Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us:
-
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes;
Oh!
This doth not so, for she divideth us:
-
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes;
Oh!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v21 to v25 - Rab to Tur
13249 (#47) ###########################################
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13249
Falstaff-Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had
and for their bareness, I am sure they never learned that
that;
of me.
Prince Henry - No, I'll be sworn; unless you call three fin-
gers on the ribs, bare. But, sirrah, make haste: Percy is already
in the field.
Falstaff-What, is the King encamped?
Westmoreland-He is, Sir John: I fear we shall stay too long.
Falstaff-Well-
To the latter end of a fray, and the beginning of a feast,
Fits a dull fighter, and a keen guest.
―――――――――
From First Part of King Henry IV.
Scene: Plain near Shrewsbury. Prince Henry fights with Hotspur.
Falstaff, who falls down as if
Hotspur is wounded, and falls.
-
Enter Douglas: he fights with
he were dead, and exit Douglas.
OTSPUR O Harry! thou hast robbed me of my youth.
HⓇ
I better brook the loss of brittle life,
Than those proud titles thou hast won of me;
They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh. -
But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool:
And time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop. Oh, I could prophesy,
But that the earthy and cold hand of death
Lies on my tongue. - No, Percy, thou art dust,
And food for-
Prince Henry-
FALSTAFF IN BATTLE
-
[Dies
For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart!
Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk!
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now, two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough; this earth that bears thee dead,
Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
If thou wert sensible of courtesy,
I should not make so dear a show of zeal;
But let my favors hide thy mangled face,
And even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself
XXIII-829
―――――――
## p. 13250 (#48) ###########################################
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SHAKESPEARE
For doing these fair rites of tenderness.
Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven:
Thy ignomy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remembered in thy epitaph. -
[Seeing Falstaff on the ground. ]
What, old acquaintance! could not all this flesh
Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell:
I could have better spared a better man.
Oh! I should have a heavy miss of thee,
If I were much in love with vanity.
Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,
Though many dearer, in this bloody fray. —
Emboweled will I see thee by-and-by;
Till then, in blood by noble Percy lie.
[Exit.
Falstaff [rising] - Emboweled! If thou embowel me to-day, I'll
give you leave to powder me, and eat me too, to-morrow. 'Sblood!
'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me
scot and lot too. Counterfeit ? I lie; I am no counterfeit: to die is
to be a counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath
not the life of a man: but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby
liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life
indeed. The better part of valor is discretion; in the which better
part, I have saved my life. 'Zounds! I am afraid of this gunpowder
Percy, though he be dead. How if he should counterfeit too, and
rise? By my faith, I am afraid he would prove the better counter-
feit. Therefore I'll make him sure; yea, and I'll swear I killed him.
Why may not he rise, as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes,
and nobody sees me; therefore, sirrah, with a new wound in your
thigh come you along with me. [He takes Hotspur on his back.
Re-enter Prince Henry and Prince John
Prince Henry-
Come, brother John: full bravely hast thou fleshed
Thy maiden sword.
Prince John-
But soft! whom have we here?
Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?
Prince Henry —
-
I did; I saw him dead, breathless, and bleeding
On the ground. —
Art thou alive, or is it phantasy
That plays upon our eyesight? I pr'ythee, speak;
We will not trust our eyes, without our ears.
Thou art not what thou seemest.
## p. 13251 (#49) ###########################################
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Falstaff-No, that's certain: I am not a double man; but if I be
not Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There is Percy [throwing down
the body]: if your father will do me any honor, so; if not, let him
kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can
assure you.
Prince Henry-Why, Percy I killed myself, and saw thee dead.
Falstaff Didst thou? -Lord, lord, how this world is given to
lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath, and so was he;
but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrews-
bury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should
reward valor bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it upon
my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh: if the man were
alive, and would deny it -'zounds! I would make him eat a piece of
my sword.
Prince John-
This is the strangest tale that e'er I heard.
Prince Henry-
This is the strangest fellow, brother John. -
Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back:
For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,
I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.
[A retreat is sounded. ]
The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours.
Come, brother, let us to the highest of the field,
To see what friends are living, who are dead.
[Exeunt Prince Henry and Prince John.
Falstaff-I'll follow as they say, for reward. He that rewards me,
God reward him: if I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and
leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.
[Exit, dragging out Percy's body.
HENRY'S WOOING OF KATHARINE
From King Henry V. )
Scene: An Apartment in the French King's Palace.
Κ
ING HENRY
Fair Katharine, and most fair!
Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms,
Such as will enter at a lady's ear,
-
And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?
Katharine-Your Majesty shall mock at me: I cannot speak
your England.
## p. 13252 (#50) ###########################################
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SHAKESPEARE
King Henry-O fair Katharine! if you will love me soundly
with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it
brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?
Katharine Pardonnez moi, I cannot tell vat is-like me.
―――――
King Henry-An angel is like you, Kate; and you are like
an angel.
Katharine-Que dit-il? que je suis semblable à les anges?
Alice-Ouy, vraiment, sauf vostre Grace, ainsi dit il.
King Henry-I said so, dear Katharine, and I must not blush
to affirm it.
Katharine-0 bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines
de tromperies.
King Henry-What says she, fair one? that the tongues of
men are full of deceits?
Alice-Ouy; dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits:
dat is de princess.
King Henry - The princess is the better Englishwoman. I'
faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding. I am glad
thou canst speak no better English; for if thou couldst, thou
wouldst find me such a plain king, that thou wouldst think I
had sold my farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince
it in love, but directly to say-I love you: then, if you urge me
farther than to say - Do you, in faith? I wear out my suit.
Give me your answer; i' faith, do, and so clap hands, and a bar-
gain. How say you, lady?
Katharine - Sauf vostre Honneur, me understand well.
King Henry - Marry, if you would put me to verses, or to
dance for your sake, Kate, why you undid me: for the one, I
have neither words nor measure; and for the other, I have no
strength in measure, yet a reasonable measure in strength. If I
could win a lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with
my armor on my back, under the correction of bragging be it
spoken, I should quickly leap into a wife; or if I might buffet
for my love, or bound my horse for her favors, I could lay on
like a butcher, and sit like a jackanapes, never off: but before
God, Kate, I cannot look greenly, nor gasp out my eloquence,
nor I have no cunning in protestation; only downright oaths
which I never use till urged, nor never break for urging. If
thou canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not
worth sunburning, that never looks in his glass for love of any-
thing he sees there, let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee
## p. 13253 (#51) ###########################################
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13253
plain soldier: if thou canst love me for this, take me: if not, to
say to thee that I shall die, is true; but for thy love, by the
Lord, no: yet I love thee too. And while thou livest, dear Kate,
take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy: for he perforce
must do thee right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other
places; for these fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme them-
selves into ladies' favors, they do always reason themselves out
again. What! a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a bal
lad. A good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black
beard will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face
will wither, a full eye will wax hollow: but a good heart, Kate,
is the sun and the moon; or rather the sun and not the moon,
for it shines bright, and never changes, but keeps his course
truly. If thou would have such a one, take me; and take me,
take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king: and what sayest thou
then to my love? Speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.
Katharine - Is it possible dat I should love de enemy of
France?
King Henry-No; it is not possible you should love the
enemy of France, Kate: but in loving me you should love the
friend of France, for I love France so well that I will not part
with a village of it; I will have it all mine: and, Kate, when
France is mine and I am yours, then yours is France, and you
are mine.
Katharine-I cannot tell vat is dat.
King Henry-No, Kate? I will tell thee in French, which
I am sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife
about her husband's neck, hardly to be shook off. Quand j'ai
la possession de France, et quand vous avez la possession de moi
(let me see, what then? St. Dennis be my speed! )- donc vostre
est France, et vous êtes mienne. It is as easy for me, Kate, to
conquer the kingdom, as to speak so much more French. I shall
never move thee in French, unless it be to laugh at me.
