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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
“Why,” said la Beale Isoud,…. “ye may not be called a good knight, but if ye make a quarrel for a lady.”
Morte Darthur, x, lvi.
It has long been the fashion, when Cymbeline has been under discussion, to cite Dr. Johnson's famous criticism, and indeed one feels a whimsical joy in setting down so delightful a bit of square-toed dogmatism. “This play has many just sentiments, some natural dialogues, and some pleasing scenes, but they are obtained at the expense of much incongruity. To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the names and manners of different times, and the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation.” The really significant thing, however, which makes this opinion worth repeating, is that so many of the best modern critics have expressed substantial agreement with it. Sir Walter Raleigh thinks that “Johnson speaks truly and moderately,” and Dr. H. H. Furness said, “Ay, Dr. Johnson was right in his estimate of this play of Cymbeline,—the sweetest, tenderest, profoundest of almost all the immortal galaxy.” Most writers, while not agreeing directly with Johnson, have taken a half-puzzled, half-apologetic attitude; they have obviously felt what Dr. Furness calls “deterioration” here, after the splendid achievement of the great tragedies and the Roman plays.
1 Shakespeare (English Men of Letters Series) London, 1907, p. 142.
2 Variorum Cymbeline, Phila., 1913, p. v.
3 The latest of these, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, in his unconventional study, Notes on Shakespeare's Workmanship (N. Y., 1917) takes direct issue with Johnson, finding the play a masterpiece of craftsmanship, expressed in dramatically appropriate language. With much that he says I cannot agree.
4 Loc. cit., p. 140.
5 Shakspere as a Playwright, N. Y., 1913, p. 335.
6 Introduction to Shakespeare, N. Y., 1910, p. 200.
7 The Moral System of Shakespeare, N. Y. 1903, p, 79.
8 Shakespeare Commentaries, translated by F. E. Bunnett, N. Y., 1875, p. 667. According to the view of Gervinus, Cymbeline “treats uniformly throughout two opposite ideas or moral qualities, namely truth in word and deed (fidelity), and untruth and faithlessness', falseness in deed or perfidy, falseness in word or slander” (p. 671). The story of Little Red Riding Hood treats uniformly throughout two opposing ideas or moral qualities also, trusting innocence and scheming villany, but nobody has ever supposed that a desire to contrast these moral concepts as such had anything to do with the evolution of the story.
9 H. N. Hudson, Shakespeare, his life, art, and characters. Boston. 1882, vol. ii, p. 443.
10 Elizabethan Drama, 1558-1642, Boston and New York, 1908, vol. i, p. 301.
11 Loc. cit., p. vii.
12 As has often been pointed out, the frightful punishment which Autolycus predicts for the Clown in the Winter's Tale (Act. iv, Scene iv, ll. 812 ff.) seems to have been borrowed from the torture of Ambrogiuolo in this novella, though Boccaccio did not invent it.
13 This has long been realized. Malone quoted the significant words in the 1620 English translation of the Decameron (see his ed. of 1793) : “I know, most worthy lord, (says the printer in his Epistle Dedicatory,) that many of them [the novels of Boccace] have long since been published before, as stolen from the original author, and yet not beautified with his sweet style and elocution of phrase, neither savouring of his singular morall applications.”
14 Westward for Smelts, or the Water-man's fare of mad merry Western wenches, whose tongues, albeit like Bell-clappers they neuer leaue ringing, yet their tales are sweet, and will much content you.
Written by Kinde Kit of Kingstone, London, 1620. Ed. J. O. Halliwell, London, Percy Society, 1848, vol. 22. The tale told by the Fishwife of Stand on the Green is the one presenting resemblances to Cymbeline. Westward for Smelts was entered in the Stationers's Register in Jan., 1619 (1620), and published in 1620. The only evidence of an earlier edition is a statement by Steevens: “It was published in a quarto pamphlet 1603. This is the only copy of it which I have hitherto seen. There is a late entry of it in the books of the Stationers' Company, Jan. 1619, where it is said to have been written by Kitt of Kingston.” (quoted from the ed. of 1778) Malone (ibid) subjoins to Steevens's statement: “The only part of the fable, however, which can be pronounced with certainty to be drawn from thence, is, Imogen's wandering about after Pisanio has left her in the forest; her being almost famished; and being taken, at a subsequent period, into the service of the Roman General as a page.” Collier (Shakespeare's Library, London, n. d., vol. ii, p. xv), referring to Malone's remarks in Boswell's Shakespeare, observes that no copy of the date 1603 exists, “and the entry in the Stationers' Register seems to establish that it was a new publication. … we feel confident that there was no earlier impression [than that of 1620], and that Malone had been misinformed when he spoke of the existence of a copy dated 1603.” Halliwell, (Remarks of M. Karl Simrock on the Plots of Shakespeare's Plays, Shakespeare Society, London, 1850, p. 64) says: “I am inclined to believe Steevens's assertion, because he refers to the entry in the Stationers' Register as containing information not found in the edition he used.” But Steevens does not say that the edition of 1603 did not refer to Kind Kit as the author. The name looks like a pseudonym, and perhaps Steevens thought the evidence of the Register worth quoting.
