Section III Emblems for Mythological Characters.
ECHO has not more voices than Mythology has transmutations, eccentricities, and cunningly devised fancies,—and every one of them has its tale or its narrative—its poetic tissues woven of such an exquisite thinness that they leave no shadows where they pass. The mythologies of Egypt and of Greece, of Etruria and of Rome, in all their varying phases of absolute fiction and substantial truth, perverted by an unguarded imagination, were the richest mines that the Emblem writers attempted to work; they delighted in the freedom with which the fancy seemed invited to rove from gem to gem, and luxuriated in the many forms into which their fables might diverge. Now they touched upon Jove’s thunder, or on the laurel for poets’ brows, which the lightning’s flash could not harm—then on the beauty and gracefulness of Venus, or on the doves that fluttered near her car;—Dian’s severe strictness supplied them with a theme, or Juno with her queenly birds; and they did not disdain to tell of Bacchus and the vine, of Circe, and Ulysses, and the Sirens. The slaying of Niobe’s children, Actæon seized by his hounds, and Prometheus chained to the rock, Arion rescued by the dolphin, and Thetis at the tomb of Achilles,—these and many other myths and tales of antiquity grew up in the minds of Emblematists, self-sown—ornaments, if not utilities.
Though the great epic poems are inwrought throughout with the mosaic work of fables that passed for divine, and of exploits that were almost more than human, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, printed as early as 1471, and of which an early French edition, in 1484, bears the title La Bible des poetes, may be regarded as the chief storehouse of mythological adventure and misadventure. The revival of literature poured forth the work in various forms and languages. Spain had her translation in 1494, and Italy in 1497; and as Brunet informs us (vol. iv. c. 277), to another of Ovid’s books, printed in Piedmont before 1473, there was this singularly incongruous subscription, “Laus Deo et Virgini Mariæ Gloriosissimæ Johannes Glim.” Caxton, in England, led the way by printing Ovid’s Metamorphoses in 1480, which Arthur Golding may be said to have completed in 1567 by his English Metrical Version.
Thus everywhere was the storehouse of mythology open; and of the Roman fabulist the Emblem writers, as far as they could, made a Book of Emblems, and often into their own works transported freely what they had found in his.
And for a poet of no great depth of pure learning, but of unsurpassed natural power and genius, like Shakespeare, no class of books would attract his attention and furnish him with ideas and suggestions so readily as the Emblem writers of the Latin and Teutonic races. “The eye,” which he describes, “in a fine phrensy rolling,” would suffice to take in at a single glance many of the pictorial illustrations which others of duller sensibilities would only master by laborious study; and though undoubtedly, from the accuracy with which Shakespeare has depicted ancient ideas and characters, and shown his familiarity with ancient customs, usages, and events, he must have read much and thought much, or else have thought intuitively, it is a most reasonable conjecture that the popular literature of his times—the illustrated Emblem-books, which made their way of welcome among the chief nations of middle, western, and southern Europe—should have been one of the fountains at which he gained knowledge. Nature, indeed, forms the poet, and his storehouses of materials on which to work are the inner and outer worlds, first of his own consciousness, and next of heaven and earth spread before him. But as a portion of this latter world we may name the appliances and results of artistic skill in its delineations of outward forms, and in the fixedness which it gives to many of the conceptions of the mind. To the artist himself, and to the poet not less than to the artist, the pictured shapes and groupings of mythological or fabulous beings are most suggestive, both of thoughts already embodied there, and also of other thoughts to be afterwards combined and expressed.
Hence would the Emblem-books, on some of which the foremost painters and engravers had not disdained to bestow their powers, become to poets especially fruitful in instruction. A proverb, a fable, an old world deity is set forth by the pencil and the graving tool, and the combination supplies additional elements of reflection. Thus, doubtless, did Shakespeare use such works; and not merely are some of his thoughts and expressions in unison with them, but moulded and modified by them.
For much indeed of his mythological lore he was indebted to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, or, rather, I should say, to “Ovid’s Metamorphoses translated out of Latin in English metre by Arthur Golding, gent. A worke very pleasaunt and delectable; 4to London 1565.” That he did attend to Golding’s couplet,—
“With skill, heed, and judgment, thys work must be red,
For els too the reader it stands in small stead,”—
will appear from some few instances; as,—
“Thy promises are like Adonis’ gardens
That one day bloom’d, and fruitful were the next.”—
1 Hen. VI., act i. sc. 6, l. 6.
“Apollo flies and Daphne holds the chase,
The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tiger.”—
Midsummer Night’s Dream, act ii. sc. 1, l. 231.
“We still have slept together,
Rose at an instant, learn’d, play’d, eat together,
And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable.”
As You Like It, act i. sc. 3, l. 69.
“Approach the chamber and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon.”
Macbeth, act ii. sc. 3, l. 67.
“I’ll have no worse a name than Jove’s own page;
And therefore look you call me Ganymede.”
As You Like It, act i. sc. 3, l. 120.
and,—
“O Proserpina,
For the flowers now, that frighted thou let’st fall
From Dis’s waggon! daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim
But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes
Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phœbus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack
To make you garlands of; and my sweet friend
To strew him o'er and o'er!”
Winter’s Tale, act iv. sc. 4, l. 116.
Yet from the Emblem writers as well he appears to have derived many of his mythological allusions and expressions; we may trace this generally, and with respect to some of the Heathen Divinities,—to several of the ancient Heroes and Heroines, we may note that they supply him with most beautiful personifications.
Generally, as in Troilus and Cressida (act ii. sc. 3, l. 240), the expression “bull-bearing Milo” finds its device in the Emblemata of Lebeus Batillius, edition Francfort, 1596, where we are told that “Milo by long custom in carrying the calf could also carry it when it had grown to be a bull.” In Romeo and Juliet (act ii. sc. 5, l. 8) the lines,—
“Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love
And therefore hath the wind swift Cupid wings.”
We have the scene pictured in Corrozet’s Hecatomgraphie, Paris, 1540, leaf 70, with, however, a very grand profession of regard for the public good,—
“Ce n’est pas cy Cupido ieune enfant
Que vous voier au carre triumphant,
Mais c’est amour lequel tiẽt en sa corde
Tous les estatz en grãd paix & cõcorde.”
In Richard II.(act iii. sc. 2, l. 24) Shakespeare seems to have in view the act of Cadmus, when he sowed the serpent’s teeth,—
“This earth shall have a feeling and these stones
Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king
Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms.”
And the device which emblematizes the fact occurs in Symeoni’s abbreviation of the Metamorphoses into the form of Italian Epigrams (edition Lyons, 1559, device 41, p. 52).
And lastly, in 3 Henry VI. (act v. sc. 1, l. 34), from a few lines of dialogue between Warwick and King Edward, we read,—
“War. ’Twas I that gave the kingdom to thy brother.
K. Edw. Why then ’tis mine, if but by Warwick’s gift.
War. Thou art no Atlas for so great a weight;
And weakling, Warwick takes his gift again.”
But a better comment cannot be than is found in Giovio’s “Dialogve,” edition Lyons, 1561, p. 129, with Atlas carrying the Globe of the Heavens, and with the motto, “Svstinet nec fatiscit,”—He bears nor grows weary.
The story of Jupiter and Io is presented in the Emblem-books by Symeoni, 1561, and by the Plantinian edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Antwerp, 1591, p. 35. From the latter, were it needed, we could easily have added a pictorial illustration to the Taming of the Shrew (Induction, sc. 2, l. 52),—
“We'll show thee Io as she was a maid
And how she was beguiled and surprised,
As lively painted as the deed was done.”
The Antony and Cleopatra (act ii. sc. 7, l. 101, vol. ix. p. 60), in one part, presents the banquet, or, rather, the drinking bout, between Cæsar, Antony, Pompey, and Lepidus, “the third part of the world.” Enobarbus addresses Antony,—
“Eno. [To Antony.] Ha, my brave emperor!
Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals,
And celebrate our drink?
Pom. Let’s ha’t, good soldier.
Ant. Come, let’s all take hands,
Till that the conquering wine hath steep’d our sense
In soft and delicate Lethe.
Eno. All take hands.
Make battery to our ears with the loud music:
The while I’ll place you: then the boy shall sing;
The holding every man shall bear as loud
As his strong sides can volley.
[Music plays, Enobarbus places them hand in hand.
The Song.
