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for searching only. in grammar school or elsewhere, that contact was but of the slightest importance.
As for the chief Greek authors in grammar school, so for the occasional ones. Of Aesop, Shakspere shows knowledge in the Latin translation of Camerarius, but not of the Greek forms. For Euripides, the statement of Professor Root on the single matter of mythology is no doubt typical of Shakspere's whole knowledge.
It is at any rate certain that he no where alludes to any of the characters or episodes of the Greek drama, that they exerted no influence whatever on his conception of mythology.108
For one who makes so much use of mythology as does Shakspere, this is a significant finding. Had he known it, he would certainly have used it. I believe, therefore, that the evidence is conclusive that he did not really know Greek drama. Nor do we need to examine seriatim the other chance-mentioned Greek authors.E09 So far as I know, there is no evidence to connect Shakspere directly with them.
On the Greek, therefore, the evidence has been consistent. There is some not wholly conclusive evidence that Shakspere had read in Greek at least part of the New Testament. Isocrates and perhaps Demosthenes appear not to have been sufficiently examined yet to warrant any conclusion. But Shakspere could not really have read Hesiod and Homer. It will be remembered that Spoudeus in Ludus Literarius thought that the New Testament thoroughly done in Greek was sufficient preparation for university. Shakspere could not have had much more. If anything, Jonson exaggerated in favor of the Greek, when he said that Shakspere had "small Latine, and lesse Greeke." ronson's statement is still our strongest warrant that Shakspere had any Greek at all. Casca probably expresses Shakspere's own reaction.
Cas. Did Cicero say any thing? Casca. Ay, he spoke Greek. Cas. To what effect? Casca. Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me U,
We have put the conventional Greek texts into the hands of Shakspere, and to our interrogatories on most of them he has answered with a clear voice, "Graecus est; non legitur."
1,08 Root, Classical Mythology, p. 6.
109, Theobald points out a reference to Heliodorus in Twelfth Night (Malone, Variorum (1821), Vol. XI, pp. 488-489), but there is nothing to indicate more than some knowledge of an incident from that work. u0 _7ulius Caesar, 1, 2, 281-28'7.
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