Katharine - Sauf vostre Honneur, le François que vous parlez,
est meilleur que l'Anglois leguel je parle.
King Henry - No, faith, is 't not, Kate; but thy speaking of
my tongue, and I thine, most truly falsely, must needs be granted
to be much at one. But Kate, dost thou understand thus much
English? Canst thou love me?
Katharine - I cannot tell.
## p. 13254 (#52) ###########################################
13254
SHAKESPEARE
King Henry - Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate? I'll ask
them. Come, I know thou lovest me: and at night when you
come into your closet, you'll question this gentlewoman about
me; and I know, Kate, you will, to her, dispraise those parts in
me that you love with your heart: but, good Kate, mock me
mercifully, the rather, gentle princess, because I love thee cru-
elly. If ever thou be'st mine, Kate (as I have a saving faith
within me tells me thou shalt), I get thee with scambling, and
thou must therefore needs prove a good soldier-breeder. Shall
not thou and I, between St. Dennis and St. George, compound a
boy, half French, half English, that shall go to Constantinople
and take the Turk by the beard? shall we not? what sayest
thou, my fair flower-de-luce?
Katharine — I do not know dat.
-
King Henry-No: 'tis hereafter to know, but now to promise;
do but now promise, Kate, you will endeavor for your French
part of such a boy, and for my English moiety take the word of
a king and a bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Katharine
du monde, mon très chère et divine déesse?
Katharine-Your Majesté have fausse French enough to de-
ceive de most sage damoiselle dat is en France.
King Henry - Now, fie upon my false French! By mine
honor, in true English, I love thee, Kate: by which honor I dare
not swear thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me
that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor and untempting effect
of my visage. Now beshrew my father's ambition! he was think-
ing of civil wars when he got me; therefore was I created with
a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that when I come to
woo ladies, I fright them. But in faith, Kate, the elder I wax,
the better I shall appear; my comfort is, that old age, that ill
layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face: thou
hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou shalt wear me,
if thou wear me, better and better. And therefore tell me, most
fair Katharine, will you have me? Put off your maiden blushes;
avouch the thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress;
take me by the hand, and say Harry of England, I am thine:
which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear withal, but I
will tell thee aloud- England is thine, Ireland is thine, France
is thine, and Henry Plantagenet is thine; who, though I speak
it before his face, if he be not fellow with the best king, thou
_
## p. 13255 (#53) ###########################################
SHAKESPEARE
13255
shalt find the best king of good fellows. Come, your answer in
broken music,- for thy voice is music, and thy English broken;
therefore, queen of all, Katharine, break thy mind to me in
broken English: wilt thou have me?
Katharine Dat is as it shall please de roi mon père.
King Henry-Nay, it will please him well, Kate; it shall
please him, Kate.
Katharine Den it shall also content me.
King Henry - Upon that I kiss your hand, and I call you my
queen.
――――――――――
Katharine-Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez! Ma foi, je
ne veux point que vous abbaissez vostre grandeur, en baisant la
main d'une vostre indigne serviteure: excusez moi, je vous sup-
plie, mon très puissant seigneur.
King Henry - Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.
Katharine Les dames, et damoiselles, pour estre baisées devant
leur noces il n'est pas la coutume de France.
―――――
-
___
King Henry - Madam, my interpreter, what says she?
Alice
Dat it is not be de fashion pour les ladies of France—
I cannot tell what is baiser in English-
King Henry-To kiss.
Alice Your Majesty entend bettre que moi.
King Henry-It is not a fashion for the maids in France to
kiss before they are married, would she say?
Alice Ouy, vraiment.
King Henry-O Kate! nice customs curtsey to great kings.
Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of
a country's fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate; and
the liberty that follows our places stops the mouths of all find-
faults, as I will do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your
country in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently and yielding.
[Kissing her. ] You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is
more eloquence in a sugar touch of them, than in the tongues of
the French council; and they should sooner persuade Harry of
England, than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your
father.
## p. 13256 (#54) ###########################################
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SHAKESPEARE
GLOSTER AND ANNE: GLOSTER'S SOLILOQUY
From King Richard III. '
AS ever woman in this humor wooed?
Was ever woman in this humor won?
WAS
I'll have her, but I will not keep her long.
What! I that killed her husband, and his father,
To take her in her heart's extremest hate;
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of my hatred by,
Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
And I no friends to back my suit withal,
But the plain Devil, and dissembling looks,
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing! Ha!
Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,
Stabbed in my angry mood at Tewksbury?
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman -
Framed in the prodigality of nature,
Young, valiant, wise, and no doubt right royal-
The spacious world cannot again afford:
And will she yet abase her eyes on me,
That cropped the golden prime of this sweet prince,
And made her widow to a woeful bed?
On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
On me, that halt, and am misshapen thus?
My dukedom to a beggarly denier,
I do mistake my person all this while:
Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
Myself to be a marvelous proper man.
I'll be at charges for a looking-glass;
And entertain a score or two of tailors,
To study fashions to adorn my body:
Since I am crept in favor with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost.
But, first, I'll turn yon' fellow in his grave,
And then return lamenting to my love. -
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass.
-
## p. 13257 (#55) ###########################################
SHAKESPEARE
13257
ULIET
Romeo
Juliet-
Romeo-
Juliet-
Romeo-
LOVE SCENE FROM ROMEO AND JULIET'
Scene: Juliet's Chamber. Enter Romeo and Juliet
- Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops:
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
Yon light is not daylight: I know it, I;
It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
And light thee on thy way to Mantua:
Therefore, stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone,
Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death;
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I'll say, yon gray is not the morning's eye,
'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's bow;
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:
I have more care to stay, than will to go;-
Come, death, and welcome: Juliet wills it so-
How is 't, my soul? Let's talk, it is not day.
It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords, and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us:
-
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes;
Oh! now I would they had changed voices too,
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day.
Oh! now be gone: more light and light it grows.
More light and light, more dark and dark our woes.
## p. 13258 (#56) ###########################################
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SHAKESPEARE
ANT
NTONY
Scene: The Roman Forum.
-
ANTONY'S SPEECH OVER CÆSAR'S BODY
From Julius Cæsar'
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears:
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interrèd with their bones:
So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Cæsar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest
(For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men),
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see, that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And sure, he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me:
My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
But yesterday, the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world: now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
## p. 13259 (#57) ###########################################
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13259
Fourth Citizen
All-
Antony-
O masters! if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men.
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men.
But here's a parchment with the seal of Cæsar;
I found it in his closet: 'tis his will.
Let but the commons hear this testament
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read),
And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds,
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.
We'll hear the will. Read it, Mark Antony.
The will, the will! we will hear Cæsar's will.
Have patience, gentle friends; I must not read it:
It is not meet you know how Cæsar loved you.
You are not wood, you are not stones, but men,
And being men, hearing the will of Cæsar,
It will inflame you, it will make you mad.
'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs;
For if you should, oh, what would come of it?
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle: I remember
The first time ever Cæsar put it on;
'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii.
Look! in this place ran Cassius's dagger through;
See what a rent the envious Casca made:
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed;
And as he plucked his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar followed it,
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knocked, or no:
For Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar's angel;
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Cæsar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Cæsar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
•
. .
## p. 13260 (#58) ###########################################
13260
SHAKESPEARE
Quite vanquished him: then burst his mighty heart;
And in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey's statue,
Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell.
Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourished over us.
Oh, now you weep; and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity: these are gracious drops.
Kind souls! What! weep you when you but behold
Our Cæsar's vesture wounded? Look you here,
Here is himself, marred, as you see, with traitors.
First Citizen-O piteous spectacle!
Second Citizen-O noble Cæsar!
Third Citizen-O woeful day!
Fourth Citizen-O traitors! villains!
First Citizen-O most bloody sight!
