Time in Shakespeare's Plays

BEFORE beginning the examination of the scheme of time in separate plays of Shakespeare which were not considered in a former article, I ask the attention of Shakespeareans for a moment to the habit of the poet in dealing with the passage of hours. Whenever hours or minutes are indicated eis nominibus, Shakespeare is almost always, as I believe, quite scrupulous in regulating the length of the scene to fit the measure which he himself prescribes. Of course no playwright ever undertakes to give an exact hour of dialogue for an hour of the clock, but Shakespeare is careful that there shall be some reasonable relation between text and timepiece whenever he calls attention to the movement of the dial hands. Many illustrations from many plays might be given on this point, but two or three will suffice. In Scene 1, Act I., of Hamlet, Horatio and the soldiers first see the Ghost at one o’clock in the morning, — the hour being that of its appearance on the previous night. After its departure they sit and beguile the tedious watch with a long talk about recent Danish history and politics, and when the Ghost reappears it is near the dawn, and presently the cock crows. On the modern stage this is quite confused by reason of the heroic cutting of the dialogue. The scene in which Hamlet has his first interview with the dread visitant is proportioned in the same way, the protracted interview between the father and the son lasting from an hour not much later than midnight to the moment when

The very long Scene 3, Act II., of Othello, which witnesses Cassio’s drunkenness and degradation and the clarification of lago’s plot against his general’s peace, lasts from a little before ten o’clock in the evening (vide lago’s first speech in the scene) almost to morning; “pleasure and action,” as Iago says, with the finest fiendishness of humor, making “ the hours seem short.” The long interview in prison between the Duke and the provost lasts, in Scene 2, Act IV., of Measure for Measure, from between midnight and one o’clock to “ clear dawn.” The only exception to the rule which I can now recall is apparent rather than real. In Scene 2, Act II., of Cymbeline, Imogen closes her book at “ almost midnight,” — having weakened her eyes by three hours of steady reading in bed,— and presently is asleep. Iachimo emerges from the trunk in which he has made his infamous ambush, and after a rather long soliloquy retires to his hiding-place just as the clock is striking three. This seems a somewhat severe compression of three hours, but Shakespeare’s intent is, I think, to indicate by the rapid conventionalism of the stage the facts that Iachimo allowed a long hour or more to pass before he ventured to infer Imogen’s sound sleep from the stillness of her chamber, and that the process of examining the room and bed and the person of the pure young wife, and of taking notes of every detail, must have consumed many minutes, retarded as it was by his sensuous delight in Imogen’s unconsciously exposed beauty.

III. Continuing the study of separate plays, I take up a third group of comedies, in which are included all those wherein the progress of time is indicated scantily or without precision. From the present point of view, these dramas are of course not so interesting as the others, and they will be more briefly discussed. In this class are the Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labor’s Lost, the Taming of the Shrew, All’s Well That Ends Well, Pericles, Cymbeline, and Troilus and Cressida,¹ all of which, with the exception of the last two of the list, are to be noted as in the first instance of Shakespeare’s early period of composition.

In the Two Gentlemen of Verona, the scene of action is often changed; being first in Verona, then in Mantua, again in Verona, and finally in Mantua and on its frontier. Little pains are taken to show the lapse of time, though the movement is evidently as swift as may consort with the constant traveling of the chief characters. In the first scene, Valentine leaves his friend, Proteus, in Verona, and sets out for the court of the prince, who is variously called the Duke and Emperor of Milan. Proteus has already begun to make love to Julia, and the interval between the delivery of his first love-letter, in the second scene of the play, and his full knowledge of his mistress’s affection is apparently a few days, or a very few weeks, — so long, at all events, as will suffice for him to have received, or to make pretense of having received, an epistle written by Valentine from the near city of Mantua (Scene 3, Act I.). On the day following he is compelled to follow Valentine to Mantua; and scarcely have the friends met before Valentine, like a very fresh young lover, tells the whole story of his conquest of Silvia, and of their near intended flight and secret marriage. Julia’s impatience to behold her Proteus’ face makes her tarrying very short in Verona, after his departure, and she becomes her false lover’s page just after he has betrayed his friend, and wrought the banishment of valentine and the miscarriage of the scheme of elopement. Silvia’s flight, the pursuit by Proteus, the happy end reached through the combination of Proteus’ volatile wickedness and precipitate repentance, Julia’s meekness, Silvia’s courage, and Valentine’s fortunate capture of the Duke, his prospective fatherin-law, — these all doubtless follow one another as fast as human legs can go. Valentine’s assertion to the outlaws (Scene 1, Act IV.) that he has sojourned in Milan “ some sixteen months ” is evidently intended, like the story of the homicide he has committed, as a mere fabrication.

The action in Love’s Labor’s Lost is of no consequence, and the whole interest of the play consists in the wit of the principals and the deliciously fantastic verbiage of the euphuist, Don Adriano de Armado. The time of the movement is treated nonchalantly, perhaps, rather than obscurely. The period which elapses between the first conference of the King of Navarre and his lords in Scene 1, Act I., and their interview with the Princess of France and her ladies in Scene 1, Act II., is not stated. It is evidently short, and seems to mark only the separation between two successive days; but there is no conclusive reason to be found in the text why it may not be a few hours or minutes, and why the latter scene may not belong to the same twenty-four hours as the former. At all events, the action from the opening of Act II. to the end of the comedy covers no more than two consecutive days. From the moment of the encounter of the courts of Navarre and France, the gentlemen, whose signatures to the pledge of a three years’ separation from womankind are scarcely dry, find themselves forsworn in heart, if not in deed. On the afternoon of the day of this encounter, Biron attempts to communicate with Rosaline, and the clown Costard, chosen as letter-carrier by Don Armado to Jaquenetta, and by Biron to his lady-love, learns through the former gentleman that “ remuneration ” means “ three farthings,” and through the latter that a “ guerdon ” is a shilling. The day ends with Scene 1, Act IV., in which the Princess tries her hand at shooting, and catches a flying glimpse of the love-lorn King. The second day begins with Scene 2, Act IV., in which the characters salute each other with “ good-morrow,” and discuss the Princess’s exploits in killing a deer. The other scenes of the piece all occupy portions of the same day. In the forenoon the King hunts and composes loveverses ; his courtiers follow his example, and find him and each other out. In the afternoon, which begins with Scene 1, Act V., soon “after dinner,” the gentlemen meet the ladies, plead the various suits, which are rewarded by a promise of “ Yes ” a year hence, and, with a reckless indifference to decorum which Shakespeare nowhere else parallels, the Princess, just after receiving news of her father’s death, is made to stay and listen to the recitation of verses in a rustic mask. But if “ When daisies pied and violets blue ” and “When icicles hang by the wall ” were not to be had on any other terms, I suppose the world would sacrifice the feelings of a hundred women to secure the songs.

