" Falstaff
replies: "Indeed you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses go
by the moon and the seven stars and not by Phoebus, he, 'that wandering
knight so fair.'" Here we have a sort of lyrical strain in Falstaff and
then a tag of poetry which gives food for thought; but his next speech
is unmistakable:
"Let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade,
minions of the moon; and let men say we be men of
good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our
noble and chaste mistress, the moon, under whose
countenance we--steal."
This is Shakespeare speaking, and Shakespeare alone: the phrases sing to
us in the unmistakable music of the master-poet, though the fall at the
last to "--steal," seems to be an attempt to get into the character of
Falstaff. It is, of course, difficult to make the first words of a
person sharply characteristic; a writer is apt to work himself into a
new character gradually; it is only the sensitive self-consciousness of
our time that demands an absolute fidelity in characterization from the
first word to the last.
Pages:
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218