“Come, thou monarch of the vine,
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!
In thy fats our cares be drown’d,
With thy grapes our hairs be crown’d:
Cup us, till the world go round,
Cup us, till the world go round!”
Now, the figures in Alciat, in Whitney, in the Microcosmos,[127] and especially in Boissard’s “Theatrvm Vitæ Humanæ,” ed. Metz, 1596, p. 213, of a certainty suggest the epithets “plumpy Bacchus” “with pink eyne,” a very chieftain of “Egyptian Bacchanals.” This last depicts the “monarch of the vine” approaching to mellowness.
The Latin stanzas subjoined would, however, not have suited Enobarbus and the roistering triumvirs of the world,—
“Suave Dei munus vinum est: hominumque saluti
Conducit: præsit dummodò sobrietas.
Immodico sed si tibi proluat ora Lyæo,
Pro dulci potas tetra aconita mero.”
i.e.
“Wine is God’s pleasant gift, and for men’s health
Conduces, when sobriety presides;
But if excessive drained Lyæan wealth,
For liquor sweet black aconite abides.”
The phrase, “rempli de vin dont son visage est teint,” in “Le Microcosme,” Lyons, 1562, suggests the placing the stanzas in which it occurs, in illustration of Shakespeare’s song; they are,—
“Le Dieu Bacchus d’ordinaire on depeint
Ayant en main vn chapelet de lierre,
Tenant aussi vne couppe ou vn verre
Rempli de vin dont son visage est teint.
Des deux costes son chef on void aislé,
Et pres de luy d’vne pasture belle
Le genereux Pegasus à double aisle
Se veut guinder vers le ciel estoilé.”
In ſtatuam Bacchi.
Dialogismvs.
XXV.
It may give completion to this sketch if we subjoin the figured Bacchus of Alciat (edition Antwerp, 1581, p. 113), and present the introductory lines,—
“Bacche pater quis te mortali lumine nouit,
Et docta effinxit quis tua membra manu?
Praxiteles, qui me rapientem Gnossida vidit,
Atque illo pinxit tempore, qualis eram.”
Of Alciat’s 36 lines, Whitney, p. 187, gives the brief yet paraphrastic translation,—
“The timelie birthe that Semele did beare,
See heere, in time howe monstêrous he grewe:
With drinkinge muche, and dailie bellie cheare,
His eies weare dimme, and fierie was his hue:
His cuppe, still full: his head, with grapes was croun’de;
Thus time he spent with pipe, and tabret sounde.[128]
Which carpes all those, that loue to much the canne,
And dothe describe theire personage, and theire guise:
For like a beaste, this doth transforme a man,
And makes him speake that moste in secret lies;
Then, shunne the sorte that bragge of drinking muche,
Seeke other frendes, and ioyne not handes with suche.”
On the same subject we may refer to Love’s Labour’s Lost (act iv. sc. 3, l. 308, vol. ii. p. 151), to the long discourse or argument by Biron, in which he asks,—
“For where is any author in the world
Teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye?”
The offensiveness of excess in wine is then well set forth (l. 333),—
“Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible,
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails;
Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.”
On these words the best comment are two couplets from Whitney (p. 133), to the sentiment, Prudentes vino abstinent,—“The wise abstain from wine.”
Not less degrading and brutalising than the goblets of Bacchus are the poisoned cups of the goddess Circe. Her fearful power and enchantments form episodes in the 10th book of the Odyssey, in the 7th of the Æneid, and in the 14th of the Metamorphoses. So suitable a theme for their art is not neglected by the Emblem writers. Alciat adopts it as a warning against meretricious allurements (edition 1581, p. 184),—
Adopting another motto, Homines voluptatibus transformantur,—“Men are transformed by pleasures,”—Whitney (p. 82) yet gives expression to Alciat’s idea,—
“See here Vlisses men, transformed straunge to heare:
Some had the shape of Goates, and Hogges, some Apes, and Asses weare.
Who, when they might haue had their former shape againe,
They did refuse, and rather wish’d, still brutishe to remaine.
Which showes those foolishe sorte, whome wicked loue dothe thrall,
Like brutishe beastes do passe theire time, and haue no sence at all.
And thoughe that wisedome woulde, they shoulde againe retire,
Yet, they had rather Circes serue, and burne in theire desire.
Then, loue the onelie crosse, that clogges the worlde with care,
Oh stoppe your eares, and shutte your eies, of Circes cuppes beware.”
The striking lines from Horace (Epist. i. 2) are added,—
“Sirenum voces, & Circes pocula nosti:
Quæ si cum sociis stultus, cupidusq’ bibisset,
Sub domina meretrice fuisset turpis, & excors,
Vixisset canis immundus, vel amica luto sus.”
i.e.
“Of Sirens the voices, and of Circe the cups thou hast known:
Which if, with companions, anyone foolish and eager had drunk,
Under a shameless mistress he has become base and witless,
Has lived as a dog unclean, or a sow in friendship with mire.”
Circe and Ulysses are also briefly treated of in The Golden Emblems of Nicholas Reusner, with Stimmer’s plates, 1591, sign C. v.
Bellua dira libido
Pulcra facit Circe meretrix excordia corda:
Fortis Vlyſseâ, qui ſapit, arte domat.
Ins Bieh verzäubert Circe vil,
Schlägt hurn von sich, mer weiß sein will.
Reusner (edition 1581, p. 134), assuming that “Slothfulness is the wicked Siren,” builds much upon Virgil and Horace, as may be seen from the epithets he employs. We give only a portion of his Elegiacs, and the English of them first,—
“Through various chances, through so many dangerous things,
While again and again the Ithacan pursues the long ways:
The voices of Sirens, and of Circe the kingdoms he forsakes:
Nor does the bland Atlantis his journey retard.
But as Circe to his companions supplies the potations foul,
Witless and shameless this becomes a sow and that a dog.”
Now, Shakespeare’s allusions to Circe are only two. The first, in the Comedy of Errors (act v. sc. 1, l. 269, vol. i. p. 455), when all appears in inextricable confusion, and Antipholus of Ephesus demands justice because of his supposed wrongs. The Duke Solinus in his perplexity says,—
“Why what an intricate impeach is this!
I think you all have drunk of Circe’s cup.”
The second, in 1 Henry VI. (act v. sc. 3, l. 30, vol. v. p. 86). On fighting hand to hand with the Maid of Orleans, and taking her prisoner, the Duke of York, almost like a dastard, reproaches and exults over her noble nature,—
“Damsel of France I think, I have you fast:
Unchain your spirits now with spelling charms
And try if they can gain you liberty.
A goodly prize, fit for the devil’s grace!
See, how the ugly witch doth bend her brows,
As if, with Circe, she would change my shape!”
So closely connected with Circe are the Sirens of fable that it is almost impossible to treat of them separately. As usual, Alciat’s is the Emblem-book (edition 1551) from which we obtain the illustrative print and the Latin stanzas.
Abſque alis volucres, & cruribus abſque puellas,
Roſtro abſq́₃que, & piſces, qui tamen ore canant:
Quis putet eſſe vllos? iungi hæc natura negauit
Sirenes fieri ſed potuiſſe docent.
Illicitum eſt mulier, quæ in piſcem deſinit atrum,
Plurima quòd ſecum monſtra libido vehit.
Aſpectu, verbis, animi candore, trahuntur,
Parthenope, Ligia, Leucoſiaq́₃que viri.
Has muſæ explumant, has atque illudit Vlyſſes.
Scilicet eſt doctis cum meretrice nihil.
It is Whitney who provides the poetic comment (p. 10),—
“Withe pleasaunte tunes, the Syrenes did allure
Vlisses wise, to listen to theire songe:
But nothinge could his manlie harte procure,
Hee sailde awaie, and scap’d their charming stronge,
The face, he lik’de, the nether parte, did loathe:
For womans shape, and fishes had they bothe.
Which shewes to vs, when Bewtie seekes to snare
The carelesse man, whoe dothe no daunger dreede,
That he shoulde flie, and shoulde in time beware,
And not on lookes, his fickle fancie feede:
Such Mairemaides liue, that promise onelie ioyes:
But hee that yeldes, at lengthe him selffe distroies.”