All-We will be revenged. Revenge! about-seek- burn — fire —
kill slay! -let not a traitor live.
[They are rushing out.
Antony-Stay, countrymen.
First Citizen-Peace there! hear the noble Antony.
Second Citizen - We'll hear him, we'll follow him, we'll die with him.
Antony - Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.
All-
They that have done this deed are honorable:
What private griefs they have, alas! I know not,
That made them do it; they are wise and honorable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts:
I am no orator, as Brutus is,
But as you know me all, a plain blunt man,
That love my friend; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him.
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on;
I tell you that which you yourselves do know,
Show you sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me: but were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Cæsar, that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.
We'll mutiny.
## p. 13261 (#59) ###########################################
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13261
MACBETH BEFORE THE DEED
From Macbeth ›
I'
F IT were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
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'd jump the life to come. — But in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague th' inventor: thus even-handed justice
Commends th' ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
First as I am his kinsman and his subject;
Strong both against the deed: then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead, like angels trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. -I have no spu
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other.
Go: bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. —
[Exit Servant.
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee; -
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
## p. 13262 (#60) ###########################################
13262
SHAKESPEARE
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use. -
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. -There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business, which informs
Thus to mine eyes. - Now o'er the one half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleeper; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design.
Moves like a ghost. - Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
The very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
[A bell rings. ]
I go, and it is done: the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
―
HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY
From Hamlet'
[Exit.
T
O BE, or not to be; that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? -To die - to sleep-
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die;-to sleep; -
To sleep! perchance to dream; - ay, there's the rub;
## p. 13263 (#61) ###########################################
SHAKESPEARE
13263
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns-puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. -Soft you, now!
The fair Ophelia. - Nymph, in thy orisons,
Be all my sins remembered.
HⓇ
OTHELLO'S WOOING
From Othello'
ER father loved me; oft invited me:
Still questioned me the story of my life,
From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I had passed.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it:
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field;
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' th' imminent deadly breach;
Of being taken by the insolent foe,
And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence,
And portance in my travel's history;-
Wherein of antres vast, and deserts idle,
――――
## p. 13264 (#62) ###########################################
13264
SHAKESPEARE
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,
It was my hint to speak, such was the process;-
And of the cannibals that each other eat,
The anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear,
Would Desdemona seriously incline:
But still the house affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse. Which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour; and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart,
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively: I did consent;
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffered. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
She swore,
-in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
She wished she had not heard it; yet she wished
That heaven had made her such a man: she thanked me;
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her. On this hint I spake:
She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used:
Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
―――
―――
## p. 13264 (#63) ###########################################
## p. 13264 (#64) ###########################################
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
D. Grosch
## p. 13264 (#65) ###########################################
3
## p. 13264 (#66) ###########################################
## p. 13265 (#67) ###########################################
13265
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
(1792-1822)
BY GEORGE E. WOODBERRY
ERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, an English poet, was born at Field
Place, Sussex, on August 4th, 1792. He was the eldest son
of Timothy Shelley, an English country gentleman, who
afterwards inherited a baronetcy and a large estate, to which in part
the poet was heir by entail. He was educated at Eton, and went up
to Oxford in 1810; he was expelled from the university on March
25th, 1811, for publishing a pamphlet entitled 'The Necessity of
Atheism. In the summer of the same year he married Harriet West-
brook, a girl of sixteen, the daughter of a retired London tavern-
keeper; and from this time had no cordial relations with his family
at Field Place. He led a wandering and unsettled life in England,
Wales, and Ireland,- visiting the last as a political agitator,—until the
spring of 1814, when domestic difficulties culminated in a separation
from his wife, and an elopement with Mary Godwin, the daughter of
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. His wife, Harriet, com-
mitted suicide by drowning in the winter of 1816, and immediately
after this event he legally married Mary. The charge of his two
children by Harriet was taken from him early in 1817 by a decision
of the Lord Chancellor, Eldon, on the ground that Shelley held athe-
istical opinions. He remained in England a year longer, and in the
spring of 1818 went to reside in Italy. There he lived, going from
city to city, but mainly at Pisa and its neighborhood, until the sum-
mer of 1822, when he was lost in a storm on July 8th, while sailing
off the coast between Leghorn and Lerici; his body was cast up on
the sands of Viareggio, and was there burned in the presence of
Byron, Leigh Hunt, and his friend Trelawney, on August 18th; the
ashes were buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome. He had
three children by his second wife, of whom one only, Percy Florence,
survived him, afterward inheriting the title and his father's share in
the family estate.
Shelley's literary life began with prose and verse at Eton, and he
had already published before he went up to Oxford. Through all his
wanderings, and amid his many personal difficulties, he was indefati-
gably busy with his pen; and in his earlier days wrote much in prose.
XXIII-830
## p. 13266 (#68) ###########################################
13266
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The first distinctive work was his poem 'Queen Mab' (1813), and this
was followed by 'Alastor' (1816); after which his great works were
produced in rapid succession. While still a youth, he had begun, as a
radical reformer, to take a practical interest in men and events, and
until after his union with Mary much of his energy was consumed
and scattered fruitlessly; but as his poetic instincts and intellectual
power came into fuller control of his life, and the difficulties of his
position isolated him and threw him back upon his own nature, he
gradually gave himself more exclusively to creative literature. The
works written in Italy are of most value: Prometheus Unbound,'
'The Cenci,' 'Adonais,' 'Epipsychidion,' 'Hellas,' together with the
lyrics and fragments. Nevertheless, the bulk of his work is large
and various: it fills several volumes of prose as well as verse, and
includes political, philosophical, and critical miscellanies, writings on
questions of the day, and much translation from ancient and modern
authors.
Shelley himself described his genius as in the main a moral one,
and in this he made a correct analysis. It was fed by ideas derived
from books, and sustained by a sympathy so intense as to become a
passion for moral aims. He was intellectually the child of the Revo-
lution; and from the moment that he drew thoughtful breath he
was a disciple of the radicals in England. The regeneration of man-
kind was the cause that kindled his enthusiasm; and the changes
he looked for were social as well as political. He spent his strength
in advocacy of the doctrines of democracy, and in hostility to its
obvious opponents established in the authority of Church and State,
and in custom; he held the most advanced position, not only in
religion, but in respect to the institution of marriage, the use of
property, and the welfare of the masses of mankind. The first com-
plete expression of his opinion, the precipitate from the ferment
of his boyish years, was given in 'Queen Mab,' a crude poem after
the style of Southey, by which he was long best and most unfavor-
ably known; he recognized its immaturity, and sought to suppress
a pirated edition published in his last years: the violent prejudice
against him in England as an atheist was largely due to this early
work, with its long notes, in connection with the decision of the court
taking from him the custody of his children. The second expres-
sion of his opinions, similar in scope, was given five years later in
'The Revolt of Islam,' a Spenserian poem in twelve books. In this
work the increase of his poetic faculty is shown by his denial of a
didactic aim, and by the series of scenes from nature and human
life which is the web of the verse; but the subject of the poem is
the regeneration of society, and the intellectual impulse which sustains
it is political and philanthropic. Up to the time of its composition
## p. 13267 (#69) ###########################################
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
13267
the main literary influence that governed him was Latin:
now he
began to feel the power of Greek literature; and partly in making
responses to it, and partly by the expansion of his mind, he revolu-
tionized his poetic method. The result was that in the third and
greatest of his works of this kind, Prometheus Unbound,' he devel-
oped a new type in English,- the lyrical drama. The subject is still
the regeneration of society: but the tale has grown into the drama;
the ideas have generated abstract impersonations which have more
likeness to elemental beings, to Titanic and mythological creations,
than to humanity; while the interest intellectually is still held within
the old limits of the general cause of mankind. The same principles,
the same convictions, the same aims, fused in one moral enthusiasm,
are here: but a transformation has come over their embodiment,-
imagination has seized upon them, a new lyrical music has penetrated
and sublimated them, and the poem so engendered and born is
different in kind from those that went before; it holds a unique
place in the literature of the world, and is the most passionate dream
of the perfect social ideal ever molded in verse. In a fourth work,
'Hellas,' Shelley applied a similar method in an effort to treat the
Greek Revolution as a single instance of the victory of the general
cause which he had most at heart; and in several shorter poems, espe-
cially odes, he from time to time took up the same theme. The ideal
he sets forth in all these writings, clarifying as it goes on, is not dif-
ferent from the millennium of poets and thinkers in all ages: justice
and liberty, love the supreme law, are the ends to be achieved, and
moral excellence with universal happiness is the goal of all.
