[99] As he himself states in the Proesme of Théagène et Chariclée. He has occupied himself with this only, “aux heures extraordinaires, pour adoucir le travail d’autres meilleures et plus fructueuses traductions,” so as to be made “plus vif à la consideration des choses d’importance.”
[100] Je me puis plus malaysement desfaire de Plutarque; il est si universel et si plein, qu’à toutes occasions, et quelque subject extravagant que vous ayez prins, il s’ingère à vostre besongne, et vous tend une main liberale et inespuisable de richesses et d’embellissements. Il m’en faict despit, d’estre si fort exposé au pillage de ceulx qui le hantent: je ne le puis si peu raccointer, que je n’en tire cuisse ou aile (iii. 5).
[101] Mais, surtout, je lui sçais bon gré d’avoir sceu trier et choisir un livre si digne et si à propos, pour en faire présent à son pais. Nous aultres ignorants estions perdus, si ce livre ne nous eust relevé du bourbier: sa mercy nous osons à cette heure et parler et escrire; les dames en regentent les maistres d’eschole; c’est notre bresviaire (ii. 4).
[102] Je n’ay dressé commerce avecques aulcun livre solide sinon Plutarque et Senecque, où je puyse comme les Danaïdes remplissant et versant sans cesse (i. 25).
[103] Les livres qui m’y servent, c’est Plutarque depuis qu’il est françois, et Seneque (ii. iv.). Of course Montaigne knew some Greek and read it more or less. He has even his own opinion about Plutarch’s style (see page 104), and M. Faguet conjectures: “It is quite conceivable that Montaigne compared the translation with the text, and that it is a piece of mere affectation when he says he knows nothing of the Greek.” But doubtless he read the French much more habitually and easily.
[104] Seneque est plein de poinctes et saillies, Plutarque de choses; celuy là vous eschauffe plus et vous esmeut, cettuy ci vous contente davantage et vous paye mieulx; il nous guide, l’aultre nous poulse (ii. 10).
[105] Il y a dans Plutarque beaucoup de discours estendus très dignes d’estre sceus, car, à mon gré, c’est le maistre ouvrier de telle besongne; mais il y en a mille qu’il n’a que touchez simplement; et guigne seulement du doigt par où nous irons, s’il nous plaist; et se contente quelquefois de ne donner qu’une attaincte dans le plus vif d’un propos. Il les fault arracher de la, et mettre en place marchande.... Cela mesme de luy voir trier une legere action en la vie d’un homme, ou un mot qui semble ne porter cela, c’est un discours (i. 25).
[106] There were also translations in Italian, Spanish, and German; but none of them had anything like the literary importance of Amyot’s, and they were made from the Latin, not from the Greek. Of Hieronymus Boner, for instance, who published his Plutarch, Von dem Leben der allerdurchlauchtigsten Griechen und Romern (1st edition, Augsburg, 1534), it is misleading to say that he “anticipated” Amyot. Merzdorf writes of Boner’s versions of Greek authors generally (Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie) that he “turned them into German not from the original Greek but from Latin translations. Moreover, one must not expect from him any exact rendering, but rather a kind of paraphrase which he accommodates to the circumstances of the time.”
[107] See his preface, towards the close.
[108] In later days, too, Mr. Holden, who has busied himself with Plutarch, says “Amyot’s version is more scholarlike and correct than those of Langhorne or Dryden and others.”
[109] Cum jam majorem operis partem absolvissem, prodierunt Vitae Plutarchi gallicâ linguâ ab Amyoto conscriptae. Quem cum praeclaram ei libro operam impendisse ex iis qui linguae ejus sunt periti (quod mihi non datum est) et usum multis ac bonis codicibus audirem; amicorum adjutus ... officio, nonnullos, de quibus dubitabam, locos correxi; in haud paucis mea conjectura est illius interpretis suffragio comprobata (Ed. 1560). Xylander’s friends must have given him yeoman’s help, for he frequently discusses Amyot’s readings, generally adopting them; and for the whole life of Cato, he even goes so far as to avow: “Amyoti versionem secutus sum, Graecis non satis integris.”
