Desdemona; Diana Vernon is (comparatively) a failure as every woman will
allow; while the masculine lady Geraldine in Miss Edgeworth's tale of
Ennui, and the intellectual Corinne are consistent, essential women; the
distinction is more easily felt than analyzed.
[7] Hazlitt's Essays, vol. ii. p. 167.
[8] I am informed that the original German word is _geistreiche_
literally, _rich in soul or spirit_, a just and beautiful epithet. 2d.
_Edit._
[9] In the "Mercatante di Venezia" of Ser. Giovanni, we have the whole
story of Antonio and Bassanio, and part of the story but not the
character of Portia. The incident of the caskets is from the Gesta
Romanorum.
[10] In that age, delicate points of law were not determined by the
ordinary judges of the provinces, but by doctors of law, who were called
from Bologna, Padua, and other places celebrated for their legal
colleges.
[11] Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Scene 2
[12] Characters of Shakespeare's Plays.
[13] Act iv. Scene 5.
[14] _Use_, i. e. usury, interest.
[15] In Shakspeare's time, there were people In Ireland, (there may be
so still, for aught I know,) who undertook to charm rats to death, by
chanting certain verses which acted as a spell. "Rhyme them to death, as
they do rats in Ireland," is a line in one of Ben Jonson's comedies;
this will explain Rosalind's humorous allusion.
[16] Rousseau could describe such a character as Rosalind, but failed to
represent it consistently. "N'est-ce pas de ton coeur que viennent les
graces de ton enjouement? Tes railleries sont des signes d'interet plus
touchants que les compliments d'un autre. Tu caresses quand tu folatres.
Tu ris, mais ton rire penetre l'ame; tu ris, mais tu fais pleurer de
tendresse et je te vois presque toujours serieuse avec les indifferents"
_Heloise._
CHARACTERS OF PASSION AND IMAGINATION.
JULIET.
O Love! thou teacher'--O Grief! thou tamer--and Time, thou healer of
human hearts!--bring hither all your deep and serious revelations!--And
ye too, rich fancies of unbruised, unbowed youth--ye visions of long
perished hopes--shadows of unborn joys--gay colorings of the dawn of
existence! whatever memory hath treasured up of bright and beautiful in
nature or in art; all soft and delicate images--all lovely
forms--divinest voices and entrancing melodies--gleams of sunnier skies
and fairer climes,--Italian moonlights and airs that "breathe of the
sweet south,"--now, if it be possible, revive to my imagination--live
once more to my heart! Come, thronging around me, all inspirations that
wait on passion, on power, on beauty; give me to tread, not bold, and
yet unblamed, within the inmost sanctuary of Shakspeare's genius, in
Juliet's moonlight bower, and Miranda's enchanted isle!
* * * * *
It is not without emotion, that I attempt to touch on the character of
Juliet. Such beautiful things have already been said of her--only to be
exceeded in beauty by the subject that inspired them!--it is impossible
to say any thing better; but it is possible to say something more. Such
in fact is the simplicity, the truth, and the loveliness of Juliet's
character, that we are not at first aware of its complexity, its depth,
and its variety. There is in it an intensity of passion, a singleness of
purpose, an entireness, a completeness of effect, which we feel as a
whole; and to attempt to analyze the impression thus conveyed at once to
soul and sense, is as if while hanging over a half-blown rose, and
revelling in its intoxicating perfume, we should pull it asunder,
leaflet by leaflet, the better to display its bloom and fragrance. Yet
how otherwise should we disclose the wonders of its formation, or do
justice to the skill of the divine hand that hath thus fashioned it in
its beauty?
Love, as a passion, forms the groundwork of the drama. Now, admitting
the axiom of Rochefoucauld, that there is but one love, though a
thousand different copies, yet the true sentiment itself has as many
different aspects as the human soul of which it forms a part. It is not
only modified by the individual character and temperament, but it is
under the influence of climate and circumstance. The love that is calm
in one moment, shall show itself vehement and tumultuous at another. The
love that is wild and passionate in the south, is deep and
contemplative in the north; as the Spanish or Roman girl perhaps poisons
a rival, or stabs herself for the sake of a living lover, and the German
or Russian girl pines into the grave for love of the false, the absent,
or the dead. Love is ardent or deep, bold or timid, jealous or
confiding, impatient or humble, hopeful or desponding--and yet there are
not many loves, but one love.
