“Hic murus aëneus esto,
Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa,”—
“This be thy wall of brass, to be conscious to thyself of no shame, to
become pale at no crime.”
Or, in the still more popular ode (Carm. i. 22), which being of
old recited in the palaces of Mæcenas and Augustus at Rome,
has, after the flow of nearly nineteen centuries, been revived in
the drawing rooms of Paris and London, and of the whole
civilized world;—
“Integer vitæ, scelerisque purus,
Non eget Mauris jaculis, neque arcu,
Non venenatis gravida sagittis,
Fusce, pharetra,”—
“He, sound in his life, from all transgression free,
Doth need no Moorish javelins, nor bended bow,
Nor of arrows winged with poisons a quiver-tree,
Fuscus, to strike his foe.”
[173]
Both these sentiments of the lyric poet have been imitated or
adapted by the dramatic; as in 2 Henry VI. (act iii. sc. 2, l. 232,
vol. v. p. 171), where the good king exclaims,—
“What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted!
Thrice is he arm’d, that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though lock’d up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.”
And again, in Titus Andronicus (act iv. sc. 2, l. 18, vol. vi. p.
492), in the words of the original, on the scroll which Demetrius
picks up,—
“Dem. What’s here? A scroll, and written round about!
Let’s see:
[Reads.] ‘Integer vitæ, scelerisque purus,
Non eget Mauri jaculis, nec arcu.’
Chi. O, ’tis a verse in Horace; I know it well:
I read it in the grammar long ago.
Aar. Ay, just; a verse in Horace; right, you have it.
[Aside.] Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!
Here’s no sound jest: the old man hath found their guilt,
And sends them weapons wrapp’d about with lines,
That wound, beyond their feeling, to the quick.”
Several of the Emblem writers, however, propound a sentiment
not so generally known, in which Apollo’s favourite tree,
the Laurel, is the token of a soul unalarmed by threatening evils.
Sambucus and Whitney so consider it, and illustrate it with the
motto,—The pure conscience is man’s laurel tree.
Conſcientia integra, laurus.
The saying rests on the ancient persuasion that the laurel is
the sign of joy, victory and safety, and that it is never struck
even by the bolts of Jove. Sambucus, personifying the laurel,
celebrates its praise in sixteen elegiac lines beginning,—
“Prona virens cælum ſpecto, nec fulmina terrent,
Ob ſcelus excelſa quæ iacit arce pater,” &c.
“Spread out flourishing heaven I survey, nor do lightnings terrify,
Though for crime’s sake the father hurls them from citadels on high,
Yea even with my leaves I crackle, and although burnt
Daphne I name, whom the master’s love so importuned.
So conscious virtue strengthens, and placed far from destruction
Pleasing my state is to powers above, and long time is flourishing.
Men’s voices he never fears, nor the weapons of fire,
Who hath girded his mind round with snow-bright love.
This mind the raging Eumenides will not distress, nor the home
For the sad and the guiltless overturn’d without cause.
Even the hoary swan worn out in inactive old age
Gives forth admonitions, as it sings from a stifling throat;
Pure of heart with its mate conversing, it washes in water,
And morals of clearest hue in due form rehearses.
Who repents of unlawful life, and whom conscious errors
Do not oppress,—that man sings forth hymns everlasting.”
These thoughts in briefer and more nervous style Whitney
rehearses to the old theme, A brazen wall, a sound conscience
(p. 67),—
Murus æneus, ſana conſcientia.
To Miles Hobart Eſquier.
“Bothe freshe, and greene, the Laurell standeth sounde,
Thoughe lightninges flasshe, and thunderboltes do flie:
Where, other trees are blasted to the grounde,
Yet, not one leafe of it, is withered drie:
Euen so, the man that hathe a conscience cleare.
When wicked men, doe quake at euerie blaste,
Doth constant stande, and dothe no perrilles feare,
When tempestes rage, doe make the worlde agaste:
Suche men are like vnto the Laurell tree,
The others, like the blasted boughes that die.”
