Bacon Delia Salter
The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded
[While they resolve upon the measures to be taken, which we shall note elsewhere, a messenger enters.]
Bru. What's the matter?
Mess. You are sent for to the Capitol. 'Tis thought,
That Marcius shall be consul: I have seen
The dumb men throng to see him, and the blind
To hear him speak: The matrons flung their gloves,
Ladies and maids the scarfs and handkerchiefs,
Upon him as he passed: the nobles bended,
As to Jove's statue; and the commons made
A shower, and thunder, with their caps, and shouts:
I never saw the like.
Bru. Lets to the Capitol; And carry with us ears and eyes for THE TIME, But hearts for the EVENT.
[And let us to the Capitol also, and hear the civic claim of the oaken garland, the military claim to dispose of the common-weal, as set forth by one who is himself a general 'commander-in-chief' of Rome's armies, and see whether or no the Poet's own doubtful cheer on the battle-field has any echo in this place.]
Com. It is held, That valour is the chiefest virtue, and Most dignifies the haver: IF IT BE, The man I speak of cannot in the world Be singly counterpois'd.
[If it be? And he goes on to tell a story which fits, in all its points, a great hero, a true chieftain, brave as heroes of old romance, who lived when this was written, concluding thus – ]
Com. He stopped the fliers;
And, by his rare example, made the coward
Turn terror into sport: as waves before
A vessel under sail, SO MEN OBEY'D,
And fell below his stem: his sword, (death's stamp.)
Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot
He was a thing of blood, whose every motion
Was timed with dying cries: alone he enter'd
The mortal gate o'the city, which he painted
With shunless destiny, aidless came off,
And with a sudden re-enforcement struck
Corioli, like a planet: now, ALL'S HIS:
When by and by the din of war 'gan pierce
His ready sense: then straight his doubled spirit
Re-quicken'd what in flesh was fatigate,
And to the battle came he; where he did
Run reeking o'er the lives of men, as if '
Twere a perpetual spoil: and till we call'd
Both field and city ours, he never stood
To ease his breast with panting.
Men. WORTHY MAN!
First Sen. He cannot but with measure fit the honours Which we devise him.
[One more quality, however, his pleader insists on, as additional proof of this 'fitness' for though it is a negative one, its opposite had not been reckoned among the kingly virtues, and the poet takes some pains to bring that opposite quality into relief, throughout, by this negative.]
Com. Our spoils he kicked at; And look'd upon things precious, as they were The common muck o' the world.
Men. HE'S RIGHT NOBLE; Let him be call'd for.
First Sen. Call for Coriolanus.
Off. He doth appear.
At the opening of this scene, two officers appeared on the stage, 'laying cushions,' for this is one of those specimens of the new method of investigation applied to the noblest subjects, 'which represents, as it were, to the eye, the whole order of the invention,' and into the Capitol stalks now the casque, for this is that 'step from the casque to the cushion' which the Poet is considering in the abstract; but it does not suit his purpose to treat of it in these abstract terms merely, because 'reason cannot be so sensible.' This, too, is one of those grand historic moments which this new, select, prepared history must represent to the eye in all its momentous historic splendour, for this is the kind of popular instruction which reproduces the past, which represents the historic event, not in perspective, but as present. And this is the 'business,' and this is the play in which we are told 'action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant more learned than the ears.'
The seats of state are prepared for him. 'Call Coriolanus,' is the senate's word. The conqueror's step is heard. 'He does appear.'
Men. The senate, Coriolanus, are well pleased
To make thee consul.
Cor. I do owe them still
My life, and services.
Men. IT THEN REMAINS,
THAT YOU DO SPEAK TO THE PEOPLE.
Cor. I do beseech you,
Let me overleap that custom.
Sic. Sir, the people
Must have their voices; neither will they bate
One jot of their ceremony.
Men. Put them not to't: – [his friendly adviser says.]
Pray you, go fit you to the custom; and
Take to you, as your predecessors have,
Your honour, with your form.
Cor. It is a part
That I shall blush in acting, and might well
Be taken from the people.
Bru. Mark you that!
Cor. To brag unto them, —Thus I did, and thus; —
Show them the unaching scars which I should hide,
As if I had received them for the hire
Of their breath only.
