Shakespearean Tragedy Part 47

(6) There remains the evidence of style and especially of metre. I will not add to what has been said in the text concerning the former; but I wish to refer more fully to the latter, in so far as it can be represented by the application of metrical tests. It is impossible to argue here the whole question of these tests. I will only say that, while I am aware, and quite admit the force, of what can be said against the independent, rash, or incompetent use of them, I am fully convinced of their value when they are properly used.

Of these tests, that of rhyme and that of feminine endings, discreetly employed, are of use in broadly distinguis.h.i.+ng Shakespeare's plays into two groups, earlier and later, and also in marking out the very latest dramas; and the feminine-ending test is of service in distinguis.h.i.+ng Shakespeare's part in _Henry VIII._ and the _Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_. But neither of these tests has any power to separate plays composed within a few years of one another. There is significance in the fact that the _Winter's Tale_, the _Tempest_, _Henry VIII._, contain hardly any rhymed five-foot lines; but none, probably, in the fact that _Macbeth_ shows a higher percentage of such lines than _King Lear_, _Oth.e.l.lo_, or _Hamlet_. The percentages of feminine endings, again, in the four tragedies, are almost conclusive against their being early plays, and would tend to show that they were not among the latest; but the differences in their respective percentages, which would place them in the chronological order _Hamlet_, _Macbeth_, _Oth.e.l.lo_, _King Lear_ (Konig), or _Macbeth_, _Hamlet_, _Oth.e.l.lo_, _King Lear_ (Hertzberg), are of scarcely any account.[283] Nearly all scholars, I think, would accept these statements.

The really useful tests, in regard to plays which admittedly are not widely separated, are three which concern the endings of speeches and lines. It is practically certain that Shakespeare made his verse progressively less formal, by making the speeches end more and more often within a line and not at the close of it; by making the sense overflow more and more often from one line into another; and, at last, by sometimes placing at the end of a line a word on which scarcely any stress can be laid. The corresponding tests may be called the Speech-ending test, the Overflow test, and the Light and Weak Ending test.

I. The Speech-ending test has been used by Konig,[284] and I will first give some of his results. But I regret to say that I am unable to discover certainly the rule he has gone by. He omits speeches which are rhymed throughout, or which end with a rhymed couplet. And he counts only speeches which are 'mehrzeilig.' I suppose this means that he counts any speech consisting of two lines or more, but omits not only one-line speeches, but speeches containing more than one line but less than two; but I am not sure.

In the plays admitted by everyone to be early the percentage of speeches ending with an incomplete line is quite small. In the _Comedy of Errors_, for example, it is only 0.6. It advances to 12.1 in _King John_, 18.3 in _Henry V._, and 21.6 in _As You Like It_. It rises quickly soon after, and in no play written (according to general belief) after about 1600 or 1601 is it less than 30. In the admittedly latest plays it rises much higher, the figures being as follows:--_Antony_ 77.5, _Cor._ 79, _Temp._ 84.5, _Cym._ 85, _Win. Tale_ 87.6, _Henry VIII._ (parts a.s.signed to Shakespeare by Spedding) 89. Going back, now, to the four tragedies, we find the following figures: _Oth.e.l.lo_ 41.4, _Hamlet_ 51.6, _Lear_ 60.9, _Macbeth_ 77.2. These figures place _Macbeth_ decidedly last, with a percentage practically equal to that of _Antony_, the first of the final group.

I will now give my own figures for these tragedies, as they differ somewhat from Konig's, probably because my method differs. (1) I have included speeches rhymed or ending with rhymes, mainly because I find that Shakespeare will sometimes (in later plays) end a speech which is partly rhymed with an incomplete line (_e.g. Ham._ III. ii. 187, and the last words of the play: or _Macb._ V. i. 87, V. ii. 31). And if such speeches are reckoned, as they surely must be (for they may be, and are, highly significant), those speeches which end with complete rhymed lines must also be reckoned. (2) I have counted any speech exceeding a line in length, however little the excess may be; _e.g._

I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked.

Give me my armour:

considering that the incomplete line here may be just as significant as an incomplete line ending a longer speech. If a speech begins within a line and ends brokenly, of course I have not counted it when it is equivalent to a five-foot line; _e.g._

Wife, children, servants, all That could be found:

but I do count such a speech (they are very rare) as

My lord, I do not know: But truly I do fear it:

for the same reason that I count

You know not Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.

