Shakespeare's portrayal of the moral life

Table Of Contents

Page

Intboduction ix

Chapter

Introduction

If conduct be " three-fourths of life," or in other words if all deliberate action have a moral bearing, Shakespeare's description of the moral world is but a name for his collected works. Accordingly, since nothing that is broadly human was foreign to his mind, or failed of at least a passing notice at his hands, the title of the following study would seem to be as comprehensive as that of the professorship founded for Professor Teufelsdrockh at the University of Weiss-nicht-wo. The aim of this undertaking, however, is a modest one. Using as our material the concrete facts of life as they appear in the pages of the great dramas, we shall merely attempt to discover what light they throw upon a single group of ethical problems. Manifestly such an inquiry may be confined within definite limits.

The problems of ethics fall into two distinct classes. First, the moral life of the race as it actually exists and has existed calls for description and explanation. Starting from the phenomena of moral approval and disapproval, in other words, from the fact that certain actions are judged right and others wrong, we here ask : What is the nature

X Introduction

of the moral judgment, to what kinds of action does it attach itself, and under what conditions does it arise ? Under these few rubrics may be disposed a long series of familiar topics : the standard or standards by which conduct is judged, the nature of conscience and its mode of working, the nature and source of the consciousness of obligation, the conditions under which responsibility is imputed (the ethical side of the free-will controversy), and the relation of metaphysical and theological beliefs to morality. Others closely related, as the connection between character and happiness, and the dynamics of virtue and of crime, will naturally suggest themselves in the course of such an inquiry. In the exploration of this broad field a second set of problems soon presents itself. For the morality that is proves to be a mass of inconsistencies and in part absurdities. Accordingly the question forces itself upon us. How can we reduce the moral judgments of mankind to a consistent and reasonable system, where the word " reasonable " means that which would approve itself to a mind cognizant of and sensitive to all the facts of human experience. The first part of a complete treatise on ethics is thus in method a science, the second an art.

To the catholic mind both of these departments of inquiry are alike interesting and important. Every wise man will accept with gladness any assistance in either direction which the skilled observer of human life is able to offer him. Un-

Introduction xi

fortunately, however, the aid that Shakespeare can give us is limited to the descriptive branch of the subject. Of what he thought about the art of living — and this includes the art of judging — we have no direct and little indirect evidence. There are, indeed, certain historical romances masquerading under the name of biographies that profess to inform us what he thought and how he felt upon almost every subject of human interest. But their results are obtained by picking out from the varied deliverances of his characters those with which the novelist happens to agree. Criticism upon such a method seems superfluous. I at all events shall not attempt to use it. I shall confine myself to an account of the moral life as it is represented upon Shakespeare's stage. I shall treat his characters as if they were living beings, whose consciousness we — happy peepers and botanizers — were permitted to explore. My descriptions, of course, must be in general terms ; but the formulae in which they are presented will be mine, — objective statements, as far as possible, of what I discover in my journey through the world he has created. What thoughts arose in the dramatist's mind as he contemplated his creations thus becomes a matter with which I have nothing to do. Not merely how he criticised but also how he generalized are subjects that alike fall outside the inquiry that is here proposed.

How far these offspring of a poet's imagination resemble the men and women with whom scientific xii Introduction

ethics attempts to deal, I have in the main refrained from considering. There is as yet no sufficient concensus of experts in this field to make the subject worth discussing, although we are undoubtedly nearer the goal than we were a generation ago. At only one point has a departure from this plan seemed desirable, namely in the study of moral pathology. The reasons for making an exception in this case will appear in their proper place.

But while questions of truth and error are allowed for the most part to pass unconsidered, the following study is not intended as a mere exercise in literary interpretation. It is an attempt to lay before the reader the results of the observations of a man who was one of the most gifted students of human nature the world has ever seen. The record that he left no worker in the humanities can afford to neglect. No worker, in fact, does neglect it. But the concreteness of its form and the intermixture of irrelevant material — irrelevant from the point of view of science — which is the consequence of the motives that brought it into being, these have operated to render much it could teach us practically non-existent. For this reason it has seemed worth while to re-write that portion which deals with the moral life. In the process its beauty dies and for many people its interest entirely disappears. There may be some, however, who will care to make a systematic review of the materials which the great observer has col-

Introduction xiii

lected. In this hope the present experiment has been hazarded.

