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SHAKESPEARE'S PASTORALS
To many critics it has seemed that the pastoral element in Shakespeare's plays has small significance because he nowhere introduces,
with seriousness, the conventions of the gente. Pastoral drama in
England is represented, according to this view, by the Arraignment
of Paris or ThteFaithful Shepherdess,but not by As You Like It or
The Winter's Tale.' Such an exclusion, however, is surely illogical.
To say that because Autolycus is unlike Corin and Daphnis, therefore The Winter'sTale has little or no relation to pastoral literature is
no more reasonable than to say that because in the Henry V trilogy
we are more interested in Falstaff or Fluellen or Justice Shallow
than in the strictly historical material, therefore these plays do not
belong to the chronicle history group. Shakespeare extended and
enlarged the scope of comedy, history, and tragedy, yet the classification of the First Folio is convenient and not inaccurate. In As
You Like It, Cymbeline,and The Wintter'sTale he dealt with material
drawn from pastoral romance in such a way as to deepen and enrich
certain characteristicsof this genre;he did not write pastorals of the
conventional Renaissance type, yet the pastoral element in his plays
is both considerableand important.
In the present study I shall discuss two topics: first, the relation
of Shakespeare's pastorals to a well-defined type of plot-structure
which, originating in Daphnis and Chloe and modified by certain
Italian and Spanish elements, found its first complete English expression in Sidney's Arcadia, and, second, Shakespeare's development
from a criticism of the absurditiesof pastoralismcoupled with a somewhat conventional use of the countrv vs. town motif to a much deeper
interpretation of one of the most interesting phases of Renaissance
thougyht.
As examplesof many expressionsof such views compare Smith, "Pastoral Influence on the
English Drama." in Publications of the Modern Language Association,

1897, pp. 378-381: "In The

Winter's Tale the pastoralelement borrowedfrom Greene's Pandosto is so completely subordinated

that we can hardlysay it exists at all. Who would speak of Perdita as an Arcadian?" He makes a
similar remark concerning As You Like It. Schelling (Engtish Literature During the Lifetime of Shake-

speare,p. 386) says that As You Like It is no true pastoral,since the genius of its author "could not
be boundwithin the conventionsof a formof literatureso exotic and conventional";and of The Winter's
Tale (pp. 389-390) he says that the outdoorscenes "are pastoralonly in the sense that they deal witb
shepherdsand their life." Greg (PastoralPoetryand PastoralDrama, p. 411) says: "It is characteristic of the shepherdscenesof that play (sc. Winer's Tale), writtenin the full maturityof Shakespeare's
genius, that, in spite of their origin . . . . they owe nothing of their treatment to pastoral
tradition, nothing to convention, nothing to aught save life as it mirroreditself in the magic glass of
the poet's inspiration;"and his comment (pp. 412-413) on As You Like It mainly consists of generalizationsabout the beauty of " the faint perfumeof the polishedUtopia of the courtly makers."

Edwin Greenlaw

123

I. THE INFLUENCEOF SIDNEYANDSPENSER

Daphnis and Chloe supplied the chief elements in the plot of a

type of pastoral which was used, with some modifications,by Sidney,
Spenser, and Shakespeare. The romance is too well-known to need
detailed exposition; the main points ma.ybe summarizedas follows:
Two foundlings are brought up by rustics whom they regard as their parents;
their childhood is described in detail, and the manner in which they became
lovers; the purity and sweetness of this love idyl are emphasized; character
contrast is supplied by means of a rude lover, the rival of the hero, who is
also a coward; disguised as a wolf, he attacks the girl, who is rescued by the hero.
Later, wicked men attempt without success to kidnap the boy, the rival being slain
in the encounter, and the incident is repeated in the captivity of the heroine by
outlaws. At length the lovers are reunited; wealthy parents come and recognize
them, and they are happily married.

This is the story, in brief, of the only true Greek pastoral which
influenced English literature; other Greek romancers, such as Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius, stressed the wanderingsof the lovers and
introduced various otber elements which are without significance in
the present study. The Italian and Spanish pastoral romances, such
as the Ameto, the Arcadia, and the Diana, have little relation to this
plot; they introduce various love idyls and go back to the Virgilian
eclogues. But with them the element of allegory is introduced; there
is the further important influence of style, particularly the interweaving of prose and verse; and in the introduction of the author,
often as a disappointed lover who is living for the time among shepherds, a noteworthy addition to the dramatispersonaewas made.
From these various sources, all well known in the England of
Sidney's time, a composite plot was formed, the essentials of which
are as follows:
1. A childof unknownparentage,usuallya girl, is broughtup by shepherds.
As a variant,the heroinemay merelybe livingin seclusionamongshepherds.
2. A loveris introduced,who may be a foundling,or, morecommonly,a man
of highbirthwho fallsin love with the heroineand forher sakeadoptsthe dressand
the life of a shepherdor a forester.
3. This love story is complicatedby the rivalryof a blunderingshepherd,
usually characterizedas a coward,his function being to supply comedy and to
serve as a foil for the hero.
4. Melodramaticelements are suppliedby the attack of a lion or a bear,
and this affords the hero another opportunity to prove his prowess.
5. A captivity episode is usually introduced; the heroine is stolen by pirates
or outlaws; the hero goes to her rescue.
6. At length it develops that the girl is of high birth, and she marries the hero.

124

Shakespeare'sPastorals

7. From Italian and Spanish sources comes an extra character, not vitally
connected with the plot, often the author of the romance; usually this man is
afflicted with melancholy and is living among shepherds because of his woes.

Sidney's Arcadia is often referredto as a pastoral; in reality it is a

heroic "poem," according to the standards of Sidney and his circle,
in which a pastoral episode is introduced. The action opens, in the
midst of the story, with this pastoral, but that the pastoral is not the
chief element in the story is evidenced not only by the space given in
books I and II to the epic history of Pyrocles and Musidorusbut by
the fact that throughout book III, the most important of the entire
work, the pastoral completely disappears.2 The plot3 of this pastoral
portion of Arcadia follows closely the type outlined above:
1. A king, or, in the first version, a duke, lives with his daughters in pastoral
seclusion.
2. Two princes come to the place; in order to get access to the maidens one
disguises himself as a shepherd, the other as an Amazon.
3. A blundering shepherd, guardian of one of the girls, supplies comic interest;
his cowardice is especially dwelt on.
4. Melodramatic incidents are supplied by the advent of a lion and a bear;
the heroes save the maidens.
5. Two illustrations of the captivity motif are given: there is an incursion of
the rabble by which the lives of the heroines are greatly endangered; the attempt,
however, is foiled by the heroes. Later, by a ruse, the girls are abducted and are
kept in captivity for a long time; the Amazon is also captured, but the shepherd
goes to the aid of his lady. Here the pastoral disappears and a long series of
chivalric adventures takes its place.
6. At length the heroines are released and marriages follow.
7. A melancholy shepherd named Philisides (Sidney), who has no part in the
main action, is living in this pastoral seclusion because of an unhappy love affair
(Stella).

The variations in this plot are not significant. There is a quartet

of lovers, and the complications are, of course, increased thereby.
The boorish shepherd is the guardian, not a suitor. The foundling
motif is absent; the heroinesare ladies of high rank. But the disguise
of the lover as a shepherd;the character contrast supplied by Dametas; the incidents of the wild beasts, the rabble, and the captivity; the
melancholy shepherdwho is not connected directly with the action,2 Except for the fact that the Captivity motif is pastoral;this motif is used, however,merely at
the introduction. I have discussed the constructionof this romance at some length in "Sidney's

Arcadia as an Example of Elizabethan Allegory," in Anniversary Papers by CoUeagues

and Pupils of

GeorgeLyman Kittredge,pp. 327-337.

3 The numbersused in my analysis correspondto the incidentsin the typical plot.

Edtin Greenlaw

125

all these are based directly upon the special type of pastoral plot
outlined above.4
We have now to considertwo important but apparently overlooked
illustrations of the influence of this part of the Arcadia. The first is
the Pastorella-Calidore episode in Faerie QueeneVI; the second is
supplied by As You Like It. The Pastorella-Calidorestory is important not only because it is closely parallel to some of Shakespeare's
pastorals in plot and in its interpretation of pastoralism, but also
because there are indications that it had direct influence on Shakespeare. In view of its importance, I give the plot of this episode in
some detail; the numbersprefixed to the sections indicate the relations
existing between Spenser and the typical plot already outlined, but
I have not altered the sequence of events:'
1. Calidore, in pursuit of the Blatant Beast, comes upon a group of shepherds.
Among them is a damsel wearing a crown of flowers and clad in home-made greens
that her own hand had dyed; she sits on a hillock, and all around are country
lads and lasses. Calidore is fascinated by her beauty, and in the evening gladly
goes home with her and the old shepherd who is reputed to be her father. Spenser
here explains that this shepherd is not really her father, but had found her in open
fields, "as old stories tell."
2. After supper, Calidore and the old shepherd discourse on the charms of
pastoral life; love for the fair Pastorella so inflames the knight that he seeks permission to remain. Thus Calidore, forgetting his quest, becomes a shepherd, and
passes a long time in this idyllic existence.
3. Pastorella has many lovers, chief among them Coridon, who is in every way
unworthy of her. The rivalry between Calidore and this shepherd is stressed,
especially in such a way as to bring out the superiority of Calidore in courtesy and
prowess.
4. On one occasion a tiger attacks Pastorella. Coridon acts the part of a
coward, but Calidore slays the beast with his sheep-hook. By this means he wins
the love of the maiden.
5. After a long period of happiness, brigands capture Pastorella and Coridon
in Calidore's absence. The captain of the thieves loves the shepherdess but she
foils him. In the meantime Calidore is searching far and wide. In an attack uDon
4 The long story of the Captivity is very similar to the
last book of Amadis. In that romance
Orianais capturedby Amadis and is takcn to his castle, with other ladies. Her father raises a great
force and lays siege to the castle. In both Arcadiaand Amadisthis musteringof forces by the leaders
on both sides is stressed and is too characteristicto escape notice; the bigh chivalry with which the
preparationsfor the battle, and the battle itself, are conducted,contributesto the similarity in atmosphere, while the central situation, a lady held in captivity by her lover while her father attempts her
rescue,is preciselythe same. In Sidney'sromance,Amphialus,son,of the wicked Cecropia,is himself
a man very similar to Amadis;his love for Philoclea is not returned,but though Orianastays voluntarily and Philocleais detainedagainst her will, the debt of Sidney to the most famouschivalricromance
of his time is unquestionable. The Captivity in Amadis,like the correspondingportion of Arcadia,is
the culminationof the romance;but in Amadisit is chivalric throughout,while in Arcadiait develops
from the pastoral,and the lover who had been disguisedas a shepherdjoins the father in the attempt
at rescue.
f The passagein the Faerie Queenebegins with the ninth canto.