CHAPTER V
THE POPULAR ELECTION
'The greater part carries it.
If he would but incline to the people,
There never was a worthier man.'
And yet, after all, that is what he wants for them, and must have or he is nothing; for as the Poet tells us elsewhere, 'our monarchs and our outstretched heroes are but the beggar's shadows.' The difficulty is, that he wishes to take his 'hire' in some more quiet way, without being rudely reminded of the nature of the transaction.
But the Poet's toils are about him. The man of science has caught the hero, the king in germ; the dragon wings are not yet spread. He wishes to exhibit the embryo monarch in this particular stage of his development, and the scientific process proceeds with as little regard to the victim's wishes, as if he were indeed that humble product of nature to which the Poet likens him. 'There's a differency between a grub and a butterfly; yet your butterfly was a grub.' Just on that step between 'the casque and the cushion,' the philosopher arrests him.
For this history denotes, as we have seen, a foregone conclusion. The scholar has privately anatomized in his study the dragon's wings, and this theatrical synthesis is designed to be an instructive one. He wishes to show, in a palpable form, what is and what is not, essential to the mechanism of that greatness which, though it presents itself to the eye in the contemptible physique, and moral infirmity and pettiness of the human individual, is yet clothed with powers so monstrous, so real, so terrific, that all men are afflicted with them; – this thing in which 'the conditions of a man are so altered,' this thing which 'has grown from man to dragon, which is more than a creeping thing.' He will show that after all it is nothing in the world but the popular power itself, the power of the people instinctively, unscientifically and unartistically exercised.
The Poet has analysed that so potent name by which men call it, and he will show upon his stage, by that same method which his followers have made familiar to us, in other departments of investigation, the elements of its power. He will let us see how it was those despised 'mechanics,' those 'poor citizens,' with their strong arms and voices, who were throwing themselves, – in their enthusiasm, – en-masse into that engine, and only asking to be welded in it; that would have made of this citizen a thing so terrific. He will show how, after all, it was the despised commons who were making of that citizen a king, of that soldier a monarch, – who were changing with the alchemy of the 'shower and thunder they made with their caps and voices,' his oak leaves and acorns, into gold and jewels.
He will show it on the platform of a state, where that vote is formally and constitutionally given, and not in a state where it is only a virtual and tacit one. He will show it in detail. He will cause the multitude to be represented, and pass by twos and threes across his stage, and compel the haughty chief, the would be ruler, to beg of them, individually, their suffrages, and show them his claim, – such as it is, the 'unaching scars that he should hide.'
It is to this Poet's purpose to exhibit that despised element in the state, which the popular submission creates, that unnoticed element of the common suffrage which looks so smooth on its surface, which seems to the haughty chief so little worth his notice, when it goes his way and bears him on its crest. But the experimenter will undertake to show what it is by ruffling it, by instigating this chief to put himself in the madness of his private affections, in the frenzy of his pride, into open opposition with it. He will show us what it is by playing with it. He will wake it from its unvisited depths, and bid his hero strive with it.
He will show what that popular consent, or the consent of 'the commons' amounts to, in the king-making process, by omitting it or by withdrawing it, before it is too late to withdraw it; – according to the now well-known rules of that new art of scientific investigation, which was then getting worked out and cleared, from this author's own methods of investigation. For it was because this faculty was in him, so unlike what it was in others, that he was able to write that science of it, by which other men, stepping into his armour, have been able to achieve so much.
He will show how those dragon teeth and claws, that were just getting the steel into them, which would have armed that single will against the whole, and its weal, crumble for the lack of it; he will show us the new-fledged wings, with all their fresh gauds, collapsing and dissolving with that popular withdrawal. He will continue the process, till there is nothing left of all that gorgeous state pageant, which came in with the flourish of trumpets and the voice of the herald long and loud, and the echoing thunder of the commons, but a poor grub of a man, in his native conditions, a private citizen, denied even the common privilege of citizenship, – with only his wife and his mother and a friend or two, to cling to him, – turned out of the city gates, to seek his fortune.