But a much fuller agreement with the above motto does Whitney
express in the last stanza of Emblem 32,—
“A conscience cleare, is like a wall of brasse,
That dothe not shake, with euerie shotte that hittes;
Eauen soe there by, our liues wee quiet passe,
When guiltie mindes, are rack’de with fearful fittes:
Then keepe thee pure, and soile thee not with sinne,
For after guilte, thine inwarde greifes beginne.”
The same property is assigned to the Laurel by Joachim
Camerarius (“Ex Re Herbaria,” p. 35, edition 1590). He
quotes several authorities, or opinions for supposing that the
laurel was not injured by lightning. Pliny, he says, supported
the notion; the Emperor Tiberius in thunder storms
betook himself to the shelter of the laurel; and Augustus
before him did the same thing, adding as a further protection
a girdle made from the skin of a sea-calf. Our
modern authorities give no countenance to either of these
fancies.
Now, combining the thoughts on Conscience presented by
the Emblems on the subject which have been quoted, can we
fail to perceive in Shakespeare, when he speaks of Conscience
and its qualities, a general agreement with Sambucus, and more
especially with Whitney?
How finely, in Henry VIII. (act iii. sc. 2, l. 372, vol. vi. p.
76), do the old Cardinal and his faithful Cromwell converse,—
“Enter Cromwell, and stands amazed.
Wol. Why, how now, Cromwell!
Crom. I have no power to speak, sir.
Wol. What, amazed
At my misfortunes? can thy spirit wonder
A great man should decline? Nay, an you weep,
I am fall’n indeed.
Crom. How does your grace?
Wol. Why, well:
Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell.
I know myself now; and I feel within me
A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
. . . . . . . .
I am able now, methinks,
Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,
To endure more miseries and greater far
Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.”
And, on the other hand, the stings of Conscience, the deep
remorse for iniquities, the self-condemnation which lights upon
the sinful, never had expounder so forcible and true to nature.
When Alonso, as portrayed in the Tempest (act iii. sc. 3, l. 95,
vol. i. p. 53), thought of his cruel treachery to his brother
Prospero, he says,—
“O, it is monstrous, monstrous!
Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it:
The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder.
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced
The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass.”
And the King’s dream, on the eve of Bosworth battle
(Richard III., act v. sc. 3, lines 179, 193, and 200, vol. v. p. 625),
what a picture it gives of the tumult of his soul!—
“O coward conscience, how dost thou affright me!
. . . . . . . .
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
. . . . . . . .
There is no creature loves me;
And, if I die, no soul shall pity me:—
Nay, wherefore should they? since that I myself,
Find in myself no pity to myself.
Methought, the souls of all that I had murder’d
Came to my tent; and everyone did threat
To-morrow’s vengeance on the head of Richard.”
Various expressions of the dramatist may end this notice of
the Judge within us,—
“The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul.”
“Every man’s conscience is a thousand swords
To fight against that bloody homicide.”
“I’ll haunt thee, like a wicked conscience still,
That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy thought.”
“Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.”
In some degree allied to the power of conscience is the
retribution for sin ordained by the Divine Wisdom. We have
not an Emblem to present in illustration, but the lines from
King Lear (act v. sc. 3. l. 171, vol. viii. p. 416),—
“The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us,”—
are so co-incident with a sentiment in the Confessions (bk. i. c.
12, § 19) of the great Augustine that they deserve at least to
be set in juxta-position. The Bishop is addressing the Supreme
in prayer, and naming the sins and follies of his youth, says,—
“De peccanti meipso justè retribuebas mihi. Jusisti enim, & sic est, ut
pœna sua sibi sit omnis inordinatus animis.”
i.e. “By my own sin Thou didst justly punish me. For thou hast commanded,
and so it is, that every inordinate affection should bear its own punishment.”[174]
“Timon of Athens,” we are informed by Dr. Drake (vol. ii. p.
