We do not propose to enter here upon the general question. All that we wish now to do is to point out two or three possible or probable instances of Shakspeare's knowledge of Greek; though indeed to set forth anything new regarding our great master is a rare achievement, and it may perhaps turn out that some lynx-eyed commentator has anticipated every observation we propose to make. We wish to consider certain Greek names that are used by Shakspeare. We may remark, in passing, that Shakspeare's nomenclature presents a subject for study that has by no means yet received the attention it deserves. He is never merely servile in following his originals in this particular; but exercises a remarkable independence, sometimes simply adopting, sometimes slightly varying, sometimes wholly rejecting the names he found in them. It is difficult to imagine that this conduct was merely arbitrary and careless. Euphony must of course have had its influence; often there must have occurred other considerations of no trifling interest, if only we could discover and understand them. A singular instance of a complete re-christening is to be found in The Winter's Tale. The material of this play is, as is well known, Robert Greene's Dorastus and Faunia. Here are the two name-lists :: In the older Hamlet-in the 1603 4to-Polonius is called Corambis, Corambus in the German Play printed by Mr. Albert Cohn; Claudius in the German Play is Erico. Comparing As You Like It with its original -Lodge's Euphues' Golden Legacie-in this respect, we find no trace of Jacques and Touchstone either in name or personality; the Orlando we know so well is the development of a certain Rosader; Oliver, Orlando's brother, is Saladyne; Celia is Alinda; but the names Aliena, Phœbe, Ganymede, Adam, are taken from Lodge without alteration. But we cannot here attempt the investigation of this question. We will only say that we believe that from a thorough scrutiny of it some. valuable light might be cast upon Shakspeare and his art. To turn to our special business in this paper: some of the most noticeable Greek names used by Shakspeare are Apemantus, Sycorax, Autolycus, Desdemona-through the Italian, possibly Ophelia. Every one of these names, except perhaps Sycorax, was adopted by Shakspeare from some older work; but what we wish to point out is the full intelligence and mastery of their sense and associations with which he uses them. Of the name Ophelia Mr. Ruskin has spoken with much ingenuity. He considers it to be the Greek wpeλía, "help," and in its application to Polonius' daughter to have an ironical force. In one point of view Ophelia was the cause of the terrible tragedy, in whose wild current she VOL. XXXIII.—No. 194. 11. herself too was swept away. She by her weakness, as Lady Macbeth by her strength, spread destruction round about her. Not that one is to blame her; she acts according to her nature and capacity, and she can do no more. But it is piteous and dreadful to see how vainly her lover turns towards her for sympathy and succour. More than once, with his faith in humanity well nigh prostrate and all his powers unstrung by suspicion and doubt and despair, he would fain find in her some high restorative of belief and confidence-some divine elixir to make life livable; he would fain find help, but help for him there is none. The name she bears then may contain in it an awful irony. And this Shakspeare may have perceived and felt and acknowledged,-Hamlet was certainly written in a period of his life when for some reason or another his soul was vexed and embittered within him,--although he did not create the name. It was his characteristic to see the significance of things just as they were put before him, instead of rearranging them in order to express some meaning he might wish to give them. That he found the name in the older playthe play referred to by Nash in his Preface to Greene's Menaphon in 1587, and mentioned in Henslowe's Diary in 1594-we can scarcely doubt. It does not occur in The Hystorie of Hamblet, the translation from Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques, which itself derived the story from the Historia Danica of Saxo Grammaticus, though there is a curious mention in it of a lady employed to corrupt Hamlet, who, however, informed him of the treason, 66 as being one that from her infancy loved and favoured him." In the 1603 4to it