Part 32 (1/2)

_Cressida_ It is no matter

_Diomedes_ Come, tell me whose it was?

_Cressida_ 'Twas one that loved me better than you will, But, now you have it, take it”

The scene is a splendid dramatic scene, a piece torn from life, so realistic that it convinces, and yet we revolt; we feel that we have not got to the heart of the mystery There is so oodness in her, however fleeting and ineffective the spark may be But Shakespeare makes her attempt at justification a confession of absolute faithlessness:

”Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee, But with my heart the other eye doth see

Ah! poor our sex! This fault in us I find, The error of our eye directs our mind”

This is plainly Shakespeare's reflection and not Cressida's apology, and if we contrast this speech with the dialogue given above, it becomes plain, I think, that the terrible scene with Diomedes is taken from life, or is at least Shakespeare's vision of the way Mary Fitton behaved There's a ination:

”'Twas one that loved me better than you will, But, now you have it, take it”

And then:

”Sweet, honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly:”

The very power of the characterization ift of Shakespeare to Lord Herbert, the draer loved hiotten hi a lover, indeed as still loving hiift to another, is an offence in art though it may be true to nature

It is a fault in art because it is iift is bad enough; without explanation it is horrible For this and other reasons I infer that Shakespeare took the fact from his own experience: he had suffered, it seems to me, from some such traitorism on the part of his mistress, or he ascribed to Mary Fitton sohty excuse for having given away the table-book which his friend had given to hiht himent towards his frail love

But when Shakespeare wrote ”Troilus and Cressida” a passion of bitterness possessed hiamemnon, Nestor, Achilles, Ajax; he see of Thersites than in any other part of the work except the scourging of Cressida He shocks us by the picture of Achilles and hisHector when they come upon him unarmed

One or two incidental difficulties reater play

”Troilus and Cressida” has always been regarded as a sort of enigma

Professor Dowden asks: ”With what intention and in what spirit did Shakespeare write this strange coainst Troy are pitilessly exposed to ridicule?” And from this fact and the bitterness of ”Timon” some German critics have drawn the inference that Shakespeare was incapable of co Greek life, and that indeed he only realized his Romans so perfectly because the Roman was very like the Briton in his mastery of practical affairs, of the details of adovernment This is an excellent instance of German prejudice No one could have been better fitted than Shakespeare to understand Greek civilization and Greek art with its supreave him far better pictures of Roman life than of Greek life, partly because Plutarch lived in the time of Roman domination and partly because he was in far closer sympathy with the masters of practical affairs than with artists in stone like Phidias or artists in thought like Plato The true explanation of Shakespeare's caricatures of Greek life, whether Homeric or Athenian, is to be found in the fact that he was not only entirely ignorant of it but prejudiced against it And this prejudice in him had an obvious root

Chapman had just translated and published the first books of his Iliad, and Chapman was the poet whom Shakespeare speaks of as his rival in Sonnets 78-86 He cannot help s at the ”strained touches” of Chap Those who care to remember the first scene of ”Love's Labour's Lost” will recall how Shakespeare in that early workand derided study When he first reached London he was no doubt despised for his ignorance of Greek and Latin; he had had to bear the sneers and flouts of the entility above genius

He took the first opportunity of answering his critics:

”Small have continual plodders ever won, Save bare authority from others' books”

But the taunts rankled, and when the bitter days came of disappointment and disillusion he took up that Greek life which his rival had tried to depict in its fairest colours, and shohat he thought was the sea of Greek life and Greek art it would have been his pleasure to outdo his rival by giving at once a truer and a fairer presentation of Greece than Chapman could conceive

It is the rivalry of Chap contempt on Greek life in ”Troilus and Cressida” As Chapman was for the Greeks, Shakespeare took sides with the Trojans

But why do I assume that ”Troilus and Cressida” is earlier than ”Antony and Cleopatra?” So them Dr Brandes, place it later, and they have some reason for their belief The bitterness in ”Troilus and Cressida,” they say rightly, is more intense; and as Shakespeare's disappoints appears to have increased from ”Hamlet” to ”Timon,” or froent as is this reasoning, I cannot believe that Shakespeare could have painted Cressida after having painted Cleopatra

The same model has evidently served for both women; but while Cleopatra is perhaps the most superb portrait of a courtesan in all literature, Cressida is a crude and harsh sketch such as a Duht have conceived

It is more than probable, I think, that ”Troilus and Cressida” was planned and the love-story at least written about 1603, while Shakespeare's memory of one of his mistress's betrayals was still vivid and sharp The play was taken up again four or five years later and the character of Ulysses deepened and strengthened In this later revision the outlook is so piercing-sad, the phrases of such pregnancy, that the workto Shakespeare's ripest rown comparatively careless of characterization as in all his later work; he gives his wise sayings almost as freely to Achilles as to Ulysses

”Troilus and Cressida” is interesting because it establishes the opinion that Chapman was indeed the rival poet whom Shakespeare referred to in the sonnets, and especially because it shows us the poet's e of erotic passion so violent that it defeats itself, and the portrait becomes an incredible caricature--that way madness lies ”Troilus and Cressida” points to ”Lear” and ”Timon”