447), “is an admirable satire on the folly and ingratitude of
mankind; the former exemplified in the thoughtless profusion
of Timon, the latter in the conduct of his pretended friends; it
is, as Dr. Johnson observes,—
“‘A very powerful warning against that ostentatious liberality, which
scatters bounty, but confers no benefits, and buys flattery but not
friendship.’”
There is some doubt whether Shakespeare derived his idea
of this play from the notices of Timon which appear in Lucian,
or from those given by Plutarch. The fact, however, that the
very excellent work by Sir Thomas North, Knight, The Lives
of the Noble Grecians and Romaines, &c., was published in 1579,—and
that Shakespeare copies it very closely in the account of
Timon’s sepulchre and epitaph, show, I think, Plutarch to have
been the source of his knowledge of Timon’s character and
life.
One of the Emblem writers, Sambucus, treated of the same
subject in eighteen Latin elegiacs, and expressly named it,
Timon the Misanthrope. The scene, too, which the device
represents, is in a garden, and we can very readily fancy that
the figure on the left is the old steward Flavius come to
reason with his master,—
Μισάνθρωποςος Τίμων.
Ad Hieron. Cardanum.
Oderat hic cunctos, nec ſe, nec amabat amicos,
Μισῶν ἀνθρώπους nomina digna gerens.
Hoc vitium, & morbus de bili naſcitur atra,
Anxiat hæc, curas ſuppeditatq́₃que graues.
Quapropter cecidiſſe piro, fregiſſeq́₃que crura
Fertur, & auxilium non petiiſſe malo.
Suauibus à sociis, & conſuetudine dulci
Qui se ſubducunt, vulnera ſæua ferunt.
Conditio hæc miſera eſt, triſtes ſuſpiria ducunt,
Cumq́₃que nihil cauſæ eſt, occubuiſſe velint.
At tu dum poteris, noto ſociere ſodali,
Subleuet vt preſſum, corq́₃que dolore vacet.
Quos nulla attingunt prorſus commercia grato
Atque ſodalitio, ſubſidiisq́₃que carent:
Aut Dij ſunt proprij, aut falſus peruertit inanes
Senſus, vt hos ſtolidos, vanaq́₃que corda putes.
Tu verò tandem nobis dialectica ſponte
Donata, in lucem mittito, ſi memor es.
In this case we have given the Latin of Sambucus in full,
and append a nearly literal translation,—
“All men did he hate, nor loved himself, nor his kindred,—
One hating mankind was the name, worthy of him, he bore.
This faultiness and disease from the black bile arise,
When freely it flows heavy cares it increases.
Wherefore from a pear tree he is said to have fallen,
To have broken his legs, nor help to have sought for the evil.
From pleasant companions, and sweet conversation
They who withdraw themselves, cruel wounds have to bear.
Wretched this state of theirs, sorrowful what sighs they draw,
And though never a cause arise, ’tis their wish to have died.
But thou, while the power remains, join thy well-known companion,
Thee overwhelmed he strengthens, and free sets the heart from its grief.
Whom, with a friend that is pleasing, never intercourse touches,
Without companionship, long without assistance they remain.
Either the gods are our own, or false feeling perverteth the soul,
And you fancy men stupid, and their hearts all are vain.
To us at length reasoning power freely being granted,
Into light do thou send them, if of light thou art mindful.”
The character here sketched is deficient in the thorough
heartiness of hatred for which Shakespeare’s Timon is distinguished,
yet may it have served him for the primal material
out of which to create the drama. In Sambucus there is a
mistiness of thought and language which might be said almost
to prefigure the doubtful utterances of some of our modern
philosophers, but in Shakespeare the master himself takes in
hand the pencil of true genius, and by the contrasts and
harmonies, the unmistakeable delineations and portraitures, lays
on the canvas a picture as rich in its colouring as it is constant
in its fidelity to nature, and as perfect in its finish as it is bold
in its conceptions.