In the works which have been mentioned, and which contain the
most of Shelley's substantial thought, the moral prepossession of his
mind is most manifest; it belonged to the conscious part of his
being, and would naturally be foremost in his most deliberate writ-
ing. It was, in my judgment, the central thing in his genius; but
genius in working itself out displays special faculties of many kinds,
which must be noticed in their own right. Shelley is, for example,
considered as pre-eminently a poet of nature. His susceptibility to
sensuous impressions was very great, his response to them in love of
beauty and in joy in them was constant; and out of his intimacy with
nature came not merely descriptive power and the habit of inter-
preting emotion through natural images, such as many poets have
compassed, but a peculiar faculty often noticed by his critics, usually
called the myth-making faculty, which is thought of as racial rather
than individual. During his residence in Italy he was steeped in the
Greek spirit as it survives in the philosophy and poetry of antiquity;
and it was in harmony with his mood that he should vitalize the
elements. What is extraordinary is the success, the primitive ease,
## p. 13268 (#70) ###########################################
13268
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
the magic, with which he did so. In the simple instances which
recur to every one's memory-'The Skylark,' 'The Cloud,' the 'Ode
to the West Wind'- he has rendered the sense of non-human, of ele-
mental being; and in the characters of 'Prometheus Unbound'-in
Asia especially-he has created such beings, to which the spirits of
the moon and earth as he evoked them seem natural concomitants,
and to them he has given reality for the imagination. It is largely
because he dealt in this witchery, this matter of primeval illusion,
that he gives to some minds the impression of dwelling in an imagi-
nary and unsubstantial world; and the flood of light and glory of
color which he exhales as an atmosphere about the substance of the
verse, dazzle and often bewilder the reader whose eyes are yet to be
familiarized with the shapes and air of his scene. But with few
exceptions, while using this creative power by poetic instinct, he
brings back the verse at the end, whether in the lyrics or the longer
works, to "the hopes and fears of men. " In the ordinary delineation
of nature as it appears, his touch is sure and accurate; with a regard
for detail which shows close observation, and a frequent minuteness
which shows the contemporary of Coleridge and Wordsworth. The
opening passage of Julian and Maddalo,' the lines at Pisa on the
bridge, and the fragment Marenghi,' are three widely different
examples.
Shelley was also strongly attracted by the narrative form for its
own sake.
He was always fond of a story from the days of his boy-
hood; and though the romantic cast of fiction in his youth, both in
prose and verse, might indicate a lack of interest in life, in the taste
for this he was not different from the time he lived in, and the way
to reality lay then through this path. 'Rosalind and Helen' was a
tale like others of its kind, made up of romantic elements; but the
instinct which led Shelley to tell it, as he had told still cruder sto-
ries in his first romances at Eton, was fundamental in him, and led
him afterward, still further refining his matter, to weave out of airy
nothing The Witch of Atlas' almost at the close of his career. The
important matter is, to connect with these narrative beginnings in
prose and verse his serious dramatic work, which has for its prime
example 'The Cenci,' otherwise standing too far apart from his life.
In this drama he undertook to deal with the reality of human nature
in its most difficult literary form, the tragedy; and the success with
which he suppressed his ordinary exuberance of imagery and phrase
and kept to a severe restraint, at the same time producing the one
conspicuous example of tragedy in his century in England, has been
often wondered at. In the unfinished Charles I. ' he made a second
attempt; while in the various dramatic fragments other than this
he seems to have contemplated a new form of romantic drama. It
## p. 13269 (#71) ###########################################
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
13269
seems to me that this line of his development has been too little
studied; but there is space here only to make the suggestion.
Another subordinate division of Shelley's work lies in his treat-
ment of the ideal of individual nobility and happiness apart from
society. Of course in the character of Laon, and on the grand scale
in that of Prometheus, he set forth traits of the individual ideal; but
in both instances they were social reformers, and had a relation to
mankind. In 'Alastor,' on the contrary, the individual is dealt with
for his own sole sake, and the youth is drawn in lines of melancholy
beauty; he was of the same race as Laon, but existed only in his
own poetic unhappiness; of the same race also was Prince Athanase,
but the poem is too unfinished to permit us to say more than that
as he is disclosed, he is only an individual. In 'Epipsychidion' the
same character reappears as a persistent type in Shelley's mind, with
the traits that he most valued: and the conclusion there is the union
of the lover and his beloved in the enchanted isle, far from the
world; which also is familiar to readers of Shelley in other poems as
a persistent idea in his mind. In these poems one finds the recoil
of Shelley's mind from the task of reform he had undertaken, the
antipodes of the social leader in the lonely exile from all but the one
kindred spirit, the sense of weariness, of defeat, of despair over the
world—the refuge. It is natural, consequently, to feel that Shelley
himself is near in these characters; that they are successive incarna-
tions of his spirit, and frankly such. They are autobiographic with
conscious art, and stand only at one remove from those lyrics of
personal emotion which are unconscious, the cries of the spirit which
have sung themselves into the heart of the world. Upon these lyrics,
which stand apart from his deliberate work,- impulsive, overflowing,
irresistible in their spontaneity,- it may be granted that his popu-
lar fame rests. Many of them are singularly perfect in poetic form
naturally developed; they have the music which is as unforgettable as
the tones of a human voice, as unmistakable, as personal, and which
has winged them to fly through the world. They make one forget
all the rest in Shelley himself, and they express his world-weary yet
still aspiring soul. The most perfect of them, in my judgment, is the
'Ode to the West Wind': in form it is faultless; and it blends in one
expression the power he had to interpret nature's elemental life, the
pathos of his own spirit,- portrayed more nobly than in the cog-
nate passage of the 'Adonais,' because more unconscious of itself,—and
the supreme desire he had to serve the world with those thoughts
blown now through the world,—
"Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind. »
No other of the lyrics seems to me so comprehensive, so adequate.
The 'Adonais' only can compare with it for personal power, for the
## p. 13270 (#72) ###########################################
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
13270
penetration of the verse with Shelley's spirit in its eloquent passion.
Of that elegy the poetry is so direct, and the charm so immediate
and constant, that it needs no other mention; further than to say
that like the 'Sensitive Plant,' it has more affinity with Shelley's
lyrics than with his longer works.
Some of the characteristics of Shelley have been mentioned above
with such fullness as our limits allow, and the relations between
his more important works have been roughly indicated. There is
much more to say; but I will add only that in what seems to me a
cardinal point in the criticism of poetry, the poet's conception of
womanhood, of all the poets of the century in England, Shelley is
approached only by Burns in tenderness, and excels Burns in nobleness
of feeling. The reputation of Shelley in his lifetime was but slight in
the world; and it emerged only by slow stages from the neglect and
obloquy which were his portion while he lived and when he died.
In the brief recital of the events of his life which heads this sketch,
it is obvious at a glance that there is much which needs explanation
and defense. The best defense was to throw all possible light upon
his career, and that was done by all who knew him; so that his life
is more minutely exposed from boyhood to his death than that of any
other English poet. As a consequence of this, opinion regarding him
has been much modified; and though it may still be stern, it is now
seldom harsh. The opinions which were regarded as of evil influ-
ence, and the acts which were condemned as wrong acts, are open
to all to understand and pass judgment upon, as they are related in
many books; and in respect to these, each will have his own mind.