The Dialogue, from the Comedy of Errors (act iii. sc. 2, lines 27 and 45, vol. i. pp. 425, 6), between Luciana and Antipholus of Syracuse, maintains,—
“’Tis holy sport, to be a little vain,
When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife;”
and the remonstrance urges,—
“O train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
To drown me in thy sister flood of tears:
Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote:
Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
And, as a bed I'll take them, and there lie;
And, in that glorious supposition, think
He gains by death that hath such means to die.”
And in the Titus Andronicus (act ii. sc. 1, l. 18, vol. vi. p. 451), Aaron, the Moor, resolves, when speaking of Tamora his imperial mistress,—
“Away with slavish weeds and servile thoughts!
I will be bright, and shine in pearl and gold,
To wait upon this new-made empress.
To wait, said I? to wanton with this queen,
This goddess, this Semiramis, this nymph.
This siren, that will charm Rome’s Saturnine,
And see his shipwreck and his commonweal’s.”[129]
To recommend the sentiment that “Art is a help to nature,” Alciatus (edition 1551, p. 107) introduces the god Mercury and the goddess Fortune,—
Sambucus takes up the lyre of some Emblem Muse and causes Mercury to strike a similar strain to the saying, “Industry corrects nature.”
The god is mending a broken or an imperfect musical instrument, a lyrist is playing, and a maiden dancing before him. Whitney thus performs the part of interpreter (p. 92),—
“The Lute, whose sounde doth most delighte the eare
Was caste aside, and lack’de bothe striges, and frettes:
Whereby, no worthe within it did appeare,
Mercvrivs came, and it in order settes:
Which being tun’de, such Harmonie did lende,
That Poëttes write, the trees theire toppes did bende.
Euen so, the man on whome dothe Nature froune,
Wereby, he liues dispis’d of euerie wighte,
Industrie yet, maie bringe him to renoume,
And diligence, maie make the crooked righte:
Then haue no doubt, for arte maie nature helpe.
Thinke howe the beare doth forme her vgly whelpe.”
The cap with wings, and the rod of power with serpents entwined, are almost the only outward signs of which Shakespeare avails himself in his descriptions of Mercury, so that in this instance there is very little correspondence of idea or of expression between him and our Emblem authors. Nevertheless, we produce it for what it is worth.
In King John (act iv. sc. 2, l. 170, vol. iv. p. 67), the monarch urges Falconbridge’s brother Philip to inquire respecting the rumours that the French had landed,—
“Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.
O, let me have no subject enemies,
When adverse foreigners affright my towns
With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!
Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels
And fly like thought from them to me again.”
One of Shakespeare’s gems is the description which Sir Richard Vernon gives to Hotspur of the gallant appearance of “The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales” (1 Henry IV., act iv. sc. 1, l. 104, vol. iv. p. 318),—
“I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm’d,
Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.”
The railer Thersites (Troilus and Cressida, act ii. sc. 3, l. 9, vol. vi. p. 168) thus mentions our Hermes,—
“O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove the king of gods; and Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus.”
And centering the good qualities of many into one, Hamlet (act iii. sc. 4, l. 55, vol. viii. p. 111) sums up to his mother the perfections of his murdered father,—
“See what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself,
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal
To give the world assurance of a man.”
Personifications, or, rather, deifications of the powers and properties of the natural world, and of the influences which presided over them, belong especially to the ancient Mythology. Of these, there is one from the Emblem writers decidedly claiming our notice, I may say, our admiration, because of its essential truth and beauty;—it is the Personification of Fortune, or, as some writers name the goddess, Occasion and Opportunity; and it is highly poetical in all its attributes.
From at least four distinct sources in the Emblem-books of the sixteenth century, Shakespeare might have derived the characteristics of the goddess; from Alciat, Perriere, Corrozet, and Whitney.
Perriere’s “Theatre des Bons Engins,” Paris, 1539, presents the figure with the stanzas of old French here subjoined,—
“Qvel est le nõ de la presenté̩[e/]̩ image?
Occasion ce nõme pour certain.
Qui fut l’autheur? Lysipus fist l’ouurage:
Et que tient ellé̩[e/]̩? vng rasoir en sa main.
Pourquoi? pourtãtque tout trâche souldain.
Ellé̩[e/]̩ a cheueulx deuât & non derriere?
Cest pour mõstrer quelle tourne ẽ arriere
Sõ fault le coup quãd on la doibt tenir
Aulx talons a dis esles? car barriere
(Quellesque soit) ne la peult retenir.”
These French verses may be accepted as a translation of the Latin of Alciat, on the goddess Opportunity; as may be seen, she is portrayed standing on a wheel that is floating upon the waves; and as the tide rises, there are apparently ships or boats making for the shore. The figure holds a razor in the right hand, has wings upon the feet, and abundance of hair streaming from the forehead.
Whitney’s English lines (p. 181) sufficiently express the meaning, both of the French and of the Latin stanzas,—
“What creature thou? Occasion I doe showe.
On whirling wheele declare why doste thou stande?
Bicause, I still am tossed too, and froe.
Why doest thou houlde a rasor in thy hande?
That men maie knowe I cut on euerie side,
And when I come, I armies can deuide.
But wherefore hast thou winges vppon thy feete?
To showe, how lighte I flie with little winde.
What meanes longe lockes before? that suche as meete,
Maye houlde at firste, when they occasion finde.
Thy head behinde all balde, what telles it more?
That none shoulde houlde, that let me slippe before.
Why doest thou stande within an open place?
That I maye warne all people not to staye,
But at the firste, occasion to imbrace,
And when shee comes, to meete her by the waye.
Lysippus so did thinke it best to bee,
Who did deuise mine image, as you see.”
The correspondent part to the thought contained in these three writers occurs in the Julius Cæsar (act iv. sc. 3, l. 213, vol. vii. p. 396), where Brutus and Cassius are discussing the question of proceeding to Philippi and offering battle to “young Octavius and Marc Antony;” it is decided by the argument which Brutus urges with much force,—
“Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe:
The enemy increaseth every day;
We, at the height, are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”
These lines, we may observe, are an exact comment on Whitney’s text; there is the “full sea,” on which Fortune is “now afloat;” and people are all warned, “at the first occasion to embrace,” or “take the current when it serves.”
The “images,” too, of Fortune and of Occasion in Corrozet’s “Hecatomgraphie,” Embs. 41 and 84, are very suggestive of the characteristics of the “fickle goddess.”
Fortune is standing upright upon the sea; one foot is on a fish, the other on a globe; and in the right hand is a broken mast. Occasion is in a boat and standing on a wheel; she has wings to her feet, and with her hands she holds out a swelling sail; she has streaming hair, and behind her in the stern of the boat Penitence is seated, lamenting for opportunities lost. The stanzas to “Occasion” are very similar to those of other Emblem writers; and we add, therefore, only the English of the verses to “Fortune,”—The Image of Fortune.
“A strange event our Fortune is,
Unlocked for, sudden as a shower;
Never then, worldling! give to her
Right over thee to wield her power.”
A series of questions follow,—
“Tell me, O fortune, for what end thou art holding the broken mast wherewith thou supportest thyself? And why also is it that thou art painted upon the sea, encircled with so long a veil? Tell me too why under thy feet are the ball and the dolphin?”
As in the answers given by Whitney, there is abundant plainness in Corrozet,—
“It is to show my instability, and that in me there is no security. Thou seest this mast broken all across,—this veil also puffed out by various winds,-beneath one foot, the dolphin amid the waves; below the other foot, the round unstable ball;—I am thus on the sea at a venture. He who has made my portraiture wishes no other thing to be understood than this, that distrust is enclosed beneath me and that I am uncertain of reaching a safe haven;—near am I to danger, from safety ever distant: in perplexity whether to weep or to laugh,—doubtful of good or of evil, as the ship which is upon the seas tossed by the waves, is doubtful in itself where it will be borne. This then is what you see in my true image, hither and thither turned without security.”
A description, very similar to this, occurs in the dialogue between Fluellen, a Welsh captain, and “an aunchient lieutenant” Pistol (Henry V., act iii. sc. 6, 1. 20, vol. iv. P. 543),—
“ Pist. Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours:
The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.
Flu. Ay, I praise God; and I have merited some love at his hands.
Pist. Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart.
And of buxom valour, hath, by cruel fate,
And giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel,
That goddess blind,[130]
That stands upon the rolling, restless stone—
Flu. By your patience, Aunchient Pistol, Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation: and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls: in good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description of it: Fortune is an excellent moral.”