The resemblances between Westward for Smelts and Cymbeline have been most elaborately stated by Dowden (Introduction to Cymbeline in the Arden Shakespeare, London, 1903, p. xxix) “Here, as in Shakespeare's play, there is an English historical background; the disclosure of the villainy is preceded by the events of a battlefield. Here the heroine wanders in want of food, and she takes service under the leader of an army as a page; here the first suggestion of a wager comes from the villain; here he holds discourse with the lady, and represents himself as in her husband's confidence; and here she offers herself to be slain, and the faithful serving-man suggests that she shall assume a disguise.”—All this is of no significance, however, unless we believe Steevens's assertion that he had seen an edition dated 1603. Dowden recognizes this: “But if Westward for Smelts was not published until 1620, some of the incidents of the tale may have been conceived under the influence of the drama as seen upon the stage.”
Furthermore, while the list of resemblances drawn up by Dowden looks very convincing, it shrinks woefully when examined closely, and when the very striking points in which the tale diverges from Shakspere are observed, affecting the most dramatic part of the narrative;—for example, the villain is not carried into the chamber in a chest, he creeps under the bed; he does not observe the mole under the heroine's breast, but steals a gold crucifix. It hardly seems likely that the historical setting in the reign of Henry VI gave Shakspere the idea of connecting the action with the mythical Cymbeline and the wars with the Romans. Most of the other resemblances can be paralleled from other early versions of the tale, or are such as arise naturally from the situation. The assumption of male attire and service as a page is found not only in Boccaccio but the Miracle, Florus and Jehane and the West Highland tale of The Chest (as a gillie); the idea of service in war follows naturally in days when gentlemen spent most of their time in fighting (cf. the Florus). The ladies in the Comte de Poitiers and the Violette are abandoned in the forest, and in both of these, as in many other versions, “the first suggestion of a wager comes from the villain, and he holds discourse with the lady.” That a heroine abandoned in a forest should seek food, or meditate death, or that the faithful servant should suggest the donning of male attire are not, in my judgment, incidents of significance, once granted the basic situation. Such episodes as these are as common in romantic fiction as daisies in the fields.
It seems most likely that Kind Kit and Shakspere used independent versions, each related to the novella of Boccaccio. I doubt if Kind Kit, had he drawn from Shakspere's play, would have omitted such striking motives as the chest and the birthmark; and I cannot see any reason for supposing Shakspere indebted to him at all, even granting that an edition of Westward for Smelts was published in 1603.
15 Littérature française au moyen âge, Paris, 1905, p. 89.
16 Ed. F. Michel, Paris, 1831.
17 Ed. F. Michel, Paris, 1834. There has been some discussion as to the priority of this and the Poitiers. There can he little doubt, I think, that the Violette is later; its motivation, descriptions, social conventions and general literary workmanship indicate a more sophisticated era.
18 Moland et d'Héricault: Nouvelles françaises en prose du xiiime siècle. Bibl. Elzev. 1856, pp. 83 ff. Also Monmerqué et Michel: Théâtre français au moyen âge, Paris, 1842, pp. 417 ff. also contains the Miracle). For William Morris's version, see his Old French Romances done into English, London, 1896.
19 Too much should not be made of these; they seem the sort of thing which might occur in tales developing independently from the same situation. They were first noted by Collier in 1839, and still encumber discussions of sources. Collier's comment is reprinted in full by Dowden, Arden Cymbeline, pp. xxxii-iii. If there is any force in these parallels, they show that Shakspere utilized a source now lost, related in some way to the Miracle.
20 Cf. E. Ohle, Shakespeare's Cymbeline und seine Romanischen Vorläufer, Berlin, 1890; and M. Landau, Quellen des Dekameron, Stuttgart, 1884, p. 141.
21 Ed. E. Mabille, Paris, 1869. Mabille prints the following summary from a catalogue in the Ms., but does not reprint the tale itself. “La LII nouvelle, par maistre Ambrose. D'un marchant qui gagea à un autre qu'il feroit son plaisir de sa femme, et comment il fut en sa maison et ne lui fit rien, mais il rapporta par trayson au marchant, comme il avoit fait son plaisir de sa femme dont il gaigna la gageure; mais à la fin la trayson fut descelée dont le marchant fut griefment pugny.”