[110] Ego quidem si dicere hîc non valeam, vitas me Plutarchi, quas plurimi sumpserunt antehac Itali Latine reddendas parum feliciter, me explicavisse unum et verius et mundius; hoc certe dicere queo liquide et recte, esse arbitratum me hoc effecisse (Epistola ad Lectorem, 1561, edition 1599).
[111] Interea cum jam polivissem atque emendassem vitas meas Plutarchi, ostendit mihi Bruxellae, ubi agebam illustrissimi principis mei legatus, secretarius regius editas elegantissime ab Amioto linguâ gallicâ vitas Plutarchi, quae exierant tamen in publicum sex menses antequam eas viderem. Hujus viri mihi eruditio et diligentia aliquid lucis nonnullis in locis attulit. Cui ego hoc testimonium dabo: non posse fieri, ut quisquam hoc tempore Plutarchum tam vertat ornate linguâ Latina quam vertit ille suâ (Ib.).
[112] Amyot’s own attitude is very similar. He cites the Latin versions in proof of the hardness of the original, and challenges a comparison of them with his own.
[113] Interea cum jam polivissem atque emendassem vitas meas Plutarchi, ostendit mihi Bruxellae, ubi agebam illustrissimi principis mei legatus, secretarius regius editas elegantissime ab Amioto linguâ gallicâ vitas Plutarchi, quae exierant tamen in publicum sex menses antequam eas viderem. Hujus viri mihi eruditio et diligentia aliquid lucis nonnullis in locis attulit. Cui ego hoc testimonium dabo: non posse fieri, ut quisquam hoc tempore Plutarchum tam vertat ornate linguâ Latina quam vertit ille suâ (Ib.).
[114] ii. 4.
[115] Mr. Holden.
[116] Espineux et ferré (ii. iv.). Perhaps ferré should be rendered difficult rather than crabbed. But even thorny and difficult are hardly words that one would apply to Plutarch. Montaigne’s meaning may perhaps be illustrated by the criticism of Paley: “Plutarch’s Greek is not like Lucian’s, fluent and easy, nor even clear.” He uses many words not in the ordinary Greek vocabulary; and he too often constructs long sentences, the thread of which separately as well as the connection cannot be traced without close attention. Hence he is unattractive as a writer.
[117] I do not know what authority Mr. Wyndham has for his statement that Amyot’s version of the Morals “fell comparatively dead.” It is, of course, much less read nowadays, but at the time it ran through three editions in less than four years (1572, 1574, 1575), and for the next half century there are frequent reprints.
[118] These, translated from the Latin collection of 1470, to which they had been contributed by Acciaiuoli, were included in Amyot’s third edition.
[119] That is, if we multiply them by eight.
[120] Most of the facts of the foregoing sketch are taken from the articles on the Norths in the Dictionary of National Biography, which, however, must not be considered responsible for the inferences.
[121] A charming reprint was edited by Mr. Joseph Jacobs in 1888.
[122] The whole question about the editions which Shakespeare read is a complicated one. Two things are pretty certain: (1) He must have used the first edition for Midsummer-Night’s Dream, which was in all likelihood composed before 1595, when the second appeared. (2) He must have used the first or second for Julius Caesar, which was composed before 1603, when the third appeared. It is more difficult to speak positively in regard to Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus. It has been argued that the former cannot have been derived from the first two editions, because in them Menas’ remark to Sextus Pompeius runs:
“Shall I cut the gables of the ankers, and make thee Lord not only of Sicile and Sardinia, but of the whole Empire of Rome besides?”
In the third edition this is altered to cables, and this is the form that occurs in Shakespeare:
But this change is a very slight one that Shakespeare might easily make for himself on the same motives that induced the editor of the Lives to make it. And though attempts have been made to prove that the fourth edition was used for Coriolanus, there are great difficulties in accepting so late a date for that play, and one phrase rather points to one of the first two editions (see Introduction to Coriolanus). If this is really so, it affects the case of Antony and Cleopatra too, for it would be odd to find Shakespeare using the first or second edition for the latter play, and the third for the earlier one. Still, such things do occur, and I think there is a tendency in those who discuss this point to confine Shakespeare over rigidly to one edition. In the twentieth century it is possible to find men reading or re-reading a book in the first copy that comes to hand without first looking up the date on the title page. Was this practice unknown in Shakespeare’s day?