But that is the moment in which the Poet ventures to bring out a little more fully, in the form of positive statement, that latent affirmation, that definition of the true nobility which underlies all the play and glistens through it in many a fine, but hitherto, unnoticed point; that affirmation which all these negatives conclude in, that latent idea of the true personal greatness and its essential relation to the common-weal and the state, which is the predominant idea of the play, which shapes all the criticism and points all the satire of it. It is there that the true hero speaks out for a moment from the lips of that old military heroism, of a greatness which does not cease when the wings of state drop off from it, of an honour that takes no stain though all the human voices join to sully it, – the dignity that rises and soars and gains the point of immutability, when all the world would have it under foot. But in that nobility men need training, —scientific training. The instinctive, unartistic human growth, or the empirical unscientific arts of culture, give but a vulgar counterfeit of it, or at best a poor, sickly, distorted, convulsive, unsatisfactory type of it, for 'being gentle, wounded,' – (and it is gentility and nobility and the true aristocracy that we speak of here,) – 'craves a NOBLE CUNNING;' so the old military chieftain tells us. It is a cunning which his author does not put him upon practising personally. Practically he represents another school of heroes. It is the word of that higher heroism in which he was himself wanting, it is the criticism on his own part, it is the affirmation which all this grand historic negative is always pointing to, which the author borrows his lips to utter.
The result in this case, the overthrow of the military hero on his way to the chair of state, is occasioned by the premature arrogance to which his passionate nature impels him. For his fiery disposition refuses to obey the decision of his will, and overleaps in its passion, all the barriers of that policy which his calmer moments had prescribed. The result is occasioned by his open display of his contempt for the people, before he had as yet mastered the organizations which would make that display, in an unenlightened age, perhaps, a safe one.
This point of time is much insisted on, and emphasized.
'Let them pull all about mine ears,' cries the hero, as he enters his own house, after his first encounter with the multitude in their wrath.
'Let them pull all about mine ears, present me Death on the wheel, or at wild horses' heels, Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock That the precipitation might down stretch Below the beam of sight, yet will I still – Be THUS to them.'
[For that is the sublime conclusion of these heroics.]
'You do the nobler,' responds the Coryphæus of that chorus of patricians who accompany him home, and who ought, of course, to be judges of nobility. But there is another approbation wanted. Volumnia is there; but she listens in silence. 'I muse,' he continues —
'I muse my mother
Does not approve me further – who was wont
To call them woollen vassals, things created
To buy and sell with groats; to show bare heads
In congregations, to YAWN, be STILL, AND WONDER,
When one but of my ordinance stood up
To speak of PEACE or WAR. I talk of you [to Volumnia.]
Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me
False to my nature? [Softly] Either say I play
The man I am.
Vol. O sir, sir, sir,
I would have had you put your power well on,
Ere you had worn it out.
Cor. Let go.
Vol. Lesser had been
The thwarting of your dispositions, IF
You had not shown them how you were disposed
Ere they lacked power to cross you.
Cor. Let them HANG!
Vol. Ay, and BURN too!
For that was the 'disposition' which these Commons, if they had waited but a little longer, might have 'lacked power to cross.' That was the disposition they had thwarted.
But then it is necessary to our purpose, as it was to the author's, to notice that the collision in this case is a forced one. It grows by plot. The people are put up to it. For there are men in that commonwealth who are competent to instruct the Commons in the doctrine of the common weal, and who are carefully and perseveringly applying themselves to that task; though they are men who know how to bide their time, and they will wait till the soaring insolence of the hero is brought into open collision with that enlightened popular will.
They will wait till the military hero's quarrel with the commonwealth breaks out anew. For they know that it lies in the nature of things, and cannot but occur. The éclat of his victory, and the military pride of the nation, films it over for a time; but the quarrel is a radical one, and cannot be healed.