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Shakespeare'sPastorals

the brigands by some merchants who have come to buy slaves, Coridon escapes,
the old shepherd is killed, and Pastorella is left for dead. Coridon finds Calidore,
but is afraid tc go back to the place wvhere,he says, Pastorella was slain. He is
forced to do so, however, and to the great joy of the knight he finds his lady and
rescues her from the thieves.
6. Calidore restores the flocks to Coridon and takes Pastorella to the castle
of Belgard where he leaves her with Sir Bellamore and his lady while he takes up
once more his quest of the Beast. It soon appears that Pastorella is the long lost
daughter of Bellamore and Claribell. The story is left incomplete by Spenser, since
the remainder of the book, the last part of the Faerie Queenecompleted by Spenser,
is taken up with the account of Calidore's quest; there is no doubt whatever that
Spenser intended later to have Calidore return and claim Pastorella as his bride.
7. A shepherd named Colin (Spenser) has no part in the main action; Pastorella is fond of his music, and on one occasion Calidore comes upon him piping
merrily to a bevy of maidens, who however disappear on the approach of a mortal.

That this plot correspondsvery closely to the type is instantly apparent. There are variations, of course, but they do not affect the conclusion that Daphnis and Chloe, Arcadia, and the story of Pastorella
are closely related. In the Greek pastoral both hero and heroine are
ignorant of their parentage, while in Arcadia a king adopts pastoral
life in order to keep his daughtersfrom marrying, so that although the
hero becomes a shepherd it is in order to deceive the father, not the
girl; in the Faerie Queene the girl is a foundling but the lover is a
knight like Musidorus. These variants are due to the fact that in
both Arcadia and Faerie Queenethe pastoral is an episode in a chivalric romance. Again, Spenser'sversion of the captivity, while similar
in many respects to that of Longus, apparently owes something to the
story of Isabella in Ariosto,6and differs decidedly from the chivalric
story of the third book of Sidney's romance, in which the pastoral is
dropped. But the three pastorals have exactly the same incidents
and the same situations, told in the same order: the story of love
between a hero and a heroine who though of high station are living
as shepherds;the clown who serves as foil and rival; the rescue of the
girl from a wild beast; the captivity; the final recognition. Spenser
and Sidney further agree in the important detail of the extra shepherd,
taken from Italian and Spanish romances which do not follow the
plot structure here considered.
p. 155, conjecturesthat the story of Pastorella'scaptivity is fromAriosto,
6 Warton,Observa4ions,
OrlandoFurioso, canto xii and following. Isabella's story, however, is not a pastoral, and is wholly
differentfrom that of Spenser'sheroine,save in the detail that both are held captive by robbersand
are freed by a knight. Orlando,who rescues Isabel, is not her lover. Even if Spenserhad in mind
Isabella'sstory, therefore,this is not the sourceof the Pastorellastory as a whole.

Edwin Greenlaw

127

Two suggestions as to possible sources of the Pastorella-Calidore

story have been made.7 The first of these dates from Upton, who
thought that Greene's Dorastus and Fawnia was Spenser's source,8
and this suggestion bas been followed by others. This identification
is untenable, however, since the two plots differ in almost every
respect save that a prince becomes a shepherd to win the love of a
maiden thought to be the daughter of an old shepherd. But the
shepherd-garb of Dorastus is a mere ruse which does not deceive
Fawnia;9 there is no stress on the shepherd life, since the story
consists in the main of descriptions of the struggle between the love
of Dorastus and his feeling that it was beneath him to love a
shepherdess. The other stock elements of this plot, such as the attack
by wild beasts and the captivity, are wanting; there is no extra
shepherd, and the elopement is a radical departure from the type.
Such apparent resemblancesas the discussionbetween the lovers as to
the relative advantages of shepherd and city life are merely
fortuitous. The second possible source, which has also been frequently cited, is the story of Erminia in Tasso.10
Escaping in the armcr of Clorinda, Erminia is pursued by enemies and at
length comes upon a shepherd and his three sons. They are terrified at the appearance of the warrior, but she soon reassures them, and marvels at their peaceful
employments so near the dreadful conflicts of the war. The old shepherd tells her
that they are safe because they are inoffensive and possess nothing that tempts the
cupidity of others; he knows all about the great world, for much of his life was spent
as a gardener in the city; he is glad to be back in a place where life is sound and
sweet. Erminia is so impressed by this praise of country life that she remains
with the shepherds. The story leaves her and returns to the scenes of battle; after
a long time we learn that she ran away from the shepherds, desiring to seek her
lover, but she was captured by outlaws and was given as a present to their captain,
who took pity on her and set her free. She comes upon Tancred apparently dead,
but her tears revive him and she cures him.

In one important detail, Spenser is beyond question indebted to

this story. Old Melibee tells Calidore that he had spent most of his
life in the city as a gardener, and he makes this experience the basis
for his comparisonbetween country and town. Calidoreis impressed,
as Erminia had been, by this testimony, and desires to live among the
7 I give space to a considerationof these suggestedsourcesbecause both Pandostoand the story
of Erminiain Tasso have importantrelationsto Shakespeare'spastorals,as will appearlater.
'Spenser ed. Todd, VII, 69 n. But Upton immediately suggests a parallel with Daphnis and
Chloe. Greg (PastoralPodry and Pastoral Drama, pp. 100-101) says that Dorassw and Fawnia
"has points of resemblance"to Spenser'sstory, and he also refers to Ariosto and Tassso as possible
sources.
9 He changes his rich dress for shepherd'sweeds each day when he pays his visit to his lady,
returningto the grove which he used as a dressingroomat the end of the call.
10 Gerusatemme
LibeeataVII and XIX. Jusserand(LiteraryHistoryof theEnglish People, II, 503
and note) cites this passage as the source of the Pastorellastory, and others have also noticed a resemblance.

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Shakespeare'sPastorals

shepherds. But the Erminia story has only two elements of the
typical plot: the sojourn among shepherds,and the captivity. Even
these vary widely from type, for she is not with her lover, and thus the
most important of all the incidents, the fundamental situation itself,
is wanting. Such details as the attack by wild beasts, the rival
shepherd, the melancholy shepherd,and the pastoral group that gives
atmosphere to such a story are all lacking in Tasso. Erminia decorates trees with love plaints, like Orlando, and she soon runs away,
going to meet captivity instead of waiting for captivity to come to her
according to the rules of the pastoral game. For all these reasons the
Erminia story, like the story of Fawnia, is not Spenser'smain source.
One detail he got from it, just as he was probably influenced by the
story of Isabel in the incident of the captivity, but the true source of
the Pastorella-Calidoreepisode is Sidney's Arcadia.
This conclusion finds additional support in the fact that Sidney's
influence on the Faerie Queene was much greater than has been
supposed. That Spenser intended Calidore to represent Sidney has
long been recognized." Moreover, Sidney was early regardedas the
one who inspired Spenser to write his great epic. For example, the
prefatory lines by "W. L." point out that the theme of the Faerie
Queeneseemed too great, therefore
To seeme a shepeheard then he made his choice;
But Sidney heard his song, and knew his voice.
What though his taske exceed a humaine witt,
He is excus'd, sith Sidney thought it fitt.

And Spenser himself, in his sonnet to Sidney's sister, speaks of

That most heroicke spirit.
Who first my Muse did lift out of the floor.

That all this is not mere idle compliment is proved by the fact that
the structure of the Faerie Queene, its combination of Ethice and
Politice,12 and the conception of the function and nature of poetry
illustrated by it conform at once to the theory set forth in Sidney's
Defense and the practical application of that theory in Arcadia.
More specific points of evidence are not wanting. That Spenser was
familiarwith Sidney's introductionof himself as Philisides is indicated
by the lines in Astrophel,which apparently refer to the "pastorals"
at the end of the books in Arcadia:
11Upton thought that "the name K,aX&opO5
leads us to consider the many graceful and
goodly endowmentsthat heaven peculiarlygave him [sic. Sidney]" (Spenser,ed. Todd, VII, 169 n.).
He might also have pointed out the resembancebetween the Greekform of this name and the name
Musidorus,the shepherdhero of Arcadia. The identificationof Calidorewith Sidney has been generally accepted by editors since Upton's time.
12 Cf. Spenser'sletter to Raleigh, and also Sidney'suse of these terms in Defenseed. Cook, p. 12.

Edwin Greenlaw

129

For he could pipe and dance and carol sweet

Amongst the shepherds in their shearing feast.