The passage of the time in the Taming of the Shrew is not always made clear, but it is occasionally shown in an interesting fashion. Scene 1, Act I., is introductory, and displays the state of Baptista’s household, furnished, as it is, with an elder daughter “ so curst and shrewd” that “till the father rids his hands of her” the gentle junior sister has no chance of mating. There is then an interval of undisclosed length, but certainly very short, within which Lucentio disguises himself as a music teacher; and in Scene 1, Act II., the brisk and brusque Petruchio enters, and, hearing of Katharine’s dowry and other charms, undertakes “ not to sleep till ” he has seen her. His interview with the shrewish maiden takes place in Scene 1, Act II., wherein their wedding is fixed for the following Sunday. The period between this and the succeeding scenes is long enough to let Petruchio go to Venice to buy “ rings and things and fine array,” and Scene 1, Act III., is on the day before the appointed Sunday. Scene 2. Act III., is on the wedding day, and deals with the hero’s eccentric behavior at the ceremony, and his affectionate haling away of the bride before she has tasted the “ bridal dinner.” Then succeeds the memorable wedding journey of the newly married pair to the groom’s country-seat, where they arrive in Scene 1, Act IV. It is by good rights only a five hours’ journey from Padua to Petruchio’s house (vide the last ten lines of Scene 3, Act IV.) ; but Petruchio pursues such a route as to spend in travel the whole afternoon of his wedding day and nearly all the following day, as appears from the soliloquy (Scene 1, Act IV., ad fin.) in which he says that he has not only kept his bride without food during the second day of her trip, but without sleep during the first night of her wedded life, and that he purposes repeating her dose of insomnia on the second night. The movement of time in the scenes which immediately succeed is not generally plain, but it is interesting to know that the time consumed by Petruchio in working the miracle of taming his fair shrew is just a week. Near the end of Act II. Baptista names “ the Sunday following ” the Sunday of Katharine’s nuptials as the day on which Bianca shall be married to the pseudoLucentio, if the father of the latter shall then “ warrant ” the payment of the promised dower. This date is reached in Scene 4, Act IV., when Baptista declares himself ready to keep his word; and upon the same day Petruchio enters Padua by “ a public road,” dragging in triumph at his horse’s heels, so to speak, the mild Katharine, whose hot blood seems to have been turned to cream by the conjugal chemistry, who has not only no will of her own, but no sight, no hearing, no thought, that does not wait upon the slightest whimsey of her lord and master. The rest of the play occupies the remainder of the same day, and the comedy concludes with a late supper, which involves all the characters and lasts till bedtime.

All’s Well That Ends Well covers between the extreme points of its action a time which is not precisely indicated, but which may be shrewdly surmised to be about four months. The only intervals in its movement which exceed a few days in length are between the second and the third scenes of Act I., and between the fourth and the fifth scenes of Act III. The former period is probably a few weeks, its only measures being found in the facts that within it Helena’s strong desire to visit Paris, in order to see Bertram and attempt to cure the sick King, has grown to such an extent as to overmaster her maiden timidity, and that Bertram has had time to be irritated with the King’s gentle but repeated refusals to allow him to follow the Italian wars. (See Scene 1, Act II., ad init.) The latter period is two months long (vide speech of First Lord, Scene 3, Act IV.), and covers the time consumed by the wretched, rejected Helena in making her slow progress from her home with the Countess at Rousillon to the city of Florence and the house of Diana Capulet, the latest object of Bertram’s gallantry. The succeeding consecutive scenes are separated from one another only by a few days, or by so much time as is necessary for the various marchings and countermarchings of the characters. Diana’s brief but graphic description in rhyme of Helena’s bodily condition, in the last scene, must be regarded as somewhat premature, though in a line of exaggeration quite natural under the circumstances.

The progress of time is treated in Cymbeline with more indifference than Shakespeare shows in any other of his non-historical plays, the reasons therefor being, as I think, not hard to find. Yet the poet has taken pains to indicate that the period covered by the entire drama is less than one year. In Scene 1, Act I., one of the gentlemen, who is discussing the lives of Cymbeline and Posthumus, says that the King’s two boys were stolen “ some twenty years ” ago ; and in the last scene of the fifth act Belarius, the instigator of the abduction, says, “ These gentle princes

(For such and so they are) these twenty years
Have I trained up.”

In the interval between these scenes the action appears to move, as in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, about as fast as will suffice for the long and frequent journeys of the characters. A journey of Posthumus from Britain to Rome, of Iachimo from Rome to Britain and back again, of Imogen from “ Lud’s town ” to Milford Haven, are the chief of those movements which directly bear on the question of time. The period between the departure of Cloten, with lustful and bloody intents toward Imogen and Posthumus, and his arrival at the cave of Belarius (that is to say, between Scene 5, Act III., and Scene 1, Act IV.) seems to be some ten days or two weeks ; at all events, it is supposed to coincide with the time taken to convey from Rome to Lucius in Britain the will of the Emperor touching the levy of troops against the rebellious Cymbeline. (Vide Scene 7, Act III., and Scene 2, Act IV.) Imogen spends this period partly in wandering about, — for directly after Pisanio leaves her she loses her way, and “ for two nights together ” makes the ground her bed (vide Scene 6, Act III.), — and partly at the cave of Belarius, with him and the two youths, for whose benefit she practices her “ neat cookery.” Afterward the movement in time seems to be as rapid as may consist with the motion of the persons ; and the word of Belarius at the close of the play, which was cited at the beginning of this paragraph, taken in connection with the succession of scenes, makes it not unreasonable to conjecture that the entire time of the action is between six and nine months.

The action of Pericles occupies something more than fifteen years. Acts II. and III. together cover one year. Between Acts III. and IV. there is an interval of fourteen years.

