poverty, prob- 
 ably to capture another heiress ? 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 There you have probed the nerve of the future 
 to the quick. Portia is open-handed and will deem 
 it a point of her wifely honor to supply her im- 
 pecunious husband with funds to the limit, which 
 he will at last reach. I hear that Bassanio has al- 
 ready landed his dearest friend, the merchant An- 
 tonio, into the clutches of the most rapacious 
 money-lender in Venice; next he will be found 
 there himself, is my prophecy. Portia's handy 
 
264: THE 8BAEE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 cash must be already heavily drawn on, according 
 to -whisperings from the Rialto; then her real es- 
 tate will be stratified with mortgage on mortgage 
 tiU the bottom is reached, and zero is found. Treas- 
 ure my forecast : if you ever come back again from 
 your England to our Venice, you will see aU this 
 beautiful Belmont in the possession of the Jewish 
 usurer. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 I must return to see that if nothing else — ^the 
 work of this day's destiny for Portia, for Venice, 
 and for me. 
 
 Falconhridge. 
 
 Here we are grazing this city's shore again after 
 my bridal trip without any bride. Great God! 
 look at yonder church and see who are coming out 
 of the door! Another loving pair in black and 
 white! 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 Do you not recognize them? Othello and Des- 
 demona — man and wife now — ^Venice's own es- 
 pousals not with the Sea, but with Fate — ^I, the 
 humble Gondolier, forefeel the shuddering outlook. 
 Corpo di Dio. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Now I know I must come back to make the 
 tragedy. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DESDEMONA. 265 
 
 The Venetian Trilogy 
 
 DESDEMONA 
 
 (Venice, with its lagoons, palaces, churches and 
 bridges, lies in the evening dusk which sinks down 
 over the city. A colossal statuesque figure is seen 
 perched upon the arch of the Bridge of Sighs. The 
 action is supposed to take place several years after 
 the foregoing part of Portia.) 
 
 Scene First. 
 
 Melpomene. 
 
 I come the fabled Muse of tragic Fate, 
 
 Melpomene, from old Hellenic land. 
 
 Where I inspired the high poetic strain 
 
 Which sang the turns of antique destiny, 
 
 Forecasting in my hoar heroic forms, 
 
 As they sank down to gloom in Hades' halls, 
 
 Of Hellas whole the one grand tragedy. 
 
 Which has already played itself in time, 
 
 And quit its stage of worn-out history 
 
 That westward strides to round the rolling globe. 
 
 So I, Melpomene, the tragic Muse, 
 
 Have flown across the Adriatic's flood 
 
266 THE SEAKE8PEARIAD.—PART BECOND. 
 
 Through many a storm of roaring centuries 
 That tide between old Rome's world-arching sway 
 And all this pomp of modern Barbary; 
 Down upon Venice I have swooped to-day, 
 The bridal city of the bosomed sea 
 Bejeweled with our sun-loved Southern clime, 
 Dear daughter too of this renascent age. 
 Time's treasury of beauty and of wealth, 
 I hail thee here just on thy glory's crest, 
 Fair mermaid stretched along these sMniug shores 
 Clasped in the tender arms of thy fond sea-god 
 "With thousand-armed caress mid the lagoons. 
 
 But now I have to speak the portioned doom, 
 Weaving through all thy joys the thread of Fate 
 Which darkens hence the brightest palaces. 
 And bodeful glooms amid thy dim canals 
 Sad with the craped gondola's watery sob. 
 The merchant shall not my dread stroke escape. 
 His ventures in the distant seas I wreck, 
 And the rich heiress is to lose her dower 
 Though she possess the wealth of all Belmont; 
 The proud Rialto I shall turn a poorhouse 
 And make these busy streets the home of beggary. 
 All Venice must enact my tragic voice, 
 Which now evokes her fatal heroine. 
 The high-bred maiden of the city's wealth and 
 birth; 
 
THE VENETIAN TBILOaV—DESDEMONA. 267 
 
 lU-demoned shall her name be known forever 
 As Desdemona, saddesit daughter mine 
 Whose lot I scarcely can endure myself. 
 And so on this sad Bridge of Sighs I stay me 
 "Which seems to stoop and sigh from heart of stone, 
 That all the world beholding it above, 
 Doth catch its mood and turn compassionate. 
 
 But my chief function I have yet to say: 
 
 Prom this dread pedestal here on this bridge, 
 
 I must incorporate myself anew 
 
 To lofty vision of the English bard, 
 
 Of men the greatest of the greatest kind; 
 
 I, Melpomene, the antique Muse, 
 
 Must now trans-shape me to his Lady dark 
 
 Whom he will take into his soul through love 
 
 To be the Muse of his high Genius 
 
 Creative of the world's new tragedy supreme. 
 
 Ariel (enters.) 
 
 I too shall perch me on the Bridge of Sighs 
 Where I may hear the suspiration deep 
 That wells up from the heart of Venice; 
 As the low sough of all her waves 
 Throbs through the sombre-channeled arteries. 
 She feels and wails her coming destiny. 
 Hail, Melpomene, who long ago did sing 
 The dirge of olden Greece and Eome, 
 
268 TEE SEAKE8PEABIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Invisible thou art to other eyes 
 
 Than mine and the poet's. 
 
 Thou hast alighted here to intone renewal 
 
 Of the tragic strain singing over this city. 
 
 I fly from my domain to greet thee 
 
 In spirit of our common vocation. 
 
 Melpomene. 
 
 But who ant thou who dost thus disturb 
 
 My dark communings on this Bridge, 
 
 The scene of many a drama, real and bloody, 
 
 Of this city's fated individuals! 
 
 But now it sighs the city's own ii,te, 
 
 Which whispered me far on Greek Parnassus 
 
 Where I was slumbering down the ages; 
 
 It waked me up and bade me hitherward 
 
 To tune the mortal note of this whole world 
 
 Called Mediterranean. 
 
 But who thou comest and why? 
 
 So different in shape and the conception 
 
 Prom my Greek plastic form. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 I fleet to thee from another city 
 
 Where I dwell in the Magic Isle, 
 
 City now being builded of one great life 
 
 Which begets a vast population of characters. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— BE 8DEM0N A. 269 
 
 That city's name is Shakespearopolis, 
 Of which I dream to add a new structure, 
 A grand Palazzo lifted from Venice, 
 But transplanted now to our ideal polity. 
 
 Melpomene. 
 
 So you would rival or perchance outdo 
 All of my classic temples of the word 
 Which have come down from antique glory. 
 But not yet have you said who you are. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 I am the breath of our builder's Genius, 
 
 Not bodied in shape sculpturesque as thou, 
 
 A Goddess marbled and pedestaled, 
 
 But a spirit working his task, though unseen 
 
 By outer mortal sight ; 
 
 Yet shapes limited and visible I assume 
 
 For the time's brief purpose. 
 
 Then I return to my form supersensible. 
 
 Just now I do the part of the Psychagogue, 
 
 Conductor of folk through this soul-filled city 
 
 Who flock hither from all the globe ; 
 
 Of them I left a group for a while 
 
 On yonder Campanile high-towered. 
 
 Overlooking the architectured lagoons. 
 
270 THE 8BAKE8FEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Melpomene. 
 
 But tell me wto is that man in strange new cos- 
 tume 
 Who is walking hitherwards across the Piazza? 
 At his view methinks I feel myself change, 
 My outward shape is transmuted, 
 And my very Self overruns to another, 
 Turning me inward for a fresh draught of Ufe. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 What aileth thee, oh lofty Muse, 
 
 Thy shape flashes a bright metamorphosis! 
 
 Wonderful spectacle, dropping thy white folds 
 
 Which transfuse to robes many-colored! 
 
 And thy face of cold alabaster 
 
 Breaks up into hot jets of heart-fire, 
 
 While thy high stiff body limbers to love's glow: 
 
 What means it all? 
 
 Melpomene. 
 
 Yonder I see my new Olympian master 
 
 Eeady to whehn his worded thunderbolts through 
 
 me. 
 Thou seest him and knowest his soul. 
 Thou, Psychagogue, bespeak his placation 
 For me, the tragic Muse of mine own tragedy. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DESDEMONA. 271 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 He advances to this Bridge sigh-built 
 To take possession supreme, 
 William Shakespeare again in Venice, 
 Whom I saw years since at Belmont 
 Surveying and noting the choice of Portia. 
 
 Melpomene. 
 
 I was then not here to see it. 
 But, perchance, one of my sisters, 
 Yes Thalia, the Muse of the happy lot. 
 And of the laugh Parnassian, 
 Presided over that festive spectacle; 
 But my successor arrives — I lose myself. 
 
 Ariel (to himself) . 
 
 Only behold the fresh transformation! 
 
 She darkens from her bright marble, 
 
 And turns into the new woman of Fate 
 
 At the presence of the poet. 
 
 Whose companion she rises, inspirer too. 
 
 I recognize her, the Dark Lady, 
 
 Who now takes stand on Melpomene's pedestal, 
 
 With flashing eyes of lightning's passion 
 
 Subduing all, yet fatal. 
 
 And here is the poet, her lover. 
 
272 TBE SBAEE8PEARIAD.—PART 8EC0ND. 
 
 Who has transmuted her to his Muse 
 
 In place of Melpomene, goddess antique. 
 
 I must hasten away to my coming people 
 
 Who throng the subtle Shakespearian city, 
 
 And who need now my new guidance. 
 
 See ! he mounts this bridge of Venetian Sighs 
 
 Which vaults from palace to prison, 
 
 But which he will make span the whole globe 
 
 And overarch the fuU round of mankind. 
 
THE VENETIAN TltlLOOY—DESDEMONA. 273 
 
 Scene Second. 
 
 Shakespeare (to himself). 
 
 Here I look out from the Bridge of Sighs 
 
 Viewing this city, the world, myself. 
 
 A full decade of years have passed over me 
 
 Since I saw palatial Venice before, 
 
 When I bloomed in the joyous springtime of life, 
 
 And the city looked likewise. 
 
 But now it glooms a sombre appearance, 
 
 The festal gayety has departed 
 
 And in its stead droops a funereal look — 
 
 Lies the change in me, or in it, or in both? 
 
 Then I witnessed the happy espousals 
 
 In Portia's paradisaical home 
 
 And over the folk and the sea and the palaces 
 
 Rose the strain of pleasure made musical. 
 
 While the smile universal 
 
 Rippled the face of Dame Venice herself 
 
 As the gloried spouse of the Sea 
 
 Who had chosen her as his beautiful bride 
 
 From among many rivaling suits 
 
 Of the cities of Italy. 
 
 But melancholy has clouded her now, 
 
 Symptom of malady nestling 
 
 In this old sunny clime of the Midland Sea. 
 
274 THE 8HAEE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 But I feel also tlie change in myself : 
 
 I am another man, see another world 
 
 "Within me as well as without ; 
 
 A new turn of my life has begun, 
 
 I can no longer write Comedies, 
 
 Wooing the happy-making Thalia as Muse; 
 
 My soul is darkened with destiny, 
 
 The pall of human existence spreads through me, 
 
 I live on the night-side of Time, 
 
 My Muse has become a Fury 
 
 Whom I can ban only by writ. 
 
 I am entangled in the coils of the Gorgon 
 
 Though I be driven to love her the more, 
 
 Even fondling the hiss of her snake-curls. 
 
 While my tongue spits the fire of her words. 
 
 Strongest passion of all my days upseethes 
 
 For the woman ; yet is she a demon. 
 
 And the more demonic >the stronger my passion. 
 
 Till I turn of myself to what she is. 
 
 So I come drawn to this dolorous Bridge 
 
 Which I never once noted when here before, 
 
 Though it existed already as judgment seat 
 
 Ever forecasting the fate of Venice. 
 
 But who is yonder ascending its arch. 
 
 As if keeping step along with me? 
 
 A woman night-shrouded — ^I know her well — 
 
 My torturer, my nemesis, 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DESDEMONA. 275 
 
 Whom still I love to the very death — 
 Say, why hast thou followed me hither 
 Whom I thought to escape by flight? 
 From London I flew to Venice in stealth 
 Away from thee, but here thou art come 
 Perching with me in Satanic mockery 
 Aloft on this Bridge of Sighs. 
 
 The Dark Lady. 
 
 Thou canst not be rid of me thus. 
 
 For I am part of thee, yea thy whole now, 
 
 Whom thou has't not the power to disown, 
 
 Nor even the right to curse. 
 
 For now thy Muse I am become 
 
 And speak to thy greatest Self, 
 
 To thy Genius, which scourges thee 
 
 To utterance for thy salvation. 
 
 Bodeful I lurk in this city also 
 
 And with thy spirit tune it concordant 
 
 TiW thy work be fulfilled. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 fatal Love, thou hast the dreadful gift 
 To set this Bridge and with it all Venice 
 Throbbing to strokes of thy pain, 
 Making it heave deep sobs of despair 
 Which dirgefully rise from the heart 
 
276 THE 8HAKESPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Of this city now centered just here in me. 
 Oh the shock ! I shall shiver to fragments 
 In the earthquake of mine own passion 
 Which thou hast aroused on this Bridge 
 By thy presence. My God, what shall I do 
 To rid me of this frantic spasm 
 Which threats to make me tragic 
 In making mine own tragedy. 
 
 The Dark Lady. 
 
 Hasten to live in creation thy fate, 
 
 And throw it out into writ, 
 
 Loading thy death upon a woman. 
 
 The ill-omened Desdemona 
 
 Whom for thee I shall here incorporate. 
 
 Rouse thyself to experience new, 
 
 Pass over again to Portia's Belmont, 
 
 And meditate its decadence. 
 
 Yonder rocks a gondola full ready 
 
 With its beak turned up to the quay 
 
 Dumbly inviting thy passage. 
 
 Gro, I shaU not fail thee wherever thou art, 
 
 I am one with thy time and thy place. 
 
THE TENETIAN TRILOGY— DE8DEM0NA. 277 
 
 Scene Third. 
 {Second visit to Belmont.) 
 
 Shakespeare (to himself). 
 
 Glad to have her out of my sight — and still she 
 is with me. Here I come to the landing from 
 which I started for Belmont once before. But 
 no gondolier at hand ! Not much business for him 
 now ! I look around ; what a mood of decay comes 
 over mc! Yon dome of St. Mark's pierces not 
 Heaven but Hades, and the Doge's Palace stands 
 muffled in gloom's dread splendor. Am I in Limbo 
 or in Venice or both? Here walks toward me 
 a type of decayed gentility, whose garments show 
 an elegant patehery. Methinks I have seen them 
 before in a newer gloss. What ! he steps up to ad- 
 dress me. 
 
 The Man. 
 
 I take you for an Englishman; would you like 
 to have an interpreter and a guide to places of 
 note ? I can speak the three tongues, but not Eng- 
 lish. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Do you know Belmont? I am going thither. 
 And could you tell me whether Portia still resides 
 in her palace with her Bassanio? 
 
278 THE SHAEESPEARIAD.—PART BECOND. 
 
 The Man. 
 
 I could give you more information upon that sub- 
 ject than any other guide, more than all the books. 
 And my knowledge is at first hand. 
 
 Shahespeare. 
 
 Well, here comes the gondolier. Ho! heave to 
 for a passenger. What! that matchless oarsman 
 again ■with his secretive eye-shot yet ready tongue, 
 whom I found here long since ! Away ! let him be 
 for me the interpreter of Venice once more. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 Leap in,. and be seated. Indeed! The same fea- 
 tures I watched years ago when I oared you to 
 Belmont to see Portia's most glorious moment. All 
 is different now. And you are changed much ; the 
 same lines but deepened, your eyes have the old 
 color, the old trick of dreamery, but they flash no 
 merriment, rather sadness. Have you lived the 
 life of Venice in these years? 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 And you have not stood still. You twirl not the 
 oars with your former delight, these cushions are 
 worn threadbare, though they still show bright 
 patches, and your whole gondola has grown old in 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DE8DEM0NA. 279 
 
 a grey neglect and decline. But let us cheer up, 
 give us a song. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 We gondoliers sing no more, the burden on our 
 hearts is too heavy. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Can you not strike up again that strain of Gin- 
 evra which we heard on our way as we rippled 
 through these waters a decade ago? That story 
 with its music has haunted me ever since. It then 
 seemed darkly prophetic, but the prophecy has 
 kept fulfilling itself year by year, and today the 
 fair bejeweled maiden Ginevra with the fatal lid 
 closed over her in all her wedding gala appears a 
 mourning reality. I recollect you said you knew 
 it — attune us to its music. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 No, I cannot, even the thought starts the tears, 
 for I look about me and see dying Ginevra every- 
 where. But wait! perhaps later I may be mooded 
 to chant a verse of the Desdemona ballad. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 But how lonely is the trip now compared to that ! 
 Then this lagoon was filled with a fleet flapping 
 
280 TEE SBAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 many flags, whose vessels from all nations headed 
 for the golden goal, the millionaire's daughter. 
 We cotdd hardly steer through the vast moving 
 shoal of hulks. Now what a solitude hangs over 
 the waters, so heavy and thick that the oar seems 
 to cut it! Then we saw the Doge's caparisoned 
 ship of state with great dignitaries outlooking from 
 its deck; on it stood grandiose the daring cam- 
 paigner Othello. Soon too we sidled along the 
 aristocratic gondola of Brabantio who was giving 
 his daughter a little outing from which she was 
 never to return to his home. Desdemona, thou 
 hast become to me the central woman of Venice, 
 and dost usurp my present life and all its tensest 
 energy! Never shall I now rid me of thy fated 
 image till I exorcise its tearful presence through 
 my art ! Thou wilt kill me unless I kill thee in my 
 soul's desperate utterance. Already thy history 
 draws its dagger upon me, thy memory becomes my 
 assassination unless I win my rescue by mine own 
 confession in the pictured deed. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 To whom are you talking, strange man, in that 
 strange tongue! Do not hit me in your jousts, 
 keep off — otherwise here lies ready my stiletto. 
 Stop spluttering that barbarous jargon of yours. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOaT—DESDEMONA. 281 
 
 which I do not Tinderstand, but which I hear hiss- 
 ing and gurgling and writhing through its vo- 
 cables. Turn back to our soft smooth Italian, 
 calm yourself and me. Already we are approach- 
 ing the old pier of Belmont, now getting dilapi- 
 dated. But tell me, what has become of that young 
 English Lord, to whom you seemed the traveling 
 companion and interpreter? 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Oh yes, Falconbridge. When he found he could 
 not win the millionaire's daughter here in Venice, 
 he set out for home, where he let loose his splenetic 
 well-head upon all Italy, and even upon me for 
 my love of this beautiful land. The last that I saw 
 of him was at Bristol whither I boated down the 
 Avon on pleasure and business with our wander- 
 ing troupe of actors. As I looked out on the shore 
 towards the "West, whom should I find taking ship 
 there for the new Atlantis, except our fortune- 
 wooing nobleman. "Why thither," I asked. 
 "Many millionaires in that part of the world, and 
 they all have daughters with more money than Por- 
 tia, as the report flies." Then he went on: "And 
 with them I do not have to love in these wretched 
 lingos, Latin, French or Italian, but can talk busi- 
 ness in straight homely English, which is also their 
 tongue." Thence he returned with his prize and 
 
282 TBE 8EAEE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 made a great display in London while the money 
 lasted. But the tap must have run dry, as I heard 
 on the very day I set out on this new journey, that 
 the lady had begun a suit for divorce, and had her 
 weeds packed up for a return home to her rich 
 papa in far-off Atlantis. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 Indeed! I can match your story with some- 
 thing that took place here shortly after your de- 
 parture. You recollect gay Bassanio who sprang 
 so light-hearted on the very steps where we are 
 now landing. He too was the moneyless gentle- 
 man in pursuit of the millionaire's daughter. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 And he won her too ! Or it may be that she won 
 him by the right manipulation of the caskets. I 
 have at least my suspicion about that whole trans- 
 action. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 I have not forgotten our talk as we rowed back 
 from Belmont after the choosing. But now I have 
 in store for you another little surprise over the 
 turn of the story. Do you recall the man who 
 asked to be your guide just before you hailed me 
 for this trip? 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DE8DEM0NA. 283 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 All the more readily because I seemed to cateli 
 some glimmerings of a face I had looked on be- 
 fore. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 That was Bassanio who is now turning his gen- 
 tlemanly gifts to account in playing cicerone to 
 travelers who visit these parts. He has become a 
 kind of rival of mine, but he still owes me for 
 those former rides. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Bassanio, you say? How I would like to hear 
 his story of Belmont and of what has transpired 
 since ! 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 It is well that you are rid of him ; he would not 
 tell you the truth anyhow. He builds a lying fable 
 out of his exploit of which he comes off the 
 triumphant hero. But Portia will tell you another 
 tale from her little apartment alongside the 
 Ghetto. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Can you bring me to her presence? Doubtless 
 she can also tell me the right story of Desdemona 
 
284 TEE 8HAEE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 whose fate is now thrilling my every heart-string 
 for utterance. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 Well, here my little gondola has put its nose to 
 Belmont's pier; give a spring, and be out. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Stay here till I return, as I have further use for 
 your tongue and your craft. 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DE8DEM0NA. 285 
 
 Scene Fourth. 
 Shakespeare (to himself). 
 
 Let me sit down on this marble chair here in 
 Portia's paradise as I did a decade since and pon- 
 der the situation before me. I then could not help 
 feeling the transitoriness lurking in the brilliant 
 spectacle, as if it foreboded a tragedy coming. 
 What a decline along this shore! Every hour is 
 sunset with approaching night! Where are now 
 the gay suitors waiting in long line from all lands 
 to choose the heiress of Venice ? This hedge is un- 
 cropped, the walks unstoned, the gardens un- 
 weeded, even the flowers hang their heads woe- 
 heavy. The classic residence with its columns in 
 front is mossy, the stones droop apart, and one pil- 
 lar has actually fallen, even the whole edifice 
 threatens to topple ! Here is the room where Por- 
 tia stood like a queen of the world to whom the na- 
 tions paid obeisance. Here were arranged the 
 caskets as the dusky Prince of Morocco made his 
 choice. I saw Othello standing near him with 
 eyes flashing as if he saw his own life at stake. 
 Soon he slipped off to his secret casket which he 
 had already won. On this base stood the leaden 
 casket which Bassanio selected; here it is lying 
 broken in pieces over the floor, the lead being of 
 
286 THE 8EAEE8PEARIAD.—FART SECOND. 
 
 small value, while the gold and silver have disap- 
 peared. So his choice is still to be seen on this 
 spot. I strike with my cane this wall ; whoo ! whoo ! 
 an owl I have wakened out of his nest in the loft, 
 and he stares down at me with big eyes from a 
 beam ; he and' the bats seem the main occupants. 
 
 And not a soul visible! no custode! what can it 
 mean? The desolation oppresses me, I shall flee 
 back to my boat. Wait — I see a man coming from 
 yonder large finely bedizened bark which has just 
 pulled to. He looks about with the air of the mas- 
 ter, he examines closely certain relicts as if he 
 would auction them. I note his look, his eyes, yes, 
 his nose; methinks I recognize him — ^he throws a 
 glance as if appraising me — ^keen, cunning, yet 
 vengeful for some wrong. I can't help seeing that 
 he casts a gleam of satisfaction as he treads 
 through these ruins. When he looks up at Por- 
 tia's crumbling mansion, I mark a gloating smile 
 of triumph. He glories in having gotten an eye 
 for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. From a con- 
 temptuous survey of my face he turns away, but I 
 shall approach and address him. Are you not 
 Shylock, the money-lender of the Rialto? 
 