All Shakspeare's women, being essentially women, either love or have
loved, or are capable of loving; but Juliet is love itself. The passion
is her state of being, and out of it she has no existence. It is the
soul within her soul; the pulse within her heart; the life-blood along
her veins, "blending with every atom of her frame." The love that is so
chaste and dignified in Portia--so airy-delicate and fearless in
Miranda--so sweetly confiding in Perdita--so playfully fond in
Rosalind--so constant in Imogen--so devoted in Desdemona--so fervent in
Helen--so tender in Viola,--is each and all of these in Juliet. All
these remind us of her; but she reminds us of nothing but her own sweet
self; or if she does, it is of the Gismunda, or the Lisetta, or the
Fiammetta of Boccaccio, to whom she is allied, not in the character or
circumstances, but in the truly Italian spirit, the glowing, national
complexion of the portrait.[17]
There was an Italian painter who said that the secret of all effect in
color consisted in white upon black, and black upon white. How perfectly
did Shakspeare understand this secret of effect! and how beautifully he
has exemplified it in Juliet?
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows!
Thus she and her lover are in contrast with all around them. They are
all love, surrounded with all hate; all harmony, surrounded with all
discord: all pure nature, in the midst of polished and artificial life.
Juliet, like Portia, is the foster child of opulence and splendor; she
dwells in a fair city--she has been nurtured in a palace--she clasps her
robe with jewels--she braids her hair with rainbow-tinted pearls; but in
herself she has no more connection with the trappings around her, than
the lovely exotic, transplanted from some Eden-like climate, has with
the carved and gilded conservatory which has reared and sheltered its
luxuriant beauty.
But in this vivid impression of contrast, there is nothing abrupt or
harsh. A tissue of beautiful poetry weaves together the principal
figures, and the subordinate personages. The consistent truth of the
costume, and the exquisite gradations of relief with which the most
opposite hues are approximated, blend all into harmony. Romeo and Juliet
are not poetical beings placed on a prosaic background; nor are they,
like Thekla and Max in the Wallenstein, two angels of light amid the
darkest and harshest, the most debased and revolting aspects of
humanity; but every circumstance, and every personage, and every shade
of character in each, tends to the development of the sentiment which is
the subject of the drama. The poetry, too, the richest that can possibly
be conceived, is interfused through all the characters; the splendid
imagery lavished upon all with the careless prodigality of genius, and
the whole is lighted up into such a sunny brilliance of effect, as
though Shakspeare had really transported himself into Italy, and had
drunk to intoxication of her genial atmosphere. How truly it has been
said, that "although Romeo and Juliet are in love, they are not
love-sick!" What a false idea would anything of the mere whining
amoroso, give us of Romeo, such as he really is in Shakspeare--the
noble, gallant, ardent, brave, and witty! And Juliet--with even less
truth could the phrase or idea apply to her! The picture in "Twelfth
Night" of the wan girl dying of love, "who pined in thought, and with a
green and yellow melancholy," would never surely occur to us, when
thinking on the enamored and impassioned Juliet, in whose bosom love
keeps a fiery vigil, kindling tenderness into enthusiasm, enthusiasm
into passion, passion into heroism! No, the whole sentiment of the play
is of a far different cast. It is flushed with the genial spirit of the
south: it tastes of youth, and of the essence of youth; of life, and of
the very sap of life.[18] We have indeed the struggle of love against
evil destinies, and a thorny world; the pain, the grief, the anguish,
the terror, the despair; the aching adieu; the pang unutterable of
parted affection; and rapture, truth, and tenderness trampled into an
early grave: but still an Elysian grace lingers round the whole, and the
blue sky of Italy bends over all!
In the delineation of that sentiment which forms the groundwork of the
drama, nothing in fact can equal the power of the picture, but its
inexpressible sweetness and its perfect grace: the passion which has
taken possession of Juliet's whole soul, has the force, the rapidity,
the resistless violence of the torrent: but she is herself as "moving
delicate," as fair, as soft, as flexible as the willow that bends over
it, whose light leaves tremble even with the motion of the current which
hurries beneath them. But at the same time that the pervading sentiment
is never lost sight of, and is one and the same throughout, the
individual part of the character in all its variety is developed, and
marked with the nicest discrimination. For instance,--the simplicity of
Juliet is very different from the simplicity of Miranda: her innocence
is not the innocence of a desert island. The energy she displays does
not once remind us of the moral grandeur of Isabel, or the intellectual
power of Portia;--it is founded in the strength of passion, not in the
strength of character:--it is accidental rather than inherent, rising
with the tide of feeling or temper, and with it subsiding. Her romance
is not the pastoral romance of Perdita, nor the fanciful romance of
Viola; it is the romance of a tender heart and a poetical imagination.
Her inexperience is not ignorance: she has heard that there is such a
thing as falsehood, though she can scarcely conceive it. Her mother and
her nurse have perhaps warned her against flattering vows and man's
inconstancy; or she has even
----Turned the tale by Ariosto told,
Of fair Olympia, loved and left, of old!