Again, there is a striking similarity between Arcadia and the Faerie

Queene in the manner in which the pastoral element is introduced.
In both cases we bave a chivalric romance intended as a heroic poem.
In this epic a pastoral is introduced which has more than mere plot
interest. The model for both was probably the Dido-Aeneas passage
in Virgil, not that Virgil tells it as a pastoral but that the three episodes show how the perfect hero forgets for a time his task in his
subjection to love. In each case the hero is blamed for his dereliction, though the surpassingpower of love is fully recognized. This
combination of pastoral with heroic material in Sidney and Spenser
is very different from the mixture of pastoral and chivalric in such
romances as those by Greene and Lodge; in the one case it is organic,
reflecting a conscious theory of poetry and of life; in the other it is
fortuitous, introduced for variety and told in the manner of romance,
not of epic. Finally, the influence of Sidney in the second part of
the Faerie Queene (Books IV-VI) is constant and is of sufficient
strength to bring about changes in Spenser's methods that are considerable. This influenceis seen not merely in the Calidore-Pastorella
story but throughout these three books. In part it is due to the great
vogue of Arcadiafollowing its first publication in 1590. That Spenser
had seen the work in MS and that Sidneyan influence is to be found
in books I-III is not unlikely, but with Book IV, which Spenser must
have begun shortly after his visit to London, the indebtedness is
beyond question."3
II.

JAQUES

Since the plot of As You Like It is drawn from Lodge's Rosalynde,

a discussion of its relations to the type outlined in the preceding section is of importance only in so far as Shakespeare departs from his
source. Lodge owed much to Sidney, but his romanceis wholly lackTo give details here is impossible,since it would interrupttoo much the theme of this study,
but I expect to publishsoon a paperupon the structureof the Faerie Queene in which this topic will be
treated, among others. I should remarkhere, to prevent misapprehension,that a general similarity
between the Pastorella-Calidorestory and Arcadia was pointed out by Todd in 1805. In his edition
of the works of Spenser,after quoting Warton'sremarkabout Isabel and Pastorella, Todd continues:
"This pastoral part of the Faerie Queene seems to have been occasionedby Sidney's Arcadia and in
conformity to the common fashion of the time, which aboundedin pastoral poetry." (VII, notes on
pp. 116, 117). But it is clear both from the last part of this sentence and from the fact that he continues by giving referencesto pastoral poetry, that he was merely associating the two stories as pastorals, and did not have, or at least did not express, the idea that the passage in the Faerie Queene is
directly modelledupon the pastoralportionof the Arcadia.

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Shakespeare'sPastorals

ing in those epic elements which characterizeArcadia and the Faerie

Queene.'4 More important than this, for our present purpose, is the
fact that though Lodge uses a number of the incidents found in the
type plot, two of the three omitted by him are suppliedby Shakespeare,
while the third, the captivity, is not needed for the denouement either
in Lodge or in Shakespeare. William and Audrey, true rustics as
comparedwith the gentility in disguise or with the eclogue shepherdess
and swain, are supplied by Shakespeare and furnish the comic relief
which is the function of the blundering shepherd in Sidney and
Spenser. And the extra shepherd, melancholy, having no part in
the main action yet deeply significant as one of the pastoral dramatis
personae,the Philisides of Arcadia and the Colin of the Faerie Queene,
is omitted by Lodge but in Shakespeare is no less a personage than
the melancholy Jaques.
Jaques is always said to be the creature of Shakespeare'simagination, having no "source." Like Hamlet he is a mystery variously
interpreted, and next to Hamlet he is Shakespeare'smost perplexing
character. Some critics, for example Professor Herford, find in him
a promise of a "deeper, more comprehensivepity, the stuff of which
in the next years the great tragedies were to be wrought."'5 Grant
White and others have thought his "melancholy" to be "a sullen,
scoffing, snarling spirit"; Hudson, on the other hand, thinks him "a
philosopher with something of the fool in him," while Dowden sees a
reincarnationof him in Laurence Sterne."6
A brief review of the points brought out in the previous section of
this study will indicate a priori grounds for supposing that Jaques
14 While the plot is not closely parallel, many of the essentials are present: 1. A girl of high rank'
compelled to flee, lives among shepherds disguised as a swain; she is accompanied by a friend who
becomes a shepherdess. There is the praise of country life by an old shepherd, as in Tasso and Spenser,
and like Erminia, Rosalynde is disguised as a man and is oppressed by love. 2. The lover comes;
Aliena
there is a pretty variation from type in his fancied wooing of Ganymede for Rosaylnde.
3. This incident is wanting in Lodge. 4. A
(Celia) later has a love affair which is strictly typical.
lion attacks, not the girl, but Saladyne (Oliver); he is more gentlemanly than the usual pastoral lion,
since he waits throughout the long "meditation" of Rosader (Orlando). 5. Captivity is wanting,
but in the attack on Aliena by the rabble, with her rescue by Saladyne, we have a pretty close imitation
of Arcadia II, where this incident precedes the real captivity episode. 6. The recognition and
marriage are present. 7. The extra shepherd is wanting. To this plot is added the Phoebe-MonThe entire setting reminds one of Arcadia, where there are also four lovers.
tanus complication.
Zelmane (Pyrocles) the amazon loves Philoclea, apparently of her own sex; so here the RosaderGanymede relation. Again, the Aliena-Saladyne story (shepherdess loved by hero disguised as
a forester) corresponds to the Pamela-Musidorus story. Finally, Phoebe loves Ganymede, who is
really a woman, corresponding to the love of Basilius for Zelmane, really a man. Thus Lodge has
situations strikingly similar to those of Arcadia, with the sex-mystifications precisely reversed. The
usual statement, therefore, that except for those portions which he drew from Gasnelyn Lodge's story
is original, ought to be considerably modified.
15 Introduction to the Eversley edition of As You Like It.
16 Cited by Rolfe, in his edition of the play, p. 252.

Edwin Greenlaw

131

was introduced by Shakespearein imitation of Sidney and Spenser.

These points are as follows: 1. The stock character of the extra
shepherd, not immediately connected with the main plot, a man who
is not a real shepherdbut is living among them because of melancholy
due to a past love experience,derives ultimately from Ameto,Arcadia
(Sannazaro),and Diana. 2. By Sidney this element was grafted on
a plot of the Daphnis and Chloetype. 3. In English pastoral romances such a character is found in Arcadia, Faerie Queene VI, and As
You Like It, but not in the romances of Greene or Lodge. 4. The
source of the Calidore-Pastorellaplot is not Tasso or Greene but
Sidney's Arcadia. Colin, introducing the author, is similar to Philisides. 5. The pastoral plots of Arcadia and of As You Like It are
very similar in their main outlines. By the introduction of William
and Audrey, as well as of Jaques, Shakespearemakes his plot conform
even more closely to that of Sidney, i. e., As You Like It, so far as the
general plot is concerned,goes beyond Rosalyndein conformity to the
typical plot of Sidney and Spenser.
We now turn to more direct proof. In the first version of Arcadia,
Philisides occupies a more prominent place than in the version which
we have."7 Under this name Sidney represents himself as sojourning
for a time among the Arcadian group because of his love melancholy.
He has no part in the main action, but describes himself as a man of
good birth who had been educated as a gentleman; he had been a
traveller to ripen his judgment, and had returned "to use the benefitt of a quyet mynde" when love came to divert the course of his
tranquillity and to plunge him into melancholy.18 He takes part in
the amusements arrangedfor the Duke,19singing eclogues on the woes
of love; he is characterizedas melancholy, and his fondness for moralizing in his songs may well suggest the melancholy and moral Jaques.
In the present version, Philisides appears only in connection with the
"pastorals" at the end of each book; thus he is even more distinctly
an extra character,having no close connection with the action, yet so
characterized that it is difficult to avoid the belief that he is the
originalof Shakespeare'sportrait.
17For an account of his discovery, in 1907, of several MSS
copies of Arcadia as Sidney first
wrote it, see Mr. Bertram Dobell's article in The QuarterlyReview,CCXI, pp. 76 ff. The romance
was originallyof much simpler constructionthan in the form with which we are familiar,lacking the
epic history of the heroes and the captivity.
" Cf. Jaques' account of the nature of his melancholy, "compoundedof many
simples," of his
travels, and Rosalind'sscornfulremarksthereon. (IV, i).
19In the first Arcadiathe exile is called merely the "Duke," on which cf. As You LikeIt.

Shakespeare'sPastorals

132

This parallel is most striking in the pastorals at the end of Book I.

After a conventional singing match by Lalus and Dorus, Basilius
called to a young shepherd who neither danced nor sang, but lay
on the ground at the foot of a cypress tree, "in so deep a melancholy,
as though his mind were banished from the place he loved to be in
prison in his body." Thus summoned, Philisides sings a strange
song which he says he got from Lanquet (Languet):
In the olden time, the beasts were the only inhabitants of earth, and were
privileged to act in all ways without let or hindrance. They had a commonwealth,
"for nothing can endure where order n' is"; in this commonwealth
The beasts with courage clad
Like Senators a harmless empire had.
Despite the mildness of this government they desired a change, so all the other
beasts prayed Jove for a king. After telling them that this would lead to trouble,
Jove granted their request; so man was created. Each beast brought some gift to
the new king, and all of them voluntarily relinquished the power of speech. Soon
man turned the commonwealth into a tyranny; the more powerful beasts, imitating
the bad example, preyed on their lesser brethren and finally were driven into waste
places, enemies of man and beast alike. The weaker animals became beasts of
burden, were deprived of their fur or feathers, were killed for food, and at length
were even killed for sport:
At length for glutton taste he did them kill:
At last for sport their sillie lives did spill.
Then the "moral" is phrased:
But yet o man, rage not beyond thy neede;
Deeme it no gloire to swell in tyrannie.
Thou art of blood; joy not to see things bleed:
Thou fearest death; thinke they are loth to die.
A plaint of guiltlesse hurt doth pierce the skie.
And you poore beastes, in patience bide your hell,
Or know your strengths, and then you shall do well.

With this passage compare As You Like It, II. i. Amiens and "First
Lord" came upon Jaques "as he lay along under an oak"; near by a
poor sequesteredstag, the prey of hunters,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

The Duke inquires,

What said Jaques?
Did he not moralize this spectacle?