In order to get Shakespeare's powers at their best, I have confined myself as far as possible to those dramas which received their present form after the close of the year 1600, or in other words? to the works of the third and fourth periods according to the common classification. These dramas, it will be remembered, were written during the last ten, or at most twelve years of the poet's literary life, after an apprenticeship, if such we can call it, that had begun, at the very latest, as far back as 1590. It has not, indeed, proved practicable to exclude all references to the earlier works, especially the English histories. But it will be found that, where issues of importance are at stake, it is tlie four great tragedies, the Roman and Greek histories, the small group of romances, and the so-called comedies. All 's Well that Ends Well, and Measure for Measure, that supply in the main the material for our investigation.

Shakespeare's Portrayal of the Moral Life

Chapter I

The fundamental fact of the moral life is the approval and disapproval of conduct. It might therefore be expected that our first topic would be an account of the moral judgments expressly enunciated by Shakespeare's characters. Such indeed would be the prescription of logic. But the nature of the material at our disposal compels us to begin with a study of the motives in which the life of action has its source. True it is not with conduct, but with judgments upon conduct, that ethics as such has to deal, yet no absolute line of demarcation can be drawn between the two. Every action entitled to the name of voluntary is the outcome of a judgment approving it, pronouncing it an action that for some reason, or perhaps for many reasons, it is well to perform. These reasons are the motives. A study of motives is thus a study of the points of view from which conduct may be approved, and a complete enumeration of the motives, persuasive and dissuasive, operating in any given case would, therefore, reveal to us the totality of the grounds on which the judgment of the agent was passed at the moment of action. Any such enumeration might seem to involve a hopeless task on account of the multitude of the threads that enter into the fabric of even the most commonplace life. But by confining our attention to the highest types of moral endeavor we so far narrow the field that it can be explored, while at the same time we omit nothing that is really essential. At the conclusion of our inquiry, we should accordingly expect to be in possession of the data with which to construct a theory of moral judgments.

Our study of motives may fittingly begin with an examination of King Lear, that tremendous drama of struggling optimism in which are disclosed the sublimest heights and deepest abysses of human character. What inspired the humanity of Albany and the devotion of Gloucester, Edgar, and Kent ? Let us listen to the confession of that loyal servant who has more than once been pronounced the most perfect character in Shakespeare. The childish old king, thrown into a fit of petulance at the ruin of a pretty little theatrical effect through what he considers the unreasonable obstinacy of one of the actors, has just disowned his best-loved daughter and parted her patrimony between her sisters. Kent attempts for the second time to interpose, when Lear with mounting passion cries :

" Kent, on thy life, no more.

Kent. My life I never held but as a

pawn I<ear I. L

To wage against thy enemies; nor fear to

lose it, Thy safety being the motive."

"What made his master's safety his motive ? He himself tells us as he enters in disguise the palace from which but a few days before he had been driven as an exile :

" Now, banish'd Kent,

If thou canst serve where thou dost stand

condemned, , . .

I. IV. 4.

So may it come, thy master, whom thou

lovest,

Shall find thee full of labours."

"Thy master whom thou lovest!" This is the key to a devotion which did not ask that master's favor, which survived his prosperity and the integrity of his mind, — a devotion which was no mere selfish clinging to an object of affection as was Antony's passion for Cleopatra, but rather the visible expression of a spirit of self-forgetting service quickened by veneration, love, and pity. In the wild night on the heath, when the dis-

1 The text of all quotations from Shakespeare and the numbering of lines follow the Globe Edition.

guised nobleman and the fool are trying to prevail upon Lear to take refuge in the hovel, the old king turning to his companion plaintively asks, " Wilt break my heart ? " Answers Kent : " I had rather break mine own." This is not declamation, it is prophecy. For as soon as the strain was over and his charge had been brought in safety to the French camp, the summons came calling him to his long home. While recounting to Edgar Lear's wanderings " his grief grew puissant, the strings of life began to crack," and he fell tranced to the ground. The warning voice was not misunderstood. Come to bid his king and master aye good-night, he sees that master gently carried before him through the portal. He scarcely notes that with a new ruler a better era is to dawn, for his thought is fixed upon the journey he must shortly go. The end is at hand ; and soon, like the faithful fool, he will have " gone to bed at noon."

While in Kent altruism, or the spirit of service, derives its strength primarily from love, in Gloucester we find it awakened by the emotion of pity. " Alack, alack, Edmund," he says to his son after Lear has rushed out into the storm, " I like not this unnatural dealing. When I desired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house." Soon he is compelled to formulate his motives in the presence of the infuriated daughters and the Duke of Cornwall, for they have been informed by the treacherous Edmund of his final attempt to serve Lear by sending the old king to Cordelia.

