Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth

The constructional idea clearly is that, after the Temptation scene, Othello tends to relapse and wait, which is terribly dangerous to Iago, who therefore in this scene quickens his purpose. Yet Othello relapses again. He has declared that he will not expostulate with her (iv. i. 217). But he cannot keep his word, and there follows the scene of accusation. Its dramatic purposes are obvious, but Othello seems to have no purpose in it. He asks no questions, or, rather, none that shows the least glimpse of doubt or hope. He is merely torturing himself.

NOTE N

TWO PASSAGES IN THE LAST SCENE OF OTHELLO

(1) v. ii. 71 f. Desdemona demands that Cassio be sent for to 'confess' the truth that she never gave him the handkerchief. Othello answers that Cassio has confessed the truth—has confessed the adultery. The dialogue goes on:

Des.He will not say so.Oth.No, his mouth is stopp'd:Honest Iago hath ta'en order for 't.Des.O! my fear interprets: what, is he dead?Oth.Had all his hairs been lives, my great revengeHad stomach for them all.Des.Alas! he is betray'd and I undone.

It is a ghastly idea, but I believe Shakespeare means that, at the mention of Iago's name, Desdemona suddenly sees that he is the villain whose existence he had declared to be impossible when, an hour before, Emilia had suggested that someone had poisoned Othello's mind. But her words rouse Othello to such furious indignation ('Out, strumpet! Weep'st thou for him to my face?') that 'it is too late.'

(2) v. ii. 286 f.

Oth.I look down towards his feet; but that's a fable.If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.[Wounds Iago.Lod.Wrench his sword from him.Iago.I bleed, sir, but not killed.

Are Iago's strange words meant to show his absorption of interest in himself amidst so much anguish? I think rather he is meant to be alluding to Othello's words, and saying, with a cold contemptuous smile, 'You see he is right; I am a devil.'

NOTE O

OTHELLO ON DESDEMONA'S LAST WORDS

I have said that the last scene of Othello, though terribly painful, contains almost nothing to diminish the admiration and love which heighten our pity for the hero (p. 198). I said 'almost' in view of the following passage (v. ii. 123 ff.):

Emil.O, who hath done this deed?Des.Nobody; I myself. Farewell:Commend me to my kind lord: O, farewell! [Dies.Oth.Why, how should she be murdered?267Emil.Alas, who knows?Oth.You heard her say herself, it was not I.Emil.She said so: I must needs report the truth.Oth.She's, like a liar, gone to burning hell:'Twas I that kill'd her.Emil.O, the more angel she,And you the blacker devil!Oth.She turn'd to folly, and she was a whore.

This is a strange passage. What did Shakespeare mean us to feel? One is astonished that Othello should not be startled, nay thunder-struck, when he hears such dying words coming from the lips of an obdurate adulteress. One is shocked by the moral blindness or obliquity which takes them only as a further sign of her worthlessness. Here alone, I think, in the scene sympathy with Othello quite disappears. Did Shakespeare mean us to feel thus, and to realise how completely confused and perverted Othello's mind has become? I suppose so: and yet Othello's words continue to strike me as very strange, and also as not like Othello,—especially as at this point he was not in anger, much less enraged. It has sometimes occurred to me that there is a touch of personal animus in the passage. One remembers the place in Hamlet (written but a little while before) where Hamlet thinks he is unwilling to kill the King at his prayers, for fear they may take him to heaven; and one remembers Shakespeare's irony, how he shows that those prayers do not go to heaven, and that the soul of this praying murderer is at that moment as murderous as ever (see p. 171), just as here the soul of the lying Desdemona is angelic in its lie. Is it conceivable that in both passages he was intentionally striking at conventional 'religious' ideas; and, in particular, that the belief that a man's everlasting fate is decided by the occupation of his last moment excited in him indignation as well as contempt? I admit that this fancy seems un-Shakespearean, and yet it comes back on me whenever I read this passage. [The words 'I suppose so' (l. 3 above) gave my conclusion; but I wish to withdraw the whole Note]

NOTE P

DID EMILIA SUSPECT IAGO?

I have answered No (p. 216), and have no doubt about the matter; but at one time I was puzzled, as perhaps others have been, by a single phrase of Emilia's. It occurs in the conversation between her and Iago and Desdemona (iv. ii. 130 f.):

I will be hang'd if some eternal villain,Some busy and insinuating rogue,Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,Have not devised this slander; I'll be hang'd else.