appears as Ofelia; the German play has it in the shape that is familiar to us. A play, remarkable for its Greek nomenclature, is the Winter's Tale, already mentioned on another account-remarkable because there is little in the original to suggest or encourage such Hellenism; see the list given above. To the Greek names there recorded may be added, Antigonus, Cleomenes, Archidamus, Dion, Autolycus, and Dorcas. We may observe that all these names, except perhaps Dorcas and Leontes, are found in Plutarch's Lives. We will say a few words about Autolycus. Both the character and the name are entirely of Shakspeare's invention. Whence came this prince of pedlars and of pickpockets? No doubt the man had in some sort been espied and watched by him who has painted him for all time—at some Stratford wake, when Mr. Shakspeare of New Place was taking Mistress Susanna and her sister Judith to see what was to be seen; or at Bartholomew Fair, as he strolled through it perchance with Mr. Benjamin Jonson; but what a name to give him! Yet it was carefully chosen. There was an ancient thief of famous memory called Autolycus. His name probably is significant of his nature. It should mean All-wolf, Very-wolf, Wolf's-self. See Hom. Od. xix. 392-8, where the old nurse Eurukleia is bathing the feet of the not yet identified Odusseus : Νῖζε 5' ἄρ' ἆσσον ἰοῦσα ἄναχθ' ἑόν· αὐτίκα δ' ἔγνω μητρὸς ἑῆς πατέρ' ἐσθλὸν, ὃς ἀνθρώπους ἐκέκαστο ἀρνῶν ἠδ ̓ ἐρίφων· δ δέ οἱ πρόφρων ἅμ ̓ ὀπήδει. Here is Chapman's rendering of the passage, published in 1616, but, probably enough, read and known in a certain circle some years before. As the old servant bathes her sovereign's feet she observes the scar— Which witness'd by her eye Was straight approv'd. He first received this sore As in Parnassus' tops a white-tooth'd boar He stood in chase withal, who strook him there At such time as he lived a sojourner With his grandsire Autolycus; who th' art Your witty man withal, and was suborn'd Of lambs and kids he had on him bestow'd In sacred flames; who therefore when he vow'd Let us notice, by the way, that curious addition Chapman makes— "not out of the heart, but by equivocation "—which there is nothing whatever in the Greek to justify. Evidently the Englishman with his ideas of truth-telling, did not appreciate, or understand, the Greek decorýs, “awful cleverness," "sharpness," "subtlety." Again, KÉKασTo does not mean “adorn'd,” but “surpassed." In the following lines the “descent seems to mean descendant, son: "Jove's descent" is Chapman's equivalent for Otoç avróç. Turn from the Odyssey to the Winter's Tale. "My traffic is, sheets," says the worthy prig-pedlar; "when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus, who, being as I am litter'd under Mercury, was likewise a snapper up of unconsidered trifles." We will add that the statement made in the latter sentence about his father, must surely be connected with what Autolycus is said by Ovid to have been-patriæ non degener artis; see the eleventh book of the Metamorphoses, where is narrated the birth of our light-fingered friend— furtum ingeniosus ad omne. Another point of contact between Shakspeare's rogue and the ancient one, is that both have a ready gift of selftransformation. The ancient is said to have had the power of metamorphosis. And so, in the Winter's Tale, the rogue often changes his part. He appears as a shabby, ci-devant valet-which he is, as the denuded victim of thieves, as a most successful pedlar, as a courtier, and lastly as a fawning and servile dependant. The name Desdemona claims a few words. As Mr. Collier points out, that is the only name introduced by Cinthio in the narrative upon which Othello is certainly founded (Hecatommithi, Decad. III. Nov. 7), though whether Shakspeare read it in the original or a translation must remain an open question, the more probable answer at present being that he read it in the Italian. In Cintho's Novel Othello is the Moor, Cassio the lieutenant (il capo di squadrone), Iago the ensign or ancient (l'alfiero). There can be little doubt, we presume, that the name Desdemona is from the Greek vadaipur, "ill-starred," and its singular fitness for the unfortu nate woman who bears it will need no assertion for those who really know the play. Amongst all Shakspeare's heroines she is emphatically dvocaiμwr," the ill-starred one." So lovely, so loving, so accomplished, and