SHAKESPEARE, THE MYRIAD-MINDED.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 183, 16 June 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

SHAKESPEARE, THE MYRIAD-MINDED.

DIED, 23RD APRIL 1616.

"Take him for all in all, we shall not look upon his like again." Three centuries ago, on 23rd April, 1616, William Shakespeare died c.t Stratferd-on-Avon, his native town, at the age of 52. So passed from this world an unrivalled dramatist, the greatest poet England has ever produced, a profound and subtle philosopher, an ardent lover of Nature and a great student of history and of the human heart. He swept with the hand of a master the whole gamut of human experience from the iowest note to the highest. He was Shakespeare the " myriad-minded," a.s Coleridge has so finely called him. "There is," says Emerson, "in all cultivated minds a si'ent appreciation of his superlative power and"beauty." The poet was the third child of the marriage between .John Shakespeare, A'derman, and later High Bailiff of Stratford-on-Avan, and Mary Arden. The exact date of his birth is not known, but he was baptised on 26th April, 1564. It was a great time in the history of the world —a golden age. Spenser, Ijord Bacon, Shakespeare, Tasso, Montaigne, and Cervantes were all contemporaries. Sorrow soon overtook Shakespeare. When he was a boy of fourteen his father met with a reverse of fortune. In the dark days that followed, the high courage and devotion of the poet's mother never failed. Shakespeare's mother! " How august a title," says De Quincey. "to the reverence of infinite generations, and of centuries beyond the vision of prophecy." Shakespeare attended the Grammar or Free School at Stratford, and there can be little doubt that lie received a fairly good education. One learned wri - ter says that he had a quick and ready wit, a keen perception and an admirable faculty in the acquisition of knowledge. In a word, he was an apt scholar. He never attended a university, but throughout his life he was an omnivorous reader with a wonderful power of assimilating everything that lie read. And what he assimilated did i'Ofc retalin its original iform. When lie gave it forth it bore the stamp of his own individuality. MARRIED AT EIGHTEEN. It is needless to linger over the leading outward events in his life. He was married to Ann Hathr.way when he was 18 and she 26. He left Stratford in 1586 to seek his fortune in London. At first lie was a callboy in a London playhouse, and afterwards lie became an actor. He took the part of the ghost in las-own play of "Hamlet," but ho was never a great actor. He found his true vocation as a playwright, his earliest original plya, being "Love's Labour Lost." Thereafter his pen was never idle. About the year 1610 he retired from London to Stratford, where he lived for six years. This is the record of what he wrote between 1589 and 1613: — Comedies. —The Two Gentlemen or Verona; The Comedy of Krrorsj Ihc Taming of the Shrew.; Love's Labour Lost; All's Well That Ends Well; A Midsummer Night's Dream ; Much Ado About Nothing; Merry ives of \\ indsor; and Twelfth Night. Tragi-Comedies. —Merchant of \ enice; Measure for Measure; Troilus and Cressida; Timon of Athens. Historical Plays.—First, second and third parts of King Henry the Sixth ; King John; Richard the Second; Richard the Third; first and second parts of King Henry the Fourth; King Henry the Fifth; 'Kmg Henry the Eighth. Romantic Dramas. —Pericles; Cyui-lu-line; As Yviu Like It; Winter's Tale; and The Tempest. Tragedies—T,tus Andronicus; Romeo and Tul : et; Hanret; Othello: Lear; Macbeth; Coriolanus; Junius Caesar; and Antony and Cleopatra. A PLAY EVERY SIX MONTH* In addition he wrote many soiiaets and miscellaneous poems. Is not this an astounding record? Shakespeare wrote on an average a play every six months for nearly 2' l years; but tradition says that "The Merry Wives of Windsor ' was invented, written, committed to memory, rehearsed, and acted in a fortn glit. Consider, too, the quality of what he wrote. Each play is a masterpiece. What insight anil imagination he shows, and what superb skill in the delineation of character! He was steadily progressive in his art. As tme went on. his hand became firni'T and his thoughts richer. , ~ Has anything finer than "Hamlet ever been produced? Is any play better known? Could it be improved upon? How are you to account for this drama being written by Shakespeare ? You may theorise upon the subject as you please, but you can only explain the play on the footing that itu author had genius, not acqu red powois, but Heaven-sent and Heaven-endowed genius. Hamlet's soliloquy, ' lo lie or not to be." his "Advice to the Placers " and "Polomus's Advice to Laertes," will Inst, as long as the English language lasts. Could language transcend this: "What a piece of woik is man! How noble in reason: how infinite m faculties; ill form and moy.ng. howexpress and ndmirab'e ! in action, how like an angel: in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world —tire paragon of animals! This is Shakespeare at his highest. Where everything i-. w o good it seems almost inv (lions - L o quote troni any particular play, and yet one is tempted to do so. ' What M-hooiboy de.es not know the quarrel- between l»rutus anil Cassiiis. and Mark Antony s oration in "Julius Caesar," or " I'he quality of mercy is not .strained," and " Signer Antonio, many a tine and o:t in "The Merchant of \ eniee ? Is anybody i ir no!.;nt of the "Seven Ages of Man—All the world's a stage"—in "As \ou Like It ? TO PATRIOT WAIMMOS. Tn the present mart al days, who can forget (lie magnificent blood-curd-iin" address bv King itenrv \ . to the English soldiers b-loro llarfleur : "Once more into the hreaeh. dear friend-, ore more: Or close the wall up villi our English dead! And vrui, "eod y >T'n n. Whose limbs Were made ill England. show ii- here The mettle of \e.i;r pa-:nre." The good things in "Mi belli." '•( Ii hello'." ' IN me-, and Julie,." and "Tim Taming of the Shrew" or - innumerable. How ii:ip:e--ive v I'ropero 'S " T!' e Te'llj. : '-I " - Tile SO: lull voiles, the gt'C'l j g ''be itself.

Yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve." And how eloquently, how persuasively, does Shakespeare enforce and illustrate a great truth in the lines beginning— " Heaven doth with us as we with torches do; Not light them for themselves." And now, to leave what is serious, and turn to comedy, we remember with de'ight the inimitable fooling in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and Bottom the weaver with his claim to have "a reasonable good ear in mus'.c' ; Dogberry, in "Much Ada About Nothing," with his "most tolerable and not to be endured"; and Sr John Falstaff. in "King Henry TV." and the "Merry Wives of Windsor"—but Falstaff would require a chapter all to himself. SUPERB SONGS. One might speak about the lovely litt'e songs scattered like jewels throughout some of the plays- —" Sigh no more, ladies." "Under the greenwood tree"; "Blow, blow, thou winter wind"; "0 mistress mine, where are you roaming?" ; and many others. And h:-s knowledge of flowers was wonderful. To him they seemed to live in a world "that knew not the doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed that any did." The rose was his favourite, and he admired the lily. He mentions rosemary, eglantine, the cowslip, the primrose, the violet, the marigod, the daisly, and the p nk; and everyone wi'l remember his reference to daffodils. A study of Shakespeare's feminine characters would be most fascinating. In his portraiture of women he is unexcelled. Miranda. Juliet, Rosalind, Portia, Imogen, Isabel, Queen Katharine, Ophelia-, and Cordelia are ail drawn with inimitable skill. The influence of Mary Arden over her son is here distinctly traceable. He never forgot her : "We are all the sons of women, Master Page." And speaking of the domestic relationships, is this picture of an old man and his grandchild not altogether charming: — "Thy grandsire loved thee well; Many a time he danced thee on his knee, Sung thee asleep,' h:s loving breast thy pillow; Many a matter hath he told to thee Meet and agreeing with thy infancy. SOME PROVERBS. He is "familiar in men's mouths as household words." Ts the average man aware that much of his daily conversation is derived from Shakespeare; and, when he indulges in proverb or simile, does lie know that he « ofton q"°tmg from the Bard? Here are some of Shakespeare s proverbs; — . . Make a virtue of necessity: •I wo Gentlemen of Verona. 11l blows the wind that profits nobody: "Henrv the Sixth." What though care killed a cat: "Much Ado About Nothing." Tliev that touch pitch will be defiled: '"Much Ado About Nothing." j'lie weakest go to the wall: " Romeo and Juliet." Tiie better part valour is discretion: "Henrv the Fourth." 'i'he course of true lovo never did run smooth : " A Midsummer Night s Dream." Pride must have a fall: "Richard the Second." The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on : "Henry the Fourth." His similes, too, are very apt : As sound as a bell: "Comedy of Errors." As mirry as crickets: "Henry the Fourth.'' As quiet as a lan-.o: "King John. As true as steel: "Troilus and Cressida." I What, is the old king dead? As nail in door: "Henry the l'ourth." Trite remarks such asc "It beggared all description" ; " A wild goose chase" ; "Death by inches"; "Dance attendance"; " Kood for powder": "Out at o'bow"; "Break the ice";. "Tell truth and shame the devil ; "Misery acquaints a man with strange bediellows"; and hundreds of similar sayings will be found in Shakespeare's plays. Let's kill all the lawyers," is his also, and so is "The inaudible and noiseless foot of t'me." FOR ALL TIME. Shakespeare is not tor an age. but f."" nil time. He has made the who'e world his debtor. He is the property and the solace of humanity, and his plays have enriched and ennobled human life. He died three hundred years ago, but he lives in every loving heart today, and he «'ill continue to live and to animate and inspire future generations. Sweet W ill Shakespeare!_ Tins, in his own words, is his requiem : " I l 'ear no more the heat o the sun. Nor the furious winter's rages; Tirui thy worldly ta>k has done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages." _Aiiii this, in the words of Wellington Irving, is our final tribute "Ten thousand honours ings on the bard who has dull realities of life with innocei^^^l