SHAKESPEARE
13249
Falstaff-Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had
and for their bareness, I am sure they never learned that
that;
of me.
Prince Henry - No, I'll be sworn; unless you call three fin-
gers on the ribs, bare. But, sirrah, make haste: Percy is already
in the field.
Falstaff-What, is the King encamped?
Westmoreland-He is, Sir John: I fear we shall stay too long.
Falstaff-Well-
To the latter end of a fray, and the beginning of a feast,
Fits a dull fighter, and a keen guest.
―――――――――
From First Part of King Henry IV.
Scene: Plain near Shrewsbury. Prince Henry fights with Hotspur.
Falstaff, who falls down as if
Hotspur is wounded, and falls.
-
Enter Douglas: he fights with
he were dead, and exit Douglas.
OTSPUR O Harry! thou hast robbed me of my youth.
HⓇ
I better brook the loss of brittle life,
Than those proud titles thou hast won of me;
They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh. -
But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool:
And time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop. Oh, I could prophesy,
But that the earthy and cold hand of death
Lies on my tongue. - No, Percy, thou art dust,
And food for-
Prince Henry-
FALSTAFF IN BATTLE
-
[Dies
For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart!
Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk!
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now, two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough; this earth that bears thee dead,
Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
If thou wert sensible of courtesy,
I should not make so dear a show of zeal;
But let my favors hide thy mangled face,
And even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself
XXIII-829
―――――――
## p. 13250 (#48) ###########################################
13250
SHAKESPEARE
For doing these fair rites of tenderness.
Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven:
Thy ignomy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remembered in thy epitaph. -
[Seeing Falstaff on the ground. ]
What, old acquaintance! could not all this flesh
Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell:
I could have better spared a better man.
Oh! I should have a heavy miss of thee,
If I were much in love with vanity.
Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,
Though many dearer, in this bloody fray. —
Emboweled will I see thee by-and-by;
Till then, in blood by noble Percy lie.
[Exit.
Falstaff [rising] - Emboweled! If thou embowel me to-day, I'll
give you leave to powder me, and eat me too, to-morrow. 'Sblood!
'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me
scot and lot too. Counterfeit ? I lie; I am no counterfeit: to die is
to be a counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath
not the life of a man: but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby
liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life
indeed. The better part of valor is discretion; in the which better
part, I have saved my life. 'Zounds! I am afraid of this gunpowder
Percy, though he be dead. How if he should counterfeit too, and
rise? By my faith, I am afraid he would prove the better counter-
feit. Therefore I'll make him sure; yea, and I'll swear I killed him.
Why may not he rise, as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes,
and nobody sees me; therefore, sirrah, with a new wound in your
thigh come you along with me. [He takes Hotspur on his back.
Re-enter Prince Henry and Prince John
Prince Henry-
Come, brother John: full bravely hast thou fleshed
Thy maiden sword.
Prince John-
But soft! whom have we here?
Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?
Prince Henry —
-
I did; I saw him dead, breathless, and bleeding
On the ground. —
Art thou alive, or is it phantasy
That plays upon our eyesight? I pr'ythee, speak;
We will not trust our eyes, without our ears.
Thou art not what thou seemest.
## p. 13251 (#49) ###########################################
SHAKESPEARE
13251
Falstaff-No, that's certain: I am not a double man; but if I be
not Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There is Percy [throwing down
the body]: if your father will do me any honor, so; if not, let him
kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can
assure you.
Prince Henry-Why, Percy I killed myself, and saw thee dead.
Falstaff Didst thou? -Lord, lord, how this world is given to
lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath, and so was he;
but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrews-
bury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should
reward valor bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it upon
my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh: if the man were
alive, and would deny it -'zounds! I would make him eat a piece of
my sword.
Prince John-
This is the strangest tale that e'er I heard.
Prince Henry-
This is the strangest fellow, brother John. -
Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back:
For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,
I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.
[A retreat is sounded. ]
The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours.
Come, brother, let us to the highest of the field,
To see what friends are living, who are dead.
[Exeunt Prince Henry and Prince John.
Falstaff-I'll follow as they say, for reward. He that rewards me,
God reward him: if I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and
leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.
[Exit, dragging out Percy's body.
HENRY'S WOOING OF KATHARINE
From King Henry V. )
Scene: An Apartment in the French King's Palace.
Κ
ING HENRY
Fair Katharine, and most fair!
Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms,
Such as will enter at a lady's ear,
-
And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?
Katharine-Your Majesty shall mock at me: I cannot speak
your England.
## p. 13252 (#50) ###########################################
13252
SHAKESPEARE
King Henry-O fair Katharine! if you will love me soundly
with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it
brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?
Katharine Pardonnez moi, I cannot tell vat is-like me.
―――――
King Henry-An angel is like you, Kate; and you are like
an angel.
Katharine-Que dit-il? que je suis semblable à les anges?
Alice-Ouy, vraiment, sauf vostre Grace, ainsi dit il.
King Henry-I said so, dear Katharine, and I must not blush
to affirm it.
Katharine-0 bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines
de tromperies.
King Henry-What says she, fair one? that the tongues of
men are full of deceits?
Alice-Ouy; dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits:
dat is de princess.
King Henry - The princess is the better Englishwoman. I'
faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding. I am glad
thou canst speak no better English; for if thou couldst, thou
wouldst find me such a plain king, that thou wouldst think I
had sold my farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince
it in love, but directly to say-I love you: then, if you urge me
farther than to say - Do you, in faith? I wear out my suit.
Give me your answer; i' faith, do, and so clap hands, and a bar-
gain. How say you, lady?
Katharine - Sauf vostre Honneur, me understand well.
King Henry - Marry, if you would put me to verses, or to
dance for your sake, Kate, why you undid me: for the one, I
have neither words nor measure; and for the other, I have no
strength in measure, yet a reasonable measure in strength. If I
could win a lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with
my armor on my back, under the correction of bragging be it
spoken, I should quickly leap into a wife; or if I might buffet
for my love, or bound my horse for her favors, I could lay on
like a butcher, and sit like a jackanapes, never off: but before
God, Kate, I cannot look greenly, nor gasp out my eloquence,
nor I have no cunning in protestation; only downright oaths
which I never use till urged, nor never break for urging. If
thou canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not
worth sunburning, that never looks in his glass for love of any-
thing he sees there, let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee
## p. 13253 (#51) ###########################################
SHAKESPEARE
13253
plain soldier: if thou canst love me for this, take me: if not, to
say to thee that I shall die, is true; but for thy love, by the
Lord, no: yet I love thee too. And while thou livest, dear Kate,
take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy: for he perforce
must do thee right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other
places; for these fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme them-
selves into ladies' favors, they do always reason themselves out
again. What! a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a bal
lad. A good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black
beard will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face
will wither, a full eye will wax hollow: but a good heart, Kate,
is the sun and the moon; or rather the sun and not the moon,
for it shines bright, and never changes, but keeps his course
truly. If thou would have such a one, take me; and take me,
take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king: and what sayest thou
then to my love? Speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.
Katharine - Is it possible dat I should love de enemy of
France?
King Henry-No; it is not possible you should love the
enemy of France, Kate: but in loving me you should love the
friend of France, for I love France so well that I will not part
with a village of it; I will have it all mine: and, Kate, when
France is mine and I am yours, then yours is France, and you
are mine.
Katharine-I cannot tell vat is dat.
King Henry-No, Kate? I will tell thee in French, which
I am sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife
about her husband's neck, hardly to be shook off. Quand j'ai
la possession de France, et quand vous avez la possession de moi
(let me see, what then? St. Dennis be my speed! )- donc vostre
est France, et vous êtes mienne. It is as easy for me, Kate, to
conquer the kingdom, as to speak so much more French. I shall
never move thee in French, unless it be to laugh at me.
