Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846
But what, then, it is said, is to be made of Shakspeare, and how is his transcendent and universally acknowledged greatness, while setting the unities at defiance, to be reconciled with those principles? We accept the challenge; we take the case of the Earl of Avon, with his deathless fame, and maintain that his dramatic excellence not only affords no impeachment of what has now been advanced, but furnishes its most decisive confirmation.
When it is commonly said that Shakspeare sets the unities at defiance, and assumed that his success has been owing to his disregarding them, the fact is not correctly stated, and the inference is not logically drawn. It is a mistake to say that the unities are always disregarded by the great English tragedian. In many of his most popular pieces, they are maintained nearly as strictly as they were by Sophocles; and we are aware of not one of his dramas which is still represented with undiminished effect on the stage, in which the principle of the unities may not distinctly be recognised, and the long-continued success is not to be traced to their observation.
The Greeks, as every scholar knows, took great latitude with time in their representations. The interval between one act and another, often even the time occupied by the chaunting of the chorus, frequently was made to cover a very considerable period, during which battles were fought, a duel or a conspiracy broke forth, an execution took place, and the most momentous events of the piece off the stage occurred. In place, it is true, they were strictly limited; the scene never changed, and all the incidents were introduced by bringing successive persons upon it. In this respect, it may be admitted, they carried their strictness too far. Probably it arose from the pieces being represented, for the most part, in the open air, under circumstances when the illusion produced by a change of scene, such as we witness at our theatres, was difficult, if not impossible, from the audience being, for the most part, above the actors, and the stage having no top. But to whatever cause it may have been owing, we hold the adherence to unity of place an unnecessary and prejudicial strictness in the Greek theatre. But a very slight deviation from it alone seems admissible; and the unity of action or emotion seems to be the very essence of this species of composition.
The true principle appears to be, that the place should not change to a greater extent than the spectators can conceive the actors to have gone over without inconvenience within the time embraced in the representation. This time often extended with the Greeks to a half of, or even a whole day, and there seems nothing adverse to principle in such extension. Changes of scene, therefore, from one room in a palace to another; from one part of a town to another; or even from town to a chateau, garden, forest, or other place in its near vicinity, appear to be perfectly admissible, without any violation of true dramatic principle. The popular opera of the "Black Domino," to which the charming singing and acting of Madame Thillon have recently given such celebrity at the Haymarket, may be considered in this respect as a model of the unities taken in a reasonable sense. The time which elapses in the piece is a single night; the subject is the adventures which befel the heroine during that period; the scene changes, but only to the places in the same town to which she went during its continuance. There seems nothing inconsistent with the production of unity of interest in such a latitude. And with this inconsiderable expansion of the old Greek unities, it will be found that Shakspeare's greatest plays, and those which experience has found to be best adapted for the stage, have been constructed on the true principles.
Take for example, Romeo and Juliet, and As you Like it; perhaps the tragedy and comedy of his composition which have most completely kept their hold of the stage. The unities are nearly as closely observed in both as in any drama of Sophocles. With the exception of a slight alteration of place and scene, every thing is concentrated. The interest and emotion, which is the great point, is maintained one and indivisible. With the exception of Romeo's banishment to Mantua, and the scene with the druggist there, which, after all, is but an episode, and took the hero only two hours' drive from Verona, the place is confined to different scenes in that town. The festive hall where the lovers first meet – the exquisite meeting on the balcony – Father Ambrose's cell – the room where Juliet coaxes the nurse – the garden where she parts from Romeo, when the terrible scene where Juliet contemplates wakening in the tomb amidst her ancestors' bones – the mausoleum itself, where the catastrophe occurs, are all in the same town. The time supposed to elapse does not exceed twenty-four hours; not more than in the Electra or Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. The interest, dependent entirely on the ardent love of Juliet, is as much undivided as in the Antigone of Sophocles. And yet we are told Shakspeare succeeded by disregarding the unities.
"Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain's top – "
Again, in As you Like it, the same observation holds true. Whoever recollects the scenes of that delightful drama, must be sensible that it is, with the single exception of the scenes of the wrestlers in the first act, nothing but a Greek drama on the English stage. Menander or Aristophanes would have made one of the characters recount that scene, which is merely introductory, and introduced Rosalind and her companions for the first time in the Forest of Arden, where the real interest of the piece commences. A slight change of scene, indeed, occurs from one part of the forest to another, but it is so inconsiderable as in no degree to interfere with the unity of effect. The single interest awakened by Rosalind's secret love and playful archness of manner is kept up undivided throughout. So also in The Tempest, the unities in all the scenes which excite sympathy are as completely preserved as ever they were on the Greek stage; and the angelic innocence of Miranda stands forth in as striking and undivided relief as the devotion of Antigone to sisterly affection, or the self-immolation of Iphigenia to patriotic duty. We are well aware there are characters of a very different kind in that drama; but the interest is concentrated on those in which the unity is preserved. Look at Othello. In what play of Euripides is singleness of interest more completely preserved than in that noble tragedy? The haughty bearing, conscious pride, but ardent love of the Moor; the deep love of Desdemona, nourished, as we so often see in real life, by qualities in her the very reverse; the gradual growth of jealousy from her innocent sportiveness of manner, and the diabolical machinations of Iago; her murder, in a fit of jealousy, by her despairing husband, and his self-sacrifice when the veil was drawn from his eyes, – are all brought forward, if not with the literal strictness of the Greek drama, at least with as much regard to unity of time, place, and action, as is required by its principles.
We are well aware that there are many other dramas, and those, perhaps, not less popular, of Shakspeare, in which unity of time and place is entirely set at defiance, and in which the piece ends at the distance of hundreds of miles, sometimes after the lapse of years, from the point whence it commenced. Macbeth, Julius Cæsar, Richard III., Henry V., Hamlet, and many others, are examples of this deviation from former principle, and it is to the universal admiration which they excite that the national partiality for the Romantic drama is to be ascribed. But in all these instances it will be found – and the observation is a most material one – that the real interest is nearly as much centralised as it was in the Greek stage, and that it is on the extraordinary fascination which a few scenes, or the incidents grouped round a single event, possess, that the success of the piece depends. The historical tragedies read well, just as a historical romance does, and from the same cause, that they are looked on, not as dramas, but as brilliant passages of history. But this has proved unable to support them on the theatre. One by one they have gradually dropped away from the stage. Some are occasionally revived, from time to time, in order to display the power of a particular actor or actress, but never with any lasting success. Those plays of Shakspeare which alone retain their hold of the theatre, are either those, such as Romeo and Juliet, or As you Like it, in which the unities are substantially observed, or in which the resplendent brilliancy of a few characters or scenes, within very narrow limits, fixes the attention of the audience so completely as to render comparatively harmless, because unfelt, the distraction produced by the intermixture of farce in the subordinate persons, or the violations of time and place in the structure of the piece. But it is not to every man that the pencil of the Bard of Avon, is given; and the subsequent failure of the Romantic drama, in this and every other country, is mainly to be ascribed to succeeding writers not having possessed his power of fixing, by the splendid colours of genius, the attention of the spectators on a particular part of the piece. Shakspeare disregards the unities in form; but his burning imagination restores their operations in substance.
"Dipp'd in the orient hues of heaven,"
Take for example the most popular of the really Romantic dramas, Macbeth and Hamlet. No one need be told how the unities are violated in the first of these pieces: that it begins on a heath in Morayshire, where the witches appear to the victorious Thane; that the murder of the King takes place in the Castle of Inverness; that the usurper is slain by Macduff in front of Dunsinnane Castle near the Tay. But none can either have read the play, or seen it acted, without feeling that the real interest lies in the events which occurred, and the ambitious feelings which were awakened in Macbeth and his wife, when temptation was put in their way within their own halls. Sophocles would have laid the scene there, and made one of the characters narrate in the outset the appearance of the witches on the heath, and brought Macduff to the gates of Macbeth's castle shortly after the murder of Duncan to avenge his death. Shakspeare has not done this; but he has painted the scenes in the interior of the castle, before and after the murder, with such force and effect, that the mind is as much riveted by them, as if no previous or subsequent deviation from the unities had been introduced. Hamlet begins in a strain of unparalleled interest; had the last four acts proceeded in the same sublime style as the first, and the filial duty devolved by the ghost on his son of avenging his murder been discharged as rapidly as it should have been, and as the feelings of the audience lead them to desire, it would have been perhaps the most powerful tragedy in the world. Had Shakspeare proceeded on the principles of the Greek drama, he would have done this, and produced a drama as universally admired as the Agamemnon of Æschylus. But every one feels that the interest is weakened and wellnigh lost as the play proceeds; new characters are introduced, the burlesque succeeds the sublime, the original design is forgotten; and when the spectre appears a second time "to whet your almost blunted purpose," his appearance is felt to be as necessary to revive the decaying interest of the piece, as to resuscitate the all but forgotten fervour of the Prince of Denmark.