22 F. J. Furnivall, Robert Laneham's Letter, N. Y. and London, 1907. The colophon to the tale states that it was printed in Antwerp in 1518. (See p. xxv.)
23 See the edition by Nutt, London, 1902, pp. 301 ff.: “A very considerable number of ‘Taliesin’ poems had accumulated by the fifteenth century, from amongst which towards the close, as is most likely, a selection was made by the compiler of our tale.” (P. 356.)
24 F. H. von der Hagen, Gesammtabenteuer : Hundert altdeutsche Erzählungen. Bd. iii, No. lxviii; pp. 356 ff., Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1850. Cf. also the Introduction, pp. xci ffg. An outline of the tale is given on p. 353. See also Brüder Grimm: Altdeutsche Wälder, Cassel, 1815; i, p. 35 (Von zwein kaufmañ).
25 R. Köhler, Jahrbuch für Romanische und Englische Litteratur, 1867, vol. 8, pp. 51 ff.
26 Gollancz, Temple Shakespeare, Introduction, p. x, note.
27 See especially the Introduction to the ballad of The Twa Knights, Child, English and Scottish Ballads, vol. v, pp. 21 ff. (No. 268).
28 See below, p. 408, note 32.
29 I use the translation in the Furness Variorum.
30 “I am a merchant, and not a philosopher.”
31 J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, Edinburgh, 1860, vol. ii, No. 18, pp. 1 ff. The editor comments: “It is not now the custom to buy a wife, and thereby acquire the right to shoot her; and yet this right is insisted upon, and acknowledged, and the story hinges on it” (p. 14).
32 Boccaccio's tale is ostensibly told to show that the deceiver is sooner or later punished for his deception. Another moral is pointed by the Sultan of Alexandria at the end of the story, who “praised very highly the actions, courage and virtue of Ginevra.” But this conclusion did not appeal to the gay young Florentines of Boccaccio's party, who had small faith in women's virtue, and knew many anecdotes illustrating their frailty. So Dioneo, perhaps the most loose-tongued of them all, maintains, in telling the tale of the old husband and the young wife immediately following, “that Bernabo in disputing with Ambrogiuolo had acted rashly and foolishly.” [cavalcasse la capra in verso il chino]. And all the company agree laughingly “that Dioneo spoke the truth and that Bernabo had been a great fool.”
33 Act v, Scene iv, ll. 82-3. The Two Gentlemen of Verona has been generally misunderstood as a love-story, whereas it is fundamentally a virtue-story illustrating friendship. Ingenious attempts like Dr. Batteson's to get around this dénouement by subtleties of logic miss the point completely. Cf. Sampson, Introduction to Tudor Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen, pp. xiv, xv.
34 This sentence has been generally misunderstood. The various attempts at elucidating it may be studied in the Variorum. “Friend” of course often means “lover,” “sweetheart”; not always in a bad sense, though it frequently seems to indicate the intimacies of wedlock without the accompanying formalities of marriage. In Measure for Measure, Lucio says of Claudio, (i, iv, 29) “he hath got his friend with child.” It is not Lucio's habit to speak foully of the good women in the play, and Juliet is surely one of these. Claudio thus explains his relations with her (Act I, Scene ii, ll. 155 ff.) :
Dr. Furness, who does not appear to have thought of this passage in Measure for Measure in this connection, suggests (Preface to the Variorum Cymbeline) that Imogen's marriage to Posthumus was a “handfasting.” He points out that if Imogen were irrevocably married, the Queen would scarcely try to force Cloten upon her, or Cloten woo her, and that when he does so, Imogen never appeals to “the insuperable barrier of her marriage.” The solution Dr. Furness finds in the Queen's words (i, v, 76). “She says in effect that Pisanio, as long as he lives, will be a witness or a ‘remembrancer,’ possibly the only witness, to the handfasting between Posthumus and Imogen. The marriage was not then complete. It was merely a ‘trothplight,’ and, not having been blest by Holy Church, was not irrevocable,—certainly not if royal influence be brought to bear… . That the Handfasting was to her [Imogen] a ceremony as holy as marriage itself is evident by her calling Cloten a ‘profane fellow’ when he had asserted that her pretended contract with Posthumus was no contract, at least among royalties, as he says, although among the common people a self-figured knot, such as a ‘handfast’ is, might be deemed an impediment.” Cf. the use of the word “fast” in the foregoing quotation from Measure for Measure, and the definition cited by the New English Dictionary from Jamieson, 1808-1825: “To handfast, to betrothe by joining hands, in order to cohabitation [sic], before the celebration of marriage.”