The extravagance of Timon’s hatred may be gathered from
only a few of his expressions,—
“Burn, house! sink, Athens! henceforth hated be
Of Timon man and all humanity.”
Timon of Athens, act iii. sc. 6, l. 103
“Timon will to the woods, where he shall find
The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind
The gods confound—hear me, you good gods all!—
The Athenians both within and out that wall!
And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow
To the whole race of mankind, high and low!
Amen.”
Act iv. sc. 1, l. 35.
“All is oblique;
There’s nothing level in our cursed natures
But direct villany. Therefore be abhorr’d
All feasts, societies and throngs of men.”
Act iv. sc. 3, l. 18
“I am misanthropos, and hate mankind.
For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
That I might love thee something.”
Act iv. sc. 3, l. 51
“I never had honest man about me, I; all
I kept were knaves, to serve in meat to villains.”
Act iv. sc. 3, l. 475
And so his ungoverned passion of hatred goes on until it
culminates in the epitaph placed on his tomb, which he names
his “everlasting mansion,”—
“Upon the beached verge of the salt flood.”
That epitaph as given by Shakespeare, from North’s Plutarch
(edition 1579, p. 1003), is almost a literal rendering from
the real epitaph recorded in the Greek Anthology (Jacobs,
vol. i. p. 86),—
“Ἐνθάδ’ ἀποῤῥηξας ψυχὴν βαρυδαίμονα κεῖμαι,
Τοὔνομα δ’ οὐ πεύσεσθε, κακοὶ δὲ κακῶς ἀπόλοισθε.”
Of which a very close translation will be,—
“Here, having rent asunder a dæmon oppressed soul, I lie;
The name ye shall not inquire, but ye bad ones badly shall perish.”
The epitaph of the drama (Timon of Athens, act v. sc. 4, l. 69,
vol. vii. p. 305) is thus read by Alcibiades from the wax impression
taken at the tomb,—
“Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft:
Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!
Here lie I, Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate:
Pass by and curse thy fill: but pass and stay not here thy gait.”
Plutarch[175] introduces a mention of Timon into the life of
Marc Antony, whom he compares in some respects to the
misanthrope of Athens. He gives the same epitaph as that of
the Anthology above quoted, except a letter or two,—
“Ἐνθαδ’ ἀποῤῥήξας ψυχὴν βαρυδαίμονα κεῖμαι,
Τοὔνομα δ’ οὐ πευσοισθε, κακοὶ δὲ κακῶς ἀπόλοισθε.”
Plutarch avers, “καὶ τοὺτο μὲν αὐτὸν ἔτιζῶντα πεποιηκέναι λέγουσι,”—“And
people say that during his life he himself made this
epitaph.” The narrator then adds, “τοὺτο δε περιφερόμενον,
Καλλιμάχου εστι,”—“But this round the margin is by Callimachus,”—
“Τίμων μισάνθρωπος ἐσοικέω· ἀλλα πάρελθε
Οἰμώζειν εἴπας πολλὰ, πάρελθε μόνον.”
“I, Timon the manhater dwell within: but pass by,
To bewail me thou hast spoken many things;—only pass by.“
The two epitaphs Shakespeare has combined into one,
showing indeed his acquaintance with the above passage
through North’s Plutarch, but not discriminating the authorship
of the two parts. North’s translation of the epitaphs is simple
and expressive, but the Langhornes, in 1770, vulgarise the lines
into,—
“At last I’ve bid the knaves farewell
Ask not my name, but go to hell.”
“My name is Timon: knaves begone,
Curse me, but come not near my stone.”
How Wrangham, in his edition of the Langhornes, 1826, could
without notice let this pass for a translation, is altogether unaccountable!