For this chief of soldiers, and would-be head and ruler of the state knows no commonwealth. His soul is not large enough to admit of that conception. The walls of ignorance, that he shuts himself up in, darken and narrow his world to the sphere of his own microcosm, – and, therefore, there is a natural war between the world and him. The state of universal subjection, on the part of others, to his single exclusive passions and affections, the state in which the whole is sacrificed to the part, is the only state that will satisfy him. That is the peace he is disposed to conquer; that is the consummation with which he would stay; that is his notion of state. When that consummation is attained, or when such an approximation to it as he judges to be within his reach, is attained, then, and not till then, he is for conservation; —revolution then is sin; but, till then he will have change and overturning – he will fill the earth with rapine, and fire, and slaughter. But this is just the peace and war principle, which this man, who proposes a durable and solid peace, and the true state, a state constructed with reference to true definitions and axioms, – this is the peace and war principle which the man of science, on scientific grounds, objects to. 'He likes nor peace nor war' on those terms. The conclusions he has framed from those solid premises which he finds in the nature of things, makes him the leader of the opposition in both cases. In one way or another he will make war on that peace; he will kindle the revolutionary fires against that conservation. In one way or another, in one age or another, he will silence that war with all its pomp and circumstance, with all the din of its fifes, and drums, and trumpets. He will make over to the ignominy of ignorant and barbaric ages, – 'for we call a nettle but a nettle,' he will turn into a forgotten pageant of the rude, early, instinctive ages, the yet brutal ages of an undeveloped humanity, that triumphant reception at home, of the Conqueror of Foreign States. He will undermine, in all the states, the ethics and religion of brute force, till men shall grow sick, at last, of the old, rusty, bygone trumpery of its insignia, and say, 'Take away those baubles.'
But the hero that we deal with here, is but the pure negation of that heroism which his author conceives of, aspires to, and will have, historical, which he defines as the pattern of man's nature in all men. This one knows no common-wealth; the wealth that is wealth in his eyes, is all his own; the weal that he conceives of, is the weal that is warm at his own heart only. At best he can go out of his particular only as far as the limits of his own hearthstone, or the limits of his clique or caste. And in his selfish passion, when that demands it, he will sacrifice the nearest to him. As to the Commons, they are 'but things to buy and sell with groats,' a herd, a mass, a machine, to be informed with his single will, to be subordinated to his single wishes; in peace enduring the gnawings of hunger, that the garners their toil has filled may overflow for him, – enduring the badges of a degradation which blots out the essential humanity in them, to feed his pride; – in war offered up in droves, to win the garland of the war for him. That is the old hero's commonwealth. His small brain, his brutish head, could conceive no other. The ages in which he ruled the world with his instincts, with his fox-like cunning, with his wolfish fury, with his dog-like ravening, – those brute ages could know no other.
But it is the sturdy European race that the hero has to deal with here; and though, in the moment of victory, it is ready always to chain itself to the conqueror's car, and, in the exultation of conquest, and love for the conqueror, fastens on itself, with joy, the fetters of ages, this quarrel is always breaking out in it anew: it does not like being governed with the edge of the sword; – it is not fond of martial law as a permanent institution.
Two very sagacious tribunes these old Romans happen to have on hand in this emergency: birds considerably too old to be caught with this chaff of victory and military virtue, which puts the populace into such a frenzy, and very learnedly they talk on this subject, with a slight tendency to anachronisms in their mode of expression, in language which sounds a little, at times, as if they might have had access to some more recent documents, than the archives of mythical Rome could just then furnish to them.
But the reader should judge for himself of the correctness of this criticism.
Refusing to join in the military procession on its way to the Capitol, and stopping in the street for a little conference on the subject, when it has gone by, after that vivid complaint of the universal prostration to the military hero already quoted, the conference proceeds thus: —
Sic. On the sudden,
I warrant him consul.
Bru. Then our office may,
During his power, go sleep.
Sic. He cannot temperately transport his honours
From where he should begin, and end; but will
Lose those that he hath won.
Bru. In that there's comfort.
Sic. Doubt not, the commoners, for whom we stand.
But they, upon their ancient malice, will
Forget, with the least cause, these his new honours;
Which that he'll give them, make as little question
As he is proud to do't.
Bru. I heard him swear,
Were he to stand for consul, never would he
Appear i'the market-place, nor on him put
The napless vesture of humility;
Nor, showing (as the manner is) his wounds
To the people, beg their stinking breaths.
Sic. 'Tis right.
Bru. It was his word: O, he would miss it, rather
Than carry it, but by the suit o'the gentry to him,
And the desire of the nobles.
Sic. I wish no better,
Than have him hold that purpose, and to put it
In execution.
