Shakespearean Tragedy Part 41

Why '_For_ I fear Ca.s.sio,' etc.? He can hardly be giving himself an additional reason for involving Ca.s.sio; the parenthesis must be explanatory of the preceding line or some part of it. I think it explains 'rank garb' or 'right garb,' and the meaning is, 'For Ca.s.sio _is_ what I shall accuse him of being, a seducer of wives.' He is returning to the thought with which the soliloquy begins, 'That Ca.s.sio loves her, I do well believe it.' In saying this he is unconsciously trying to believe that Ca.s.sio would at any rate _like_ to be an adulterer, so that it is not so very abominable to say that he _is_ one.

And the idea 'I suspect him with Emilia' is a second and stronger attempt of the same kind. The idea probably was born and died in one moment. It is a curious example of Iago's secret subjection to morality.

NOTE R.

REMINISCENCES OF _OTh.e.l.lO_ IN _KING LEAR_.

The following is a list, made without any special search, and doubtless incomplete, of words and phrases in _King Lear_ which recall words and phrases in _Oth.e.l.lo_, and many of which occur only in these two plays:

'waterish,' I. i. 261, appears only here and in _O._ III. iii. 15.

'fortune's alms,' I. i. 281, appears only here and in _O._ III. iv. 122.

'decline' seems to be used of the advance of age only in I. ii. 78 and _O._ III. iii. 265.

'slack' in 'if when they chanced to slack you,' II.

iv. 248, has no exact parallel in Shakespeare, but recalls 'they slack their duties,' _O._ IV. iii. 88.

'allowance' (=authorisation), I. iv. 228, is used thus only in _K.L._, _O._ I. i. 128, and two places in _Hamlet_ and _Hen. VIII._

'besort,' vb., I. iv. 272, does not occur elsewhere, but 'besort,' sb., occurs in _O._ I. iii. 239 and nowhere else.

Edmund's 'Look, sir, I bleed,' II. i. 43, sounds like an echo of Iago's 'I bleed, sir, but not killed,' _O._ V. ii. 288.

'potential,' II. i. 78, appears only here, in _O._ I. ii. 13, and in the _Lover's Complaint_ (which, I think, is certainly not an early poem).

'poise' in 'occasions of some poise,' II. i. 122, is exactly like 'poise' in 'full of poise and difficult weight,'

_O._ III. iii. 82, and not exactly like 'poise' in the three other places where it occurs.

'conjunct,' used only in II. ii. 125 (Q), V.

i. 12, recalls 'conjunctive,' used only in _H_. IV.

vii. 14, _O._ I. iii. 374 (F).

'grime,' vb., used only in II. iii. 9, recalls 'begrime,' used only in _O._ III. iii. 387 and _Lucrece_.

'unbonneted,' III. i. 14, appears only here and in _O._ I. ii. 23.

'delicate,' III. iv. 12, IV. iii. 15, IV. vi. 188, is not a rare word with Shakespeare; he uses it about thirty times in his plays. But it is worth notice that it occurs six times in _O._

'commit,' used intr. for 'commit adultery,' appears only in III. iv. 83, but cf. the famous iteration in _O._ IV. ii. 72 f.

'stand in hard cure,' III. vi. 107, seems to have no parallel except _O._ II. i. 51, 'stand in bold cure.'

'secure'=make careless, IV. i. 22, appears only here and in _O._ I. iii. 10 and (not quite the same sense) _Tim._ II. ii. 185.

Albany's 'perforce must wither,' IV. ii. 35, recalls Oth.e.l.lo's 'It must needs wither,' V. ii. 15.

'deficient,' IV. vi. 23, occurs only here and in _O._ I. iii. 63.

'the safer sense,' IV. vi. 81, recalls 'my blood begins my safer guides to rules,' _O._ II. iii. 205.

'fitchew,' IV. vi. 124, is used only here, in _O._ IV. i. 150, and in _T.C._ V. i. 67 (where it has not the same significance).

Lear's 'I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion I would have made them skip,' V. iii. 276, recalls Oth.e.l.lo's 'I have seen the day, That with this little arm and this good sword,' etc., V. ii. 261.

The fact that more than half of the above occur in the first two Acts of _King Lear_ may possibly be significant: for the farther removed Shakespeare was from the time of the composition of _Oth.e.l.lo_, the less likely would be the recurrence of ideas or words used in that play.

NOTE S.