Cornwall. Where hast thou sent the king? Gloucester. To Dover.

Began. Wherefore to Dover?

Gloucester. Because I would not see thy cruel nails

Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister

The sea, with such a storm as his bare head

In hell-black night endured, would have in. vii. 50.

buoy'd up, And queuch'd the stelled fires : Yet, poor old heart, he holp the heavens to rain. If wolves had at thy gate howl'd that stern time, Thou shouldst have said " Good porter, turn the key," All cruels else subscribed.

Pity, too, is the source of Albany's devotion to the cause of Lear, if we may believe the taunts of his ferocious wife. When at last he has been forced to open his eyes to the true nature of this woman, he turns upon her and tries to blast her with invective. Utterly unmoved she retorts :

''Milk-liver'd man!

That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs :

that not know'st Fools do those villains pity who are pun-

ish'd Ere they have done their mischief."

Goneril is reproaching him, it will be remembered, for delaying to take the field against the French army which has entered England to restore her father to the throne. Almost the next moment brings her new evidence of the workings of compassion. In the midst of their mutual recriminations a messenger enters bearing the information :

" The Duke of Cornwall 's dead : Slain by his servant, going to put out The other eye of Gloucester.

Albany. Gloucester's eyes !

Messenger. A servant that he bred, thrill'd

with remorse [pity], Opposed against the act, bending his sword To his great master."

It is to this same emotion that Cordelia's thought spontaneously turns as the natural restraint upon inhuman deeds :

" Had you not been their father, these white IV. vii. 30. flakes

Had challenged pity of them.

And the hard-hearted Edmund apparently shares her view of the place of this motive in the system of human incentives. For he reminds the soldier sent to kill Cordelia, " to be tenderminded does not become a sword." A study of the place of love and pity in the other plays would lead to similar results. They are not merely recognized as forces that exist; they are counted among the most important incitements to service, the most powerful and widely diffused restraints upon selfishness and passion. It Tempest i. was pity that moved Prospero to teach "• ^53. Caliban ; it was pity to the general wrong of Rome that drove from the heart of Brutus the j. c. in. i. pity for his friend ; it was pity (or hu- 165-172. manity) that moved Pisanio to disobey his master's command to murder Imogen ; and this cym. in. ii. same humanity that made Camillo at the 16-17. risk of his life and in the face of certain exile warn Polixenes of the death prepared for him w. T. ni. by his friend and host. The belief in "• ^^Sthe universality and the power of pity is attested by the fact that to it the suppliant habitually addresses his principal appeal ; so Arthur in King John, Isabella in Measure for Measure, and Marina in Pericles.

In the preceding description altruism has been represented as aroused by some strong emotion. There is, however, a calm regard for another's good which is capable of moving to action, just as the apprehension of our own good may control our conduct without the intervention of any appreciable feeling. Does Shakespeare recognize and report this fact? The answer is not easy to give. The little that can be said on the subject may best be reserved for another place.^

It will now be clear that altruism is represented by Shakespeare as one of the most important factors 1 See p. 38.

in the moral life. This suggests the question : Do his men and women, after the fashion of some well-known moralists, identify virtue with altruism, or do they recognize the pursuit of what are primarily personal goods to be legitimate or even obligatory ? Before attempting an answer, certain possible misunderstandings must be cleared from the way. It has often been asserted that there is no real conflict between altruism and egoism, that your good is my good, because what is for your best interest is for my best interest also. The data upon which this assertion rests do not concern us here ; but even if they be permitted to pass unchallenged the conclusion drawn from them involves what has been called the psychologist's fallacy. This form of muddle-headedness consists in the substitution of the point of view of the observer who is acquainted with all the relevant facts for that of the person he is observing. Manifestly if the agent believes himself to be making a sacrifice, a conflict with his egoism may actually take place. Manifestly such a person may ask himself how far the spirit of service ought to be allowed to carry him. Again, it has been urged that self-sacrifice does not represent any assignable phenomenon of human life, that what goes by that name is the identification of my own good with the good of another, the making of his good mine. The substance of this contention must be granted, but there still remains the problem : Within the area of my own good how much consideration ought to be shown for that which is my good solely because it is another's, and that which is mine independently of what the other's interests may be ? No analytical subtleties can volatilize into nothingness the world-old struggle with this perplexity.

