Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/117

 us. vi. AUG. s, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

SHAKESPEARE ON THE PAIN OF DEATH (11 S. vi. 28). The pronouncement of Isabella quoted by MR. CUTLER often stirs my brain. I turn again and again to a passage in Kirby and Spence's ' Introduction to Entomology.' in which the reasons why it is unlikely that insects suffer as keenly as human beings are set forth in a very interesting way. The lines from ' Measure for Measure ' are given, and the authors declare that

" the very converse of our great poet's conclusion,

a* usually interpreted,

. . . .The poor beetle that we tread upon In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies,

must be regarded as nearer the truth " ;

and a foot-note goes on to say :

" Shakespeare's intention, however, in this passage was evidently not, as it is often supposed, to excite compassion for the insect, but to prove that

The sense of Death is most in apprehension, the actual pang being trifling." P. 28, seventh edition.

The poet's physiology had the support of no less an authority than that of the great surgeon Sir Henry Thompson, with whom Ouida ventured to differ. She says in ' Printers' Pie ' for 1904 (pp. 81, 82) :

" The last letter he wrote to me was about a bee, of which I had described to him the painful dying struggles j he said it was absurd to sup- pose that a bee could feel pain, because bees have no nervous system. I told him that if they had not, they must have something similar, for suffer physically they do beyond all doubt. Who that has watched the convulsions of a dying bee or wasp can doubt their physical suffering ? But to Sir Henry, as to all believers in modern science, all such suffering seems merely due to ' automatic action.' "

ST. SWITHIN.

Sir Sidney Lee's interpretation of this passage is that " a giant feels no greater pang in dying than a beetle ; only the appre- hension of death is painful."' Isabella asks Claudio whether he dares to die. If he does, the mere fact of quitting life, and the manner of it, are of minor importance.

A. R. BAYLEY.

In discussing ' Measure for Measure,' III. i. 75, it must be remembered that the argument embodied is that of a woman, who is striving hard for the preservation of her honour. She is at such a crisis in her affairs that it were pardonable in her even if she struggled to make the worse appear the better reason. Her object, she painfully realizes, can be achieved only by her

brother's consent to die for her, and therefore she labours to show him that the pain to be endured is less than he may be disposed to imagine. She knows no more of the subject than he does, but her distressing position constrains her to the elaboration of a. pathetic and appreciably plausible appeal. We are prone, she implies, to exaggerate- the awful character of what is, after all r only a momentary transition. " The sense of death is most in apprehension " ; it is- one of those " horrible imaginings " which Macbeth in his distraction found lesa tolerable than " present fears." Therefore, argues Isabella, it is anticipation which makes the impending experience seem so- formidable. The " corporal sufferance," in- deed, she impetuously adds and that is really all that is implied in dying is just what every trampled beetle is doomed to- endure.

The purpose of the speech is to minimize as far as possible the dreadful character of an undertaking at once heroic and indis- pensable, and the logic which determines its- form is in strict accordance with the des- perate nature of the predicament. It is- hardly necessary to add that, in presenting the scene, the dramatist is concerned with the speaker's point of view, and not with theory which he seeks to elaborate on his. own account. THOMAS BAYNE.

The statement as to corporal sufferance- is certainly one of Shakespeare's fallacies. The poet's inspiration does not teach the- prosaic facts of anatomy and physiology without the aid of personal study and dis- section. It is obvious to those who have given attention to these subjects that the comparatively simple nerve-structure of an insect is not capable of experiencing the same degree of sensation as the more complex nervous system of man and the higher animals. MR. CUTLER inquires what bear- ing the comparison has on the allegation that death is nearly painless, except mentally. It is not a strictly logical argument. It i an appeal to the imagination a much more potent weapon in a woman's hand. Her first great object is to point out that the pain is entirely mental, and that this may be counterbalanced by steadily keeping in mind the honour attending it, viz., that of saving a sister's good name ; apprehen- sion, she tells him, is the only real suffering. If this be conquered or neutralized, death in a man is nothing more than the crushing of an insect. When once the identity of the powers of sensation is assumed, whether