PERSONAL SINS AND HEREDITARY SINFULNESS 201 Our natures do pursue, Like rats that ravin down their proper bane, A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die. In "Hamlet" (3:1:117): "Virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it." In "Love's Labor's Lost" (1 : 1 : 149): For every man with his affects is born, Not by might mastered, but by special grace. Shakespeare testifies that all men are sinners: Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all, says Henry VI. (Part II., 3 : 3:31); Who lives that's not depraved or depraves? says Timon (1:2:124). In "Othello" we read (3: 3:137): Where's that palace whereinto foul things Sometimes intrude not? Who has a breast so pure, Keep leets and law-days, and in sessions sit With meditations lawful? Hamlet confesses (3 I 122): I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do, crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us. And yet our poet will not clear man from responsi bility for his inborn depravity. Hamlet compares God's influence to the sun which "breeds maggots in a dead dog, kissing carrion" (2:2: 181); that is, God is no more responsible for the corruption in man's heart and the evil that comes from it, than the sun is responsible for the maggots which its heat breeds in a dead dog. We are not only corrupt by nature but we are guilty. In "The Winter's Tale" (1: 2: 69), Polixenes describes his companionship with Leontes, when they were boys together: We knew not the doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd That any did. Had we pursued that life, And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd With stronger blood, we should have answered Heaven boldly, Not guilty; the imposition cleared that is, provided our hereditary connection with Adam had not made us guilty. Man's guilt, both hereditary and personal, is real, and it has punishment for its correlate. There is a craving to make reparation for sin. In "Measure for Measure" (5470), when Escalus expresses sorrow that Angelo should have sinned, Angelo replies: I am sorry that such sorrow I procure, Posthumus in "Cymbeline" (5:4:22), thinking he had caused the death of his wife, makes request of the gods: : CONSCIENCE PREDICTS RETRIBUTION For Imogen's dear life take mine; and though 'Tis not so dear, yet 'tis a life; you coined it. And cancel these cold bonds! Desired more than constrained; to satisfy, 203 that is, settle the account with me by taking my life. While the conscience of the penitent desires punishment, the conscience of the impenitent man expects punishment. Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all, says Hamlet (3:1:83); and the queen in the same play (4517) breaks out in fear: To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is, Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss; So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. King Henry VI. (Part II., 3 : 2:232) exclaims: What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted! Sin may blunt the edge of conscience for a time: When we in our viciousness grow hard, (O misery on't!) the wise gods seal our eyes; In our own filth drop our clear judgments, make us To our confusion. ("Antony and Cleopatra," 3: 13: 111.) But conscience will sooner or later awake again in the Gonzalo, in "The Tempest" (3:3: case of the guilty. 104), testifies: Their great guilt, Like poison given to work a great time after, Now 'gins to bite the spirits. Even "Richard III." confesses at the last (5:3: 180): O coward conscience, how thou dost afflict me! My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tale condemns me for a villain. And conscience is but the prophecy of another condemnation more terrible still. "Can we outrun the heavens?" says "Henry VI." (Part II., 5:2:73). And "Henry V." (4:1:157) says nobly: "If transgressors have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God." Hamlet witnesses (3:3:57): In the corrupted currents of this world Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice; But 'tis not so above. There is no shuffling; There the action lies in his true nature, and we ourselves Hear King John (4: 2:216): RETRIBUTION IN THIS WORLD ALSO Oh, when the last account'twixt heaven and earth 205 And in the same play the Bastard speaks (4:3: 117): Beyond the infinite and boundless reach Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death, In all literature there is no scene more moving than that one in which Beaufort, the bloody cardinal in King Henry VI. (Part II., 3 : 3 : 2), offers the treasures of a realm to purchase a little longer life, cries out in agony at the thought of his victims, and when asked to indicate some remaining hope in God's mercy, sinks back in death, but makes no sign. There is retribution in the world to come, but there is also retribution here. This world is under the rule of Providence (" Hamlet," 5: 2 : 10): There's a divinity that shapes our ends Says Edgar, in "King Lear" (5:3; 171): The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices and Hamlet (1:2:257): Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, To men's eyes. |