Shakespeare’s, adapted as it is by Sir Thomas North in 1612,
may certainly be regarded as a direct version from the Greek,
and might reasonably be adduced to prove that he possessed
some knowledge of that language. Probably, however, he
collected, as he could, the general particulars respecting the
veritable and historical Timon, and obtained the help of some
man of learning so as to give the very epitaph which in the
time of the Peloponnesian war had been placed on the thorn-surrounded
sepulchre of the Athenian misanthrope.
To conclude this notice we may observe that the breaking of
the legs, which Sambucus mentions, is said to have been the
actual cause of the real Timon’s death; for that in his hatred of
mankind he even hated himself, and would not allow a surgeon
to attempt his cure.
Envy and Hatred may be considered as nearly allied, the
latter too often springing from the former. Alciat, in his 71st
Emblem, gives a brief description of Envy,—
“Sqvallida vipereas manducans femina carnes,
Cuiq. dolent oculi, quæq. suum cor edit,
Quam macies & pallor habent, spinosaq. gestat
Tela manu: talis pingitur Inuidia.”
Thus amplified with considerable force of expression by
Whitney (p. 94),[176]—
“What hideous hagge with visage sterne appeares?
Whose feeble limmes, can scarce the bodie staie:
This, Enuie is: leane, pale, and full of yeares,
Who with the blisse of other pines awaie.
And what declares, her eating vipers broode?
That poysoned thoughtes, bee euermore her foode.
What meanes her eies? so bleared, sore, and redd:
Her mourninge still, to see an others gaine.
And what is mente by snakes vpon her head?
The fruite that springes, of such a venomed braine.
But whie, her harte shee rentes within her brest?
It shewes her selfe, doth worke her owne vnrest.
Whie lookes shee wronge? bicause shee woulde not see,
An happie wight, which is to her a hell:
What other partes within this furie bee?
Her harte, with gall: her tonge, with stinges doth swell.
And laste of all, her staffe with prickes aboundes:
Which showes her wordes, wherewith the good shee woundes.”
The dramatist speaks of the horrid creature with equal
power. Among his phrases are,—
“Thou makest thy knife keen; but no metal can,
No, not the hangman’s axe, bear half the keenness
Of thy sharp envy.”
Merchant of Venice, act iv. sc. 1, l. 124
“And for we think the eagle-winged pride
Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
With rival-hating envy, set on you
To wake our peace.”
Richard II., act i. sc. 3, l. 129
“Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake’s groan,
I would invent as bitter-searching terms,
As curst, as harsh and horrible to hear,
Deliver’d strongly through my fixed teeth,
With full as many signs of deadly hate,
As lean-faced Envy in her loathsome cave.”
2 Hen. VI., act iii. sc. 2, l. 310
“’tis greater skill
In a true hate, to pray they have their will:
The very devils cannot plague them better.”
Cymbeline, act ii. sc. 5, l. 33
“Men that make
Envy and crooked malice nourishment
Dare bite the best.”
Hen. VIII., act v. sc. 3, l. 43
“That monster envy.”
Pericles, act iv. Introd., l. 12
The ill-famed Thersites, that railer of the Grecian camp,
may close the array against “the hideous hagge with visage
sterne” (Troilus and Cressida, act ii. sc. 3, l. 18, vol. vi.
p. 169),—
“I have said my prayers; and devil Envy say Amen.”
The wrong done to the soul, through denying it at the
last hour the consolations of religion, or through negligence
in not informing it of its danger when severe illness arises,
is set forth with true Shakespearean power in Holbein’s
Simulachres & Historiees faces de la Mort (Lyons, 1538), on
sign. Nij,—
“O si ceulx, qui font telles choses, scauoient le mal qu’ilz font, ilz ne
cõmettroient iamais vne si grande faulte. Car de me oster mes biens,
persecuter ma personne, denigrer ma renommée, ruyner ma maison,
destruire mõ parẽtaige, scãdalizer ma famille, criminer ma vie, ces ouures sõt
dũg cruel ennemy. Mais d’estre occasion, q̃ ie perde mõ ame, pour nõ la
cõseiller au besoing, c’est vne oeuure dũg diable d’Enfer. Car pire est q̃ vng
diable l’hõme, qui trompe le malade.”
