The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded

And, in fact, it takes this monstrous pretence, and claim to human leadership, which he finds passing unquestioned in his time, to bring him out on this point fairly. The statesmanship of the man who undertakes to make his own petty personality the measure of a world, who would make, not that reason which is in us all, and embraces the world, and which is not personal, – not that conscience which is the sensibility to reason, and is as broad and impartial as that – which goes with the reason, and embraces, like that, without bias, the common weal, – but that which is particular, and private, and limited to the individual, – his senses, – his passions, his private affections, – his mere caprice, – his mere will; the motive of the public action; – the statesmanship of the man who dares to offer these to an insulted world, as reasons of state; who claims a divine prerogative to make his single will good against reason; who claims a divine right to make his private interest outweigh the weal of the whole; who asks men to obliterate, in their judgment, its essential principle, that which makes them men, the eternal principle of the whole; – this is the phenomenon which provokes at last, in this author, the philosophic ire. The moment this thing shows itself on his stage, he puts his pity to sleep. He will show up, at last, without any mercy, in a purely scientific manner, as we see more clearly elsewhere, the common pitifulness of the human conditions, in the person of him who claims exemption from them, – who speaks of the people as if he were a god to punish, and not a man of their infirmity.

'There is formed in every thing a double nature'; – this author, who is the philosopher of nature, tells us on another page, – 'there is formed in every thing a double nature OF GOOD, the one as everything is a total or substantive in itself, the other as it is a part or member of a greater body; whereof the latter is in degree the greater and the worthier, because it tends to the conservation of a more general form. Therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy moving to the loadstone; but yet, if it exceed a certain quantity, it forsakes the affection to the loadstone, and, like a good patriot, moves to the earth. This double nature of good is MUCH MORE (hear) – much more ENGRAVEN on MAN, if he _de_GENERATE not – (decline not from the law of his kind– for that more is SPECIAL) unto whom the conservation of DUTY to the PUBLIC ought to be much more precious than the conservation of life and being, according to that memorable speech of Pompey THE GREAT, [the truly great, for this is the question of greatness,] when BEING IN COMMISSION OF PURVEYANCE FOR A FAMINE AT ROME, and being dissuaded, with great vehemency and instance, by his friends about him, that he should not hazard himself to sea in an extremity of weather, answered, 'Necesse est ut eam, non ut vivam.'

But we happen to have set out here, in our play, at the very beginning of it, the specific case alluded to, in this general exhibition of the radical human law, viz., the case of a famine in Rome, which we shall find differently treated, in this instance, by the person who aspires to 'the helm o' the state.'

When the question is of the true nobility and greatness, of the true statesmanship, of the personal fitness of an individual to assume the care of the public welfare, the question, of course, as to this double nature, comes in. We wish to know – if any thing is going to depend upon his single will in the matter, we must know, which of these two natures is SOVEREIGN in himself, – which good he supremely affects, – that of his senses, passions, and private affections, that good which ends in his private and particular nature, – a good which has its due place in this system, and is not unnaturally mortified and depressed, as it is in less scientific ones, – or that good of the whole, which is each man's highest good; – whether he is, in fact, a man, or whether, in the absence of that perfection of the human form, which should be the end of science and government, he approximates at all, – or undertakes to approximate at all, to the true human type; – whether he be, indeed, a man, in the higher sense of that word, or whether he ranks in the scale of nature, as 'only a nobler kind of vermin,' a man, a noble man, a man with a divine ideal and ambition, degenerate into that.

When it is a candidate for the chief magistracy, a candidate for the supreme power in the state, who is on his trial, of course that question as to the balance between the public and private affections, which, those who know how to trace this author's hand, know he is so fond of trying elsewhere, is sure to come up. The question is, as to whether there is any affection in this claimant for power, so large and so noble, that it can embrace heartily the common weal, and take that to be its good. The trial will be a sharp one. The trial of human greatness which is magnanimity, must needs be. The question is, as to whether this is a nature capable of pursuing that end for its own sake, without respect to its pivate and merely selfish recompence; whether it is one which has any such means of egress from its particular self, any such means of coming out of its private and exclusive motivity, that it can persevere in its care of the Common Weal, through good and through ill report, through personal wrong and ingratitude, – abandoning its private claim, and ascending by that conquest to the divineness.

CHAPTER III

INSURRECTION'S ARGUING'What is granted them?''Five Tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms.''The rabble should have first unroofed the city,Ere so prevailed with me.'

The common people themselves have some inkling of this. This Roman who has established his claim to rule Romans at home, by killing Volscians abroad, appears to their simple apprehension, at the moment, at least, when they find themselves suffering the gnawings of hunger through his legislation, to have established but a questionable claim to their submission.