Katharine - Sauf vostre Honneur, le François que vous parlez,
est meilleur que l'Anglois leguel je parle.
King Henry - No, faith, is 't not, Kate; but thy speaking of
my tongue, and I thine, most truly falsely, must needs be granted
to be much at one. But Kate, dost thou understand thus much
English? Canst thou love me?
Katharine - I cannot tell.
## p. 13254 (#52) ###########################################
13254
SHAKESPEARE
King Henry - Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate? I'll ask
them. Come, I know thou lovest me: and at night when you
come into your closet, you'll question this gentlewoman about
me; and I know, Kate, you will, to her, dispraise those parts in
me that you love with your heart: but, good Kate, mock me
mercifully, the rather, gentle princess, because I love thee cru-
elly. If ever thou be'st mine, Kate (as I have a saving faith
within me tells me thou shalt), I get thee with scambling, and
thou must therefore needs prove a good soldier-breeder. Shall
not thou and I, between St. Dennis and St. George, compound a
boy, half French, half English, that shall go to Constantinople
and take the Turk by the beard? shall we not? what sayest
thou, my fair flower-de-luce?
Katharine — I do not know dat.
-
King Henry-No: 'tis hereafter to know, but now to promise;
do but now promise, Kate, you will endeavor for your French
part of such a boy, and for my English moiety take the word of
a king and a bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Katharine
du monde, mon très chère et divine déesse?
Katharine-Your Majesté have fausse French enough to de-
ceive de most sage damoiselle dat is en France.
King Henry - Now, fie upon my false French! By mine
honor, in true English, I love thee, Kate: by which honor I dare
not swear thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me
that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor and untempting effect
of my visage. Now beshrew my father's ambition! he was think-
ing of civil wars when he got me; therefore was I created with
a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that when I come to
woo ladies, I fright them. But in faith, Kate, the elder I wax,
the better I shall appear; my comfort is, that old age, that ill
layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face: thou
hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou shalt wear me,
if thou wear me, better and better. And therefore tell me, most
fair Katharine, will you have me? Put off your maiden blushes;
avouch the thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress;
take me by the hand, and say Harry of England, I am thine:
which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear withal, but I
will tell thee aloud- England is thine, Ireland is thine, France
is thine, and Henry Plantagenet is thine; who, though I speak
it before his face, if he be not fellow with the best king, thou
_
## p. 13255 (#53) ###########################################
SHAKESPEARE
13255
shalt find the best king of good fellows. Come, your answer in
broken music,- for thy voice is music, and thy English broken;
therefore, queen of all, Katharine, break thy mind to me in
broken English: wilt thou have me?
Katharine Dat is as it shall please de roi mon père.
King Henry-Nay, it will please him well, Kate; it shall
please him, Kate.
Katharine Den it shall also content me.
King Henry - Upon that I kiss your hand, and I call you my
queen.
――――――――――
Katharine-Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez! Ma foi, je
ne veux point que vous abbaissez vostre grandeur, en baisant la
main d'une vostre indigne serviteure: excusez moi, je vous sup-
plie, mon très puissant seigneur.
King Henry - Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.
Katharine Les dames, et damoiselles, pour estre baisées devant
leur noces il n'est pas la coutume de France.
―――――
-
___
King Henry - Madam, my interpreter, what says she?
Alice
Dat it is not be de fashion pour les ladies of France—
I cannot tell what is baiser in English-
King Henry-To kiss.
Alice Your Majesty entend bettre que moi.
King Henry-It is not a fashion for the maids in France to
kiss before they are married, would she say?
Alice Ouy, vraiment.
King Henry-O Kate! nice customs curtsey to great kings.
Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of
a country's fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate; and
the liberty that follows our places stops the mouths of all find-
faults, as I will do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your
country in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently and yielding.
[Kissing her. ] You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is
more eloquence in a sugar touch of them, than in the tongues of
the French council; and they should sooner persuade Harry of
England, than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your
father.
## p. 13256 (#54) ###########################################
13256
SHAKESPEARE
GLOSTER AND ANNE: GLOSTER'S SOLILOQUY
From King Richard III. '
AS ever woman in this humor wooed?
Was ever woman in this humor won?
WAS
I'll have her, but I will not keep her long.
What! I that killed her husband, and his father,
To take her in her heart's extremest hate;
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of my hatred by,
Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
And I no friends to back my suit withal,
But the plain Devil, and dissembling looks,
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing! Ha!
Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,
Stabbed in my angry mood at Tewksbury?
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman -
Framed in the prodigality of nature,
Young, valiant, wise, and no doubt right royal-
The spacious world cannot again afford:
And will she yet abase her eyes on me,
That cropped the golden prime of this sweet prince,
And made her widow to a woeful bed?
On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
On me, that halt, and am misshapen thus?
My dukedom to a beggarly denier,
I do mistake my person all this while:
Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
Myself to be a marvelous proper man.
I'll be at charges for a looking-glass;
And entertain a score or two of tailors,
To study fashions to adorn my body:
Since I am crept in favor with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost.
But, first, I'll turn yon' fellow in his grave,
And then return lamenting to my love. -
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass.
-
## p. 13257 (#55) ###########################################
SHAKESPEARE
13257
ULIET
Romeo
Juliet-
Romeo-
Juliet-
Romeo-
LOVE SCENE FROM ROMEO AND JULIET'
Scene: Juliet's Chamber. Enter Romeo and Juliet
- Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops:
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
Yon light is not daylight: I know it, I;
It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
And light thee on thy way to Mantua:
Therefore, stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone,
Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death;
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I'll say, yon gray is not the morning's eye,
'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's bow;
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:
I have more care to stay, than will to go;-
Come, death, and welcome: Juliet wills it so-
How is 't, my soul? Let's talk, it is not day.
It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords, and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us:
-
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes;
Oh! now I would they had changed voices too,
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day.
Oh! now be gone: more light and light it grows.
More light and light, more dark and dark our woes.
## p. 13258 (#56) ###########################################
13258
SHAKESPEARE
ANT
NTONY
Scene: The Roman Forum.
-
ANTONY'S SPEECH OVER CÆSAR'S BODY
From Julius Cæsar'
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears:
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interrèd with their bones:
So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Cæsar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest
(For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men),
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see, that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And sure, he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me:
My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
But yesterday, the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world: now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
## p. 13259 (#57) ###########################################
SHAKESPEARE
13259
Fourth Citizen
All-
Antony-
O masters! if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men.
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men.
But here's a parchment with the seal of Cæsar;
I found it in his closet: 'tis his will.
Let but the commons hear this testament
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read),
And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds,
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.
We'll hear the will. Read it, Mark Antony.
The will, the will! we will hear Cæsar's will.
Have patience, gentle friends; I must not read it:
It is not meet you know how Cæsar loved you.
You are not wood, you are not stones, but men,
And being men, hearing the will of Cæsar,
It will inflame you, it will make you mad.
'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs;
For if you should, oh, what would come of it?
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle: I remember
The first time ever Cæsar put it on;
'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii.
Look! in this place ran Cassius's dagger through;
See what a rent the envious Casca made:
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed;
And as he plucked his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar followed it,
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knocked, or no:
For Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar's angel;
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Cæsar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Cæsar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
•
. .
## p. 13260 (#58) ###########################################
13260
SHAKESPEARE
Quite vanquished him: then burst his mighty heart;
And in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey's statue,
Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell.
Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourished over us.
Oh, now you weep; and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity: these are gracious drops.
Kind souls! What! weep you when you but behold
Our Cæsar's vesture wounded? Look you here,
Here is himself, marred, as you see, with traitors.
First Citizen-O piteous spectacle!
Second Citizen-O noble Cæsar!
Third Citizen-O woeful day!
Fourth Citizen-O traitors! villains!
