A small British expeditionary force, bound on an international mission, finds itself stranded in an unknown country.  The force is composed of men very various in rank and profession.  Two of them, whom we may call a non-commissioned officer and a private, go exploring by themselves, and take one of the natives of the place prisoner.  This native is an ugly low-born creature, of great physical strength and violent criminal tendencies, a liar, and ready at any time for theft, rape, and murder.  He is a child of Nature, a lover of music, slavish in his devotion to power and rank, and very easily imposed upon by authority.  His captors do not fear him, and, which is more, they do not dislike him.  They found him lying out in a kind of no-man’s land, drenched to the skin, so they determine to keep him as a souvenir, and to take him home with them.  They nickname him, in friendly fashion, the monster, and the mooncalf, as who should say Fritz, or the Boche.  But their first care is to give him a drink, and to make him swear allegiance upon the bottle.  ’Where the devil should he learn our language?’ says the non-commissioned officer, when the monster speaks.  ’I will give him some relief, if it be but for that.’  The prisoner then offers to kiss the foot of his captor.  ‘I shall laugh myself to death’, says the private, ’at this puppy-headed monster.  A most scurvy monster!  I could find in my heart to beat him, but that the poor monster’s in drink.’  When the private continues to rail at the monster, his officer calls him to order.  ’Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head:  if you prove a mutineer, the next tree------ The poor monster’s my subject, and he shall not suffer indignity.’

In this scene from The Tempest, everything is English except the names.  The incident has been repeated many times in the last four years.  ‘This is Bill,’ one private said, introducing a German soldier to his company.  ’He’s my prisoner.  I wounded him, and I took him, and where I go he goes.  Come on, Bill, old man.’  The Germans have known many failures since they began the War, but one failure is more tragic than all the rest.  They love to be impressive, to produce a panic of apprehension and a thrill of reverence in their enemy; and they have completely failed to impress the ordinary British private.  He remains incurably humorous, and so little moved to passion that his daily offices of kindness are hardly interrupted.

Shakespeare’s tolerance, which is no greater than the tolerance of the common English soldier, may be well seen in his treatment of his villains.  Is a liar, or a thief, merely a bad man?  Shakespeare does not much encourage you to think so.  Is a murderer a bad man?  He would be an undiscerning critic who should accept that phrase as a true and adequate description of Macbeth.  Shakespeare does not dislike liars, thieves, and murderers as such, and he does not pretend to dislike them.  He has his own dislikes.  I once asked a friend