Shakspere and Montaigne Part 4

'Now that which, methinks, brings so much disorder into our consciences--namely, in these troubles of religion in which we are--is the easy way with which Catholics treat their faith. They suppose they show themselves properly moderate and skilful when they yield to their adversaries some of the articles that are under debate.

But--besides that they do not see what an advantage it is to your antagonist if you once begin making a concession, thus encouraging him to follow up his point--it may further be said that the articles which they choose as apparently the lightest, are sometimes most important indeed.' [16]

Again, the humane n.o.bleman who looks with pity and kindliness upon 'the poor, toiling with heads bent, in their hard work;' he who calls the application of the torture 'a trial of patience rather than of truth'--he maintains that 'the public weal requires that one should commit treachery, use falsehoods, and perform ma.s.sacres.' [17]

Personally, he shrinks from such a mission. His softer heart is not strong enough for these deeds. He relates [18] that he 'never could see without displeasure an innocent and defenceless beast pursued and killed, from which we have received no offence at all.' He is moved by the aspect of 'the hart when it is embossed and out of breath, and, finding its strength gone, has no other resource left but to yield itself up to us who pursue it, asking for mercy from us by its tears. He calls this 'a deplorable spectacle.'

Yet, this sentimental n.o.bleman advocates the commission of treachery and cruelty, in the interest of the State, by certain more energetic, less timorous men. Nor does he define their functions so as to raise a bar against a second St. Bartholomew ma.s.sacre. A deed of this kind he would submissively take to be an act of Heaven, s.h.i.+rking all responsibility for, or discussion of, anything that 'begins to molest him.' He merely says:--'Like those ancients who sacrificed their lives for the welfare of their country, so they (the guardians of the State) must be ready to sacrifice their honour and their conscience. We who are weaker, take easier, less risky parts.' [19]

In Montaigne, the Humanist, we read that beautiful pa.s.sage (in his last Essay [20]) where he says that 'those who would go beyond human nature, trying to transform themselves into angels, only make beasts of themselves.' [21] Yet, elsewhere [22] he writes that he shall be exalted, who, renouncing his own natural means, allows himself to be guided by means purely celestial--by which he clearly understands the dogmas of Roman Catholicism.

As a humanistic thinker, Montaigne fears nothing more than any strivings after transcendentalism. Such yearnings terrify him like inaccessible heights. In the life of Sokrates, of that sage for whom he felt a special preference, the 'ecstasies and daimons' greatly repel him. Nevertheless, Montaigne, the mystic, attributes a great magic power to such daimons; for he says: 'I, too, have sometimes felt within myself an image of such internal agitations, as weak in the light of reason as they were violent in instinctive persuasion or dissuasion (a state of mind more ordinary to Sokrates), by which I have so profitably, and so happily, suffered myself to be drawn on, that these mental agitations might perhaps be thought to contain something of divine inspiration.' [23]

Montaigne, the admirer of cla.s.sic antiquity, says that serving the Commonwealth is the most honourable calling. [24] Acts without some splendour of freedom have, in his eyes, neither grace, nor do they merit being honoured. [25] But elsewhere [26] we come upon his other view, less imbued with the spirit of antiquity--namely, that 'man alone, without other help, armed only with his own weapons, and unprovided with the grace and knowledge of G.o.d, in which all his honour, his strength, and the whole ground of his being are contained,' is a sorry specimen of force indeed. His own reason gives him no advantage over other creatures; the Church alone confers this privilege upon him!

During several years, Montaigne was Mayor of Bordeaux. With great modesty, he relates [27] that in his mere pa.s.sive conduct lay whatever little merit he may have had in serving his town. This fully harmonises with the view expressed in his last but one Essay, in which he declares that we are to be blamed for not sufficiently trusting in Heaven; expecting from ourselves more than behoves us: 'Therefore do our designs so often miscarry. Heaven is envious of the large extent which we attribute to the rights of human wisdom, to the prejudice of its own rights; and it curtails ours all the more that we endeavour to enlarge them.' [28]

Montaigne by no means ignores the troublous character of the times in which he lived. He often alludes to it. He thinks astrologers cannot have any great difficulty in presaging changes and revolutions near at hand:--'Their prophetic indications are practically in our very midst, and most palpable; one need not search the Heavens for that.'