[123] Themistocles.
[124] Greek Βασιλεῦσιν. Does the habitans come from the 1470 Latin version? A later emendation is ἁλιεῦσιν.
[125] Yet in these three cases, where North is certainly behind Amyot as a narrator, he is more faithful to the Greek. This is the sort of thing that makes one ask whether he was not really in closer contact with the original than he professes to have been. One remembers his similar modesty in regard to the Diall, which, nominally from the French, really made use of the Spanish as well.
[126] Yet in these three cases, where North is certainly behind Amyot as a narrator, he is more faithful to the Greek. This is the sort of thing that makes one ask whether he was not really in closer contact with the original than he professes to have been. One remembers his similar modesty in regard to the Diall, which, nominally from the French, really made use of the Spanish as well.
[127] Yet in these three cases, where North is certainly behind Amyot as a narrator, he is more faithful to the Greek. This is the sort of thing that makes one ask whether he was not really in closer contact with the original than he professes to have been. One remembers his similar modesty in regard to the Diall, which, nominally from the French, really made use of the Spanish as well.
[128] Amyot probably and North certainly has mistaken the sense. After washing and shrouding the body “ἄλλο δε oὐδὲν ἔχων ἀλλὰ περισκοπῶν”; but having nothing else to carry out the funeral rites with, such as pine wood, spices, etc., but looking about on the beach, he found, etc.
[129] A misunderstanding on North’s part where Amyot translates the Greek quite adequately. The rendering should be “a poor naked body and moreover an incomplete one,” i.e. with the head wanting.
[130] Pompeius.
[131] Themistocles.
[132] Represents πράως. Amyot leaves out ἤψατο τοῦ γενελου, caught the chin: si grand, and estant irrité, are added.
[133] Furius Camillus.
[134] Numa Pompilius.
[135] Quarterly Review, 1861.
[136] The relations of the various versions—Greek, Latin, French, and English—are illustrated by means of this speech in Appendix B.
[137] Childish simplicity does not strike one as a correct description of Plutarch’s method.
[138] Pointed out by Mr. Stokes, Chronological Order, etc. Might not some of the expressions come, however, from Virgil’s list of the portents that accompanied Caesar’s death? Compare especially “nec diri toties arsere cometae” (G. i. 488).
[139] Collier’s Shakespeare.
[140] Mr. Halliwell-Phillips’ discovery.
[141] “Brutus and his confederates came into the market place to speake unto the people, who gave them such audience, that it seemed they neither greatly reproved, nor allowed the fact: for by their great silence they showed that they were sorry for Caesar’s death and also that they did reverence Brutus.” Julius Caesar.
“When the people saw him in the pulpit, although they were a multitude of rakehells of alle sortes, and had a good will to make some sturre, yet being ashamed to doe it for the reverence they bare unto Brutus, they kept silence to heare what he would say. When Brutus began to speak they gave him quiet audience; howbeit immediately after, they shewed that they were not all contented with the murther. For when another called Cinna would have spoken and began to accuse Caesar; they fell into a great uprore among them, and marvelously reviled him.” M. Brutus.
[142] By S. Nicholson.
[143] By Mr. Wright, Clarendon Press Edition.
[144] Henry V. v. prologue 30.
[145] Calpùrnia speaks of the appearance of comets at the death of princes, but merely in a general way, not as a presage then to be observed: and there is no mention in the play of disasters in the sun or eclipses of the moon. Near the end of the Life of Caesar, Plutarch records the first two portents, and his language suggests the idea of a solar, which, for variety’s sake, might easily be changed to a lunar eclipse. “The great comet which seven nightes together was seene very bright after Caesar’s death, the eight night after was never seene more. Also the brightnes of the sunne was darkened, the which all that yeare through was very pale, and shined not out, whereby it gave but small heate.”
[146] By Mr. Verity, Julius Caesar, 198.