Of the speeches thus counted, those which end somewhere within the line I find to be in _Oth.e.l.lo_ about 54 per cent.; in _Hamlet_ about 57; in _King Lear_ about 69; in _Macbeth_ about 75.[285] The order is the same as Konig's, but the figures differ a good deal. I presume in the last three cases this comes from the difference in method; but I think Konig's figures for _Oth.e.l.lo_ cannot be right, for I have tried several methods and find that the result is in no case far from the result of my own, and I am almost inclined to conjecture that Konig's 41.4 is really the percentage of speeches ending with the close of a line, which would give 58.6 for the percentage of the broken-ended speeches.[286]

We shall find that other tests also would put _Oth.e.l.lo_ before _Hamlet_, though close to it. This may be due to 'accident'--_i.e._ a cause or causes unknown to us; but I have sometimes wondered whether the last revision of _Hamlet_ may not have succeeded the composition of _Oth.e.l.lo_. In this connection the following fact may be worth notice. It is well known that the differences of the Second Quarto of _Hamlet_ from the First are much greater in the last three Acts than in the first two--so much so that the editors of the Cambridge Shakespeare suggested that Q1 represents an old play, of which Shakespeare's rehandling had not then proceeded much beyond the Second Act, while Q2 represents his later completed rehandling. If that were so, the composition of the last three Acts would be a good deal later than that of the first two (though of course the first two would be revised at the time of the composition of the last three). Now I find that the percentage of speeches ending with a broken line is about 50 for the first two Acts, but about 62 for the last three. It is lowest in the first Act, and in the first two scenes of it is less than 32. The percentage for the last two Acts is about 65.

II. The Enjambement or Overflow test is also known as the End-stopped and Run-on line test. A line may be called 'end-stopped' when the sense, as well as the metre, would naturally make one pause at its close; 'run-on' when the mere sense would lead one to pa.s.s to the next line without any pause.[287] This distinction is in a great majority of cases quite easy to draw: in others it is difficult. The reader cannot judge by rules of grammar, or by marks of punctuation (for there is a distinct pause at the end of many a line where most editors print no stop): he must trust his ear. And readers will differ, one making a distinct pause where another does not. This, however, does not matter greatly, so long as the reader is consistent; for the important point is not the precise number of run-on lines in a play, but the difference in this matter between one play and another. Thus one may disagree with Konig in his estimate of many instances, but one can see that he is consistent.

In Shakespeare's early plays, 'overflows' are rare. In the _Comedy of Errors_, for example, their percentage is 12.9 according to Konig[288]

(who excludes rhymed lines and some others). In the generally admitted last plays they are comparatively frequent. Thus, according to Konig, the percentage in the _Winter's Tale_ is 37.5, in the _Tempest_ 41.5, in _Antony_ 43.3, in _Coriola.n.u.s_ 45.9, in _Cymbeline_ 46, in the parts of _Henry VIII._ a.s.signed by Spedding to Shakespeare 53.18. Konig's results for the four tragedies are as follows: _Oth.e.l.lo_, 19.5; _Hamlet_, 23.1; _King Lear_, 29.3; _Macbeth_, 36.6; (_Timon_, the whole play, 32.5).

_Macbeth_ here again, therefore, stands decidedly last: indeed it stands near the first of the latest plays.

And no one who has ever attended to the versification of _Macbeth_ will be surprised at these figures. It is almost obvious, I should say, that Shakespeare is pa.s.sing from one system to another. Some pa.s.sages show little change, but in others the change is almost complete. If the reader will compare two somewhat similar soliloquies, 'To be or not to be' and 'If it were done when 'tis done,' he will recognise this at once. Or let him search the previous plays, even _King Lear_, for twelve consecutive lines like these:

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly: if the a.s.sa.s.sination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With his surcease success; that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We 'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases We still have judgement here; that we but teach b.l.o.o.d.y instructions, which, being taught, return To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice To our own lips.

Or let him try to parallel the following (III. vi. 37 f.):

and this report Hath so exasperate the king that he Prepares for some attempt of war.

_Len._ Sent he to Macduff?

_Lord._ He did: and with an absolute 'Sir, not I,'

The cloudy messenger turns me his back And hums, as who should say 'You'll rue the time That clogs me with this answer.'

_Len._ And that well might Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel Fly to the court of England, and unfold His message ere he come, that a swift blessing May soon return to this our suffering country Under a hand accurs'd!

or this (IV. iii. 118 f.):

Macduff, this n.o.ble pa.s.sion, Child of integrity, hath from my soul Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth By many of these trains hath sought to win me Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me From over-credulous haste: but G.o.d above Deal between thee and me! for even now I put myself to thy direction, and Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure The taints and blames I laid upon myself, For strangers to my nature.

I pa.s.s to another point. In the last ill.u.s.tration the reader will observe not only that 'overflows' abound, but that they follow one another in an unbroken series of nine lines. So long a series could not, probably, be found outside _Macbeth_ and the last plays. A series of two or three is not uncommon; but a series of more than three is rare in the early plays, and far from common in the plays of the second period (Konig).

