French is certain. French was then the most useful tool in a literary workshop; it opened all other literatures. Shakespeare's familiarity with it is proved not merely by the scenes in which, by a trick then very common, he uses that tongue to make his public laugh (scenes between Pistol and the French soldier, Henry V. and Katharine of France, Dr. Caius and Mrs. Quickly), but by reason of some incidental remarks, showing an appreciation of even the subtleties of the idiom; for example, in the scene where the Duchess of York craves the royal pardon for her son, while the duke tries to dissuade the king: York. Duchess. No word like pardon for kings mouths so meet. To use, or even (if borrowed) to understand, such a play on words, one must be truly familiar with the language. Shakespeare's knowledge of the Latin and Greek classics has exercised, more than anything else, modern critics' ingenuity. Some there be who want, in order to admire him at their ease, a Shakespeare made after their own image. With such critics, idolatry begins at home; they too would, for a little, exclaim: Ah! pour l'amour du grec, souffrez qu'on vous embrasse. They kill the great man with kindness. On what remained in Shakespeare's mind of the time spent by him, between his seventh and his fourteenth or fifteenth year (the most probable dates), at the Stratford grammar school,2 and on what he may have privately learnt "Richard II.," v. 3. * The most sensible essay on this question seems that of Baynes (“ What Shakespeare learnt at school," in his " Shakespearian Studies," 1894), whose conclusions are not far removed from Jonson's well-known statement. " afterwards by reading, we have the aforesaid testimony of Jonson, who knew him well, a testimony contradicted by no other and corroborated by each of the few that have come down to us: Plautus was an exact comœdian, yet never any scholar, as our Shake-speare, if alive, would confesse himself," wrote Fuller in his "Worthies," printed in 1662, but at which he was working as early as 1643; and he continues, saying: Shakespeare "was an eminent instance of the truth of that rule, Poeta non fit, sed nascitur. . . . Indeed his learning was very little.""I have heard y Mr. Shakespeare was a natural wit without any art at all," wrote the Rev. J. Ward, vicar of Stratford, in his memoranda-book in 1662.1 Some modern exegetes have none the less made of Shakespeare a scholar imbued with Greek and Latin literature, his very style being studded with hellenisms, and his mind being so full of Euripides as to seek inspiration even from the fragments of his lost plays. Two Greek tragedies are alleged to have supplied him with hints and "archetypes" when he wrote "Lear," and four when he wrote "Macbeth."2 This is really killing the great man with kindness, or if not killing, laming. He can no longer walk, but must have crutches, something or somebody to lean upon, even when the ground is easy and the road smooth. What is most probable is that Shakespeare was neither the perfect ignoramus that some have wanted him to be, nor the deep scholar imagined by others, the Latinist who could revel in reading the classics, and scorn the use of a translation. The proofs given of his profound knowledge (the utmost being made of early plays, which he only remodelled, and in which no one knows now I "Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse," New Shakespeare Soc., pp. 246, 327. 2 J. Churton Collins, Studies in Shakespeare," 1904, pp. 72 ff. what is really his) fall usually under two heads: he shows an acquaintance with classic authors of whom there were no translations, and passages in his plays recall others in the works of Latin or Greek writers, passages so numerous that it cannot be a question of mere coincidences. Such proofs turn out to be absolutely nugatory. Concerning translations, it must be noted, first, that some of the works usually said not to have been translated in his day, certainly had been: such is the case with the "Menæchmi" of Plautus 2 and Ovid's " Amores "; 3 second, that many classics, not translated into English, were easily accessible in French, a side of the question well worthy of an attention which it has not yet received: such were, I Especially "Henry VI." and " Titus Andronicus," the very number of quotations and classical allusions in these plays being so abnormal as to be in reality one more proof, added to others, that they were only remodelled by Shakespeare. Imitated in the "Comedy of Errors," acted about 1589-91: it had been translated into English by W. W[arner?], licensed for publication on June 10, 1594 (Arber's "Transcript," ii. p. 653), and issued in 1595: "Menæcmi. A pleasant. . . comœdie, taken out of . . . Plautus. Chosen purposely from out the rest as least harmefull, and yet most delightfull." The preface expressly states that the translation had previously circulated in MS. for the delight of the author's "private friends." It may be added that no argument founded on the resemblances between" Menæchmi" and "Errors" can convey any certainty, because there was a previous play called a "Historie of Error" acted before Elizabeth in 1577 (below p. 185, n. 3), and no one can tell how much Shakespeare derived from it. All we know is that, when he had an older play to resort to, he rarely looked for other sources. 