35 Ed. Strachey, London, 1901; Bk. ix, Chapter xiv.
36 Just the moral which Boccaccio draws from the whole story.
38 A suggestive, but not exhaustive treatment of this subject will be found in Professor W. H. Schofield's Chivalry in English Literature, Cambridge, Mass., 1912, pp. 183 ff. He calls attention to the tournament in Pericles, and particularly the challenge of Hector in Troilus and Cressida.
Professor Schofield notes the wager in Cymbeline, with brief comment, but does not analyze the situation in detail. I hope later to publish a study of the influence of medieval conventions on Shakspere.
39 See Thorndike, below, p. 424, note 50.
40 Works of Shakespeare, ed. by Sir Sidney Lee, N. Y. and Boston, 1911, Introduction to Cymbeline, p. xi.
41 See above, p. 392, note 3.
42 For a discussion of the chivalric elements in Shakspere's Troilus and Cressida, see an article by the present writer in Shaksperian Studies, N. Y., (Columbia University Press) 1916.
43 See, for episodes of this sort, Strickland, Queens of England, London, 1854, vol. iv, pp. 663-4; 587; 721.
44 History of English Literature, N. Y., 1871, vol. i, p. 227. I can not verify the jumbled reference to Middleton with which he supports this.
45 “The Loveres Maladye of Hereos,” Modern Philology, vol. xi, pp. 491-546; esp. 544 ff. Cf. E. E. Stoll, ibid., vol. iii, pp. 281-303.
46 Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century, N. Y., 1920 (Preface). Through Mr. Taylor's kindness, I am able to quote this from the proof-sheets.
47 Variorum Cymbeline, Introduction, pp. xiv-xv.
48 Probably lock, as in wrestling, see Dowden, loc. cit., p. 212.
49 Perhaps not everyone will agree; Charles Cowden-Clarke thought this reunion “perfectly divine.”
50 The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakspere, Worcester, Mass., 1901.
51 Ibid., p. 139. Italics mine.
52 Ibid., p. 153.
53 See comments by M. J. Wolff, in review of Schücking: Die Charakterprobleme bei Shakespeare, Leipzig, 1919, in Englische Studien, vol. 54, p. 169. I regret not to have been able to secure a copy of Schücking's volume.
54 Cf. S. Rietschl, Reallexicon der germanischen Altertumskunde, Strassburg, 1913, sub Ehebruch.
55 Boccaccio arranges the matter thus : “… on the ensuing day Ambrogiuolo was paid in full, and Bernabo, departing Paris, betook himself to Genoa with fell intent against the lady. When he drew near the city, he would not enter therein, but lighted down a good score of miles away at a country house of his and despatched one of his servants, in whom he much trusted, to Genoa with two horses and letters under his hand, advising his wife that he had returned and bidding her come to him; and he privily charged the man, when as he should be with the lady in such place as should seem best to him, to put her to death without pity and return to him.” In the Roman de la Violette, the hero tries to kill the heroine in a wood, but is prevented by the appearance of an enormous serpent; the warning cry of his wife saves his life, and he cannot bring himself to kill her. In the Count of Poitiers, the serpent is replaced by a lion. In Florus and Jehane, with its religious coloring and rather namby-pamby hero, the killing is omitted. In the Miracle, the hero says he would put the heroine to a shameful death if he could,
In the work of the so-called “Anonymous” Italian novella-writer, the husband sends his wife to a country estate, and charges a servant to drown her. (Ohle, p. 35.)
56 Thorndike shows that Beaumont and Fletcher, in their dramatic romances, “sacrificed atmosphere, characterization, and verisimilitude in their eagerness to secure theatrical effectiveness… . . When the situations are made of chief importance, there can be no shading in characterization. All the people must be indubitably bad or indubitably good… . [Philaster] is at different moments an irresolute prince, a fervent lover, a jealous madman, and a coward who cannot fight; he is never a real individual.”
Of the Shaksperean dramatic romances, produced, as Thorndike believes, under the influence of Beaumont and Fletcher, he says, “In characterization, no less than in plots, the romances show a marked difference from Shakspere's other plays. The characters show, above all, a surprising loss of individuality. They are less consistent, less subtly drawn, less plausibly human; they are more the creatures of stage situations. Their salient characteristics are exaggerated and emphasized by descriptions placed in the mouths of other persons.” (Cf. pp. 114-137.)
57 Thorndike maintains that “in comparison with the women in the early sentimental comedies, Rosalind, Beatrice, Portia and Viola, she lacks the details of characterization, the mannerisms which remind us of real persons, and suggest the possibility of portraiture. In comparison with these heroines, an analysis of Imogen's character fails to supply really individual traits; one is thrown back on a general statement of her perfectibility.” It seems to me that this hardly does Imogen justice. The question is, however, a difficult one to settle; the evidence is for the most part intangible, depending upon the subjective impressions of the critic.
58 Cf. Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene iii, 1. 109.