The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [3212]
Shakespeare has many periodic sentences: at first he seems to have rather affected that structure: in the more serious parts of the plays written in his earlier style it is so common as to be almost characteristic of them. But, on the whole, he evidently much preferred writing in straight lines to writing in circles; and this preference grew stronger as he ripened in his art; so that in his later workmanship the periodic construction becomes decidedly rare: and the reason of his so preferring the linear to the circular structure seems to have been, not only because the former is the more natural and spontaneous way of speaking, but also because it offers far more scope for the proper freedom and variety of English colloquial speech. He has numberless sentences of exquisite beauty of structure; many indeed of the circular kind, but far more of the linear; and the beauty of the latter is purer and higher than that of the former, because it is much more unconscious and unsought, and comes along of its own accord in the undivided quest of something else: for, say what you will, the true law in this matter is just that so well stated by Professor Shairp in the passage before quoted in a note on page 138: "No one ever became really beautiful by aiming at beauty. Beauty comes, we scarce know how, as an emanation from sources deeper than itself." And so it was with Shakespeare in all respects,—I mean Shakespeare the master, not Shakespeare the apprentice,—and in none more so than in the matter of style.
Before quitting this branch of the theme, I will add a few illustrations. And I will begin with two specimens of the circular structure; the first being from the night-scene in The Merchant of Venice, v. I:
"For do but note a wild and wanton herd, Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud, Which is the hot condition of their blood; If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, Or any air of music touch their ears, You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze, By the sweet power of music."
The next is from one of Westmoreland's speeches in the Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, iv. 1:
"You, Lord Archbishop,— Whose See is by a civil peace maintain'd; Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd; Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd; Whose white investments figure innocence, The dove and very blessèd spirit of peace,— Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace, Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war?"
Now for some specimens in the linear style. The first is from the courtship of Ferdinand and Miranda, The Tempest, iii. 1:
"I do not know One of my sex; no woman's face remember, Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen More that I may call men, than you, good friend, And my dear father: how features are abroad, I'm skilless of; but, by my modesty,— The jewel in my dower,—I would not wish Any companion in the world but you; Nor can imagination form a shape, Besides yourself, to like of."
The next is from the speech of Cominius to the people on proposing the hero for Consul, in Coriolanus, ii. 2:
"At sixteen years, When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought Beyond the mark of others: our then Dictator, Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight, When with his Amazonian chin he drove The bristled lips before him: he bestrid An o'erpress'd Roman, and i' the Consul's view Slew three opposers: Tarquin's self he met, And struck him on his knee: in that day's feats, When he might act the woman in the scene, He prov'd best man i' the field, and for his meed