Fortune on the sphere, or “rolling, restless stone,” is also well pictured in the “ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ,” editions 1579 and 1584. The whole device is described in the French version,—
“L’oiseau de Paradis est de telle nature
Qu’en nul endroit qui soit on ne le void iucher,
Car il n’a point de pieds, & ne peut se rucher
Ailleurs qu’en l’air serein dont il prend nourriture.
En cest oiseau se void de Fortune l’image,
En laquelle n’y a sinon legreté:
Iamais son cours ne fut egal & arresté,
Mais tousiours incertain inconstant & volage.
Pour la quelle raison on souloit la pourtraire,
Tenant vn voile afin d’aller au gré du vent,
Des aisles aux costez pour voler bien auant,
Ayant les pieds coupez, estant sur vne sphære;
Et pourtant cestuy la qui se fie en Fortune,
Au lieu de fier au grand Dieu souuerain,
Est bien maladuisé, & se monstre aussi vain
Que celuy qui bastit sur le dos de Neptune.”
The ideas of the Emblematists respecting the goddess “Occasion” are also embodied by Shakespeare two or three times. Thus on receiving the evil tidings of his mother’s death and of the dauphin’s invasion, King John (act iv. sc. 2, l. 125, vol. iv, p. 65) exclaims,—
“Withhold thy speed, dreadful Occasion!
O make a league with me, till I have pleased
My discontented peers!”
In 2 Henry IV. (act iv. sc. 1, l. 70, vol. iv. p. 431) the Archbishop of York also says,—
“We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforced from our most quiet there
By the rough torrent of occasion.”
Most beautiful too, and forcible are the stanzas on Occasion, or Opportunity from Lucrece (lines 869–882, vol. ix. p. 515),—
“Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring;
Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers;
The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing;
What virtue breeds iniquity devours:
We have no good that we can say is ours
But ill-annexed Opportunity
Or kills his life or else his quality.
O Opportunity, thy guilt is great!
’Tis thou that executes! the traitor’s treason;
Thou set’st the wolf where he the lamb may get;
Whoever plots the sin, thou point’st the season;
’Tis thou that spurn’st at right, at law, at reason,
And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,
Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.”[131]
Very appropriately in illustration of these and other passages in Shakespeare may we refer to John David’s work, “Occasio arrepta neglecta” (4to, Antwerp, 1605),—Opportunity seized or neglected. It contains twelve curiously beautiful plates by Theodore Galle, showing the advantages of seizing the Occasion, the disadvantages of neglecting it. We choose an example, it is Schema 7, cap. 1, p. 117. (See Plate XII.)
“While Time is passing onward men keep Occasion back by seizing the hair on her forehead.”
Various speakers are introduced,—
“Time. Now the need is to visit other climes of earth
And other youths. Ye warned then, bid farewell.
B. What this heat of sudden flight?
C. If flight indeed at length
For thee is fix’d, her swift wings let the bald goddess
At least rest here.
Occasion. Why to no purpose words in air
Waste ye? hence elsewhere, no delay, I go; farewell.
E. Should she flee? rather her scattered locks in front
Seize hold of.
Occasion. Alas! freely I follow, at your own homes
Will tarry, till in just measure I prolong my stay.
Faith. I praise your spirit, for by friendly force the goddess
Rejoices to be compelled.”
The line, “her scattered locks in front seize hold of,” has its parallel in Othello (act iii. sc. 1, l. 47, vol. viii. p. 505),—
“he protests he loves you,
And needs no other suitor but his likings
To take the safest occasion by the front
To bring you in again.”
Classical celebrities, whether hero or heroine, wrapt round with mystery, or half-developed into historical reality, may also form portion of our Mythological Series.
The grand character in Æschylus, Prometheus Bound, is depicted by at least four of the Emblematists. The hero of suffering is reclining against the rock on Caucasus, to which he had been chained; a vulture is seated on his broad chest and feeding there. Alciat’s Emblem, from the Lyons edition of 1551, or Antwerp, 1581, number 102, has the motto which reproves men for seeking the knowledge which is beyond them: Things which are above us, are nothing to us,—they are not our concern. The whole fable is a warning.
Similarly as a dissuasive from vain curiosity, Anulus, in his “Picta Poesis” (Lyons, 1555, p. 90), sets up the notice,—
The device is almost the same with Alciat's,—the stanzas, however, are a little different,—
“Forbear to inquire the secrets of God, and what heaven may be.
Nor be wise more than man ought to be wise.
Bound on Caucasian rock this does Prometheus warn,
Scrutator of heaven and thief in the fire of Jove.
His heart the voracious Eagle gnaws in ever reviving wound,
Material sufficient this for all his penalties.”—
“As for Prometheus pain gnaws his heart the bosom within,
So is pain the eagle that consumes the heart.”
The “Microcosme,” first published in 1579, fol. 5, celebrates in French stanzas Prometheus and his cruel destiny; a fine device accompanies the emblem, representing him bound not to Caucasus, but to the cross.
“Promethee s’ estant guindé iusques aux cieux
Pour desrober le feu des redoubables Dieux,
Pour retribution de ceste outrecuidance
Fut par eux poursuiui d’une rude vengeance.
Il fut par leur decret à la croix attaché,
La ou pour expier deuenant son peché,
L'Aigle de Iupiter le becquetoit sans cesse,
Si que ce patient estoit en grand oppressé.”
But Reusner’s Emblems (bk. i. Emb. 27, p. 37, edition 1581), and Whitney’s (p. 75), adopt the same motto, O vita misero longa,—“O life, how long for the wretched.” The stanzas of the latter may be accepted as being in some degree representative of those of the former,—
“To Caucasus, behoulde Promethevs chain’de,
Whose liuer still, a greedie gripe dothe rente:
He neuer dies, and yet is alwaies pain’de,
With tortures dire, by which the Poëttes ment,
That hee, that still amid misfortunes standes,
Is sorrowes slaue, and bounde in lastinge bandes.
For, when that griefe doth grate vppon our gall,
Or surging seas, of sorrowes moste doe swell,
That life is deathe, and is no life at all,
The liuer rente, it dothe the conscience tell:
Which being launch’de, and prick’d, with inward care,
Although wee liue, yet still wee dyinge are.”
How Shakespeare applies this mythic story appears in the Titus Andronicus (act ii. sc. 1, l. 14, vol. vi. p. 451), where Aaron, speaking of his queen, Tamora, affirms of himself,—
“Whom thou in triumph long
Hast prisoner held, fetter’d in amorous chains,
And faster bound to Aaron’s charming eyes
Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.”
And still more clearly is the application made, 1 Henry VI. (act iv. sc. 3, l. 17, vol. v. p. 71), when Sir William Lucy thus urges York,—
“Thou princely leader of our English strength,
Never so needful on the earth of France,
Spur to the rescue of the noble Talbot,
Who now is girdled with a waist of iron
And hemm’d about with grim destruction:”
and at York’s inability, through “the vile traitor Somerset,” to render aid, Lucy laments (l. 47, p. 72),—
“Thus, while the vulture of sedition
Feeds in the bosoms of such great commanders,
Sleeping neglection doth betray to loss
The conquest of our scarce cold conqueror,
That ever living man of memory,
Henry the Fifth.”
It may readily be supposed that in writing these passages Shakespeare had in memory, or even before him, the delineations which are given of Prometheus, for the vulture feeding on the heart belongs to them all, and the allusion is exactly one of those which arises from a casual glance at a scene or picture without dwelling on details.
This casual glance indeed seems to have been the way in which our Dramatist appropriated others of the Emblem sketches. In the well-known quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius, in Julius Cæsar (act iv. sc. 3, l. 21, vol. vii. p. 389), Brutus demands,—
“What, shall one of us,
That struck the foremost man of all this world
But for supporting robbers, shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
And sell the mighty space of our large honours
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.”
The expression is the perfect counterpart of Alciat’s 164th Emblem (p. 571, edition Antwerp, 1581); the motto, copied by Whitney (p. 213), is, Inanis impetus,—“A vain attack.”