We feel that we have committed high treason in the estimation of a large part of our readers, by contesting the justice of the principles on which Shakspeare proceeded in the construction of many of his dramas; and we know that the opinions advanced are adverse to those of many, whose genius and professional success entitle their judgment on this subject to the very highest respect. But yet the weight of authority, if that is to be appealed to, is decidedly in favour of the principles of the Greek being the true ones of the drama. From the days of Aristotle to those of Addison, the greatest critics have concurred in this opinion; and he is a bold innovater on this subject who sets at nought the precepts of Horace and Quintilian, forgets the example of Sophocles and Schiller, of Euripides and Alfieri, of Corneille and Metastasio, and disregards the decided judgment of Pope7 and Byron. The opinion of the latter poet was peculiarly strong in favour of the unities, and was repeatedly expressed in his correspondence preserved in Moore's Life; although his own noble dramas, being avowedly constructed with no view to representation, but as a vehicle for powerful declamation or impassioned poetry, often exhibit, especially in Manfred, the most glaring violations of them. Johnson confessed that the weight of authority in favour of the Greek rules was so great, that it required no small courage to attempt even to withstand it. But it is not by authority that this, or any other question of taste, is to be decided. The true test of the correctness of opinion on such matters is to be found in experience, and the inward feelings of persons of cultivated minds and enlarged observation. And in the preceding remarks we have only extended to the drama, principles familiar to artists in every other department of human imagination, and generally admitted in them, at least, to be correct; and appealed, we trust not in vain, to the experience gained, and the lessons learned, by those who have cultivated the sister arts in those times with the greatest success.
THE MINSTREL'S CURSE
From Uhland. By A. Lodge
A castle of the olden time, o'er subject regions wide,
Throned on its rocky height afar looked forth in feudal pride;
And fragrant gardens decked the plain, where lakes, with crystal sheen,
Mirrored the pleasant sylvan glades and lawns of living green.
Here dwelt, of jealous fears the prey, in pomp of moody state,
A King, by realms and cities fair, and conquest's laurels great;
His glance bespoke the tyrant soul to pity ne'er subdued;
His words were chains and torments – his characters were blood!
Once to these lordly towers at eve approached a tuneful pair,
Of reverend silvery tresses one, and one with golden hair;
The old man on a palfrey sate – his harp, the Minstrel's pride,
He bore – his comrade, young and blithe, tripped lightly at his side.
Thus to the youth the old man spoke – "My son, it boots to-day,
To try our deepest melodies, our most impassioned lay;
With cunning'st art essay the notes of blended joy and pain;
Perchance this royal heart may own the magic of the strain."
Soon in the pillared regal hall, amid the courtly throng
Of belted knights and beauteous dames, they range the sons of song: —
The King, in fearful majesty, recalled the meteor's blaze;
His spouse, with beaming loveliness, the moonlight's gentle rays.
The old man swept the chords – and quick, responsive to the tone,
Through all the train each heart confessed the spell of power unknown;
And when a clear angelic voice chimed in with youthful fire,
'Twas like the unseen minstrelsy of some ethereal quire!
They sang of Love's delightful spring – of the old golden time;
Of knightly leal, and maiden's truth, and chivalry sublime;
Of each high thought that stirs the soul informed with heavenly flame;
Of man's exalted destinies – of freedom, worth, and fame!
They paused: – in rapt attention hushed, the crowd had clustered near;
The courtier smoothed the lip of scorn, the warrior dropped a tear;
The Queen, with trembling extasy, took from her breast a rose;
And see! at the young Minstrel's feet the guerdon flower she throws.