I have blundered in putting Troilus and Cressida into the third class ; its place is in the second. The first and second scenes of the drama introduce the Trojan heroes, Pandarus, Helen, and Cressida, with the chief intent of showing the relations between Troilus, his lady-love, and her go-between uncle. There is then an undetermined interval, which is occupied, in whole or in part, by a “ dull and long-continued trace.” (Vide the long speech of Æneas, Scene 3, Act I.) After Scene 3, Act I., the entire action of the play consumes parts of three consecutive days, the limits of which are shown with much precision. In this scene Æneas bears to the Greek generals the challenge of Hector, who summons any one of them to meet him in single combat on the following day. The remainder of the day is devoted at the Greek camp to the usual declamatory exercises, to the invention and execution of the scheme to pique Achilles by advancing the fatwitted Ajax, and at night (Scene 3, Act III.) to the discussion and adoption of a plan to send Diomedes to Troy on the following day, in order to exchange the Trojan prisoner Antenor for Cressida, and to bear the responsive challenge of Ajax to Hector. Meanwhile, in Troy, Hector tells the princes of the defiance he has sent, and Pandarus arranges for the night the love-meeting of Troilus and Cressida. The second day begins with Scene 1, Act IV., very early in the morning, within the city, the princes having just left their beds to greet the messenger, Diomedes. Troilus and Cressida part with mutual vows of faith, and the smooth-tongued, brighteyed young woman is carried off by Diomed to the Greek camp. The mild and unresulting encounter between Hector and Ajax takes place midway between the walls and the camp at eleven in the forenoon (the exact hour being twice named, — once by Achilles in Scene 2, Act II., and once by Thersites in Scene 3, Act III.). An evening of revelry follows, in which Hector is the guest of Agamemnon, and in which he agrees to fight on the ensuing day with several of the heroes, — with Achilles especially, who, “ to-night, all friends,” threatens to meet him “ to-morrow, fell as death ” (Scene 5, Act IV.). The feasting is kept up to a late hour, but Troilus is led by the amiable Ulysses to a place where he may see his Cressida grossly flirting with Diomedes, and the unhappy youth stays till morning to pour his woe and wrath into the ear of the subtle Ithacan. (Vide the speech of Æneas, Scene 2, Act IV., ad fin.) The third day begins with Scene 3, Act V., and shows much fighting, the death of Hector, and the furious onslaughts of Troilus upon his supplanter, Diomed. Shakespeare’s main idea in this closely woven scheme of time is to bring out the character of Cressida in strong relief, and to emphasize the perfidy of her mobile and sensuous nature by separating her love scene with Diomedes from her practical wedding with Troilus by a scant twenty-four hours. If the later Shakespeare is the better authority, Lorenzo, in the Merchant of Venice, was mistaken in supposing that on any moonshiny night Troilus

or perhaps, in spite of his “ twentythree years,” the hero was still so immature as to be capable of heaving a sigh for the woman who had wronged him.

The three Roman histories — Julius Cæsar, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra — and the ten historical plays which are founded upon the lives of English kings have no scheme of time which concerns us here. The shortest period covered by any one of these plays is three years, which is the time of Julius Cæsar. In all of them Shakespeare selects the dramatic incidents of a long career, and crushes these incidents together for his own purposes and after his own fashion. Occasionally the lapse of time is indicated, a few scenes being closely united, and their extent stated or hinted; but as a rule, and as might be supposed, the element of time is disregarded. At the risk of saying what is trite and “ out of my part,” I will add that all the English historical dramas, with the exception, perhaps, of King John, are safe as well as vivid teachers both of the order and of the significance of the events which they describe; and that no chronicle of the seething century between 1377 A. D. and 1485 A. D. can be found comparable with that contained in the Shakespearean octalogy which begins with Richard II. and ends with Richard III.

There now remain for examination only six plays, all of which are tragedies. In three of these, — Macbeth, Timon, and King Lear, — the time of the action is imperfectly or obscurely shown ; in the other three, — Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello, — it is clearly indicated.

Macbeth may perhaps be regarded as a historical play, and at all events it is treated as such by Shakespeare in dealing with the element of time. During the first four scenes of Act I. the action is rapid, as befits a chronicle of war, but the lapse of time is not distinctly shown. In Scene 5, Act I., with Lady Macbeth’s reading of her husband’s letter, begins the great, the eventful day, big with the fate of Duncan and of Scotland, of the murderers as well as of the murdered. The succeeding scenes of Act I. and nearly the whole of Act II. are included within this single day and its night, and the end of their continuous action is reached in the early morning of the next day, when Macduff goes to waken Duncan, and finds his king sunk in the sleep which knows no waking. Almost all of Act III. takes place within one day and evening; Banquo’s intent to ride in company with his little son 44 this afternoon,” 41 as far as will fill up the time ” till supper, and, if his horse’s pace is not of the best, to

being communicated to Macbeth in the first scene. The preparations for Banquo’s assassination are made in this and the following scene, and the deed is done in Scene 3, while “ the west yet glimmers with some streaks of day ; ” and in the fourth scene, at the royal banquet to which he has been so urgently bidden, he returns in awful guise most fearfully to plague the contriver of his death. Outside these two acts no valuable hint is given as to the progress of time. It is perhaps worth while to note that the hour at which Lady Macbeth rings the bell that is her husband’s cue for murder is two o’clock in the morning ; the “ one; two; why, then’t is time to do’t” of her sleep-walking scene being good evidence on the point.

Scarcely a single plain indication of the lapse of time is given in Timon of Athens. The movement up to the close of the third act is evidently rapid, for in Scene 2, Act I., Flavius, the faithful steward of Timon, already knows the completeness of his master’s ruin and the nearness of the approaching crash. The time of Timon’s exile and of his savage life within the forest until his self-inflicted death is not fixed, but the sequence of the scenes appears to imply that the whole period is brief.

King Lear is, in its treatment of time, one of the most puzzling of Shakespeare’s non-historieal plays. The difficulty with its scheme, however, is not, as with that of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, that it displays any absolute self-inconsistency, but that, in the relations of its parts, it defies the arithmetic of probability. From the beginning of the tragedy to the close of Act III., or a little later, the time seems to be distinctly marked. In Scene 1, Act I., Lear announces his intention of living “ by monthly course ” with each of his eldest daughters, “by due turn;” and by a remark made by Goneril at the close of the scene, as well as by a speech of Gloster in the next scene, we know that the King sets off for Goneril’s castle on the very night of the day in which he parted his crown in two. On the same day Cordelia and her royal husband depart for France. Scenes 3 and 4 of Act I. are fitted closely together; Goneril, in the former, instructing her steward to slight her father with whatsoever show of “ weary negligence ” the lackey may choose to put on, and the King’s horns are heard as he approaches from the chase, at the close of the scene. In Scene 4, Lear enters upon the “ woe that too late repents,” and the interval between his dethroning himself and his humiliation at his eldest daughter’s hands is fixed in his line,