We accordingly enter upon no barren inquiry when we study the claims of egoism against altruism as conceived by the people of Shakespeare's world. At the outset one fact emerges with unmistakable clearness. The ideals of what is due as between friend and friend, servant and master, benefitted and benefactor, and in general those who stand in some exceptionally close relation to each other, are uniformly set very high. Witness Isabella and Cordelia, Antonio, the merchant of Venice, and Coriolanus, who throws away vengeance and honor at the prayer of his mother. Witness the gruff soldier Enobarbus,who takes his life in remorse at having abandoned a master who had long forfeited all claims to his allegiance. But the obligations to service are not limited to those who can urge special claims. Camillo gives up what he most loves, and risks his life to save the life of Polixenes, a stranger and a foreigner. What he suffered in leaving his native land, a w. T. iv. self-condemned exile, is shown by the "• ^^*^- passionate longing he feels to return to Sicily, notwithstanding the brilliant position that his judgment and character had won him at the court of his new master. It is the story of a single noble deed that we read in The Winter's Tale ; but lo Shakespeare's Portrayal of Moral Life

Antonio, Cerimon, and Timon in his palmy days, are represented as passing their entire lives in acts of helpfulness and service. What these men do, they and others approve. For they are not despised by their neighbors as eccentric fools ; but rather are they looked up to with humility and reverence, as men born to show their grosser fellows a more excellent way.

Such lives need not betoken, however, a creed of complete self-abnegation. For some at least of the most altruistic characters distinctly recognize the existence of a proper limit to service. The Duke of Vienna, enumerating to Claudio the evils of life, treats as entirely legitimate the pursuit of ends having a purely personal value. In his M. for M. arraignment of the fate that ever holds m. i. 5-41. ^]jg good before our eyes but forbids us to grasp it with our hands, there is no trace of the dogma enunciated by Fichte : " Whoever thinks of his own interests as an interest at all, and desires any life and being whatever, and any selfish indulgence whatever, save in the race and for the race, he is at bottom, whatever be the good works with which he seeks to hide his misshapen form, nothing but abase, despicable, utterly wicked, and at the same time unhappy man." An explicit assertion of the rights of self occurs during the" dispute between Orlando and his older brother in As You Like It. The latter having feigned compliance with the other's demand for an education and an allowance sufficient for his proper support, Orlando replies : " I will no further

offend you than becomes me for my

good." Still more unequivocal are the words of

Rosencrantz to King Claudio :

" The single and peculiar life is bound, With all the strength and armour of the Hamlet HI.

mind, "i- H-

To keep itself from noyance."

Rosencrantz is not exactly a member of the moral elite ; but the force of what he says consists in the fact that it has the air of a commonplace, expressing not merely what people do but what all would admit they ought to do.

The principle stated in the words just quoted is often embodied in action. Isabella, — that spirit so pure that even the foul-mouthed Lucio holds her as a thing ensky'd and sainted, — Isabella declares herself willing to die but not willing to lose her soul in order to save her brother's „ 4, „

M. tor M.

life. And while this of course does not li. iv. 105- represent her real motive for refusing ^^^' the infamous offer of Angelo, it is certainly a consideration that appeals to her as reasonable. The highly idealized Henry V. — " the mirror of all Christian kings" — never thinks of waiving his claim to what has fallen to him and his heirs by gift of heaven, and washes his hands of all responsibility for the bloodshed that will follow the assertion of his right. In leading the English army into France, his point of view is not that the laws of succession have imposed upon him a duty to others which he must not permit himself to shirk ; nor is it that we owe a duty to the world at large to maintain our personal rights, as Ihering insists in his Kampf urns Recht. Henry simply argues as follows : This fruitful land of France is mine ; therefore, let the consequences to others be what they may, I am justified in possessing myself of it. Where, then, lies the limit ? The son of Henry's royal opponent, on learning of the English demands, encourages his father to resist with the words : " Self-love is not so vile a sin as self -neglecting." Henry V. This, however, is no universally accepted n. iv. 74. axiom. We find Antonio professing himself willing to make any sacrifice, however extreme, for his kinsman Bassanio. And we know his are not empty professions. Desdemona, in like manner, assures Cassio of her readiness to do more otheUo III. for him than she dare for herself. IT. 130. Amidst this diversity of opinion we meet one statement that appears to rest upon a principle which has found a wide, though by no means universal acceptance among moralists. When the Athenian senator is asked for a loan of money with which the most pressing obligations of the now bankrupt Timon may be met, he urges, by way of excuse for refusal, his own extreme necessities, and as major premise asserts : " I must not break my Timon of ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ finger." In this phrase Athens n. seems to be implicitly contained the ^' doctrine that has been formulated by

