The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy (25+ Works with active table of contents)

by Leo Tolstoy

  "Sir, I am a true laborer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other men's good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck." (As You Like It, Act 3, Sc. 2.)

  in short, an ideal proletarian from the point of view of the aristocrat.

  The "Winter's Tale" can boast of another good shepherd (Act 3, Sc. 3), but he savors a little of burlesque. "Macbeth" has several humble worthies. There is a good old man in the second act (Sc. 2), and a good messenger in the fourth (Sc. 2). King Duncan praises highly the sergeant who brings the news of Macbeth's victory, and uses language to him such as Shakespeare's yeomen are not accustomed to hear (Act 1, Sc. 2). And in "Antony and Cleopatra" we make the acquaintance of several exemplary common soldiers. Shakespeare puts flattering words into the mouth of Henry V. when he addresses the troops before Agincourt:

  "For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile This day shall gentle his condition." (Act 4, Sc. 4.)

  And at Harfleur he is even more complaisant:

  "And you, good yeomen, Whose limbs were made in England, shew us here The metal of your pasture; let us swear That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not, For there is none of you so mean and base That hath not noble luster in your eyes." (Act 3, Sc. 1.)

  The rank and file always fare well before a battle.

  "Oh, it's 'Tommy this' and 'Tommy that' an' 'Tommy, go away'; But it's 'Thank you, Mr. Atkins,' when the band begins to play."

  I should like to add some instances from Shakespeare's works of serious and estimable behavior on the part of individuals representing the lower classes, or of considerate treatment of them on the part of their "betters," but I have been unable to find any, and the meager list must end here.

  But to return to Tommy Atkins. He is no longer Mr. Atkins after the battle. Montjoy, the French herald, comes to the English king under a flag of truce and asks that they be permitted to bury their dead and

  "Sort our nobles from our common men; For many of our princes (wo the while!) Lie drowned and soaked in mercenary blood; So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs In blood of princes." (Henry V., Act 4, Sc. 7.)

  With equal courtesy Richard III., on Bosworth field, speaks of his opponents to the gentlemen around him:

  "Remember what you are to cope withal-- A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways, A scum of Bretagne and base lackey peasants." (Act 5, Sc. 3.)

  But Shakespeare does not limit such epithets to armies. Having, as we have seen, a poor opinion of the lower classes, taken man by man, he thinks, if anything, still worse of them taken en masse, and at his hands a crowd of plain workingmen fares worst of all. "Hempen home-spuns," Puck calls them, and again

  "A crew of patches, rude mechanicals, That work for bread upon Athenian stalls."

  Bottom, their leader, is, according to Oberon, a "hateful fool," and according to Puck, the "shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort" (Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 3, Scs. 1 and 2, Act 4, Sc. 1). Bottom's advice to his players contains a small galaxy of compliments:

  "In any case let Thisby have clean linen, and let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onion or garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath, and I do not doubt to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy." (Ib., Act 4, Sc. 2.)

  The matter of the breath of the poor weighs upon Shakespeare and his characters. Cleopatra shudders at the thought that

  "mechanic slaves, With greasy aprons, rules and hammers, shall Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded, And forced to drink their vapor." (Antony and Cleopatra, Act 5, Sc. 2.)

  Coriolanus has his sense of smell especially developed. He talks of the "stinking breaths" of the people (Act 2, Sc. 1), and in another place says:

  "You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate As reek of rotten fens, whose love I prize As the dead carcasses of unburied men That do corrupt the air, I banish you,"

  and he goes on to taunt them with cowardice (Act 3, Sc. 3). They are the "mutable, rank-scented many" (Act 3, Sc. 1). His friend Menenius is equally complimentary to his fellow citizens. "You are they," says he,

  "That make the air unwholesome, when you cast Your stinking, greasy caps, in hooting at Coriolanus's exile." (Act 4, Sc. 7.)

  And he laughs at the "apron-men" of Cominius and their "breath of garlic-eaters" (Act 4, Sc. 7). When Coriolanus is asked to address the people, he replies by saying: "Bid them wash their faces, and keep their teeth clean" (Act 2, Sc. 3). According to Shakespeare, the Roman populace had made no advance in cleanliness in the centuries between Coriolanus and Cæsar. Casca gives a vivid picture of the offer of the crown to Julius, and his rejection of it: "And still as he refused it the rabblement shouted, and clapped their chapped hands, and threw up their sweaty night-caps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath, because Cæsar refused the crown, that it had almost choked Cæsar, for he swooned and fell down at it. And for mine own part I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air." And he calls them the "tag-rag people" (Julius Cæsar, Act 1, Sc. 2). The play of "Coriolanus" is a mine of insults to the people and it becomes tiresome to quote them. The hero calls them the "beast with many heads" (Act 4, Sc. 3), and again he says to the crowd:

  "What's the matter, you dissentious rogues, That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion Make yourself scabs?