Bru. 'Tis most like he will.
Sic. It shall be to him then, as our good wills
A sure destruction.
Bru. So it must fall out
To him, or our authorities. For an end,
We must suggest the people, in what hatred
He still hath held them; that to his power he would
Have made them mules, silenced their pleaders, and
DISPROPERTIED THEIR FREEDOMS: [ – note the expression – ]
holding them,
IN HUMAN ACTION AND CAPACITY,
Of no more soul nor fitness for THE WORLD
Than CAMELS in their war; who have their provand
Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows
For sinking under them.
Sic. This as you say, suggested
At some time, when his soaring insolence
Shall teach the people (which time shall not want)
If he be put upon't; and that's as easy
As to set dogs on sheep; will be HIS FIRE
To KINDLE THEIR DRY STUBBLE; AND THEIR BLAZE
SHALL DARKEN HIM FOR EVER.
[There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased,
The which observed a man may prophesy,
With a near aim of the main chance of things,
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds
And weak beginnings, lie intreasured:
Such things become the hatch and brood of time. —Henry IV.]
Coriolanus, elected by the Senate to the consulship, proposes, in his arrogance, as we have already seen, to dispense with the usual form, which he understands to be a form merely, of asking the consent of the people, and exhibiting to them his claim to their suffrages. The tribunes have sternly withstood this proposition, and will hear of 'no jot' of encroachment upon the dignity and state of the Commons. After the flourish with which the election in the Senate Chamber concludes, and the withdrawal of the Senate, again they stop to discuss, confidentially, 'the situation.'
Bru. You see how he intends to use the people.
Sic. May they perceive his intent; he will require them
As if he did contemn what they requested
Should be in their power to give.
Bru. Come, we'll inform them
Of our proceedings here: on the market-place
I know they do attend us.
And to the market-place we go; for it is there that the people are collecting in throngs; no bats or clubs in their hands now, but still full of their passion of gratitude and admiration for the hero's patriotic achievements, against the common foe; and, under the influence of that sentiment, wrought to its highest pitch by that action and reaction which is the incident of the common sentiment in 'the greater congregations,' or 'extensive wholes,' eager to sanction with their 'approbation,' the appointment of the Senate, though the graver sort appear to be, even then, haunted with some unpleasant reminiscences, and not without an occasional misgiving as to the wisdom of the proceeding. There is a little tone of the former meeting lurking here still.
First Cit. Once, if he do require our voices, we ought not to deny him.
Second Cit. We may, Sir, if we will.
Third Cit. We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a power that we have no power to do. Ingratitude is monstrous: and for the multitude to be ungrateful, were to make a monster of the multitude, —
[There are scientific points here. This term 'monstrosity' is one of the radical terms in the science of nature; but, like many others, it is used in the popular sense, while the sweep and exactitude of the scientific definition, or 'form' is introduced into it.]
– of the which, we, being members, should bring ourselves to be monstrous members.
First Cit. And to make us no better thought of, a little help will serve: for once, when we stood up about the corn, he himself stuck not to call us the many-headed multitude.
Third Cit. We have been called so of many; not that our heads are some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald, but that our wits are so diversely coloured: and truly I think, if ALL our wits were to issue out of ONE skull, they would fly east, west, north, south; and their consent of one direct way should be at once to ALL the points o'the compass.
[An enigma; but the sphinx could propound no better one. Truly this man has had good teaching. He knows how to translate the old priestly Etruscan into the vernacular.]
Second Cit. Think you so? Which way, do you judge, my wit would fly?
Third Cit. Nay, your wit will not so soon out as another man's WILL, 'tis strongly wedged up in a block-head: but if it were at liberty …
Second Cit. You are never without your tricks: – …
Third Cit. Are you all resolved to give your voices? But that's no matter. The greater part carries it. I say, if he would incline to the people, there was never a worthier man.
[Enter Coriolanus and Menenius.]
Here he comes, and in the gown of humility; mark his behaviour. We are not to stay all together, but to come by him where he stands, by ones, by twos, and by threes. He's to make his requests by particulars: wherein every one of us has a single honour, in giving him our own voices with our own tongues: therefore FOLLOW ME, and I'LL DIRECT YOU HOW YOU SHALL GO BY HIM.
