CHAP. IX. of Antony, with its mastery of every phase of feeling, is a perfect sonata upon the instrument of the human emotions. iii. ii. 78. Its opening theme is sympathy with bereavement, against which are working as if in conflict anticipations of future A distinct change of movement comes with the first introduction of what is to be 133. the final subject, the mention of the will. But when this new movement has worked up from curiosity to impatience, there 177. is a diversion: the mention of the victory over the Nervii 95, 109, themes, doubt and compunction. &c. 200. turns the emotions in the direction of historic pride, which 178. harmonises well with the opposite emotions roused as the orator fingers hole after hole in Cæsar's mantle made by the daggers of his false friends, and so leads up to a sudden shock when he uncovers the body itself and displays the popular idol and its bloody defacement. Then the finale 243. begins: the forgotten theme of the will is again started, and from a burst of gratitude the passion quickens and intensifies to rage, to fury, to mutiny. The mob is won to the won to the Reaction; and the curtain that falls upon the third Act rises for a moment to display the populace tearing a man to pieces simply because he bears the same name as one of the conspirators. The mob Reaction. iii. iii. Last stage. ment of an The final stage of the action works out the development Develop- of an inevitable fate. The emotional strain now ceases, inevitable and, as in the first stage, the passion is of the calmer order, fate: passion-strain the calmness in this case of pity balanced by a sense of ceases.. justice. From the opening of the fourth Act the decline in the justification of the conspirators is intimated by the logic of events. The first scene exhibits to us the triumvirate that now governs Rome, and shows that in this triumvirate Acts iv, v. Antony is supreme: with the man who is the embodiment of the Reaction thus appearing at the head of the world, the fall of the conspirators is seen to be inevitable. The decline of our sympathy with them continues in the following iv. i. of 239. Cassius has fallen since he has dealt with assassination as a CHAP. IX. political weapon; and even Brutus's moderation has hardened into unpleasing harshness. There is at this point iv. iii. 148, plenty of relief to such unpleasing effects: there is the &c. iv. iii, from exhibition of the tender side of Brutus's character as shown in his relations with his page, and the display of friendship iv. iii. maintained between Brutus and Cassius amid falling fortunes. But such incidents as these have a different effect upon us from that which they would have had at an earlier period; the justification of the conspirators has so far declined that now attractive touches in them serve only to increase the pathos of a fate which, however, our sympathy no longer seeks to resist. We get a supernatural foreshadowing of the end in the appearance to Brutus of Cæsar's Ghost, and the iv. iii. 275. omen Cassius sees of the eagles that had consorted his army v. i. 80. to Philippi giving place to ravens, crows, and kites on the morning of battle: this lends the authority of the invisible world to our sense that the conspirators' cause is doomed. And judicial blindness overtakes them as Brutus's authority iv. iii. 196 in council overweighs in point after point the shrewder -230. advice of Cassius. Through the scenes of the fifth Act we see the republican leaders fighting on without hope. The Justification entirelast remnant of justification for their cause ceases as the ly vanishes conspirators themselves seem to acknowledge their error and as the confate. Cassius as he feels his death-blow recognises the very recognise weapon with which he had committed the crime: Cæsar, thou art revenged, Even with the sword that kill'd thee. And at last even the firm spirit of Brutus yields: O Julius Cæsar, thou art mighty yet! Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords spirators Cæsar's victory. v. iii. 45. V. v. 94. CHAP. X. The plot of Lear highly complex. The main plot ex hibits the X. HOW CLIMAX MEETS CLIMAX IN IN THE CENTRE OF LEAR. A Study in more complex N Julius Cæsar we have seen how, in the case of a very simple play, a few simple devices are sufficient to produce a regular rise and fall in the passion. We now turn to a highly elaborate plot and trace how, notwithstanding the elaborateness, a similar concentration of the passion in the centre of the play can be secured. King Lear is one of the most complex of Shakespeare's tragedies; its plot is made up of a number of separate actions, with their combinations accurately carried out, the whole impressing us with a sense of artistic involution similar to that of an elaborate musical fugue. Here, however, we are concerned only indirectly. with the plot of the play: we need review it no further than may suffice to show what distinct interests enter into it, and enable us to observe how the separate trains of passion work toward a common climax at the centre. Starting from the notion of pattern as a fundamental idea we have seen how Plot presents trains of events in human life taking form and shape as a crime and its nemesis, an oracle and its fulfilment, the rise and fall of an individual, or even as simply a story. The particular form of action underlying the main plot of King Lear is different from any we have yet noticed. It may be described as a Problem Action. bination of forces to have come about, and then proceeds to CHAP. X. trace its consequences: so the Drama often deals with dramatic problems in history and life, setting up, before the com- action. mencement of the play or early in the action, some peculiar arrangement of moral relations, and then throughout the rest of the action developing the consequences of these to the personages involved. Thus the opening scene of King Lear is occupied in bringing before us a pregnant and suggestive state of affairs: imperiousness is represented as overthrowing conscience and setting up an unnatural distribution of power. A human problem has thus been enunciated which the re- The probmainder of the play has to work out to its natural solution. Imperiousness seems to be the term appropriate to Lear's conduct in the first scene. This is no case of dotage dividing lem stated. an inheritance according to public declarations of affection. The division had already been made according to the best advice: in the case of two of the daughters 'equali- i. i. 3, &c. ties had been so weighed that curiosity in neither could make choice of either's moiety'; and if the portion of the youngest and best loved of the three was the richest, this is a partiality natural enough to absolute power. The opening scene of the play is simply the court ceremony in which the formal transfer is to be made. Lear is already 38. handing to his daughters the carefully drawn maps which mark the boundaries of the provinces, when he suddenly 49. pauses, and, with the yearning of age and authority for testimonies of devotion, calls upon his daughters for declarations of affection, the easiest of returns for the substantial gifts he is giving them, and which Goneril and Regan pour forth with glib eloquence. Then Lear turns to Cordelia, and, 84. thinking delightedly of the special prize he has marked out for the pet of his old age, asks her: What can you say to draw 204 CHAP. X. sisters whose hypocrisy she knows so well, and she bluntly refuses to be drawn into any declaration of affection at all. Cordelia might well have found some other method of separating herself from her false sisters, without thus flouting her father before his whole court in a moment of tenderness to herself; or, if carried away by the indignation of the moment, a sign of submission would have won her a ready pardon. But Cordelia, sweet and strong as her character is in great things, has yet inherited a touch of her father's temper, and the moment's sullenness is protracted into obstinacy. Cordelia then has committed an offence of manner; Lear's passion vents itself in a sentence proper only to a moral crime now the punishment of a minute offence with wholly disproportionate severity simply because it is an offence against personal will is an exact description of imperiousness. compare i. i. 131. 141-190. As Lear stands for imperiousness, so conscience is represented by Kent, who, with the voice of authority derived from lifelong intimacy and service, interposes to check the King's passion in its headlong course. Kent. Royal Lear, Whom I have ever honour'd as my king, Loved as my father, as my master follow'd, As my great patron thought on in my prayers,— The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly Lear. Kent, on thy life, no more. To plainness honour's bound, Kent. My life I never held but as a pawn To wage against thy enemies, nor fear to lose it, Thy safety being the motive . . . O, vassal! miscreant! [Laying his hand on his sword. |