"Ha!" shrieked the King – "my lieges first, with your detested lays,
Ye have seduced – and now my Queen their witchery betrays;
Die, tuneful minion!" – at the youth he hurled the gleaming sword,
And from the fount of golden strains the crimson tide was poured.
While scared, as by the lightning's flash, all stood in mute dismay,
The boy on his loved master's breast had breathed his soul away: —
The old man round the bleeding form his mantle wrapped with speed;
Raised the dear victim in his arms, and bound him on his steed.
The portals passed, he stood awhile, and gazed with tearful eyes —
And grasped his harp – the master harp – of thousand harps the prize:
Then frantic on a column's base he dashed the useless lyre,
And thus the curse of Poesy spoke with a prophet's fire!
"Woe! Woe! proud towers – dire House of blood! thy guilty courts among,
Ne'er may the chords of harmony be waked – the voice of song;
The tread of silent slaves alone shall echo mid the gloom,
Till Ruin waits, and hovering fiends of vengeance shriek thy doom!
"Woe! Woe! ye blooming gardens fair – decked in the pride of May,
Behold this flower untimely cropped – look – and no more be gay!
The sight should wither every leaf – make all your fountains dry,
And bid the bright enchantment round in wasteful horror lie!
"And thou, fell Tyrant, curst for aye of all the tuneful train —
May blighted bays, and bitter scorn, mock thy inglorious reign!
Perish thy hated name with thee – from songs and annals fade —
Thy race – thy power – thy very crimes – lost in oblivion's shade!"
The aged Bard has spoken – and Heaven has heard the prayer;
The haughty towers are crumbling low – no regal dome is there!
A single column soars on high, to tell of splendours past —
And see! 'tis cracked – it nods the head– this hour may be it's last!
Where once the fairy garden smiled, a mournful desert lies —
No rills refresh the barren sand – no graceful stems arise —
From storied page, and legend strain, this King has vanished long;
His race is dead – his power forgot: – such is the might of song!
THE MINE, THE FOREST, AND THE CORDILLERA. 8
The silver mines of Potosi, the virgin forests, and mighty cordilleras of South America, are words familiar and full of interest to European ears. Countless riches, prodigious vegetable luxuriance, stupendous grandeur, are the associations they suggest. With these should be coupled ideas of cruelty, desolation, and disease, of human suffering and degradation pushed to their utmost limit, of opportunities neglected, and advantages misused. Not a bar of silver, or a healing drug, or an Alpaca fleece, shipped from Peruvian ports to supply another hemisphere with luxuries and comforts, but is the price of an incalculable amount of misery, and even of blood – the blood of a race once noble and powerful, now wretched and depraved by the agency of those whose duty and in whose power it was to civilize and improve them. The corrupt policy of Spanish rulers, the baneful example of Spanish colonists and their descendants, have gone far towards the depopulation and utter ruin of the richest of South American countries. How imprudent and suicidal has been the course adopted, will presently be made apparent. Those who desire evidence in support of our assertion, need but follow Dr Tschudi, as we now propose doing, into the mining, mountainous, and forest districts of Peru.
Difficult and dangerous as a journey through the maritime provinces of Peru undeniably is, it is mere railroad travelling when compared with an expedition into the interior of the country. In the former case, the land is level, and the sun, the sand, and the highwayman, are the only perils to be encountered or evaded. But a ramble in the mountains is a succession of hairbreadth escapes, a deliberate confronting of constantly recurring dangers, to which even the natives unwillingly expose themselves, and frequently fall victims. The avalanches, precipices, gaping ravines, slippery glaciers, and violent storms common to all Alpine regions, are here complicated by other risks peculiar to the South American mountains. Heavy rains, lasting for weeks together, falls of snow that in a few moments obliterate all trace of a path, treacherous swamps, strange and loathsome maladies, and even blindness, combine to deter the traveller from his dangerous undertaking. All these did Dr Tschudi brave, and from them all, after the endurance of great hardship and suffering, he was fortunate enough to escape.
