Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/385

 ’ followed on 26 Dec. Neither was printed in Shakespeare's lifetime. ‘Othello’ was re-created from a painful story found in Cinthio's ‘Hecatommithi’ (decad iii. nov. 3), and not known to have been translated into English. The tragedy displays to magnificent advantage the dramatist's fully matured powers. An unfaltering equilibrium is maintained in the treatment of both plot and characters. The perilous story of ‘Measure for Measure’ also comes from Cinthio, who made it the subject not only of a romance, but of a tragedy called ‘Epitia.’ There is a likelihood that Shakespeare knew Cinthio's play, which was untranslated. The romance had been twice rendered into English by George Whetstone [q. v.]—in his play of ‘Promos and Cassandra’ (1578), and in his collection of prose tales, ‘Heptameron of Civil Discources’ (1582). In ‘Measure for Measure’ Shakespeare treated with a solemnity that seems at times tinged by cynicism the corruption with which unchecked sexual passion threatens society. The duke's reference to his dislike of mobs, despite his love of his people, was perhaps penned in deference to James I, whose horror of crowds was notorious (act i. sc. i. 67–72).

In ‘Macbeth,’ which Shakespeare began in 1605 and completed next year, he employed a setting wholly in harmony with the accession of a Scottish king. The story was drawn from Holinshed's ‘Chronicle of Scottish History,’ with occasional reference, perhaps, to earlier Scottish sources (cf. Athenæum, 25 July 1896). The supernatural machinery of the three witches accorded with the king's superstitious faith in demonology; the dramatist lavished full sympathy on Banquo, James's ancestor; while Macbeth's vision of kings carrying ‘twofold balls and treble sceptres’ (IV. i. 20) plainly alludes to the union of Scotland with England and Ireland under James's sway. The allusion by the porter (act ii. sc. iii. 9) to the ‘equivocator … who committed treason’ was perhaps suggested by the defence of the doctrine of equivocation made by the jesuit Henry Garnett [q. v.], who was executed early in 1606 for his share in the ‘gunpowder plot.’ Much scenic elaboration characterised the production. Dr. Simon Forman [q. v.] witnessed a performance of the tragedy at the Globe in April 1611, and noted that Macbeth and Banquo entered the stage on horseback, and that Banquo's ghost was materially represented (act iii. sc. iv. 40 seq.). The characters of Macbeth and his wife are depicted with the utmost subtlety and concentrated insight. Nowhere, moreover, has Shakespeare introduced comic relief into a tragedy with bolder effect than in the porter's speech after the murder of Duncan (act ii. sc. iii. 1 seq.). The theory that this and a few other passages were from another hand does not merit acceptance (cf. Macbeth, ed. Clark and Wright, Clarendon Press Ser.). The resemblances between Thomas Middleton's ‘Witch’ and portions of ‘Macbeth’ may safely be ascribed to plagiarism on Middleton's part. Of two songs which, according to the stage directions, were to be sung in ‘Macbeth’ (act iii. sc. v. and act iv. sc. i.), only the first line of each is noted there, but songs beginning with the same lines are set out in full in Middleton's play; they were probably by Middleton, and were interpolated by actors in a stage version of ‘Macbeth;’ the piece was not printed until 1623.

‘King Lear’ was written during 1606, and was produced before the court at Whitehall on the night of 26 Dec. of that year. It was entered on the ‘Stationers' Registers’ on 26 Nov. 1607, and two editions, published by Nathaniel Butter, appeared in the following year; neither exactly corresponds with the other or with the accepted text of the folio. Like ‘Macbeth,’ it was mainly founded on Holinshed's ‘Chronicle.’ The leading theme had been dramatised as early as 1593, but Shakespeare's attention was no doubt directed to it by the publication of an adaptation of Holinshed's version in 1605 under the title of ‘The True Chronicle History of King Leir and his three Daughters—Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordelia.’ Shakespeare did not adhere closely to his original. He invested the tale of Lear with a hopelessly tragic conclusion, and on it he grafted the equally distressing tale of Gloucester and his two sons, which he drew from Sidney's ‘Arcadia.’ Hints for the speeches of Edgar when feigning madness were drawn from Harsnet's ‘Declaration of Popish Impostures,’ 1603. In ‘Lear’ the pity and terror of which tragedy is capable reach their climax. The agony—‘the living martyrdom’—springing from filial ingratitude is unrelieved at any point. The faithful fool who attends the king jests sadly, and serves to intensify the pathos.

Although Shakespeare's powers showed no sign of exhaustion, he reverted next year (1607) to his earlier habit of collaboration, and with another's aid composed two dramas—‘Timon of Athens’ and ‘Pericles.’ An extant play on the subject of ‘Timon of Athens’ was composed in 1600 (edited from the manuscript by Dyce in 1842), but there is nothing to show that Shakespeare and his coadjutor were acquainted with it. They doubtless