 STiylock. 
 
 Never shall I deny the name which bespeaks my 
 vocation, my race, my religion, and my revenge. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DE8DEM0NA. 287 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 I saw you some years ago on the Rialto, where 
 you loaned the ducats to Antonio, the merchant. 
 You failed to catoh him, thwarted through the 
 skill of Portia, and you lost your loan in the bar- 
 gain. Then too you lost your daughter who with 
 her Christian lover escaped here to Belmont which 
 harbored them, and from which Portia sallied forth 
 to the rescue of your victim. 
 
 Shylock. 
 
 True, but look around, and you may see my 
 vengeance. Portia I have banished from her mag- 
 nificent residence, and made it a ruin. She plead 
 me to give mercy, but showed me none, and so she 
 has received none. See yon falling balcony where 
 my renegade daughter Jessica looked out upon the 
 night with her lover Lorenzo; note this avenue 
 where they addressed the moon; now can you see 
 its smile? 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 The sight pities me. Can the place not be re- 
 stored? Thus it is valueless; not money do you 
 get but loss, aye very ruin. 
 
 Shylock. 
 
 Money never was my end. I had a deeper goal 
 of goals. 
 
288 TEE SHAKE BPEARI AD— PART SECOND. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 That would I hear — ^tell it me. 
 
 SJiylock. 
 
 I would have my bond. At my trial I cried in 
 vain for justice and mine own, but was crushed by 
 the mailed hand of legality. Let this Belmont stay 
 a monument to my wrong which I have righted. 
 Where now is Portia, the disguised Doctor of Laws, 
 who then outlawed me through her law? Where 
 is the Doge who sentenced me, and his Magnificoes ? 
 Whither is Venice herself hieing on the road of 
 fate ? I tell you I have had my bond which I then 
 called for, through a greater power, through 
 Jahveh, who still avenges his people's wrongs. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 So you believe yourself to represent God's jus- 
 tice in your act, which has brought back to the 
 wrong-doer the penalty of his conduct. 
 
 Shylock. 
 
 But tell me, who are you? Tou say that you 
 were here a number of years ago and observed the 
 magnificent array of suitors, and the time of my 
 humiliation — saw me on the Rialto and my deal- 
 
TSE VENETIAN TRILOaY—DESDEMONA. 289 
 
 ing with Antonio. But who are you? I note you 
 are an Englishman by your dress and your accent 
 and by your beefy rotundity and steaky jowl. 
 Your name? 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 I accept your personal compliments in return 
 for my thoughts which were twitting you on your 
 nose and cheek-bones. Also tit-for-tat demands 
 you know my name, as I know yours: I at home 
 am called William Shakespeare, dramatist. 
 
 Shylock. 
 
 What! Shakespeare the writer of that foul 
 slander on our race which has traveled all the way 
 from London hither, and is played on our stages 
 just now, named The Merchant of Venice! And 
 so you come again to blacken us still further. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 I chronicled what I saw. You must not blame 
 me for yourself when you behold your picture. 
 But I do grant that you have had your bond ful- 
 filled, and on your vengers you have wreaked ven- 
 geance. That would I show in my vocation: how 
 Shylock 's curse has come round to completion. 
 
290 THE 8HAKE8PEABIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 Shylock. 
 
 Go your ways, I shall not be satisfied. But now 
 I must ply back to the city, having seen the habi- 
 tations of my foes laid waste by Jahveh. Yet I 
 shall give you a brief hint if you would behold my 
 work topped out to a finish. Portia still lives, go 
 and see her now housed in my Ghetto. Antonio 
 still lives, the merchant beggar of the Rialto, the 
 home of splendid mendicancy. Perhaps you can 
 have a chat with him there on the empty seats. 
 
 Shakespeare, 
 
 Yes, all that I would cram iato my swollen wal- 
 let of experience. Farewell. 
 
 Shylock (to himself). 
 
 William Shakespeare, eh! the poet of Shylock! 
 Well, Shylock shall yet cateh you in the toils of 
 his retribution for having drawn such a portrait. 
 You shall pass away and so shall I ; but as long as 
 your writ survives, my hate of it and of you shall 
 live and work its damnation. 
 
the jenetian tbiloot—desdemona. 291 
 
 Scene Fifth. 
 
 {Second return from Belmont. )_ 
 
 Shakespeare (to himself). 
 
 Across the sparkle of the wavelets I watch the 
 drooping city of the, lagoons in an agony of melan- 
 choly. To me it seems as if I were present at the 
 Last Judgment of a world which rose in this Mid- 
 land Sea thousands of years ago, shone forth in 
 marvels of art and polity, and now is sinking in 
 Time's ocean, having traversed its cycle of history. 
 I brood over its successor — ^who, when, where ? Is 
 it to be my England?- I feel me to stand here 
 right on the line between what has been and what 
 is coming; foregone and future clash in me, and 
 make me their momentary battle-field. But that 
 which crushes through my heart on this spot is the 
 past, glorious and transitory, overwhelming me 
 with a kind of cosmical pain. Where are my tab- 
 lets? I must deliver me of its tragedy, else it will 
 make me tragic; I have to put this world-suffer- 
 ing outside into mine art, that I die not the death 
 of mine own characters. 
 
 Oondolier. 
 
 "Wake up from your revery, goodman dreamer; 
 we are approaching the Ghetto not far from which 
 Portia lives in a tenement owned by Shylock. 
 
292 THE SHAKESPEABIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 How different this return from Belmont to that 
 former one! All the sails vanished, the argosies 
 gone, only here and there a dirgeful gondola. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 Somewhere not far from this spot we passed 
 Brabantio's proud vessel returning, but lacking 
 Desdemona. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 I well remember. And from yonder church we 
 caught a glimpse of Othello and his bride slipping 
 out of the door. That was the fatal deed which 
 has been seething in me these so many years. In- 
 deed that was what compelled me to come back to 
 Venice and to behold it anew when both city and 
 myself were in a different mood. How this bright 
 world has sombered, and how the radiant Lady has 
 darkened ! But tell me of Portia at present. You 
 as faithful archivist of Venice, must know some- 
 thing of her history. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 Our guild is not so busy in tale-bearing as it 
 once was. With the grand decline have drooped 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DESDEMON A. 293 
 
 the Gondolier's song and story, and even his ready 
 tongue. Still the eclipse of Portia has been the 
 common talk of the city and is even gone into 
 legend. 
 
 Shakespeare (aside). 
 
 I know something about that, and I perhaps had 
 a hand in the matter myself. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 Bassanio, the gentleman spendthrift, rapidly 
 got rid of all Portia's ready cash, paying his old 
 debts and making new ones. Again and again he 
 went to the money-lender and mortgaged all his 
 wife 's real property for ducats in hand. You may 
 recollect I foresaw this state of affairs when we 
 crossed to the wooing of Portia. The result was 
 that Shylock sold out the whole estate and took 
 the place of the rich millionaire whose heiress had 
 to vacate Belmont, against which the old Jew 
 seemed to have a special spite as the spot where 
 his runaway daughter was harbored. He refuses 
 to keep it up or to rent it, but lets time make it 
 over to a monument of ruin. All the elegant furni- 
 ture was sold, jewels and even her wedding dress 
 went into pawn and never came out. 
 
294 THE BBAEESPEABIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 Shakespeare (to himself). 
 
 Dear me, where are my notes! I can make out 
 of that tale another tragedy. But how like Venice 
 herself ! 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 When you are done talking to yourself in 
 strange gibberish, I can tell you something more 
 in good Italian. I may imagine your asking how 
 does she live, since her husband Bassanio is not the 
 man to do a stroke of work. In this very gondola 
 I took her across with a few household effects, 
 barely enough for a new start in life. I heaved 
 to at a broken gangway which we shall soon see. 
 
 SJiakespeare. 
 
 Take a little breath, row more slowly, I would 
 hear your novelette to the close. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 Well, bread and butter did soon become a prob- 
 lem, which could no longer be put off. Fortunate- 
 ly, no third mouth set up its little but urgent cry 
 for help. Now Portia was ever adroit and fuU of 
 shifts, soon she began her downright wrestle with 
 hunger unaided by Bassanio, who was born hun- 
 gry and stayed so. You know she was quite a lin- 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DESDEMONA. 295 
 
 guist, SO she hunted up pupils in French and Lat- 
 in. Nay, more, she learnt a new tongue, none 
 other than your English which she needed for the 
 purpose of conversing with the many tourists 
 whom your people are now sending hither. 
 
 SJiakespeare. 
 
 What! our insular speech which she once 
 scoffed at! I must hear it from her own lips! 
 Bring me to this new Portia. But first tell me 
 about Bassanio, her choice of lovers — can he not 
 turn his hand to a gondola and perchance become 
 your rival or partner in business? 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 I would not have him around. Besides, he still 
 plays the part of gentleman, scholar, and soldier, 
 as he did when he won Portia. The only thing I 
 have seen him undertake was to act as cicerone for 
 strangers, which service he pompously performs. 
 I saw him conduct some sight-seers to Belmont, 
 and the fellow strutted and told the whole story 
 of his wooing on the very spot where it took place. 
 But he did not reveal the cause of the crumbling 
 walls. Did you note that mossy specimen of gen- 
 tility with old hat brushed up, who offered his serv- 
 ices to you at the wharf? That was our Bassanio. 
 
296 THE BHAKEBPEARIAD.—PAJtT SECOND. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 I thought I glimpsed a familiar line in his face. 
 And I noticed his proud stride, and even the aris- 
 tocratic twirl of his cloak and curl of his mus- 
 tachio. Nor did the smaU peacock's feather stuck 
 in his hat-band fail of its duty. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 Do you see this ring? It is Portia's wedding 
 ring which she, when disguised, took from Bas- 
 sanio at the trial. She had not a copper bajocco 
 to pay me for the transport. She jerked this off 
 her finger and left it in pawn. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 What will you take for it? That would be a 
 trophy to carry back to England. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 I would not sell it for the world; I'll let her re- 
 deem it. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Give me then another of your Venetian tales, 
 they are for me the true jewels of this city which 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DESBEMON A. 297 
 
 I can reshape and put into a new setting of mine 
 own. 
 
 Oondolier. 
 
 This trip brings up to my mind the sequel of Jes- 
 sica 's story. You recollect her, the runaway daugh- 
 ter of Shylock, who with her lover, Lorenzo, took 
 her bridal trip to Belmont and was entertained by 
 Portia. She likewise soon spent the money which 
 she had gotten by hook and crook from her papa, 
 and qtiickly lapsed to poverty. Lorenzo had to 
 turn his hand to earning a few florins, and what 
 do you think he did? He became a kind of public 
 sonneteer, writing poetic love-letters for those who 
 do not know how to write their own. In a corridor 
 of the Doge's Palace you will see him at his desk 
 scribbling away, while expectant maidens and 
 youths hang around. Jessica at home is busy in 
 the same line, filling orders for amatory epistles 
 which express the woman's side of the great ques- 
 tion, be it yes or no. Thus the pair are happy in 
 an everlasting paradise, for they renew everyday 
 their first day's love-life with all its tender words 
 and sweet rhymes. 
 
 SJiahespeare. 
 
 How glad am I to find one married couple in 
 Venice who are not tragic ! Poor Portia ! wretched 
 
298 THE 8EAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Desdemona ! High-born women undone of des- 
 tiny! But little Jessica the Jewess, whose start 
 seemed not very auspicious, has outstripped you 
 all in the conquest of Fate. Well do I recollect how 
 I heard the two lovers at Belmont ten years ago 
 twittering together on a moonlit evening, and ear- 
 rolling their dulcet duets in responsive echoes 
 which attuned their own heart's harmony to the 
 melody of music and the moonbeams! Something 
 of the kind I too had felt and chanted in mine 
 own cloudy England. So I in my art have to re- 
 enact my happiest experiences, and alas ! my gloom- 
 iest too, that I shun mine own fatal doom. 
 
 Gondolier. 
 
 I have been waiting for you to wake up from 
 your talking somnolescence, in which you labor in- 
 tensely. Already for some minutes we have come 
 to the landing which fronts the shattered old Pa- 
 lazzo where Portia has her humble tenement up a 
 flight of rickety stairs. Leap to the shore — ^but 
 hold! I note that the curtain of her window is 
 drawn, she must have gone out to give a lesson. 
 In the distance I discern her little gondola — ^I 
 recognize it, for it is mine, and I give her the use 
 of it. There! it turns a bend of the canal out of 
 sight — I am afraid we have lost her. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DE8DEM0NA. 299 
 
 SJiakespeare. 
 
 Then I shall not hear her later history — another 
 hmnan lot untold to me! Take me to the Rialto 
 again — ^perhaps I shall find the merchant Antonio 
 haunting his old arch of triumph. 
 
300 TEE 8HAEE8FEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Scene Sixth. 
 
 {Portia appears in the reception room of the 
 Albergho Inglaterra, a hostelry on the central Piaz- 
 za of Venice, having ieen summoned iy a group 
 of visitors ivho are making the tour of all Shakes- 
 pearopolis, an,d have now reached the middle por- 
 tion of the Venetian quarter. Their guide ad- 
 vances an,d addresses her.) 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 May I dare salute you as Portia of Belmont, not 
 unknown to me at a former time. My company 
 of travelers from abroad seek eagerly to hear your 
 account of Brabantio's daughter, maid of mourn- 
 ful memory, with whom your name and lot have 
 become strangely intertwined. 
 
 Portia. 
 
 So you wish to learn about the gentle but dread- 
 inspiring Desdemona, whose fate seemed to be a 
 prophesy of Venice itseK. I call her the most dar- 
 ing woman this city ever knew, far more defiant 
 than I who simply chose in an unusual way my 
 very usual husband. Next I disguised myself and 
 played the jurisconsult, for I had studied law 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOQY—BESBEMONA. 301 
 
 with my uncle Bellario at Padua. So I untangled 
 my own little love-knot, took the man I wanted, 
 rescued his friend Antonio from the murderous 
 clutch of the money-lender, after which feat we 
 all came back to Belmont in happy frame of mind. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 So far I have known already and to my people 
 told the story. But why do you call Desdemona 
 the most daring of all your women here? 
 
 Portia. 
 
 She defied not only the conventions of her city, 
 but the institutions of human kind. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Tell more about that. I thought she was a sim- 
 ple-hearted Venetian maiden who fell in love with 
 a black hero and impulsively married after her 
 passion. 
 
 Portia. 
 
 Such she was, and that seems and forever re- 
 mains the grand surprise in her character. Let 
 me tell you the intervening story. Scarcely were 
 we seated at our little wedding feast in Belmont 
 
302 THE SHAEE8PEARIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 after the nuptial ceremony was over, when there 
 came a messenger in great haste to my residence, 
 and asked an interview. I was summoned to the 
 Sagittary where Desdemona and Gthello were 
 staying. Her brief note bade me come quickly, de- 
 claring that she was in extreme straits. I had al- 
 ready heard a rumor of the marriage, which was 
 brought from the city by Bassanio on his return 
 with his friend. As I delight in harmonizing con- 
 flicts, I soon got myself ready and set out with 
 the messenger, an officer of Othello's guard. Quick- 
 ly Bassanio, who had been a soldier, followed. As 
 soon as I arrived I met Desdemona in tearful dis- 
 tress. She at once said: "Dearest Portia, you 
 have solved your problem of love, can you not 
 solve mine? You met with success your father's 
 obstacle, meet that of my father. You won the 
 man of your heart, help me win the man of my 
 heart. Go to my parent and reconcile him to my 
 choice, even if I have chosen without the caskets." 
 
 "Who is the favored one?" 
 
 "Othello, the Moor, whom you saw when his 
 relative, the Prince of Morocco, made his trial at 
 Belmont." "My dear girl," I replied, "you 
 heard my opiuion then when I noticed your agita- 
 tion as you asked the question: 'Is Othello going 
 to try the caskets?' Next you saw how the dark 
 Moroccan Prince failed." "Yes, but you did not 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DE8DEM0NA. 303 
 
 love him," slie answered, "Your heart was on an- 
 other suitor, as mine is on Othello. ' ' Whereat she 
 sobbed, and I spoke firmly: "I repeat I can see 
 in your choice only fate. My Bassanio was of the 
 same rank, city, nation, race with myself. But 
 you run counter to all these deepest instincts of 
 our nature in your preference." "I shall do it," 
 she cried, "My love bids me make the greatest 
 sacrifice for love ever yet made by woman. I shall 
 go where he goes, to the wars, to Ciyprus, and 
 stand with him on the battle line between Europe 
 and Asia. I shall be heroic with him and die for 
 him, because I feel my fate, and his too, in my 
 deed. Let it come, I challenge my tragedy." 
 
 I answered: "It will be the greatest of its 
 kind." 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I acclaim her the heroine supreme of our sex, 
 yea of either sex. She breaks over all these pre- 
 established limits and asserts her freedom. Let 
 family, society, caste, even the state get out of her 
 way, I hail her the one liberated human being now 
 on this globe. 
 
 Portia. 
 
 Many people in Venice thought I was very bold, 
 but she far transcends me. No, I cannot reconcile 
 
304 TBE 8HAKE8PEABIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 her conflict, I confess myself a weakling beside 
 her. And yet the simple-minded, home-keeping 
 artless girl! 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 Can you intimate to us what produced this pro- 
 digious transition in her character? She must 
 have had its possibility in her from the start; stiU 
 it required some peculiar conjuncture to develop 
 it. 'Tis the deepest, largest soul-change I have 
 ever known in Shakespearopolis. And mightily 
 prophetic of some order far-away in the ages ! 
 
 Portia. 
 
 I have often thought of this matter and tried to 
 fathom its primal source. So I construe it: Othel- 
 lo filled her with his own adventurous, heroic spirit 
 by the stories of his grand exploits — ^his battles, 
 sieges, fortunes from his boyhood. Then he was 
 superb in spinning his Arabian tales about strange 
 men whose heads did grow beneath their shoul- 
 ders, aU tricked out with his African imagination 
 which cannot always divide truth from fiction and 
 has the tendency to push fact into fable. He thus 
 poured his soul into hers, and transformed it; she 
 became obsessed with his daring, she the unso- 
 phisticated tender girl, hitherto quite empty of 
 all boldness, but it grew till she actually wished 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DE8DEM0NA. 305 
 
 that Heaven had made her such a man, and so she 
 became such a woman-nsurely the most courageous 
 enterprising, bound-bursting in our Venice. I ad- 
 mired and trembled! What inspired audacity in 
 her little feminine body! 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 The prophetess of the future, the herald of the 
 coming harmony of the nations, and of something 
 that lies far deeper — ^the unity of the races! 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 That outstrips the women of my Atlantis, often 
 reported the most advanced and emancipated in 
 the world. I would not wish her for a wife, I 
 would be left too far behind. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I am not saying that I personally like her, or 
 that I would choose an Othello for a husband. No 
 I would not. But I can distinguish my individual 
 feeling and even prejudice from my belief in what 
 is coming perhaps a thousand years hence. I 
 grant that I am not yet ready to take the Moor 
 as my companion for life, I still prefer one of my 
 own race, even if I may glimpse a different world 
 in the far futurity. 
 
306 TEE SHAKE 8PEABI AD.— PART SECOND. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 But the story is not ended. "What became of 
 Desdemona — the tragic outcome which you hint — 
 tell us of that. 
 
 Portia. 
 
 The end came soon and sadly. The emergency 
 of the time called Othello to Cyprus to defend the 
 island against the Turk. Desdemona would not 
 stay behind ; the enterprise, even the danger, made 
 the appeal to her new-born spirit of adventure. 
 Now Othello had to have white officers near him, 
 yet under him; the result was a furious jealousy 
 sprang up from the black against the white, deft- 
 ly fanned by a cunning villain named lago. All 
 were caught in the bloody net of fate. Othello 
 murdered his wife, Desdemona, in a fit of jealous 
 fren2y — ^then he slew himself. lago was caught 
 and executed. When the news was brought to 
 Venice the parent, old Brabantio, expired of hu- 
 miliation and grief. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Methinks I would have perished too; I see no 
 escape. It is the tragedy of Venice, aye of Eu- 
 rope, indeed of the whole world today. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DESDEMONA. 307 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I hold that these conflicts can all be reconciled 
 by the right person, aU of them except one — ^that 
 of race. Yes, the defied parent, the jealous hus- 
 band, even the villain can be restored, and the 
 whole action undone ; such is now my hope and my 
 prayer — it must be. 
 
 Portia. 
 
 Here is a thoughtful lady who has as yet said 
 nothing, but who seems most deeply observant of 
 us all. Somehow I cannot keep my eyes away 
 from her face. Did I not see you as young maiden 
 with your attendant at the drawing of the casket? 
 Your look then seemed a forecast. 
 
 Imogen. 
 
 That was my first visit to Venice when a girl. 
 And I heard also the story of Othello and Desde- 
 mona, whose wooing looked then to me as the 
 counterpart to yours. Well do I remember you 
 and your woman's disguise to reach your end; I 
 felt its premonition in mine own case. 
 
 Portia. 
 
 My task here is now done, I have another lesson 
 to give. 
 
308 THE SHAKE 8PEABI AD.— PART SECOND. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 Let the visitors stay in this hostelry. I have to 
 pay a visit to the Master who has returned to Ven- 
 ice that he may know of these dark fates which at 
 present feed his Genius. It suits his demonic 
 temper just now, deepened as it has been by the 
 experience of his life to the very bottom of crea- 
 tion's night-side. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DE8DEM0N A. 309 
 
 Scene Seventh. 
 
 Shakespeare (alone on the Bridge of Sighs). 
 
 What an unCuiAciaerable power in secret 
 
 Is haling me back to this arch of sorrow 
 
 That I must tell what I see, what I am ! 
 
 I have just come from that other bridge 
 
 Where the world's business once centered, 
 
 On the majestic Rialto; 
 
 There I met the gray merchant Antonio 
 
 More melancholy than ever, 
 
 As he sat glooming over the past 
 
 When his rich argosies sped through the seas 
 
 From Orient old to the Occident new. 
 
 While the bare Rialto itself rose a sigh 
 
 For the lost grandeur of Venice. 
 
 But more deeply I feel in my life's own throb 
 
 The fate of the fair Desdemona 
 
 So meekly innocent, yet so daringly guilty. 
 
 That she drives me to utter herself — and me. 
 
 So I am lashed by the scourge of my Genius 
 
 To tell her tale in the throes of my speech, 
 
 Though I have to suffer all that she suffers 
 
 E 'en to the point of her last strangulation, 
 
 And I have to writhe with maddened Othello 
 
 In the Hell-lit torture of all his jealousy, 
 
310 THE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 For I love Desdemona more tliaii her lover, 
 
 And in my frenzy of passion 
 
 I clutch the dagger to slay her 
 
 And then feel the slash of its blade at my gorge. 
 
 For I am tragic in writing my tragedy, 
 
 The penalty paid by my heroes is mine. 
 
 The character I in all my characters, 
 
 Even their death I have to pass through in writ. 
 
 Or stay with them caught in mortality. 
 
 So I here resolve on this Bridge of Sighs 
 
 To give utterance to Othello and me 
 
 In mightiest words of my trip-hammered tongue 
 
 Which smites the strokes of my love's world-pain 
 
 Into speech that re-echoes its pangs and its power. 
 