Emilia, it may be said, knew that Cassio was the suspected man, so that she must be thinking of his office, and must mean that Iago has poisoned Othello's mind in order to prevent his reinstatement and to get the lieutenancy for himself. And, it may be said, she speaks indefinitely so that Iago alone may understand her (for Desdemona does not know that Cassio is the suspected man). Hence too, it may be said, when, at v. ii. 190, she exclaims,

Villany, villany, villany!I think upon't, I think: I smell't: O villany!I thought so then:—I'll kill myself for grief;

she refers in the words italicised to the occasion of the passage in iv. ii., and is reproaching herself for not having taken steps on her suspicion of Iago.

I have explained in the text why I think it impossible to suppose that Emilia suspected her husband; and I do not think anyone who follows her speeches in v. ii., and who realises that, if she did suspect him, she must have been simply pretending surprise when Othello told her that Iago was his informant, will feel any doubt. Her idea in the lines at iv. ii. 130 is, I believe, merely that someone is trying to establish a ground for asking a favour from Othello in return for information which nearly concerns him. It does not follow that, because she knew Cassio was suspected, she must have been referring to Cassio's office. She was a stupid woman, and, even if she had not been, she would not put two and two together so easily as the reader of the play.

In the line,

I thought so then: I'll kill myself for grief,

I think she certainly refers to iv. ii. 130 f. and also iv. ii. 15 (Steevens's idea that she is thinking of the time when she let Iago take the handkerchief is absurd). If 'I'll kill myself for grief' is to be taken in close connection with the preceding words (which is not certain), she may mean that she reproaches herself for not having acted on her general suspicion, or (less probably) that she reproaches herself for not having suspected that Iago was the rogue.

With regard to my view that she failed to think of the handkerchief when she saw how angry Othello was, those who believe that she did think of it will of course also believe that she suspected Iago. But in addition to other difficulties, they will have to suppose that her astonishment, when Othello at last mentioned the handkerchief, was mere acting. And anyone who can believe this seems to me beyond argument. [I regret that I cannot now discuss some suggestions made to me in regard to the subjects of Notes O and P.]

NOTE Q

IAGO'S SUSPICION REGARDING CASSIO AND EMILIA

The one expression of this suspicion appears in a very curious manner. Iago, soliloquising, says (ii. i. 311):

Which thing to do,If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trashFor his quick hunting, stand the putting on,I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,Abuse him to the Moor in the rank [F. right] garb—For I fear Cassio with my night-cap too—Make the Moor thank me, etc.

Why 'For I fear Cassio,' etc.? He can hardly be giving himself an additional reason for involving Cassio; the parenthesis must be explanatory of the preceding line or some part of it. I think it explains 'rank garb' or 'right garb,' and the meaning is, 'For Cassio is what I shall accuse him of being, a seducer of wives.' He is returning to the thought with which the soliloquy begins, 'That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it.' In saying this he is unconsciously trying to believe that Cassio would at any rate like to be an adulterer, so that it is not so very abominable to say that he is one. And the idea 'I suspect him with Emilia' is a second and stronger attempt of the same kind. The idea probably was born and died in one moment. It is a curious example of Iago's secret subjection to morality.

NOTE R

REMINISCENCES OF OTHELLO IN KING LEAR

The following is a list, made without any special search, and doubtless incomplete, of words and phrases in King Lear which recall words and phrases in Othello, and many of which occur only in these two plays:

'waterish,' i. i. 261, appears only here and in O. iii. iii. 15.

'fortune's alms,' i. i. 281, appears only here and in O. iii. iv. 122.

'decline' seems to be used of the advance of age only in i. ii. 78 and O. iii. iii. 265.

'slack' in 'if when they chanced to slack you,' ii. iv. 248, has no exact parallel in Shakespeare, but recalls 'they slack their duties,' O. iv. iii. 88.

'allowance' (=authorisation), i. iv. 228, is used thus only in K.L., O. i. i. 128, and two places in Hamlet and Hen. VIII.

'besort,' vb., i. iv. 272, does not occur elsewhere, but 'besort,' sb., occurs in O. i. iii. 239 and nowhere else.