It is in a similar strain that Shakespeare in Othello (act iii.
sc. 3, lines 145 and 159, vol. viii. pp. 512, 513) speaks of the
wrong done by keeping back confidence, and by countenancing
calumny,—
“Oth. Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,
If thou but think’st him wrong’d and mak’st his ear
A stranger to thy thoughts.
. . . . . . . .
Iago. It were not for your quiet nor your good,
Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom,
To let you know my thoughts.
Oth. What dost thou mean?
Iago. Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.”
The gallant ship, courageously handled and with high soul of
perseverance and fearlessness guided through adverse waves, has
for long ages been the type of brave men and brave women
struggling against difficulties, or of states and nations amid
opposing influences battling for deliverance and victory. Even
if that gallant ship fails in her voyage she becomes a fitting
type, how “human affairs may decline at their highest.” So
Sambucus, and Whitney after him (p. 11), adapt their device
and stanzas to the motto,—
Res humanæ in ſummo declinant.
In medio librat Phœbus dum lumina cælo,
Diſſoluit radiis, quæ cecidere, niues.
Cùm res humanæ in ſummo ſtant, ſæpe liqueſcunt:
Et nihil æternum, quod rapit atra dies.
Nil iuuat ingentes habitare palatia Reges,
Conditio miſeros hæc eadémque manet.
Mors æquat cunctos, opibus nec parcit in horam,
Verbáque dum Volitant, ocyus illa venit.
Heu, leuiter ventus pellit nos omnis inermes,
Concidimus citiùs quàm leuat aura roſas.
“The gallante Shipp, that cutts the azure surge,
And hathe both tide, and wisshed windes, at will:
Her tackle sure, with shotte her foes to vrge,
With Captaines boulde, and marriners of skill,
With streamers, flagges, topgallantes, pendantes braue,
When Seas do rage, is swallowed in the waue.
The snowe, that falles vppon the mountaines greate,
Though on the Alpes, which seeme the clowdes to reache,
Can not indure the force of Phœbus heate,
But wastes awaie, Experience doth vs teache:
Which warneth all, on Fortunes wheele that clime
To beare in minde how they haue but a time.”
But with brighter auguries, though from a similar device,
Alciat (Emb. 43) shadows forth hope for a commonwealth
when dangers are threatening. A noble vessel with its sails set
is tossing upon the billows, the winds, however, wafting it
forward; then it is he gives utterance to the thought, Constancy
the Companion of Victory; and thus illustrates his meaning,[177]—
“By storms that are numberless our Commonwealth is shaken,
And hope for safety in the future, hope alone is present:
So a ship with the ocean about her, when the winds seize her,
Gapes with wide fissures ’mid the treacherous waters.
What of help, the shining stars, brothers of Helen, can bring:
To spirits cast down good hope soon doth restore.”
Whitney (p. 37), from the same motto and device, almost
with a clarion’s sound, re-echoes the thought,—
Constantia comes victoriæ.
To Miles Corbet Esſquier.
“The shippe, that longe vppon the sea dothe saile,
And here, and there, with varrijng windes is toste:
On rockes, and sandes, in daunger ofte to quaile.
Yet at the lengthe, obtaines the wished coaste:
Which beinge wonne, the trompetts ratlinge blaste,
Dothe teare the skie, for ioye of perills paste.
Thoughe master reste, thoughe Pilotte take his ease,
Yet nighte, and day, the ship her course dothe keepe:
So, whilst that man dothe saile theise worldlie seas,
His voyage shortes: althoughe he wake, or sleepe.
And if he keepe his course directe, he winnes
That wished porte, where lastinge ioye beginnes.”
To a similar purport is the “Finis coronat opvs,” The
end crowns the work,—of Otho Vænius (p. 108), if perchance
Shakespeare may have seen it. Cupid is watching a sea-tossed
ship, and appears to say,—