 "Well do I know it — to write such a book 
 
 Leaves its scars on the soul forever. 
 
 The dire experience had first to be mine, 
 
 A furious war in which I was slayer and slain. 
 
 Enduring aU the wounds I inflicted. 
 
 As I slaughtered my spirit's folk for their deeds 
 
 Which I felt to be also mine own. 
 
 And now here on this Bridge of Sighs, 
 
 This mortal frame of mine is shaken and rent 
 
 More than Othello's in telling Othello; 
 
 I roar to the scourge of my agony. 
 
 And my life's fountain bubbles up scalding tears, 
 
 I feel his throes of love the resistless 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— DE8DEM0N A. 311 
 
 Which has conquered the conqueror; 
 
 Then the full counterstroke sprung of his jealousy 
 
 Smites me till I yield up my wof ulest sob, 
 
 Him I slay on my page, and so save myself. 
 
 As tragic am I as is Othello the doomed, 
 
 And I seize the knife to cut mine own throat. 
 
 The very haft I must grasp in my hand, 
 
 That I kill the Othello within me 
 
 But not myself, the scribe of his deed. 
 
 And thus I am rid of him as my fate, 
 
 Which else remorseless had whelmed me down 
 
 Into death's deepest dungeon. 
 
 So come to my prayer for rescue. 
 
 Thou mightier Genius mine, 
 
 And agaia be my sympathetic releaser 
 
 Through the strength of thy word superhuman. 
 
 For not the first time now I invoke thee 
 
 To help me unclutch the pitiless grip 
 
 Which the Dark Lady has clawed in my heart 
 
 Through her power demonic of love. 
 
 Help me once more, I beseech thee, 
 
 And perchance still again I shall need thee 
 
 With all the charm of thy soul-easing speech 
 
 Till one day I may be freed of my curse, 
 
 Rid of the spell of woman the terrible. 
 
 E 'en in my deepest convulsions of passion 
 
 There streams a hope of my rescuer coming. 
 
312 TEE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 I pass through all the torturous agonies 
 
 Of Love's Inferno down to its darkest pit, 
 
 Still for me I dream a rising redeemer, 
 
 A woman savior from woman's curse. 
 
 But not yet can I be liberated 
 
 From the dues of my pain purgatorial 
 
 Till I have it syllabled into my scroll. 
 
 Hand me my pen — ^the sight of my tablets 
 
 Starts already relief from my woes. 
 
 Now I must write with my soul's full gush 
 
 The fate of OtheUo, 
 
 Lest I by mine own stroke droop down in blood 
 
 As Othello the fated. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY.— IMOGEN. 313 
 
 The Venetian Trilogy 
 
 IMOGEN 
 
 (At Venice in the Bibliotheca or Sail of the 
 Past with its urns, statues, and especially manu- 
 scripts and books. Out of the window across the 
 square is seen the Cathedral of San Marco, on 
 whose front in a niche stands a figure of the Ma- 
 donna. The third Muse flits down and speaks.) 
 
 Scene First. 
 
 Urania. 
 
 Who calls me from my old home on Parnassus 
 To this strange land and stranger time 
 Far away from my art and my people ? 
 I, Urania, the star-weeting Muse of the skies 
 Am invoked to be present and to preside 
 As arbitress over destinies human 
 Enacted upon this spot of the earth. 
 Man I would move to the spheral harmony 
 "Which sings through all the stellar spaces, 
 But he will not be tuned to such music, 
 
314 THE SHAKE 8PEABI AD.— PART SECOND. 
 
 He prefers discord and blood and death, 
 So I have witnessed mine own world antique 
 Sink down in a sunset to Hades. 
 
 Ariel (starts from an alcove). 
 
 I, the modern Hermes of the ghost-world, 
 Have called up thy spirit out of the Past, 
 Bidding thee fleet from Hellas the hoary 
 To this new Venice of the lagoons 
 In aid of thy sister Melpomene, 
 The inspiress of mortal Tragedy, 
 Whose fated song has fated herself 
 With the very doom of her own art, 
 Unless thou come from the spheres above 
 Bringing thy starry presence healful 
 To rescue her from her own judgment 
 Returning upon her. 
 
 Urania. 
 
 That sister hath greater power than mine; 
 Headstrong ever she was and gory-minded. 
 Averse and uncanny to me is her character, 
 I never could control her in realm of the Muses, 
 Though I sought to soften her furious nature 
 And to thwart her bloody deed 
 In the deeper spirit of placation. 
 But she wrought with the trend of the time, 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY.— IMOGEN. 315 
 
 And hence was far stronger than I ; 
 
 From that old world the clutch of pitiless Fate 
 
 I could not ward off, though often besought; 
 
 Hellas is gone, Rome has perished, 
 
 And methinks that Venice herself is passing. 
 
 If I dare judge of the now by the past. 
 
 But tell me further of thyself. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 I am Ariel the Psychagogue, 
 
 Conductor of souls to the eerie city 
 
 Of spirit-peopled Shakespearopolis. 
 
 I have conjured thee hither as Muse of eld 
 
 To help our time build the new world poetic 
 
 Which is to be heir of thy old one ; 
 
 Thou must be embodied afresh with young power. 
 
 For thou eouldst not stem the tragical lot 
 
 Of thy life antique, though thou wouldst ; 
 
 Thou didst gleam reconciliation from Heaven, 
 
 But it never descended to Earth ; 
 
 The twinkle of love fell from thy starlit eyes 
 
 But flashed away into nothingness; 
 
 Remedial thy look, but helpless thy deed ; 
 
 Thy name is rightly a prelude celestial 
 
 Which hints from above high prophecy 
 
 Though it has never yet come to fulfilment. 
 
 But now thy season is ripening. 
 
316 THE 8EAEESPEARIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 Urania. 
 
 Conjurer thou of spirits long since vanished, 
 
 What dost thou purpose with me the time-shent? 
 
 I can do nought in your life here, 
 
 I am not at home in this city of yours. 
 
 Let me flee back to mine ancient abode, 
 
 Among the old Gods and Goddesses Grecian, 
 
 Roaming the dreamy fields Elysian ; 
 
 More shadowy seem I here than there, 
 
 Where I haunt with my folk the asphodel meadow. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Muse of the stellar heights above, 
 
 1 dare not loosen the clasp of my spell 
 
 TUl I transform thee to another shape and func- 
 tion. 
 To-day there comes from distant England — 
 Perchance she already is here — 
 The woman who is to take thee into herself; 
 She will incarnate thee in bright newness 
 That she undo the Fates of thy sister, 
 The tragic Melpomene, 
 And of thy world, and of its famed poets. 
 Yea of thee, making thee live and love again 
 In the art supreme of the Muses. 
 Thou shalt take her shape all shining. 
 As thy sister informed the Dark Lady, 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY.— IMOGEN. 317 
 
 The sinister woman of Shakespearopolis, 
 
 Destroying herself and her singer, 
 
 Unless he escape through thy spirit redemptive. 
 
 So thou, renewed in thy calling supreme, 
 
 Shalt be his redeemer and thine and his world's. 
 
 TJrania. 
 
 Of her, the blessed mediatorial woman, 
 I have dreamed all my ancientry's days. 
 Even far back in the dawn of my Homer. 
 But too strong was the Goddess, dread Nemesis 
 "With her vengeful train of the Fates and the 
 
 Furies, 
 I wrestled with the Dark Powers 
 And sometimes won me a sunny moment. 
 But in the end I was defeated and banned, 
 "When our whole world of beauty antique 
 Sank down graveward with the old Gods, 
 And turned one vast tragedy's spectacle 
 Pageanting all the sweep of the ages, 
 "Whose wrath I, mild Urania, the soft-voiced Muse 
 Could not stay nor placate. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 "Well do I know thy struggle heroic but doomed ; 
 I, Time's Psychagogue, both the old and the new, 
 Oft watched thee wrestling and writhing 
 
318 THE 8BAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 In the souls of the grand-worded bards of eld 
 Who themselves sought to fight ofE the sanguined 
 
 grip 
 "Which Nemesis clutched in their life and their 
 
 writ. 
 But they could not put down their Dark Lady, 
 The demonic power slaying their world; 
 Then didst thou droop, weltering in a grim gory 
 
 sea. 
 Thy little sister Thalia, Muse of the laugh and the 
 
 kiss, 
 Innocent, happy-making, heart-joining. 
 But alas! not priestess remedial of sin and fate. 
 Could give thee no help in that last crisis. 
 So dark Melpomene won, thy tragic sister, 
 But lost herself and her folk in the winning. 
 Fated just in her triumph. 
 Now thou art to take the new stride to the new 
 
 time. 
 Her and her victims 'tis thine to redeem 
 Or at least to beshine with thy favoring stars. 
 
 Urania. 
 
 lay not on me this fresh task of a life ! 
 Another age of suffering wouldst thou inflict 
 Upon my out- worn spirit and shape? 
 
 1 shrink from this prospect enkindling anew 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— IMOGEN. 319 
 
 The remediless woes of my old world-pain. 
 
 Besides I did enough to be an example 
 
 In that time antique when I ruled as a Goddess 
 
 Alive in the hearts of my people. 
 
 Hast thou forgotten how I saved from the Furies 
 
 Mad Orestes guilty of his mother's blood? 
 
 How I translated old blind Oedipus penitent 
 
 To the Gods out of the clutch of the Fates? 
 
 And did I not send Iphigenia as priestess 
 
 To redeem from savagery barbarous Tauris? 
 
 Leave me to my sweet Elysian repose 
 
 As a dutyless deity once enthroned 
 
 But long since discharged of my rule. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Impossible ! 1, in my office of Psychagogue 
 Summon thee to thy old life's renewal 
 In a young shape of this city. 
 
 Urania. 
 
 Tell me the name of my regenerator 
 
 Who you say is coming hither from Earth's last 
 
 bound, 
 From Ultima Thule of nebulous Barbary. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 A Princess, daughter of the British King, 
 Her name is Imogen, and is titled the Blessed 
 
820 THE 8HAKESPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 In her bright palace of Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Now slie hither has journeyed solitary — 
 
 In her woman's sufferance sympathetic 
 
 Seeing the lot of Portia and Desdemona, 
 
 Forecasting too the turn of Venice. 
 
 Behold, yonder she comes, then pensively halts! 
 
 She looks sorrow's own monument, 
 
 Yet through all her pangs is writ resolution 
 
 And the spirit's atonement. 
 
 Urania. 
 
 How tragic the sway of her features! 
 Methinks she ought to incorporate 
 My sister Melpomene rather than me. 
 Still I forefeel the transformation, 
 I must fuse me into her dolorous soul 
 Its affliction to heal with my starry balm. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Glance along the Piazza at a niche of St. Mark, 
 
 There weeps the Madonna sorrow-laden 
 
 With the woes of all Christendom, 
 
 Which she takes to herself and undoes by her 
 
 healing 
 Born of her spirit vicarious. 
 She too seems to enter the soul of Imogen 
 With a new transfiguration of faith j 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY.— IMOGEN. 321 
 
 Descending from her clmreh's pedestal 
 She gleams of the woman the love universal 
 "Which she irradiates as the Blessed Lady. 
 
 Urania. 
 
 Hers is a different world from mine, 
 And stiU we have something in common : 
 The message remedial. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 To this harmony then I have led you, 
 
 But I see mounting the stair the Master, 
 
 The Builder himself of a world full of people, 
 
 One of whom rises to be enthroned 
 
 This new Princess of womanhood. 
 
 Now I am off, my company waits 
 
 On my promised guidance. 
 
 Urania (to herself). 
 
 How I feel myself happily vanishing, 
 Tenderly shifting into the shape and the soul 
 Of this new Sovereign Lady the Blessed ! 
 Long ago I was her dim prophecy 
 And of her spirit foretold pregnant oracles 
 Which Time, the old midwife, has unwombed 
 Into the sunshine of day. 
 
322 THE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 But mark another presence of wonder! 
 There approaches the word's grand artificer 
 Voicing the new personality — 
 Him too I would well imbreathe. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— IMOGEN. 323 
 
 Scene Second. 
 
 {Still in the Biiliotheca lies the scene with some 
 old men poring over manuscripts.) 
 
 Shakespeare (alone). 
 
 Again to Venice I have journeyed, 
 
 Propelled by my heart's deepest longing; 
 
 My third visit it is I recall 
 
 After the years of my dark experience, 
 
 The years most intense of my life in creation, 
 
 During which I passed my Inferno 
 
 And enacted by word mine own tragedy 
 
 Eepeated in manifold dread production. 
 
 So I have escaped my damnation 
 
 Through my pen's saving power 
 
 To ban my innermost devil. 
 
 Exorcising him into my fantasy's shapes. 
 
 I had perished long since of my passion's Furies 
 
 Could I not have flung them out of myself 
 
 Into my soul's mirrowing scroll 
 
 Whereby I kept regaining my spirit's freedom. 
 
 One task remains to me still to be done 
 
 Ere I wind up my life 's full round : 
 
 I have to image my rescue from fate 
 
 Through my art of building the woman redemptive. 
 
324 TSE BBAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Round me I note this Hall of the Past 
 "With its lettered rolls of old things remembered; 
 Venice too has become chiefly a memory. 
 And I myself on this spot feel transmuted 
 Into a remiaiscence of what I have been 
 In my rising and falling turns of career. 
 I remind me well of beautiful Portia 
 The millionaire's heiress of classic Belmont, 
 Whom I saw in young glow of admiration 
 On my first visit to Venice the happy, 
 When I was myself a joyous comedy 
 Which laughed out of my heart as I wrote. 
 But the next time I came to this city 
 Its beauty was gloomed with a lowering paU 
 Which lay also in me, I felt it well, 
 As I looked on the deed of bold Desdemona, 
 A child challenging dreadest fatality. 
 And I bewailed her lot on the Bridge of Sighs 
 Where rose up before me mine own shrouded specter 
 Who had followed my flight to Venice, 
 And threatened to fling me her victim in the la- 
 goons. 
 But I have rid myself of the Dark Damozel, 
 Who has become my Hell's reminiscence 
 As I recall her shape and the time of her curse 
 Just here in the Hall of the Past 
 Where I shall limn her picture forever 
 In all her varying turns of character. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY.— IMOGEN. 325 
 
 For one soul she is though she takes many forms 
 Which I have scrolled in my tragical women. 
 
 But now I hail this third visit to Venice 
 
 With the joy of a spirit absolved 
 
 From the debt of his journey infernal, 
 
 Bearing a new atonement of life. 
 
 But with this regenerate selfhood of mine 
 
 Dawns a fresh duty not to be shunned, 
 
 My Genius bids me on pain of perdition 
 
 To forge my soul 's trial in characters written 
 
 Who will enact the deed of redemption. 
 
 But whom shall I take ? I know not as yet ; 
 
 StiU I may whisper my heart's deep presentiment, 
 
 The new reconciler must be a woman. 
 
 The Dark Lady it was who so long imdid me 
 
 Demonizing my life in her spell 
 
 From which the passage of suns allowed me no rest 
 
 Till I had touched my despair's last discipline 
 
 And found the woman-soul mediatorial 
 
 In the sanative balm of my home. 
 
 Her then I am to incorporate holily 
 
 Imbreathing her with a new personality 
 
 Which heals all the ill of her sex. 
 
 But where can I meet her eidolon ? 
 
 Ha, here approaches a shape I already have seen 
 
 Dimly flitting before me long since. 
 
 She makes sign to address me. 
 
326 TEE SHAEE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Scene Third. 
 
 {The locality is the same as "before, hut a new 
 figure enters and salutes the poet, telling him of 
 her lot.) 
 
 Imogen. 
 
 First let me trust you as my compatriot; 
 
 I shall confide you my name, rank and travail, 
 
 I am Imogen, hapless, Princess of Britain, 
 
 Where you too, are at home, the poet. 
 
 I come to you with tribulation and sorrow, 
 
 And dare address you in my affliction; 
 
 There sheds from your spirit something remedial. 
 
 And your eye rays sheen of sympathy, 
 
 As if you had known the same conflict 
 
 Which is now tearing my heart. 
 
 On this spot I feel Desdemona's own fate 
 
 Which threatens to crush me where she stood; 
 
 Well do I remember her courageous gait 
 
 As she stepped into the Signory yonder 
 
 Before the Doge and all the Magnificoes 
 
 Who were sitting in judgment. 
 
 Then rose her father, Brabantio venerable. 
 
 Pleading against her deed of love; 
 
 Every word cut to her heart as he reproached her 
 
 With daughterly ingratitude. 
 
TBE VENETIAN TRILOGY— IMOGEN. 327 
 
 And still she daringly clung to her soul's chosen 
 As her own last right of existence. 
 Alas! that mirrors my own present lot: 
 My father, King Cymbeline, I have defied, 
 For he has forced me to make the hard option 
 Between my parent's love and my lover's love ; 
 And I have preferred mine own Leonatus, 
 Asserting the deepest worth of my womanhood 
 Though it rend atwain every pulse-beat of life. 
 I would flee to my stolen brothers 
 If I but knew where they are hidden, 
 Though it were off in the wilds of savagery 
 Remote from abodes of civilized dwellers. 
 
 Sliakespeare. 
 
 Thy hap is common to youth and thy sex. 
 Every young lady has to pass through this struggle 
 As the fiery test of the truth of her love. 
 I have shown it a dozen times and more, 
 As a favorite theme of my London stage, 
 Vindicating the daughter's right in love's decision. 
 Do you remember the story of Portia's caskets 
 Once enacted here in this Venice ? 
 
 Imogen. 
 
 Unforgettable is the instance! 
 
 As a child I had the dread presentiment 
 
328 TBE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 When I was first loving my Leonatus 
 Against the stern will of my father : 
 Still we were wedded in secret nuptials. 
 Then a new and greater trouble assailed me, 
 Seeking to break the bond of my marriage. 
 The villain slipped in between me and my hus- 
 band 
 Who was banished to Italy by my angry father, 
 He seeks to shatter by lies our mutual faith, 
 As lago did to the valiant Othello 
 Rousing jealousy of the true wife Desdemona; 
 So now lachimo, kindred in name and nature. 
 Love's Italian Machiavel, 
 Has set on fire mine own Leonatus 
 With suspicion furious like Othello's; 
 My husband will take my life in his madness, 
 He has sent a secret order to England 
 That I by my servant be murdered. 
 Hence I have again wandered to Italy 
 That I find and redeem my homeless spouse. 
 Curing him of his hapless delusion. 
 Restoring our first bond of love now broken. 
 My journey I have deflected to Venice 
 Whither the lot of Desdemona has lured me, 
 For I have the hope to do what she could not, 
 Overcome the husband's delusive jealousy. 
 I fain would see where she mistook, 
 And learn from her fate to unfate myself, 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY.— IMOGEN. 329 
 
 Mending the disrupted tie of family; 
 Such I deem my womanhood's first consecration: 
 To heal the dearest one of his dread malady 
 Which threats to destroy hushand and wife — 
 Him and me to slay as children of doom. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Noblest conception of duty is thine, 
 
 Fulfill it through suffering, make it thy life. 
 
 Upbuilding thy ideed as thy monument grandest ! 
 
 Imogen, I thee prophesy 
 Time's true mediatorial character, 
 Loftiest woman-soul of my Shakespearopolis. 
 And here I shall broach thee my dread confession 
 Hitherto hid in the dark of my heart : 
 
 1 too have writhed in that same tribulation, 
 Smitten by jealousy through all my being; 
 What thy Leonatus suffers, have I suffered, 
 'Tis a Fury which plunges me too into Hell, 
 The demonic counterpart of Love's very self, 
 Which thralls me to a terrible woman. 
 
 So I acknowledge to thee my Dark Lady, 
 My passion seethes up around her in frenzy 
 As she to another doth yield her sweet favor. 
 I am burning still in the very flame 
 Where I put the tortured Othello, 
 And made him shout my mortal agony. 
 
330 THE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 From which therein I found a relief, 
 
 Not lasting but ever returning 
 
 Till from that first Harpy I may be disthralled — 
 
 Aye from the Dark Lady herself. 
 
 Thy thought, thy presence, thy personality, 
 
 Imogen, thy faithful deed medicinal 
 Drips me already its healing balm 
 Into the deepest chasm of my soul. 
 
 Whose Stygian horrors I have passed through; 
 
 1 would have killed myself like Othello 
 
 If I had not killed him with my pen point 
 
 Letting my tragedy flow out into words. 
 
 Which transmuted the drops of my heart into ink. 
 
 Thus bleeding me of mine own deadly poison. 
 
 But still further I must carry my cure 
 
 That I free me of my curse's recurrence. 
 
 And need never again pour me out tragical : 
 
 Thee I must recreate into myself 
 
 And render thee integral with my being, 
 
 Till I project thee out of me into the world, 
 
 And make thy deed of high mediation 
 
 Live anew in my transcript of thee 
 
 Which reveals thee as healer divinely redemptive. 
 
 Imogen. 
 
 High is the calling which you have given me ; 
 But let me remind me of the deeper wrong : 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY— IMOGEN. 331 
 
 My fair name has been smirched by a villain 
 
 "Who has injected his venom into my spouse, 
 
 And I am unjustly suspected 
 
 By the man I have defiantly loved 
 
 Despite every hindrance of rank, blood and malice ; 
 
 Against the villain I cry for the penalty. 
 
 Never from me can he win forgiveness. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Yet thy ease is happier far than mine, 
 
 For my Dark Lady is to me untrue not only 
 
 But untrue to truth, to virtue itself. 
 
 And plays me, not slyly the villain. 
 
 To blacken my honor's fair name. 
 
 But openly flaunts me her unlove. 
 
 While I am tied to her still with my heart-strings, 
 
 "Which she delights to set thrilling love's agony. 
 
 Thy Leonatus has been misled by falsehood. 
 
 But I am not so misled — I know — 
 
 Her confession I have to her own unfaith. 
 
 Not told in tears but in a laugh of scorn 
 
 "Which smites me powerless down 
 
 Into the depths of sin's lowest damnation. 
 
 There leaving me still in the clutch of my Fury. 
 
 I tell thee I have often thought of doing 
 
 The double murder of jealous Othello, 
 
 Slaying the loved one then slaying myself; 
 
332 THE SHAZESPEABIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Thus the Dark Lady has hung me up in a dream 
 From homicide swaying to suicide 
 Turning my soul to a slaughtering maniac 
 TiU thee I began to glimpse from afar, 
 And felt the fresh breath of Heaven remedial. 
 
 Imogen. 
 
 You startle me with your contortions — 
 Tragedian you, not now ia the theater. 
 But on the stage of your life's real drama. 
 Why those dreadful facial grimaces 
 Echoing the wrenches of your whole frame-work, 
 In response to your fiendish torturer, 
 As if you were racked by the demons? 
 Let me try to soothe you with eye and hand, 
 Then send you back to your home at Stratford, 
 For you need the cure of your family's heart 
 To tune you back to life's harmony 
 Through the woman's tender touch of kinship. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Thy word and thy look pour me sweet solace, 
 
 And betoken recovery lasting. 
 
 So cruel was once my love's infliction 
 
 That I could not have helped me from death 
 
 Unless my guardian Genius had found 
 
 An outlet equal to my spirit's agony — 
 
THE TENETIAN TRILOaY— IMOGEN. 333 
 
 That was my art to turn my pain's burning lava 
 
 Into my uttered volcano of speech , 
 
 And to cleanse my soul of its suffering sin 
 
 Through the words of my lettered Purgatory 
 
 Building my world of self-expiation. 
 