[147] The late Mr. H. Sidgwick, “Julius Caesar and Coriolanus,” in Esays and Addresses.
[148] Mr. Churton Collins, Studies in Shakespeare. See also Mr. Boswell Stone, Shakespere’s Holinshed.
[150] See Introduction, pages 60-61, and Appendix A.
[152] Possibly he may have found a suggestion for this in Plutarch’s expression that at the Lupercalia, Caesar was “apparelled in a triumphant manner” (Julius Caesar); or, more definitely “apparelled in his triumphing robe” (Marcus Antonius).
[153] In the Julius Caesar it is at an interview with the Senate in the market place that Caesar, in his vexation, bares his neck to the blow, and afterwards pleads his infirmity in excuse; and nothing of the kind is recorded in connection with the offer of the crown at the Lupercalia. In the Marcus Antonius the undignified exhibition, as Plutarch regards it, is referred to the Lupercalia, and the previous incident is not mentioned.
[154] Julius Caesar.
[155] Marcus Antonius.
[156] In the Lives Faonius or Phaonius, properly Favonius, a follower of Cato. (Marcus Brutus.)
[157] Cassius says at the end of the long opening scene of the series: “It is after midnight” (Act i. iii. 163). In the last scene of the group, Cinna, on his way to Caesar’s funeral, is murdered by the rioters apparently just after they have left Antony.
[158] Julius Caesar.
[159] Genée, Shakespeare’s Leben und Werke.
[160] On this passage Coleridge has the note: “This seemingly strange assertion of Brutus is unhappily verified in the present day. What is an immense army, in which the lust of plunder has quenched all the duties of the citizen, other than a horde of robbers, or differenced only as fiends from ordinarily reprobate men? Caesar supported, and was supported by, such as these;—and even so Buonaparte in our days.” On this interpretation Brutus’ charge would come to nothing more than this, that Caesar had employed large armies. I believe there is a more definite reference to one passage or possibly two in the Marcus Antonius.
“(a) Caesar’s friends that governed under him, were cause why they hated Caesar’s government ... by reason of the great insolencies and outragious parts that were committed: amongst whom Antonius, that was of greatest power, and that also committed greatest faultes, deserved most blame. But Caesar, notwithstanding, when he returned from the warres of Spayne, made no reckoning of the complaints that were put up against him: but contrarily, bicause he found him a hardy man, and a valliant Captaine, he employed him in his chiefest affayres.
“(b) Now it greved men much, to see that Caesar should be out of Italy following of his enemies, to end this great warre, with such great perill and daunger: and that others in the meane time abusing his name and authoritie, should commit such insolent and outragious parts unto their citizens. This me thinkes was the cause that made the conspiracie against Caesar increase more and more, and layed the reynes of the brydle uppon the souldiers neckes, whereby they durst boldlier commit many extorsions, cruelties, and robberies.”
Plutarch is speaking of Antony in particular, but surely this is the sort of thing that was in Shakespeare’s mind.
[161] Coleridge’s exact words, in continuation of the passage already discussed may be quoted. “How too could Brutus say that he found no personal cause, none in Caesar’s past conduct as a man? Had he not passed the Rubicon? Had he not entered Rome as a conqueror? Had he not placed his Gauls in the Senate?—Shakespeare, it may be said, has not brought these things forward.—True;—and this is just the cause of my perplexity. What character did Shakespeare mean his Brutus to be?”
The verbal answer to this is of course that personal cause refers not to Caesar but to Brutus, and means that Brutus has no private grievance; but the substance of Coleridge’s objection remains unaffected, for Brutus proceeds to take Caesar’s character up to the present time under his protection.
It may be noted, however, that Plutarch says nothing about the Gauls. If Shakespeare had known of it, it would probably have seemed to him no worse than the presence of the Bretons, “those overweening rags of France,” as Richard III. calls them, in the army of the patriotic and virtuous Richmond.
[162] See Professor Dowden, Shakespeare’s Mind and Art.
[163] Julius Caesar.
[164] Marcus Brutus.
[165] Reputation.
[166] The comparison of Dion with Brutus.