“By night, as at a mirror, the dog looks at the lunar orb:
And seeing himself, believes another dog to be on high,
And barks: but in vain is his angry voice driven by winds,
The silent Diana ever onward goes in her course.”[132]
The device engraved on Alciat’s and Whitney’s pages depicts the full moon surrounded by stars, and a large dog baying. Whitney’s stanzas give the meaning of Alciat's, and also of Beza's, which follow below,—
“By shininge lighte, of wannishe Cynthias raies,
The dogge behouldes his shaddowe to appeare:
Wherefore, in vaine aloude he barkes, and baies,
And alwaies thoughte, an other dogge was there:
But yet the Moone, who did not heare his queste,
Hir woonted course, did keep vnto the weste.
This reprehendes, those fooles which baule, and barke,
At learned men, that shine aboue the reste:
With due regarde, that they their deedes should marke,
And reuerence them, that are with wisedome bleste:
But if they striue, in vaine their winde they spende,
For woorthie men, the Lorde doth still defende.”
The same device to a different motto, “Despicit alta canis,”—The dog despises high things,—is adopted by Camerarius, Ex Anim. quadrup., p. 63, edition 1595,—
“Why carest thou for the angry thorns of a vain speaking tongue?
Diana on high cares not for the loud-barking dog.”[133]
We will conclude our “baying” with Beza’s 22nd Emblem. The Latin stanza is sufficiently severe,—
“Luna velut toto collustrans lumine terras,
Frustra allatrantes despicit alta canes:
Sic quisquis Christum allatrat Christíve ministros,
Index stultitiæ? spernitor vsque suæ.”
i.e.
“As the moon with full light shining over the lands,
From on high doth despise dogs barking in vain:
So whoso is barking at Christ or Christ’s ministers,
The scorner is the pointer out even of his own folly.”
In connection with the power of music Orpheus is named by many writers of the sixteenth century; and among the Emblematists the lead may be assigned to Pierre Coustau in “Le Pegme” (Lyons, 1560, p. 389),—
“On the Harp of Orpheus.
The Power of Eloquence.
“With sound gentle and very melodious
Of an instrument Orpheus caused to move
Rocks and pastures from their place and home.
It is eloquence having force and power
To steal the hearts of all his learning shows,
It is the orator who by strength of eloquence
First brings even under influence
Brutal people, and from fierceness
Gathers them; and who to benevolence
From fierceness then reclaims.
A Narration Philosophique follows for three pages, discoursing on the power of eloquence.
Musicæ, & Poeticæ vis,—“The force of Music and Poetry,”—occupies Reusner’s 21st Emblem (bk. iii. p. 129), oddly enough dedicated to a mathematician, David Nephelite. Whitney’s stanzas (p. 186), Orphei Musica,—“The Music of Orpheus,”—bear considerable resemblance to those of Reusner, and are sufficient for establishing the parallelism of Shakespeare and themselves.
“Lo, Orphevs with his harpe, that sauage kinde did tame:
The Lions fierce, and Leopardes wilde, and birdes about him came.
For, with his musicke sweete, their natures hee subdu’de:
But if wee thinke his playe so wroughte, our selues wee doe delude.
For why? besides his skill, hee learned was, and wise:
And coulde with sweetenes of his tonge, all sortes of men suffice.
And those that weare most rude, and knewe no good at all:
And weare of fierce, and cruell mindes, the worlde did brutishe call.
Yet with persuasions sounde, hee made their hartes relente,
That meeke, and milde they did become, and followed where he wente.
Lo, these, the Lions fierce, these, Beares, and Tigers weare:
The trees, and rockes, that lefte their roomes, his musicke for to heare.
But, you are happie most, who in suche place doe staye:
You neede not Thracia seeke, to heare some impe of Orphevs playe.
Since, that so neare your home, Apollos darlinge dwelles;
Who Linvs, & Amphion staynes, and Orphevs farre excelles.
For, hartes like marble harde, his harmonie dothe pierce:
And makes them yeelding passions feele, that are by nature fierce.
But, if his musicke faile: his curtesie is suche,
That none so rude, and base of minde, but hee reclaimes them muche.
Nowe since you, by deserte, for both, commended are:
I choose you, for a Iudge herein, if truthe I doe declare.
And if you finde I doe, then ofte therefore reioyce:
And thinke, I woulde suche neighbour haue, if I might make my choice.”
In a similar strain, from the Merchant of Venice (act v. sc. 1, l. 70, vol. ii. p. 361), we are told of the deep influence which music possesses over—
“a wild and wanton herd
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts.”
The poet declares,—
“If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn’d to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet[134]
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils:
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.”
And in the Two Gentlemen of Verona (act iii. sc. 2, l. 68, vol. i. p. 129), the method is developed by which Silvia, through the conversation of Proteus, may be tempered “to hate young Valentine” and Thurio love. Proteus says,—
“You must lay lime to tangle her desires
By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes
Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows.
Duke. Ay,
Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.
Pro. Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart:
Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears
Moist it again; and frame some feeling line
That may discover such integrity:
For Orpheus’ lute was strung with poets’ sinews;
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones.
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.”[135]
Again, in proof of Music’s power, consult Henry VIII. (act iii. sc. 1, l. 1, vol. vi. p. 56), when Queen Katharine, in her sorrowfulness, says to one of her women who were at work around her,—
“Take thy lute, wench: my soul grows sad with troubles;
Sing and disperse ’em if thou canst: leave working.”
The sweet simple song is raised,—
“Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung, as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or hearing die.”
How splendidly does the dramatic poet’s genius here shine forth! It pours light upon each Emblem, and calls into day the hidden glories. His spirit breathes upon a dead picture, and rivalling Orpheus himself, he makes the images breathe and glance and live.
The mythic tale of Actæon transformed into a stag, and hunted by hounds because of his rudeness to Diana and her nymphs, was used to point the moral of widely different subjects. Alciatus (Emb. 52, ed. 1551, p. 60) applies it “to the harbourers of assassins” and makes it the occasion of a very true but very severe reflection.
“Of thieves and robbers evil-omen’d bands the city through
Go thy companions; and a cohort girded with dreadful swords.
And so, O prodigal, thou thinkest thyself of generous mind,
Because thy cooking pot allures very many of the bad ones.
Lo, a new Actæon, who after he assumed the horns,
Himself gave himself a prey to his own dogs.”
The device is graphically drawn: Actæon is in part embruted; he is fleeing with the dogs close upon him. Supposing Shakespeare to have seen this print, it represents to the life Pistol’s words in the Merry Wives of Windsor (act ii. sc. 1, l. 106, vol. i. p. 186),—
“Prevent, or go thou,
Like Sir Actæon he, with Ringwood at thy heels.”
“Ex domino servus,”—The slave out of the master,—is another saying which the tale of Actæon has illustrated. The application is from Aneau’s “Picta Poesis,” fol. 41. On the left hand of the tiny drawing are Diana and her nymphs, busied in the bath, beneath the shelter of an overhanging cliff,—on the right is Actæon, motionless, with a stag’s head; dogs are around him. The verses translated read thus,—
“Horns being bestowed upon Actæon when changed to a stag,
Member by member his own dogs tore him to pieces.
Alas! wretched the Master who feeds wasteful parasites;
A ready prepared prey he is for his fawning dogs!
It suggests, he is mocked by them and devoured,
And out of a master is made a slave, bearing horns.”
But Sambucus in his Emblems (edition 1564, p. 128), and Whitney after him (p. 15)—making use of the same woodcut, only with a different border—adapt the Actæon-tragedy to another subject and moral, and take the words, Pleasure purchased by anguish.
Qvi nimis exercet venatus, ac ſine fine
Haurit opes patrias, prodigit inque canes:
Tantus amor vani, tantus furor vſque recurſat,
Induat ut celeris cornua bina feræ.
Accidit Actæon tibi, qui cornutus ab ortu,
À canibus propriis dilaceratus eras.
Quàm multos hodie, quos paſcit odora canum vis.
Venandi ſtudium conficit, atque vorat.
Seria ne ludis poſtponas, commoda damnis,
Quod ſupereſt rerum ſic ut egenus habe.
Sæpe etiam propria qui interdum vxore relicta
Deperit externas corniger iſta luit.
Stanzas which may thus be rendered,—
“Whoever too eagerly hunting pursues, and without moderation
Drains paternal treasures and lavishes them on dogs:
So great the love of the folly, so strong does the passion return
That it clothes him in the twin horns of the swift stag.
It happened, Actæon, to thee, who though horned from thy birth,
By thy own dogs into pieces wast torn.
At this day how many, whom the dogs’ quick scent delights,
The strong passion for hunting wastes and devours.