Edmund's 'Look, sir, I bleed,' ii. i. 43, sounds like an echo of Iago's 'I bleed, sir, but not killed,' O. v. ii. 288.

'potential,' ii. i. 78, appears only here, in O. i. ii. 13, and in the Lover's Complaint (which, I think, is certainly not an early poem).

'poise' in 'occasions of some poise,' ii. i. 122, is exactly like 'poise' in 'full of poise and difficult weight,' O. iii. iii. 82, and not exactly like 'poise' in the three other places where it occurs.

'conjunct,' used only in ii. ii. 125 (Q), v. i. 12, recalls 'conjunctive,' used only in H. iv. vii. 14, O. i. iii. 374 (F).

'grime,' vb., used only in ii. iii. 9, recalls 'begrime,' used only in O. iii. iii. 387 and Lucrece.

'unbonneted,' iii. i. 14, appears only here and in O. i. ii. 23.

'delicate,' iii. iv. 12, iv. iii. 15, iv. vi. 188, is not a rare word with Shakespeare; he uses it about thirty times in his plays. But it is worth notice that it occurs six times in O.

'commit,' used intr. for 'commit adultery,' appears only in iii. iv. 83, but cf. the famous iteration in O. iv. ii. 72 f.

'stand in hard cure,' iii. vi. 107, seems to have no parallel except O. ii. i. 51, 'stand in bold cure.'

'secure'=make careless, iv. i. 22, appears only here and in O. i. iii. 10 and (not quite the same sense) Tim. ii. ii. 185.

Albany's 'perforce must wither,' iv. ii. 35, recalls Othello's 'It must needs wither,' v. ii. 15.

'deficient,' iv. vi. 23, occurs only here and in O. i. iii. 63.

'the safer sense,' iv. vi. 81, recalls 'my blood begins my safer guides to rules,' O. ii. iii. 205.

'fitchew,' iv. vi. 124, is used only here, in O. iv. i. 150, and in T.C. v. i. 67 (where it has not the same significance).

Lear's 'I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion I would have made them skip,' v. iii. 276, recalls Othello's 'I have seen the day, That with this little arm and this good sword,' etc., v. ii. 261.

The fact that more than half of the above occur in the first two Acts of King Lear may possibly be significant: for the farther removed Shakespeare was from the time of the composition of Othello, the less likely would be the recurrence of ideas or words used in that play.

NOTE S

KING LEAR AND TIMON OF ATHENS

That these two plays are near akin in character, and probably in date, is recognised by many critics now; and I will merely add here a few references to the points of resemblance mentioned in the text (p. 246), and a few notes on other points.

(1) The likeness between Timon's curses and some of the speeches of Lear in his madness is, in one respect, curious. It is natural that Timon, speaking to Alcibiades and two courtezans, should inveigh in particular against sexual vices and corruption, as he does in the terrific passage iv. iii. 82-166; but why should Lear refer at length, and with the same loathing, to this particular subject (iv. vi. 112-132)? It almost looks as if Shakespeare were expressing feelings which oppressed him at this period of his life.

The idea may be a mere fancy, but it has seemed to me that this pre-occupation, and sometimes this oppression, are traceable in other plays of the period from about 1602 to 1605 (Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, All's Well, Othello); while in earlier plays the subject is handled less, and without disgust, and in later plays (e.g. Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline) it is also handled, however freely, without this air of repulsion (I omit Pericles because the authorship of the brothel-scenes is doubtful).

(2) For references to the lower animals, similar to those in King Lear, see especially Timon, i. i. 259; ii. ii. 180; iii. vi. 103 f.; iv. i. 2, 36; iv. iii. 49 f., 177 ff., 325 ff. (surely a passage written or, at the least, rewritten by Shakespeare), 392, 426 f. I ignore the constant abuse of the dog in the conversations where Apemantus appears.

(3) Further points of resemblance are noted in the text at pp. 246, 247, 310, 326, 327, and many likenesses in word, phrase and idea might be added, of the type of the parallel 'Thine Do comfort and not burn,' Lear, ii. iv. 176, and 'Thou sun, that comfort'st, burn!' Timon, v. i. 134.