3 Much has been made of Shakespeare having chosen the epigraph for his "Venus" ("Vilia miretur vulgus," etc.) from the "Amores," "not yet translated into English" (Rouse, "Shakespeare's Ovid,” p. 1). Little enough should be made of it, as there existed a translation, in MS. it is true, but the work of one whom Shakespeare knew personally, the only contemporary poet whom he affectionately praises and quotes, Christopher Marlowe. The lines used as a motto by Shakespeare read thus in Marlowe's translation: Let base conceited wits admire vile things, for example, the" Odes" of Horace; third, we have but a faint idea of what was or was not in print in Elizabethan London; all we know for certain is that a mass of works were then written, printed, and sold, of which nothing survives. According to Arber, the Stationers' Registers "do not record, at the utmost, more than one half" of the literature of the period, and "we must by no means be surprised if works should turn up of which at present we have no knowledge whatever." There is no doubt either that many writings circulated in manuscript which were printed only later or not at all. So that he must be a very bold critic who, because no translation can now be pointed out, concludes that Shakespeare must needs have read the original. The poet may have read it, or he may not, we do not know; he 2 "In Shakespeare's time there was no translation of the 'Odes,' and yet his plays abound in what certainly appear to be reminiscences of them" (Churton Collins, "Studies in Shakespeare," 1904, p. 26). There were at least two French translations, with the Latin text on the opposite page: "Les Euvres de Q. Horace Flacce. mises en françois, partie traduictes, partie . . . corrigées de nouveau par M. Luc de la Porte," Paris, 1584, 12mo; "Les Œuvres de Q. Horace Flacce, latin et françois, de la traduction de Robert et Anthoine le Chevalier d'Agneaux, frères," Paris, 1588: Mécène, qui prens ta naissance Mon honneur et ornement doux : Les uns se plaisent (etc.). 'Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers," 1875, ff., vol. ii. p. 24. 3 In the preface to his "Brazen Age," Thomas Heywood, born ab. 1575, complains that a certain pedant had appropriated and given as his own a translation of Ovid: "his three books De Arte Amandi and two De Remedio Amoris," while in reality, says the dramatist, "they were things which out of my juniority and want of judgment I committed to the view of some private friends, but with no purpose of publishing" ("Works," Pearson, 1873, vol. iii. p. 167). The custom of showing works in MS. to one's “private friends," that is, in fact, to any one who cared, was then a well-established one, and was followed, as Meres tells us, by Shakespeare himself for his sonnets well might those to whom Shakespeare showed his sonnets show him their translations. probably followed the course which gave him least trouble; in any case, the lack of an English translation known to us can in no way settle the question. As for resemblances, numerous or striking as they may be (they are usually much less striking than we are told), it would be easy to parallel them from any literature, and prove thus that Shakespeare delighted in reading Chinese philosophers, Hindu dramatists, and Persian poets. When we hear that John of Gaunt's playing on his name is likely to be imitated from Ajax doing the same in Sophocles's tragedy, we are tempted to suggest that much more likely the funny scene between Pistol and the French soldier at the battle of Agincourt is imitated from the no less funny scene between the Greek soldier and his Phrygian prisoner after the battle of Salamis, in "The Persians," by Timothy of Milet, fourth century B.C. There is only one difficulty in this latter very excellent case, and that is that Timothy's work has just been discovered in a sarcophagus at Abousir, Egypt, the Busiris of the ancients. ' I On such similitudes, more than one author of note, examining his own conscience, has made statements worth remembering. Sir Thomas Browne, eleven years a contemporary of Shakespeare, speaking from personal experience, wrote: "Some conceits and expressions are common unto divers authors of different countries and ages. . . . In a piece of mine published long ago, the learned annotator hath paralleled many passages with others in Montaigne's essays, whereas, to deal clearly, when I penned that piece, I had never read these lines in that author, and scarce any more ever since." On such similitudes, I thought it might be of interest to try an experiment; and availing myself of the kindness and friendship of the greatest French poet then alive, I “Tuimotheos, Die Perser, aus einem Papyrus von Abusir,” ed. U. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorf, Leipzig, 1903. |