And before ever he shows his head on the stage, this question, which is the question of the play, is already started. For it is the people who are permitted to come on first of all and explain their wants, and discuss the military hero's qualifications for rule in that relation, and that, too, in a not altogether foolish manner. For though the author knows how to do justice to the simplicity of their politics, he knows how to do justice also to that practical determination and straightforwardness and largeness of sense, which even in the common sense of uneducated masses, is already struggling a little to declare itself.

They have one great piece of political learning which their lordly legislators lack, and for lack of sense and comprehension cannot have. They are learned in the doctrine of their own political and social want; they are full of the most accurate and vivid impressions on that subject. Their notions of it are altogether different from those vague general abstract conceptions of it, which the brains of their refined lordly rulers stoop to admit. The terms which that legislation deals with, are one thing in the patrician's vocabulary, and another and quite different thing in the plebeian's; hunger means one thing in the 'patrician's vocabulary,' and another and very different thing in the plebeian's. They know, too, 'that meat was made for mouths,' and 'that the gods sent not corn for the rich men only.' They are under the impression that there ought to be bread for them by some means or other, when the storehouses that their toil has filled are overflowing, and though they are not clear as to the process which should accomplish this result, they have come to the conclusion that there must be some error somewhere in the legislation of those learned few, to whom they have resigned the task of governing them. They are strongly of opinion that there must be some mistake in the calculations by which those venerable wise men and fathers, do so infallibly contrive to sweep the results of the poor man's toil and privation into their own garners, – calculations which enable the legislator to enjoy in lordly ease and splendour, the sight of the plebeian's misery, which enable him to lavish on his idlest whims, to give to his dogs that which would save lifetimes of unreckoned human misery. These are their views, and when the play begins, they have resolved themselves into a committee of the whole, and are out on a commission of inquiry and administrative reform, armed with bats and clubs and other weapons, – such as came first to hand, intending to make short work of it. This is their peace budget, and as to war, they have some rude notions on that subject, too; – some dim impression that nature intended them for some other ends than to be sold in the shambles, as the purchase of some lordly chieftain's title. There's an incipient statesmanship struggling there in that rude mass, though it does not as yet get fairly expressed. It will take the tribuneship and the refinements of the aristocratic leisure, to make the rude wisdom of want and toil eloquent. But it has found a tribune at last, who will be able to speak for it, through one mouth or another, scientifically and to the purpose too, ere all is done.

'Before we proceed any further, hear me speak,' he cries, through the Roman leader's lips; for his Rome, too, if it be not yet 'at the point of battle,' is drifting towards it rapidly, as he sees well enough when this speech begins.

But let us take the Play as we find it. Take the first scene of it. The stage is filled with the people, – not with their representatives, – but with the people themselves, in their own persons, in the act of taking the government into their own hands. They are hurrying sternly and silently through the city streets. There has been no practising of 'goose step,' to teach them that movement. They are armed with clubs, staves and other weapons, peace weapons, but there is an edge in them now, fine enough for their purpose. The word of the play is the word that arrests that movement. The voice of the leader rings out, – it is a HALT that is ordered.

'BEFORE WE PROCEED ANY FURTHER, HEAR ME SPEAK,' cries one from the mass.

'Speak! speak!' is the reply. They are ready to hear reason. They want a speaker. They want a voice, though never so rude, to put their stern inarticulate purpose 'into some frame.'

'You are all resolved rather TO DIE than TO FAMISH,' continues the first speaker. Yes, that is it precisely; he has spoken the word.

'RESOLVED! RESOLVED!' is the common response; for the revolutionary point is touched here.

'FIRST, you know, Caius Marcius is CHIEF ENEMY to the people' – a rude grasp at causes. This captain will establish a common intelligence in his company before they proceed any further; that their acting may be one, and to purpose. For there is no command but that here.

Cit. We know't, we know't.

First Cit. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price. Is't a verdict?

_Cit. No more talking on't. Let it bone done: away, away.

'One word, good citizens,' cries another, 'who thinks that the thing will bear, perhaps, a little further discussion. And this is the hint for the first speaker to produce his cause more fully. 'GOOD CITIZENS,' is the word he takes up. "We are accounted POOR CITIZENS; the patricians GOOD.' [That is the way the account stands, then.] 'What AUTHORITY surfeits on would relieve us. If they would yield us but the superfluity while it were wholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely; but they think we are too dear.' [They love us as we are too well. They want poor people to reflect their riches. It takes plebeians to make patricians; it takes our valleys to make their heights.]