At a very short distance from Lima, the traveller, proceeding eastward, gets a foretaste of the difficulties and inconveniences in reserve for him. Whilst riding, through the vale of Surco, or through some other of the valleys leading from the coast to the mountains, he perceives a fountain by the road side, and pauses to refresh his tired mule. Scarcely is his intention manifest, when he is startled by a cry from his guide, or from a passing Indian – "Cuidado! Es agua de verruga!" In these valleys reigns a terrible disease called the verrugas, attributed by the natives to the water of certain springs, and for which all Dr Tschudi's investigations were insufficient to discover another cause. Fever, pains in the bones, and loss of blood from cutaneous eruptions, are the leading symptoms of this malady, which is frequently of long duration, and sometimes terminates fatally. It seizes the Indians and lighter castes in preference to the white men and negroes, and no specific has yet been discovered for its cure. Mules and horses are also subject to its attacks. In no country, it would appear from Dr Tschudi's evidence, are there so many strange and unaccountable maladies as in Peru. Nearly every valley has its peculiar disease, extending over a district of a few square miles, and unknown beyond its limits. To most of them it has hitherto been impossible to assign a cause. Their origin must probably be sought in certain vegetable influences, or in those of the vast variety of minerals which the soil of Peru contains.
In the mountains, the shoeing of mules and horses is frequently a matter of much difficulty; and it is advisable for the traveller to acquire the art, and furnish himself with needful implements, before leaving the more civilized part of the country. Farriers are only to be found in the large Indian villages, and it is common to ride fifty or sixty leagues without meeting with one. In the village of San Geronimo de Surco, the innkeeper is the only blacksmith, and Dr Tschudi, whose horse had cast a shoe, was compelled to pay half a gold ounce (upwards of thirty shillings) to have it replaced. This was one half less than the sum at first demanded by the exorbitant son of Vulcan, who doubtless remembered the old Spanish proverb, "for a nail is lost a shoe, for a shoe the horse, for the horse the horseman."9 The doctor took the hint, and some lessons in shoeing, which afterwards stood him in good stead. It is a common practice in Peru, on the sandy coast, and where the roads permit it, to ride a horse or mule unshod for the first four or five days of a journey. Then shoes are put on the fore feet, and a few days later on the hinder ones. This is thought to give new strength to the animals, and to enable them to hold out longer. On the mountain tracks, the wear and tear of iron must be prodigious, as may be judged from the following description of three leagues of road between Viso and San Mateo, by no means the worst bit met with by our traveller.
"The valley frequently becomes a mere narrow split in the mountains, enclosed between walls of rock a thousand feet high. These enormous precipices are either perpendicular, or their summits incline inwards, forming a vast arch; along their base, washed by the foaming waters of the river, or higher up, along their side, winds the narrow and dangerous path. In some places they recede a little from the perpendicular, and their abrupt slopes are sprinkled with stones and fragments of rock, which every now and then, loosened by rain, detach themselves and roll down into the valley. The path is heaped with these fragments, which give way under the tread of the heavily laden mules, and afford them scanty foothold. From time to time, enormous blocks thunder down the precipice, and bury themselves in the waters beneath. I associate a painful recollection with the road from Viso to San Mateo. It was there that a mass of stone struck one of my mules, and precipitated it into the river. My most important instruments and travelling necessaries, a portion of my collections and papers, and – an irreparable loss – a diary carefully and conscientiously kept during a period of fourteen months, became the prey of the waters. Two days later the mule was washed ashore; but its load was irrecoverably lost. Each year numerous beasts of burden, and many travellers, perish upon this dangerous road. Cavalry on the march are particularly apt to suffer, and often a slip of the horse's foot, or a hasty movement of the rider, suffices to consign both to the yawning chasm by their side. At the inn at Viso I met an officer, who had just come from the mountains, bringing his two sons with him. He had taken the youngest before him; the other, a boy of ten years of age, rode upon the mule's crupper. Half a league from Viso, a large stone came plunging down from the mountain, struck the eldest lad, and dashed him into the stream."
Although frequently ill-treated by the Creoles, and especially by the officers, the Indians in most parts of Peru show ready hospitality and good-will to the solitary traveller. Those in the neighborhood of San Mateo are an exception; they are distrustful, rough, and disobliging. When a traveller enters the village, he is instantly waited upon by the alcalde and regidores, who demand his passport. Has he none, he risks ill-treatment, and being put upon a jackass and carried off to the nearest prefect. Luckily the ignorance of the village authorities renders them easy to deal with; it is rare that they can read. On one occasion, when Dr Tschudi's passport was demanded, the only printed paper in his pocket was an old playbill, that of the last opera he had attended before his departure from Lima, and which he had taken with him as wadding for his gun. He handed it to the Indian regidor, who gravely unfolded it, stared hard at the words Lucia di Lammermoor, and returned it with the remark, that the passport was perfectly in order.
