William Shakespeare
Copyright© 2025 by Victor Hugo
Chapter 5
In truth, a monument to Shakespeare, cui bono? The statue that he has made for himself is worth more, with all England for a pedestal. Shakespeare has no need of a pyramid; he has his work.
What do you suppose marble could do for him? What can bronze do where there is glory? Malachite and alabaster are of no avail; jasper, serpentine, basalt, red porphyry, such as that at the Invalides, granite, Paros and Carrara, are of no use, —genius is genius without them. Even if all the stones had a part in it, would they make that man an inch greater? What vault shall be more indestructible than this; “The Winter’s Tale,” “The Tempest,” “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” “Julius Cæsar,” “Coriolanus?” What monument more grandiose than “Lear,” more wild than “The Merchant of Venice,” more dazzling than “Romeo and Juliet,” more amazing than “Richard III.”? What moon could throw on that building a light more mysterious than “The Midsummer Night’s Dream”? What capital, were it even London, could produce around it a rumour so gigantic as the tumultuous soul of “Macbeth”? What framework of cedar or of oak will last as long as “Othello”? What bronze will be bronze as much as “Hamlet”? No construction of lime, of rock, of iron and of cement, is worth the breath, —the deep breath of genius, which is the breathing of God through man. A head in which is an idea, —such is the summit; heaps of stone and brick would be useless efforts. What edifice equals a thought? Babel is below Isaiah; Cheops is less than Homer; the Coliseum is inferior to Juvenal; the Giralda of Seville is dwarfish by the side of Cervantes; St. Peter of Rome does not reach to the ankle of Dante. How could you manage to build a tower as high as that name: Shakespeare.
Ah, add something, if you can, to a mind!
Suppose a monument. Suppose it splendid; suppose it sublime, —a triumphal arch, an obelisk, a circus with a pedestal in the centre, a cathedral. No people is more illustrious, more noble, more magnificent, and more magnanimous than the English people. Couple these two ideas, England and Shakespeare, and make an edifice arise therefrom. Such a nation celebrating such a man, it will be superb. Imagine the monument, imagine the inauguration. The Peers are there, the Commons give their adherence, the bishops officiate, the princes join the procession, the queen is present. The virtuous woman in whom the English people, royalist as we know, see and venerate their actual personification, —this worthy mother, this noble widow, comes, with the deep respect which is called for, to incline material majesty before ideal majesty; the Queen of England salutes Shakespeare. The homage of Victoria repairs the disdain of Elizabeth. As for Elizabeth, she is probably there also, sculptured somewhere on the surbase, with Henry VIII., her father, and James I., her successor, —pygmies beneath the poet. The cannon booms, the curtain falls, they uncover the statue, which seems to say, “At length!” and which has grown in the shade during three hundred years, —three centuries; the growth of a colossus; an immensity. All the York, Cumberland, Pitt, and Peel bronzes have been made use of, in order to produce this statue; the public places have been disencumbered of a heap of uncalled-for metal-castings; in this lofty figure have been amalgamated all kinds of Henrys and Edwards; the various Williams and the numerous Georges have been melted, the Achilles in Hyde Park has made the great-toe. This is fine; behold Shakespeare almost as great as a Pharaoh or a Sesostris. Bells, drums, trumpets, applause, hurrahs
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