'The leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance. Our sufferance is a gain to them. – Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we become rakes: for the gods know, I speak this in hunger for bread, and not in thirst for revenge.

Second Cit. Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?

First Cit. Against him first; – he's a very dog to the commonalty.

Second Cit. Consider you what services he has done for his country?

[That is one of the things which are about to be 'considered.']

First Cit. Very well, and could be content to give him good report for'it, but that he pays himself with being proud.

Second Cit. Nay, but speak not maliciously.

First Cit. I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did it to that end: though soft-conscienced men can be content to say it was for HIS COUNTRY, he did it to please his mother, and to be partly proud; which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue.

Second Cit. What he cannot help IN HIS NATURE, you account a vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.

First Cit. If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations; he hath faults with surplus to tire in repetition. [Shouts within.] What shouts are these? The other side o' the city is risen. Why stay we prating here? To the Capitol!

Cit. Come, come.

First Cit. Soft; who comes here?

[Enter Menenius Agrippa.]

Second Cit. Worthy Menenius Agrippa, one that hath always loved the people.

First Cit. He's one honest enough [ —honest– a great word in the Shakspere philosophy]; would all the rest were so.

[That is a good prayer when it comes to be understood.]

Men. What work's, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you, With bats and clubs? The matter? Speak, I pray you.

First Cit. Our business is not unknown to THE SENATE [Hear]; they have had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll show 'em in deeds. They say, poor suitors have strong breaths; they shall know we have strong arms, too.

Men. Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours, Will you undo yourselves_?

First Cit. We cannot, sir; we are undone already. [Revolution.]

Men. I tell you, friends, most charitable care Have the patricians of you. For your WANTS, – Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well Strike at the heavens with your staves, as lift them Against the Roman State, whose course will on The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs Of more strong link asunder, than can ever Appear in your impediment. For the dearth, The gods, not the patricians, make it; and Your knees to them, not arms, must help.

[This sounds very pious, but it is not the piety of the new school. The doctrine of submission and suffering is indeed taught in it, and scientifically reinforced; but then it is the patient suffering of the harm 'which is not within our power' which is commendable, according to its tenets, and 'a wise and industrious suffering' of it, too. It is a wise 'accommodating of the nature of man to those points of nature and fortune which we cannot control,' that is pleasing to God, according to this creed.]

Alack!

You are transported by calamity,

Thither where more attends you; and you slander

The helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers,

  When you curse them as enemies.

First Cit. CARE FOR us! True, INDEED! They ne'er cared for us yet. SUFFER us TO FAMISH, and their store-houses CRAMMED WITH GRAIN! Make edicts for usury, to support usurers! Repeal daily any WHOLESOME ACT established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily to chain up and restrain the poor! If the WARS eat us not up, THEY WILL; and there's all the love they bear us.

Menenius attempts to counteract these impressions; but his story and his arguments appear to have some applications which he is not aware of, and are much more to the purpose of the party in arms than they are to his own. For it is a story in which the natural subordination of the parts to the whole in the fabric of human society is illustrated by that natural instance and symbol of unity and organization which the single human form itself present; and that condition of the state which has just been exhibited – one in which the body at large is dying of inanition that a part of it may surfeit– is a condition which, in the light of this story, appears to need help of some kind, certainly.

But the platform is now ready. It is the hero's entrance for which we are preparing. It is on the ground of this sullen want that the author will exhibit him and his dazzling military virtues. It is as the doctor of this diseased common-weal that he brings him in with his sword;

'Enter CAIUS MARCIUS.'

and that idea – the idea of the diseased commonwealth, which Menenius has already set forth – that notion of parts and partiality, and dissonance and dissolution, which is a radical idea in the play, and runs into its minutest points of phraseology, breaks out at once in his rough speech.

Men. Hail, noble Marcius!

Mar. Thanks. What's the matter, you dissentious rogues,

  That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,  Make yourselves scabs.

[It is the common-weal that must be made whole and comely.

OPINION! your opinion.]

First Cit. We have ever your good word.

Mar. In that will give good words to thee, will flatter

  Beneath abhorring. – What would you have, you curs,  That like nor peace, nor war? the one affrights you,  The other makes you proud. He that trusts you,  Where he should find you lions, finds you hares.  Where foxes, geese! You are no surer, no  Than is the coal of fire upon the ice,  Or hail-stone in the sun. Your virtue is,  To make him worthy whose offence subdues him,  And curse that justice did it. Who deserves greatness  Deserves your hate: and your affections are  A sick man's appetite, who desires most that  Which would increase his evil. He that depends  Upon your favours, swims with fins of lead,  And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?  With every minute you do change a mind;

[This is not the principle of state, whether in the many or the one].