Any thing more wretched in their accommodations than the tambos or village inns, can scarcely be imagined. So bad are they, that the traveller is sometimes driven to pass the night in the snow rather than accept of their shelter, and at the same time submit to the nuisances with which they abound. One of these villanous hostelries, in which Dr Tschudi several times attempted to sleep, is described by him with a minuteness that will rather startle the squeamish amongst his readers. Vermin every where, on the floor and walls, in the clothes of the Indian hag officiating as hostess, even in the caldron in which a vile mixture of potatoe water and Spanish pepper is prepared for supper. For sole bed there is the damp earth, upon which hosts, children, and travellers stretch themselves. Each person is accommodated with a sheepskin, and over the whole company is spread an enormous woollen blanket. But woe to the inexperienced traveller who avails himself of the coverings thus bountifully furnished, swarming as they are with inhabitants from whose assaults escape is impossible. Even if he creeps into a corner, and makes himself a bed with his saddle-cloths, he is not secure. Add to these comforts a stifling smoke, and other nauseous exhalations, and the gambols of innumerable guinea-pigs, common as mice in many parts of Peru, who caper the night through over the faces and bodies of the sleepers, and the picture of a South American mountain inn will be as complete as it is uninviting. But these annoyances, great though they be, are very trifles compared to the more serious evils awaiting the traveller in the higher regions of the Cordilleras. At about 12,600 feet above the level of the sea, the effects of the rarefaction of the atmosphere begin to be sensibly and painfully felt. The natives, unacquainted with the real cause of the malady thus occasioned, and which by them is called puna, by the Spanish Creoles veta or mareo, attribute it to the exhalations of metals, especially of antimony. Horses, not bred in the mountains, suffer greatly from the veta, and frequently fall down helpless. The arrieros adopt various cruel means for their revival, such as cutting off their ears and tail, and slitting up their nostrils, the latter being probably the only useful remedy, as it allows the animal to inhale a large volume of air. To preserve them from the veta, chopped garlic is put into their nostrils. With human beings, this state of the atmosphere causes the blood to gush from the eyes, nose, and lips, and occasions faintings, blood-spittings, vomitings, and other unpleasant and dangerous symptoms. The sensation somewhat resembles that of sea-sickness, whence the Spanish name of mareo. The malady, in its most violent form, sometimes causes death from excessive loss of blood. Of this, Dr Tschudi saw instances. Much depends on the general health and constitution of the persons attacked. The action of the veta is very capricious. Some persons do not experience it on a first visit to the mountains, but suffer on subsequent ones. Another singular circumstance is, that it is much more violent in some places than in others of a greater altitude. This affords ground for a supposition, that other causes, besides the diminished pressure of the atmosphere, concur to occasion it. These as yet remain unknown. The districts in which the veta is felt with the greatest intensity, are for the most part very metallic, and this has given rise to the Indian theory of its cause.
Another terrible scourge to the traveller in the Cordilleras is the surumpe, a violent inflammation of the eye, brought on by the sudden reflection of the sun from the snow. In those mountains the eyes are kept continually in an irritated state by the rarefied air and cutting winds, and are consequently unusually susceptible. Often the heavens become suddenly overcast, and in a few minutes the yellowish-green waste is one sheet of snow. Then out bursts the sun with overpowering splendour, a sharp burning pain is instantly felt in the eyes, and speedily increases to an unbearable extent. The eyes become red, the lids swell and bleed. So violent is the agony as to cause despair and delirium. Dr Tschudi compares it to the sensation occasioned by rubbing Spanish pepper or gunpowder into the eyes. Chronic inflammation, even total blindness, is the frequent consequence of the surumpe in its most intense form. In the Cordilleras it is no unusual thing to find Indians sitting by the wayside, shrieking from pain, and unable to continue their journey. The Creoles, when they visit the mountains, protect themselves with green spectacles and veils.