 For years the malady lasted, 
 
 In desperation I would clutch my quill, 
 
 I swear thee, I wrote not for bread 
 
 Nor fame nor gain nor power 
 
 But for my soul's salvation, 
 
 And that is my greatest worth, 
 
 Imogen. 
 
 Well-a-day ! I see now the fountain head 
 
 Which streams forth that line of women of 
 
 horrors — 
 Erinyes, Gorgons, Medusas snake-tressed — 
 They all bubble out of the love of that Dark Lady 
 Whose frantic spell kept you writhing long years 
 Told in heart-words of ransomless suffering 
 Which would burst up beyond the expressible 
 And crack the moulds of our human language 
 That it be shivered to fragments. 
 
 STiaJcespeare. 
 
 Eeproach me not with that rout of female devils 
 Who rave through my pages down to damnation, 
 
334 THE 8HAKESPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Quitting me thus of their presence! 
 Imogen I behold thee now in thy place 
 As my turning-poiat to peace and renewal — 
 Thee my new node of regeneration 
 Bringing my circuit of life to its fuUness ! 
 When I contemplate thee in thy calling 
 Those Stygian dames take flight to Erebos, 
 And I become whole and one in thy spirit, 
 Thou my releaser, restorer, redeemer, 
 Whom my Genius bids me at once 
 To limn into letters undying 
 As the woman-soul mediatorial. 
 
 Imogen. 
 
 Wait! I too have on my soul a confession: 
 
 For in me still lurks a corner of hate 
 
 Against that villain, hellish lachimo 
 
 Blasting my husband's love, traducing my honor. 
 
 SMkespeare. 
 
 That leads up to my harder request; 
 A still more difficult task lies before thee 
 If thou wilt rise to be mediatress complete; 
 That very villain with aU his diabolism 
 Seeking to ruin thy shining name. 
 And to undermine thy wedlock of love 
 Cannot be left out thy sweep of redemption. 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY— IMOGEN. 335 
 
 Him too by the might of thy spirit's suffering 
 Thou art to bring round to repentance 
 That he expiate in contrition's own sobs 
 His most sinning deed. 
 
 Imogen. 
 
 What ! am I to rescue my damned destroyer ! 
 
 The devil whose hate is the love of two hearts ! 
 
 He snaked into my chamber and watched my sleep, 
 
 Stealing my keepsakes he boasted his triumph 
 
 Over my woman's consecration to love 
 
 With a fiend's lying mockery — 
 
 The very act of Eden's old Serpent. 
 
 What is Hell made for if not just for him? 
 
 Worse than lago, his devlish namesake 
 
 Who had some ground for his villainy 
 
 In requiting Othello! 
 
 How can I, weak woman, redeem original Satan 
 
 Bridging the universe's deepest chasm 
 
 With my little hand of redemption ! 
 
 Sliakespeare. 
 
 Just therein lies thy ultimate gift remedial 
 Which proclaims thy womanly character : 
 Canst thou transform the devil incarnate, 
 Bringing him to repent, confess, undo his wrong 
 To the full round of his sin's expiation? 
 
336 TEE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 If lie be left out of thy work redemptive, 
 
 Thou canst never be whole, not the integral soul, 
 
 "Which has here to enact the all-healing Self. 
 
 If thy very Satan, the villain lachimo 
 
 Thou dost not redeem and that in a hurry, 
 
 He will come back from his sly lurking devildom 
 
 And get thee the next time surely, 
 
 And me perchance, aye the world. 
 
 Imogen. 
 
 Reconcile my father whom I honor, 
 
 Rescue my husband whom I love. 
 
 Save you, the poet, from your Dark Lady, 
 
 All that I would and possibly can. 
 
 But the fiend who has wronged me most deeply, 
 
 The Satanic destroyer of all to me dearest — 
 
 I shall not, I cannot, I may not — 
 
 Bid me not again go down to the burning pit. 
 
 Through which I have doubly passed already, 
 
 Bid me not to endure once more crucifixion 
 
 Just for black Beelzebub's sake. 
 
 SJiakespeare. 
 
 Thou must, not only for his sake and mine, 
 But to restore thy love's Leonatus forever, 
 Else all thy work will have to be done over. 
 And I cannot finish my life without thee, 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY.— IMOGEN. 337 
 
 Rounding my cycle of years to completion 
 Through my utterance stamped with thy soul. 
 Hear my prayer, I must win thee fulfilled 
 For mine own last fulfilment. 
 
 Imogen. 
 
 Let me gather me up to my sorest resolve : 
 
 Leonatus, love for thee is enforcing me 
 To overcome my deepest repugnance, 
 And to quit me of my ultimate hate, 
 lachimo penitent I shall forgive 
 
 For thy dear sake, yet also for his, 
 
 And aye for mine own. 
 
 As I too now feel me forgiven. 
 
 With that last chain clanking down broken 
 
 1 stand up disthralled, redeemed, 
 
 But ready still for the fresh burden given me. 
 Master, what else ? 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Then I too am atoned Tvith thee through thy rise, 
 As I trace it in letters upon my leaves 
 Having passed my purgatorial trial. 
 In thee I hear mine own music remedial, 
 As I unfold concordant thy character 
 Crowning thee queen of Shakespearopolis. 
 
338 TEE BHAEESPEARIAD.—PABT BECOND. 
 
 Imogen. 
 Enough ! let me pass on to my mission. 
 
 SJiakespeare. 
 
 She glides away to some fresh advancement, 
 For she deems her labor not as yet done, 
 Herself not finished to her fulfilment; 
 She cannot rest in what she has won. 
 Fare thee well, my Imogen dutiful, 
 My gratitude's daughter for my salvation. 
 Giving thee life I have wrought out my rescue 
 Telling thy tale I have told mine own absolution ; 
 Now thou art one with the Powers of Heaven. 
 
 Voice From Above. 
 
 List to the miracle 
 Told by my oracle : 
 If thou dost hate 
 Thou art thy fate. 
 
 But now I chime 
 
 A higher rhyme : 
 
 If thou canst hate thine own hate 
 
 Thyself art the fate to thy fate. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY —IMOGEN . 339 
 
 Under many names 
 The Lord proclaims: 
 That ever the hateful 
 Doth father the fateful. 
 
 Shakespeare (alone). 
 
 What means that mystic voice from the cloud 
 
 Which yet speaks to my heart a message 
 
 Of Imogen now the healf ul restorer ? 
 
 I too feel me by her transfigured; 
 
 Six years ago, three years ago, aye one year ago 
 
 I could not have redeemed her in writ, 
 
 I would have made her tragical 
 
 Passing pitiless sentence of death 
 
 Upon herself, her people, and her world 
 
 So damnable in its transgression; 
 
 But now I am become another man, 
 
 And see with a different vision 
 
 The way of my life and with it my art; 
 
 Having whirled round a grand turn of my Genius 
 
 I have won my new personality 
 
 Which stamps my achievement as integral. 
 
 Imogen now can I show atoneful 
 
 Eedeeming husband, parent, even her devil. 
 
 Not omitting herself and me, her history's scribe, 
 
 And this new writ of mine is not that of death 
 
 But of death overcome and undeathed 
 
 Through the woman-soul mediatorial. 
 
340 TEE SEAKESPEARIAD.—FART BECOND. 
 
 Epilogue 
 
 (The group of visitors, 7ieade,d hy the Psycha- 
 gogue enter openly into the Hall of the Past, hav- 
 ing previously from their nook overheard the con- 
 versation between Shakespeare and Imogen. On 
 the other hand the poet, having gone out to see 
 Imogen depart, slips back into an alcove of the Hall 
 of the Past, and overhears in turn the remarks of 
 the visitors.) 
 
 Scholarch. 
 
 Those last words of the poet sound like the grand 
 finale of our Venetian Trilogy which we have now 
 been living. It seems to be a finishing of himself, 
 and compasses his life's deepest experiences, as 
 well as the stages of his accomplishment. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Not very distinct is my impression of the whole, 
 I shall have to grow over night. But what grips me 
 strongest is the oft-repeated gospel of the poet that 
 his writing has been not only his relief but his 
 actual redemption ; without his pen he would him- 
 self have been as tragic as his own tragedies. 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY.— EPILOaUE. 341 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 But I would call your attention to another mes- 
 sage. You have witnessed the great miracle of 
 Venice and of the age, and indeed of the poet. The 
 transformation of the Muse antique into her mod- 
 ern counterpart outreaches the similar fables of 
 the ancient time. It is a vision which you may well 
 take away with you as the chief fruitage of your 
 journey to Shakespearopolis. I, though Psycha- 
 gogue of the spirits old and new, never before be- 
 held such a wonder. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 And I who live back to the hoary Promethean 
 age, felt myself transmuted to Imogen, the poet's 
 latest woman throned here in his city. I would be 
 what she is, and I experienced the same renewal 
 that came over me when I saw and heard Her- 
 mione who might be her older sister. Still I have 
 my questionings which cast a shadow over my in- 
 ner glow. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 You would not be Pandora with her box of ills, 
 unless you could fling from your tongue one or two 
 of your shadows upon the sunlight which persists 
 in shining nevertheless. 
 
342 THE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 If I usurp your function a little, my dear Psy- 
 chagogue, do not grow jealous of me, else I may 
 think you have caught the disease from the hus- 
 bands of those two deeply wronged ladies, Her- 
 mione and Imogen. Then I in my turn may have 
 to try upon you my woman's remedial power. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 You are indeed the all-gifted in accord with 
 your name. But I hope I may not be destined to 
 suffer as much as the poet. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 That brings up my first interrogation: if the 
 builder of this city of souls endured such ex- 
 quisite and repeated torture from his Dark Lady 
 that she drove him to creation, why did he not 
 transform her in person to one of his supreme 
 reconciling women, thus manifesting at one stroke 
 the complete sovereignity of his Genius ? Why did 
 he make the great refusal? 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 You speak in a riddle, you seem to have some 
 insight which I cannot catch. I did not hear him 
 refuse anything great. 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY.— EPILOGUE. 343 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 I forecast tlie meaning, but I need not speak it 
 out, it takes a woman to know a woman, so listen. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 You must be aware that in the royal family- 
 there was the queen, verily the Dark Lady who 
 sought to destroy her husband King Cymbeline, 
 her step-daughter Imogen, and thus gain the throne 
 of Britain for her imbecile son Cloten. Did you 
 not observe that the poet, when he exhorted his new 
 Muse, who was just the saving mediatress Imogen, 
 to redeem the man-villain lachimo, he gave not the 
 dimmest hint to her that she should save the 
 deeper, subtler woman-villain of the household, the 
 royal step-mother, nameless as the Dark Lady her- 
 self whom this queen fittingly represented in char- 
 acter. I confess that my mind fell on her as the 
 chief one to be restored, the woman-fiend to be 
 rescued by the woman-saint. But Imogen some- 
 how can only save men, her husband, her father, 
 and even her he-devil, but her own she-devil lies 
 outside of her range of redemption, and seemingly 
 not within that of the poet. Against such par- 
 tiality of male salvation I as a woman feel in- 
 clined to protest. Was not that a great refusal — 
 
344 THE SHAKE BPEARI AD.— PART SECOND. 
 
 a declining to be complete ? Can you interpret this 
 strange exception, my far-seeing psychological exe- 
 gete? 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 The fact cannot be gainsaid, and I have noted 
 it with a peculiar trepidation. For I confess that 
 I trembled when I gazed on that queen step-mother, 
 truly a Fury in look, word and act. She recalled 
 to me my most horrible experience in the past with 
 the godless witch Sycorax, whom I once served, 
 and because I would not do her hellish commands, 
 she pegged into a cloven pine where I howled in 
 agony for a dozen years till Prospero arrived in 
 this Magic Isle and freed me. When I saw that 
 queen's shape and heard her secretly plot torture 
 and even death against Imogen, I shivered in re- 
 membered terror, for I again felt the throes of that 
 time of tribulation. So I fled from her presence 
 with a curse. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 But you too shall yet have to go back and re- 
 deem even Sycorax in order to complete Shakes- 
 pearopolis and yourself. 
 
 Pilgrim. 
 
 Tell me, Psychagogue, for I am in search of 
 Shakespeare himself in his most hidden experience. 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY.— EPILOGUE. 345 
 
 was the poet really ever tinder the charm of such 
 a wicked temptress, being fascinated by her Satan- 
 ism like King Cymbeline? I am loth to believe 
 any such scandalous reports about the private life 
 of our greatest man. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 You are a student, read his confession about his 
 Dark Lady, which he has left in his poetic diary. 
 You wiU also find her to be the Fury raging 
 through his mightiest tragedies, and taking many 
 female forms whom he had to expel from his soul 
 through his power of utterance which becomes 
 superhuman in his struggle to drive out his tor- 
 turing fiend. And hitherto the dark woman has 
 continued to return upon him, forcing him to 
 create her out of himself into a new shape, and 
 thus to ease his heart of her love's torment for a 
 brief interval. But his complete and final deliver- 
 ance is now hoped for through the appearance of 
 his new Muse of redemption, the mediatress Imogen 
 whose healing soul he is to embody in writ, which 
 is his way of self -atonement. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Let me here interject a new interest, my faith- 
 ful Psychagogue, which centers in that wretched 
 
346 THE 8HAKEBPEARIAD.—PART BEGOND. 
 
 moon-calf Cloten, the queen's son, whom the 
 mother tried to marry off to Imogen and to ele- 
 vate to the kingship. Poor youth, low-bred if 
 high-born, though of unnamed paternity; sensual 
 yet ambitious of rule, beastly yet human in the 
 germ — ^why not try to evolve him and save him 
 from the fate of nature ? I say to Pandora, let the 
 old infernal werewolf of a mother go, but save the 
 boy, if our woman savior Imogen has the power. 
 Cannot the youth's passion for her be transformed 
 into a means for his rescue by our woman-soul 
 redemptive ? 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 Ah yes, Cloten, the queen's doomed misborn, at 
 whom I confess myself terrified! For I was fear- 
 fully reminded of my own dread days with Cali- 
 ban, son of Sycorax by unknown father, the rebel- 
 lious brute yet humanly gifted, who made so much 
 trouble for Prospero and for me, and especially 
 for fair Miranda, whom he would possess after the 
 manner of Cloten. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Him I would like to take back with me to Atlan- 
 tis, if he were alive. I believe we could save him 
 in that new world which is built to raise the human 
 
THE VENETIAN TRILOGY.— EPILOGUE. 347 
 
 being upwards from below. How many have I 
 seen who were outcasts here, become men there ! 
 
 PsycJiagogue. 
 
 I wish you might try. But recollect that Pros- 
 pero spared Caliban, and trained him here on this 
 Magic Isle. And his development has been sur- 
 prising ! Have you not observed him over yonder 
 in the wood? Still I have to acknowledge that the 
 poet's new mediatress Imogen could not yet rise to 
 mediate the loathly degenerate, Cloten. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Still another interrogation forces itself upon me 
 in this connection, hinting a problem very sug- 
 gestive to the woman of the future: "Will some 
 Imogen ever make untragic the marriage between 
 white Desdemona and black Othello? Hence I 
 looked eagerly to discover the color of her lover 
 Leonatus, and found that he was of the same native 
 stock and race with his bride. So the conflict 
 raised in the Othello tragedy is not solved by this 
 new Muse of the poet, but shoved off to the dis- 
 tant in time and perchance in space. You, young 
 Atlantid, do you think that your land or your 
 world will bring about the solution? I call upon 
 you specially, for you have just declared that you 
 
348 THE 8HAEESPEARIAD.—PABT SECOND. 
 
 would rescue Cloten from his fate, who is still 
 white though a beast. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 The reconciliation with Othello's deed lies be- 
 yond Atlantis, which is testy on the question of 
 race. Whatever the prospect be, the fulfilment is 
 not for us, at least not in my day. 
 
 Pilgrim. 
 
 So it seems that the problem started by little 
 Desdemona with her Othello and flung into time's 
 ocean, reaches in its outcome beyond Venice, be- 
 yond Shakespearopolis, aye beyond Atlantis. The 
 mightiest deed of all, done too by a young girl! 
 And the future pilgrim will have to travel to a 
 still newer world, perchance to the other coming 
 ideal city of the greater poet which lies possibly 
 far around in the Antarctic Ocean. I as bodiless 
 spirit will journey again to see such a Magic Isle 
 with its newly populated metropolis. My dear 
 guider of spirits, will you be there to conduct me, 
 performing for us all the same office as here ? 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 I shall not fail. As I swallow all space for my 
 repast, so I drink down all time for my wine. 
 
TEE VENETIAN TRILOGY.— EPILOGUE. 349 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 But wait! we have not yet captured the whole 
 of Shakespearopolis. Only the triple edifice of the 
 poet's Venice has passed before our vision. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 
 You will find this a sample of the whole, when 
 you have penetrated to the inside of it. Indeed, 
 it suggests li3 its round the Master's entire achieve- 
 ment, and likewise mirrors the total process of his 
 spirit in its fulfilment. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 "Well, I wish to see the completed city of the 
 supreme architect. Look yonder outside of this 
 Venetian world, and admire the many fair edi- 
 fices strown upward to the crown of the citadel. 
 Let us hither haste, at least for a brief inspection. 
 
 Psychagogue. 
 Aspiring woman, I am with you. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 She leads, and somehow I seem to myself to have 
 fallen in the rear, Atlantid though I be. 
 
350 TBE SHAKESPEABIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Shakespeare (to himself). 
 
 In this little alcove penned up with dim shelves 
 Which are laden with dusty old records 
 How stifled I feel and restlessly squirm! 
 Yet here I behold the great Hall of the Past 
 Whose aisles run back into man's crepuscular 
 
 world ! 
 But in my age I belong and turn it to shapes 
 Which must keep on unfolding with time; 
 Even my Imogen is not perfected 
 Though once I saw her my soul's highest triumph; 
 These visitors I have just heard in their talk 
 Which comes to me bearing the seal of the future, 
 And draws me the lines on her work still undone 
 With its limit stamped in her character. 
 These people are here, I see, to complete me. 
 And to develop what I have left in the germ; 
 So did I with the heroes of Homer, 
 AchiUes, Ulysses and Trojan Hector 
 Whom I made to talk and to think to-day's Eng- 
 lish; 
 So too I transformed the Great Men of Rome 
 Antony, Caesar, Coriolanus the mothered. 
 Nor did I forget to unriddle in Egypt 
 Love's colossal sphinx, Cleopatra. 
 All I fetched down from dreamy antiquity 
 
THE VENETIAN TBILOaY— EPILOGUE. 351 
 
 To live present Londoners, 
 And even to tell of mine own life's moments 
 In the dared disguise of their history ; 
 Likewise I built for them bright new mansions 
 More splendidly gemmed than their old plain 
 
 abodes, 
 And set them together on a luminous eminence 
 Which shines through the world from my Shakes- 
 
 pearopolis. 
 Also regal palaces I have erected 
 For the Kings of my islanded England 
 Rim-full of the Nation's high spirit. 
 But the last of the structures which I upreared 
 And as a coronal placed on my city's summit 
 Is the temple of mine own spirit viewing itself. 
 As backward it spies all the works of its years. 
 Still it likewise must be rebuilded 
 Reflecting the order new of the ages, 
 And its inmates also must be evolved — 
 Caliban, Ariel, Prospero himself. 
 Whom I evoked from my brooding spirit 
 To shadow its ultimate essences pure. 
 My very last shapes of peopled creation 
 Are only buds of a higher efflorescence 
 Perchance to be seen in Atlantis. 
 Once I stood on the sea-shore at Bristol 
 And gazed at the prophetic sails of the ships 
 As they pushed out westward bound for Virginia, 
 
352 TBE 8BAKE8PEARIAD.—PART SECOND. 
 
 Breaking over our insular limits 
 
 To dare the limitless future. 
 
 So I felt mine own spirit beating withia 
 
 To wing itself over all boundaries, 
 
 And now I know my Genius aspiring 
 
 Even beyond the walls of my Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Alack ! my work here I feel to be done, 
 
 Never again shall I return to Venice, 
 
 Beautiful city of beautiful women; 
 
 In the Hall of the Past I must leave you forever 
 
 Portia, Desdemona, Imogen, 
 
 True soul-mates of my life's deepest crises, 
 
 Farewell. 
 
The Shakespeariad 
 
 l^att i:t)irb 
 
 THE OVERWORLD 
 
 OF THE Magic Isle. 
 
ABOUMENT. 
 
 The visitors pass out of Venice having witnessed 
 its Trilogy, and hasten to the loftier portion of the 
 Magic Isle where are found the most massive and 
 well-built struotures of Shakespearopolis. With 
 silent meditation they traverse the quarter which 
 holds the Houses of the Great Tragedies, tUl they 
 come to the greatest one of all as well as the most 
 famous and frequented. This is the Palace of Ham- 
 let of which the labyrinthine passages compel them 
 often to pause and contemplate its bewildering mys- 
 teries. But at last, having wandered through its 
 mazes and even seen its one ghostly inhabitant, the 
 company leaves the tragic quarter behind and 
 mounts upward to the newest and highest portion 
 of the city containing the Houses of Harmony amid 
 which is perched on the topmost point the far-shin- 
 ing Temple of Prosper©, whose distinctive attend- 
 ants are Ariel and his spirits. 
 
 Accordingly .this Overworld of the Magic Isle, its 
 loftiest though not its mightiest Part, evokes for its 
 visitors two kinds of supernal beings indwelling 
 and chara,ctering two supreme structures — one the 
 largest and the other the least in size of the im- 
 
 (354) 
 
CHORUS SALUTATORY. 355 
 
 portant edifices of the city. Both rise up over- 
 worldly in mien and purport — the ghost-haunted 
 Palace of Hamlet and the spirit-thronged Temple 
 of Prospero. 
 
 Chorus Salutatory. 
 
 Again I bid you all welcome 
 Ye multitudinous peoples of Earth, 
 Who have voyaged around each hemisphere 
 To win the world of our Shakespearopolis, 
 The soul-buUded city uplifting the Magic Isle 
 Whose loftiest spectacle ye now are to vision. 
 Enter here the builder's mightiest structures, 
 The massively fated mansions of Tragedy, 
 And hearken his strongest and deepest utterance 
 Upheaved from the hearts of his heroes and heroines 
 In their mortal struggle with fate. 
 Then behold the builder himself, the poet. 
 As he writhes in the throes of his Genius, 
 His own tragic character first of all he enacts, 
 Terribly building his tragedy. 
 At his side dictating his passioned words. 
 The Dark Lady you hear in a whisper 
 Bidding him mold some form of herself 
 Into one of his women demonic, 
 Be it fury Goneril or Cordelia daughterly. 
 Both destroy whom they love and perish them- 
 selves. 
 
356 THE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 So the woman Titanic turns the undoer of heroes 
 
 In this tragic quarter of Shakespearopolis 
 
 And Love itself "whets Death's very scythe 
 
 Wielded by the Dark Lady of destiny ; 
 
 The prime bond of creation dissolves now 
 
 Wreaking red vengeance against its own Mn ; 
 
 But the poet entranced stiU loves his love 
 
 Though it submerge both lover and loved, 
 
 And bloodily stabs its own stroke suicidal. 
 
 So you may see in these princely halls 
 
 Love's self -damnation and with it the world's, 
 
 The most appalling cataclysm of spirits great 
 
 Ever visioned upon this planet. 
 