Professor Sidgwick as follows : " One is morally bound to regard the good of any other individual as much as one's own, except in so far as we judge it to be less, when impartially viewed, or less certainly knowable or attainable." ^ The fact that this maxim is used by a hypocritical ingrate as^ an excuse for the cold-hearted treatment of a former benefactor argues nothing against its value. For, as Coleridge has pointed out, some of Shakespeare's worst scoundrels give utterance to the profoundest moral truths. Since no one is represented as deliberately and with foreknowledge breaking his back to heal another's finger, after the manner of Maggie Tulliver, we cannot tell how such a sacrifice would have been regarded. At all events the limits set by this principle are those which the moral tact of Isabella teaches her to respect. When asked by Angelo how much she would do to save the life for which she pleads, the instant reply is : " As much for my poor brother as myself." The doctrine that in cases of conflicting jj f^j ji interests duty goes with the greater need rv. iv. 99. can thus claim at least one high-minded and enlightened adherent.

Which if any of these different views represents the dramatist's own position it is unnecessary to ask, even were it possible to answer. What is of interest is the fact that we find mirrored in Shakespeare's world the chaos of opinion on this subject which prevails in the society by which we are

1 The Methods of Ethics ; Fourth Edition, p. 382.

surrounded, and at the same time a wide-spread recognition that the moral ideal demands a balance, a mean between absolute altruism and absolute egoism.

Great as the emphasis placed upon self-forgetfulness may sometimes be, there is one personal good the desire for which is represented as not merely legitimate under all circumstances, but also as a normal constituent of the ideal character. This good is honor. The Trojan Hector, the English Hotspur, the courtier Camillo, the merchant Antonio, the artless Desdemona, and Cato's heroic daughter, each could say with Brutus : " I love the name of honour more than I fear death." He who is dominated by such a spirit, provided he has at the same time a just sense of what it demands, Henry VIII. can do no wrong. " That you would I. ii. 14. love yourself, and in that love not unconsider'd leave your honour," ^ is for this reason the point of the petition which Queen Katharine carries to her royal husband in behalf of his oppressed subjects. She believes that if the monarch's sense of honor can be actively enlisted her cause is safe.

Honor is a somewhat ambiguous term. But the meaning it carries in Shakespeare's plays will appear with perfect clearness if we examine the use of the corresponding verb. This connotes, we find, the two closely allied emotions of admiration and

^ This passage occurs in a part of the play commonly assigned to Shakespeare.

respect. A sufficient example is the passage in Cymbeline, where the description of the virtues and excellences of Posthumus by one of his friends calls forth the exclamation on the part of his companion, " I honour him even out of your report." In agreement with this usage, the love of honor will signify either a desire for the respect and admiration of others or a desire for the possession of those elements or traits of character which are the objects of respect and admiration.

In the plays, as in real life, these two closely allied impulses are for the most part inextricably intertwined. Occasionally, however, one is discoverable in separation from the other. It is at honor in the exclusive sense of the admiration of his fellowmen that Falstaff is girding in his famous monologue on the eve of the battle of j jj^^ jy Shrewsbury. But while the fat knight v. i. 127- will have none of it, the desire for a good name is pictured as a dominant force in every generous nature. Thus Enobarbus, debating whether to remain true to his defeated master Antony, strengthens for the moment his failing loyalty by the reflection

" He that can endure

To follow with allegiance a fall'n lord . « « ttt ° A. &< c. in.

xiii. 43. earns a place i' the story."

Potent as is the desire for the applause accompanying elevation of character, it yields precedence in the highest representatives of the race to the desire for the applauded thing itself. The nature of the spell which character exerts upon the noble mind can be indicated with exactness. For if that quality in virtue of which an object evokes admiration may properly be called beauty, then we may maintain with him of " the pasteboard and the battered hack " : " There are two kinds of beauty, the beauty of the body, and the beauty of the soul." To this aspect of the moral life, Shakespeare's people, true children of the Renaissance, were as sensitive as the Greeks. References to actions or to the character behind them as comely, fair, or beautiful, or on the other hand as foul or ugly, recur constantly ; and the phrase Ka\b<i Kaya- 66<; — impressive witness of the completeness with which for the Greek mind the conceptions of the good and the beautiful were interwoven — actually meets us in English dress in the well-known passage from Hamlet :

"That monster, custom ... is angel yet ni. iv. 161. That to the use of actions fair and good

He likewise gives a frock or livery,

That aptly is put on."

How literally these epithets may be interpreted is shown to demonstration by the words in which the Duke of Venice dismisses Desdemona's father from the council chamber :