First Citizen-O most bloody sight!
All-We will be revenged. Revenge! about-seek- burn — fire —
kill slay! -let not a traitor live.
[They are rushing out.
Antony-Stay, countrymen.
First Citizen-Peace there! hear the noble Antony.
Second Citizen - We'll hear him, we'll follow him, we'll die with him.
Antony - Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.
All-
They that have done this deed are honorable:
What private griefs they have, alas! I know not,
That made them do it; they are wise and honorable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts:
I am no orator, as Brutus is,
But as you know me all, a plain blunt man,
That love my friend; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him.
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on;
I tell you that which you yourselves do know,
Show you sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me: but were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Cæsar, that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.
We'll mutiny.
## p. 13261 (#59) ###########################################
SHAKESPEARE
13261
MACBETH BEFORE THE DEED
From Macbeth ›
I'
F IT were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
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'd jump the life to come. — But in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague th' inventor: thus even-handed justice
Commends th' ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
First as I am his kinsman and his subject;
Strong both against the deed: then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead, like angels trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. -I have no spu
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other.
Go: bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. —
[Exit Servant.
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee; -
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
## p. 13262 (#60) ###########################################
13262
SHAKESPEARE
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use. -
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. -There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business, which informs
Thus to mine eyes. - Now o'er the one half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleeper; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design.
Moves like a ghost. - Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
The very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
[A bell rings. ]
I go, and it is done: the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
―
HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY
From Hamlet'
[Exit.
T
O BE, or not to be; that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? -To die - to sleep-
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die;-to sleep; -
To sleep! perchance to dream; - ay, there's the rub;
## p. 13263 (#61) ###########################################
SHAKESPEARE
13263
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns-puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. -Soft you, now!
The fair Ophelia. - Nymph, in thy orisons,
Be all my sins remembered.
HⓇ
OTHELLO'S WOOING
From Othello'
ER father loved me; oft invited me:
Still questioned me the story of my life,
From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I had passed.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it:
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field;
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' th' imminent deadly breach;
Of being taken by the insolent foe,
And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence,
And portance in my travel's history;-
Wherein of antres vast, and deserts idle,
――――
## p. 13264 (#62) ###########################################
13264
SHAKESPEARE
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,
It was my hint to speak, such was the process;-
And of the cannibals that each other eat,
The anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear,
Would Desdemona seriously incline:
But still the house affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse. Which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour; and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart,
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively: I did consent;
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffered. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
She swore,
-in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
She wished she had not heard it; yet she wished
That heaven had made her such a man: she thanked me;
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her. On this hint I spake:
She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used:
Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
―――
―――
## p. 13264 (#63) ###########################################
## p. 13264 (#64) ###########################################
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
D. Grosch
## p. 13264 (#65) ###########################################
3
## p. 13264 (#66) ###########################################
## p. 13265 (#67) ###########################################
13265
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
(1792-1822)
BY GEORGE E. WOODBERRY
ERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, an English poet, was born at Field
Place, Sussex, on August 4th, 1792. He was the eldest son
of Timothy Shelley, an English country gentleman, who
afterwards inherited a baronetcy and a large estate, to which in part
the poet was heir by entail. He was educated at Eton, and went up
to Oxford in 1810; he was expelled from the university on March
25th, 1811, for publishing a pamphlet entitled 'The Necessity of
Atheism. In the summer of the same year he married Harriet West-
brook, a girl of sixteen, the daughter of a retired London tavern-
keeper; and from this time had no cordial relations with his family
at Field Place. He led a wandering and unsettled life in England,
Wales, and Ireland,- visiting the last as a political agitator,—until the
spring of 1814, when domestic difficulties culminated in a separation
from his wife, and an elopement with Mary Godwin, the daughter of
William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. His wife, Harriet, com-
mitted suicide by drowning in the winter of 1816, and immediately
after this event he legally married Mary. The charge of his two
children by Harriet was taken from him early in 1817 by a decision
of the Lord Chancellor, Eldon, on the ground that Shelley held athe-
istical opinions. He remained in England a year longer, and in the
spring of 1818 went to reside in Italy. There he lived, going from
city to city, but mainly at Pisa and its neighborhood, until the sum-
mer of 1822, when he was lost in a storm on July 8th, while sailing
off the coast between Leghorn and Lerici; his body was cast up on
the sands of Viareggio, and was there burned in the presence of
Byron, Leigh Hunt, and his friend Trelawney, on August 18th; the
ashes were buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome. He had
three children by his second wife, of whom one only, Percy Florence,
survived him, afterward inheriting the title and his father's share in
the family estate.
Shelley's literary life began with prose and verse at Eton, and he
had already published before he went up to Oxford. Through all his
wanderings, and amid his many personal difficulties, he was indefati-
gably busy with his pen; and in his earlier days wrote much in prose.
XXIII-830
## p. 13266 (#68) ###########################################
13266
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The first distinctive work was his poem 'Queen Mab' (1813), and this
was followed by 'Alastor' (1816); after which his great works were
produced in rapid succession. While still a youth, he had begun, as a
radical reformer, to take a practical interest in men and events, and
until after his union with Mary much of his energy was consumed
and scattered fruitlessly; but as his poetic instincts and intellectual
power came into fuller control of his life, and the difficulties of his
position isolated him and threw him back upon his own nature, he
gradually gave himself more exclusively to creative literature. The
works written in Italy are of most value: Prometheus Unbound,'
'The Cenci,' 'Adonais,' 'Epipsychidion,' 'Hellas,' together with the
lyrics and fragments. Nevertheless, the bulk of his work is large
and various: it fills several volumes of prose as well as verse, and
includes political, philosophical, and critical miscellanies, writings on
questions of the day, and much translation from ancient and modern
authors.
Shelley himself described his genius as in the main a moral one,
and in this he made a correct analysis. It was fed by ideas derived
from books, and sustained by a sympathy so intense as to become a
passion for moral aims. He was intellectually the child of the Revo-
lution; and from the moment that he drew thoughtful breath he
was a disciple of the radicals in England. The regeneration of man-
kind was the cause that kindled his enthusiasm; and the changes
he looked for were social as well as political. He spent his strength
in advocacy of the doctrines of democracy, and in hostility to its
obvious opponents established in the authority of Church and State,
and in custom; he held the most advanced position, not only in
religion, but in respect to the institution of marriage, the use of
property, and the welfare of the masses of mankind. The first com-
plete expression of his opinion, the precipitate from the ferment
of his boyish years, was given in 'Queen Mab,' a crude poem after
the style of Southey, by which he was long best and most unfavor-
ably known; he recognized its immaturity, and sought to suppress
a pirated edition published in his last years: the violent prejudice
against him in England as an atheist was largely due to this early
work, with its long notes, in connection with the decision of the court
taking from him the custody of his children. The second expres-
sion of his opinions, similar in scope, was given five years later in
'The Revolt of Islam,' a Spenserian poem in twelve books. In this
work the increase of his poetic faculty is shown by his denial of a
didactic aim, and by the series of scenes from nature and human
life which is the web of the verse; but the subject of the poem is
the regeneration of society, and the intellectual impulse which sustains
it is political and philanthropic. Up to the time of its composition
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the main literary influence that governed him was Latin:
now he
began to feel the power of Greek literature; and partly in making
responses to it, and partly by the expansion of his mind, he revolu-
tionized his poetic method. The result was that in the third and
greatest of his works of this kind, Prometheus Unbound,' he devel-
oped a new type in English,- the lyrical drama. The subject is still
the regeneration of society: but the tale has grown into the drama;
the ideas have generated abstract impersonations which have more
likeness to elemental beings, to Titanic and mythological creations,
than to humanity; while the interest intellectually is still held within
the old limits of the general cause of mankind. The same principles,
the same convictions, the same aims, fused in one moral enthusiasm,
are here: but a transformation has come over their embodiment,-
imagination has seized upon them, a new lyrical music has penetrated
and sublimated them, and the poem so engendered and born is
different in kind from those that went before; it holds a unique
place in the literature of the world, and is the most passionate dream
of the perfect social ideal ever molded in verse. In a fourth work,
'Hellas,' Shelley applied a similar method in an effort to treat the
Greek Revolution as a single instance of the victory of the general
cause which he had most at heart; and in several shorter poems, espe-
cially odes, he from time to time took up the same theme. The ideal
he sets forth in all these writings, clarifying as it goes on, is not dif-
ferent from the millennium of poets and thinkers in all ages: justice
and liberty, love the supreme law, are the ends to be achieved, and
moral excellence with universal happiness is the goal of all.