'Cast we our eyes about us' (here again we follow Florio's translation), 'and in a generall survay consider all the world: all is tottring; _all is out of frame_. Take a perfect view of all great states, both in Christendome and where ever else we have knowledge of, and in all places you shall finde a most evident threatning of change and ruine ... Astrologers may spout themselves, with warning us, as they doe of iminent alterations and succeeding revolutions: their divinations are present and palpable, we need not prie into the heavens to find them out.' [29]

But Montaigne, always resigned to the will of G.o.d, inactively stands by.

Not even a manly counsel comes from his lips. He believes he has fulfilled his Christian duty by trusting in Heaven for the conduct of human affairs, and trying to comfort his fellow-men by the hollow words that he 'sees no cause for despair. Perchance we have not yet arrived at the last stage. The maintenance of states is most probably something that goes beyond our powers of understanding.' [30]

Montaigne, the Humanist, says that 'it is an absolute perfection, and, as it were, a divine accomplishment for a man to know how to loyally enjoy his existence.' The most commendable life for him is 'that which adapts itself, in an orderly way, to a common human model, without miracle, and without extravagance.' [31]

But Montaigne, the Christian, relates that he has 'never occupied himself with anything more than with ideas of death, even at the most licentious time of his youth.' With touching ingenuousness he confesses his weaknesses and his vanities, of which he scarcely dares to think any longer. The descriptions he often gives of himself--such as, 'a dreamer'

(_songe-creux_), 'soft' (_molle_), 'heavy' (_poisante_), 'pensive,' and so forth [32]--prove that he cannot have arrived at a pure enjoyment of life. He questions the happiness of being a husband and father. We shall touch upon his views as regards woman, and many other peculiarities of his, in the pa.s.sages of 'Hamlet' referring to them.

In nothing does Montaigne arrive at any clear conclusion within himself.

Though he knows how to speak much and well about everything, it is all mere _bel esprit_, a display of glittering words, hollow verbiage, which only lands us in a labyrinth of contradictions, from which we seek an issue as vainly as the author himself. Striving, through all his life, to arrive at a knowledge of himself, he at last lays down his arms, considering the attempt a fruitless and impossible task, and, in his last Essay, [33] he makes this avowal:--

'That which in Perseus, the King of Macedon, was remarked as a rare thing--viz. that his mind, not settling down into any kind of condition, went wandering through every manner of life, thus showing such flighty and erratic conduct that neither he nor others knew what sort of man he was: this seems to me to apply nearly to the whole world, and more especially to one of that ilk whom this description would eminently fit.

This, indeed, is what I believe of him (he speaks of himself):--"No average att.i.tude; being always driven from one extreme to the other by indivinable chances; no manner of course without cross-runnings and marvellous controversies; no clear and plain faculty, so that the likeliest idea that could one day be put forth about him will be this: that he affected and laboured to make himself known by the impossibility of really knowing him" ('qu'il affectoit et estudioit de se rendre cogneu par estre mecognoissable').' This is Montaigne all over.

In the British Museum there is a copy of the Essays of Montaigne, in Florio's translation, with Shakspere's name, it is alleged, written in it by his own hand, and with notes which possibly may in part have been jotted down by him. Sir Frederick Madden, one of the greatest authorities in autographs, has recognised Shakspere's autograph as genuine. [34] Whatever disputes may be carried on on this particular point, we think we shall be able to prove that Shakspere about the year 1600 must have been well acquainted with Montaigne. We shall show that in the first text of 'Hamlet,' which, it is a.s.sumed, was represented on the stage between 1601 and 1602, there are already to be found some allusions to Montaigne, especially as far as the middle of the second and towards the end of the fifth act. In all likelihood, Shakspere knew the 'Essais' even in the original French text or perhaps from the ma.n.u.script of the translation which, as above stated, had been begun towards the year 1599; for Shakspere, it is to be supposed, had access to the houses of, at least, two of the n.o.ble ladies to whom the Italian teacher dedicated his translation.