(4) The likeness in style and versification (so far as the purely Shakespearean parts of Timon are concerned) is surely unmistakable, but some readers may like to see an example. Lear speaks here (iv. vi. 164 ff.):

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kindFor which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.None does offend, none, I say, none; I'll able 'em:Take that of me, my friend, who have the powerTo seal the accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes;And, like a scurvy politician, seemTo see the things thou dost not.

And Timon speaks here (iv. iii. 1 ff.):

O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earthRotten humidity; below thy sister's orbInfect the air! Twinn'd brothers of one womb,Whose procreation, residence, and birth,Scarce is dividant, touch them with several fortunes,The greater scorns the lesser: not nature,To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune,But by contempt of nature.Raise me this beggar, and deny't that lord:The senator shall bear contempt hereditary,The beggar native honour.It is the pasture lards the rother's sides,The want that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares.In purity of manhood stand uprightAnd say 'This man's a flatterer'? if one be,So are they all: for every grise of fortuneIs smooth'd by that below: the learned pateDucks to the golden fool: all is oblique;There's nothing level in our cursed natures,But direct villany.

The reader may wish to know whether metrical tests throw any light on the chronological position of Timon; and he will find such information as I can give in Note BB. But he will bear in mind that results arrived at by applying these tests to the whole play can have little value, since it is practically certain that Shakespeare did not write the whole play. It seems to consist (1) of parts that are purely Shakespearean (the text, however, being here, as elsewhere, very corrupt); (2) of parts untouched or very slightly touched by him; (3) of parts where a good deal is Shakespeare's but not all (e.g., in my opinion, iii. v., which I cannot believe, with Mr. Fleay, to be wholly, or almost wholly, by another writer). The tests ought to be applied not only to the whole play but separately to (1), about which there is little difference of opinion. This has not been done: but Dr. Ingram has applied one test, and I have applied another, to the parts assigned by Mr. Fleay to Shakespeare (see Note BB.).268 The result is to place Timon between King Lear and Macbeth (a result which happens to coincide with that of the application of the main tests to the whole play): and this result corresponds, I believe, with the general impression which we derive from the three dramas in regard to versification.

NOTE T

DID SHAKESPEARE SHORTEN KING LEAR?

I have remarked in the text (pp. 256 ff.) on the unusual number of improbabilities, inconsistencies, etc., in King Lear. The list of examples given might easily be lengthened. Thus (a) in iv. iii. Kent refers to a letter which he confided to the Gentleman for Cordelia; but in iii. i. he had given to the Gentleman not a letter but a message. (b) In iii. i. again he says Cordelia will inform the Gentleman who the sender of the message was; but from iv. iii. it is evident that she has done no such thing, nor does the Gentleman show any curiosity on the subject. (c) In the same scene (iii. i.) Kent and the Gentleman arrange that whichever finds the King first shall halloo to the other; but when Kent finds the King he does not halloo. These are all examples of mere carelessness as to matters which would escape attention in the theatre,—matters introduced not because they are essential to the plot, but in order to give an air of verisimilitude to the conversation. And here is perhaps another instance. When Lear determines to leave Goneril and go to Regan he says, 'call my train together' (i. iv. 275). When he arrives at Gloster's house Kent asks why he comes with so small a train, and the Fool gives a reply which intimates that the rest have deserted him (ii. iv. 63 ff.). He and his daughters, however, seem unaware of any diminution; and, when Lear 'calls to horse' and leaves Gloster's house, the doors are shut against him partly on the excuse that he is 'attended with a desperate train' (308). Nevertheless in the storm he has no knights with him, and in iii. vii. 15 ff. we hear that 'some five or six and thirty of his knights'269 are 'hot questrists after him,' as though the real reason of his leaving Goneril with so small a train was that he had hurried away so quickly that many of his knights were unaware of his departure.

This prevalence of vagueness or inconsistency is probably due to carelessness; but it may possibly be due to another cause. There are, it has sometimes struck me, slight indications that the details of the plot were originally more full and more clearly imagined than one would suppose from the play as we have it; and some of the defects to which I have drawn attention might have arisen if Shakespeare, finding his matter too bulky, had (a) omitted to write some things originally intended, and (b), after finishing his play, had reduced it by excision, and had not, in these omissions and excisions, taken sufficient pains to remove the obscurities and inconsistencies occasioned by them.

