SHAKESPEARE AND THE

Otago Witness, Issue 2080, 4 January 1894, Page 49

SHAKESPEARE AND THE

I By C. iV. B.

' Very few people have any adequate notion >£ the extent to which Shakespeare draws iDon Holy Writ for his similes, especially as t is not fashionable jast now to know anyihing about the Bible. As Mr J. B. SelkiiK h his admirable little work has justly said : ' The character and extent of Shakespeare's sducation is a 1 subject v>hich Has b&en disiussed already ad Nauseam — one of those infortunate points of which so little is known that everyone thinks himself entitled to have bis say in it. Bat if internal evidence from his works has any place in the argument at all, the most extreme disputants on either side of the question will readily Concede that one of the principal influences that moulded and guided bis intellect — one of his great teachers indeed — was the Bible." Goethe, the Shakespeare of Germany, has said : " It is a belief in the Bible which has served me as a guide to my literary life. I have found it a capital safely [invested, and richly productive of iatereat."

Let us look at a few of Shakespeare's allusions to the Scripture. Take, for example, the following from " All's Well that Ends Well,'' act ii, scene 1, in which Helena fcries to persuade the King of France to try her remedy for the cure of his disease. She 'pleads the following arguments in defence of her youth and seeming want of expedience : I He that of greatest works is finisher, i Oft does them by the weakest minister : So Holy Writ in babes hath judgment shown, L When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown I Prom simple sources ; and great seas have dried When miracles have by the greatest been denied. I Oft expectation'fails, and most oft there 1 Where most it promises ; and oft it hits Where hope is coldest, and despair most sits. |To those of us who at some time in our lives . have read the Bible the first lines recall the ; verse in Corinthians — " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty." The third line recalls to our minds that verse in •Matthew — " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings tbou bast revealed wisdom," and , the fourih line takes our thoughts back to the child-prophet Samuel and the youthful Daniel. •' Great floods have flown from simple sources " recalls the story of Moses smitiDg the rock at Horeb, and in the passage " Great seas have dried," reference is made to the children of Israel pasting through the Ksd Sea. This one quotation alone would prove conclusively that Shakespeare was thoroughly conversant with the Soriptures, but literally hundreds of such quotations could be given in support of our contention.

In " King Richard III," act i, scene 3, wo are reminded of the words " Pray for them that despitef ully use you " thus : A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion — To pray for them that have done scath to us. How trenchant are the lines : And thus I clothe my naked villainy With old odds and ends, stolen forth of Holy Writ ; And seem a saint when most I play the devil. Aod how significant, and, alas 1 how true the lines : In religion, What damned error but Efome sober brow Will blesß it, and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament. These lines from "Richard III" and the " Merchant oE Venice " respectively, aio no doubt suggested by the temptation of Christ by Satan, and Satan's quoting of Scripture to Him. What an admirable sermon on the text, the devil, and he will flee from you," is the following from " Hamlet." There is more thought in this than in a bushel of thejjaverage modern sermons 1 That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this— That to the use of actions fair and- good He likewise gives a frock or livery, That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night : And that ehall lend a kind of easiness To the next, abstinence : the next more easy ; For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And master the devil, or throw him out With wondrous potency.

How evidently are the lines from " Love's Labour Lost " — Brave conquerors !— for so you are, That war against your own affections, And the huge army of the world's desires — inspired by Solomon's saying, "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city."

When Shakespeare makes Clarence address the murderers in the Tower in these words — God will be avenged for the deed, Take not the quarrel from His powerful arm ; He needs no indirect nor lawless course To cut off those who have offended him he had no doubt in his mind Paul's advice to the Romans — " Avenge not yourselves. . . . Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord."

Shakespeare knew well the value of a good name, and his estimate thereof coincides almost exactly with that of Solomon. The latter writes—" A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold," and the former echoes the same sentiment in the memorable lines of Othello : Good name iv man or woman 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.

Our poet quotes almost verhatim the text ' — " What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder," in King "Henry VI": God forbid that I should wish them severed Whom God hath joined together. " The poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard," saith Solomon ; and our poet versifies the sentiment iv " The Merry Wives of Windsor " : Oh, what a world of vile ill-favoured faults Looks handsome on three hundred" pounds a year I

Job found, like most of ns, that his days were swifter than a weaver's shuttle; and Shakespeare says, " Life is a shuttle."

Jr.emiuh, ■>■ Miinij co .she 1 that error is its or/a vior^uCiT^, oajs : '• i'nine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidicg shall reprove thee." How well has Shakespeare embodied the idea in " King Lear " : To wilful men, The injuries that they themselves procure Must be their schoolmasters. These parallels might be continued to take up almost the whole of the New Year Number of the Witness, but we forbear. Any of your readers who are interested in the subject may look it up for themselves in >3elkirk'a work. Thi3 writer gives the names of no less than 40 Bible characters to whom Shakespeare directly alludes. . And yet this literature which has inspired the works of our noblest poets and painters mtißt be banished from the curriculum 1 of orir children. One of the finest monuments of prose and poesy in our noble language is not fit to be read in our schools. Apropos of this Matthew Arnold, by no means a religious bigot, in his report on the schools of Germany, Switzerland, and Franc, writes: — " The third and la3t point is that religious instruction, which politicians making or administering the popular school seek to exclude as embarrassing, if not futile, is a formative influence, an element of culture of the very highe&t value, and more indispensable in the popular school than in an; other. Political pressure tends to exclude this element of culture ; clerical pressure tends to give it a false character. The interest of the people is to get a true character imparted to it, and to have it firmly planted with this character in the popular school."