But
this is the best Shakespeare can reach--this fainting, palefaced "Yet
all goes well, yet all our joints are whole." The inadequacy, the
feebleness of the whole thing is astounding. Milton had not the courage
of the soldier, but he had more than this: he found better words for his
Satan after defeat than Shakespeare found for Hotspur before the battle:
"What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else not to be overcome;
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me."
When Shakespeare has to render Hotspur's impatience he does it superbly,
when he has to render Hotspur's courage he fails lamentably.
In the third scene of this fourth act we have another striking instance
of Shakespeare's shortcoming. Sir Walter Blount meets the rebels "with
gracious offers from the King," whereupon Hotspur abuses the King
through forty lines; this is the kind of stuff:
"My father and my uncle and myself
Did give him that same royalty he wears;
And when he was not six and twenty strong,
Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low,
A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home,
My father gave him welcome to the shore; .
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