Caroline Spurgeon is quite a bit harder on Arthur Brooke (the writer of The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562), which was probably Shakespeare's only source for Romeo and Juliet) in her classic work of criticism, Shakespeare's Imagery and What it Tells Us from 1935, than even I was the other day when I contrasted Shakespeare's philosophical sophistication with Brooke's heavy-handed moralizing. In giving credit for the fact that Shakespeare took from Brooke the idea of using recurring images of light and darkness, she wrote the following: "He took the idea from the last place we should expect, from the wooden doggerel of Arthur Brooke, and the germ of it is in the sing-song line in which Brooke describes the attitude of the lovers: 'For each of them to other is as to the world the sun.'" I'm not sure I find that line, or Brooke's writing overall, quite as bad as Spurgeon does, but it is surprising to realize that Shakespeare didn't necessarily require a good source (i.e. an excellent writer such as Plutarch, for example) from which to fashion a masterpiece.

One of the masterful touches that Shakespeare applied to Antony and Cleopatra is the character of Enobarbus, who barely gets a mention in Plutarch. In this play, he acts almost like a chorus at certain times, keeping a cynical eye on the proceedings of the title characters - but at other points, he acts as a trusted aide to each of them. Shakespeare also uses his running commentary to keep us at a distance, which is appropriate for people of their fame. But like Enobarbus, we eventually get pulled in, and feel a strong emotional connection to them - no matter how poorly we see them behave. In Enobarbus' case, he is a cynic on the outside only, and a sentimentalist within. This, he finds out too late: When he deserts Antony's side - very understandably in a way, because Antony seems to lose his reason - the decision ultimately breaks his heart and ends his life. Here are his last words as he lies down in a ditch to die:

O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,

The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me,

That life, a very rebel to my will,

May hang no longer on me: throw my heart

Against the flint and hardness of my fault:

Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder,

And finish all foul thoughts. O Antony,

Nobler than my revolt is infamous,

Forgive me in thine own particular:

But let the world rank me in register

A master-leaver and a fugitive:

O Antony! O Antony!

More on Enobarbus tomorrow.