IV.). sequel: Proculeius in consternation announces the "J'ay veu (ô rare et miserable chose !) De tant de rois Egyptiens venuë Un tesmoignage.' Et lors, peu soustenuë En chancelant et s'accrochant en vain, Tombe a l'envers, restans un tronc humain." The chorus celebrates the pitifulness and glory of her end, and the supremacy of Caesar: (Act v.). Thus, despite the promises of the prologue, the play resolves itself to a single motif, the determination of Cleopatra to follow Antony in defiance of Octavianus' efforts to prevent her. Nevertheless, simple as it is, it fails in real unity. The ghost of Antony, speaking, one must suppose, the final verdict, pronounces condemnation on her as well as himself; yet in the rest of the play, even in the undignified episode with Seleucus, Jodelle bespeaks for her not only our sympathy but our admiration. It is just another aspect of this that Antony treats her death as the beginning of her punishment, but to her and her attendants and the women of Alexandria it is a desirable release. The recurrent theme of the chorus, varied to suit the complexion of the different acts, is always the same: Joye, qui dueil enfante Se meurdrist; puis la mort, Fait au deuil mesme tort. Half a dozen years later, in 1558, the Confrères de la Passion were acting a play which Muretus had more immediately prompted, and which did him greater credit. This was the Cesar of Jacques Grévin, a young Huguenot gentlemen who, at the age of twenty, recast in French the even more juvenile effort of the famous scholar, expanding it to twice the size, introducing new personages, giving the old ones more to do, and while borrowing largely in language and construction, shaping it to his own ends and making it much more dramatic. Indeed, his tragedy strikes one as fitter for the popular stage than almost any other of its class, and this seems to have been felt at the time, for besides running through two editions in 1561 and 1562, it was reproduced by the Confrères with great success in the former year. Of course its theatrical merit is only relative, and it does not escape the faults of the Senecan school. Grévin styles his dramatis personae rather ominously and very correctly "entreparleurs"; for they talk rather than act. They talk, moreover, in long, set harangues even when they are conversing, and Grévin so likes to hear them that he sometimes lets the story wait. Nor do they possess much individuality or concrete life. But the young author has passion; he has fire; and he knows the dramatic secret of contrasting different moods and points of view. He follows his exemplar most closely, and often literally, in the first three acts, though even in them he often goes his own way. Thus, after Caesar's opening soliloquy, which is by no means so Olympian as in Muret, he introduces Mark Antony, who encourages his master with reminders of his greatness and assurances of his devotion. In the second act, after Marcus Brutus' monologue, not only Cassius but Decimus has something to say, and there is a quicker interchange of statement and rejoinder than is usual in such a play. In the third act, the third and fourth of Muretus are combined, and after the conversation of Calpurnia with the Nurse, there follow her attempts to dissuade her husband from visiting the senate-house, the hesitation of Caesar, the counter-arguments of Decimus; and in conclusion, when Decimus has prevailed, the Nurse resumes her endeavours at consolation. The fourth act is entirely new, and gives an account of the assassination by the mouth of a Messenger, who is also a new person, to the distracted Calpurnia and her sympathetic Nurse. In the fifth Grévin begins by returning to his authority in the jubilant speeches of Brutus and Cassius, but one by Decimus is added; and rejecting the expedient of the ghostly intervention, he substitutes, much more effectively, that of Mark Antony, who addresses the chorus of soldiers, rouses them to vengeance, and having made sure of them, departs to stir up the people. Altogether a creditable performance, and a distinct improvement on the more famous play that supplied the ground-work. One must not be misled. by the almost literal discipleship of Grévin in particular passages, to suppose that even in language he is a mere imitator. The discipleship is of course undeniable. Take Brutus' outburst: Rome effroy de ce monde, exemple des provinces, Du Barbare estranger, qui honneur luy fera, And compare : Reges adorent barbarae gentes suos, Non Roma mundi terror, et mundi stupor. Vivente Bruto, Roma reges nesciet. So, too, after the murder Brutus denounces his victim: ... Ce Tyran, ce Cesar, ennemi du Senat. . The lines whence this extract is taken merely enlarge Ille, ille, Caesar, patriae terror suae, But generally Grévin is more abundant and more fervid even when he reproduces most obviously, and among the best of his purple patches are some that are quite his own. He indeed thought differently. He modestly confesses: Je ne veux pourtant nier que s'il se trouve quelque traict digne estre loué, qu'il ne soit de Muret, lequel a esté mon precepteur quelque temps es lettres humaines, et auquel je donne le meilleur comme l'ayant appris de luy. All the same there is nothing in Muretus like the passage in which Brutus promises himself an immortality of fame : Et quand on parlera de Cesar et de Romme, Qui aura d'un seul coup gaigné la liberté. Grévin's tragedy had great vogue, was preferred even to those of Jodelle, and was praised by Ronsard, though Ronsard afterwards retracted his praises when Grévin broke with him on religious grounds. His protestantism, however, would be a recommendation rather than otherwise in England, and one would like to know whether some of the lost English pieces on the same subject owed anything to the French drama. The suggestion has even been made that Shakespeare was acquainted with it. There are some vague resemblances in particular C thoughts and phrases,1 the closest of which occurs in Caesar's pronouncement on death: Il vault bien mieux mourir Asseuré de tout poinct, qu'incessament perir This suggests: Cowards die many times before their deaths: (11. ii. 32.) Herr Collischonn also draws attention to a coincidence in situation that is not derived from Plutarch. When the conspirators are discussing the chances of Caesar's attending the senate meeting, Cassius says: Encore qu'il demeure Plus long temps à venir, si fault il bien qu'il meure: and Decimus answers: Je m'en vay au devant, sans plus me tormenter, It is at least curious to find the same sort of addition, in the same circumstances and with the same speakers in Shakespeare. Whether Caesar will come forth to-day, or no. Dec. Brut. Never fear that: if he be so resolved, For I can give his humour the true bent (II. i. 194, 202, 210.) Such minutiae, however, are far from conclusive, especially since, as in the two instances quoted, which are the most significant, Plutarch, though he did not authorise, may at any rate have suggested them. The first looks like an expansion of Caesar's remark when his friends were discussing which death was the best: "Death unlooked for." The second 1 Enumerated by Collischonn in his excellent edition, see above. He has, however, overlooked the one I give. |