Thus, to take examples of (b), Lear's 'What, fifty of my followers at a clap!' (i. iv. 315) is very easily explained if we suppose that in the preceding conversation, as originally written, Goneril had mentioned the number. Again the curious absence of any indication why Burgundy should have the first choice of Cordelia's hand might easily be due to the same cause. So might the ignorance in which we are left as to the fate of the Fool, and several more of the defects noticed in the text.

To illustrate the other point (a), that Shakespeare may have omitted to write some things which he had originally intended, the play would obviously gain something if it appeared that, at a time shortly before that of the action, Gloster had encouraged the King in his idea of dividing the kingdom, while Kent had tried to dissuade him. And there are one or two passages which suggest that this is what Shakespeare imagined. If it were so, there would be additional point in the Fool's reference to the lord who counselled Lear to give away his land (i. iv. 154), and in Gloster's reflection (iii. iv. 168),

His daughters seek his death: ah, that good Kent!He said it would be thus:

('said,' of course, not to the King but to Gloster and perhaps others of the council). Thus too the plots would be still more closely joined. Then also we should at once understand the opening of the play. To Kent's words, 'I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall,' Gloster answers, 'It did always seem so to us.' Who are the 'us' from whom Kent is excluded? I do not know, for there is no sign that Kent has been absent. But if Kent, in consequence of his opposition, had fallen out of favour and absented himself from the council, it would be clear. So, besides, would be the strange suddenness with which, after Gloster's answer, Kent changes the subject; he would be avoiding, in presence of Gloster's son, any further reference to a subject on which he and Gloster had differed. That Kent, I may add, had already the strongest opinion about Goneril and Regan is clear from his extremely bold words (i. i. 165),

Kill thy physician, and the fee bestowUpon thy foul disease.

Did Lear remember this phrase when he called Goneril 'a disease that's in my flesh' (ii. iv. 225)?

Again, the observant reader may have noticed that Goneril is not only represented as the fiercer and more determined of the two sisters but also strikes one as the more sensual. And with this may be connected one or two somewhat curious points: Kent's comparison of Goneril to the figure of Vanity in the Morality plays (ii. ii. 38); the Fool's apparently quite irrelevant remark (though his remarks are scarcely ever so), 'For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass' (iii. ii. 35); Kent's reference to Oswald (long before there is any sign of Goneril's intrigue with Edmund) as 'one that would be a bawd in way of good service' (ii. ii. 20); and Edgar's words to the corpse of Oswald (iv. vi. 257), also spoken before he knew anything of the intrigue with Edmund,

I know thee well: a serviceable villain;As duteous to the vices of thy mistressAs badness would desire.

Perhaps Shakespeare had conceived Goneril as a woman who before her marriage had shown signs of sensual vice; but the distinct indications of this idea were crowded out of his exposition when he came to write it, or, being inserted, were afterwards excised. I will not go on to hint that Edgar had Oswald in his mind when (iii. iv. 87) he described the serving-man who 'served the lust of his mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with her'; and still less that Lear can have had Goneril in his mind in the declamation against lechery referred to in Note S.

I do not mean to imply, by writing this note, that I believe in the hypotheses suggested in it. On the contrary I think it more probable that the defects referred to arose from carelessness and other causes. But this is not, to me, certain; and the reader who rejects the hypotheses may be glad to have his attention called to the points which suggested them.

NOTE U

MOVEMENTS OF THE DRAMATIS PERSONÆ IN ACT II. OF KING LEAR

I have referred in the text to the obscurity of the play on this subject, and I will set out the movements here.

When Lear is ill-treated by Goneril his first thought is to seek refuge with Regan (i. iv. 274 f., 327 f.). Goneril, accordingly, who had foreseen this, and, even before the quarrel, had determined to write to Regan (i. iii. 25), now sends Oswald off to her, telling her not to receive Lear and his hundred knights (i. iv. 354 f.). In consequence of this letter Regan and Cornwall immediately leave their home and ride by night to Gloster's house, sending word on that they are coming (ii. i. 1 ff., 81, 120 ff.). Lear, on his part, just before leaving Goneril's house, sends Kent with a letter to Regan, and tells him to be quick, or Lear will be there before him. And we find that Kent reaches Regan and delivers his letter before Oswald, Goneril's messenger. Both the messengers are taken on by Cornwall and Regan to Gloster's house.