  First Citizen. We have ever your good word.

  Coriolanus. He that will give good words to ye will flatter Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs, That like not peace nor war? The one affrights you, The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you, Where he would find you lions, finds you hares; Where foxes, geese; you are no surer, no, Than is the coal of fire upon the ice, Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is To make him worthy whose offense subdues him, And curse that justice did it. Who deserves greatness Deserves your hate; and your affections are A sick man's appetite, who desires most that Which would increase his evil. He that depends Upon your favors, swims with fins of lead, And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye? With every minute you do change a mind, And call him noble that was now your hate, Him vile that was your garland." (Act 1, Sc. 1.)

  His mother, Volumnia, is of like mind. She calls the people "our general louts" (Act 3, Sc. 2). She says to Junius Brutus, the tribune of the people:

  "'Twas you incensed the rabble, Cats, that can judge as fitly of his worth As I can of those mysteries which Heaven Will not leave Earth to know." (Act 4, Sc. 2).

  In the same play Cominius talks of the "dull tribunes" and "fusty plebeians" (Act 1, Sc. 9). Menenius calls them "beastly plebeians" (Act 2, Sc. 1), refers to their "multiplying spawn" (Act 2, Sc. 2), and says to the crowd:

  "Rome and her rats are at the point of battle." (Act 1, Sc. 2).

  The dramatist makes the mob cringe before Coriolanus. When he appears, the stage directions show that the "citizens steal away." (Act 1, Sc. 1.)

  As the Roman crowd of the time of Coriolanus is fickle, so is that of Cæsar's. Brutus and Antony sway them for and against his assassins with ease:

  "First Citizen. This Cæsar was a tyrant.

  Second Citizen. Nay, that's certain. We are blessed that Rome is rid of him....

  First Citizen. (After hearing a description of the murder.) O piteous spectacle!

  2 Cit. O noble Cæsar!

  3 Cit. O woful day!

  4 Cit. O traitors, villains!

  1 Cit. O most bloody sight!

  2 Cit. We will be revenged; revenge! about--seek--burn, fire--kill--slay--let not a traitor live!" (Act 3, Sc. 2.)

  The Tribune Marullus reproaches them with having forgotten Pompey, and calls them

  "You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things."

  He persuades them not to favor Cæsar, and when they leave him he asks his fellow tribune, Flavius,

  "See,
whe'r their basest metal be not moved?" (Act 1, Sc. 1.)

  Flavius also treats them with scant courtesy:

  "Hence, home, you idle creatures, get you home. Is this a holiday? What! you know not, Being mechanical, you ought not walk Upon a laboring day without the sign Of your profession?" (Ib.)

  The populace of England is as changeable as that of Rome, if Shakespeare is to be believed. The Archbishop of York, who had espoused the cause of Richard II. against Henry IV., thus soliloquizes:

  "The commonwealth is sick of their own choice; Their over greedy love hath surfeited; An habitation giddy and unsure Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. O thou fond many! With what loud applause Didst thou beat Heaven with blessing Bolingbroke, Before he was what thou would'st have him be! And now being trimmed in thine own desires, Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him, That thou provokest thyself to cast him up. So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard, And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up, And howlst to find it." (Henry IV., Part 2, Act 1, Sc. 3.)

  Gloucester in "Henry VI." (Part 2, Act 2, Sc. 4) notes the fickleness of the masses. He says, addressing his absent wife:

  "Sweet Nell, ill can thy noble mind abrook The abject people, gazing on thy face With envious looks, laughing at thy shame, That erst did follow thy proud chariot wheels When thou didst ride in triumph through the streets."

  When she arrives upon the scene in disgrace, she says to him:

  "Look how they gaze; See how the giddy multitude do point And nod their heads and throw their eyes on thee. Ah, Gloster, hide thee from their hateful looks."

  And she calls the crowd a "rabble" (Ib.), a term also used in "Hamlet" (Act 4, Sc. 5). Again, in part III. of "Henry VI.," Clifford, dying on the battlefield while fighting for King Henry, cries:

  "The common people swarm like summer flies, And whither fly the gnats but to the sun? And who shines now but Henry's enemies?" (Act 2, Sc. 6.)

  And Henry himself, conversing with the keepers who have imprisoned him in the name of Edward IV., says:

  "Ah, simple men! you know not what you swear. Look, as I blow this feather from my face, And as the air blows it to me again, Obeying with my wind when I do blow, And yielding to another when it blows, Commanded always by the greater gust, Such is the lightness of you common men." (Ib., Act 3, Sc. 1.)

  Suffolk, in the First Part of the same trilogy (Act 5, Sc. 5), talks of "worthless peasants," meaning, perhaps, "property-less peasants," and when Salisbury comes to present the demands of the people, he calls him

  "the Lord Ambassador Sent from a sort of tinkers to the king," (Part 2, Act 3, Sc. 2.)

  and says:

  "'Tis like the Commons, rude unpolished hinds Could send such message to their sovereign."

