* My Encounter With Shakespeare *

I feel still somewhat strange when I get conscious of myself studying English literature.　 As for my present feelings and my present way of life that I am reading Shakespeare's drama sparing the time except my working hours, they are natural results of my past, aren't they?　 When I ask such a question, I feel strange embarrassment oozing through.　Is there another self deep in my heart that asks a silly question whether literature is very useful in our real life?　Can I now understand what I was?　I was brought up in circumstances that there wasn't any value except for material things.　I wandered from field to field, quite different from literature.　First, I studied for an electrical engineer.　Then, I dreamt of becoming a mathematician.　Last, I disliked to be a chemist, that is, I left college.

I was not broadminded.　I was inclined to be particular about trifles.　So it didn't seem to be good that I gave up doing something on the way.　As for myself for the past several years, I couldn't complete anything.　For example, I got interested in something and began to read a book about it, but I stopped reading on the way.　After a while, I began to read another book, but I couldn't read with absorbed interest.

Everybody feels more or less alienated in adolescence.　Young men and women might read books eargerly not because they will get information but because they want to be satisfied by entering themselves into the world of a story.　Looking back to my past, I seem to have had such a period as I read so.　I got employment informally in July in the third year of a technical high school.　After that, I began to read stories.　I didn't read so many books, but I remember vividly that I was absorbed in reading through "Kokoro" by Soseki Natsume.

Everybody could have a happy period when reading books ia a great consolation to him, and the length of it might depend on his circumstances.
The process of mind development is not reversible.　 So, such a world of solace, once lost, forever lost, .....it will never return, won't it?

After such a happy, but short period of my mind, I was having difficulty in reading through a book, when I encountered Shakespeare.　I had changed the course of my life: from a science department to a literary one.

I think I read "Tales From Shakespeare" by Charles & Mary Lamb in translation, but I didn't read any of Shakespeare's plays before I changed the course of my life.　I did become interested in Shakespeare perhaps because I heard that a lot of works written by a playwright attached to a theatre, who was looked down on as a common soldier shaking a spear by his contemporary writers, had been being read for hundreds of years by people in the world.　But I didn't inclined to read Shakespeare.　Maybe I wasn't confident in my abilities and I was obsessed by fear of my future.

When I entered this college to study English literature, I felt deeply ashamed of not having read Shakespeare in the original.　That's one of the reasons why I took part in the students' society for the study of Shakespeare.　In those days, I also had a dim consciousness of an identity crisis that I couldn't pull myself together unless I finished reading whatever book I began to read.　I said to myself,"You may read any plays if they are Shakespeare's.　It's very important for you to finish reading however long it may take.　You were inclined to give up anything without appreciating it soon after you bought it, weren't you?　Such a habit is not good for your mind development.　The most important thing is not the result but the process,"

I worked in the daytime and studied at night.　To be honest, such a way of living was very hard.　 I didn't make complaints.　In fact, I couldn't do many things short of time.　So I was put in an alternative situation.　I took part in two students' societies in the first year.　But I left one of the two in summer.　 I also gave up a part-time job late in autumn in the same year, and I didn't work for about two months.　 That meant defeat for me.　But I continued to read Shakespeare.

I read "As You Like It" together in my first year.　Last year, we read "Hamlet" and played several short scenes in it.　Getting along with Shakespeare for only two years, I have an image of him in my mind: a man full of vitality more than I can imagine, and also a man who can observe a person's behaviour in various situations.　This image of him might be wrong, for I read only two plays.

I sometimes suppose what Shakespeare thought of a comedy, for I couldn't understand the meaning of the song as follows:

Hey-ho, sing hey-ho, unto the green holly,
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly;
　　　　　Then hey-ho, the holly,
　　　　　　This life is most jolly.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　"As You Like It" [Ⅱ,7]

We feel happy through keeping company with a friend or a love(lover).　Betrayed by a friend or disappointed in love, however, can we still sing that this life is most jolly?　As for me, I can't sing so.　Shakespeare, however, might look at some aspects of human nature which I can't understand.　He could understand human beings from an broader point of view.

I can understand Hamlet saying "..... What should a man do but be merry, for look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within's two years." [Ⅲ,2]　If you are betrayed by a friend, or if you are disappointed in love, you don't commit suicide so easily.　You have enough vital energies to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.　What should a man do but be merry?　All is mortal in nature as Touchstone says.　Then, hey-ho, the holly, this life is most jolly. .....

Shakespeare is not Hamlet who is confused by his mother's dishonesty.　　Shakespeare could observe coolly different kinds of people in various situations.

Hamlet says to his best friend,Horatio as follows:

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　...... thou hast been
As one in suffering all that suffers nothing,
A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those
Whose blood and judgement are so well co-medled,
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please: give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　"Hamlet" [Ⅲ,2]

I might find Shakespeare's attitude toward his plays in these wonderful words.
Prospero in "The Tempest" says in the last,"Now my charms are o'erthrown, and what strength I have's mine own, which is most faint. ...... " and the play closes.　Shakespeare resigned as a dramatist and returned to Stratford-Upon-Avon.　It is said that the world which he aimed at by his charms is 'harmony'.　I think so.

I have been getting along with Shakespeare for only two years and a half.　If I say I understand you, Mr.Shakespeare, I will be mystified immediately by a fool he created.　You can't understand your friend for a short period.　So, Mr.Shakespeare, I'm glad to get along with you.　I want to keep company with you all my life through as long as I don't lose interest in human beings including myself.

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