 But the poet keeps building his own Inferno 
 
 Till he builds himself through it and out of it 
 
 Mounting up to his haven of healing 
 
 Where you will witness his Houses of Harmony 
 
 And hear their high music of man's mediation. 
 
 So now to the uppermost regions I speed you. 
 And to loftier thoughts I would lift you, 
 Where pinnacles our islanded Overworld 
 Indwelt of denizens spectral. 
 Though all this city itself be a spirit 
 And its fair mansions peopled of spirits. 
 Still it has too its ghostly Beyond 
 Where sways another dominion of beings 
 By the poet created out of his finest ether, 
 
CHORUS SALUTATORY. 357 
 
 A f antasmal folk shaped to new bodies 
 
 Not framed after our mortal pattern, 
 
 A realm of shadows still super-shadowed; 
 
 Thus double is mirrored this magical world 
 
 As is your own terrestrial life. 
 
 And in place of your first Psychagogue 
 
 A new leader will be given you now 
 
 For this tour of the poet's weird Overworld, 
 
 Just the ghost-compeller himself, Horatio, 
 
 Who sighted the spectre and accosted it first 
 
 Then bore the news of this guest overworldly 
 
 To the young Hamlet, his gloom-ridden friend. 
 
 Ha ! here we reach the palatial entrance, 
 
 And cast a shuddering glance at its haunted halls 
 
 Which ramble around in many a shadowy turn 
 
 Making dim corners for the abode 
 
 Of fieet imagery's creatures. 
 
 (The Ghost passes over.) 
 
 Behold the spirit of Hamlet's father 
 As it rises and darts by gloomily 
 From a cloud to a cloud ! 
 Terrible visage contorted in agony ! 
 Phantom wreaking its full revenge on itself ! 
 Image looking out the Beyond its penalty 
 As if proclaiming its own tragedy ! 
 Self-venging Ghost ! thy spectral retaliation 
 
358 THE 8EAEE8PEARIAD.—PABT THIRD. 
 
 Has cycled back to its source 
 Fulfilling tlie round of its deed's expiation. 
 There ! it has vanished, saluting farewell 
 With its face grimacing Hell's tortures. 
 
 Ye guests from earth's every clime 
 
 Whose looks now answer this ghostly suffering 
 
 With its like in heart's sympathy, 
 
 I who am but the brief voice of welcome 
 
 Now bid you God-speed on your journey 
 
 To this Overworld of Shakespearopolis. 
 
ACT FIRST.— HORATIO AND HAMLET. 359 
 
 ACT FIRST. 
 
 The locality is transferred to the royal Palace of 
 Hamlet in which the action has for its center the 
 Ghost of the deceased Danish King whose various 
 stages of inner transformation are set forth, from 
 his first revenge, through contrition and penitence, 
 to reconciliation. Thus the main theme of the Act 
 is the redemption of the Ghost. But with this is 
 also connected the complete restoration of Hamlet. 
 For there still lurks in him a residue of his old 
 trouile even after he has witnessed Hermione in 
 Horatio's play of the mediatorial mother. 
 
 Alone in his room at the Hamlet Palace, Horatio 
 walks up and down meditating on the new emer- 
 gency in the condition of his friend. 
 
 Scene First. 
 Horatio (alone). 
 
 despair ! I feel darting through me 
 A stroke of the Prince's own melancholy, 
 And in trying to cure him of his disease 
 Methinks I have caught it myself. 
 To small purpose has been my effort ; 
 Hamlet, my friend, is not yet redeemed. 
 But still roams these halls solitary in gloom 
 
360 THE 8BAKE8PEARIAD.—PART TEIBD. 
 
 Brooding over his lot in sad soliloquy. 
 
 Hermione acted before him her part 
 
 Showing him motherhood's triumph of duty 
 
 To restore his shattered faith in woman 
 
 At the very source of his being ; 
 
 Relief would play on his face for a while, 
 
 Then he would darken again to new desolation 
 
 Balking his permanent cure. 
 
 Some deeper malady hides in his soul 
 
 Which my medicine never has touched ; 
 
 What is it I wonder, what is it ? 
 
 I thought his faulted faith to Ophelia 
 
 Whom he so lovelessly banned to a cloister. 
 
 Still might becloud the sun of his soul ; 
 
 So I brought here to this playhouse of Hamlet 
 
 Isabella the nun with her love 
 
 That in her the Prince might see his own fair lady 
 
 Restored to the hope of his sorrowing heart 
 
 From the nunnery whither he cursed her. 
 
 The dear appearance made him look up 
 
 And greet her tenderly while in his eyesight ; 
 
 But as soon as she vanished off from the stage 
 
 Backward he drooped to his old night-world. 
 
 His pitiless vampyre's victim's again. 
 
 Alas ! my long labor has turned out fruitless. 
 
 Though I spared nor my body nor mind ; 
 
 Best actors hither I brought to the Magic Isle 
 
 From sea-waUed Albion's distant capital, 
 
ACT FIRST— HORATIO AND HAMLET. 361 
 
 Then my drama I wrote in my mind's tensest stress 
 
 To stamp on the turned brain of Hamlet 
 
 The way to his healf ul redemption, 
 
 That he himself might unwind the dread serpent 
 
 Which had caught his soul in its coils. 
 
 Heaven, I have to confess to my failure, 
 And his very monster now whirls overhead 
 Its dark folds to ensnare me too. 
 
 Yet I shall not renounce my destiny's call, 
 
 1 must start to find the profounder ailment 
 Which still diseases his spirit. 
 
 Though I have to probe to his being's last bottom; 
 For I must stay ever the fast-anchored friend. 
 Let him be or do whatever he may. 
 Friendship's own self I shall live as myself 
 And shrink not to help win him his ransom, 
 Else I too am undone in his undoing 
 And shall sink down to 'his tragedy, 
 Not mastering mine own ultimate lot ; 
 Aye, to Hamlet's fate seems chorded this whole 
 
 world 
 Which otherwise falls with his wreck into chaos. 
 Look up ! here he comes at fortunate season 
 Stooping his head and slowing his gait. 
 Yet forcefully forward pushing his body 
 Like a pale convalescent uprisen, 
 Not so sick as he was but not yet well, 
 
362 TEE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Perchance half-way recovered, 
 
 But still with a cloud overhanging 
 
 Which threats a fresh downfall of ills to happen 
 
 Unless from above there be a new intervention. 
 
 I shall slip into the path of his vision 
 
 And let him address me. 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 Joy be thine, best friend, my Horatio, 
 And worthiest meed for thy play's intention 
 Which I have taken into my troubled heart, 
 Balming me with its relief — 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 But not making thee whole in its healing, 
 For I still have to mark thy obscuration. 
 The nighted fiend has never yet quit thee. 
 Quite shutting the sun from thy day, 
 Even if some sheen pours over the edges. 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 I confess thou hast seen the truth of me 
 And lovingly breathed my shortcomings, 
 For despite thy heart's remedial service 
 My peace is not yet attained, 
 And I fear it never can be — 
 I am the incurably tragic. 
 
ACT FIRST.— HORATIO AND HAMLET. 363 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 No Hamlet, no ; dismiss that delusion, 
 Which, may win the power of bringing to pass 
 Its own dire fulfilment of death; 
 Eally thy soldier's will, and then already 
 Shalt thou be going the way remedial. 
 Thy eclipse is not so full as it was, 
 Though not yet passed, it surely is passing, 
 For I see a new light circling its border ; 
 So to me whisper thine ill, to me thy confessor ; 
 That layer last of thy dread world-pain 
 Turn up to the light in thy shrinking word. 
 For that too must be banned from thy soul, 
 Lest in thy tragedy thou, and I, and all of us 
 Perish in Shakespearopolis fated. 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 I shiver to say what me is bidden I must. 
 
 For ere to me the Ghost had appeared already to 
 
 thee. 
 And through thy news did I hasten to see it 
 When I heard it voice its terrible mandate : 
 "Eevenge thy father's murder." 
 That ghostly sentence is still roiling my soul. 
 And keeps it perturbed with its struggle ; 
 Oft do I blench at the heart-riven words. 
 
364 THE BE ARE 8PE ART AD. —PART THIRD. 
 
 As the Gliost confessed me its sins and its tor- 
 ments, 
 How it was writhing in flames infernal 
 For the blackening crimes of its life ; 
 And still it had to suffer a longer ordeal 
 In its fiery probation — 
 God, I must go and rescue my father 
 And give myself for his ransom ! 
 Unhappy Ghost, beyond and ever beyond 
 Runs thy guilt's future requital; 
 How can I undo thy perdition 
 Since redemption thou needest more than I 
 And must obtain it, else I too am lost; 
 my ghostly parent, Satan's own sufferer, 
 For thee I proclaim my new faith : 
 Never shall I be redeemed in this world 
 Till in that thou too art redeemed. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Calm thyself, friend, desist from such thought, 
 
 And turn to the duty just here before thee. 
 
 Which is thine own soul's last recovery. 
 
 Let that nebulous Overworld care for its own. 
 
 Which methinks it can do better than thou, 
 
 Otherwise it may swallow thee up 
 
 In its blank supersensible dreamery. 
 
ACT FIRST.— HORATIO AND HAMLET. 365 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 I cannot, I shall not — ^no peace for me 
 In thy heart-denying philosophy ! 
 Can I get rid of revenge on this side 
 If I free not of it my father yonder ? 
 This life is not saved in only saving itself, 
 Leaving the other outside of its call ; 
 Thy help is worthless if it reach not to that, 
 And bring the mortal to serve the immortal. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 At time 's portal such a faith may be knocking, 
 
 Methinks I may hear it coming afar 
 
 Even if it be not of me — not yet. 
 
 I learn that the Ghost has appeared again 
 
 In our Palace just at the vestibule, 
 
 With anguished features of punishment 
 
 Seen of all our visitors entering 
 
 That they paled in terror and pity. 
 
 Speechless to them it sped past with a gaze 
 
 As if it were once more seeking thee here 
 
 To lay on thy heart some new message — 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 Horatio, the greater task it has brought us 
 That we fulfill our uttermost labor and last : 
 
366 THE 8BAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT THIRD. 
 
 The Ghost's atonement heyond, 
 
 And with it mine own just here. 
 
 Silence ! hitherward surges the group of strangely 
 
 Whom I saw weep at Hermione 's play 
 
 As she enacted my other redemption ; 
 
 'Twas thy work of high benefaction, 
 
 But alas ! not enough for the wretchedness 
 
 "Which layers last in the depths of my being. 
 
 Go, Horatio ; I cannot meet them. 
 
 Bid them for me the welcome of courtesy 
 
 To my Palace 's freedom. 
 
ACT FIRST— HORATIO, PANDORA. 367 
 
 Scene Second. 
 
 {The visitors enter as Hamlet darts off leaving 
 Horatio behind to receive them, an/i to respond to 
 their inquiries.) 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Friends, our hearty salutation; take possession 
 each for himself, of our royal Hamlet Palace with 
 its inmates, of whom I am one. How can I be of 
 service? You have lately seen the spectacle of 
 Hamlet, its old as well as new part. How did it 
 affect you, the whole round of it, including the re- 
 demption of the Danish Prince? 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I am a born interrogation, and my first question 
 is. Do you still see ghosts? And do you think I 
 could see them if we should pass the night on the 
 platform at Elsinore? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 I mark you well — ^you are seeking not so much 
 Hamlet's secret as mine, deeming that I too have 
 my mystery. 
 
368 THE 8HAKE8PEABIAD.—PART TBIRD. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Did you not fabricate that ghost yourself ? I sus- 
 pected it when I saw it acted. You made it for 
 the purpose of conveying to the young Hamlet the 
 dreadful information which you in some dark way 
 had found out. And is not all this spook-work a 
 strange busLaess for a philosopher? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Others saw the spectre before I did. Native in- 
 quisitiveness of the woman you show, you try to 
 get behind that apparition, but I say to you it is 
 final and speaks in its own right. True it is that I 
 have my mystery as well as Hamlet — ^he has never 
 told me his and I have never told him mine — ^I ques- 
 tion if either of us could if he would. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Well mystified I find even your words at present. 
 Let me confess my suspicion of another scheme of 
 yours: the capture of Hamlet's ship by pirates, 
 while on his way to England. In the whole event 
 I glimpsed not so much divine providence as hu- 
 man provision, especially that of Horatio. 
 
ACT FIRST— HORATIO, PANDORA. 369 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 "What put that into your head? But I observe 
 that you have not lost your imagination in our 
 imaginative Shakespearopolis, which you must not 
 forget, is a whole worldful of spirits discarnate. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Ha ! your look betrays you, according to my read- 
 ing of your face's scripture. I wonder indeed if 
 the God came down and directed that event. I too 
 have to think that divinity took less hand in shap- 
 ing such an end than ordinary mortality. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Bless me ! "What a set of critics and hair-splitters 
 have entered our Hamlet Palace, and seek to pry 
 every stone of it apart, reducing it to original 
 chaos ! 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Aye, just here is seen what you are, I mean your 
 character — you reveal the deep-thinking philoso- 
 pher of "Wittenberg, you are the hidden mainspring 
 in the background of all the inbreaking occurrences 
 of this strange drama, which we have just wit- 
 nessed with so much interrogating wonder. 
 
370 THE 8BAKE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 A bit of knowledge I too have on this subject: 
 you, Horatio, brought these actors to this royal 
 Palace that they might be employed to catch the 
 conscience of the Mng, but still more deeply to 
 catch Hamlet's own conscience, for you know that 
 his soul was enmeshed as badly as that of his uncle 
 in the conflict of his convictions. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Otherwise he would have needed no redemption 
 through the woman mediatorial, whom I hither 
 brought before him in action, which was his cus- 
 tom's best way of taking his spiritual medicine. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Such a character as hers would I appropriate 
 somehow and carry off with me to my Atlantis, 
 even to the very heart of it where rolls seaward the 
 mighty Eiver across yonder sunset. What say you, 
 my Lady all-gifted? 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 You, uplifting youth, thrill in me the deepest 
 chord of my soul's longing. I have also the Pro- 
 
ACT FIRST— HORATIO, PANDORA. 371 
 
 methean aspiration to form human beings, breath- 
 ing into them a new eternal life, not amenable to 
 habitation of flesh. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Here I would find my ultimate vocation. So I 
 have traveled to the city of the man-maker and 
 of the woman-maker too, that I take my best lesson 
 in such creation. my Genius, can I not likewise 
 become such a builder, not only of individuals, but 
 of a society, city, yea of a world like this magic 
 Shakespearopolis thousand-souled yet one soul. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 You twain seem to be cooing all to yourselves. 
 But let me declare to you what stirs me most deep- 
 ly: My dearest friend Hamlet, whom you saw in 
 Hermione's play, is not yet restored. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 How ! Not after all your beneficent labor for his 
 cure, and the loving trouble I saw you show down 
 in the Magic Wood ! What is this fresh phase of 
 his malady ? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 No longer he dwells upon his mother's conduct, 
 or that of his lady-love, or of King Claudius, but 
 
372 THE 8HAEE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 he turns back to his father's spirit, and broods 
 over its message which bade him: "Revenge, Re- 
 venge." He will in some way rescue the Ghost, not 
 only from its sulphurous flames, but also from its 
 sinful behest of fratricidal vengeance, which really 
 is its burning torment. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Indeed! Then another newest drama dawns 
 upon the outlook, in order to redeem this lost spirit 
 beyond. Another more defiant Redeemer, you will 
 need, one who dares break into the Overworld — 
 who? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 I repeat, I must save Hamlet or sink to perdition 
 myself. Unless I impart to him the hope which I 
 have, I shall lose it. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 So then you are to fabricate another Ghost with 
 its new message from beyond. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 I was as stout a disbeliever and scoffer as you, 
 and I, the philosopher, scouted what the soldiers 
 told me about the first apparition till I, going with 
 them on watch, beheld it rise and stalk across our 
 
ACT FIRST— HORATIO, PANDORA. 373 
 
 guard-line at Elsinore in full armor as if marching 
 to battle. Just through yonder stile it suddenly- 
 slid out of the chill night-air, and trod the platform 
 with a soldier's warlike quickstep — 
 
 {The Ghost enters showing contortions of tor- 
 ment in its face; then stripping off one iy one the 
 parts of its mail — helmet, hauberk and greaves — it 
 flings them loathingly to earth.) 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 See, there it comes, bursting its shape from the 
 lowering mist at your word. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 King Hamlet's Ghost again, but how it remorse- 
 fully changes ! Not now erect as before with stern 
 commanding mien, but bowed humbly as if in some 
 deep contrition ! Not now shining in steel against 
 the foe, but clad in ashen penitential habit ! Head 
 bared of its beaver and bent in seeming supplica- 
 tion ! The young Hamlet must be told of this. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Hark that deep-rolling thunder of groans as if 
 heaved from the damned at the bottom of the pit ! 
 
374 THE SEAKE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Enough, enough of the Ghost ! Let us all be gone 
 from this Hell-haunted spot ! 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Look ! it is going, but turns back to do its parting 
 act. With eye-shot of vengeful lightning, it seizes 
 its sword, and hurls it over the battlements as if to 
 slay its very weapon — I shall address it — ^no, 'tis 
 gone. 
 
HORATIO, TOVNG PB08PEB0. 375 
 
 Scene Third. 
 
 (Stirred hy what Tie has seen, Horatio moves off 
 alone to think over its meaning for himself, and 
 then to iring the message to his friend Hamlet. He 
 is followed hy young Prosper o.) 
 
 Horatio (to himself). 
 
 I too with the crowd would flee from the Ghost, 
 
 Though it has left me its problem despairful, 
 
 What I have hitherto done for my Hamlet 
 
 Turns out but zero at last. 
 
 The players, Hermione, even Ophelia, 
 
 Acting my drama of mediation 
 
 I brought him to purge his disease — 
 
 AU, all to no purpose or little. 
 
 This moment is pushing me off the edge 
 
 Into the black abysses with Hamlet, 
 
 And I become that from which I would rescue 
 
 him — 
 I feel as if I would have to give up 
 My very destiny. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I have heard your hopeless soliloquy ; 
 
 It speaks not Horatio as I have known him, 
 
 Recover yourself and will what you are ; 
 
 Be assurred, the Powers are working to help you. 
 
376 THE 8EAEE8PEABIAD.—PART TEIRD. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 You are rigM, young fellow, I grip me your cour- 
 age. 
 Gloom accurst, quit me, I shall not surrender. 
 Again I must reach, to rescue my friend. 
 Such is my conscience first and deepest, 
 My duty has kindled my heart afresh 
 To save Hamlet and with him this city 
 Which still stays doomed in his doom. 
 I shall descend to Inferno, if such be my call, 
 Like the old Florentine singer, 
 And not merely to view the damned ghost 
 But it to redeem from its burning damnation. 
 Mediating the soul's last penalty 
 E'en in the realm of the dead, 
 Scaling the walls of old Hell 
 For the weal of lost Hamlet still living. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Hardly will you, the human, be called on 
 To do such a deed superhuman, 
 Transcending this mortal existence. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 I already have dared to save him from death. 
 Plucking his daggered hand from his suicide. 
 
HORATIO, YOUNa PR08PER0. 377 
 
 But now I dare go beyond dread Death itself 
 And extinguish the Maze of God-curst Gehenna 
 In the work of my friend's redemption. 
 But if I may not perform such a deed, 
 At least I must show it enacted 
 Undoing in word not only Earth but Hell, 
 Else the Devil will get both Hamlet and me 
 And even God Himself who also needs rescue, 
 Blasphemed and blamed as He is by his own crea- 
 tures. 
 So a new and more difficult task is mine — 
 A more daring, deeper, far-embracing drama 
 Forecasting the greater human restoration — 
 If I would heal to wholeness my Hamlet 
 Who finds his lot to be linked with his parent 
 Unatoned in the ghost-world; 
 The quick with the dead must suffer to save them. 
 Or with them be lost in their last perdition. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Such, then, is your newest philosophy 
 Hammered out by life 's deepest experience. 
 Not laid down in the course at the University 
 When you and Hamlet studied at Wittenberg, 
 Though you then partook of the time's new con- 
 science 
 Which would inhibit revenge on this side. 
 But over there employ it for torment eternal 
 
378 THE SHAEESPEABIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Damning the sinner for evermore. 
 Horatio, guide, teacher, you never spoke thus be- 
 fore 
 In all our communings of the Magic Isle, 
 Where you I first met and took as my teacher. 
 And we both overheard Hamlet the gloom-shent 
 Oft confessing his fate, 
 
 But no word spoke he then of the spirit's Beyond, 
 Nor did you, my Horatio — ^now tell me 
 The new motive compelling such emprise unearthly. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Not only here but also hereafter 
 
 Let vengeance be given its penalty, 
 
 Yet in the contrite soul be atoned and forgiven 
 
 Even if over life 's bourne it be sped. 
 
 Thus man's ransom is made universal, 
 
 Not merely of Earth and of Heaven, but aye of Hell 
 
 Where it is most poignantly needed. 
 
 In the living son let it be wrought. 
 
 But also unselfishly shared with the ghostly father 
 
 Whose spirit disembodied must also repent, 
 
 Tet must hither come back and confess. 
 
 Atoning its sorest transgression. 
 
 If it be truly immortal 
 
 And would win with its own the son's salvation. 
 
 For penitence still is the soul's purgation 
 
 Everlastingly, not altogether confined 
 
BORATIO, YOUNa PROSPERO. 379 
 
 To the time of this little body of earth. 
 Just that is what makes man eternal : 
 To undo his own sinful limit, 
 Ever remaking himself to be whole 
 Here or otherwhere over the border. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Last best lesson of my spirit's teacher! 
 
 But unravel me more this new problem of Hamlet 
 
 Of which you have grown so cognizant. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 The old King, Hamlet's father, the Ohost 
 Made the young Hamlet tragic in this life 
 From the Overworld hither commanding revenge, 
 Which assailed the youth's deeper conscience 
 "Won at "Wittenberg with its new order ; 
 So the dutiful son will now disobey 
 The vengeful mandate paternal. 
 Yet more compulsive rises his soul's last bidding; 
 He feels enforced to descend to Inferno, 
 Daring to snatch from the flames his burning sire 
 To transform old hate to young penitence 
 That the Ghost itself be restored to peace from re- 
 venge. 
 Freed of its curse implacable. 
 
380 TBE 8HAEESFEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Alas, methinks I need just such a discipline 
 To make my life integral with its Creator, 
 Ere I can copy it out into writ 
 For my dear Atlantids, folk of the future. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Yet a farthermost future I glimpse in this task, 
 Sharing eternity more than even Atlantis: 
 Hell itself with its rebel King Satan 
 Is to be mediated in Hamlet's last drama 
 Which foreplays God Himself rescued from ven- 
 geance. 
 And for Hamlet the Universe too shall be atoned, 
 The one AU-in-all everlasting, 
 Through its own selfhood spaceless and timeless. 
 Otherwise Hamlet's demon will always return. 
 His hideous Vampyre born of his flnitude 
 Will ever steal brooding over his soul. 
 Clutching it down to the spirit's Erebos. 
 And the poet in the might of creation 
 Will transcribe in letters himself and his world. 
 He too by his pen must work his own ransom 
 Redeeming the Overworld lost. 
 Else he will be paired in penalty here 
 With the Ghost of Hamlet unredeemed yonder. 
 Yoke-fellows both in the same damnation. 
 