His first month with Goneril has only half expired in this scene, and Regan, in Scene 4, Act II., desires that “till the expiration of ” his “ month ” he will return and sojourn with her sister. The brief time spent by the King in his journey toward Regan’s palace is shown in Scene 2, Act II., where Kent, who has preceded his master to announce the King’s visit, has an encounter near Gloster’s castle with the villainous steward of Goneril, and says that it is less than " two days ” since he tripped up that “ brazen-faced varlet’s ” heels before the King, —an incident chronicled in Scene 4, Act I. Straight from his terrible interview with Goneril and Regan, neither of whom he is ever again to see alive, Lear, with wits already beginning to turn, rushes out into the storm and darkness. The marvelous story of the night of his exposure, anguish, and ever-deepening madness is told in the first six scenes of Act III. in Scene 7, Act III., it is the next morning, and Gloster, apprehended by Cornwall and Regan, both for his protection of Lear and for complicity with the designs of France, and deprived of his eyesight, has been turned loose to “ smell his way to Dover.” At this point, then, — at the end of Scene 1, Act IV., — no more than eighteen days have elapsed since the beginning of the play. Afterward, though few definite indications are given, the action seems to be as rapid as is physically possible up to the very close of the tragedy. The difficulty which was mentioned above lies in the extraordinary swiftness with which the great political and military movements have been made, contemporaneously with the main action of the plot. When but half a month has passed (Scene 1, Act II.), serious differences and “ likely wars ” between Albany and Cornwall have begun to be discussed ; and less than three days later (Scene 1, Act III.) Kent has been informed, partly by a letter from Cordelia herself (vide his last speech in Scene 2, Act III.), that France has already sent a warlike host to England to avenge the wrongs of the King. The gentleman then dispatched by Kent to Dover expects to meet Cordelia there, and is bidden to show her Kent’s ring as a token. By the time Scene 3, Act IV., is reached, not only has the army of France landed in England, but the French King, drawn by the urgency of some state affairs, has returned to France, and left his troops and Cordelia in charge of “ the Mareschal of France, Monsieur Le Far.” Such swiftness as this would seem to be impossible even in the days of steam and electricity. Viewing the matter in the light afforded by the study of the plays already examined, we may say that in no other of the Shakespearean dramas is there an equal difficulty in reconciling the progress in time of parallel factors of the plot. But the controlling idea is plain enough ; armies, letters, and kings may be moved with a speed which outrages probability, and the dramatist expects his auditors to be indifferent to the matter; but he means that every one who sees the play shall know and feel that Lear’s eldest daughter grudgingly fulfilled for a bare fortnight the meagre stipulation which she had made in exchange for half a kingdom, and that two days later the royal old man who had “given” his “daughters all ” was opposed to “jarring winds ” and driving rain, and was “ fain to hovel ” him “ with swine and rogues forlorn in short and musty straw.”

In Romeo and Juliet the progress of time is shown with exquisite precision, and with a scrupulous care which often extends to the indication of hours. Per contra, because of a single unguarded utterance of the Friar, there is perhaps just a little haziness about a matter of two or three hours. But the difficulty is, as in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, that of making the dramatist’s scheme square with his promise; there is no doubt, I think, what his scheme of time actually is. The action of Romeo and Juliet occupies portions of five consecutive days. If one care to be very precise, he may even go so far as to say, with sure warrant of the text, that the whole story of the tragedy takes place within a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of the same week. Shakespeare has also taken pains to inform us that the time of the year is just the middle of July, — it being, in Scene 3, Act I., “a fortnight and odd days ” “ to Lammas-tide,” which is the first day of August. Scene 1, Act I., begins rather early in the morning, and when Romeo, possessed by the fancy for Rosaline which had driven him forth into the solitary woods more than

greets his friend Benvolio it has “ but new struck nine.” The next scene is on the same day, as is evident from Capulet’s comment on the Prince’s censure, which was to be declared to “ both the houses ” by “ afternoon.” (Vide the Prince’s long speech in the previous scene.) Here Romeo is persuaded to attend Capulet’s “ ancient feast,” which is to take place “ this night,” and for which a servant is even now about to distribute the invitations. Scene 3, where the scarcely fourteen-year-old Juliet first appears, begins late on the same afternoon, and the Nurse’s garrulousness prolongs the interview until the “guests are come, supper served up,” Lady Capulet “called,” Juliet “asked for, the Nurse cursed in the pantry, and everything in extremity.” In Scene 4, Romeo and his party are on their way to Capulet’s, and en passant Mercutio discourses of dreams and Queen Mab.1 Scene 5 is at the masked ball, and shows the first meeting of Romeo and Juliet. In Scene 1, Act II., directly after the entertainment, Romeo gives his merry companions the slip, and in Scene 2 he has climbed the wall of Capulet’s garden, and stands beneath that balcony the foundations of which are laid deeper in young romantic hearts than those of any other structure that was ever reared. Juliet’s foot is very light, as the observing ecclesiastic informs us, but she does not purpose to put the grass to the trouble of growing under it, and her prompt suggestion of “to-morrow” as a suitable date for fixing their wedding day is followed up by an agreement that Romeo shall hear from her “ at the hour of nine.” With this scene the first day ends. In Scene 3, Act II., it is early the next morning, and Romeo appears at the Friar’s cell with his proposal for a secret marriage. In Scene 4, Act II., the Nurse finds Romeo. Her search has been a tedious one, and in Scene 5 the impatient Juliet is chafing over the “ three long hours ” that have been spent since the Nurse departed, and which have now brought

When at last the old servant is coaxed into telling her news, she bids Juliet, who has “ got leave to go to shrift today,” hie her hence to the Friar’s cell to be married. The wedding is celebrated by Friar Laurence in Scene 6, and the lovers part for a few hours. Scene ², Act III., is in the afternoon of the same day, and shows the death of Mercutio, Romeo’s furious revenge, and the Prince’s edict of banishment against the slayer of Tybalt. In Scene 2, Act III., it is nearly evening. The Nurse carries to Juliet the news of Tybalt’s death and Romeo’s sentence, and finally undertakes to go to Romeo to bear him his wife’s ring and message. Scene 3 follows at the Friar’s. The Nurse appears, and bids Romeo come to her mistress, and when the scene closes “ it grows very late.” In Scene 4, it is so late as to be nearly morning, and Lady Capulet is instructed to see to it before she goes to bed that Juliet is informed of the marriage arranged for her by her parents with the “County Paris,” and that the ceremony is to be on “ Thursday next.” Morn is just breaking as the newly wedded lovers part in Scene 5, and here the third day begins. Lady Capulet gives her message to Juliet, who goes in desperate haste to the Friar, after vainly seeking comfort of mother and nurse. It is now Tuesday (vide Capulet’s speech to Paris in Scene 4, Act III.), and the Friar delivers the potion and his counsel upon the theory that the marriage with Paris is set for Thursday : —