To which "First Lord" replies,

0, yes, into a thousand similes.
First, for his weeping into the needless stream:
"Poor deer," quoth he, "thou mak'st a testament

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133

As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more

To that which had too much." Then, being there alone,
Left and abandoned of his velvet friends:
" 'Tis right," quoth he; "thus misery doth part
The flux of company." Anon a careless herd,
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,
And never stays to greet him. "Ay," quoth Jaques,
"Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens,
'Tis just the fashion; wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?"
Thus most invectively he pierceth through
The body of the country, city, court,
Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we
Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what's worse,
To fright the animals and to kill them up
In their assign'd and native dwelling-place.

So they left him, "weeping and commenting upon the sobbing deer."
That Shakespeare had Sidney's Philisides in mind in his characterization of Jaques is, I think, clear for the following reasons:
1. The two charactersare introducedundersimilarcircumstances:
Philisides is lying under a cypress tree when called upon; Jaques under
an oak. Moreover, Phiisides is called, wherever he appears, "the
melancholy shepherd,"while the regularname for Shakespeare'scharacter, througbout the drama, is "the melancholy Jaques."
2. The two passages are very like in content. Both refer to a
beasts' commonwealthin which man is a usurper. Sidney stresses this
more than Shakespeare, since he treats of the origin of the tyranny
of man over beasts, but it is absolutely plain in Shakespeare. In
addition to such referencesas those in the speech of Jaques, compare
the Duke's words immediately preceding:
Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should in their own confines with forked heads
Have their round haunches gored."

Even more convincing is the similarity of the two passages in their

stressing of the wrong done through killing animals for sport or even
for food. Critics have maintained that ShakespearerepresentsJaques
as sentimental, and there is undoubtedly sentimentality in the description of the stag, and, a moment later, in Jaques himself "weeping
and commenting upon the sobbing deer." Yet the Duke expressesthe
same sympathy, though less eloquently than it is expressedin Sidney's
splendid line,
A plaint of guiltlesse hurt doth pierce the skie.

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Shakespeare'sPastorals

3. There are additional reasons for the conclusion that Shakespeare is imitating Sidney. For one thing, the song of Philisides is
not the conventional song of a shepherd. Those who hear it express
surprise at the strangeness of the tale, "scanning what he should
mean by it." Like Jaques, he becomes the subject of ridicule. One
of the company attacks him as a kill-joy, bringing in "a tale of he
knew not what beastes at such a sport-meeting, when rather some
song of love, or matter for joyfull melody was to be brought forth."
The next sentence in Geron's criticism may well have furnished
Shakespeare with a hint for delineating, in the entire portrait of
Jaques, a man of superficialknowledgewhich he mistakes for wisdom:
"This is the right conceipt of young men, who thinke, then they
speake wiseliest, when they cannot understand themselves."20 But,
Sidney says, the "melancholy shepherd" paid no heed to praise or
blame, but returned "to the traine of his desolate pensiveness." In
other words, he could suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel
sucks eggs. Moreover, the very fact that the song of Philisides is
not of the type expected from shepherdsrendershim more like Jaques.
He is called a shepherd,but he is not really living the life of a shepherd
as Musidorus or Calidore lived it; he has had an unfortunate love
affair;he is, however,a moralizeror philosopherratherthan a Daphnis.
So also Jaques, who has had experience with women, has travelled,
and has acquired a brand of melancholy as individual as that of
Philisides. Again, the song of Philisides might, in perfect keeping
with the character, have been sung by Jaques himself. And finally,
there is no character similar to Jaques in Lodge's Rosalynde;Shakespeare adds to that plot the rustics and the supernumerarybut highly
individualized courtier who is living for a time among shepherds; for
his model he takes the melancholy Philisides.
Though this identification of Jaques and Philisides has not,
to my knowledge, been made heretofore, other illustrations of Shakespeare'sacquaintancewith the works of Sidney have been pointed out.
The most famous of these parallels is, of course, the story of the
Paphlagonian unkind king, which supplied the Gloucester plot in
Lear.2" Less importantis the possible relationshipbetween Holofernes
and Rombus, the absurdpedant in Sidney's masquie,Thc Lady of Miay.
Again, the duel between Viola (Cesario) and Sir Andrew Aguecheek
between
has been referred,probably with correctness, to the combnbat
20 Cambridge edition of Arcadia, p. 137.
21Arcadia II, ch. x.

The Song begins at p. 132.

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135

Dametas and Clinias in Arcadia.22 The parallel is very close: the

cowardly Dametas, incited by "a young gentleman" to write a taunting letter to Clinias, reminds one in the letter and in the fight that
ensues of Shakespeare's Andrew. The facts that the story of the
Paphlagonian king is one of those episodes that editors and literary
historians tell us make Sidney dry reading, and that the duel between
Clinias and Dametas comes pretty late in the romance, prove that
Shakespeare read Sidney more attentively than some modern critics
have done. The most significant of these parallels, for our present
purpose, however, is one that has attracted very little attention. The
song of Geron, which immediately follows that of Philisides, parallels
the first seventeen sonnets of Shakespeare so closely as to render it
practically certain that Shakespearehad it in mind.23 In this song a
shepherd urges a youth to marry in order to beget children and so
gain an earthly immortality. The situation is precisely similar to that
of the sonnets, and the correspondencesin thought and expressionare
very close.?A The importance of this parallel to our present study
consists in the evidence given that Shakespeare studied attentively
that part of Arcadia in which the Philisides-Jaques relation is most
clearly seen. Taken in conjunction with the very considerablelist of
parallels between Arcadia and various works by Shakespeareit gives
important circumstantial evidence in favor of the contention that,
knowing all of the Arcadia as he did, Shakespeare could not have
failed to be impressedby the figure of Philisides, and by the excellent
and unusual humanitarianismof his song against the wanton slaughter
of the rightful citizens of the forest.
Whether Jaques represents not merely Philisides but also the
original of Philisides is a tempting though somewhat dangerousspeculation. That he knew the significance of the name admits no doubt,
and as we have already seen, Sidney's portrait of himself in the first
form of Arcadia was drawn on somewhat fuller lines than in the version printed in 1590. Furthermore, through the last decade of the
sixteenth century Sidney's literary and personal influence was at its
zenith. Both his sonnets and his romance were widely known and con2 III, ch. 13.
'This parallelwas pointed out by Fritz Krauss," Die schwarzeSchoneder ShakespeareSonette,"
in ShakespeareJahrbu-ch,XVI, 144 ff. Krauss wrongly refers the song to the third book; it occurs in
the pastoralsat the end of book I (Cambridgeed. pp. 137 ff.) Lee does not mention it, thoughhe does
mention, without giving credit to Massey, the argumentof Cecropiaa(ldressedto Philocleain Arcadia
III as a possible sourceof sonnets i-xvii.
24 Cook (ed. Sonnets pp. 81 and 84) notes that Languet wrote a letter urging Sidney to marry,
but he is apparently unacquaintedwith this poem. Since in the song previouslydiscussedPhilisides
said that Languet taught it to him, very probablythe song of Geronrefersto this letter.

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Shakespeare'sPastorals

stantly cited. His tragic death was still fresh in the memoriesof men,
and the magic spell of his personality was increased rather than
diminished in its power. Again, Sidney was altogether the most
conspicuous exemplar of those elements in polite literature that in
As You Like It Shakespeare was subjecting to the test of silvery
laughter. Both sonnet and pastoral are the quarry for the shafts
of his wit. It is true that Rosalynde afforded plenty of texts, for
besides the artificial pastoral in Lodge's romance it is saturated, in
prose and verse, with Petrarchism. The contrast between love as a
genuine passion and "love" as gallantry and affectation is brought
out constantly in such plays as Romeoand Juliet, TwelfthNight, and
As You Like It. Lovers' melancholy, lovers' poetry, lovers' eccentricities, are transfixedin the Rosaline story, in the wooing of Orlando,
and in the humorsome love of Orsino. Moreover, Sidney was by
nature a man much like Jaques: philosophical,moralizing,grave, with
something of sentimentality. Languet reproved him for his gravity;
Fulke Greville says that though he had known him from childhood,
Philip was never a boy. Jaques says that he would cleanse through
and through the foul body of the infected world; according to his
friend and biographer,this was precisely the aim of Sidney. Whether
intentional or not, therefore, the portrait of Jaques is just what
Shakespearemight have drawn had he deliberately set out to satirize,
in entire good nature, such a man as Sidney. It is true that Shakespeare did not make,a practice of representing among his dramatis
personaeleading men of his time, as Lyly, Spenser, Sidney, and other
Elizabethans constantly did, but I have long suspected that the portrait of Polonius may have been colored somewhat by popular conceptions of Burghley: the maxims, the excessive caution, the fussy
diplomacy of Polonius are Burghley to the life. If Burghley, why
not Sidney, particularly since, as I have said, Sidney was the very
embodiment of the artificial pastoralism, the Petrarchism, and the
fashionable melancholy that Shakespeare was at this time satirizing
in play after play. That the portrait of Jaques was based on that of
Philisides I have no doubt; that Jaques also stands for the original of
Philisides, Philip Sidney himself, I suggest with hesitancy, and yet
with something more than a suspicion that it is correct.
III.

IMOGENAND PERDITA

In two of the so-calleddramaticromances,Cymbelineand The WVinter's Tale, Shakespeareintroduces pastoral episodes of great interest.