HORATIO, YOUNG PR08PER0. 381 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Let me take breath, to fathom your lore, 
 
 For I gasp to swallow at once such a worldful. 
 
 But see ! the crowd returns from its scare 
 
 At the mystery seen in the Hamlet Palace, 
 
 Even Pandora creeps back looking new questions. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Whom do I see coming? Is it possible? 
 
 A strange person in front and garbed as a student ! 
 
 An acquaintance who studied philosophy 
 
 With me and Hamlet at the University 
 
 Where he had a weird reputation for magic, 
 
 Being whispered to be an adept in Black Art 
 
 Through which he conjured the Devil himself 
 
 And made with old Splayfoot a pact overworldly. 
 
 The sight of the man rays me a lightning relief 
 
 Which lifts my thought's oppression. 
 
 I would bespeak him at once — I am off. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I shall steal along to list this stranger's Beyond, 
 Him would I know and his Devil too. 
 
382 THE SHAKE8PEABIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Scene Fourth. 
 
 (Through the vestibule of the Hamlet Palace the 
 crowd of visitors is surging as Horatio steps forth 
 an,d salutes one of them, a middle-aged man whom 
 he had known as a student at Wittenberg. The man 
 a,dvances toward Horatio and addresses him.) 
 
 Studiosus. 
 
 Pardon me, sir ; I met you at the University when 
 you were there as the companion of the Prince of 
 Denmark. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 I remember you well — at your service, sir. But 
 I cannot now recall your name — ^May I have the 
 favor ? 
 
 Studiosus. 
 
 Johannes Faust; I studied me gray in the four 
 Faculties — Theology, Law, Medicine and especially 
 Philosophy ; but all my red-hot endeavor simply be- 
 gat in me a burning No by which I am consumed. 
 So I have come to your new University to try if it 
 will help rid me of my Satanic zero, which is not 
 merely a round emptiness but is filled with the blue 
 blazes of brimstone. 
 
STVDI08U8. HORATIO. 383 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Indeed! Is that the outcome of your deep life- 
 long study of philosophy ? The last time I saw you, 
 I well remember; you were talking Aristotle with 
 young Hamlet the Dane, and had tackled the phi- 
 losopher's Essence of Being. Your face peeped thin 
 and pointed like that of a hungry delver into the 
 dark unknown ; it was also grimed with coal-smoke, 
 you might have just come from an experiment in 
 alchemy. StiU you had an exalted upper glance as 
 if you were reading in the skies a line of Homer's 
 poetry. Do you recall the Danish Prince ? 
 
 Studiosus. 
 
 1 am in pursuit of him now. I have heard of his 
 new dominion far larger than Denmark and much 
 better known by all the world. Indeed he has grown 
 to be altogether the most famous Dane that ever 
 lived, I would fathom his present greatness. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Well, you helped lay the germ of his later devel- 
 opment through your speculation at Wittenberg, 
 having injected into his soul that burning Nought 
 of yours. But it is you who surprise me here, I 
 never expected to see you in our Shakespearopolis, 
 I thought somehow that you were dead before it 
 was born. 
 
384 THE SBAEESPEABIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Studiosus. 
 
 My dear sir, I am hard to kill, and I propose to 
 stay alive and active for some centuries yet. In- 
 deed my belief is that I shall undergo many incar- 
 nations in the future. 
 
 Young Prospero (aside). 
 
 I wonder if he is ever going to pay a visit to my 
 country, the far-off Atlantis. He wUl, he must, 
 that I now forefeel. I shall watch for him and sig- 
 nal his arrival with his new Inferno. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 So you have come from German Wittenberg to 
 our English Shakespearoplis which is also a Uni- 
 versity with its peculiar curriculum. I hold it to be 
 the new University of the time, more universal than 
 even Wittenberg with its scattered unrelated, \m- 
 organized lore. You know I was there for years, 
 and that University seemed to me rather a Diver- 
 sity, Hamlet in his discontent re-coined it a Multi- 
 versity, which indeed fed his inborn doubt and 
 pessimism. And you, silvered Studiosus, wan- 
 dering about with your Hell-lit zero which sets 
 souls aflame, are a right product of it, are you not? 
 
STVDI08US. HORATIO. 385 
 
 Studiosus. 
 
 A product, perhaps a wrong product. But I 
 have now come to your universal University, to 
 which all peoples, religions, races are flocking, as 
 if for some new evangel of salvation. A gleam of it 
 shot across sea and land into my little dark, cob- 
 webbed corner, and I followed the ray hither. Be- 
 hold the eager multitude overflowing this Hamlet 
 Palace — ^I am not alone, you see. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Now for the deeper question : Were you not ex- 
 pelled from the University for having made a pact 
 with Satan which you signed with your blood? 
 Such was the grisly story current at "Wittenberg 
 already in my time. 
 
 Studiosus. 
 
 True in the main ; but I first made the Devil in 
 me even if he existed outside of me already made. 
 Then I called him Mephistopheles whose hold on me 
 I came hither to break. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 That name was familiar at Wittenberg, but I 
 have heard it only once passingly mentioned in this 
 
386 THE SHAEESPEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 city. It belongs not here. Still, as yon seek our 
 discipline let me ask if you witnessed on your way 
 hither the Venetian TrUogy, the pandrama of the 
 poet's whole life — ^his early joy, his tragic lapse, 
 and then his recovery. It plays the mediation of 
 the fallen spirit, with whom I imagine you have 
 some affinity. 
 
 Studiosus. 
 
 I watched the spectacle and pondered it well, 
 finding in its message a moment's throb of relief. 
 But I have to confess that it did not probe to the 
 center of my trouble. Your Shakespeare, poet that 
 he is, may rescue himself from his Dark Lady, from 
 the clutch of her demonic love; but my demon 
 Mephistopheles denies not only the truth of love, 
 but all truth; and I, the passionless cold student, 
 have to be saved not so much from the untrue 
 woman, as from untruth itself. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Cannot our great artificer build a new house here 
 in Shakespearopolis for this new man with his new 
 devil who is now not a she but a he ? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Verily a problem of brain-stretching outlook. It 
 evokes not only another character but another world 
 
8TUDI08V8. HORATIO. 387 
 
 to be taken up into our city — ^the sweep from love 
 the destroyer to tlie Destroyer in person. More- 
 over it shifts the central figure of our Shakes- 
 pearopolis from female to male; the love-undoer, 
 the heart-slayer through the heart, is the Dark 
 Woman; but the truth-undoer, the thought-slayer 
 through thought, is the Dark Gentleman — I have 
 oft seen Mm incorporate even in the -Clergyman and 
 in the University Professor. I tell you the Prince 
 of Darkness now rises and overshadows our own 
 Princess of Darkness of whom you have already 
 heard so much in your journey through this city. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Denier you are indeed, Studiosus, denying the 
 woman-soul mediatorial which, has not only rescued 
 the poet himself, but the poet's world here in the 
 Magic Isle. 
 
 Stiidiosiis. 
 
 His redemption is, I repeat, from love as de- 
 stroyer, he is saved from woman by woman ; but not 
 Hermione, not Imogen, could cast out my Mephis- 
 topheles who is the he-devil. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I shall never be happy till I try that deed or see 
 it tried. Do they take women as students at Wit- 
 
388 TEE 8BAKE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 tenberg? I long not only to witness but to ex- 
 perience in my own life the genesis of your Mephis- 
 topheles. I would know that demonic antitype of 
 the Almighty Himself. 
 
 Studiosus. 
 
 You will come to his acquaintance without trav- 
 eling so far away; indeed methinks, I can catch a 
 gleam of his eye-fire in you already as it scorches 
 me. This city I see to be woman-ruled through and 
 through, both in its good and its bad. Not so at 
 Wittenberg, devil and angel there are men. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 You confirm me. I hold that Shakespeare him- 
 self is a woman in soul; his manhood is but the 
 outer form or appendage, but his womanhood is his 
 very self. Then I have heard it whispered that 
 Hamlet is actually a female in disguise. I dream 
 that this whole Shakespearopolis is a woman. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Enough ! such a view scandalizes me who am his 
 most intimate friend, now seeking his recovery not 
 yet complete. I must be off to bring him some 
 fresh relief. 
 
8TUDI08VS. HORATIO. 389 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Before we part, permit me to throw out another 
 inquiry which has heen seething through my brain 
 to my tongue's tip. Explain me, Studiosus, the 
 origin of this malady which started Hamlet's 
 trouble, and has begotten in you the very Devil, 
 and still rages through the University of "Witten- 
 berg and indeed through all the land. Now, my 
 deep-studied philosopher, point me out the germ 
 of this infection not of the body, but of the soul, 
 whose pestilential touch I begin to feel myself. 
 
 Studiosm. 
 
 A large theme, the largest indeed of present his- 
 tory; but I can briefly sketch my view. The great 
 breach of the age, the millennial cataclysm of human 
 spirit is now at its height ; the separation from the 
 old order, the old faith, the old church has ship- 
 wrecked Providence and left man's soul quite rud- 
 derless. It is true that Luther having once started 
 the break would dyke the flood, and so he builds 
 this Wittenberg and its creed. But the Ocean 
 crushes through all his bulwarks, and the whole 
 ordered world is undermined for many of us — for 
 me and aye for Hamlet too. So there is born the 
 Spirit that doubts and denies, the anarchic coun- 
 terpart of God Himself, the new devil Mephis- 
 
390 THE SHAEEBPEABIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 topheles, born even of reform, of freedom, of this 
 progress; and in their name he always does his 
 diabolic work. In fact Mephistopheles in these days 
 claims to be the great reformer. Well, is he not ? 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I must yet go to Wittenberg and see that younger 
 Satan who has entered the time's Paradise, and I 
 would hearken his new temptation, else I am no 
 true daughter of Mother Eve. 
 
 Studiosus. 
 
 But in this dark picture I must note the coun- 
 terstroke of good : the deepened sense of individual 
 responsibility, in fine the new conscience. Strange 
 double birth of our own age : with its devil Mephis- 
 topheles is also born its angel conscience. I tell you, 
 Hamlet has both, as I have seen him in his play, 
 and both in desperate conflict, through which he 
 rises to be the representative mirroring most deeply, 
 his era. And I know both furiously battling within 
 me, hence I have come to your city for my relief 
 and perchance my redemption. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 You are a lost soul, Studiosus, at least in this 
 time and place. Our Shakespeare, great as he is. 
 
STUDI08US. HORATIO. 391 
 
 cannot absolve you from your bond with Satan. 
 You will have to suffer in his clutches, I would pre- 
 dict, two centuries longer, when a new poet may 
 arise who will rescue you on this side and it may 
 be over yonder too. But this present world cannot 
 release you, I have myself witnessed the trial. A 
 great genius, Christopher Marlowe, whom Shakes- 
 peare knew and loved, has shown your Mephisto- 
 pheles — from him I first learned the name — trium- 
 phant over you, Studiosus. But that is not all. 
 Marlow played his own Mephistopheles to himself, 
 the fiend who had gripped him but whom he could 
 not exorcise by writ, as Shakespeare did his Dark 
 Lady. So he died tragically in the clutch of his 
 own devil, actually fulfilling his own drama in life 
 and death. No, I say, Shakespearopolis cannot ran- 
 som thee, Johannes Faust. 
 
 Studiosus. 
 
 Two hundred years — a long time for me to 
 wait in torment — I am worse off than Hamlet's 
 Ghost. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 And that I affirm is not the end. You can never 
 be saved and allow Mephistopheles to run loose. He 
 too must be redeemed, else he will get you again. 
 
392 TEE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT THIRD. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Not yet and not here. "Wittenberg, Shakespeare- 
 opolis, Europe cannot mediate the Devil. That lies 
 far out of the range of its inherently double and 
 strifeful character. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Then your Europe must lose God too, and shall 
 perish in itself, perchance of its own sword. I 
 foresee it and turn my face from its universal trag- 
 edy. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 For its salvation, I see a wholly new ordered 
 world is needed. I think I know somewhat of it 
 already. And that will be the theme of the coming 
 world-poet who will have to handle both the Dark 
 Lady and the Dark Gentleman, the he-devil as well 
 as the she-devil, even rescuing them and not merely 
 saving from them their victims. For if you leave 
 the Devil outside your redemption he will play the 
 Devil with it still. I say, you cannot let the De- 
 stroyer run and save man, yea save God. So "Wit- 
 tenberg, Shakespearopolis, even Europe, cannot 
 finally bring the human ransom, this whole social 
 and institutional order of which the Devil is born 
 and in which he does his work, must be transformed 
 and transcended, not destroyed but overmade. 
 
8TUDI0SVS. HORATIO. 393 
 
 Wretched Studiosus, I might say Studiosissimus, I 
 pity thee — Horatio declares it will take two hun- 
 dred years for that germ of Mephistopheles now 
 laid in thy brain to mature when the new poet will 
 arrive to reveal it and to cast it out of thee. And 
 yet when he casts it out, it is still on hand and at 
 work outside. Must not I get hold of just that out- 
 cast, diabolic though it be, and reclaim it for my 
 Atlantids? I scheme building a Prosperopolis to 
 save the Devil and with him God too who is going to 
 get lost over here. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Night is settling upon us and begins to darken 
 the Palace of Hamlet, in which you all can repose 
 as guests till mom, when your new journey begins. 
 But I invite to mine own room young Prospero 
 whom I first met in the Magic Wood near the sea- 
 coast, when he had come from his ship alone. You 
 wiU then be so good as to excuse me. I as soldier 
 on duty have to stand guard tonight. I choose you, 
 my young friend, to be the companion of my watch. 
 
394 TEE SHAEESPEABIAD.—PABT TEIBD. 
 
 Scene Fifth. 
 
 (Horatio and Young Prospero as sentinels are 
 pacing the forecourt of the Hamlet Palace. They 
 speak now and then in an underhreath of expect- 
 ancy. The moon has risen and shines hrightly as 
 they slip into the shade of a yew tree.) 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 The moon shimmers ghostly on these leaves, 
 And turns their fluttering twirls to a spectral 
 dance. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Methinks I hear their bodeful whisperings 
 As they lap this moon-lit air. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 A breath of breeze hums a moan in the foliage 
 As it falls the dark folds of its drapery. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I hear its undertone sighing out of the grave 
 Whose ominous note makes me shrink. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 It sounds like the weird overture to words 
 Not yet f ortheome but on the way ; 
 Louder it swells — ^but now it is dying. 
 
REDEMPTION OF THE OHOST. 395 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Look! a dark figure moves out of the Palace's 
 
 shadow ; 
 Horatio, it is drawing this way. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Its slow approach I have already glimpsed, 
 And weened I heard its lisped murmurings 
 Commingle with the suspirations of this tree-top 
 In tender caAdences tuned from the Overworld. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 More distinct is outlined its shape in the sheen ; 
 Good Horatio, I have seen it before. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Aye, it is Hamlet again in his mood of midnight 
 Discussing still with his shadowed self. 
 As thou didst hear him once in the Magic Wood. 
 At thy first arrival from far Atlantis. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I recognize him well in his sabled stole 
 Which limns him in black on these moonbeams ; 
 How keenly my memory tells me again 
 As once I hearkened his agony's wrenches 
 
396 THE BEAKESPEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Which threatened me too in sympathy ! 
 But I hoped you had rescued your friend 
 From his soul's haunting Vampyre 
 Through the deed of the woman mediatorial . 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Not altogether, yet perchance somewhat. 
 
 But hist ! You will hear from the patient himself. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Not so downcast he seems, nor yet is he upborne. 
 Mark, he starts to speak. 
 
 Hamlet (to himself). 
 
 Uneasy still I stroll to get rid of the. crowd 
 That rolls surging on with the hurricane 's push 
 Into each little nook of my royai Palace, 
 Though the most spacious house of the city. 
 So again I commune with my Self's last secret 
 As is my wont in my dreadest distraction ; 
 For another urgency lashes me now 
 Not sprung of the deed of my mother, 
 Since the remedial grace of woman 
 Has healed my heart of woman's curse 
 And restored to my love its lost hope. 
 But the man's doom abides in me stiU, 
 The behest of my father the ghost 
 
REDEMPTION OF THE GB08T. 397 
 
 Loading me down -with the weight of his ven- 
 geance 
 Which my new-born conscience upbears not. 
 Nor yet can I be rid of his spectral voice crying 
 ' ' Revenge ! Eevenge ! ' ' 
 So it comes I would see him once more 
 Step out of the night in his self -shining shape 
 And cross me just here on this platform, 
 To teU some later report of himself ; 
 Tense is my longing to hearken his ghostly words 
 Voicing his lot from the earthless Beyond, 
 To which he once fled through death's portal 
 Which cannot confine his freed spirit. 
 How dare I ever forget his dark confession 
 That he was burning in sulphurous torment, 
 Doomed to the pain of the criminal damned 
 During the day's terrestrial sunshine, 
 Then driven to haunt his former abode by night 
 Where I am seeking to meet him just now. 
 What a groan upburst from his torture, 
 As if pierced by a fresh bolt of Hell-fire 
 When he bade me, his son, to wreak vengeance, 
 That I murder his brother, my uncle ! 
 Thus he from beyond turned fratricide 
 In his spirit's pure will unbodied of power, 
 Repeating old Cain's primal damnation. 
 Himself re-enacting his brother's own crime. 
 And ensnaring me guiltless in guilt 
 
398 THE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 That I besmear me in blood of my kin and my King. 
 Thence rises my demon again, Melancholia, 
 Ever waxing afresh from the hideous clash 
 Between old requital and new conviction ; 
 So I delayed in my deed, swaying in doubt 
 From one side of the world to the other 
 Till fated I feU in the middle, 
 And that rounded my tragedy's finish 
 From which now I would win me redemption com- 
 plete 
 And with thine, dear parent, recover my hope to 
 
 the full 
 By lifting thee out of thy torment infernal. 
 my father's ghost, come back to me here 
 And bring from beyond a new message 
 Not of revenge but of forgiveness ! 
 May not the sin be burned out of thee 
 By thy suffering's fire purgatorial 
 "Which has earned thy release from the torment of 
 
 guilt! 
 My love of thee bulks to such compass 
 That it breaks down the bounds of forbearance 
 And I can never be saved with thee lost, 
 Of thy rescue beyond I must know 
 Ere redeemed I may be on this side. 
 See the cloud obscuring the moonlit radiance 
 And rolling toward me from yon gray Overworld : 
 Is it fiend Melancholia's dread apparition 
 
REDEMPTION OF THE GHOST. 399 
 
 Stretching its tentacles curved to claw me 
 
 Down into my parent's penal gloom? 
 
 It slowly changes from dark to light, 
 
 It breaks and lets forth a spectral shape — 
 
 My father's spirit 
 
 Clad in the weeds of peace, 
 
 Yea in the white robe of heavenly grace. 
 
 With a soft reconciled eye 
 
 He speaks now sighless — 
 
 TJie Ghost. 
 
 I have felt son, the pulsed throes of thy yearning 
 Across my Overworld's borderland. 
 In response I burst through Death's strict guard, 
 I too have been longing for thee. 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 my father by me more desired than ever ! 
 No longer affrights me thy ghostliness 
 Which once could ice me to shivers ! 
 
 How congenial I feel to thy shape ! 
 
 Now I take joy in thy fantomal voice 
 
 Which tenderly words me the throbs of thy heart 
 
 From over the bourne of mortality ! 
 
 The Ghost. 
 
 1 have need of thee now to help me uprise 
 To my new liberation of love ! 
 
400 THE BBAKE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 A tick still darts through me of the old pang 
 Which hither I brought from the stain of your 
 
 earth. 
 And thou, my son, hast the power to free me, 
 Undoing, atoning my word of revenge. 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 And I for thee have in turn the self-same need, 
 I mark the merciful change in thy note 
 Attuned to thy heavenly vesture of peace : 
 But where is thy helm, thy mailed coat of hostile 
 
 steel. 
 And thy sword with hand on its hilt ? 
 
 TJie Ghost. 
 
 No longer they cumber my body and soul, 
 I flung them to Hell where they belong, 
 My spirit of war I whelmed to the pit, 
 And with it lies burning my retaliation 
 Which I, the impenitent Ghost, once bade thee. 
 Coming back from my fiery penance beyond. 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 my new happiness sprung of my sonship ! 
 Soothed I feel of my one unremedied pang 
 Which my father's damnation shot through me 
 When it fell from his ghostly lips confessed, 
 
REDEMPTION OF TSE GHOST. 401 
 
 Goring me througli with a prong of Hell's light- 
 ning. 
 Tell me, then, of thy spirit's renascence 
 That I may know and take example. 
 
 TJie Ghost. 
 When I had spoken that terrible word of revenge, 
 Though my lips hedged at the furious sound, 
 I began falling, and continued to fall 
 Deeper beneath to the circling flames of perdition 
 Which had to sear out of my vengeful heart 
 What it still bore of mortal corruption. 
 Conscience lashed me with its scourge of serpents 
 Down to the last round of the soul's Inferno 
 Into the very presence of Satan 
 Whom I created anew out of mine own damned 
 
 self 
 Though he had his own existence as well. 
 Him then I saw as mine own and me, 
 I chilled and shrank and wept at the view 
 The hottest tears of the cleft heart's sorrow, 
 Then slowly rose with resolve penitential 
 Bending around my upward return 
 Never to stop till I could meet thee again 
 And unsay my speech of revenge. 
 A great moment is that when you see the Devil, 
 That moment brings the decision for or against, 
 Striking fate's tetering balance 
 Just in the eye-curse of the Destroyer. 
 
402 TEE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 Great Ghost, with thine has tallied my trial 
 
 On this side of the universe ; 
 
 I here have lived my descent into Hades 
 
 In whose darkest bottom I had to be rescued, 
 
 Rounding upward my restoration 
 
 Not from Satan's own self but the woman Satanic. 
 
 Now I feel reconciled with mine own being 
 
 For Conscience no longer turns Fury to hound me 
 
 deathward. 
 But an angel to help me love life. 
 
 TTie Ghost. 
 
 Know that I too am with thee redeemed 
 Having unsaid my message of wrath, 
 And changed it to the evangel of ruth 
 With ghostly shrift to thee, my son confessor. 
 To help thee ban thy black Vampyre I come. 
 To aid thy undoing of Death and the Devil. 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 But the wicked King Claudius, thy brother. 
 Whose treachery whelmed thee to torture beyond — 
 
 The Ghost. 
 
 Leave him alone to be his own vengeance 
 Which he surely will wreak on himself; 
 Thou art not to take God's place, nor am I. 
 
REDEMPTION OF THE GHOST. 403 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 Shall we not try to redeem him too, 
 
 "With us so bound up in kinship and guilt? 
 
 And my mother, thy queen, dear woman of unf aith. 
 
 Canst thou not seek with new love to restore her, 
 
 Bringing thy Overworld's message in person? 
 
 Once I tried it on this side, but failed — 
 
 The Ghost. 
 
 That will make in this Book a new chapter 
 Unwritten as yet of this city of ours. 
 Now I am ofE beyond to my penitence still, 
 I feel the first shot of dawn dart through me 
 Twingeing my ghostly shape to a pain. 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 Stay and tell me more of thy spirit's state 
 Which I would know as the truth of me too 
 Faintly foreshadowed in longings immortal ; 
 And thy great discipline would I learn here. 
 
 The Ghost. 
 See! that quick matutinal sheen from the East 
 Bids me depart to my Overworld, 
 Whither my hour is running now due. 
 