In the succeeding scene Juliet returns to her home with phrases of obedience on her lips, and her father is so much delighted that he proceeds incontinently to hurry up the marriage, and departs at once — the end of the scene being “ near night” — to inform the County that tomorrow, and not Thursday, is to be the joyful day. It thus becomes necessary for Juliet to anticipate the use of the “ distillëd liquor ” by twenty-four hours, and in the following scene (Scene 3, Act IV.) she takes the potent draught. The only scenes which are laid on Wednesday are the two which immediately succeed : in these the bustle of marriage preparation is turned into mourning, the wedding cheer to a sad burial feast, and the bride “in all her best array ” is sadly borne to church. Scene 1, Act V., is in Mantua, and opens on the following day, Thursday, with Romeo’s presage of peculiar prosperity, derived from “ the flattering truth ” of his happy dreams ; close upon winch enters his servant with the news of Juliet’s death and burial. Romeo at once orders posthorses : he will “lie with Juliet” “tonight ; and in a moment more he has called out the famine-pinched Apothecary and bought the quickly operant poison. Scene 2 returns to Friar Laurence in Verona, who now learns the miscarriage of his letter to Romeo by the return of his messenger, Friar John, after a detention of many hours. When this short scene ends it is night, or almost night, and “within three hours” of the time for “ fair Juliet ” to “ wake.” With Scene 3, Act V., the tragedy ends, and, after the death of the principals, the talk is continued in a vein very moral and voluminous until—after the mode of progression in long scenes which was considered at the beginning of this article — the day is almost ready to dawn. The one difficulty in this apparently flawless scheme of time remains to be dealt with. When the Friar describes to Juliet the modum operandi of his draught, he tells her that in the “ borrowed likeness of shrunk death ” she shall “ continue two and forty hours.” Possibly there is no difficulty at all ; for the apparent discrepancy of two or three hours disappears if it is assumed that Juliet took the potion as late as two o’clock on Wednesday morning, and woke from her stupor as early as eight o’clock on Thursday night, — a theory which does not directly defy text. But this explanation seems to strain a point or two, especially as the Friar informs us in the last scene that he came to the tomb “some minute ere the time of” Juliet’s “awaking.” One eminent Shakespearean, in discussing the matter, says in substance that the hours are of no consequence ; that Shakespeare, careless as usual of minutiæ of this sort, simply follows the old tale upon which his tragedy is founded, and in which the period of the potion’s effect is set down as “ forty hours.” And the critic adds that the groping commentators who have tried to make the matter right by reading “ thirty hours ” for “ two and forty hours ” have thrown away their labor. On the last point, certainly, I make no issue. What is needed, if anything is needed, is, on the contrary, a very little lengthening of the time. Juliet’s draught is effectual upon her for almost two days, not merely for a little more than one. Upon this hypothesis all the action is explicable, and every scene fits neatly into its place. Fortunately, as often happens in like matters in Shakespeare, the curious are not left to weigh probabilities. One line, spoken by so humble a person as a First Watchman, in the final scene settles that question definitively : —

Whatever the original version of the story may be, it is plain that Shakespeare meant it to be understood that the “distillëd liquor” held Juliet in its thrall from late in the night of Tuesday to an hour so late in the night of Thursday that darkness would screen the doings of Romeo and Friar Laurence. Five and forty hours would meet all these conditions perfectly, and perhaps we may assume that the kind and “comfortable” Friar committed a bit of justifiable pious fraud in shortening a very little for the sensitive heroine the time of her expected sojourn in a

The lapse of time in Hamlet is shown with as much care as Shakespeare might have taken if he had anticipated the keenness of scrutiny to which the character of his hero was to be subjected. In analyzing the play, I can do little more than follow in the footsteps of the late George Bryant Woods, whose remarkable essay on the same theme is known to many readers of The Atlantic. The extent of the time of Hamlet from the beginning to the end of the tragedy is between two and three months. Nearly the whole of this period — more than two months of it, in fact — is included in an interval which occurs between the close of Act I. and the first or second scene of Act II. ; and in the middle of Act IV. there is another break of about a week. The time really occupied by the action of the piece is therefore only a few days. The movement is indicated in the text, up to the opening of the fifth act, not only with care, but with clearness, simplicity, and exactness. Hamlet the elder died ; “ within a month,” his widow, before her funeral shoes were old, married with his brother, and the Danish court resolved itself into a mixed condition of mirth and mourning. In Scene 1, Act I., the tragedy begins with the appearance of the Ghost, who has twice before been seen by Marcellus and Bernardo, and now shows himself to the soldiers and Horatio, who decide at once to report the “dreaded sight” unto young Hamlet. The next day — in Scene 2, Act I. — they tell their tale to Hamlet, informing him that they saw the King his father “ yesternight; ” and Hamlet promises that he will “ watch to-night,” and will visit them upon the castle platform “ ’twixt eleven and twelve.” The moment of the beginning of the tragedy, as well as the time of his father’s death and his mother’s marriage, is fixed by Hamlet’s great soliloquy in the middle of this scene. His father is “ but two months dead ; nay, not so much, — not two,” and it is less than a month since his mother married with his uncle. In the same scene, Horatio, the Prince’s university friend, — whose characteristic modesty has doubtless kept him from intruding earlier upon Hamlet’s grief, — tells of coming to court to attend the late King’s funeral. Scene 3, in which Laertes, departing for France, takes leave of his father and sister, and Ophelia receives a double caution about her relations with Hamlet, takes place either on the same day with Scene 2 or on the following day, — it matters not which. Scene 4, Act I., opens just after midnight, on the platform, and is chiefly devoted to Hamlet’s memorable interview with his father’s spirit. Act I., therefore, has occupied parts of two successive days. The only long break in the action now occurs. Its extent is a little more than two months, as was said above, and is fixed by a remark of Ophelia in the play scene (Scene 2, Act III.), which will presently be commented upon. Scene 1, Act II., is put near the end of this interval. The opening dialogue of the scene is written simply to show Polonius’s sly worldly wisdom in spying upon the pursuits and amusements of his son, Laertes, who is still in Paris. Near its close, Ophelia enters from the encounter with Lord Hamlet in her closet, wherein she “ has been so affrighted ; ” and the expressed intention of Polonius at once to confer with the King and Queen on the subject appears to join this scene closely to that which immediately succeeds. In the following scene the troupe of actors appears, and Hamlet arranges to have “ the Murder of Gonzago ” played before the King “ tomorrow night.” The whole of Act III. and the first three scenes of Act IV. take place on the following day and its night. In Scene 1, Act III., Rosencrantz speaks of the piece which “ this night ” the actors are to play before the Prince, and then follows the famous interview between Hamlet and Ophelia, upon which Polonius and the King enact the parts of “ lawful espials.” The play scene succeeds (Scene 2, Act III.), and here we fix the time which has elapsed since the end of Act I. Before the performance begins, Hamlet, watching his mother and step-father, says to Ophelia, in an aside, “ What should a man do but be merry ? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.” To these “ wild and whirling words ” Ophelia quietly replies, “ Nay, ’t is twice two months, my lord.” Hamlet’s rejoinder is in his antic vein, again, but the maiden’s simple word settles the matter definitively. At the opening of the drama it was not quite two months since the elder Hamlet died ; it is now “ twice two months ” since that event, and the interval between Act I. and Act II. is therefore a little more than two months. It is midnight soon after the breaking up of the dramatic performance. (Vide Hamlet’s soliloquy at the end of the scene.) The remaining scenes of the act and the first three of Act IV. follow each other closely. In Scene 3, Act III., Polonius reports that Hamlet “is going to his mother’s closet; ” and in the same scene the Prince finds his step-father at prayer, and comes near ending that unworthy uncle and the tragedy with a single sword-stroke. In Scene 4 Hamlet has his long conversation with his mother, kills Polonius, — again eavesdropping behind the arras, — and receives the second visitation of the Ghost, whose appearance is always between twelve and one o’clock. The first three scenes of Act IV. are short and broken, and run into one another, as if they shared the hurry and excitement of the early hours of the morning, which are occupied chiefly with finding the body of Polonius, with hasty conferences about Hamlet, and finally with his dismissal “ for England,” to which the King proposes to dispatch him before sunrise. Scene 4, Act IV., takes place, apparently, on the next day, and shows Hamlet on the way to his ship ; and here he encounters Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, just setting out on a march of conquest against a part of Poland, and crossing Danish territory by license of the King. (Vide in Scene 2, Act II., the long speech of Voltimand.) The second interval, referred to above, occurs at this point ; that is to say, between the fourth and fifth scenes of Act IV. Within this time, Hamlet sets sail for England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; Polonius is buried hastily and “in huggermugger ; ” some of the Danes revolt through the influence of Laertes, who has “ in secret come from France; ” and the fair Ophelia, whose gentle spirit was framed too delicately to live in such tempestuous seas, becomes insane. The length of this interval is not fixed to a day, but is made sufficiently plain for all practical purposes. In Scenes 6 and 7, Act IV., Horatio and the King severally get letters from Hamlet, in which his speedy return is promised. In the letter received by Horatio Hamlet tells of his strange experiences on the ocean, — how, when scarcely “ two days old at sea,” he fell into the hands of pirates, by whom he had been brought back to Denmark; and in his letter to the King he agrees to meet his majesty “ to-morrow.” The gap of time in the fourth act, therefore, is that which would suffice for Hamlet’s embarkation, two days’ sail out to sea, his return to Denmark, and the delivery of his letters at the hands of sailors, — a period of perhaps a week or ten days. Everything now moves rapidly on to the close of the play. In Scene 7, Act IV., in which the King receives Hamlet’s epistle, the Queen announces the drowning of Ophelia; previous to that, Laertes and the King have worked out their scheme to take the Prince’s life. In Scene 1, Act V., Hamlet appears with Horatio, and Ophelia is buried “ with maimed rites.” The final scene is apparently on the day after the funeral of Ophelia. At all events, the interval between the last two scenes is very short; for in Scene 2 Hamlet is just giving Horatio the particulars of his maritime adventures, and Osric’s phrase of greeting, “Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark,” indicates the first appearance of the Prince at court since his return. Directly after Hamlet’s death Fortinbras enters in triumph from his expedition to Poland, and English ambassadors arrive with news of the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, wrought through the dispatch forged by Hamlet and delivered to the English King by their own hands. A rapid use has been made of the ten practicable days, in the way which we have already seen practiced by Shakespeare. But his scheme of time in Hamlet is absolutely flawless and self-consistent, from the interior point of view.