I thought it might be useful for our present purpose, to count the series of four and upwards in the four tragedies, in the parts of _Timon_ attributed by Mr. Fleay to Shakespeare, and in _Coriola.n.u.s_, a play of the last period. I have not excluded rhymed lines in the two places where they occur, and perhaps I may say that my idea of an 'overflow' is more exacting than Konig's. The reader will understand the following table at once if I say that, according to it, _Oth.e.l.lo_ contains three pa.s.sages where a series of four successive overflowing lines occurs, and two pa.s.sages where a series of five such lines occurs:

----------------------------------------------------------------- 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 No. of Lines (Fleay).

----------------------------------------------------------------- Oth.e.l.lo, 3 2 -- -- -- -- -- 2,758 Hamlet, 7 -- -- -- -- -- -- 2,571 Lear, 6 2 -- -- -- -- -- 2,312 Timon, 7 2 1 1 -- -- -- 1,031 (?) Macbeth, 7 5 1 1 -- 1 -- 1,706 Coriola.n.u.s, 16 14 7 1 2 -- 1 2,563 -----------------------------------------------------------------

(The figures for _Macbeth_ and _Timon_ in the last column must be borne in mind. I observed nothing in the non-Shakespeare part of _Timon_ that would come into the table, but I did not make a careful search. I felt some doubt as to two of the four series in _Oth.e.l.lo_ and again in _Hamlet_, and also whether the ten-series in _Coriola.n.u.s_ should not be put in column 7).

III. _The light and weak ending test._

We have just seen that in some cases a doubt is felt whether there is an 'overflow' or not. The fact is that the 'overflow' has many degrees of intensity. If we take, for example, the pa.s.sage last quoted, and if with Konig we consider the line

The taints and blames I laid upon myself

to be run-on (as I do not), we shall at least consider the overflow to be much less distinct than those in the lines

but G.o.d above Deal between thee and me! for even now I put myself to thy direction, and Unspeak my own detraction, here abjure

And of these four lines the third runs on into its successor at much the greatest speed.

'Above,' 'now,' 'abjure,' are not light or weak endings: 'and' is a weak ending. Prof. Ingram gave the name weak ending to certain words on which it is scarcely possible to dwell at all, and which, therefore, precipitate the line which they close into the following. Light endings are certain words which have the same effect in a slighter degree. For example, _and_, _from_, _in_, _of_, are weak endings; _am_, _are_, _I_, _he_, are light endings.

The test founded on this distinction is, within its limits, the most satisfactory of all, partly because the work of its author can be absolutely trusted. The result of its application is briefly as follows.

Until quite a late date light and weak endings occur in Shakespeare's works in such small numbers as hardly to be worth consideration.[289]

But in the well-defined group of last plays the numbers both of light and of weak endings increase greatly, and, on the whole, the increase apparently is progressive (I say apparently, because the order in which the last plays are generally placed depends to some extent on the test itself). I give Prof. Ingram's table of these plays, premising that in _Pericles_, _Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_, and _Henry VIII._ he uses only those parts of the plays which are attributed by certain authorities to Shakespeare (_New Shakspere Soc. Trans._, 1874).

------------------------------------------------------------------------ Light Percentage Percentage Percentage endings. Weak. of light in of weak in of verse lines. verse lines. both.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ Antony & Cleopatra, 71 28 2.53 1. 3.53 Coriola.n.u.s, 60 44 2.34 1.71 4.05 Pericles, 20 10 2.78 1.39 4.17 Tempest, 42 25 2.88 1.71 4.59 Cymbeline, 78 52 2.90 1.93 4.83 Winter's Tale, 57 43 3.12 2.36 5.48 Two n.o.ble Kinsmen, 50 34 3.63 2.47 6.10 Henry VIII., 45 37 3.93 3.23 7.16 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, let us turn to our four tragedies (with _Timon_). Here again we have one doubtful play, and I give the figures for the whole of _Timon_, and again for the parts of _Timon_ a.s.signed to Shakespeare by Mr. Fleay, both as they appear in his amended text and as they appear in the Globe (perhaps the better text).

----------------------------------------- Light. Weak.

----------------------------------------- Hamlet, 8 0 Oth.e.l.lo, 2 0 Lear, 5 1 Timon (whole), 16 5 (Sh. in Fleay), 14 7 (Sh. in Globe), 13 2 Macbeth, 21 2 -----------------------------------------

Now here the figures for the first three plays tell us practically nothing. The tendency to a freer use of these endings is not visible. As to _Timon_, the number of weak endings, I think, tells us little, for probably only two or three are Shakespeare's; but the rise in the number of light endings is so marked as to be significant. And most significant is this rise in the case of _Macbeth_, which, like Shakespeare's part of _Timon_, is much shorter than the preceding plays. It strongly confirms the impression that in _Macbeth_ we have the transition to Shakespeare's last style, and that the play is the latest of the five tragedies.[290]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 282: The fact that _King Lear_ was performed at Court on December 26, 1606, is of course very far from showing that it had never been performed before.]

[Footnote 283: I have not tried to discover the source of the difference between these two reckonings.]