Part 36 (2/2)

Or, to turn to earlier but still undoubted works, Shakespeare wrote in _Romeo and Juliet_,

here will I remain With worms that are thy chamber-maids;

and in _King John_,

And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath Out of the b.l.o.o.d.y finger-ends of John;

and in _Lucrece_,

And, bubbling from her breast, it doth divide In two slow rivers, that the crimson blood Circles her body in on every side, Who, like a late-sack'd island, vastly stood Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood.

Some of her blood still pure and red remain'd, And some look'd black, and that false Tarquin stain'd.

Is it so very unlikely that the poet who wrote thus might, aiming at a peculiarly heightened and pa.s.sionate style, write the speech of Aeneas?

4. But, pursuing this line of argument, we must go further. There is really scarcely one idea, and there is but little phraseology, in the speech that cannot be paralleled from Shakespeare's own works. He merely exaggerates a little here what he has done elsewhere. I will conclude this Note by showing that this is so as regards almost all the pa.s.sages most objected to, as well as some others. (1) 'The Hyrcanian beast' is Macbeth's 'Hyrcan tiger' (III. iv. 101), who also occurs in _3 Hen. VI._ I. iv. 155. (2) With 'total gules' Steevens compared _Timon_ IV. iii. 59 (an undoubtedly Shakespearean pa.s.sage),

With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules.

(3) With 'baked and impasted' cf. _John_ III. iii. 42, 'If that surly spirit melancholy Had baked thy blood.' In the questionable _t.i.t. And._ V. ii. 201 we have, 'in that paste let their vile heads be baked' (a paste made of blood and bones, _ib._ 188), and in the undoubted _Richard II._ III. ii. 154 (quoted by Caldecott) Richard refers to the ground

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

(4) 'O'er-sized with coagulate gore' finds an exact parallel in the 'blood-siz'd field' of the _Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_, I. i. 99, a scene which, whether written by Shakespeare (as I fully believe) or by another poet, was certainly written in all seriousness. (5) 'With eyes like carbuncles' has been much ridiculed, but Milton (_P.L._ ix. 500) gives 'carbuncle eyes' to Satan turned into a serpent (Steevens), and why are they more outrageous than ruby lips and cheeks (_J.C._ III. i. 260, _Macb._ III. iv. 115, _Cym._ II. ii. 17)? (6) Priam falling with the mere wind of Pyrrhus's sword is paralleled, not only in _Dido Queen of Carthage_, but in _Tr. and Cr._ V. iii. 40 (Warburton). (7) With Pyrrhus standing like a painted tyrant cf. _Macb._ V. viii. 25 (Delius). (8) The forging of Mars's armour occurs again in _Tr. and Cr._ IV. v. 255, where Hector swears by the forge that st.i.thied Mars his helm, just as Hamlet himself alludes to Vulcan's st.i.thy (III. ii. 89). (9) The idea of 'strumpet Fortune' is common: _e.g._ _Macb._ I. ii. 15, 'Fortune ...

show'd like a rebel's wh.o.r.e.' (10) With the 'rant' about her wheel Warburton compares _Ant. and Cl._ IV. xv. 43, where Cleopatra would

rail so high That the false huswife Fortune break her wheel.

(11.) Pyrrhus minces with his sword Priam's limbs, and Timon (IV. iii.

122) bids Alcibiades 'mince' the babe without remorse.'[263]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 259: It is impossible to tell whether Coleridge formed his view independently, or adopted it from Schlegel. For there is no record of his having expressed his opinion prior to the time of his reading Schlegel's _Lectures_; and, whatever he said to the contrary, his borrowings from Schlegel are demonstrable.]

[Footnote 260: Clark and Wright well compare Polonius' ant.i.thesis of 'rich, not gaudy': though I doubt if 'handsome' implies richness.]

[Footnote 261: Is it not possible that 'mobled queen,' to which Hamlet seems to object, and which Polonius praises, is meant for an example of the second fault of affected phraseology, from which the play was said to be free, and an instance of which therefore surprises Hamlet?]

[Footnote 262: The extravagance of these phrases is doubtless intentional (for Macbeth in using them is trying to act a part), but the _absurdity_ of the second can hardly be so.]

[Footnote 263: Steevens observes that Heywood uses the phrase 'guled with slaughter,' and I find in his _Iron Age_ various pa.s.sages indicating that he knew the speech of Aeneas (cf. p. 140 for another sign that he knew _Hamlet_). The two parts of the _Iron Age_ were published in 1632, but are said, in the preface to the Second, to have 'been long since writ.' I refer to the pages of vol. 3 of Pearson's _Heywood_ (1874). (1) p. 329, Troilus 'lyeth imbak'd In his cold blood.'

(2) p. 341, of Achilles' armour:

_Vulcan_ that wrought it out of gadds of Steele With his _Ciclopian_ hammers, never made Such noise upon his Anvile forging it, Than these my arm'd fists in _Ulisses_ wracke.

(3) p. 357, 'till _Hecub's_ reverent lockes Be gul'd in slaughter.' (4) p. 357, '_Scamander_ plaines Ore-spread with intrailes bak'd in blood and dust.' (5) p. 378, 'We'll rost them at the scorching flames of _Troy_.' (6) p. 379, 'tragicke slaughter, clad in gules and sables'

(cf.'sable arms' in the speech in _Hamlet_). (7) p. 384, 'these lockes, now knotted all, As bak't in blood.' Of these, all but (1) and (2) are in Part II. Part I. has many pa.s.sages which recall _Troilus and Cressida_. Mr. Fleay's speculation as to its date will be found in his _Chronicle History of the English Drama_, i. p. 285.

For the same writer's ingenious theory (which is of course incapable of proof) regarding the relation of the player's speech in _Hamlet_ to Marlowe and Nash's _Dido_, see Furness's Variorum _Hamlet_.]

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