صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

He that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him ;

Prov. xxvi. 27.

see King Henry VIII., quoted above, p. 157.

The full soul loatheth an honeycomb ;

Prov. xxvii. 7.

see King Henry IV. First Part, Act iii. Sc. 2.

The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion;

see the last-named play, Act iii. Sc. 3.

Prov. xx. 2.

Ecclus. xiii. 1.

He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith;

see the same play, Act ii. Sc. 4.

When Touchstone, in As you like it, says—

I do now remember a saying, The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows he is a fool ;— Act v. Sc. 1.

[ocr errors]

is the saying' he there quotes derived from I Cor. iii. 18?

The well-known apologue of Menenius Agrippa in our poet's play of Coriolanus, Act i. Sc. 1, is not to be traced to S. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, c. xii., but rather to the common source in Roman history, from which they both, we may suppose, adopted it; except that S. Paul probably read it in Livy, and Shakspeare in North's translation of Plutarch. But when, in the Third Part of King Henry VI., the Earl of Warwick says to Richard Plantagenet

Victorious Prince of York,
Before I see thee seated in that throne,

Which now the house of Lancaster usurps,

I vow by heaven these eyes shall never close ;—

Act i. Sc. I.

and when, again, in First Part of King Henry IV., Act i. Sc. 2, Prince Henry says to Falstaff

Wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it ;— we need not doubt that our poet had in view a resolution of King David, Ps. cxxxii. 4, in the former case, and a complaint of King Solomon, Prov. i. 20, in the latter.

The notion of expressing silence by laying the finger on the lips, or hand upon the mouth, which we find in Othello, Act ii. Sc. 1, and in Troilus and Cressida, Act iii. Sc. 3, is also, probably, of Scriptural origin; see Judges xviii. 19, and the references given there in the margin.

The same may be said of the adoption, by Shakspeare, of the true prophetical style, whereby that which is foretold is said to be actually brought to pass and accomplished by him who predicts it. Thus, Macbeth, speaking of the prophecy of the Witches in his favour, complains—

Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, And put a barren sceptre in my gripe; Act iii. Sc. 1. just as the chief butler of Pharaoh, in telling how Joseph had interpreted his dream, and the dream of the chief baker, describes what he had spoken in these words :

Me he restored unto my office, and him he banged.

Genesis xli. 13.

See also Jerem. i. 10, Ezek. xliii. 3, and elsewhere. The Roman poet Persius uses the same style :Spem macram, supplice voto,

Nunc Licinî in campos, nunc Crassi mittit in ædes.

I will only notice further, that a figure of speech of which S. Paul is fond, is also to be met with very frequently in Shakspeare; I mean the figure which grammarians have called Oxymoron. Of Scriptural examples it may suffice to refer to that sublime passage in the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians, which ends thus-as having nothing and [yet] possessing all things,' vi. 10. The following may be accepted as a sample of parallel instances to be found in our poet :

:

Fairest Cordelia, thou art most rich, being poor;
Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised.

K. Lear, Act i. Sc. 1.

Compare the Duke's speech in Measure for Measure,

quoted above, p. 148.

My long sickness

Of health and living now begins to mend,

And nothing brings me all things.

Timon of Athens, Act v. Sc. 2.

So, too, we have in Cymbeline, iv. 3 :—

Wherein I am false, I am honest;

with which we may compare S. Paul, in the passage of the Bible last referred to, 'as deceivers and [yet]

true.'

Of the same character are the lines in the

Merchant of Venice, which Gratiano addresses to Antonio ;

You have too much respect upon the world;

They lose it that do buy it with much care.

Act i. Sc. 1.

And in Measure for Measure, where Claudio says in answer to the exhortations of the disguised Duke ;

To sue to live, I find I seek to die,
And seeking death, find life :

Act iii. Sc. I.

both which passages appear to be founded upon the words of our Lord, recorded by S. Matthew, xvi. 25, 'Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.'

Ben Jonson, in his Discoveries (see Works, vol. ix. p. 175) condemns as ridiculous' our poet's line, as it stood in the first copy of Julius Cæsar, Act iii. Sc. I:

Know, Cæsar doth not wrong, but with just cause.

It is, however, easily defensible, no less than the foregoing quotations from S. Paul and from our Lord Himself will be readily defended not only by a reverent, but a sound and judicious criticism.

[graphic][merged small]
« السابقةمتابعة »