Attack upon the correctness of this analysis would seem to be vain, and so it is ; but several critics have broken a lance against it. Some have undertaken to show, by a fierce citation of a few texts, a suppression of certain other texts, and a misconstruction of various others, that the whole extent of the piece is a few days. Mr. Richard Grant White, on the other hand, a long while ago, declared in print his judgment that the time of the action is from eight to ten years; and he has reiterated this opinion in The Atlantic within a few months. His argument is substantially this : that Hamlet was thirty years old in the last act, — which is undeniable, the fact being learned from the First Gravedigger, who had “ been sexton, man and boy, thirty years,” and who came to the business of grave-making “the very day that young Hamlet was born ; ” that early in the tragedy he is often spoken of as “ young; ” and that Ophelia, “ in the earlier scenes,” discourses of his “ unmatched form and feature of blown youth,” — all of which “earlier” view of Hamlet Mr. White thinks is inconsistent with the Prince’s final weight of thirty years and his fatness and scantness of breath in the fencing scene. It seems as if Mr. White could hardly be serious in using such arguments as these against a proposition which is mathematical. But whatever point there is in his statement is blunted by the suggestions that the frequent designation of Hamlet as “ young ” (the First Gravedigger uses the same adjective in the last act; see the passage cited above) plainly results from the circumstance of his father’s name and his own having been the same, so that while the former was alive they would naturally be distinguished as the elder Hamlet and “young” Hamlet; that Polonius should regard a man of thirty years as young enough to have strong passions is quite probable ; and that Ophelia should be able to speak with admiration of the figure of the Prince whom she loved, even if it were a little too plump for other people’s tastes, does not need to be argued. Another point made by Mr. White is in one way of real consequence : when he says, in his own brilliant fashion, that he discerns great changes in Hamlet’s character in the course of the tragedy, and that the melancholy Prince ages much in mind and temper before the fatal end is reached, I recognize the clearness of the critic’s vision. But to this statement as an argument for Mr. White’s view of the time it is a sufficient answer to say that Hamlet’s experiences and mental struggles were of a kind which might, even in two months, naturally age any man, and especially one of his sensitive temperament. The fact is that the incidents of the play are fastened together like so many links in a chain of iron. Where in the action does Mr. White propose to insert his eight or ten years? Does he believe that the special mission to Norway, upon which Cornelius and Voltimand are dispatched in Scene 2, Act I., and from which they return in Scene 2, Act II., has occupied them eight or ten years ? Does he suppose that Laertes, who departs from Denmark in Act 1. and returns in Act IV., had leave of absence in France for a half score of years ? Why does he speak of Ophelia’s judgment of the elegance of Hamlet’s figure as pronounced “in the earlier scenes”? It was uttered in Scene 1, Act III., the day before her father was killed ; a few hours before the Prince was hurried off to England; a little more than three days before the pirates started Hamlet on his brief homeward voyage; and not more than a week, or fortnight at most, before her own death and burial and the end of the play, — according to Shakespeare. For my part, I should be sorry to believe that Ophelia, at the time of her death, was the mature old maid that Mr. White’s chronology would make her. There are literally dozens of other citations which might be made to show how minutely consistent with himself Shakespeare is throughout the play.⁴ It is vain to set one’s wits, even if they are as good as Mr. White’s, against the addition tables ; and a commentator who has attained such deserved eminence ought not, in the face of the plain-dealing text, to deliver himself of such a tottering proposition as that “ all the evidence shows ” that Shakespeare “gave not three minutes’ thought ” to the question whether his tragedy of Hamlet occupied three days, or three months, or three or nine years.

