Part 41 (1/2)

Shakespeare's life seems to fall sharply into two halves Till he met Mistress Fitton, about 1597, he must have been happy and well content, I think, in spite of his deep underlyinghe had been in London about ten years, and no man has ever done so much in the time and been so successful even as the world counts success He had not only written the early poems and the early plays, but in the last three or four years half-a-dozen ht's Drea John,” ”The Merchant of Venice,” ”The Two Parts of Henry IV” At thirty-three he was already the greatest poet and dramatist of whoiven hie his father's debts, and place his dearly loved mother in a position of comfort in the best house in Stratford

He had troops of friends, we ayer, kindlier creature in all London, and he set store by friendshi+p

Ten years before he had neither money, place, nor position; now he had all these, and was known even at Court The Queen had been kind to hiue to the ”Second Part of Henry IV,” which he had just finished, by kneeling ”to pray for the Queen” Essex or Southaht his work to Elizabeth's notice: she had approved his ”Falstaff” and encouraged hinition was surely the one which pleased hiht of happy hours when he e the world for hiedies are likely to repeat themselves Socrates was condeiven the bowl of herief with overnable sensuality which drove hie; it was his ungovernable sensuality, too, which in his maturity led him to worshi+p Mary Fitton, and threw hie to earthy, coarse service which he regretted so bitterly when the passion-fever had burned itself out

One can easily guess how he ca maid-of-honour Like many of the courtiers, Mistress Fitton affected the society of the players Kemp, the clown of his company, knew her, and dedicated a book to her rather faht that Shakespeare resented Kemp's intimacy with Mistress Fitton, for when Ha, he adds, with a snarl of personal spite:

”a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it”

Mary Fitton's position, her proud, dark beauty, her daring of speech and deed took Shakespeare by storth matched his weakness; her resolution his hesitation, her boldness his timidity; besides, she was of rank and place, and out of pure snobbery he felt hiot that huirl He loved her so abjectly that he lost her; and it was undoubtedly his overpowering sensuality and snobbishness which brought him to his knees, and his love to ruin He could not even keep her after winning her; desire blinded hih ave herself; but she was true to the new lover for the tiitihters to Sir Richard Leveson Her slips with these men wounded Shakespeare's vanity, and he persisted in underrating her Let us probe to the root of the secret sore Here is a page of ”Troilus and Cressida,” a page from that terrible fourth scene of the fourth act, when Troilus, having to part froainst the Greeks and their proficience in the arts of love:

”_Troilus_ I cannot sing Nor heel the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk, Nor play at subtle games; fair virtues all, To which the Grecians are race of these There lurks a still and duly: but be not tempted

_Cressida_ Do you think I will?

_Troilus No: but so may be done that ill not_”

The first lines show that poor Shakespeare often felt out of it at Court The suggestion, I have put in italics, is unspeakable

Shakespearehis love, li himself and not the wo to hiirl of nineteen should prefer a great lord of her own age to a poor poet of thirty-four”: he strives to persuade himself and us that Mary Fitton ay froe of wounded vanity he wrote that tremendous libel on her, which he put in the mouth of Ulysses:

”Fie, fie upon her!

There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint and lib of tongue, That give accosting welcohts To every ticklish reader! set thehters of the game”

His tortured sensuality caricatures her: that ”ticklish reader” reveals him Mary Fitton was finer than his portraits; ant her soul, and do not get it even in Cleopatra It was the consciousness of his own age and physical inferiority that drove hiration of his uile Shakespeare to ”the very heart of loss,” as he cried; but to the innermost shrine of the temple of Fame It was his absolute abandonment to passion which made Shakespeare the supreme poet

If it had not been for his excessive sensuality, and his ipsy,” we should never have had from him ”Hamlet,” ”Macbeth,”

”Othello,” ”Antony and Cleopatra,” or ”Lear” He would still have been a poet and a dramatic writer of the first rank; but he would not have stood alone above all others: he would not have been Shakespeare

His passion for Mary Fitton lasted soolden hours with her like those Cleopatra boasted of and regretted Life is wasted quickly in such orgasms of passion; lust whipped to madness by jealousy Mary Fitton was the only woman Shakespeare ever loved, or at least, the only woman he loved with such intensity as to influence his art She was Rosaline, Cressid, Cleopatra, and the ”dark lady” of the sonnets All his other women are parts of her or reflections of her, as all his heroes are sides of Hath sketch of Mary Fitton, taken at a distance: Beatrice and Rosalind are h spirits, her aristocratic pride and charth and resolution are incarnate in Lady Macbeth Ophelia, Desdes for purity and constancy called into life by his mistress's faithlessness and passion

Shakespeare admired Mary Fitton as intensely as he desired her, yet he could not be faithful to her for the dozen years his passion lasted

Love and her soft hours drew hiain: he was the ready spoil of opportunity Here is one instance: it was his custom, Aubrey tells us, to visit Stratford every year, probably every summer: on his way he was accustomed to put up at an inn in Oxford, kept by John D'Avenant Mrs D'Avenant, we are told, was ”a very beautiful woreeable” No doubt Shakespeare made up to her from the first Her second son, Williaht, was born in March, 1605, and according to a tradition long current in Oxford, Shakespeare was his father In later life Sir Williaht his (Shakespeare's) son” There is every reason to accept the story as it has been handed down Shakespeare, as Troilus, brags of his constancy; talks of hihteen to forty-five he was as inconstant as the wind, and gave hiames” of love with absolute abandonment, till his health broke under the strain

In several of the Sonnets, notably in 36 and 37, Shakespeare tells us that he was ”poor and despisedmade lame by fortune's dearest spite” He will not even have his friend's nauilt” should do him shah our undivided loves are one: So shall those blots that do with me remain Without thy help, byand other critics believe that this ”guilt” of Shakespeare refers to his profession as an actor, but that stain should not have prevented Lord Herbert fro him with ”public kindness” It is clear, I think, frouilt refers to the fact that both Herbert and he were in love with the same woman Jonson, as we have seen, had poked fun at their connection, and this is how Shakespeare tries to take the sting out of the sneer

Shakespeare had many of the weaknesses of the neurotic and artistic temperament, but he had assuredly the noblest virtues of it: he was true to his friends, and enerous to their merits

If his ethical conscience was faulty, his aesthetical conscience was of the very highest Whenever we find him in close relations with his conteh ience Were they his rivals, he found the perfect word for their s How can one better praise Chapreat verse”?