In the 'Tempest,' a.s.sumed to be of later date than 'Hamlet,' there is a pa.s.sage unmistakably taken from Florio's version of Montaigne. [35]

Ben Jonson, the most quarrelsome and the chief adversary of Shakspere, was an intimate friend of Florio. When Montaigne, in 'Hamlet'--as Jonson says--became the target of 'railing rhetoric,' the latter took sides with Florio and his colleagues; launching out against Shakspere in his comedy, 'Volpone.' This play, as well as an Introduction in which it is dedicated to the two Universities, gives us a clue to a great many things otherwise difficult to understand.

A new book, especially a philosophical work like that of Michel Montaigne, was then still a remarkable event. [36] To counteract the pernicious influence which the frivolous, foreign talker threatened to exercise, in large circles, through an English translation--this, in our opinion, was the object which Shakspere had when touching upon ground interdicted, as a rule, to the stage--namely, upon questions of religion. We shall find that it was not through any preference for ghost and murder scenes that, a year after the second quarto, in 1605, 'Hamlet' was reprinted--a circ.u.mstance occurring with but one other drama of Shakspere; which testifies that this particular play attained great popularity from its first appearance. [37]

A very instructive insight into the intellectual movement of the great Reformation epoch here opens itself to us. In this case, also, we shall gain the conviction that a true genius takes the liveliest interest in the fate of his own nation, and does not occupy himself with distant, abstruse problems (such as fussy metaphysicians would fain philosophise into 'Hamlet'), whilst the times are going out of joint. The greatest Englishman remained, in the most powerful drama of his, within the sphere of the questions that agitated his time. In 'Hamlet' he identifies Montaigne's philosophy with madness; branding it as a pernicious one, as contrary to the intellectual conquests his own English nation has made, when breaking with the Romanist dogmas.

What sense of duty do Montaigne's Essays promote? What n.o.ble deed can ripen in the light of the disordered and discordant ideas they contain?

All they can do is, to disturb the mind, not to clear it; to give rise to doubts, not to solve them; to nip the buds from which great actions may spring, not to develop them. Instead of furthering the love for mankind, they can only produce despair as to all higher aims and ideals.

In 'Hamlet,' Shakspere personified many qualities of the complex character of Montaigne. Before all, he meant to draw this conclusion: that whoever approaches a high task of life with such wavering thoughts and such logical inconsistencies, must needs suffer s.h.i.+pwreck. Hamlet's character has only remained an enigma to us for so long a time because he is flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood; 'but, to knew a man well, were to know himself.'

1: Essay III. 9.

2: Essay III. 12, 235.

3: _Ibid_. 9.

4: Essay III. 13 (_Edition Variorum_, par Charles Louandre, Paris; which we always refer to).

5: The _Essayes, or Morall, Politike, and Millitarie Discourses_ of Lo. Michaell de Montaigne, London, 1603, p. 256.

6: Sainte-Beuve.

7: Essay II. 17, p. 71.

8: III. 2, 330.

9: Essay I. 26, 257.

10: II. 12, 487-8.

11: Montaigne, _Discours de Raison_ (Discourse of Reason). Florio, 252.

12: Essay II. 12, 297. Florio, 266.

13: Part of an inscription still legible in Montaigne's castle.

14: Essay II. 12.

15: III. 9.

16: I. 26.

17: Essay III. 1

18: II. 11.

19: III. 1.

20: III. 13.

21: Essay III. 13.

22: II. 12.

23: I. 11.

24: III. 9.

25: _Ibid_.