[The voice of the true leader is lurking here, and all through these scenes the 'double' meanings are thickly sown.]
All. Content, content!
Men. O Sir, you are not right: have you not known
The worthiest men have done it?
Cor. What must I say? —
I pray, Sir? – Plague upon't! I cannot bring
My tongue to such a pace: – Look, Sir, – my wounds; —
I got them in my country's service, when
Some certain of your brethren roar'd, and ran
From the noise of OUR OWN DRUMS.
Men. O me, the gods!
You must not speak of that; you must desire them
To think upon you.
Cor. Think upon me? Hang 'em!
I would they would forget me, like the virtues
Which our divines lose by them.
Men. You'll mar all;
I'll leave you: Pray you, speak to them, I pray you,
In wholesome manner.
[And now, instead of being thronged with a mob of
citizens – instructed how they are to go by him with the honor of
their single voices they enter 'by twos' and 'threes.']
[Enter two Citizens.]
Cor. Bid them wash their faces,
And keep their teeth clean._ – So, here comes a brace,
You know the cause, Sir, of my standing here.
First Cit. We do, Sir; tell us what hath brought you to't,
Cor. Mine own desert.– [The would-be consul answers.]
Second Cit. Your own desert?
Cor. Ay, not Mine own desire.
[His own desert has brought him to the consulship; his own desire would have omitted the conciliation of the people, and the deference to their will, that with all his desert somehow he seems to find expected from him.]
First Cit. How! not your own desire!
Cor. No, Sir. 'Twas never my desire yet, To trouble the poor with begging.
He desires what the poor have to give him however; but he desires to take it, without begging. But it is the heart of the true hero that speaks in earnest through that mockery, and the reference is to a state of things towards which the whole criticism of the play is steadfastly pointed, a state in which sovereigns were reluctantly compelled to beg from the poor, what they would rather have taken without their leave, or, at least, a state in which the form of this begging was still maintained, though there lacked but little to make it a form only, a state of things in which a country gentleman might be called on to sell 'his brass pans' without being supplied, on the part of the State, with what might appear, to him, any respectable reason for it, putting his life in peril, and coming off, with a hair's-breadth escape, of all his future usefulness, if he were bold enough to question the proceeding; a state of things in which a poor law-reader might feel himself called upon to buy a gown for a lady, whose gowns were none of the cheapest, at a time when the state of his finances might render it extremely inconvenient to do so.
But to return to the Roman citizen, for the play is written by one who knows that the human nature is what it is in all ages, or, at least, until it is improved with better arts of culture than the world has yet tried on it.
First Cit. You must think, if we give you anything, We hope to gain by you.
Cor. Well then, I pray, YOUR PRICE O'THE CONSULSHIP?
First Cit. The price is, Sir, to ask it kindly.
Cor. Kindly?
Sir, I pray let me ha't: I have wounds to show you,
Which shall be yours in private. – Your good voice, Sir;
What say you?
Second Cit. You shall have it, worthy Sir.
Cor. A match, Sir: There is in all two worthy voices begg'd: – I have your alms; adieu.
First Cit. But this is something odd.
Second Cit. An 'twere to give again, – But 'tis no matter.
[Exeunt two Citizens.]
[Enter two other Citizens.]
Cor. Pray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your voices, that I may be consul, I have here the customary gown.
Third Cit. You have deserved nobly of your country, and you have not deserved nobly.
Cor. Your enigma?
Third Cit. You have been a scourge to her enemies, you have been a rod to her friends; you have not INDEED, loved the COMMON PEOPLE.
Cor. You should account me the more virtuous, that I have not been common in my love. I will, Sir, flatter my sworn brother the people, to earn a dearer estimation of them; 'tis a condition they account GENTLE: and since the wisdom of their choice is rather to have my hat than my heart, I will practise the insinuating nod, and be off to them most counterfeitly; that is, Sir, I will counterfeit the bewitchment of some popular man, and give it bountifully to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you, I may be consul.
Fourth Cit. We hope to find you our friend; and therefore give you our voices heartily.
Third Cit. You have received many wounds for your country.
Cor. I will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I will make much of your voices, and so trouble you no further.