Page:The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (The Warwick Shakespeare).djvu/18

 speak, as illustrations, whether true or not in fact. There is nothing in the tale as told in the play which the stoutest of sceptics need complain of. In most of the signs and portents, from the appearance of the owl down to Cassius being slain with the very sword that slew Cæsar, there is nothing inherently incredible. Casca's assertions in i. 3 and Calpurnia's in ii. 2 are made in each case by a person in an extreme state of superstitious alarm. All these things intensify the feeling of doom; they affect us, so to speak, with the electricity in the atmosphere: but they do so independently of the view we may take of their explanation, and they convey no hint of what Shakespeare himself believed. It is characteristic of the great dramatist that he never does give us a clue to his own opinion on most subjects. We go on the general principle that if any of his characters pronounces an opinion with which we agree, that was Shakespeare's own view; and if another pronounces a view with which we disagree, that was not the opinion of Shakespeare. In fact, as with life in general so with Shakespeare's plays: every man finds there conclusive proof that his own ideas on any subject are correct.

So it may plausibly be argued from this play that Shakespeare was a Republican or a Monarchist, a naturalist or a supernaturalist, that he condoned or condemned assassination—the plain fact being that he no more sets about teaching views than Nature does. He shows us the truth of things, and lets his characters tell what they think about them, and leaves us to draw our own conclusions. And just as we can draw from an examination of natural objects or actual events inferences and conclusions with a considerable degree of certainty, so we can extract lessons and guiding principles from Shakespeare's plays. They are the same lessons, the same guiding principles, which we should extract from an intelligent study of the life around us; only that we are relieved from the difficulty of having to disencumber ourselves of trivial and barren details which are often misleading. The salient facts are collected for us denuded of the superfluous circumstances.