_She never told her love_;
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought;
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat, like Patience on a monument,
_Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed_?
asks Viola in _As You Like It_. It _was_ love indeed; but only two
phases of it are indicated in the lines quoted--coyness ("She never
told her love") and the mixture of emotions ("smiling at grief"),
which is another characteristic of love. Romantic love is a pendulum
swinging perpetually between hope and despair. A single unkind word or
sign of indifference may make a lover feel the agony of death, while a
smile may raise him from the abyss of despair to heavenly heights of
bliss. As Goethe puts it:
Himmelhoch jauchzend
Zum Tode betrübt,
Glücklich allein
Ist die Seele die liebt.