Put not off serious things for sports,—advantages for losses:
As one in need so hold fast whatever things remain:
Often even the horn bearer, his own wife forsaken,
Loves desperately strangers, and pays penalties for crimes.”
We here see that Sambucus has adopted the theory of the old grammarian or historian of Alexandria, Palæphatus, who informs us,—
“Actæon by race was an Arcadian, very fond of dogs. Many of them he kept, and hunted in the mountains. But he neglected his own affairs, for men then were all self-workers; they had no servants, but themselves tilled the earth; and that man was the richest, who tilled the earth and was the most diligent workman. But Actæon being careless of domestic affairs, and rather going about hunting with his dogs, his substance was wasted. And when he had nothing left, people kept saying: the wretched Actæon was eaten up by his own dogs.”
A very instructive tale this for some of our Nimrods, mighty hunters and racers in the land; but it is not to be pressed too strictly into the service of the parsimonious.
From the same motto Whitney (p. 15) keeps much closer to the mythological narrative,[136]—
“Actæon heare, vnhappie man behoulde,
When in the well, hee sawe Diana brighte,
With greedie lookes, hee waxed ouer boulde,
That to a stagge hee was transformed righte,
Whereat amasde, hee thought to runne awaie,
But straighte his howndes did rente hym, for their praie.
By which is ment, That those whoe do pursue
Theire fancies fonde, and thinges vnlawfull craue,
Like brutishe beastes appeare vnto the viewe,
And shall at lengthe, Actæons guerdon haue:
And as his houndes, soe theire affections base,
Shall them deuowre, and all their deedes deface.”
Very beautifully, in Twelfth Night (act i. sc. 1, l. 9, vol. iii. p. 223), is this idea applied by Orsino, duke of Illyria,—
“O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou!
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe’er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.
Cur. Will you go hunt, my lord?
Duke.What, Curio?
Cur. The hart.
Duke. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have:
O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
Methought she purged the air of pestilence!
That instant was I turn’d into a hart;
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E’er since pursue me.”
The full force and meaning of the mythological tale is, however, brought out in the Titus Andronicus (act ii. sc. 3, l. 55, vol. vi. p. 459), that fearful history of passion and revenge. Tamora is in the forest, and Bassianus and Lavinia make their appearance,—
“Bass. Who have we here? Rome’s royal empress,
Unfurnish’d of her well-beseeming troop?
Or is it Dian, habited like her,
Who hath abandoned her holy groves,
To see the general hunting in this forest?
Tam. Saucy controller of my private steps!
Had I the power that some say Dian had,
Thy temples should be planted presently
With horns, as was Actæon’s, and the hounds
Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,
Unmannerly intruder as thou art!”
Arion rescued by the Dolphin is another mythic tale in which poets may well delight. Alciatus (Emblem 89, edition 1581), directs the moral, “against the avaricious, or those to whom a better condition is offered by strangers.” Contrary to the French writers of time and place, the emblem presents in the same device the harpist both cast out of the ship and riding triumphantly to the shore.
Delphini inſidens vada cærula ſulcat Arion,
Hocʠ3 aures mulcet, frenat & ora ſono.
Quàm ſit auari hominis, non tam mens dira ſerarũ est;
Quiʠ3 viris rapimur, piſcibus eripimur.
i.e.
“On the dolphin sitting Arion ploughs cerulean seas,
With a sound he soothes the ears, with a sound curbs the mouth.
Of wild creatures not so dreadful is the mind, as of greedy man;
We who by men are pillaged, are by fishes rescued.”
With this thought before him Whitney (p. 144) at the head of his stanzas has placed the strong expression, “Man is a wolf to man.”[137] Cave canem,—“Beware of the dog,”—is certainly a far more kindly warning; but the motto, Homo homini lupus, tallies exactly with the conduct of the mariners.
“No mortall foe so full of poysoned spite,
As man, to man, when mischiefe he pretendes:
The monsters huge, as diuers aucthors write,
Yea Lions wilde, and fishes weare his frendes:
And when their deathe, by frendes suppos’d was sought,
They kindnesse shew’d, and them from daunger brought.
Arion lo, who gained store of goulde,
In countries farre: with harpe, and pleasant voice:
Did shipping take, and to Corinthvs woulde,
And to his wishe, of pilottes made his choise:
Who rob’d the man, and threwe him to the sea,
A Dolphin, lo, did beare him safe awaie.”
A comment from St. Chrysostom, super Matth. xxii., is added,—
“As a king is honoured in his image, so God is loved and hated in man. He cannot hate man, who loves God, nor can he, who hates God, love men.”
Reference is also made to Aulus Gellius (bk. v. c. 14, vol. i. p. 408), where the delightful story is narrated of the slave Androclus and the huge lion whose wounded foot he had cured, and with whom he lived familiarly for three years in the same cave and on the same food. After a time the slave was taken and condemned to furnish sport in the circus to the degraded Romans. That same lion also had been taken, a beast of vast size, and power and fierceness. The two were confronted in the arena.
“When the lion saw the man at a distance,” says the narrator, “suddenly, as if wondering, he stood still; and then gently and placidly as if recognising drew near. With the manner and observance of fawning dogs, softly and blandly he wagged his tail and placed himself close to the man’s body, and lightly with his tongue licked the legs and hands of the slave almost lifeless from fear. The man Androclus during these blandishments of the fierce wild creature recovered his lost spirits; by degrees he directed his eyes to behold the lion. Then, as if mutual recognition had been made, man and lion appeared glad and rejoicing one with the other.”
Was it now, from having this tale in mind that, in the Troilus and Cressida (act v. sc. 3, l. 37, vol. vi. p. 247), these words were spoken to Hector?—
“Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
Which better fits a lion than a man.”
Arion sauué par vn Dauphin, is also the subject of a well executed device in the “ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ” (edition Antwerp, 1592),[138] of which we give the French version (p. 64),—
“Arion retournant par mer en sa patrie
Chargé de quelque argẽt, vid que les mariniers
Animéz contre luy d’une auare furie
Pretendoyent luy oster sa vie & ses deniers.
Pour eschapper leurs mains & changer leur courage,
Sur la harpe il chanta vn chant melodieux
Mais il ne peut fleschir la nature sauuage
De ces cruels larrons & meurtriers furieux.
Estant par eux ietté deans la mere profonde,
Vn Dauphin attiré au son de l’instrument,
Le chargea sur son dos, & au trauers de l’onde
Le portant, le sauua miraculeusement.
Maintes fois l’innocent à qui on fait offense
Trouue plus de faueur es bestes qu’es humains:
Dieu qui aime les bons les prend en sa defense,
Les gardant de l’effort des hommes inhumains.”
To the Emblems we have under consideration we meet with this coincidence in Twelfth Night (act i. sc. 2, l. 10, vol. iii. p. 225); it is the Captain’s assurance to Viola,—
“When you and those poor number saved with you
Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,
Most provident in peril, bind himself,
Courage and hope both teaching him the practice,
To a strong mast that lived upon the sea;
Where, like Arion on the dolphin’s back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves
So long as I could see.”
As examples of a sentiment directly opposite, we will briefly refer to Coustau’s Pegma (p. 323, edition Lyons, 1555), where to the device of a Camel and his driver, the noble motto is recorded and exemplified from Plutarch, Homo homini Deus,—“Man is a God to man;” the reason being assigned,—
“As the world was created for sake of gods and men, so man was created for man’s sake;” and, “that the grace we receive from the immortal God is to be bestowed on man by man.”
Reusner, too, in his Emblemata (p. 142, Francfort, 1581), though commenting on the contrary saying, Homo homini lupus, declares,—
“Aut homini Deus est homo; si bonus: aut lupus hercle,
Si malus: ô quantum est esse hominem, atq. Deum.”
i.e.
“Or man to man is God; if good: or a wolf in truth,
If bad: O how great it is to be man and God!”[139]
Was it in reference to these sentiments that Hamlet and Cerimon speak? The one says (Hamlet, act iv. sc. 4, l. 33. vol. viii. p. 127),—
“What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused.”
And again (act ii. sc. 2, l. 295, vol. viii. p. 63),—
“What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!”
So in the Pericles (act iii. sc. 2, l. 26, vol. ix. p. 366), the fine thought is uttered,—
“I hold it ever,
Virtue and cunning were endowments greater
Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs
May the two latter darken and expend,
But immortality attends the former,
Making a man a god.”
