fe) P. H. Frye 
Such is, no doubt, the unavoidable weakness of a drama in which 
fatality has been displaced by necessity. If there is a principle 
presiding over the course of Shakespeare’s action it is the law of 
causation, in accordance with which the quarry is finally run down 
by a pack of consequences, more or less incidental, with whose in- 
ception his own character has little or nothing to do, however it 
may appear, as the only constant and predicable element, to deter- 
mine the outcome, very much as the duration of the hunt might be 
said, regardless of the hounds, to depend upon the endurance and 
cunning of the fox. After all, the problem set by Shakespeare is 
simply how a man of such and such possibilities could go to the 
ground. The answer consists in tracing the circumstantial con- 
spiracy, the causal succession by which he has been brought to 
such a pass, together with its effect upon his character. Transfer 
Hamlet and Othello, and the tragedy becomes unthinkable. How 
long would it have taken the former to unmask Iago or the latter 
to settle with Claudius? 
Hence the curious result, as compared with the Greek, that 
whatever their fortunes, Shakespeare’s protagonists are morally 
accountable only for their intentions. It is impossible, of course, 
to deny that Hamlet pays the penalty of his acts, such as they are, 
in the sense that he endures the event; but he is in no wise answer- 
able to the audience for the predicament in which he finds himself, 
as is, for example, the Hippolytus of Euripides. On the contrary, 
not only does Macbeth suffer the consequences of his conduct, he 
participates in their odium as well, on the strength of the malevo- 
lence of his motives. The latter is adjudged criminal, the former 
is not. At the same time there is a striking want of concurrence 
between verdict and sentence. Inoffensive as he is, Hamlet comes 
off no better than Macbeth. The tragedy is the same in both 
cases—the ruin of a promising career. In the one instance jus- 
tice is felt to have been done; in the other, not. Why, then, the 
identical issue? In short, for the tragic problem implicit in his 
representation of life Shakespeare has no moral solution. He 
seems to say: such is the way of the world; to be sure, it offends 
your sense of fitness that humanity should be liable to these 
308 