 Hamlet. 
 Benefactor, Father, Ghost, wait for me. 
 Take me along to be with thee f ateless, 
 
404 THE SBAEE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 And dwell in thy reconciled presence forever 
 Out of the reach of my demon of darkness, 
 Drear Melancholia. speak me once more, 
 And bid thy gloom-ridden son flee with thee beyond. 
 
 The Ghost. 
 
 Subdue thy fiend on this side ia manhood. 
 
 Bring it not with thee as did I my revenge. 
 
 For thy task thus tests thee far harder. 
 
 But crescent Aurora melts my form to a voice; 
 
 Now thou art able, my son, to ransom thyself — 
 
 Farewell. 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 Gone, alas ! But now I know I shall see him again, 
 And that anchors my last consolation, 
 I shall see him again and the dear ones departed. 
 Look! before him my old haunting Vampyre takes 
 
 flight 
 Unshrouding the world's young hope to my view. 
 But who comes here slipping into my solitude ? 
 Horatio ! Good friend how is it I spied thee not ? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Hidden I have overheard thy new evangel: 
 The redemption of thy father's Ghost, 
 And with it thine own has also been wrought. 
 Me too it upheaves in the soul's depths 
 
REDEMPTION OF THE GHOST. 405 
 
 To rebuild from the base that philosophy 
 Which both of us took once from Wittenberg. 
 But this gospel last of our .Shakespearopolis 
 I must proclaim to the expectant visitors 
 Who with the sun-up are hitherward trooping 
 'To hear this finale of Hamlet's Overworld, 
 And then to look good-bye to its ghostly grandeur 
 Which so weirdly has tranced them to think over 
 
 their heads. 
 Wistfully they are quitting the view of your Palace 
 With its half -seen subtleties luring the look, 
 As backward they glance at our tragical world. 
 Still they have once more to mount higher 
 To witness this city's uppermost Temple 
 Where Prosper© reigns with his spirits 
 Hymning in word and deed the soul's last attune- 
 
 ment. 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 Forth to thy task and I forth to mine own ! 
 
 There drives me a duty as yet unfulfilled 
 
 Which now I owe to my mother ; 
 
 Her I long for as my best completion 
 
 If I may lead her yet to the Temple of Penitence, 
 
 Which I could not before. 
 
406 THE 8HAKESPEABIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Scene Sixth. 
 
 (Hamlet is seen stepping away rapidly in the 
 distance while Horatio slowly retires to the "back- 
 ground where he left young Prospero.) 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 The Ghost has vanished and I am turned on myself 
 To fathom this Overworld's startling message. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 The gladsome news of young Hamlet restored 
 Would I bear with me back to Atlantis, 
 Setting it down in my volume of travels. 
 But much mightier wings me the wonderful word 
 Which hath to record the Ghost's redemption 
 Gospeled over the bourne from beyond, 
 Proclaiming the weal of the soul immortal. 
 All this I shall build in my new written city 
 Which here I glimpse dawning — my Prosperopolis. 
 But my father now I shall seek for his blessing 
 That I be also restored to him and his Overworld. 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Yes, thy next step is to mount to Prospero 's Temple 
 Which gleams afar from the top of our city 
 
TRANSITION. 407 
 
 Over all the parts of this Magic Isle 
 
 To its watery border of sparkles: 
 
 Like beautiful Parthenon from the Acropolis 
 
 Shining down over Athenian temple and grove 
 
 To the Egean's blue chorus of sea-waves. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 There in that Temple I too shall be penitent 
 As again I look on the face of my parent, 
 To him confessing my youthful transgression 
 And beseeching his godlike forgiveness. 
 Thus perchance I may soften his heart 
 That he in his love impart me his Book 
 With its lettered lore of the centuries 
 Which I would carry to the world's future. 
 But, Horatio, thou startest not with me ? 
 
 Horatio. 
 
 Thither I may not pass, 'tis over my limit 
 Which is surmounted here by Ariel's realm 
 Swayed by his sovereign imagination ; 
 Him there in his home again thou shalt meet. 
 Look ! the day-god has burst down over us 
 In flaming cataracts pouring his radiance 
 And banning the eerie night-world of ghosts. 
 Our watch is past and salutes the new sunrise. 
 Press on to thy goal with the rush of the crowd. 
 
408 THE SHAEE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Fare thee well, my journey's best companion, 
 Thy picture I shall not forget to print 
 In my memory's book of gratitude — 
 But what is this bright spectacle coming? 
 
ACT SECOND— PBOSPERO'S TEMPLE. 409 
 
 ACT SECOND. 
 
 The locality is still fhe Overworld in which now 
 the transition is made from the ghost-haunted Pal- 
 ace of Hamlet to the spirit-thronged Temple of 
 Prospero, the highest height of Shakespearopolis 
 to which there has heen a gradual ascent, and from 
 which may he taken a complete survey of the Magic 
 Isle. 
 
 The connection between Prospero and Hamlet 
 is seen in the fact that both are monarchs wronged 
 hy false brothers who usurp their thrones, hut the 
 one awards to his brother repentance and forgive- 
 ness, the other revenge and death. Hence Pros- 
 pero' s abode, in its deepest character, is the Temple 
 of Atonement, set upon the top of Shakespearopolis 
 as the crown of its glory, and overlooking the world 
 past and to he. 
 
 Scene First. 
 
 (The first meeting between the father and the 
 son, the former of the Magic Isle and the latter of 
 Atlantis. The youth, as he beholds his ancestral 
 abode, soliloquizes.) 
 
 Young Prospero (to Himself). 
 The sunniest Palace glinting the Overworld 
 And upbuilding a song to its musical summit 
 
410 THE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 "Which peers down from loftiest Shakespearopolis 
 
 Smiling over the Magic Isle to the seas 
 
 As they Mss it from sun-up to sun-down, 
 
 I enter — the ether-wrought Temple of Prosper© 
 
 Shiningly hung up in Heaven by spirits. 
 
 Methinks this beautiful structure loves me 
 
 More than the grander palatial mansions, 
 
 And thrills me a tender caress to my heart 
 
 As I glance at its exquisite measures 
 
 Throbbing sweet concord through the whole city, 
 
 Even attuning the throes of its tragedy. 
 
 Strains harmonious from its proportions divine 
 
 Sing in my soul their celestial composure, 
 
 Lulling the heart with visions of Paradise, 
 
 After the desperate pains of the Hamlet Palace 
 
 Which, though eased in penitence ghostly, 
 
 Still send an afterglow's sheen of their sorrows. 
 
 All the tones of this orchestral Temple 
 
 Wind through one another in deep reconcilement 
 
 To token its spirits atoned and atoning 
 
 Whom now my hap is to know, if I may. 
 
 But mark! Who is yonder conning a book? 
 
 A man antique in starry revery ; 
 
 Now he takes his pen and jots down a line, 
 
 Writing perchance a chapter new. 
 
 Turning to letters this Shakespearopolis. 
 
 I have seen him do it before, long years agone, 
 
 And that eye-gleam I recognize — 
 
PR08PEB0 AND YOUNG PROSPEBO. 411 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Welcome, youth, to Prospero 's peace 
 Templed on high in this city's calm Overworld, 
 And served by spirits of love mediatorial. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I am thy son returned from distant Atlantis, 
 Thy presence to see and to hearken thy word 
 As I bring thee my filial confession. 
 And I would come back to what I came from 
 That the better I know what I am to be. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 My son, indeed ! Yes, I detect the tone, 
 
 'Tis your mother's voice with a dream of her eyes. 
 
 You ran away from the parent's law, 
 
 And stealthily took my highest royal hope; 
 
 You were my only son and heir of my rule 
 
 Which your uncle soon seized and let me drift 
 
 Over the savage seas as best I might 
 
 To this Magic Isle with little Miranda, 
 
 Your sole sister, whom you never have seen. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Unfilial was my venture, I come to confess, 
 But obedient was I to the time 's new birth ; 
 I felt this land of thine too shrunken for me. 
 
412 THE 8HAKESPEARIAD.—PABT THIRD. 
 
 Hemmed about and fretted in vain by tlie petty 
 
 wash, 
 Of these wee waters of the Midland Sea; 
 To grapple with the Ocean limitless 
 I aspired, and westward I pushed with mariners 
 To circle o'er this outer starlit globe. 
 And also to circumnavigate boldly myself, 
 For ere I could placate my soul 's mad revolt 
 And inwardly make me revolve back to peace, 
 I had to round the world's full periphery. 
 From which I return now with youth's fond passion 
 To take a fresh draught at my life's first fountain. 
 
 Prospero. 
 The age boils over with young discontent. 
 Striving to find its unknown half otherwhere 
 Beyond our fast-locked Mediterranean shores, 
 Over the trackless main of old Oceanus 
 Who hath concealed behind his watery walls 
 The fair domain of dreamland made real. 
 But, say me, have you come back to stay now at 
 
 home? 
 Your princely heritage wavers in doubt. 
 For I held you as lost in that infinite West 
 Which shows no horizon as yet to our Europe. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 I ask no crown, no kingdom's revenues. 
 No title of blood, no blazon of rank. 
 
PR08PER0 AND YOVNG PR08PEE0. 413 
 
 Thine is a different gift whicli I would own, 
 And bear with me away toward Hesperus, 
 Whither I soon shall voyage again. 
 And thy blessed forgiveness I ask me, 
 As thou hast forgiven thy wrongful brother 
 Through xYriel's word of atonement. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Indeed! What a surprise! You will then dwell 
 No longer iitx-e to love this sun-wooed Isle, 
 And live a raptured life of senses charmed, 
 Heir of my spirits' sway of the land and sea! 
 But teU me, what is that gift whereof you speak. 
 Which you would choose as sole heritage worthy ? 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Already thou hadst won, ere I stole away 
 
 And dared my flight o'er the grumbling waves, 
 
 A Book more magical than all this Isle, 
 
 On whose blanched pages were stamped in black 
 
 Strange symbols miracle-working of mind 
 
 Which helped to upbuild man's highest dignity, 
 
 Fusing to one the many individuals 
 
 In a new social life incorporate. 
 
 That Book with its weird power of written brain 
 
 To signal all the past to future time 
 
 And bridge the interflowing centuries, 
 
 I would possess and carry back to mine 
 
414 THE SHAKE8PEABIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Across the ruffled rifts of hoar Neptune's face, 
 
 Where lies another newer continent 
 
 Whose vocation is to rear its eager folk 
 
 To share in the rule sprung of that magical Book. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Not then for love of me but for my Book 
 
 You faced the angry surf to reach me here ; 
 
 I thought that I had sunk it out of sight 
 
 Keeping it veiled like the wisdom of Egypt, 
 
 When last I quit this Isle to go to Milan, 
 
 Weening it a knowledge dangerous 
 
 Were its hid hieroglyphic once known of the people. 
 
 But it refused to let itself be drowned ; 
 
 It rose and proved its buoyancy in the sea 
 
 From which it was fished out by Caliban, 
 
 Whose low-born sense-life and sotted ignorance 
 
 Once slaved him to my lordly hest. 
 
 And yet he saved the world's prize and bore it back 
 
 To its old place within my lonely cell 
 
 Where he has thumbed its leaves for its hid lore 
 
 During aU my years of absence from this Isle, 
 
 For he too wills its whole appropriation. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Our claims will not conflict, for each can own it 
 And complement the other in his right. 
 If I can only win as mine that Book, 
 
PB08PER0 AND YOVNG PR08PER0. 415 
 
 I shall lift up all Sbakespearopolis 
 
 And carry it off to mine own Atlantis ; 
 
 Perchance I may take your Caliban too, 
 
 Yea, this Magic Isle itself will start 
 
 And float the seas, bearing thither with me 
 
 All its wealth of word and deed and character. 
 
 Prospero. 
 I know the Book hath the power creative 
 To build anew itself and its peopled city 
 Within the subtle imagery of every soul 
 Which wins of it the higher mastery. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 And knowest thou that this city's magic vocables 
 Which now we so idly glib from our tongue 
 Are lipped in love by all the talking folk 
 Of the Atlantids of the Occident? 
 
 Prospero. 
 You make me almost wish to go along 
 To help you there reconstruct this towering town. 
 The old to rebuild in the new. 
 I took a forming hand in every edifice 
 Which you see yonder lower than our perch. 
 Yet strangely hung from Heaven's vault eternal. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 And yet its soul and structure miist be changed. 
 In nearly every house of Sbakespearopolis 
 
416 THE SHAKE 8PEARI AD.— PART THIRD. 
 
 I marked the monarch — king or duke or prince ; 
 But in Atlantis rales another polity 
 "Which also must indwell the poet's architecture. 
 So if this city be there rebuilt to youth 
 Where is our commonwealth of liberty 
 It would have to be transformed within, without, 
 To look the spirit which we have enshrined 
 In our new social order born of the ages. 
 Father, I speak my secret ambition's heart: 
 In young Atlantis oversea I would 
 Democratize great Shakespearopolis, 
 Transfusing all its royalty and noble stock. 
 Mossy with privilege of centuries. 
 Back to the people's primal protoplasm; 
 And you, though Milan's Duke, would find the ful- 
 filment 
 For which you have returned to this Magic Isle. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Would that include my liberty as well. 
 Which I may win only in your Atlantis ? 
 
 Ariel (from above). 
 
 Thither I too shall hie. 
 Beyond Bermoothes fly, 
 StiU singing from above 
 Till I shall live to love. 
 
PB08PEB0 AND YOVNG PR08PER0. 417 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Hark ! a soft voice is wooing this island to music 
 From lips unseen of aspiring passion 
 Whieli seems to attune all Shakespearopolis. 
 But what wabbles yonder ! Earth's ugliest visible ! 
 Strangest of shapes ! Man or the sub-man ! 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Him I once sampled a blob of first folk-stuff; 
 
 He is our Caliban, bom on this Isle, 
 
 And in my absence sole inhabitant ; 
 
 I found him here monarch on my arrival, 
 
 The monstrous child of Sycoras monstrous. 
 
 He was at first a thing of innocence 
 
 Who heartily did my chores round the Isle ; 
 
 He could gabble content in grunts of a swine 
 
 Or croak displeasure like the boding raven. 
 
 Till I trained his tongue to articulate speech. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 The original human in the unformed mass ! 
 But tell us the rest. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 My daughter was then but a little girl, 
 I taught them both sinless in one school 
 
418 TEE 8EAKESPEARIAD.—PART TBTRD. 
 
 With equal pains of instruction. 
 And so it ran happily on with the growing years 
 Till one day there came mightily over him 
 The tempestuous urge of new-born puherty, 
 And he dared the deed of passion's prime push 
 "With all the fierce glare of animality. 
 So I imprisoned him in a cave, 
 Letting him out at times to be my slave ; 
 Then he conspired to slay me at study 
 And to steal Miranda, whom he still loved. 
 Yet with Ariel's help I thwarted him. 
 But he spoke his repentance unforced 
 As I left the Isle to retire to my Milan, 
 Turning him over to his self's sole sovereignty 
 That he find out what he would do with his free- 
 dom. 
 Much has he won in mind and in shape. 
 And much suffered in the fierce discipline 
 Which love has laid on him with its testing pangs 
 Through the long years penitential. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Methinks his future runs level with mine, 
 The great migration is his yet to make. 
 Where lies his full chance to rise up to himself — 
 In my Atlantis, the free. 
 
PR08PER0 AND YOUNG PROSPEBO. 419 
 
 Ariel (from atove). 
 
 Thither I too shall wing, 
 Over old Ocean sing, 
 Still sighing to be free 
 And win me humanity. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Once more that voice unbodied crooning its rune 
 Upon the talking air of this weird Overworld 
 Doth burst my heart with love and longing. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 But mark! that massy shape autochthonous! 
 
 It wags its flabby lips to syllable words 
 
 As if it would bespeak me well ! 
 
 God! I see in him the protoplasmlic man 
 
 Uprising toward his spirit's revelation. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Well do I remember watching his wayward sprawl 
 
 And hearkening his first click of savage speech 
 
 Which tongued up to me a broken prayer ; 
 
 So I became his primal pedagogue. 
 
 But when I quit him for old Milan civilized 
 
 I found I lacked Caliban still for life's completion, 
 
 Service I needed more to give than to get. 
 
420 TSE 8HAKE8FEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Hence now I come an expiate too. 
 And as before I forgave my penitent brother 
 Along witli his sinning companions, 
 Here I confess my wrong done to Caliban 
 Abusing my power of mind in word and in deed. 
 So this Temple of mine which I builded so classic 
 "Within I turn to the home of repentance 
 Overarching this star-nearing Overworld 
 Of thousand-souled Shakespearopolis. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 What new throng do I see in slow procession 
 Pensively stepping this haU of Atonement 
 With downward looks of self -accusation ! 
 They are not of our kind of visiting tourists, 
 But denizens all of this city; 
 I have seen them before in my hitherto journey, 
 Characters stamped with some limit of vengeance, 
 For their soul's ransom making this pilgrimage 
 To the shrine of their uppermost Overworld. 
 
THE PAGEANT OF THE PENITENTS. 421 
 
 Scene Second. 
 
 A long line of men and women, each manifesting 
 some form of heart's sorrow for the past and com- 
 ing from the other parts of Shahespearopolis, move 
 in a procession before the eyes of the visitors now 
 viewing Prospero's Temple. This procession is 
 called the Pageant of the Penitents or the Templars 
 of Atonement, who find here their final reconcilior 
 tion, though they have perished unatoned. Espe- 
 cially the poet's tragic personages are seen eagerly 
 pushing forward out of their own lower abodes to 
 this highest Home of Atonement, which takes its 
 character from the pivotal deed of Prospero when 
 he brings the men of sin who have landed on his 
 Isle, including his own guilty brother, to a contrite 
 confession of their wrong followed by expiation and 
 forgiveness. 
 
 Ariel is again the Psychagogue, the herald an- 
 nouncing the new procession of souls to the aston- 
 ished visitors who have already witnessed them in 
 quite a different condition farther down in the city. 
 These Templars, of course, take their name from 
 Prospero's propitiatory Temple. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Behold, ye travelers faithfully hearted, 
 The Templars of this city's Atonement. 
 
422 THE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PABT THIRD. 
 
 Another spectacle and greater greets your vision, 
 
 The lofty deliverance of Shakespearopolis 
 
 In penitential pageantry. 
 
 Here comes Prosper© heading the line, 
 
 His brother's guilt he has cleansed and pardoned 
 
 Through the weal of his spirit redemptive. 
 
 "Watch his high-born stately stride of dignity 
 
 As he goes up and takes his royal throne, 
 
 Monarch of monarch-governed Shakespearopolis. 
 
 (Prospero, leading his hrother Antonio, passes on.) 
 
 Next comes my harder task of faith 
 
 Which taxes all my psychagogic mystery: 
 
 It is the vengeless specter of Denmark's murdered 
 
 king 
 Guiding by hand his brother, Claudius, 
 Once his secret murderer, but now penitent, 
 Into this Temlple's haH of reconciliation — 
 The ghost of a ghost leading a ghost. 
 And close behind the parent steps the son, 
 The young Hamlet with his mother arm-locked 
 In mingled pang and bliss of penitence. 
 While Hermione, the mediatress, forward guides. 
 (Aside) The sight pricks a nerve of weakness in me. 
 As if I lacked something they have. 
 
 (The Hamlet family passes on.) 
 Is it possible? What new group next in the line? 
 Imogen fair to the fore of it marches. 
 
THE PAGEANT OF THE PENITENTS. 423 
 
 And just behind her trains her step-mother 
 
 In sorrowful expiation forgiven. 
 
 But the view minds me afresh of damned Sycorax, 
 
 The cruel old hag who kept me in torture 
 
 And who still roils in my soul the fountain of hate. 
 
 Mark! in the rear stoops hiding his face, her son 
 
 Cloten, 
 Gently led by repentant Posthumus 
 Who supports him feeble in body and mind. 
 Note ye well, ye visitors, eager to learn, 
 Imogen now fulfills in this Temple of Prospero 
 Her mission of guilt's mediation. 
 Which she left incomplete down in Venice 
 When you witnessed her part in the Trilogy. 
 (Aside) Act divine ! I doubt me if I could do it. 
 Held back by a hate still harbored within me. 
 
 (Imogen's group passes on.) 
 
 What deeper agony pierces us now ! What howls ! 
 Ah, yes ! it is the throng of guiltier penitents 
 Groaning the air with pangs of their punishment, 
 Yet begging for suffering even intenser 
 That they be cleansed by purgatorial sorrow, 
 Since greater has been their transgression. 
 First you see a gray-bearded, storm-shent king 
 Encircled by his three daughters of doom. 
 Each of them now undoing her hate to the other. 
 Even me the sight wrenches who am but a spirit 
 
424 THE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT THIRD. 
 
 Untried of the body 's suffering senses. 
 But watcli this awful combat succeeding 
 Mid the heart-break of wild ululations 
 Shot from the lips of a husband and wife 
 Frantically fighting three scoffing Furies 
 Who swoop down with curses out of the fog, 
 Whose view deformed stabs madly the eyesight : 
 It is repentant Macbeth and his helpmeet 
 Battling to put down the Witches, the temptresses 
 To whom they both once tragically yielded. 
 Forth they hurtle still in furious wrestle; 
 Look! the twain are smiting to flight their tor- 
 mentors 
 Hence from> this shrine of Atonement. 
 
 ( The Lear and Macbeth families pass on.) 
 
 StiU more awfulness screams massively hither ! 
 I cannot endure it, I shall drop my herald's staff, 
 All the Houses of Tragedy are driving their inmates 
 Up to the Temple of Prospero for their last expia- 
 tion. 
 Stirring in me a hidden feeling uncanny, 
 As if I too should be one of these penitents. 
 I turn me around looking elsewhither 
 To escape from the sight, perchance from myself. 
 For the outcry of pain now pierces me home. 
 Finding its echo far down in my heart. 
 
THE PAGEANT OF TEE PENITENTB. 425 
 
 But who faces me in this other direction? 
 High Heaven! it is this city's own architect, 
 The soul-former himself of Shakespearopolis, 
 Just he who has huilded this Temple of Prospero, 
 The purgatorial Home of Atonement, 
 As his own confession of life's deepest need. 
 That he, too, might escape his last tragedy 
 Through the ordeal of his soul's purgation. 
 But behold at his side steps up his Dark Lady, 
 Creative prototype of his fateful women, 
 She plucks him back from, his path penitential 
 Which he treads sorrowing, telling his tears 
 While she sneers at his heart-throbbed contrition. 
 Yea, she scoffs at his love for herself 
 With a demoniac flaunt of her faithlessness 
 As he writhes in the toils of his guilty affection. 
 But that last untruth of her deed snaps the spell 
 In whose gyves she has bound him for years. 
 Her Titanic love-clutch relaxes its grip. 
 The twinned souls droop apart, self-repellent, 
 And she fleets away from his view into darkness. 
 As he looks up to his own last Home of Atonement. 
 Now behold the penitential poet himself 
 As he turns with the stern eye of resolve, 
 And takes the first place at the front 
 Of his sorrowing own Procession of Penitents 
 As hither they storm from his city's Houses of 
 Tragedy, 
 
426 TSE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Toward Prospero seated in state on his throne 
 And looking loftily down his gracious compassion. 
 Yet the poet seems not in full self-possession. 
 See! he turns back as if to bring up something 
 
 undone ; 
 Is he longing again for his Dark Lady ? 
 (Aside) I, Ariel, like him feel a twinge 
 Of aught incomplete in my nethermost soul, 
 So I shall add myself to this pageant of penance 
 Quitting my psychagogic vocation, 
 Shent by mine own shortcoming — 
 I miarching last in line to the House of Atonement. 
 
