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Page 14
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
This is followed very closely by Shakespeare, with the substitution of
"pearl" for "face".
She [Helen] is a pearl,
Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships.
_Troilus and Cressida_, Act ii, sc. 2, l. 82.
First Folio, at end of "Histories", unnumbered page
(596 of facsimile), col. A, line 19.
The greatest of the world's poets lived in a period midway between the
highest development of Renaissance civilization and the foundation of
our modern civilization, and he was thus at once heir to the rich
treasures of a glorious past, and endowed with a poetic, or we might
say a prophetic insight that makes his works appeal as closely to the
readers of to-day as to those of his own time.
In the four leading European nations of the age--Italy, despite her
high rank in art, still lacked national unity--four sovereigns of
marked though widely diverse character and attainments reigned for a
considerable part of Shakespeare's life. Of the "Virgin Queen" we
scarcely need to write. The England of her day, and of later days,
would not have been what it was and what it became, without the aid of
her mingled shrewdness and prudence. Faults she had and shortcomings,
but, granted the almost overpowering difficulties she had to face,
both at home and abroad, it is doubtful whether a more decided, a more
straight-forward policy would have been as successful as the somewhat
devious one she pursued. Her chief rival, Philip II (1556-1598), as
much averse as Elizabeth herself to energetic action, even more fond
of procrastination, lacked her relative religious and political
tolerance, and left Spain weaker than he had found it. And still his
tenacity, his devotion to the cause he believed to be that of heaven,
his consistency, and even the gloomy seriousness of his life, testify
to a strong soul, though a thoroughly unlovable one.
The reign of the eccentric Rudolph II, Emperor of Germany (1576-1612),
whose imperial residence was at Prague, covers the greater part of
Shakespeare's life. In spite of many failings and mistakes, this
monarch did much to foster the study of the arts and sciences of his
age, so far as he was able to understand them. That he was for a time
the dupe of adventurers and alchemists, such as the half-visionary
John Dee and the altogether unscrupulous Edward Kelley, was no unusual
experience in those days, when the dividing line between true science
and charlatanism was too indistinctly marked to be easily discernible.
The greatest of all the sovereigns of Shakespeare's time was Henry IV
of France, unquestionably the greatest of French kings, despite the
fact that the primacy has often been accorded to the Roi Soleil, Louis
XIV. The powerful and ductile personality that was able to put an end
to the destructive religious wars of France and to lay a firm
foundation for the strongly-centralized power of a later time, a
foundation which the great statesman Richelieu broadened and deepened,
deserves all the credit that should be given to those who conquer the
first apparently insurmountable difficulties in the realization of a
great aim.
How brief was the reign of most of the popes of this time is shown by
the fact that no less than ten of them were at one time or other
Shakespeare's contemporaries, although the duration of his life was
but fifty-two years. Of these probably the most noteworthy was Gregory
XIII (1572-1585), in whose reign occurred the fearful Massacre of St.
Bartholomew, August 24, 1572, and the reform of the calendar from that
known as the Julian to the new style named the Gregorian Calendar in
honor of this pope.
In the East, just coming into closer commercial intercourse with
Europe, the long reign of the greatest of the Mogul emperors,
Jelal-ed-din Akbar (1556-1605), began two years before the accession
of Elizabeth and lasted two years after her death. Probably no
Oriental sovereign, certainly no Indian sovereign, ranks higher than
Akbar, who was at once a great statesman, an able organizer, and
singularly tolerant in religion. In Persia, one of the most marked
rulers of this land, Abbas the Great, began to reign in 1584 and died
in 1628.
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