true and pure, yet perishing so miserably! "Oh, the world hath not a sweeter creature; she might lie by an emperor's side and command him tasks. . . . An admirable musician; oh, she will sing the savageness out of a bear; of so high and plenteous wit and invention. . . . . And, then, of so gentle a condition!" "Ay, too gentle," says Evil incarnate in the shape of Iago. "Nay, that's certain," replies the poor victim; "but yet the pity of it, Iago! O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!" For the most part Shakspeare delights in tracing the action of the great moral laws of the world, and showing how fearful is the penalty of transgression -how, as Eschylus has it ἤ τις Απόλλων But sometimes he exhibits a yet more dreadful spectacle-a spectacle mysterious, inscrutable, soul-prostrating. It is Fate blind, inexorable, rapacious. Desdemona is one of Fate's choicest victims. Her “graces serve" her "but as enemies." Her very virtues bring on her ruin. What is most innocent is construed into evidence against her. In obeying the best instincts of her clear spirit she excites the evilest suspicions and secures the bitterest condemnation. The truth from her lips is turned into a lie. In the last Act, when Othello charges her with unfaithfulness, her answers, by an almost incredible infelicity, are, through the very purity of her nature, just such as to confirm his detestable impeachment. "Let him confess the truth," she says of Cassio and the handkerchief. Oth. He hath confess'd. Des. What, my lord?; Oth. That he hath-us'd thee. Des. How? unlawfully? Oth. Ay. Des. He will not say so. Oth. No, his mouth is stopp'd; Honest Iago hath ta'en order for't Des. O my fear interprets; what, is he dead? Had stomach for them all. Des. Alas! he is betray'd, and I undone. Oth. Out, strumpet! weep'st thou for him to my face? Could replies be more unfortunate? She lies in the toils of Fate, and there is no escape for her. "But yet the pity of it, Iago! O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!" We said that this name is from the Greek dvodaipur, “ill-starred ; but we may go further and say it is merely a variation of dvocaμovia, "ill-starredness." She is not only unhappy, she is unhappiness itself. It should be remembered that in the Italian the name is Desdémona, not Desdemona. Let us now turn to a name of a very different interest-to Sycorax. The name Caliban is, it is fairly certain, a mere metathesis of Cannibal, which is itself a corruption of Caribale, of which the English form is Caribbee. The name of " my dam's God" is found in Eden's History of Travayle, in an account of the capture of two Patagonians: "When they felt the shackles fast about their legs, they began to doubt; but the captain did put them in comfort and bade them stand still. In fine, when they saw how they were deceived, they roared like bulls, and cried upon their great devil Setebos to help them." Ariel-in the first folio the words " an ayrie spirit" stand opposite the name in the list of characters-is an old title used in a new sense. In Heywood's Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, Ariel is the "Earth's great Lord;" and the word, as Hunter suggested, may be the same as occurs in Isaiah xxiv. 1, 2, and 7, where Jerusalem is so called. Sycorax is, we believe, of Shakspeare's own formation. At all events this name has not yet been found occurrent elsewhere. And we think the conjecture that it is compounded of the Greek σuç (üç is a variant) and Kópaž, and is therefore a contraction of Syokorax, can scarcely be despised. As both sows and ravens are associated with witchcraft and such superstitions, the compound might serve not ill to denominate that "foul witch" (Tempest, 1. iii. 258), “ damned witch" (Ib. 263), "blue-eyed hag" (Ib. 268), of whose "mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible to enter human hearing," and "earthly and abhorred commands," and "most unmitigable rage," Prospero speaks with such genuine loathing. Notice Caliban's opening curse : As wicked dew as c'er my mother brush'd With raven's feather from unwholesome fen In other plays we find such phrases as "the hateful raven," "the fatal Other illustrations old and new might easily be given. Poe's description of this bird in his well-known poem will occur to every reader : Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the nightly shore. |