Part 18 (1/2)
The pa.s.sion of remorse is a romantic, not a tragic pa.s.sion. It is the mood which follows the tragic mood. Shakespeare's creative life is like a Shakespearean play. It ends with an easing of the strain and a making of peace.
It is said that an old horse near to death turns towards the pastures where he was foaled. It is true of human beings. Man wanders home to the fields which bred him. A part of the romance of this poem is the turning back of the poet's mind to the Cotswold country, of which he sang so magically, in his first play, sixteen or eighteen years before. There are fine scenes of shepherds at home, among the sheep bells and clean wind. There is a very lovely talk of flowers--
”daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength.”
To Shakespeare, the magically happy man, the going back to them must have been a time for thanksgiving. But to the supremely happy man all times are times of thanksgiving, deep, tranquil and abundant, for the delight, the majesty and the beauty of the fulness of the rolling world.
_The Tempest._
_Written._ 1610-11.
_Published_, in the folio, 1623.
_Source of the Plot._ It is likely that many sources contributed to the making of this plot. If Shakespeare took the fable from a single source, that source is not now known. He may have taken suggestions for it from the following books:--
1st. From a little collection of novels by Antonio de Eslava, a Spanish writer, whose book, _Noches de Invierno_, was published in Barcelona in 1609. Three tales in this collection seem to have given hints for the play. The fourth chapter, about ”The Art Magic of King Dardano,” helped him more than the others. Whether the t.i.tle of the book suggested the t.i.tle of _A Winter's Tale_ is not known.
2nd. From a German play, _Die schone Sidea_, by a Nuremberg dramatist, named Jacob Ayrer.
3rd. From the tracts relating to the discovery of the Bermuda Islands in 1609. Of the known tracts, _A Discovery of the Bermuda Islands_, by Sylvester Jourdain, gave Shakespeare the most hints.
Several other books may have suggested lines and pa.s.sages.
_The Fable._ Prospero, Duke of Milan, having been driven from his dukedom by Antonio his brother, flies to sea with his daughter Miranda, lands on an island, and there lives, served by two creatures, one an airy spirit, the other a loutish monster.
By art magic, he brings to the island his usurping brother and the king and heir of Naples. Miranda falls in love with the heir of Naples. Prospero dismisses his spirits, reconciles himself with his brother, and plans to sail at once for Milan.
In this play, as in the two other original romantic plays, Shakespeare follows the workings of a treacherous act from its performance to the repentance of the sinner and the granting of the victim's forgiveness.
In the great plays the victim dies and the sinner does not repent.
Presently the wheel comes full circle, and a justice from outside life smites him dead. In these plays the betrayed live to forgive the traitors--
”Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick, Yet, with my n.o.bler reason, 'gainst my fury Do I take part. The rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent, The sole drift of my purpose doth extend Not a frown further.”
In this play, as in the other two and in _Pericles_, much is made of the chances and accidents of life, and of the sudden changes of worldly circ.u.mstance due to them. In this play, for the first and last time, Shakespeare treats of the power of the resolved imagination to command the brutish, the base, the n.o.ble and the spiritual for wise human ends.
It is easy to interpret the play as allegory. Youth in this country has reason to regard allegory as a clumsy man's way of introducing Sunday on a weekday. It is so seldom successful that it may be called the literary method of creative minds below the first rank. Shakespeare's method was never allegorical. The _Tempest_ is perhaps no more allegorical than any other good romance. But the thought of it is so clear that the first impression given is that it is thin. It is the study of a man of intellect, who has been forced from power by a treacherous brother.
Living alone with his bright, unspoiled daughter, he attains, by intellectual labour, to a power over destiny. Like the wise man of the proverb, he learns to master his stars. He uses this power n.o.bly to put an end to ancient hatred and old injustice.
The minor vision of the play is a study, often very amusing, but deeply earnest, of the coming of the fifth part civilised to the mostly brutal.
In Shakespeare's time, men like the quite thoughtless and callous Stephano and Trinculo, the ”sea-dogs” who manned our s.h.i.+ps, and of whom Raleigh wrote that it was an offence to G.o.d to minister oaths to the generality of them, were ”spreading civilisation” in various parts of the world. Shakespeare, looking at them gravely, saw them to be, perhaps, more dangerous to the needs of life, to wisdom, and to unlit animal strength than the base Sebastian and the treacherous Antonio.
The exquisite lyrics, and the masque of the G.o.ddesses, show that the taste of the audience of 1610-11 needed to be tickled. Times had changed since the lion-like and ramping days, eighteen years before, when ”Jeronimy” was a new word, and Tamora a serious invention. The man who had changed the times was thinking, like Prospero, that he had ”got his dukedom,” and that now, having ”pardoned the deceiver,” he might go to Stratford to enjoy it.
_King Henry VIII_, or _All is True_.
_Written._ 1611-13 (?)
_Produced._ (?)