So too when the lark above them, poising on his outstretched wing,
Sees the innocents at play there, loud his throbbing quavers ring,
Like an echo of the gladness that resounded to the skies
When the first lark sang his rapture o'er the groves of Paradise.

To summarize fairly the worth of Rydberg is difficult, if not impossible. To many thousands of his admirers he represents the finest in spiritual stimulus that poetry can give. Again, it is possible to regard him with distant respect, as a personality apart from our life and its needs. But even for critics of the second type there are the idylls touched with a morning glow of the truest feeling. To the academic and philosophic mind he will always be a man to be reckoned with. As a literary craftsman he ranks close to the best, though this fact is only fully evident in the original. He is the greatest idealistic poet of Sweden, and, it seems no more than fair to assert, one of the leaders in his type during the nineteenth century.

NOTE: The translations in this article are taken by permission from An Anthology of Swedish Lyrics, published by the American-Scandinavian Foundation, New York, and the Oxford Press, London.

dried

ACT FOUR OF THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

W

ON THE STAGE

CLARENCE STRATTON

Director of English in the High Schools, Cleveland

HEN the story in The Merchant of Venice swings into the fourth act, anticipation has indicated that there will follow the highest point of the plot, the culminating action of the complications. Shakespeare answered all the demands of this importance. Not only is his mastery of dramatic construction revealed in this act, the absolute simplicity of his means to obtain the maximum effect is amazing. This stage device of hoisting a villain with his own petard, Shakespeare uses as unerringly as any modern manipulator of situations.

This fourth act is not only the most dramatic in intensity, it is longest in continuity, for the second scene is so short and so closely related to the trial scene that it may be considered a part of it. In productions on the stage it is either combined with the courtroom scene or omitted entirely.

The trial scene is not only dramatic and long, it is spacious. No matter how it may have been set in the Elizabethan theater, modern producers have taken advantage of all available stage space to reproduce the impression of dignity and size of the Venetian court. More persons are needed to support the progressive steps of the action; more can be used than in any previous scenes.

In view of the apparent requirements of the trial scene, and the obvious chances for stage groups and ensemble movements, it is rather amazing to find one commentator suggesting that "this scene might be in a diagonal setting where the left side is taken up with the raised platform for the Doge; in front of it the lawyers' table, at which, in the very center of the stage, stands Portia. To her left and in front of her, stands Antonio; on her right, at the end of the lawyers' table, in advance of Antonio, and the nearest character to the footlights, stands Shylock. Bassanio is on the platform, among the

nobles around the Doge." (Variorum, p. 393.) (Variorum, p. 393.) The objection to such a stage arrangement is that it reduces the size of the Court, which in itself should impress the spectators. The full stage should be used for this scene. Every producer has attempted by decoration and furniture to reflect the glory of Venice, but not all have used both fresco and drapery, as some critics report. It is unfortunate that so many reviewers of plays are not more definite in their remarks. One writes that this scene is made real "by guards and groups, by stately ceremonials, by a deft employment of pages within and a mob without, and by correctness of dramatic treatment." (Winter, W., Shakespeare on the Stage.)

How were the pages employed within, the mob without? And exactly what was done on the stage to justify the phrase "correctness of dramatic treatment"? If we could settle upon the elements rightly indicated by those words, we should have solved the entire problem of the presentation of Shakespearean drama.

Whether few or many persons are in the Court all action during the early part of this scene should point to the Duke. Whether he be dressed in cloth of silver, or of gold, or in crimson velvet, he should by his actions and speech show the dignity of his position, the ripeness of his experience, the force of his power, and the depth of his knowledge.

In Sir Henry Irving's version "the magnificoes, seated to the auditor's right in scarlet and ermine robes of state, the excited crowds, the gorgeous scarlet-clad Portia contrasting with the dullhued Oriental appearance of Shylock, stamped an indelible impression. Irving made a point in this scene by introducing among the spectators a crowd of Jews, who took the greatest interest in the fate of Shylock, laughing at his mordant jests, hanging on the words of Portia, and despairing over the final decision of the court." (O'Dell, Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving.)

A paragraph in The London Times in 1841 on Macready's production explained that "to give every completeness to the plays at this house, little bills are gratuitously distributed, containing descriptions of the scenery, with a short notice of the usages of the time in which the dramatic action is supposed to occur."

"Act IV. A Court of Justice. The arms on the tribunal of Venice and her tributary states Istria, Candia, Cyprus, Dalmatia, etc. In Venice, the tribunal for criminal cases and two others were

composed of forty judges, ordinarily presided over by one of three selected from the Council of the Doge, and draughted for the most part, if not wholly, from the members of the Senate. The Doge, on all public occasions, was attended by his particular officers, knights, esquires, captains, heralds, etc. The right of sitting in the councils and on the tribunals was among his privileges." (Quoted by O'Dell.) Kean in 1858 took costumes from Veccellio and Jost Amman and all architecture from actual buildings. He set Act IV in the Hall of the Senators.

"Dumb magnificoes, the subordinate officers, the clerks, heralds, and secretaries, the spectators crowded in the galleries and doorways, all demonstrate the same interest and produce a succession of pictures in which nothing is out of keeping, but which satisfy the eye and critical judgment." (Cole, quoted by O'Dell.)

When Shylock appears interest should be focused upon him. Only during a few speeches does it pass from him to Portia; and even during them or most of them, the spectators are as much held by Shylock's reacting as they are by Portia's acting. Some performers have forced attention upon Shylock by grouping the other characters into the background and corners.

It is extremely unfortunate that we have no detailed records of the methods by which actors before Macklin preserved throughout the trial scene the comic aspects of Shylock's rôle. Reading even his first speech now, we wonder how this section could have been interpreted humorously. The man who said so simply, "What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?" was a human creature before he was a usurer. What an experience it must have been to sit through Macklin's delineation in 1741, when he made Shylock stand like a tower, strong in the justice of his pleas, asking no favors, bound to please no one, no thing, except "a lodged hate and a certain loathing."

The delineation by Macklin has been the basis of all successive interpretations. As Shylock has no speech to deliver immediately upon his entrance, the actor has an excellent opportunity to act, to strike the note, as it were, of the first part of his scene. Booth, it is recorded (Winter, W., Shakespeare on the Stage) "showed an awful composure of inherent evil which may be noted in the observant stillness of a deadly reptile, aware of its potency, and in no haste, although unalterably determined to make use of it," all through the speech of the Duke, ending with the request for a gentle answer.