The horses and chariot of Phœbus, and the presumptuous charioteer Phaëton, who attempted to drive them, are celebrated with great splendour of description in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (bk. ii. fab. 1), that rich storehouse of Mythology. The palace of the god has lofty columns bright with glittering gold; the roof is covered with pure shining ivory; and the double gates are of silver. Here Phœbus was throned, and clothed in purple;—the days and months and years,—the seasons and the ages were seated around him; Phaëton appears, claims to be his son, and demands for one day to guide the glorious steeds. At this point we take up the narrative which Alciat has written (Emb. 56), and inscribed, “To the rash.”[140]
“You behold Phaëton the driver of his father’s chariot,—
Who dared to guide the fire breathing horses of the sun.
After over the lands mightiest burnings he scattered,
Wretched he fell from the chariot where rashly he sat.
So many kings, whom youthful ambition excites,
On the wheels of Fortune are borne to the stars.
After great slaughter of the human race and their own,
For all their crimes at last the penalties they pay.”
Shakespeare’s notices of the attempted feat and its failure are frequent. First, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona (act iii. sc. 1, l. 153, vol. i. p. 121), the Duke of Milan discovers the letter addressed to his daughter Silvia, with the promise,—
“Silvia, this night will I enfranchise thee,”—
and with true classic force denounces the folly of the attempt,—
“Why, Phaethon,—for thou art Merops’ son,—
Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,
And with thy daring folly burn the world?
Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee?”
In her impatience for the meeting with Romeo (Romeo and Juliet, act iii. sc. 2, l. 1, vol. vii. p. 72), Juliet exclaims,—
“Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phœbus’ lodging: such a waggoner
As Phaethon would whip you to the west
And bring in cloudy night immediately.”
The unfortunate Richard II. (act iii. sc. 3, l. 178, vol. iv. p. 179), when desired by Northumberland to meet Bolingbroke in the courtyard (“may’t please you to come down”), replies,—
“Down, down, I come; like glistering Phaeton
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.”
And he too, in 3 Henry VI. (act i. sc. 4, l. 16, vol. v. p. 244), Richard, Duke of York, whose son cried,—
“A crown, or else a glorious tomb!
A sceptre or an earthly sepulchre!”—
when urged by Northumberland (l. 30),—
“Yield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet;”
had this answer given for him by the faithful Clifford,—
“Ay, to such mercy, as his ruthless arm,
With downright payment, shew’d unto my father.
Now Phaethon hath tumbled from his car,
And made an evening at the noontide prick.”
That same Clifford (act ii. sc. 6, l. 10, vol. v. p. 271), when wounded and about to die for the Lancastrian cause, makes use of the allusion,—
“And who shines now but Henry’s enemy?
O Phœbus! hadst thou never given consent
That Phaëthon should check thy fiery steeds,
Thy burning car had never scorch’d the earth!
And, Henry, hadst thou sway’d as kings should do,
Or as thy father and his father did,
Giving no ground unto the house of York,
They never then had sprung like summer flies;
I and ten thousand in this luckless realm
Had left no mourning widows for our death;
And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.”
In the early heroic age, when Minos reigned in Crete and Theseus at Athens, just as Mythology was ripening into history, the most celebrated for mechanical contrivance and for excellence in the arts of sculpture and architecture were Dædalus and his sons Talus and Icarus. To them is attributed the invention of the saw, the axe, the plumb-line, the auger, the gimlet, and glue; they contrived masts and sailyards for ships; and they discovered various methods of giving to statues expression and the appearance of life. Chiefly, however, are Dædalus and Icarus now known for fitting wings to the human arms, and for attempting to fly across the sea from Crete to the shore of Greece. Dædalus, hovering just above the waves, accomplished the aërial voyage in safety; but Icarus, too ambitiously soaring aloft, had his wings injured by the heat of the sun, and fell into the waters, which from his death there were named the Icarian sea.
From the edition of Alciat’s Emblems, 1581, we select a drawing which represents the fall of Icarus; it is dedicated “To Astrologers,” or fortune tellers. The warning in the last two lines is all we need to translate,—
“Let the Astrologer take heed what he foretells; for headlong
The impostor will fall though he fly the stars above.”
Whitney, however (p. 28), will supply the whole,—
“Heare, Icarvs with mountinge vp alofte,
Came headlonge downe, and fell into the Sea:
His waxed winges, the sonne did make so softe,
They melted straighte, and feathers fell awaie:
So, whilste he flewe, and of no dowbte did care,
He moou’de his armes, but loe, the same were bare.
Let suche beware, which paste theire reache doe mounte,
Whoe seeke the thinges, to mortall men deny’de,
And searche the Heauens, and all the starres accoumpte,
And tell therebie, what after shall betyde:
With blusshinge nowe, theire weakenesse rightlie weye,
Least as they clime, they fall to theire decaye.”
We use this opportunity to present two consecutive pages of Corrozet’s “Hecatomgraphie” (Emb. 67), that the nature of his
devices, and of their explanations may be seen. There is a motto,—“To take the middle way,”—and these lines follow—
“Who too much exalts himself too much values himself,
Who too much abases himself, he undervalues himself,
But that man who wills to do well,
He governs himself the medium way.”
In the page of metrical explanation subjoined, the usual mythic narrative is closely followed.
The full idea is carried out in 3 Henry VI. (act v. sc. 6, l. 18, vol. v. p. 332), Gloucester and King Henry being the speakers,—
“Glou. Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete,
That taught his son the office of a fowl!
And yet for all his wings, the fool was drown’d.
K. Hen. I, Dædalus; my poor boy, Icarus;
Thy father, Minos, that denied our course;
The sun that sear’d the wings of my sweet boy
Thy brother Edward, and thyself the sea
Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.
Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!
My breast can better brook thy dagger’s point
Than can my ears that tragic history.”
In the 1st part also of the same dramatic series (act iv. sc. 6, l. 46, vol. v. p. 78), John Talbot, the son, is hemmed about in the battle near Bourdeaux. Rescued by his father, he is urged to escape, but the young hero replies,—
“Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,
The coward horse that bears me fall and die!
And like me to the peasant boys of France,
To be shame’s scorn and subject of mischance!
Surely, by all the glory you have won,
An if I fly, I am not Talbot’s son:
Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot;
If son to Talbot, die at Talbot’s foot.
Tal. Then follow thou thy desperate sire of Crete,
Thou Icarus; thy life to me is sweet:
If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father’s side;
And, commendable proved, let’s die in pride.”
The tearful tale of Niobe, who that has read Ovid’s Metamorphoses (bk. vi. fab. 5) could not weep over it! Seven stalwart sons and seven fair daughters clustered round the haughty dame, and she gloried in their attendance upon her; but at an evil hour she dared to match herself with Latona, and at a public festival in honour of the goddess to be the only one refusing to offer incense and prayers. The goddess called her own children to avenge the affront and the impiety; and Apollo and Diana, from the clouds, slew the seven sons as they were exercising on the plain near Thebes. Yet the pride of Niobe did not abate, and Diana in like manner slew also the seven daughters. The mother’s heart was utterly broken; she wept herself to death, and was changed to stone. Yet, says the poet, Flet tamen,—“ Yet she weeps,”—
Liquitur, et lacrymas etiam nunc marmora manant,—
i.e.
“It melts, and even now the marble trickles down tears.”
Alciat adopts the tale as a warning; Pride he names his 67th Emblem.
As we look at the device we are sensible to a singular incongruity between the subject and the droll, Punch-like figures, which make up the border. The sentiment, too, is as incongruous, that “Pride is a woman’s vice and argues hardness of look and of feeling such as there is in stone.”
Making a slight change in the motto, Whitney (p. 13) writes. Superbiæ vltio,—“Vengeance upon pride,”—
“Of Niobe, behoulde the ruthefull plighte,
Bicause shee did dispise the powers deuine:
Her children all, weare slaine within her sighte,
And, while her selfe with tricklinge teares did pine,
Shee was transform’de, into a marble stone,
Which, yet with teares, dothe seeme to waile, and mone.
This tragedie, thoughe Poëtts first did frame,
Yet maie it bee, to euerie one applide:
That mortall men, shoulde thinke from whence they came,
And not presume, nor puffe them vp with pride,
Leste that the Lorde, whoe haughty hartes doth hate,
Doth throwe them downe, when sure they thinke theyr state.”