And call him noble, that was now your hate,

  Him vile, that was your garland. What's the matter,  That in these several places of the city  You cry against the noble senate, who,

Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else Would feed on one another? – What's their seeking?

Men. For corn at their own rates; whereof, they say, The city is well stor'd.

Mar. HANG 'EM! THEY SAY?

  THEY'LL SIT BY THE FIRE, and PRESUME to KNOW  WHAT'S DONE I' THE CAPITOL: who's like to rise,  Who thrives, and who declines: side factions, and give out  Conjectural marriages; making parties strong,  And feebling such as stand not in their liking,  Below their cobbled shoes. They say, there's grain enough?  Would the nobility lay aside their ruth,

And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry With thousands of these quartered slaves, AS HIGH

  As I could prick my lance.

[The altitude of his virtue; – the measure of his greatness. That is the tableau of the first scene, in the first act of the play of the cure of the Common-weal and the Consulship.]

Men. Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded;

  For though abundantly they lack discretion,  Yet are they passing cowardly. But I beseech you,  What says the other troop?

Mar. They are dissolved: Hang 'em! [Footnote] They said, they were an hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs; – That hunger broke stone walls; that, dogs must eat; That meat was made for mouths; THAT THE GODS SENT NOT CORN FOR THE RICH MEN ONLY: – With these shreds They vented their complainings; which being answer'd, And a petition granted them, a strange one, (To break the heart of generosity, And make bold power look pale,) they threw their caps As they would hang them on the horns o'the moon, Shouting their emulation.

[Footnote: 'The History of Henry VII.,' produced in the Historical Part of this work, but omitted here, contains the key to these readings.]

Men. What is granted them.

Mar. Five tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms,

  Of their own choice: One's Junius Brutus,  Sicinius Velutus, and I know not – 'Sdeath!  The rabble should have first unroof'd the city;

Ere so prevail'd with me; it will in time Win upon POWER, and throw forth greater themes

  For INSURRECTION'S arguing.

[Yes, surely it will. It cannot fail of it.]

Men. This is strange. Mar. Go, get you home, you fragments! [fragments.]

[Enter a Messenger.]

Mes. Where's Caius Marcius? Mar. Here; What's the matter? Mes. The news is, Sir, the Volces are in arms. Mar. I am glad on't; then we shall have means to vent Our musty superfluity:– See, our best elders.

[The procession from the Capitol is entering with two of the new officers of the commonwealth, and the two chief men of the army, with other senators.]

First Sen. Marcius, 'tis true, that you have lately told us;

  The Volsces are in arms.

Mar. They have a leader,

  Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to't.  I sin in envying his nobility:  And were I anything but what I am,  I would wish me only he.

Com. You have fought together.

Mar. Were half to half the world by the ears, and he Upon my party, I'd revolt, to make Only my wars with him [Hear, hear].

  He is a lion.  That I am proud to hunt.

First Sen. Then, WORTHY Marcius,

  Attend upon Cominius to these wars.

It is the relation of the spirit of military conquest, the relation of the military hero, and his government, to the true human need, which is subjected to criticism here; a criticism which is necessarily an after-thought in the natural order of the human development.

The transition 'from the casque to the cushion,' that so easy step in the heroic ages, whether it be 'an entrance by conquest,' foreign or otherwise, or whether the chieftain's own followers bring him home in triumph, and the people, whose battle he has won, conduct him to their chair of state, in either case, that transition appears, to this author's eye, worth going back, and looking into a little, in an age so advanced in civilization, as the one in which he finds himself.

For though he is, as any one who will take any pains to inquire, may easily satisfy himself, – the master in chief of the new science of nature, – and the deepest in its secrets of any, his views on that subject appear to be somewhat broader, his aspirations altogether of another kind, from those, to which his school have since limited themselves. He does not content himself with pinning butterflies and hunting down beetles; his scientific curiosity is not satisfied with classifying ferns and lichens, and ascertaining the proper historical position of pudding-stone and sand-stone, and in settling the difference between them and their neighbours. Nature is always, in all her varieties wonderful, and all 'her infinite book of secrecy,' that book which all the world had overlooked till he came, was to his eye, from the first, a book of spells, of magic lore, a Prospero book of enchantments. He would get the key to her cipher, he would find the lost alphabet of her unknown tongue; there is no page of her composing in which he would scorn to seek it – none which he would scorn to read with it: but then he has, notwithstanding, some choice in his studies. He is of the opinion that some subjects are nobler than others, and that those which concern specially the human kind, have a special claim to their regard, and the secret of those combinations which result in the varieties of shell-fish, and other similar orders of being, do not exclusively, or chiefly, engage his attention.