The movement of time in Othello, the last play with which I have to deal, is exceedingly interesting. It is also quite clear; a slight obscurity which rests at first upon one of its phases being easily dissipated upon examination. The first act occupies a part of one night; the second act, a portion of one day and night ; the third, fourth, and fifth acts take place upon a single day and night. There are two intervals the length of which is not precisely fixed. The interval between the first and second acts is consumed by the voyage of Cassio, Desdemona, and Othello from Venice to Cyprus ; that between the second and third acts is, apparently, a few weeks in length. Except for these two interruptions, the action of the tragedy moves on without a pause or break. The first act is devoted to the incidents of the evening of the day of Othello’s clandestine marriage. The first scene takes place after supper-time, as Brabantio offensively suggests to Roderigo; and when the former leaves the window, at which he has heard from the latter the disagreeable news about Desdemona’s elopement, he calls for a taper, and presently appears with torch-bearing servants. Othello, summoned before the magnificoes from the Sagittary inn, to which he has taken his bride, meets “ the raised father and his friends” en route ; and a few minutes later all present themselves at the session of the council, where Othello makes his famous defense, and Desdemona her election, and the Moor is ordered off to Cyprus “ to-night.” The expedition is so arranged that Othello and his lieutenant, Cassio, set sail that night at the same time, though in separate ships, and Desdemona, accompanied by Iago, the Moor’s “ ancient,” and by Emilia, the ancient’s wife, follow in another vessel as soon as is convenient. (Vide Othello’s last speech in Scene 3, Act I., and the first speech of Cassio in Scene 1, Act II.) At the close of Act I. Iago first conceives the idea of securing Cassio’s place and destroying Othello’s peace, by abusing Othello’s ear “ after some time ” “ that ” the lieutenant is “ too familiar with ” the general’s wife. The first interval then occurs. A great storm, which breaks up the Turkish fleet that has been directed against Cyprus, separates Othello and Cassio “ on a dangerous sea,” and the several ships reach port one after another in Scene 1, Act II., - Cassio’s first, then Desdemona’s, and finally Othello’s. Near the end of this scene, Iago puts Roderigo up to the idea of affronting Cassio “ to-night,” after the lieutenant, who is to be officer of the guard, has had one cup of wine “ fastened upon him ” by the clever ancient. In Scene 2, Act II., the herald makes proclamation of six hours of general revel and feasting from “ this present hour of five till the bell have told eleven.” Scene 3 opens at a little before ten o’clock, and between that hour and the early morning, when Iago and Roderigo part, Cassio is made drunk by Iago, is enraged by Roderigo, wounds Montano, is deprived of his office by Othello, and is persuaded by Iago that the way to win his lieutenancy again is to importune Desdemona for her influence with her husband.

The interval which occurs between Act II. and Act III. requires some careful consideration. At first glance it seems as if Act III. opened upon the very day after the evening of Act II. Cassio, convinced that the way to repair his fortunes lies through the mediation of the general’s wife, says, near the close of Act II., “Betimes in the morning, I will beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me.” Iago, in the soliloquy which ends the act, says, —