_KING LEAR_ AND _TIMON OF ATHENS_.

That these two plays are near akin in character, and probably in date, is recognised by many critics now; and I will merely add here a few references to the points of resemblance mentioned in the text (p. 246), and a few notes on other points.

(1) The likeness between Timon's curses and some of the speeches of Lear in his madness is, in one respect, curious. It is natural that Timon, speaking to Alcibiades and two courtezans, should inveigh in particular against s.e.xual vices and corruption, as he does in the terrific pa.s.sage IV. iii. 82-166; but why should Lear refer at length, and with the same loathing, to this particular subject (IV. vi. 112-132)? It almost looks as if Shakespeare were expressing feelings which oppressed him at this period of his life.

The idea may be a mere fancy, but it has seemed to me that this pre-occupation, and sometimes this oppression, are traceable in other plays of the period from about 1602 to 1605 (_Hamlet_, _Measure for Measure_, _Troilus and Cressida_, _All's Well_, _Oth.e.l.lo_); while in earlier plays the subject is handled less, and without disgust, and in later plays (e.g. _Antony and Cleopatra_, _The Winter's Tale_, _Cymbeline_) it is also handled, however freely, without this air of repulsion (I omit _Pericles_ because the authors.h.i.+p of the brothel-scenes is doubtful).

(2) For references to the lower animals, similar to those in _King Lear_, see especially _Timon_, I. i. 259; II. ii. 180; III. vi. 103 f.; IV. i. 2, 36; IV. iii. 49 f., 177 ff., 325 ff. (surely a pa.s.sage written or, at the least, rewritten by Shakespeare), 392, 426 f. I ignore the constant abuse of the dog in the conversations where Apemantus appears.

(3) Further points of resemblance are noted in the text at pp. 246, 247, 310, 326, 327, and many likenesses in word, phrase and idea might be added, of the type of the parallel 'Thine Do comfort and not burn,'

_Lear_, II. iv. 176, and 'Thou sun, that comfort'st, burn!' _Timon_, V.

i. 134.

(4) The likeness in style and versification (so far as the purely Shakespearean parts of _Timon_ are concerned) is surely unmistakable, but some readers may like to see an example. Lear speaks here (IV. vi.

164 ff.):

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy b.l.o.o.d.y hand!

Why dost thou lash that wh.o.r.e? Strip thine own back; Thou hotly l.u.s.t'st to use her in that kind For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.

None does offend, none, I say, none; I'll able 'em: Take that of me, my friend, who have the power To seal the accuser's lips. Get thee gla.s.s eyes; And, like a scurvy politician, seem To see the things thou dost not.

And Timon speaks here (IV. iii. 1 ff.):

O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth Rotten humidity; below thy sister's...o...b..Infect the air! Twinn'd brothers of one womb, Whose procreation, residence, and birth, Scarce is dividant, touch them with several fortunes, The greater scorns the lesser: not nature, To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune, But by contempt of nature.

Raise me this beggar, and deny't that lord: The senator shall bear contempt hereditary, The beggar native honour.

It is the pasture lards the rother's sides, The want that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares.

In purity of manhood stand upright And say 'This man's a flatterer'? if one be, So are they all: for every grise of fortune Is smooth'd by that below: the learned pate Ducks to the golden fool: all is oblique; There's nothing level in our cursed natures, But direct villany.

The reader may wish to know whether metrical tests throw any light on the chronological position of _Timon_; and he will find such information as I can give in Note BB. But he will bear in mind that results arrived at by applying these tests to the whole play can have little value, since it is practically certain that Shakespeare did not write the whole play. It seems to consist (1) of parts that are purely Shakespearean (the text, however, being here, as elsewhere, very corrupt); (2) of parts untouched or very slightly touched by him; (3) of parts where a good deal is Shakespeare's but not all (_e.g._, in my opinion, III. v., which I cannot believe, with Mr. Fleay, to be wholly, or almost wholly, by another writer). The tests ought to be applied not only to the whole play but separately to (1), about which there is little difference of opinion. This has not been done: but Dr. Ingram has applied one test, and I have applied another, to the parts a.s.signed by Mr. Fleay to Shakespeare (see Note BB.).[268] The result is to place _Timon_ between _King Lear_ and _Macbeth_ (a result which happens to coincide with that of the application of the main tests to the whole play): and this result corresponds, I believe, with the general impression which we derive from the three dramas in regard to versification.

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