Part 2 (1/2)
”Our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.”
Shakespeare neither praises nor blames. His task is to see justly. It is we who conclude that treachery looks ugly beside its opposite.
Of the fine scenes in the play, sc. iv in Act II, where Valentine and Sir Thurio walk with Silvia, with whom they are both in love, is the liveliest. The two men bicker across the lady, as though the next word would bring blows. The demure pleasure of Silvia in being quarrelled for, is indicated most masterly in less than thirty words. Act III, sc.
i, where the Duke discovers Valentine's plot to escape with Silvia, is a pa.s.sage of n.o.ble dramatic power, doubly interesting because it shows the justice of Shakespeare's vision. Valentine, the constant friend and lover, is exposed in an act of treachery to his benefactor. The scenes in which the disguised Julia witnesses her lover's falseness, and the scene in which the play is brought to an end, are deeply and n.o.bly affecting. Theatre managers play Shakespeare as though he were an old fas.h.i.+on of the mind instead of the seer of the eternal in life. They should play this play as a vision of something that is eternally treacherous, bringing misery to the faithful, the n.o.ble, and the feeling. One of the n.o.blest things in the play is the forgiveness at the end. Pa.s.sion has taken Proteus into strange byways of treachery. He has been false to Julia, to Valentine, to the Duke, to Thurio, one falseness leading to another, till he is in a wood of the soul, tangled in sin. It only wants that he be false to Silvia, too. Pa.s.sion makes his eyes a little blinder for an instant. He adds that treachery to the others.
Power to see clearly is the only cure for pa.s.sion. Discovery gives that power. Valentine's words--
”Who should be trusted now, when one's right hand Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus, I am sorry I must never trust thee more, But count the world a stranger for thy sake.
The private wound is deepest....”
followed so soon by Julia's words--
”Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths, And entertained them deeply in her heart: How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root....
It is the lesser blot, modesty finds, Women to change their shapes, than men their minds”--
rouse Proteus to the confounding instant of self-recognition. His answer is like a voice from one of the later plays. It is in Shakespeare's grand manner. It does not read like a piece of revision done in the poet's maturity; but as though Shakespeare suddenly found his utterance in a moment of vision--
”Than men their minds! 'tis true. O heaven! Were man But constant, he were perfect: that one error Fills him with faults; makes him run through all the sins: Inconstancy falls off, ere it begins.”
A word of excuse would brand him as base. He is ashamed and guilty; but not base. He cannot say more than that he is sorry, and this only to Valentine. Valentine accepts sorrow with the utterance of one of the religious ideas which seem to have been constantly in Shakespeare's mind.
”By penitence the Eternal's wrath's appeased.”
His conduct towards Proteus after this forgiveness is so wise with delicate tact that the reader is reminded of Sh.e.l.ley's treatment of Hogg, in a similar case.
The suggestion of the character of Silvia has an austere beauty. The two gentlemen are limited by the play's needs. The figure of Valentine is the more complete of the two. He is an interesting study of one of those grave young men who, when tested by life, show themselves wise beyond their years. Among the minor characters, that of Eglamour, an image of constancy to a dead woman, is the most beautiful. He is one of the strange, many-sorrowed souls, vowed to an idea, to whom Shakespeare's characters so often turn when the world bears hard. The low comedy of Launce could hardly be lower; but his phrase ”the other squirrel” (in Act IV, sc. iv) is a good stroke. The great mind is full of vitality on all the planes.
There is little superb verse in the play. The lyric, ”Who is Silvia?”
shows a marvellous lyrical art, working without emotion to imitate an effect of music. The proverb, ”make a virtue of necessity,” occurs in Act IV, sc. ii. The fine lines--
”O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day”--
and the pretty speech of Julia in Act II, sc. vii--
”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”--
are memorable.
Man is so eager to know about Shakespeare that he is tempted to find personal confession in the plays. It is true that the art of a young man is too immature to be impersonal. In an achieved style we see the man; in all striving for style we see what hurts him. But in poetry, human experience is wrought to symbol, and symbol is many virtued, according to the imaginative energy that broods upon it. It is said that Shakespeare holds a mirror up to life. He who looks into a mirror closely generally sees nothing but himself.
_The Comedy of Errors._
_Written._ Before 1594.
_Published_, in the first folio, 1623.
_Source of the Plot._ The plot was taken from the _Menaechmi_ of Plautus. Whether Shakespeare read the play in Latin, or in a translation, or heard it from a friend, or saw it acted, is not known. All four are possible.
The sub-plot, in this case a duplication of the plot, was suggested by a part of the _Amphitruo_ of Plautus.