  Cardinal Beaufort mentions the "uncivil kernes of Ireland" (Ib., Part 2, Act 3, Sc. 1), and in the same play the crowd makes itself ridiculous by shouting, "A miracle," when the fraudulent beggar Simpcox, who had pretended to be lame and blind, jumps over a stool to escape a whipping (Act 2, Sc. 1). Queen Margaret receives petitioners with the words "Away, base cullions" (Ib., Act 1, Sc. 3), and among other flattering remarks applied here and there to the lower classes we may cite the epithets "ye rascals, ye rude slaves," addressed to a crowd by a porter in Henry VIII., and that of "lazy knaves" given by the Lord Chamberlain to the porters for having let in a "trim rabble" (Act 5, Sc. 3). Hubert, in King John, presents us with an unvarnished picture of the common people receiving the news of Prince Arthur's death:

  "I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus, The whilst his iron did on his anvil cool, With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news; Who, with his shears and measure in his hand, Standing on slippers (which his nimble haste Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet), Told of a many thousand warlike French That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent. Another lean, unwashed artificer, Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death." (Act 4, Sc. 2.)

  Macbeth, while sounding the murderers whom he intends to employ, and who say to him, "We are men, my liege," answers:

  "Ay, in the catalogue, ye go for men As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, Shoughs, water-sugs, and demi-wolves, are cleped All by the name of dogs." (Act 3, Sc. 1.)

  As Coriolanus is held up to our view as a pattern of noble bearing toward the people, so Richard II. condemns the courteous behavior of the future Henry IV. on his way into banishment. He says:

  "Ourselves, and Bushy, Bagot here and Green Observed his courtship to the common people; How he did seem to dive into their hearts With humble and familiar courtesy; What reverence he did throw away on slaves; Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles And patient overbearing of his fortune, As 'twere to banish their effects with him. Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench; A brace of draymen did God speed him well And had the tribute of his supple knee, With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends.'" (Richard II., Act 1, Sc. 4.)

  The King of France, in "All's Well that Ends Well," commends to Bertram the example of his late father in his relations with his inferiors:

  "Who were below him He used as creatures of another place, And bowed his eminent top to their low ranks, Making them proud of his humility In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man Might be a copy to these younger times." (Act 1, Sc. 2.)

  Shakespeare had no fondness for these "younger times," with their increasing suggestion of democracy. Despising the masses, he had no sympathy with the idea of improving their condition or increasing their power. He saw the signs of the times with foreboding, as did his hero, Hamlet:

  "By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it; the age has grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe." There can easily be too much liberty, according to Shakespeare--"too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty" (Measure for Measure, Act 1, Sc. 3), but the idea of too much authority is foreign to him. Claudio, himself under arrest, sings its praises:

  "Thus can the demi-god, Authority, Make us pay down for our offense by weight,-- The words of Heaven;--on whom it will, it will; On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just." (Ib.)

  Ulysses, in "Troilus and Cressida" (Act 1, Sc. 3), delivers a long panegyric upon authority, rank, and degree, which may be taken as Shakespeare's confession of faith:

  "Degree being vizarded, Th' unworthiest shews as fairly in the mask. The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center, Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office and custom, in all line of order; And therefore is the glorious planet, Sol, In noble eminence enthroned and sphered Amidst the other; whose med'cinable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil, And posts, like the commandments of a king, Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets, In evil mixture, to disorder wander, What plagues and what portents! what mutiny! What raging of the sea, shaking of the earth, Commotion of the winds, frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixture! Oh, when degree is shaked, Which is the ladder of all high designs, The enterprise is sick. How could communities, Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogenity and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, scepters, laurels, But by degree stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune the string, And hark, what discord follows! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy; the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores, And make a sop of all this solid globe; Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead; Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong, (Between whose endless jar justice resides) Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then everything includes itself in power. Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, a universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey, And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, This chaos, when degree is suffocate, Follows the choking; And this neglection of degree it i
s, That by a pace goes backward, in a purpose It hath to climb. The General's disdained By him one step below; he by the next; That next by him beneath; so every step, Exampled by the first pace that is sick Of his superiors, grows to an envious fever Of pale and bloodless emulation; And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length, Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength."

  There is no hint in this eloquent apostrophe of the difficulty of determining among men who shall be the sun and who the satellite, nor of the fact that the actual arrangements, in Shakespeare's time, at any rate, depended altogether upon that very force which Ulysses deprecates. In another scene in the same play the wily Ithacan again gives way to his passion for authority and eulogizes somewhat extravagantly the paternal, prying, omnipresent State:

  "The providence that's in a watchful state Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold, Finds bottom in th' incomprehensive deeps, Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods, Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. There is a mystery (with which relation Durst never meddle) in the soul of state, Which hath an operation more divine Than breath or pen can give expressure to." (Act 3, Sc. 3.)