When, therefore, in Scene 1, Act III., we find Cassio serenading Othello, begging of Emilia a speedy audience with Desdemona, and telling Iago that he has not been abed inasmuch as “ the day had broke before ” they “ parted,” it looks as if Shakespeare meant to separate the acts only by the lapse of a few hours. That he does not mean this, but intends an interval the time of which is not fixed, but which certainly lasts more than one week, and probably continues several weeks, will presently be shown. Almost everywhere else in the plays such a collocation of word and scene as this would indicate close consecutiveness in time; but not everywhere. A like instance occurs in Act I. of Timon. At the close of Scene 1, Act I., of that play the characters are invited by Timon to dinner, and in the following scene they are discovered seated at table; but between these scenes a considerable time has elasped, within which Ventidius, who had been relieved in his distresses by Timon, has lost his father by death, and has come into a fortune. The hints contained in the immediate dialogue are always to be taken as conclusive in estimating the time of the action, I think, unless, as here, they are directly contradicted by that which follows. In the matter under consideration, as in the case cited from Timon, it is to be noted that the text, though misleading, is not in a single phrase or word inconsistent with the real fact; farther than this I shall convince my reader that in certain speeches it points directly at the truth which the context proves. The absurdity of assigning the action of Act III. to the day after that covered by Act II. is self-evident. Even those commentators who rejoice to believe that Shakespeare had neither eyes nor memory, when he contrived his scenes, must stagger at accusing him of the idiocy implied in a forgetfulness of the facts that the night of Act II. was the real wedding night of Othello and Desdemona, and of the double idiocy of having a young wife charged with gross and repeated infidelities before she had been a married woman for a dozen hours. Shakespeare, as usual, is his own best defender. He takes pains to say, both “ indirectly and directly too,” that a considerable time elapses after the beginning of Desdemona’s married life before Iago ventures to make his attack upon her faith. Indirectly, the fact appears in the settled conjugal tone, modest but assured, which Desdemona uses in speaking to or of Othello, after the third act begins. There are scores of her speeches which would be impossible to the mouth of a day-old bride. But we are not left to indirect evidence, interesting and satisfactory as that is in the present case. In Scene 3, Act III., Iago says, “I lay with Cassio lately; ” in Scene 4, Act III., to Emilia’s inquiry, “ Is not this man jealous?” Desdemona replies, “ I ne’er saw this before;” in the scene just named Bianca reproaches Cassio with keeping away from her house a week; and again, in Scene 1, Act IV., Cassio, in speaking of the same light woman, says, “ I was the other day talking on the sea-bank with certain Venetians, and thither comes this bauble,” etc. Many other equally conclusive texts might be cited. The relations between Cassio and Bianca furnish the best evidence as to the extent of the time; for though intimacy with such a woman might develop rapidly, it is not to be believed that in a very short time she would bring herself to believe that he intended to marry her. It is, then, not unfair to infer that this interval is one of several weeks, perhaps of two or three months. Its period is not very long, however, inasmuch as the news of Cassio’s degradation has not had time to travel to Venice and back, and the recalling of Othello is evidently regarded as sudden. (Vide Scene 1, Act IV., ad fin.) It is not hard to imagine how this interim has been employed by the chief characters. Othello and Desdemona have gone on their straightforward way, frankly happy in each other and their mutual love; Iago has found time, in the midst of his increased military duty, to perfect his villainous schemes, trying to make his wife his tool by “ wooing” her “ a hundred times ” to steal the handkerchief spotted with strawberries, which was Othello’s first gift to Desdemona, and, we may be sure, steadily pressing upon Cassio the need of Desdemona’s friendship and interest. That Cassio paid some or many visits to Desdemona in this interval appears from the conversation between Othello and Emilia, at the opening of Scene 2, Act IV. In these undescribed interviews, the first of which may perhaps have been had, in accordance with Cassio’s expressed intent, on the day after his disgrace, the lieutenant’s misfortune must have been sympathetically treated by Desdemona; but his native modesty, greatly intensified by his humiliation, may have kept him from urging her active mediation in his behalf. At length the time is ripe. Cassio, with Iago ever at his elbow, makes an earnest appeal to her for her direct interference, and she generously promises it. It is after so long and such an interval that the wonderful Act III. begins. My reader may disregard as much as he pleases of the mere speculations of this paragraph ; but I ask him to note the confirmation of the more important of them which is given in the opening pages of the act. Emilia informs Cassio, before he sees Desdemona, that “ the general and his wife are talking of ” his disgrace, “ and she ” is speaking for him “ stoutly.” At the beginning of Scene 3, the latter part of the interview between Desdemona, Cassio, and Emilia is reported, and Desdemona’s tone is distinctly that of one who is an avowed “ solicitor ” in his behalf ; who has already, at his request, begun her intercession ; and who now renews her promise of continued effort. With Act III. the final fatal day of the drama begins. It seems at first almost incredible that all the events of the last three acts of the wonderful tragedy should take place within twentyfour consecutive hours ; but Shakespeare has been exceedingly careful, in his own way, to display the fact, and, as in the last acts of As You Like It, has even indicated the progress of the hours. Act III. opens, as has been shown, early in the morning. Othello, in Scene 2, goes “ walking on the works” with some gentlemen. In the great Scene 3 he is brought back by the crafty Iago at just the right instant to see Cassio steal away from an interview with Desdemona, and a few moments later he has drunk the poisons of Iago’s “ dangerous conceits,” and they have begun their “ act upon ” his “blood.” The first half of this scene is in the forenoon, and it is interrupted at noon by Desdemona’s entrance, with the reminder that Othello is forgetting his dinner and his invited guests. As they go off together she drops her handkerchief, which a few minutes afterward is in the hands of Iago, who purposes “losing” it “in Cassio’s lodging.” Between Scene 3 and Scene 4 Iago accomplishes this. In Scene 4 Desdemona has just missed her handkerchief, and questions Emilia about it; and Cassio, before the scene ends, shows the fateful web to Bianca, says he has found it in his chamber, and asks her to copy the work upon the napkin “ ere it be demanded.” Scene 1, Act IV., follows directly on, and in it Bianca returns the handkerchief which Cassio gave her “ even now,” and a second time invites him to sup with her “ to-night.” In this scene, Iago, seeing that Othello’s passion has now reached a point where the Moor is incapable of concealing it, and, not satisfied with Othello’s requirement that Cassio shall be killed “ within these three days,” or with the general’s expressed intention “to furnish ” himself “ with some swift means of death ” against Desdemona, evidently resolves to hurry matters with his utmost force. He resorts to bare-faced, unmitigated lies about Cassio’s confessions of improper intimacy with Desdemona, makes a very effective use of Bianca’s entrance and conference with Cassio, and so interprets Cassio’s laughter, careless talk, and handling of Desdemona’s handkerchief that Othello, in an ecstasy of passion, reaches the desired point, and determines to strangle Desdemona “ this night.” The necessity put upon Iago is plain. The plot must be worked out without pause to its deadly conclusion, or his opportunity is forever lost. Especially, no night, with its privacy and intimacy, may be allowed to intervene: with the Moor’s jealousy in a state of uncontrollable frankness, but not of settled resolve, a night in which Desdemona’s gentle truth and honesty should be brought to bear upon him, in the retirement of home, might easily prove the destruction both of the plotter and his plots. The remainder of the time scarcely needs to be sketched. In Scene 1, Act IV., the messengers who arrive from Venice, and inform Othello of his recall, and of the appointment of Cassio at Cyprus in his stead, are invited to sup with Othello. Scene 2 is between the previous scene and supper-time. In Scene 3 the guests have been entertained, Lodovico bids his hostess good - night, and Desdemona makes herself ready for the couch which is to be her death-bed. Scene 1, Act V., is “between midnight and one o’clock,” — the hour appointed for Roderigo’s assault upon Cassio, who is waylaid as he returns from supping with Bianca. Scene 2 follows immediately, and not far from one o’clock, it must be supposed. Desdemona’s gentle life suffers its cruel defeat. There is one drop of negative comfort in the thought that Desdemona was spared the pain of knowing that her match had “proved mortal” to her aged father, and that he had died in Venice of “ pure grief.” It is also worth while to note that the most complete and accomplished villain ever depicted by human genius is represented as twenty-eight years of age.

If these analyses of the Shakespearean dramas have been correct, my conclusion may well be brief, and in the nature of a summary rather than of an argument. It appears that Shakespeare has no general scheme or theory as to the indication of time ; that in his non-historical pieces he treats the matter with many degrees of attention, which range from scrupulousness to indifference ; but that in a fair majority of these plays he has, for nearly the whole of each drama, a definite plan, to which he steadfastly adheres. His method of showing the movement of time is generally through disconnected scraps and bits of text, which easily escape observation, but which cannot be regarded by any sane mind as accidental or insignificant, when, as often happens, they together make a complete band or chain. Not unfrequently his scattered suggestions cannot be so joined, and yet may furnish a clue to the progress of the action, as, in the boy’s game of hare and hounds, the general course of the hare is revealed by widely separated fragments of paper, dropped to make a trail. Occasionally, as has appeared in the dramas which have been discussed, — in All’s Well That Ends Well, for example, in Cymbeline, and especially in King Lear,— Shakespeare transmits news with miraculous speed, or makes his characters perform impossibilities in locomotion. But as to the many gross inconsistencies and self-contradictions which have been supposed to accompany his schemes of time, they simply do not exist.⁵ A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the only play against which such a charge can be sustained, and the playwright has there erred only by the dropping of a single day. On the other hand, the Comedy of Errors, Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and nearly the whole of Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, and Othello, are fitted together in very exact and workmanlike fashion, and constantly show minute care and elaborate pains on the part of the dramatist.

“I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh To-morrow to my bloody creditor.”

The sequence seems, therefore, to be this: Late on the day but one before the trial Bassanio sets out for Venice ; on the following day Portia pursues him at the rate of “ twenty miles ” per diem, and accomplishes her journey just in season to attend the hearing of the cause célèbre of Shylock v. Antonio.

I am aware that what has been written here must stand or fall with students of Shakespeare by its own merits ; but I may be permitted to say that the work has been done patiently and reverently, and with an honest belief that it was well worth doing well. That much of it will be familiar to many of my readers I fear I must believe; that some of it will be new to many of them I dare to hope ; if any of it shall prove to be of real value — even though the value be small—in unfolding the thought of the master-poet, I shall be content.

Henry A. Clapp.