[167] All this is so obvious that it can hardly be overlooked, yet overlooked it has been, though it has frequently been pointed out. In his not very sympathetic discussion of this play, Dr. Brandes makes the truly astounding statement: “As Shakespeare conceives the situation, the Republic which Caesar overthrew, might have continued to exist but for him, and it was a criminal act on his part to destroy it.... ‘If we try to conceive to ourselves’ wrote Mommsen in 1857, ’a London with the slave population of New Orleans, with the police of Constantinople, with the non-industrial character of modern Rome, and agitated by politics after the fashion of the Paris of 1848, we shall acquire an approximate idea of the republican glory, the departure of which Cicero and his associates in their sulky letters deplore.’ Compare with this picture Shakespeare’s conception of an ambitious Caesar striving to introduce monarchy into a well-ordered republican state” (Brandes, William Shakespeare). Of course Shakespeare had not read Mommsen or any of Mommsen’s documents, save Plutarch; and if he had, neither he nor any one else of his age, was capable of Mommsen’s critical and constructive research. But considering the data that Plutarch delivered him he shows marvellous power in getting to the gist of the matter. I think we rise with a clearer idea, after reading him than after reading Plutarch, of the hopelessness and vanity of opposing the changes that Caesar represented, of the effeteness of the republican system (“Let him be Caesar!” cries the citizen in his strange recognition of Brutus’ achievement), of the chaos that imperialism alone could reduce to rule. If Shakespeare’s picture of Rome is that of “a well-ordered republican state,” one wonders what the picture of a republic in decay would be. And where does Dr. Brandes find that Shakespeare viewed Caesar’s enterprise as a criminal act?
[168] Julius Caesar.
[169] Ibid.
[170] Shakespeare, His Life, Art and Characters.
[171] Shakespeare Commentaries.
[172] Julius Caesar.
[173] Marcus Brutus.
[174] Of course the substitution of the third for the second or first person is very noticeable all through this play, and may have been due to an idea on Shakespeare’s part that such a mode of utterance suited the classical and Roman majesty of the theme. But this rather confirms than refutes the argument of the text, for the usage is exceptionally conspicuous in regard to Caesar, in whom the majesty of Rome is summed up.
[175] Compare the argument in the Phaedo, with its conclusion: “Then there may be reason in saying that a man should wait and not take his own life till God summons him.” Jowett’s Plato, Vol. I.
[176] Voltaire decorously invents a secret marriage!
[177] The comparison of Dion with Brutus.
[178] i.e. in reference to.
[179] It will be noticed that in this episode Shakespeare has altered Plutarch’s narrative in two respects. In the first place Cassius did give money to the amount of “the thirde part of his totall summe.” This is not very important, as in the play he disclaims having ever refused it. But in the second place Brutus was neither so scrupulous nor so unsuccessful in raising supplies, but had used them in a quite practical way, that Captain Mahan would thoroughly approve, in developing his sea power: “all that he could rappe and rend ... he had bestowed it in making so great a number of shippes that by meanes of them they should keepe all the sea at their commaundement.”
[180] Two objections have been made to this scene, or, rather to the whole act. The first, in Mr. Bradley’s words that it has a “tendency to drag” (Shakespearian Tragedy), is put more uncompromisingly by Mr. Baker (Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist); “[Shakespeare] produced in Julius Caesar a fourth act probably not entirely successful even in his own day”; and afterwards he refers to it as “ineffective to-day.” In view of Digges’ testimony, it is difficult to see how Mr. Baker can say that it was not entirely successful in Shakespeare’s day. As to the impression it makes now, one must largely depend on one’s own feeling and experience. Certainly I myself have never been conscious that it dragged or was ineffective, nor have I noted that it failed to stir the audience. I have never been present at a first-rate performance, but I have seen it creditably presented in Germany, England and Australia; and on every occasion it seemed to me that the quarrel scene was the most popularly successful in the play. This statement is, I believe, strictly accurate, for having Digges’ lines in my mind I was on the watch to see whether the taste of the Elizabethan coincided with the taste of a later generation.