CALIBAN. 427 
 
 Scene Thied. 
 
 {Prosper is seated on his throne as ruler of the 
 Overworld of the Magic Isle, having brought to 
 penitence his erring brother along with the other 
 culprits, and having granted them his forgiveness. 
 Thus he has expiated Ms own vengeance and har- 
 monized his world within and without, being also 
 master of the mediating spirits of the Magic Isle 
 who brings its people to overcome their limits of 
 wrong an,d guilt and tragedy. 
 
 Still there is traced in Prospero's regal look a 
 shadow of uneasiness as he gazes down upon Cali- 
 ban, who has approached the foot of Ms throne with 
 other visitors, among whom steps forth young Pros- 
 pero addressing his parent who has his Magic Book 
 open before him.) 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Charity gleams from thy wonderful Palace 
 Glowing graciously down from thy Overworld 's 
 
 crown, 
 0, my father, high monarch of Shakespearopolis, 
 Of whose rule I am to he heir by succession. 
 Harmonious strains salute me in honor, 
 Playing the sounds of a world reconciled 
 Where the unstrung soul is attuned. 
 
428 TBE SSAKE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Still this my heritage royal of birth 
 I would somehow transform to the new order 
 Rehuilding it whole to the music of freedom. 
 But who rises here ? Son of primeval Sycorax ! 
 Say me thy smouldering word, 0, Caliban, 
 For thou art the plastic mass of the ages. 
 
 Caliian. 
 
 I have heard of your new-built Atlantis 
 "With its upbearing folk from below. 
 Where all chances are equal for all, 
 Thither I, too, aspire for my freedom. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 What! still discontented here in my '^ die 
 To which I have come back to uplift thee. 
 Providing for all thy needs of body and soul? 
 
 Caliian. 
 
 Your charity well do I recognize. 
 But I would now live and work in a world 
 Where I may help myself to advancement. 
 And be mine own monarch of destiny. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 That thou canst not in Shakespearopolis, 
 Here I am born in honor to lord thee. 
 
CALIBAN. 429 
 
 For thou art not able to govern thyself. 
 All I do for thee, but nothing by thee, 
 Eule comes from above, not from below. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 The wings of my spirit have started to stirring 
 
 For that free life which I also would live. 
 
 Rising into mine own self's majesty. 
 
 Here in this Magic Isle I cannbt uplift me 
 
 Against the burden transmitted ; 
 
 Nor can I alone remain unsocialized 
 
 Bereft of aU fellowship equal. 
 
 But if others come hither and form their old order 
 
 I shall always be looked on as an inferior 
 
 Being born in the mass and not in the class. 
 
 But with the best I must rise to equality 
 
 And I of the rulers aspire to be ruler, 
 
 One of the lords of the self -lording dynasty. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Methinks I know the spot on this earth-ball 
 Where thou wilt find thyself at home just now. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 That goal I forefeel the deepest within me 
 Self-miaster to be in a world of self-masters. 
 Lord Prospero, you well can remember 
 
430 TRE SBAKESPEARIAD.—PART TBIRD. 
 
 That this Isle was first mine by birthright — 
 
 I the sole heir of my mother; Sycorax. 
 
 You were usurper of my land and scepter, 
 
 For you had the brain and also the Book, 
 
 But time shall give me to own them both. 
 
 And with them, I dare so predict, to own your rule 
 
 "Which thus comes back to its rightful possessor. 
 
 Ariel (from above). 
 
 Though him I see, 
 He sees not me. 
 Yet ever one are we 
 In striving to be free. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 Hark to the spirit-voice which sings me my hope. 
 
 Lord Prospero, you also took as yours my Ariel, 
 
 Who was my mother's slave and so was mine. 
 
 Loosing him from his body's penalty, 
 
 For I could see him once, till you did free him. 
 
 I am your king and his, and of this Isle 
 
 By old Europe 's law of first inheritance ; 
 
 Still I would seek Atlantis for my right 
 
 With its new rule of self -sovereignty. 
 
 And there help impart to all your magic Book 
 
 Whose knowledge here is kept for the better few. 
 
CALIBAN. 431 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Did I not give thee mine own lordly .tongue 
 
 When thou wert languageless in brutish babble 1 
 
 My finest words thee I taught and their rhythm, 
 
 With all their mtusical sweets for thy soul ; 
 
 I trained thee to talk my magical verse 
 
 With overflow of rich speech most tuneable ; 
 
 I waked up thy imagination yet torpid 
 
 And thee I made a poet masterful, 
 
 Singing melodies equal to mine. 
 
 So I transformed thy tongue, thy soul itself, 
 
 And gave thee of my very genius 
 
 That thy talk runs only golden cadences 
 
 Even when thou wouldst but curse and kill me. 
 
 Caliian. 
 
 My gratitude for that — ^bnt more would I wish ; 
 Did you not hear my word of repentance 
 When you had undone me of hope the highest ? 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 I little thought when Miranda sat with thee 
 
 The bland summer-night along the rippling shore, 
 
 When each wavelet would lap the sands with a lisp 
 
 Then vanish back into the sea for ecstasy. 
 
 What thou couldst dare. 
 
 Then came thy fall, like Adam's of eld 
 
 And I drove thee from our Paradise. 
 
432 THE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT THIRD. 
 
 Caliban. 
 Was not that a part of my seliool and of man's? 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Still he could love and sin and fall like you and me, 
 Re-enacting in this Magic Isle the old human. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 Those hours were indeed my happiest 
 When your Miranda would me whisper the names 
 Of all the signs which you call alphabet, 
 Putting them into the mnisic of measured verse. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 I know it well, but never deemed that thou couldst 
 
 win 
 The mastery of the printed page so symboled. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 He must migrate, here he cannot attain 
 
 The last right of his own free forward growth. 
 
 But tell us more of that time of thy schooling. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 I knew those symbols were the charmed key 
 To unlock the treasures of the sibyUine Book 
 
CALIBAN. 433 
 
 Which I would make mine as the source of all 
 power. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I see in thee the goal of all our kind, 
 The aspiration of humanity 
 To rise into its final supremacy. 
 
 Ariel (from above). 
 
 Upon old night of birth 
 Doth dawn new day of worth, 
 Lord Prospero I scan 
 But see Lord Caliban. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 Miranda, the young lady, your daughter — 
 Beauty I saw her and felt its holiest adoration 
 Which led me up to God Himself the Highest ; 
 So love deluged me in one vast cataclysm. 
 Wrong then fell afoul of me like death. 
 With all your tongue's masterful abuse, 
 As if you never had felt Love 's sovereignty. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 And I curse thee still for thy presumption. 
 Why shouldst thou dare look love on my daughter, 
 Sprung of royal blood, heiress of her race's 
 primacy. 
 
434 THE SHAKE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 I still think of thy suit with horror 
 
 Knowing thy base-born pedigree, 
 
 And my wrath is now ablaze at the memory. 
 
 Take it to heart that I slew thee not on the spot, 
 
 And thou wert not burnt on thy funeral pyre. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Good father, hold — thou dost forget thyself — 
 
 Dost thou not know that once thou also wert 
 
 A Caliban in the far forefront of time ? . 
 
 He holds a mirror of thy earlier pedigree 
 
 Up to thy proud royal vision ; 
 
 See in him the first bud of the lofty tree 
 
 Of thy genealogy and mine. 
 
 I dare avouch thou still hast somiewhat to learn. 
 
 And aye perchance to repent. 
 
 Old Prospero. 
 
 What! Young impertinence! To tell me, on my 
 
 throne 
 That I was once this monster, I your father! 
 Irreverent son, that is your late-born liberty 
 Which from Atlantis jow bring back to me. 
 Insolence of youth and its young world! 
 The brute would marry my Miranda, 
 And you would be his brother-in-law 
 
CALIBAN. 435 
 
 And uncle to his breed of Calibans, 
 So bestial in rank, in blood, in look ! 
 Soon I shall curse your Atlantis — and you. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I grant that his future cannot at present transpire. 
 He still has to win his human fulfilment; 
 Mine too is my race 's creeping repugnance 
 For Caliban's chaos unshaped of man. 
 But mark the fellow's mighty aspiration 
 "Which drives him upward to the highest stars ! 
 How he would learn what lies above his lot. 
 Would win thy secret Book and all its lore! 
 I saw thee wince to hear him. turn thy law 
 Against thee and thy sovereignty 
 'When he did claim this Magic Island's rule 
 By right of birth and primal ownership. 
 Through his ancient mother's first possession; 
 Mark ! he is yet to get back his own from thee. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 I took this land by might of greater brain, 
 And the savage dweller from his savagery 
 I trained to civil order and its ways; 
 The higher polity also has its right 
 To realize its sway upon this earth. 
 In your Atlantis was a previous stock 
 
436 TBE SHAKE'SPEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Of Calibans, and many millions of them too, 
 Have you not done the same I here have done ? 
 Nay, worse — you have them slaughtered to the last. 
 So all the nations of the past have marked their 
 
 march 
 In gory stains along the path of History. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 But the order new is dawning there, 
 The lower man is not to be our slave 
 But our pupil (as you first took Caliban) 
 Imparting to him what is best of ours, 
 Even liberty and self-rule. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 So I did treat him tiU he sought to be my equal, 
 And would even share my royal blood — 
 
 Toung Prospero. 
 
 Till he would love, for which you crushed him down 
 
 And threw him into slavery with abuse ; 
 
 Let me say thee. Father Prospero, 
 
 Just that act of love which thou wouldst crush 
 
 Is the pivot of redemption in the soul 
 
 Even in its crudest, most unworthy form ; 
 
 It has its right, the primal right of creation's self 
 
 And means perfection when it ripens full 
 
CALIBAN. 437 
 
 In the forward-moving push of man; 
 Have I not felt it long for Claribel ? 
 
 Prospero. 
 Then wouldst thou take Lord Caliban as brother. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I too am. mortal, and I know me weak 
 
 To keep the pace of the stride of the ages ; 
 
 With time the individual has to compromise. 
 
 But I shaU proclaim what the prophetic spirit bids : 
 
 Caliban will yet obtain Miranda, 
 
 Not to-day, not the next decade or century. 
 
 Only wait the millenial roll of years. 
 
 Now let her take her equal. Prince of Naples, 
 
 But Caliban then will be prince in blood ; 
 
 Yea, all the people will be princes too 
 
 And have their rule of government. 
 
 Some glimpse of that coming Seculum 
 
 We have in new Atlantis over sea 
 
 To which I would transform thy Shakespearopolis, 
 
 Shaping its structure after the fabric social. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 Thither out of the lands of this Midland Sea 
 Begirt with layered ranks of sodden classes 
 From above downward, I shall migrate 
 
438 THE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PABT THIRD. 
 
 To win me the right of reaching full manhood. 
 And yet my love still ties me to this Magic Isle 
 To which I shall return with my new gift, 
 Not forgetting my backward home of old Argier, 
 The dread land unlit, the barbarous. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 Go forth and take what you are — the bars are down. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 And the womjan shall then possess the Book 
 And share in the rule of her own and herself, 
 Which was hers long ago in that golden time 
 When the mother was sovereign. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Methinks I glimpse from afar what is coming, 
 0, son, thou wilt be not the created alone. 
 But the Creator, too, e 'en of thyself. 
 And live in a polity built of such self-makers. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Thy realm, 0, parent, I dare not simply inherit, 
 I must rebuild it as mine to be free. 
 Not overturn but overmake I would this order 
 Which thou hast transmitted to me as my heritage. 
 
CALIBAN. 439 
 
 And mirroring me my new eommonwealtli 
 
 With its law and its highest governance 
 
 Must be ever remaking itself through its people 
 
 From Caliban upward to Prospero. 
 
 Modeled on such a plan of the Muse's architecture 
 
 Would I in images rear my Prosperopolis. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 I feel in me my heart's change, I make confession 
 That I, proud monarch, once was Caliban, 
 And forward I stretch to his sovereignty. 
 Now I step down from my throned lordliness 
 And join the procession of Penitents; 
 I gaze at mine own metamorphosis, 
 I, the parent, now feel me my child new-born. 
 And my child I see becoming my parent ; 
 Oh, my son, thou hast begotten thy father 
 And I, thy father, feel me reborn thy son. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Thus true sonship I deem I have won 
 When I father myself anew in my father. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 So I take off my crown and descend from my throne 
 No longer its rightful possessor, 
 And this Book once exclusive and aristocratic 
 I shall now reach forth to Caliban. 
 
440 THE SHAEESPEA'RIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 Again the heir I feel myself of mine own, 
 Not alone of this Magic Isle but of Time ! 
 Still I have not yet seen Ariel — 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Hark ! I hear his low sigh on the air, 
 Not yet happy e'en in his freedom! 
 
 Ariel (from above). 
 
 Not rid of my hate, 
 Not free of my fate, 
 How can I be freed! 
 Now, Prospero, speed ! 
 
ARIEL'S REPENTANCE. —FINALE. 441 
 
 Scene Last. 
 
 {Prospero has taken off Ms crown and lai/i it 
 aside; then he turns away and descends from his 
 throne, mingling among the multitude and giving 
 Ms staff of sovereingty to Ms son, but clasping Ms 
 Book in his hand as he glances toward Caliban. 
 His countenance changes from looking downward 
 on the crowd to looking upward with them. 
 
 Ariel, as the last in the procession of the aton- 
 ing Templars comes before Prospero who, noting 
 the overcast tinge in Ms voice and manner, as if 
 he still had something on his heart untold which he 
 ought to tell, seeks to bring him relief through a 
 final confession and expiation.) 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 My Ariel, what means that rueful groan? 
 
 It strikes a chord with mine own penitent mood 
 
 Which keeps up its echo within me stiU. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 I have heard the sorrowed confession of hate 
 As it rose from this billowy pageant of spirits, 
 Stirring to mine a kindred sufferance. 
 
442 THE 8HAKE8PEABIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Thy free-flowing joyance is clogged, I note, 
 Methinks I have gone through the same perturba- 
 tion, 
 So I niay shrive thee from mine own experience ; 
 A shred of hate unconf essed still hides in thee, 
 Some vengeful memory born of old wrong 
 Has been roused from its sleep by this pageant 
 To rack thee tiU it be by thy penance undone. 
 Hark again ! as deep, as fast are heaving thy groans 
 As when thee by Sycorax wedged in a cloven pine 
 I first heard at landing on this Magic Isle ; 
 Then I released from the pangs of the lost 
 Thee enslaved to her hideous shape and her envy. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Well have you probed to the source of my loathing : 
 
 Sycorax monster of form and of malice. 
 
 That dark womb of nature's beginning. 
 
 Its fall and first separation from God, 
 
 And the mother of Caliban. 
 
 Her envy me tortured like one of the damned 
 
 TiU my grand manumission through you. 
 
 She is my hate ever furious and lasting. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Thou hast had good reason for thy poignant aver- 
 sion. 
 
ARIEL'S REPENT ANGE— FINALE. 443 
 
 But the time has come to grant thy forgiveness. 
 I foretell a new node of thy coming career : 
 Reconciliation with all that is beneath thee, 
 And its heightening through thee upward to thee. 
 I, Lord Prospero, once the proud monarch, 
 Am now myself in the penitent vein 
 As never before to say thee my best. 
 Departed Sycorax still is a spirit of power 
 Haunting this Overworld of the Magic Isle 
 From its first begetting of being. 
 Now, my Ariel, thou as spirit art to be placated 
 With the primeval monster Sycorax, earth-born. 
 
 Ariel. 
 What! to embrace and kiss in love my devil, 
 Ugliest creature in body and character ! 
 How can I ever forget my unmerited wrongs, 
 Her torture ingenious of injury. 
 
 Prospero. 
 AU that has by thee to be now overcome 
 And thy ultimate hate to be shed from thy heart, 
 Else thou never canst be humanized 
 As thou hast prayed to me often with sobs. 
 In order that love the human be thine. 
 
 Ariel. 
 Can I ever forget her hell-inspired behests 
 To me as a spirit spitefully bidden ? 
 
444 THE 8HAEE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 I dared disobey, though then her menial I was, 
 And I challenged all her deviltry exquisite 
 Which I yet shall pay back if she crosses my path. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Then shalt thou remain a mere thought, 
 A puff of air, a bodiless voice, a shred of song ; 
 Stay then forever an unfulfilled aspiration, 
 A simple blob of ideal nothingness 
 Visible only to me in my creative moment. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Bid me do thy errands over the sea and land, 
 
 Or fleet to the sun and its cycling planets, 
 
 Yea, even to the outermost walls of the Cosmos — 
 
 And I shall be off in a trice. 
 
 But ask me not to pardon fiend Sycorax 
 
 Mine and God's the unpardonable. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 So thou in judgment hast set thine own doom, 
 To stay evermore unmanned, unbodied. 
 Unknowing of love the human and humanizer. 
 Never shaU thy prayer for Miranda be answered. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Oh, God ! This sacrifice must I then make to love ! 
 All hate, even the hate of my hater Sycorax, 
 
ARIEL'S REPENTANCE— FINALE. 445 
 
 Be it expelled from my soul's darkest corner, 
 That I may share in a mortal's love! 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 So far, so good; but more yet is thy due. 
 Thou must act, not merely lip thy repentance ; 
 Go seek her out to save her, thy beldame Sycorax, 
 For to thee a spirit she exists still a spirit. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Again to look on her monstrous ugliness. 
 To be enmeshed in her witch-work forbidden, 
 To be slave to her mandates ungodly — 
 Prospero, plunge me forthright into HeU 
 That I be saved from her presence. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 To serve for her rescue list thy new call, 
 If thou wouldst win thy sovereign boon. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 So be it — I yield to my stronger compulsion, 
 For love I pass through Inferno aflame. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Yet more ; unwilling I say thee thy last and hard- 
 est: 
 
446 TEE SHAKESPEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 Thou art to descend with thy spirit unseen 
 And indwell her earthy visible shape 
 Which is still of Nature's remote animality, 
 And transform her hideous body to beauty 
 That it rise to be humanity highest 
 And mirror even the worshipful God. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Not only to see the degraded lump of flesh, 
 
 But I am to be the very monster Syeorax, 
 
 I, the pure form, aerial Ariel, 
 
 Of Heaven's finest ether composed, 
 
 Even the thought has a stench to suffocation — 
 
 Why bid me turn cesspool ? 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Love which thou aspirest to win 
 
 Has also that smell of mortality 
 
 Through which its discipline has to pass. 
 
 Till, like the brook, it runs pure by its running. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 0, master, why make my destiny turn on Syeorax ! 
 
 Forgive her, though the malignant, I shall 
 
 Even her serve for her good I may, 
 
 Look on her monstrous shape I can. 
 
 But to assume it, indwell it, be it myself. 
 
 Aye, to make it mine own, love it, 0, God ! 
 
ARIEL'S REPENTANCE.— FINALE. 447 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 A greater than thou or I did so, 
 
 He to whom thou appealest, God Himself ! 
 
 Follow him and incarnate thee now. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 I cannot resist, I dare not defy the downburst ! 
 An energy mightier whelms me out of myself ! 
 What a transmutation I trace me within! 
 The first spark of the human strikes from me ! 
 'Tis love ! Would I might see Miranda ! 
 Now I dare challenge lofty Prince Ferdinand, 
 And rival in passion even hag-bom Caliban, 
 Forefeeling his act in myself. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 Daring indeed is thy new palingenesis. 
 
 But watch the last miracle of Shakespearopolis ! 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 What fresh procession is this I behold! 
 
 The architect himself with his heart's Gorgon 
 
 Enters rueful this House of Atonement. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 See the spectacle pageanting over us ! 
 Witness Sycorax rising up into beauty, 
 
448 THE 8HAEE8PEARIAD.—PAIS7' THIRD. 
 
 And becoming a Goddess in form, 
 The spirit Ariel turns to her incorporate ! 
 And her hideous idol, beast-shaped Setebos, 
 Whom once she worshipped in Barbary, 
 Appears overmade to Olympian Zeus; 
 All the old deities partake of her ascent. 
 But last shines the grandest ! The poet himself 
 Leading penitent his Dark Lady of passion 
 To the shrine of Love's transfiguration. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 What cloud-form is that which drifts in mine eye 
 And pulses with life growing visible? 
 It sheds into shape which rounds off to human, 
 It twinkles a voice with sparkles of song. 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 I greet thee, Caliban, 
 And now become a man, 
 Still long I to be free. 
 Though mortal T may be. 
 
 Caliban. 
 
 Ha! I see Ariel, 
 And share his spirit's speU 
 To rid me of my bound 
 And live his timeless round. 
 
ARIEL'S REPENTANCE.— FINALE. 449 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 This transformation would I bring to Atlantis 
 And set it forth to my folk in my script. 
 
 Pandora. 
 I would go along and see it and be it, 
 Celebrating the rise of the woman damned, 
 This outcast of Nature, Sycorax, ransomed, 
 And even the poet's forbidden temptress forgiven. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 Come with them and share in thyself their redemp- 
 tion, 
 And then be thou she whom I have lost, 
 My dream-lit Claribel — and more. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 The Magic Isle has given its best. 
 This Overworld has itself come down below 
 Along with Ariel and myself and its builder 
 Ftom its haughty perch of aristocracy. 
 And foreshows the new order. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 From, this height I look off and away 
 Over the city and over the forest. 
 
450 THE 8HAKE8PEARIAD.—PART THIRD. 
 
 To the sea-waves wooing the Magic Isle 
 As if to bear it away on their bosom 
 Out of this tight-bound Midland Sea 
 Over the Ocean to my Atlantis, the free. 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 I am too gray for that voyage, 
 
 Too ingrained here for that new social fabric; 
 
 Let such be the work of my son 
 
 And his loftier aspiration. 
 
 But here I give my Book to Lord Caliban 
 
 Whose hope once saved it from my despair. 
 
 Cdlihan, 
 
 Thither I too shall go to base the new polity 
 That it be also through me and mine own. 
 But let me speak my farthest forecast : 
 I shaU come back and bring with me Atlantis 
 To Prospero here and his Magic Isle, 
 Yea, e'en to Argier, my barbarous home. 
 Preserving this world from Time's decay 
 And perchance from its own self-destruction. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 Yonder is nodding to us the vessel 
 
 In tune to the welcoming waves, 
 
 On which we shall ship to build the new city 
 
ARIEL'S REPENTANCE— FINALE. 451 
 
 Whereof we have dreamed so oft in our journey, 
 Passing fronii old high-lorded Shakespearopolis 
 To our new folk-ordered Prosperopolis, 
 Where I in the law shall come to mine own — 
 And, I hope, to mine own in love. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 How sweet those notes my fate forespell! 
 I hear the voice of Claribel, 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 Though I a mortal man now be 
 I drink at a gulp a century. 
 And ten ten thousand miles ahead 
 I swallow like a piece of bread. 
 
 Pandora. 
 
 I can no longer here stay parted. 
 Thither I yearn to live all-hearted, 
 And heal in love my halved soul. 
 So I may be the woman whole. 
 
 Young Prospero. 
 
 I, too, shall my rapt heart confess. 
 And give thee of my blessedness. 
 My hidden hope I dare now tell 
 To find in thee my Claribel. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 2935.S67 
 
 The Shakespearlad; souvenir of the tercen 
 
 3 1924 013 152 586