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137

These plays belong to his latest period, dating 1609-1611; they illustrate a return to a pastoralism quite differentfrom that which appears
in As You Like It; and they present interesting problems in sourcestudy. The sourceof one of these episodes, the Perdita-Florizelstory,
has long been recognized, but Shakespeare'schanges are such as to
alter materially the story as told in Pandosto. As to the cave episode
in Cymbeline,but one suggestion of source, so far as I know, has been
made, and this identificationhas been disputed.25 The pastoral nature
of this episode has been almost completely overlooked.21
The plot of Cymbeline,it will be remembered,is composite, being
made up of certain chronicle material taken from Holinshed and the
story of a wager about a lady's chastity which comes from Boccaccio.
But besides these two main stories there is the account of the life of the
young princes in the wilderness and the story of the adventures of
Imogen after she is set free by Pisanio, these two episodes being united
by the fact that Irnogen spends some time with her brothers, though
they do not recognizeeach other. 'Ihat this portion of Imogen's story
does not come from Boccaccio is clear, for in the novel the accused
wife escapes to the haven, where she boards a ship which carriesher to
Alexandria; her later adventures are wholly unlike those found in
Shakespeare. Again, the episode is not found in any of the numerous
stories in which a woman falsely accused of unchastity suffers various
trials before she is vindicated.27 The only story thus far cited which is
apparently similar to this episode is the fairy tale of Snow-white. The
most interesting parallels are as follows: there is an evil stepmother
who hates Snow-white and tries to poison her; the girl escapes to a
cave or hut which belongs to some dwarfs, and is refreshed by food
that she finds there; when the dwarfs return, they think she is an angel
or a goddess, but tell her she may remain if she will cook for them; for
some time she keeps house for the dwarfs, but one day falls into a
trance through the enmity of the stepmother, who finds it possible to
reach Snow-white though the dwarfs had warned her of her danger;
the dwarfs, thinking her dead, cry for three days, and then carry her in
25 The possible connection between the Imogen story and the fairy-tale of Snecwitcken was
pointed out by Schenklin Germania,Wien, 1864. An elaboraterefutationof this view, by Leonhardt,
is in Anglia, volume VI, 1883. Editors are divided as to the correctnessof Schenkl'sview; those who
do not adopt it usually say that the cave episode is originalwith Shakespeare,and is intended to unite
the story of the chastity test with the chroniclehistorymaterial.
2
Furness, in his summary of critical material on the sources, does not cite any references to
Cymbelineas containing pastoral elements, and Greg does not even mention the play. Probably this
neglect is due to the fact that shepherdsand sheep are not amongthe dramaSlspersonae.
27
For a study of this cycle and its relations to Cymbeline,see an article by the present writeron
"The Vows of Baldwin," m Publicationsof the ModernLanguageAssociation,volume XXI (1906).

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Shakespeare'sPastorals

a crystal coffin to a mountain; birds sing laments; at length a king's

son revives the maiden from her trance. Schenkl's identification of
this fairy tale with the Imogen story is accepted by many editors.
Gollancz finds it particularly convincing in the fact that Snow-white
and Imogen are not buried, in the laments by the birds, and in the
stress laid by both stories on the surpassingbeauty of the heroine, so
that she seems a divine creature. "Imogen," he says, "is in very
deed Snow-wlhite,the best beloved of childhood'sheroines,transfigured
as manhood's ideal of all womanly perfection."28 Furness, too, finds
convincing the parallel between " the scenes where Imogen lives in a
cave with that noble pair of brothers and that portion of the fairystory where Sneewitchen finds refuge and protection in the house of
the dwarfs."29 Leonhardt, on the other hand, thinks it improbable
that the fairy-story, which he believes originatedin Hesse, was known
in England in Shakespeare'stime, and holds that this part of the story
is Shakespeare'sown invention as a means of linking the wager story
with the chronicle of Cymbeline's wars with Rome.30
Aside from the doubt as to whether the tale of Snow-white was
known in Shakespeare'sEngland, there are serious reasons against the
assumption that it was the source of the Imogen episode. The cruel
stepmother, as Gollancz admits, is so frequently found in romance
that the mere fact of her appearanceis not enough to identify a plot.
Furthermore,as Leonhardt points out, the Queen does not plot the
death, or even the trance, of Imogen; her one desire is to get rid of
Pisanio in order to break up the communicationbetween Imogen and
the banished Posthumus. Again, the two young princes and Belarius
most certainly do not give the impression of being dwarfs either in
stature or by nature. Imogen bears testimony to the impressionthey
made on her; they were to her more admirable than any of the great
28

Introduction to the "Temple Edition" of the play.

Variorum edition, 1913, p. 477. Sc, also Herford (Introduction to Eversley edition of the play).
I am quite unahle to agree with Professor Hierford in the view that "the queen and her children transport us into manifest faerie. " One has only to read Mid.summserNight's Dream to feel the difference.
Sir Sidney Lee (life of W'iliam .5latespcare, ed. 1916, p. 421, says of Imogen's life io the wilderness
merely that after using Boccaccio, "Shakespeare reconstructs the subsequent adventures" leading up
to the reconciliation and that the IBearius story seems to be of Shakespeare's invention.
30 Anglia, VI. (1883), pp. 36 ff. Other objections advanced by Leonhardt are as follows: In
Cymbeline the Queen does not really hate Imogen; she merely wishes to bring about a marriage between
her and Cloten, while in the fairy-tale she is jeatous of her beauty; she wishes to poison not Imogen but
Pisanio. Again, the brothers in exile are necessary to Shakespeare's plan, and it is natural that Imogen
should be sent to them; in Snow-white the dwarfs are not brothers; so a!so the failure to bury Imogen is
due to the exigencies of the plot. As to the covering with leaves, etc., such incidents are commonplaces, as in the song about the children in the wood, known in the XVIIth century.
29

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139

ones of the court.3"But the chief difficulty in the acceptance of this

hypothesis is that it is not borne out by the events of Shakespeare's
play. The outstanding features of the Imogen story (apart from the
wager motif) are unquestionably the heroine's life in the wilderness
while disguisedas a boy, the trance, the poetic and masque-likeburial,
the horror of the awakening when she finds the dead body of Cloten
beside her and mistakes it for that of her husband, and the coming of
the Romans by whom she is taken captive. To this series should be
added the preliminaryaccount of the life of Belariusand the two young
princes. The very recital of the elements in this part of the story
indicates that Snow-white could not have been the source. The
crystal coffin, the mountain burial, the guarding of the coffin by the
dwarfs, the coming of the prince to awaken and claim the maiden,
belong to a very different plot. Even granting that Shakespeare
might have taken liberties with his source in this case as elsewhere,
the divergencies are too great to render this defence of the theory
convincing.
I now submit a different explanation of the sources and the construction of this part of Cymbeline. Close examination of Imogen's
story (the wager story being excluded) reveals that it is made up of two
sets of incidents. In the first, we have a story of the attempt of the
parents of a girl of high position and great beauty to force upon her an
unwelcome marriage. To do this, they are obliged to dispose of a
lover who is the object of their hatred as well as a hindrance to their
plans; he is banished, and the pressureupon the heroine to marry the
distasteful lover is redoubled. She escapes from the court (at this
point the main plot is interrupted by that part of the wager story
which tells how Imogen escapes death through the compassion of
Pisanio and by the account of her adventures in the wilderness); and
after some time drinks a potion which apparently causes her death.
After the funeral ceremonies, with the exquisite dirge, the dead body
of the unwelcome lover is placed beside her; later she awakens from
the trance, discovers the corpse, supposes it to be that of her husband,
and after a passage showing how the horror little by little penetrates
her brain, falls as if dead across the mutilated body. Merely the
recital of this story makes clear the source. It is not a fairy tale of a
cruel stepmother, of life among dwarfs, of a trance and a fairy burial,
31Cf., for example, her words, "Great men . . . could not out-peer these twain" (III. vii).
It is also worth while to note, in passing, that Imogen is disguisedas a boy, and is relatively upon the
same plane as Belariusand the princes;in the fairytaleSnow-whiteis a mortalmaidenliving for a time
with the denizensof faerie.

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Shakespeare'sPastorals

all leading to the coming of the true prince to marry the princess, but
it is Juliet's story told again. Cymbelineand his Queen are the Capulets, Posthumus is Romeo, Cloten is the County Paris. The trance
and the burial, the waking to find, not the corpses of suitor and husband, but that of the suitor mistaken for the husband, yet warm and
bleeding, the awful horror as the true situation beats itself into her
brain, and the apparent death-these incidents prove beyond any
reas6nable doubt that Shakespearewas making use once more of the
tragedy of Juliet of the Capulets. What is more, he improves on
his own earlierwork. For the horrorof the tomb scene in Romeoand
Juliet depends chiefly on the charnelhouse in which it takes place and
on the murderthat is done before our eyes; this scene takes place amid
the quiet beauty of the mountain forest; Imogen shakes the flowers
from her face as she returns to consciousness, and flowers cover the
ugly corpse of the murdered Cloten. Yet Juliet's awakening in the
charnel house, the few words she speaks before she decides on her
course, the entreaties of the friar and his cowardly desertion, her
almost immediate suicide, become mere melodrama in comparison
with that wonderful speech by Imogen beginning with her happy
recollectionof Milford Haven where she was to meet her lord and the
pathetic weariness of her sinking back to sleep, developing through
the semi-consciousnessof her imagining that her life as a cave-keeper
was unreal and that the body beside her was part of the same evil
dream, and rising step by step to the shivering horrorof the closing
lines. Here Shakespeare needs no melodramatic accessories; it is a
later and a better version of what he had undertaken, near the beginning of his dramatic career, in Juliet's tragedy.
By means of this apparent digressionI have been enabled to isolate
a certain set of incidents involved in the Imogen story in such a way as
to simplify the analysis of the pastoral elements to which I now turn.
We have seen that in addition to the wager story taken from Boccaccio
Shakespeareuses the main outline of the plot of Romeoand Juliet. By
this means he not only gains complexity of plot but brings the wager
story into direct connection with Cymbeline and his Queen; because
of this same connection he also abandons the conclusionof Boccaccio's
story.32 We have now to consider another set of incidents, further
32 Such combinationsof stories drawnfrom varioussourcesare, as is well known, thoroughly consistent with Shakespeare'spracticeand do not violate unity as the Elizabethansunderstoodthat term.
My interpretationof Cymhb'ine,if it be correct,makes that dramasomewhatmore complex than has
been supposed heretofore,but it is not more complex than The Merchant f Veniceor Midst4mmer

NigJh"s Dream.