The second criticism is that in the economy of the piece it leads to nothing, “unless,” as Mr. Bradley says, “we may hold that but for the quarrel and reconciliation, Cassius would not have allowed Brutus to overcome his objection to the fatal policy of offering battle at Philippi.” This is quite true, though the proviso is a most important one. But it does very manifestly connect with what has gone before, and gives the essence and net result of the story. We could sooner dispense with the Fifth Act than the Fourth, for the Fifth may with less injustice be described as an appendix than the Fourth as an episode. Not only is it less unique in kind, but for the most part it works out issues that can easily be foreseen and that to some extent are clearly indicated here. Of course this is not to say that it could be rejected without mutilating the play, for it works them out far more impressively than we could do in our own imaginations, even with Plutarch to help us.
[181] This explanation is offered with great diffidence, but it is the only one I can suggest for what is perhaps the most perplexing passage in the play, not even excepting the soliloquy of Brutus.
[182] What a strange effect these words are apt to produce on auditor and reader! “How true!” we say, “The prophecy is fulfilled. This is happening now.” And then the reflection comes that just because that is the case there is no prophecy and no truth in the scene; the whole is being enacted, in sport. We experience a kind of vertigo, in which we cannot distinguish the real and the illusory and yet are conscious of both in their highest potence. And this is a characteristic of all poetry, though it is not always brought so clearly before the mind. In Shakespeare something of the kind is frequent: compare the reference to the “squeaking Cleopatra” in Antony and Cleopatra, which is almost exactly parallel; compare too his favourite device of the play within the play, when we see the actors of a few minutes ago, sitting like ourselves as auditors; and thus, on the one hand their own performance seems comparatively real, but on the other there is the constant reminder that we are in their position, and the whole is merely spectacular. Dr. Brandes has some excellent remarks in this connection on Tieck’s Dramas in his Romantic School in Germany.
[183] The trait is taken from Plutarch who, after enumerating the sinister omens before Philippi, adds: “the which beganne somewhat to alter Cassius minde from Epicurus opinions.”
[184] Trivial to him, to us full of tragic meaning.
[185] Plutarch’s account of Caesar’s personal prowess in the battle with the Nervii, and of the honours decreed him by the Senate, shows why Shakespeare chose this exploit for special mention: “Had not Caesar selfe taken his shield on his arme, and flying in amongest the barbarous people, made a lane through them that fought before him; and the tenth legion also seeing him in daunger, ronne unto him from the toppe of the hill, where they stoode in battell,{note} and broken the ranckes of their enemies; there had not a Romane escaped a live that day. But taking example of Caesar’s valliantnes, they fought desperatly beyond their power, and yet could not make the Nervians flie, but they fought it out to the death, till they were all in manner slaine in the field.... The Senate understanding it at Rome, ordained that they shoulde doe sacrifice unto the goddes, and keepe feasts and solemne processions fifteene dayes together without intermission, having never made the like ordinaunce at Rome, for any victorie that ever was obteined. Bicause they saw the daunger had bene marvelous great, so many nations rising as they did in armes together against him: and further the love of the people unto him made his victorie much more famous.”
{note} battle order
[186] In Plutarch Antony treats Lepidus with studied deference.
[187] See Bradley, Shakespearian Tragedy.
[188] I have said nothing of other possible references and loans because they seem to me irrelevant or doubtful. Thus Malone drew attention to the words of Morose in Ben Jonson’s Epicoene: “Nay, I would sit out a play that were nothing but fights at sea, drum, trumpet and target.” He thought that this remark might contain ironical allusion to the battle scenes in Antony and Cleopatra, for instance the stage direction at the head of Act iii., Scene 10: “Canidius marcheth with his land army one way over the stage: and Taurus, the lieutenant of Caesar the other way. After their going in is heard the noise of a sea-fight.” But even were this more certain than it is, it would only prove that Antony and Cleopatra had made so much impression as to give points to the satirist some time after its performance: it would not help us to the date. For Epicoene belongs to 1610, and no one would place Antony and Cleopatra so late.
[189] i.e. Sin’s.
[190] Bradley, Shakespearian Tragedy.
[191] ii. iv. 44.
[192] iii. ii. 154.