Part 37 (1/2)

”My long sickness Of health and living now begins to s”

Then the end:

”Tie of the salt flood”

Weerotic strain in Shakespeare which suits Ti discussion with Phrynia and Tied in: neither woes of erotic raving:

” Strike me the counterfeit matron; It is her habit only that is honest, Herself's a bawd:”

And then:

”Consumptions sow In hollow bones of man

Doith the nose, Doith it flat; take the bridge quite away ”

The ”damned earth” even is ”the common whore of mankind”

”Tiives lavishly, but is saved at the crisis by his friends Tiives with both hands, but when he appeals to his friends, is treated as a bore

Shakespeare had travelled far in the dozen years which separate the two plays

All Shakespeare's tragedies are phases of his own various weaknesses, and each one brings the hero to defeat and ruin Hah his own irresolution Othello coh h excess of lust; Lear through trust in enerosity

All these are separate studies of Shakespeare's oeaknesses; but the ruin is irretrievable, and reaches its ultienerosity, Shakespeare would like to tell us, were his supremest faults In this he deceived hiedy; but ”Antony and Cleopatra,” for lust was his chief weakness, and the tragedy of lust his greatest play

Much of ”Timon” is not Shakespeare's, the critics tell us, and soes rejected with the best reason have, I think, been touched up by him The second scene of the first act is as bad as bad can be; but I hear his voice in the line:

”Methinks, I could deal kingdoms to my friends, And ne'er be weary”

At any rate, this is the keynote of the tragedy, which is struck again and again Shakespeare probably exaggerated his generosity out of aristocratic pose; but that he was careless of money and freehanded to a fault, is, I think, certain fros, and can be proved from the facts known to us of his life

CHAPTER XIII SHAKESPEARE'S LAST ROMANCES: ALL COPIES

_”Winters Tale”: ”Cy full circle: Timon is almost as weak as ”titus Andronicus”; the pen falls fro for some time Even the critics make a break after ”Timon,”

which closes what they are pleased to call his third period; but they do not seem to see that the break was really a breakdown in health In ”Lear” he had brooded and raged to madness; in ”Tis His nerves had gone to pieces He was now forty-five years of age, the forces of youth and growth had left him He was prematurely old and feeble

His recovery, it seeht, regained vigorous health, I am almost certain he went down to Stratford at this crisis and spent so, no doubt, to staunch the wound in his heart, and win back again to life The fear of : he made up his et and live sanely After all, life is better than death

It was probably his daughter who led hirave Alirl

He seems now, for the first time, to have learned that ahich ith him to the end, he deified her Judith becarace of abstract beauty In ”Pericles” she is Marina; in ”The Winter's Tale” Perdita; in ”The Tempest” Miranda It is probable when one coht when he says that Shakespeare spent his ”elder years” in Stratford; he was too broken to have taken up his life in London again

The assertion that Shakespeare broke down in health, and never won back to vigorous life, will be scorned as ard ”Cymbeline,” ”The Winter's Tale,” and ”The Teainst me on this point, and they will call for ”Proofs, proofs Give us proofs,” they will cry, ”that the man ent mad and raved with Lear, and screamed and cursed in ”Ti madness and despair” The proofs are to be found in these works themselves, plain for all men to read