ページの画像
PDF
ePub

Silvia, "hard beset" with lovers in her father's court, though she gives proof not to be excepted against that she loves Valentine, betrays not the less a tinge of the temper of her wooer Proteus. It must be said without disguise, that it was not absolutely necessary for her to give her picture to Proteus while she was upbraiding him with falsehood to his friend and to a former love; and if the act was not falsehood on her part towards Valentine, it was dangerous coquetry towards Proteus, and goes far to account for the interpretation he evidently put upon her coyness, when he had added the service of rescue from the robbers to former fervent protestations. Her bitter upbraidings are phenomena that Homer and Paris Alexander knew, and Proteus may therefore not unnaturally have thought, to be far less sincere than they may sometimes have sounded; and Valentine himself who unseen was looking on and listening at the scene, may have, had his own apprehensions too, and interfered, it may be, to rescue Silvia scarcely more from Proteus than from herself. Thus may be, but only thus can be accounted for, the remainder of the scene; thus the more than Christian eagerness of pardon with which Valentine overwhelms the abashed Proteus, and the alacrity of his renunciation of all previous rights in the blushing damsel who has no word of recognition or gratitude to greet him with, but is tongue-tied to the end.

"And that my love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.”

-LLOYD, Critical Essays.

SPEED AND LAUNCE

Only now and then, in one or two detached scenes, do Speed and Launce bore us with euphuistic word-torturings; as a rule they are quite entertaining fellows, who seem to announce, as with a flourish of trumpets, that, unlike either Lyly or Marlowe, Shakespeare possesses the inborn gaiety, the keen sense of humor, the sparkling playfulness, which

are to enable him, without any strain on his invention, to kindle the laughter of his audiences, and send it flashing round the theater from the groundlings to the gods. He does not as yet display any particular talent for individualizing his clowns. Nevertheless we notice that, while Speed impresses us chiefly by his astonishing volubility, the true English humor makes its entrance upon the Shakespearean stage when Launce appears, dragging his dog by a string.

Note the torrent of eloquence in this speech of Speed's, enumerating the symptoms from which he concludes that his master is in love:

"First, you have learn'd, like Sir Proteus, to wreath your arms, like a malcontent; to relish a love-song, like a robin-redbreast; to walk alone, like one that had the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had lost his A B C; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her grandam; to fast, like one that takes diet; to watch, like one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont, when you laugh'd, to crow like a cock; when you walk'd, to walk like one of the lions when you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when you look'd sadly, it was for want of money; and now you are metamorphosed with a mistress, that, when I look on you, I can hardly think you my master."

All these similes of Speed's are apt and accurate; it is only the way in which he piles them up that makes us laugh. But when Launce opens his mouth, unbridled whimsicality at once takes the upper hand. He comes upon the scene with his dog:

"Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind of the Launces have this very fault. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, my maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruelhearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very pebblestone, and has no more pity in him than a dog; a Jew

would have wept to have seen our parting: why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father:-no, this left shoe is my father;-no, no, this left shoe is my mother;-nay, that cannot be so, neither :- -yes, it is so, it is so; it hath the worser sole. This shoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father. A vengeance on 't! there 't is: now, sir, this staff is my sister; for, look you, she is as white as a lily, and as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid: I am the dog;no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog,—O! the dog is me, and I am myself: ay, so, so.”

Here we have nothing but joyous nonsense, and yet nonsense of a highly dramatic nature. That is to say, here reigns that youthful exuberance of spirit which laughs with a childlike grace, even where it condescends to the petty and low; exuberance as of one who glories in the very fact of existence, and rejoices to feel life pulsing and seething in his veins; exuberance such as belongs of right, in some degree, to every well-constituted man in the light-hearted days of his youth-how much more, then, to one who possesses the double youth of years and genius among a people which is itself young, and more than young: liberated, emancipated, enfranchized, like a colt which has broken its tether and scampers at large through the luxuriant pastures.-BRANDES, William Shakespeare.

LAUNCE AND HIS DOG

Launce is not a character manufactured by a playwright -one of "Nature's journeymen," to serve a particular purpose, but is a product of Nature's own handiwork, and if not the most cunning, still none the less genuine.

The close companionship which exists between him and his dog Crab is evidently one based upon a moral and intellectual fitness in the characters of the two. The clown is such by natural organization, and no education or change of circumstances or condition could make him otherwise.

So the dog Crab, even with the "gentleman-like dogs” among whom he has thrust himself, under the Duke's table, is nevertheless the cur which Nature made him; and we can scarcely conceive that even the cultivation of "three generations," which some high authorities have contended for as necessary to make a gentleman, would suffice to make a courtier of the one, or a "gentleman-like dog" of the other.-KELLOGG, Shakespeare's Delineations of Insanity, Imbecility, and Suicide.

BEAUTIES OF THE PLAY

This is little more than the first outlines of a comedy loosely sketched in. It is the story of a novel dramatized with very little labor or pretension; yet there are passages of high poetical spirit, and of inimitable quaintness of humor, which are undoubtedly Shakespear's, and there is throughout the conduct of the fable a careless grace and felicity which marks it for his.

The tender scenes in this play, though not so highly wrought as in some others, have often much sweetness of sentiment and expression. There is something pretty and playful in the conversation of Julia with her maid, when she shows such a disposition to coquetry about receiving the letter from Proteus; and her behavior afterwards and her disappointment, when she finds him faithless to his vows, remind us at a distance of Imogen's tender constancy. Her answer to Lucetta, who advises her against following her lover in disguise, is a beautiful piece of poetry.

"Lucetta. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire, But qualify the fire's extremest rage,

Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

Julia. The more thou damm'st it up, the more it burns; The current that with gentle murmur glides

Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;

But when his fair course is not hindered,

He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge

He overtaketh in his pilgrimage:

And so by many winding nooks he strays
With willing sport, to the wild ocean.
Then let me go, and hinder not my course;
I'll be as patient as a gentle stream,
And make a pastime of each weary step,
Till the last step have brought me to my love;
And there I'll rest, as after much turmoil,

A blessed soul doth in Elysium."

If Shakespeare indeed had written only this and other passages in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, he would almost have deserved Milton's praise of him—

"And sweetest Shakespear, Fancy's child,
Warbles his native wood-notes wild."

But as it is, he deserves rather more praise than this.-HAZLITT, Characters of Shakespear's Play.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PLAY

This piece I consider one of Shakspeare's earliest works. It is true that, as regards details, the play is rich in peculiar beauties, but, taken as a whole, we still observe a certain youthful awkwardness, and a want of depth in poetical execution. It is distinguished by an easy, smooth and harmonious flow of language, by a freshness, gaiety and naïveté of wit and humor (as in Speed and Launce), and. by a delineation of character which is indeed sketchy, but nevertheless well given. Even the sharp contrast into which—as we have seen-Shakspeare is fond of placing his characters, and which he employs as the principle of his groupings, is here specially prominent in the characters of Proteus and Valentine, Julia and Silvia, Speed and Launce. But the very sharpness of these contrasts, and the carefully worked out parallels between the contrasted couples, betrays the youthful poet. Moreover, as a whole, the play makes the impression of superficiality; not only is the conception of life in general, but even the individual

« 前へ次へ »