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141

complicating the plot, which also form a consistent and unified whole.
This story is as follows (the numbers refer to incidents in the typical
plot analyzed in section I above):
1. A courtier banished by the king steals for revenge the two baby pnnces.
These lads he brings up as his own children; all three live in the wilderness, being
hunters. Twenty years after his banishment the boys are restless and desire to go
to the court to seek adventures; he dissuades them by praising the advantages of
their present life over the wickedness and corruption of the city. At this time a
beautiful youth comes to them, weary and in need of food. This youth is really a
princess in disguise. She remains with them, assisting with the cooking and other
housework.
2. The lover of the princess living in this forest seclusion is absent, therefore
the pastoral love idyl does not figure in the story. But because of a misunderstanding with her lover, the heroine is oppressed by love-melancholy.
3. An unworthy suitor finds out where the heroine is and plans to attack her
and force her to yield to him. But his attempt is foiled by the youths, really her
brothers, instead of by her lover.
4. The potion scene, the trance, and the burial take the place of the usual
pastoral incidents.
5. A Roman captain and his soldiers take the heroine into captivity; they are
kind to her, and help her to return to her home.
6. At length she is restored to her lover and all are happy.

In general, this story conforms with sufficient accuracy to the

typical plot to make clear that it was influenced by pastoral romance
and perhaps drawn from some definite pastoral. The exiled Belarius
reminds one of the banishedDuke in As YouLike It; the young princes
brought up as woodsmen, thinking Belarius to be their father and
ignorant of his rank, are true pastoral characters; the praise of the
purity and sincerity of country life is closely similar to the speech of
Melibee in Faerie Qucene VI, and is an expansion of the thought
expressedby the Duke in As You Like It. That Belarius and his two
sons are not watchers of sheep with poetry and love as their avocation
need not trouble us; there is in this episode, closely linked as it is to the
tragic story of Imogen, no place for artificialityand shepherdgallantry.
Furthermore,it is thoroughly characteristicof Shakespeare,evernfrom
the days of As You Like It, to stress the more active physical life of
foresters and hunters rather than the elegant trifling of the artificial
pastoral. It is a more robust pastoral, but it is pastoral none the less.
But the greatest interest attaches to the r6le of Imogen. Disguised as
a youth, weary and starving, she enters this haven of security and
peace, and makes her home with these "honest creatures" whom she
wishes were her brothers. She is regardedby them as some creature

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142

of a superiorworld; at first they think her a fairy or an angel; at least

she is
"An earthly paragon! Behold divineness
No elder than a boy!"

She cooks for them:

"Pray, be not sick,
For you must be our huswife,"

and wins their praise:

"But his neat cookery! he cut our roots
In characters,
And sauce'd our broths as Juno had been sick
And he her dieter. "

But she is oppressed by grief for her absent lover. "I do note," says
Guiderius,
"That grief and patience, rooted in him both,
Mingle their spurs together. "

Through her grief she becomes ill; she drinks the potion, and after a
period of unconsciousness, falls captive to the Romans. From this
story we may take out the trance and burial scenes, since, as already
noted, these belong to the strand of the plot which derives from
Romeoand Juliet. What is left is so distinct as to indicate a definite
source. That source, I think, is Tasso's story of Erminia's sojourn
among the shepherds.33
The circumstancesin which the two heroines are placed correspond
almost exactly. Both are separated from their lovers, and are forced
to flee because of mortal danger; both are disguised as men, Erminia
in shining armor, Imogen less certainly as a soldier, though she has a
sword.4 Again, both are half-dead from fear: Imogen is afraid at
first to call out, but at length does so, and adds,
"Best draw my sword; and if mine enemy
But fear the sword like me, he'll scarcely look on't."
33I use Fairfaxfor the passagesfromTasso, since this was probablythe form in which Shakespeare
read the story. The Erminiapassagesoccurin books VII and XIX. The Imogen passagesreferredto
are act III, scenes iii, iv, vi, and act IV, scene ii.
34CompareImogen's words (III. iv):
"This attempt
I am soldier to, and will abide it with
A prince'scourage."
Furnessinterpretsthis as referringto "the courageof a Prince, the greatest of soldiers" (Variorumed,
p. 245). But how little of a soldiershe was appearsin her timidity later.

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143

So when Erminia rides through the thick forests,

Her feeble hand the bridle reins forlore,
Half in a swoon she was, for fear I ween.

Both are also half-dead from hunger and exhaustion: Imogen for two
nights has made the groundher bed; she would be sick, she says, if not
helped by resolution, and she is " at point to sink for food " when the
thought of her miseries makes her forget weariness and hunger. Erminia rode all the first night and the day following; the second night
she slept like Imogen on the ground; in both cases the heroine is
exposed to the dangers of the wilderness,without food, for two nights.
Just as Imogen forgot her hunger in the greaterpain of heart and soul,
so of Erminia we are told,
She heard and saw her griefs, but naught beside
Her tears, her drink; her food, her sorrowings;
This was her diet that unhappy night.

Imogen comes upon Belarius and two youths reputed to be his sons;
Erminia upon a shepherdand his three sons; in neither case is there any
mention of other inhabitants of the region except that the wife of
Tasso's shepherdis living while Euriphile, wife of Belarius, is dead and
her grave is carefully tended by the boys. This impression of a
wildernessinhabited by only a few men is unique in stories of this kind.
Furthermore,the entrance of the heroine produces in each case a very
similar effect: to Belarius and his sons she is more than mortal; so
Erminia's appearance in shining armor sorely dismays the shepherds.
Thus the two stories agree not only in the important incident that a
girl disguised as a soldier and fleeing for her life makes her abode
among rustics, but also in the very details. This correspondencein
both incident and detail extends even farther. The praise of country
life: its simplicity, its health, its freedom from the dangers and the
vices of life in the world, its indifference to wealth, which Tasso's
shepherdso eloquently expounds to Erminia, is for the most part used
by Shakespearein the instructions given to the youths by Belarius;
but Erminia's mention of gold and jewels which she could give to the
shepherdif such " thou diddest hold in prize," recursin Imogen's proffer of money for her board and the instant refusal by Guiderius and
Arviragus,
"All gold and silver rather turn to dirt I
As 'tis no better reckoned but of those
Who worship dirty gods. "

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Shakespeare'sPastorals

The stress placed upon this theme by both Shakespeare and Tasso
reminds one of the passage in the Faerie Queenealready referredto;
dispraise of court is a commonplace in Elizabethan literature, but
these three passages are notable for intensity and sincerity.35 Both
Tasso's shepherd and Shakespeare'sBelarius, it will be remembered,
have lived at court, and make this experiencethe basis for the instruction of youth. Again, Imogen wins the praise of her friends because
of her skill in household matters; so Erminia, besides her share of the
field work, makes cheese and butter to the delight of the shepherds.
The beauty of the two heroines is described in almost identical language: "By Jupiter, an angel!" says Belarius, and, later, Arviragus
exclaims, "How angel-like he sings!" So of Erminia we are told that
Not those rudegarmentscouldobscureand hide
The heavenlybeauty of her angel'sface.

Again, after observing the manner in which Imogen performs the

various homely tasks, Belarius bears witness that
"This youth, howe'erdistressed,appearshe hath had
Goodancestors."

And of Erminia we read that her gestures and her looks were not those
of a shepherd,
Nor was her princelyoffspringdamnified
Oraught disparagedby those laborsbase.

The two stories agree in that the pastoral love idyl is lacking, but also
in that both heroines are melancholy because of separationfrom their
lovers and misunderstandingsthat have arisen: it is not merely separation, but separation and misunderstanding. Erminia writes poems
and hangs them, Orlando-like,upon trees; Imogen grieves herself into
sickness, drinks the potion, and apparently dies. Erminia, unable to
endure her love-melancholy,runs away, is captured by Egyptians and
given as a present to their captain, who treats her kindly and helps her
to return to her friends. So also Imogen is taken by Lucius, the
Roman captain, is treated kindly, and after the battle is restoredto her
husband.
35But Spenser'slines, as we have already seen, are unquestionablyfrom Tasso. The parallel
extends even farther. When Calidoreoffersgold to pay for his board,the old shepherdreplies,in almost
the same words as those used by Arviragus:
"Your bounteousproffer
Be farrefro me, to whom ye ill display
That mucky masse, the cause of men's decay."
(F. Q. VI. ix. 33.)
Thus it is clear that Shakespeareand Suenserdraw from Tasso as a commonsource.