In the works which have been mentioned, and which contain the
most of Shelley's substantial thought, the moral prepossession of his
mind is most manifest; it belonged to the conscious part of his
being, and would naturally be foremost in his most deliberate writ-
ing. It was, in my judgment, the central thing in his genius; but
genius in working itself out displays special faculties of many kinds,
which must be noticed in their own right. Shelley is, for example,
considered as pre-eminently a poet of nature. His susceptibility to
sensuous impressions was very great, his response to them in love of
beauty and in joy in them was constant; and out of his intimacy with
nature came not merely descriptive power and the habit of inter-
preting emotion through natural images, such as many poets have
compassed, but a peculiar faculty often noticed by his critics, usually
called the myth-making faculty, which is thought of as racial rather
than individual. During his residence in Italy he was steeped in the
Greek spirit as it survives in the philosophy and poetry of antiquity;
and it was in harmony with his mood that he should vitalize the
elements. What is extraordinary is the success, the primitive ease,
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PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
the magic, with which he did so. In the simple instances which
recur to every one's memory-'The Skylark,' 'The Cloud,' the 'Ode
to the West Wind'- he has rendered the sense of non-human, of ele-
mental being; and in the characters of 'Prometheus Unbound'-in
Asia especially-he has created such beings, to which the spirits of
the moon and earth as he evoked them seem natural concomitants,
and to them he has given reality for the imagination. It is largely
because he dealt in this witchery, this matter of primeval illusion,
that he gives to some minds the impression of dwelling in an imagi-
nary and unsubstantial world; and the flood of light and glory of
color which he exhales as an atmosphere about the substance of the
verse, dazzle and often bewilder the reader whose eyes are yet to be
familiarized with the shapes and air of his scene. But with few
exceptions, while using this creative power by poetic instinct, he
brings back the verse at the end, whether in the lyrics or the longer
works, to "the hopes and fears of men. " In the ordinary delineation
of nature as it appears, his touch is sure and accurate; with a regard
for detail which shows close observation, and a frequent minuteness
which shows the contemporary of Coleridge and Wordsworth. The
opening passage of Julian and Maddalo,' the lines at Pisa on the
bridge, and the fragment Marenghi,' are three widely different
examples.
Shelley was also strongly attracted by the narrative form for its
own sake.
He was always fond of a story from the days of his boy-
hood; and though the romantic cast of fiction in his youth, both in
prose and verse, might indicate a lack of interest in life, in the taste
for this he was not different from the time he lived in, and the way
to reality lay then through this path. 'Rosalind and Helen' was a
tale like others of its kind, made up of romantic elements; but the
instinct which led Shelley to tell it, as he had told still cruder sto-
ries in his first romances at Eton, was fundamental in him, and led
him afterward, still further refining his matter, to weave out of airy
nothing The Witch of Atlas' almost at the close of his career. The
important matter is, to connect with these narrative beginnings in
prose and verse his serious dramatic work, which has for its prime
example 'The Cenci,' otherwise standing too far apart from his life.
In this drama he undertook to deal with the reality of human nature
in its most difficult literary form, the tragedy; and the success with
which he suppressed his ordinary exuberance of imagery and phrase
and kept to a severe restraint, at the same time producing the one
conspicuous example of tragedy in his century in England, has been
often wondered at. In the unfinished Charles I. ' he made a second
attempt; while in the various dramatic fragments other than this
he seems to have contemplated a new form of romantic drama. It
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seems to me that this line of his development has been too little
studied; but there is space here only to make the suggestion.
Another subordinate division of Shelley's work lies in his treat-
ment of the ideal of individual nobility and happiness apart from
society. Of course in the character of Laon, and on the grand scale
in that of Prometheus, he set forth traits of the individual ideal; but
in both instances they were social reformers, and had a relation to
mankind. In 'Alastor,' on the contrary, the individual is dealt with
for his own sole sake, and the youth is drawn in lines of melancholy
beauty; he was of the same race as Laon, but existed only in his
own poetic unhappiness; of the same race also was Prince Athanase,
but the poem is too unfinished to permit us to say more than that
as he is disclosed, he is only an individual. In 'Epipsychidion' the
same character reappears as a persistent type in Shelley's mind, with
the traits that he most valued: and the conclusion there is the union
of the lover and his beloved in the enchanted isle, far from the
world; which also is familiar to readers of Shelley in other poems as
a persistent idea in his mind. In these poems one finds the recoil
of Shelley's mind from the task of reform he had undertaken, the
antipodes of the social leader in the lonely exile from all but the one
kindred spirit, the sense of weariness, of defeat, of despair over the
world—the refuge. It is natural, consequently, to feel that Shelley
himself is near in these characters; that they are successive incarna-
tions of his spirit, and frankly such. They are autobiographic with
conscious art, and stand only at one remove from those lyrics of
personal emotion which are unconscious, the cries of the spirit which
have sung themselves into the heart of the world. Upon these lyrics,
which stand apart from his deliberate work,- impulsive, overflowing,
irresistible in their spontaneity,- it may be granted that his popu-
lar fame rests. Many of them are singularly perfect in poetic form
naturally developed; they have the music which is as unforgettable as
the tones of a human voice, as unmistakable, as personal, and which
has winged them to fly through the world. They make one forget
all the rest in Shelley himself, and they express his world-weary yet
still aspiring soul. The most perfect of them, in my judgment, is the
'Ode to the West Wind': in form it is faultless; and it blends in one
expression the power he had to interpret nature's elemental life, the
pathos of his own spirit,- portrayed more nobly than in the cog-
nate passage of the 'Adonais,' because more unconscious of itself,—and
the supreme desire he had to serve the world with those thoughts
blown now through the world,—
"Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind. »
No other of the lyrics seems to me so comprehensive, so adequate.
The 'Adonais' only can compare with it for personal power, for the
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penetration of the verse with Shelley's spirit in its eloquent passion.
Of that elegy the poetry is so direct, and the charm so immediate
and constant, that it needs no other mention; further than to say
that like the 'Sensitive Plant,' it has more affinity with Shelley's
lyrics than with his longer works.
Some of the characteristics of Shelley have been mentioned above
with such fullness as our limits allow, and the relations between
his more important works have been roughly indicated. There is
much more to say; but I will add only that in what seems to me a
cardinal point in the criticism of poetry, the poet's conception of
womanhood, of all the poets of the century in England, Shelley is
approached only by Burns in tenderness, and excels Burns in nobleness
of feeling. The reputation of Shelley in his lifetime was but slight in
the world; and it emerged only by slow stages from the neglect and
obloquy which were his portion while he lived and when he died.
In the brief recital of the events of his life which heads this sketch,
it is obvious at a glance that there is much which needs explanation
and defense. The best defense was to throw all possible light upon
his career, and that was done by all who knew him; so that his life
is more minutely exposed from boyhood to his death than that of any
other English poet. As a consequence of this, opinion regarding him
has been much modified; and though it may still be stern, it is now
seldom harsh. The opinions which were regarded as of evil influ-
ence, and the acts which were condemned as wrong acts, are open
to all to understand and pass judgment upon, as they are related in
many books; and in respect to these, each will have his own mind.