Shakespeare’s notices of Niobe are little more than allusions; the mode in which Apollo and Diana executed the cruel vengeance may be glanced at in All’s Well (act v. sc. 3, l. 5, vol. iii. p. 201), when the Countess of Rousillon pleads for her son to the King of France,—
“Count. ’Tis past, my liege;
And I beseech your majesty to make it
Natural rebellion, done i’ the blaze of youth;
When oil and fire, too strong for reason’s force,
O’erbears it and burns on.
King. My honour’d lady,
I have forgiven and forgotten all;
Though my revenges were high bent upon him,
And watch’d the time to shoot.”
Troilus (act v. sc. 10, l. 16, vol. vi. p. 261), anticipating Priam’s and Hecuba’s mighty grief over the slain Hector, speaks thus of the fact,—
“Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call’d
Go into Troy, and say there, ‘Hector’s dead:’
There is a word will Priam turn to stone,
Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,
Cold statues of the youth, and in a word,
Scare Troy out of itself.”
Hamlet, too (act i. sc. 2, l. 147, vol. viii. p. 17), in his bitter expressions respecting his mother’s marriage, speaks thus severely of the brevity of her widowhood,—
“A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow’d my poor father’s body.
Like Niobe, all tears:—why she, even she,—
O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason.
Would have mourn’d longer;—within a month;
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married.”
Tiresias, the blind soothsayer of Thebes, had foretold that the comely Narcissus would live as long as he could refrain from the sight of his own countenance,—
“But he, ignorant of his destiny,” says Claude Mignault, “grew so desperately in love with his own image seen in a fountain, that he miserably wasted away, and was changed into the flower of his own name, which is called Narce, and means drowsiness or infatuation, because the smell of the Narcissus affects the head.”
However that may be, Alciatus, edition Antwerp, 1581, exhibits the youth surveying his features in a running stream; the flower is behind him, and in the distance is Tiresias pronouncing his doom. “Self love” is the motto.
Anulus also, in the “Picta Poesis” (p. 48), mentions his foolish and vain passion,—
Contemnens alios, arsit amore sui,—
i.e.
“Despising others, inflamed he was with love of himself.”
From Alciat and Anulus, Whitney takes up the fable (p. 149), his printer Rapheleng using the same wood-block as Plantyn did in 1581. Of the three stanzas we subjoin one,—
“Narcissvs lou’de, and liked so his shape,
He died at lengthe with gazinge there vppon:
Which shewes selfe loue, from which there fewe can scape,
A plague too rife: bewitcheth manie a one.
The ritche, the pore, the learned, and the sotte,
Offende therein: and yet they see it not.”
It is only in one instance, Antony and Cleopatra (act ii. sc. 5, l. 95, vol. ix. p. 48), and very briefly, that Shakespeare names Narcissus; he does this when the Messenger repeats to Cleopatra that Antony is married, and she replies,—
“The Gods confound thee!...
... Go, get thee hence:
Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me
Thou wouldst appear most ugly.”
Ille amat, hæc odit, fugit hæc: ſectatur at ille
Dúmque fugit: Laurus facta repentè ſtetit.
Sic amat, & fruſtra, nec Apollo potitus amore eſt.
Vltus Apollinis eſt, ſic Amor opprobrium.
Haecine doctorum ſors eſt inimica virorum,
Vt iuuenes quamuis non redamentur ament?
Exoſoſque habeat prudentes ſtulta iuuentus
His ne iungatur ſtipes vt eſſe velit.
The most beautiful of the maidens of Thessaly, Daphne, the daughter of the river-god Peneus, was Apollo’s earliest love. He sought her in marriage, and being refused by her, prepared to force consent. The maiden fled, and was pursued, and, at the very moment of her need invoked her father’s aid, and was transformed into a laurel.
At this instant the device of Anulus represents her, in the “Picta Poesis” (P. 47).[141]
“He loves, she hates; she flees, but he pursues,
And while she flees, stopped suddenly, to laurel changed.
So loves Apollo, and in vain; nor enjoys his love.
So love has avenged the reproach of Apollo.
This very judgment of learned men is it not hostile,
That youths should love though not again be loved?
Hated should foolish youth account the wise
Lest by these the log be not joined as it wishes to be.”
The Midsummer Night’s Dream (act ii. sc. 1, l. 227, vol. ii. p. 218) reverses the fable; Demetrius flees and Helena pursues,—
“Dem. I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
Hel. The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will, the story shall be changed:
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase:
The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,
When cowardice pursues, and valour flies.”
There is, too, the quotation already made for another purpose (p. 115) from the Taming of the Shrew (Introd. sc. 2, l. 55),—
“Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.”
And Troilus (act i. sc. 1, l. 94, vol. vi. p. 130) makes the invocation,—
“Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne’s love
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?”
Among Mythological Characters we may rank Milo, “of force unparalleled;” to whom with crafty words of flattery Ulysses likened Diomed; Troilus and Cressida (act ii. sc. 3, l. 237),—
“But he that disciplined thine arms to fight,
Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
And give him half: and for thy vigour,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield
To sinewy Ajax.”
Milo’s prowess is the subject of a fine device by Gerard de Jode, in the “ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ” (p. 61), first published in 1579, with Latin verses. Respecting Milo the French verses say,—
“La force de Milon a esté nompareille,
Et de ses grands efforts on raconte merueille:
S’il se tenoit debout, il ne se trouuoit pas
Homme aucun qui le peust faire bouger d’un pas.
A frapper il estoit si fort & si adestre
Que d’un seul coup de poing il tua de sa dextre
Vn robuste taureau, & des ses membres forts
Vne lieue le porta sans se greuer le corps.
Mais se fiant par trop en ceste grande force,
Il fut en fin saisi d’une mortelle entorce:
Car il se vid manger des bestes, estant pris
A l’arbre qu’il auoit de desioindre entrepris.
Qui de sa force abuse en chase non faisable
Se rend par son effort bien souuent miserable,
Le fol entrepreneur tombe en confusion
Et s’expose à chacun en grand derision.”
The famous winged horse, Pegasus, heroic, though not a hero, has a right to close in our array of mythic characters. Sprung from the blood of Medusa when Perseus cut off her head, Pegasus is regarded sometimes as the thundering steed of Jove, at other times as the war-horse of Bellerophon; and in more modern times, under a third aspect, as the horse of the Muses. Already (at p. 142) we have spoken of some of the merits attributed to him, and have presented Emblems in which he is introduced. It will be sufficient now to bring forward the device and stanza of Alciat, in which he shows us how “by prudence and valour to overcome the Chimæra, that is, the stronger and those using stratagems.”
Shakespeare recognises neither Bellerophon nor the Chimæra, but Pegasus, the wonderful creature, and Perseus its owner.
The dauphin Lewis (see p. 141) likens his own horse to Pegasus, “with nostrils of fire,”—
It is a beast for Perseus: he is pure air and fire... he is indeed a horse.
In the Grecian camp (see Troilus and Cressida, act i. sc. 3, l. 33, vol. vi. p. 142), Nestor is urging the worth of dauntless valour, and uses the apt comparison,—
“In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men: the sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail
Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk!
But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and anon behold
The strong-ribb’d bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements,
Like Perseus’ horse.”
The last lines are descriptive of Alciat’s device, on p. 299.
It is the same Nestor (act iv. sc. 5, l. 183), who so freely and generously compliments Hector, though his enemy,—
“I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft,
Labouring for destiny, make cruel way
Through ranks of Greekish youth; and I have seen thee,
As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed,
Despising many forfeits and subduements,
When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i’ the air,
Nor letting it decline on the declined,
That I have said to some my standers by,
‘Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!’”
Young Harry’s praise, too, in 1 Henry IV., act iv. sc. 1. l. 109, vol. iv. p. 318, is thus celebrated by Vernon,—
“As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.”
For nearly all the personages and the tales contained in this section, authority may be found in Ovid, and in the various pictorially illustrated editions of the Metamorphoses or of portions of them, which were numerous during the actively literary life of Shakespeare. It is, I confess, very questionable, whether for his classically mythic tales he was indeed indebted to the Emblematists; yet the many parallels in mythology between him and them justify the pleasant labour of setting both side by side, and, by this means, of facilitating to the reader the forming for himself an independent judgment.