National Republican., 1882-12-27
snAKspEARr ON DEATH.
The Acuteness OF the Poets knowledge
Different Manners OF Death.
OrnhR MogdFiu,

There are in Shakspeares plays about
ninety deaths, taking place either on the
stage or Immediately behind the scenes so
that the tidings are told or evidence is given
directly after the fact. Twenty-Five occur in
this latter manner, but not at all for the
classical reason that terrible sights were not
to be represented before the people The
modes of death are very various and vet not
quite all which we might naturally antici-
pate. Cold steel, the dagger or the sword,
accounts for about two-thirds of the whole I;
twelve persons die from old age or natural
decay, in some cases fastened by the trying
circumstances of their lives; seven are bes
headed; FIVE die by poison, including the
elder Hamlet whose symptoms are so mi
nutely described by his ghOst two by suffo-
cation, unless indeed, Desdemona makes a.
third two by strangling; one from u fall I;
one is drowned; three die of snake-bite, and
one, Horner, the armorer, is thumped to death
with a sand-bag
The modes of death of which we might
have expected Shakespeare to speak are arrow
and gunshot wounds. The English archers
are said to have done so much execution in
more than one battle of which we hear in the
plays, that il is curious they arc only twice
named as employed in fght
Arrows fed not swifter toward their aim
Than did our sodes, aiming ut their safety,
Fly from the field.
In Arthur's fall from the tower and Hor-
ners DEATH the physical causes were the same (:
whatever the outward injuries, death resulted
from failure of the hearts action, in Conse-
quenco of some internal lesion, not from liaC-
turc of the spine, for in both after the injury
Is given there is time for one, yet but one,
short speech, and the end when it comes is
instantaneous. "Hold, Peter, hold | con-
fess treason !" cries Horner, and is going to
say more; there is no apparent failure of
power, but he dies at once abruptly. There
is nothing to be said of the cases of sufio-
cation, since they are transacted off the
STAGE and no physical signs are described
nor, for the same reason, Of the various in
stances of beheading. The single case of
drowning Is beautifully divested of all vio-
lence, and that which might be so painful is
rendered peaceful. Ophelia, having lost her
reason, is unaware of her danger; she is buoyed
up AT first by her garments, and then, as they
grow heavy, she is sdraEgcd down by them gently
and gradually, so that there is no room for
struggle, and the waters close over her almost
without ripple.
In the deaths of Cleopatra and her maids
Shakespeare would seem to have been for once
at fault. We say her maids, because the only
way to account for the sudden death of Iris is
to suppose that she had met and touched the
incoming basket of asps on leaving the pres
once to fetch her mistress's robe and crown.
But however this may be, Cleopatra and Char
|
bite, after the queen "applies" the serpents
TO her breast and arm, as though they were
| leeches.
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
That sucks the muse asleep?
The poet was quite aware that he must make
the effect of the asp very different to that OF
the viper's, which now and then might lame
a horse, or, very exceptionally, kill II Keeper
after some hours suffering, in his own Arden
But there was no one to tell him the mode oi
death from the bites of eastern serpents; his
imagination is quite unfettered, and, with true
poetic feelings, he makes the poison swiftel
than the cobTa's, yet peaceful and painless
1t were better he should not know or tell the
agonies and the distortion which, in fact, must
have marred the beauty of Egypts queen
What there is lacking in accuracy is more thar
made up in the account of Gloucester's deatl
by strangling. There has been terrible strug
gle, and every physical sign is intensified.
See how the blood has settled in his face.
His face is black and full of blood,
His eyeballs further out than he lived,
His hair upreared, his snostrsstretchedw with strug
Cling,
His hands abroad displayed. &" q
The many cases of death by steel are yer,
closely studied from nature They who hav,
carefully examined the dead on battlefield
or in the streets after an emeute, are strucl
with the fact that while the expression of TIL,
!
wounds is one of agony and distress, the deaC
by sword have calmer expression, thougl
their wounds often seem more painful to thu
eye. This is entirely in accordance witt
Shakspeare's diagnosis. York, in "Henr,
"" dies smiling; so young Talbot, il
"Henry W." l, Poor boy he smiled" II
the great majority of cases there appears t,
have been no acute pains, and such distressfu
sensations as were felt, when there was TIM
, to feel anything, were those of cold. Death
therefore, resulted from hemorrhage, of whicl
an exceeding chilliness, without pain, is al
ways the consequence. Hotspur and War
wick both speak of this chill as :" the earthl.
and cold hand of DEATH" the "cold, CONCEALED
! blood" The only instances in which acut
! pain wrung "groans" from the sufferer wer
those in which death was long delayed, when
as with Clifford, "the air has got into m,
deadly wounds" and Montague also groan
from the delay.