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145

If this exposition of the Imogen plot be accepted, the following

conclusions may be drawn:
1. The usual ascription, to the fairytale of Sneewitchen, of that
part of the plot which is an addition to the wager story is an error.
The reasons for rejecting this story as a source are quite independent
of the question as to whether the tale was or was not known to Shakespeare; the two stories do not correspondin total effect either in plot or
in spirit, the incidents which are apparently similar find much closer
parallels in the Erminia story, and despite the absence of referencesto
shepherds Shakespeare'sstory is a pastoral and not a fairytale.
2. The Imogen story is composed of three elements. Shakespeare's first interest was no doubt in the wager story, drawn from
Boccaccio. With true Shakespearean daring he wished to connect
this plot with the chronicleof Cymbeline'swars with the Romans. To
bring this about he set the wager story in a frame based on the tragedy
of star-crossedlovers long before used in Romeoand Juliet. The third
strand, a pastoral episode, comes from Tasso, as is proved not only by
the correspondencein incident but also by many details of thought and
expression.
3. This pastoral ep,sode not only assists in giving the utmost
complexity to the entire plot, thus carefully and deliberatelypreparing
for what is in many respects the most remarkabledenouement in the
entire list of Shakespeare'splays, and not only aids in binding the
wager story and the Romeo and Juliet rifacimento to the historical
material, but also, as I shall show in section IV of this essay, is a means
through which Shakespeareexpresses some of his maturest and most
characteristic thought about the meaning of life.
If Imogen is like Erminia, compelled because of separation from
her lover and by great danger to her life to live for a time among
rustics, Perdita resembles Pastorella in that ignorant of her high
station she is brought up by an old shepherd as his daughter. In
Perdita's story we have no problem of sources; the relation of The
Winter's Tale to Greene's romance has long been known. But it is
sometimes held by students of pastoral drama that the FlorizelPerdita episode is not a pastoral, though these same critics speak of
Pandosto as a pastoral romance.6 The fact is that Greene's story is
" Greg, for example (p. 411), speaks of the Perdita-Florizelstory as only "apparentpastoral,"
and continues, " It is characteristicof the shepherdscenes of that play, written in the full maturity of
Shakespeare'sgenius, that, in spite of their origin in Greene'sromanceof Pandosto,they owe nothing
of their treatment to pastoral tradition." And Smith (in Publicationsof the ModernLanguageAssodation, 1897, p. 378 n.) says that in The Winter'sTale "The pastoralelement borrowedfrom Greene's

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Shakespeare'sPastorals

much farther removed from true pastoral than Shakespeare's;what

has really happened is that Shakespeare has transformeda romance
of adventure which patronizes the "homely pastimes" of shepherds,
"shepheardsragges," and the garlands woven of shepherd's"homely
flowers" into the most exquisite and satisfying pastoral in Elizabethan literature.
At first sight, Greene's story follows the pastoral rules in several
important respects. The shepherdess who is ignorant of her true
station, the high-born lover who for her sake dons pastoral attire,
the praise of shepherdlife-all seem to belong to the realm of Pastorella and of Chloe. But beyond a bare mention of the gathering of
all the "Farmers Daughters of Sycilia" and their homely pastimes,
there is no introduction of other pastoral characters; the story is
almost devoid of incident except for the troubles of Dorastus about
his honor and his clothes, and it concludes with an elopement planned
chiefly by the ambitious shepherdess. The spirit is worldly, not
pastoral. Porrus charges his wife not to tell of the gold found with
the child, lest claimants appear. With the money he buys land and
flocks and becomes a man of substance. Fawnia, in consequence,
has many rich suitors, but she cares for none until the Prince comes.
Her love for Dorastus is very real, but she suspects him, even when
he appears in "shepheards ragges," of intending to betray her, and
it is this suspicion that makes her say, "This attire hath not made
Dorastus a shepherd,but to seeme like a shepherd." Even when she
saw him coming for the first time in this guise she began to forget
Dorastus and "to favor this prety shepheard, whom she thought she
might both love and obtaine." He convinces her, at last, of his
sincerity, but she is also plainly impressedby his plea, in the manner
of Herrick's advice to the virgins, that her beauty will pass and she
had better love betimes. The plan for the elopement is mainly hers.
Thus Fawnia is a Pamela of the Richardsoniantype, concernedabout
her virtue, ambitious yet suspecting the intent of the Prince; her
reputed father, a worthy predecessor of Pamela's father, is wholly
different from the old shepherd in The Winier's Tale, for he suspects
that the prince has designs upon his daughter's virtue. As to Dorastus, he is utterly unlike Calidoreor Musidorus. "His honor wished
him to cease from such folly, but Love forced him to follow fancy."
Pandosto is so completely subordinated that we can hardly say it exists at all. Who would ever speak
of Perdita as an Arcadiatn?" Certainly, and who would ever speak of Hamlet as a tragedy of blood,
or of the scenes at the Boar's 1-ead in Eastcheap as chronicle history?

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147

He procureda shepherd'scoat and hid it in a grove; when he went to

call on his lady he put it on, cursing his "base desires and homely
attires." "Thy thoughtes," he says, "are fit for none but a shepheard,
and thy apparell such as only becomes a shepheard. A strange
change, from a Prince to a pesant." Thus the true spirit of the
pastoral love idyl is wanting; Dorastus does not go to live among
shepherds in order to woo his lady, he merely puts on a shepherd's
coat when he pays his visits, changing back to his "riche apparel"
when the call is over. We are not surprisedthat after the betrothal
Fawnia's chief thought is joy to have won "the love of a Prince,
hoping in time to be advaunced from the daughterof a poore farmer
to be the wife of a riche King." Greene's story is interesting as an
early attempt to substitute psychological analysis, the conflict of
motives, for such time-worn sensational incidents as the rescue of the
maiden from a lion or a band of robbers, but it reminds us less of
pastoral than of some modern romances in which a poor boy goes
to the city, makes a fortune, marries his daughter to a foreign nobleman, and prides himself on being a self-made man. How completely
all this is changed by Shakespeareneeds no illustration. The single
point that I wish to make is that, far from rejecting pastoral romance
as a theme unworthy of the maturity of his genius, he converted
Dorastus into Florizel, and Fawnia into Perdita.
IV. A PHASE

0P SHAKESPEARE'S

IDEALISM

After commenting on " the vast dissertation factory that has been
built on Shakespeare'sbones," six hundred items being listed in the
ShakespeareJahrbuch in one year, Oliver Elton remarks: "But the
next thing needed is a synthesis of this huge mass of illustration and
apparatus. For the cold-storage of facts and parallels is of no use
unless it helps us to performbetter what for Englishmen surely is the
chief critical task of our time, namely, to enter into the mind of the
English Renaissance."37 These words were written years before
England's entrance upon a war against that theory of the state,
developed to the highest degree of efficiency,which was the peculiar
contribution of the Renaissance to systems of government. For just
as England in Shakespeare'stime representedthe new nationalism in
death struggle with the most formidable representative of the old
conception of the state, so now she is at grips with a power which
37 ModernStudies,p. 80.

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Shakespeare'sPastorals

represents the highest development of Machiavellianpolitical theory.

In the sixteenth century St. George defended the Low Countries in
the agony of their death struggle with Spain; to-day Englishmen like
to think that St. Georgeagain girds on his sword in defenceof Belgium
against a similar tyranny. Thus more than ever it may be said to be
important that Englishmen should try to understand the mind of the
Renaissance.
That mind, at first sight, seems to consist of a singular mixture of
common-senseand sentimentality, grasp of fact and idealism, desire
to know and to do set over against dreaming, objectiveness and
allegory, the active versus the contemplative ideal of life. Bacon
speaks in one place of the story of Cain and Abel as an allegory
of the contest between active life, represented in the husbandman,
and the contemplative life, represented in the shepherd, and says
that the favor of heaven was vouchsafed to the pastoralideal.38 In
another passage, however, he combats the idea of Greek philosophy
that the contemplative life is preferable: "But men must know that
in this theatre of man's life it is reservedonly for God and the angels
to be lookers on."33 Some observers of English life in the sixteenth
century think that there was a real conflict between theoretical
idealism and Machiavellian practice, resulting in an ethical paradox.40
Thus, More, Bacon, and Raleigh, men of the highest distinction, held
admirable theories of conduct which did not prevent them, according
to this view, from descending to the meanest of actions. Even more
pronounced is the apparent conflict between Elizabethan concreteness and sense of fact and Elizabethan sentimentality as manifested
in the sonnets and the pastorals. Sidney is ambitious to be an explorer, a colonizer,a statesman, a military hero, and he also represents
himself as the melancholy Philisides; he addresses to the Queen a
state paper showing admirable grasp of the problems confronting
England in a delicate situation, and he also writes sentimentally of
his hopeless love for Stella. Elizabeth distinguishes herself for her
careful economy in administration and proves a worthy match for
Catherineof France and Philip of Spain, both consummatepoliticians;
she also delights in being praised as a Diana, a Venus, a Queen of
Faerie, a subject for the most fulsome flattery at the Princely Pleasures at Kenilworth. England, the defender of Protestantism, loved
also the money to be got from raiding Spanish ships; she believed in
"8Adatscement,I, vi, 7.
"'Ibid., II, xx, 8.
40 For example,Sidney Lee, in GreatEnglishmenof theSixteenthCentury,pp. 14-15.

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149

reducing the wild Irish to Christianity while profiting by the acquisition of valuable plantations for the "undertakers"; St. George slew
the dragon, but was also careful to appropriate the dragon's hoard.
This apparent conflict between the ideal and the Machiavellian,
between symbol and fact, between even the sentimental and the
genuine, is of course reflected in Elizabethan literature. Mr. Greg
finds an explanation of the vogue of the artificial pastoral in the fact
that "in it the world-weary age of the later renaissance sought to
escape from the materialism that bound it."'" But, however true
this may be of Italy in the sixteenth century, it is emphatically not
true of England. Sidney Lee complains of the paradox in the fact
that "Sidney and Spenser, who preached with every appearance of
conviction the fine doctrine that the poets' crown is alone worthy the
poets' winning, strained their nerves until they broke in death, in
pursuit of such will-o'-the-wisps as political or military fame."42
This statement distorts the facts, since these men met death from no
such cause; it is unjust, for the glorious story of Rupert Brooke is
yet fresh in our minds; and it is superficial,since Sidney and Spenser
were seeking to serve the state, not as politicians or adventurers but
as men of broad interests and culture, according to the precepts laid
down in II Cortegiano,one of the two fundamental books-Machiavelli's "Prince" being the other-for the understandingof Renaissance
thought. A third method of interpretation seeks an explanation, not
through escape or paradox, but through identifying the whole work
of certain men with these phases of Elizabethan thought. Spenser,
we say, is the dreamer,the poet of allegory, the poet's poet; Bacon is
the man of science, interested in fact, with no illusions; Shakespeare
is the purely objective poet, whose facts come from the psychological
laboratory, not from Bacon's world of sense or from Spenser's faerie.
In spite of the simplicity of this mode of classification, it is not altogether borne out by the facts, for Spenser does not inhabit a realm
remote from the life that England was living, his allegory of Gloriana
is based upon one aspect of the new English nationalism which none
of his contemporariesphrased more completely or more accurately;
while the symbol and illusion of faerie romancefind a place in Bacon's
quest of truth and in Shakespeare's quest of the springs of human
action.
A complete study of the relation of Shakespeareto this apparent
duality of Elizabethan thought would take us far beyond the limits
41 Pstoras

Poetry,p. 51.

42 GreatEng!ishmen,p. 15.

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Shakespeare'sPastorals

of the present study, but certain aspects of his use of pastoralism

contribute something toward an understanding. In As You Like It,
for example, there is a keen sense of the absurdities of the genre.
Lodge's Rosader, who brings sonnets to read in order to show "what
a poetical fury love will inspire into a man," remains much the same
in Shakespeare,excepting that Orlando'ssonnets are converted into a
sort of verse that Touchstone says he could imitate for eight years
together, dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted. Rosalind is not the conventional shepherds' mistress, she has too much
humor; she believes in the sincerity of Orlando's love, but she lets
fly the shafts of her wit upon his imitation of the love-lorn swain.
The portrait of the melancholy Jaques is edged with satire. Touchstone's affair with Audrey parallels in broad farce the "love" of the
great ones, and he parodies the effects of unrequitedlove as set forth
by Silvius. Comparison with Lodge shows how in the story of
Phebe and Silvius, both representative of the eclogue type of shepherdess and shepherd, Shakespearehas heightened the impressionof
artificiality. Thus "love" is approached from different angles, all
of them showing Shakespeare's familiarity with the rules observed
by the best literary practitioners and the test of silvery laughter to
which he subjects them. The seriousnessof the ShepheardsCalender
is wholly wanting, likewise the unreal agonies of Arcadia and the
Petrarchism of Lodge. Rosalind assures Orlando that her frown
would not injure a fly; Touchstone approves of the shepherd'slife in
respectof itself, " but in respect that it is a shepherd'slife, it is naught."
In Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale a deeper note is struck.
Charmingas it is as a romance,and witty as it is in its satire of certain
literary conventions, As You Like It is deficient in thought. The
Duke's speech on the uses of adversity is a lovely rendering of a
motif frequentlymet, but it springs from no deep and passionateconviction. The unrealities of artificial pastoral formed no medium
through which Shakespearecould express his thought; he had either
to satirize or to transform. The pastoral episodes of these two late
plays, however, form the vehicle for a noble defence of the contemplative ideal. This defence is the climax of the exposition of a theme
which runs through a number of the plays. In Richard 11 Shakespearehad echoed Marlowe'sconceptionof the digniityof high position.
Kingship is a personal privilege; the crown is the symbol of earthly
glory. In Henry V the essential worthlessness of such an ideal of
glory is shown in Henry's great speech on ceremony, which is an

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151

expression, in magnificent verse, of the oft-repeated idea that the

peasant is happier than the king-the very essence of the idea which
Melibee expresses to Calidore, the old shepherd to Erminia, and that
runs through the criticism of the court found in Colin Clout. In
Lear, the idea recurs,but more poignantly expressed,in the old king's
words to Cordelia. In prison, he says, they can find happiness:
"And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies; and we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sets of great ones
That ebb and flow by the moon."

Other illustrations come readily to mind, but these are sufficient to

show how Shakespeare'shistorical plays and tragedies reflect a progression from the Renaissance idea of glory to a conviction that
happiness does not depend on place or power. This conception is
closely akin to the fundamental principle of pastoral idealism. It is
true that at first sight these and other similar passages in Shakespeare
seem merely expressionsof a well-knownElizabethan convention. No
motif is more commonly met, beginning with Wyatt's version of the
Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, than this dispraise of court
and exaltation of the purity and simplicity of life in the country.
But Shakespearedoes not sentimentalize about country life; he would
not, if living to-day, write books for tired city clerks on "Five Acres
and Liberty." The very passage in Henry V in which the king
attacks so bitterly the emptiness of ceremony praises only the sound
health and the freedom from care of the peasant, not his "vacant
mind"; if the only advantage in being a king consists in "ceremony",
" Such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country's peace,
Enjoys it, but in gross brain little wots
What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
W7hosehours the peasant best advantages."

And in Lear we do not get the full power of the lines about the possibility of happiness, even in prison, unless we bear in mind that earlier
Lear, autocratic, imperious, who thought that he was great because
he was dressed in a little brief authority, but not learning until he

Shakespeare'sPastorals

152

had been broken by sufferingthat ay and no is no good divinity and

that a king is not ague-proof.
In Cymbeline this theme is even more prominent. Belarius
praises their life in the wilderness for its security and its honesty.
But Guideriusreplies,
"Out of your proof you speak; we, poor unfledg'd,
Have never wing'd from view o' the nest, nor know not
What air's from home. Haply this life is best
If quiet life be best, sweeter to you
That have a sharper known."

And Arviragus,
"What should we speak of
When we are old as you? when we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December, how
In this our pinching cave shall we discourse
The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing."

To which Belarius:
"Did you but know the city's usuries
And felt them knowingly; the art o' the court,
As hard to leave as keep, whose top to climb
Is certain falling or so slippery that
The fear's as bad as falling; the toil o' the war,
A pain that only seems to seek out danger
I' the name of fame and honour; which dies i' the search,
And hath as oft a slanderous epitaph
As record of fair act."

Here, then, the debate between the old shepherd and the youth,
familiar in English pastorals since the time of Barclay, acquires new
intensity. Later, when the youths wish to get into the battle, like
Percival ambitious to seek Arthur's court, Belarius tries to keep them
away, but Arviraguscries,
"What pleasure, sir, find we in life, to lock it
From action and adventure?"

The true significance of these passages becomes clear if we compare

with the young princes Cloten the princely fool. Cloten is unable to
understand why he fails to win Imogen's love, since the clothes once
worn by Posthumus fit him perfectly. When Guiderius challenges
him, he says,
"Thou villain base,
Know'st me not by my clothes?"

And, a moment later,

"To thy further fear,
Nay to thy mere confusion, thou shalt know
I am son to the queen."

Eduin Greenlaw

153

Here, then, is the man of noble birth, but a fool, relying upon his
tailor and his name for respect; over against him are set those whom
he despises as "rustic mountaineers,"but in whom innate nobility
has produced character independent of position or the appearance
and veneer of culture. Belarius looks with delight upon these evidences that his two chargesare in reality noble:
"How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!
These boys know little they are sons to the king,
Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.
They think they are mine; and though train'd up thus meanly
I' the cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them
In simple and low things to prince it much
Beyond the trick of others."

And after they have slain Cloten:

"These two princely boys . . . 'Tis wonder
That an invisible instinct should frame them
To royalty unlearn'd, honour untaught,
Civility not seen from other, valour
That wildly grows in them but yields a crop
As if it had been sowed.

Cloten, brought up at court and with every advantage, is yet a fool;

Guiderius and Arviragus, ignorant of their descent, their only companion an old man whose wound still poisons his faith in his fellows,
are fitted for a life of action through this withdrawal from the world.
Place and power are relative: Richard could not command respect,
wearinghis crown;Lear could not commandrespect lacking his crown;
Cloten gains nothing from his clothes; the two mountain youths
possess a royalty of nature that dignifies their rustic garb.43
If, finally, we consider this material in connection with the preceding sections of this essay, the following conclusionsmay be drawn.
43This philosophyof clothes recursfrequentlyin Cymbelineand The Winter'sTale. Posthumus
disguis himself as a peasant, saying,
"Let me make men know
More valour in me than my habits show.
To shame the guise o' the world, I will begin
The fashion, less without and more within."
In The Winter'sTale (IV, iv) the old shepherdand his son are impressedby the borrowedmagnificence of Autolycus, and wonder if he is a courtier: "Seest thou not the air of the court," he says,
"in these enfoldings?hath not my gait in it the measureof the court? receives not thy nose courtodour from me? reflect I not on thy basenesscourt-contempt?" And after they have been rewarded
for their services, the shepherdand his son reflect on the delight of being gentlemen born. Meeting
Autolycus again (V, ii), the clown says: "You denied to fight with me the other day, because I was
no gentlemanborn. See you these clothes?say you see them not and think me still no gentlemanborn;
you were best say these robes are not gentlemen born; give me the lie, do, and try whether I am not
now a gentleman born."

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Shakespeare'sPastorals

In the first place, the pastoral element in Shakespeare's plays is

constant and pervasive. He has little of the conventional; the artificiality seen in the eclogues and in the romances and dramas drawn
therefrom has no attraction for him. Neither does he use the pastoral, as Spenser and others used it, as a medium for courtly allegory
or for satire of church and state. He satirizes the conventional
literary pastoral, but his sympathy for the sweetness, the purity, and
the sincerity of life away from the heated atmosphere of court is
shown in his Perdita, his Imogen, and in " that noble pair of brothers."
He looks upon country life without the sentimentality of many modern
writers; he indulges no illusions concerningit; the countryman is not
made noble because he lives in the presence of natural beauty any
more than the king is noble because he wears a crown. Yet one gets
an impression of a value to be attached to what the Elizabethans
called the contemplative life as a preparationfor active life, not merely
in the fact that one may find sermons in stones, but through the
education which the young charges of Belarius received. Lastly, the
whole idea is linked with that perception of the illusion of worldly
place and honor which so informs much of his major work. In this
he is one with his greatest contemporary. Back of the fact Spenser
saw always the symbol. There is a certain pathos in the story of
how Colin attained at last the vision of beauty for which he had
searchedso long, only to see it disappearat the approachof a mortal.
And Shakespeare, in like case aware that the visions evoked by his
imagination must fade into the light of common day, also comes to
feel what is at the very basis of the lovely vision of the Faerie Queene,-that not only are worldly standards of success and happiness illusory, but that
"Like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind."

EDWINGREENAw.

The Universityof North Carolina.