Hence that bashful doubt, dispelled almost as soon as felt--
Ah, gentle Romeo!
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.
That conscious shrinking from her own confession--
Fain would I dwell on form; fain, fain deny
What I have spoke!
The ingenuous simplicity of her avowal--
Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo--but else, not for the world!
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,
And therefore thou may'st think my 'havior light,
But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true
Than those who have more cunning to be strange.
And the proud yet timid delicacy, with which she throws herself for
forbearance and pardon upon the tenderness of him she loves, even for
the love she bears him--
Therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.
In the alternative, which she afterwards places before her lover with
such a charming mixture of conscious delicacy and girlish simplicity,
there is that jealousy of female honor which precept and education have
infused into her mind, without one real doubt of his truth, or the
slightest hesitation in her self-abandonment: for she does not even wait
to hear his asseverations;--
But if thou mean'st not well, I do beseech thee
To cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief.
ROMEO.
So thrive my soul--
JULIET.
A thousand times, good night!
But all these flutterings between native impulses and maiden fears
become gradually absorbed, swept away, lost, and swallowed up in the
depth and enthusiasm of confiding love.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to you
The more I have--for both are _infinite_!
What a picture of the young heart, that sees no bound to its hopes, no
end to its affections! For "what was to hinder the thrilling tide of
pleasure which had just gushed from her heart, from flowing on without
stint or measure, but experience, which she was yet without? What was to
abate the transport of the first sweet sense of pleasure which her heart
had just tasted, but indifference, to which she was yet a stranger? What
was there to check the ardor of hope, of faith, of constancy, just
rising in her breast, but disappointment, which she had never yet
felt?"[19]
Lord Byron's Haidee is a copy of Juliet in the Oriental costume, but the
development is epic, not dramatic.[20]
I remember no dramatic character, conveying the same impression of
singleness of purpose, and devotion of heart and soul, except the Thekla
of Schiller's Wallenstein; she is the German Juliet; far unequal,
indeed, but conceived, nevertheless, in a kindred spirit. I know not if
critics have ever compared them, or whether Schiller is supposed to have
had the English, or rather the Italian, Juliet in his fancy when he
portrayed Thekla; but there are some striking points of coincidence,
while the national distinction in the character of the passion leaves to
Thekla a strong cast of originality.[21] The _Princess_ Thekla is, like
Juliet, the heiress of rank and opulence; her first introduction to us,
in her full dress and diamonds, does not impair the impression of her
softness and simplicity. We do not think of them, nor do we sympathize
with the complaint of her lover,--
The dazzle of the jewels which played round you
Hid the beloved from me.
We almost feel the reply of Thekla before she utters it,--
Then you saw me
Not with your heart, but with your eyes!
The timidity of Thekla in her first scene, her trembling silence in the
commencement, and the few words she addresses to her mother, remind us
of the unobtrusive simplicity of Juliet's first appearance; but the
impression is different; the one is the shrinking violet, the other the
unexpanded rose-bud. Thekla and Max Piccolomini are, like Romeo and
Juliet, divided by the hatred of their fathers. The death of Max, and
the resolute despair of Thekla, are also points of resemblance; and
Thekla's complete devotion, her frank yet dignified abandonment of all
disguise, and her apology for her own unreserve, are quite in Juliet's
style,--
I ought to be less open, ought to hide
My heart more from thee--so decorum dictates:
But where in this place wouldst thou seek for truth
If in my mouth thou didst not find it?
The same confidence, innocence, and fervor of affection, distinguish
both heroines; but the love of Juliet is more vehement, the love of
Thekla is more calm, and reposes more on itself; the love of Juliet
gives us the idea of infinitude, and that of Thekla of eternity: the
love of Juliet flows on with an increasing tide, like the river pouring
to the ocean; and the love of Thekla stands unalterable, and enduring as
the rock. In the heart of Thekla love shelters as in a home; but in the
heart of Juliet he reigns a crowned king,--"he rides on its pants
triumphant!" As women, they would divide the loves and suffrages of
mankind, but not as dramatic characters: the moment we come to look
nearer, we acknowledge that it is indeed "rashness and ignorance to
compare Schiller with Shakspeare."[22] Thekla is a fine conception in
the German spirit, but Juliet is a lovely and palpable creation. The
coloring in which Schiller has arrayed his Thekla is pale, sombre,
vague, compared with the strong individual marking, the rich glow of
life and reality, which distinguish Juliet. One contrast in particular
has always struck me; the two beautiful speeches in the first interview
between Max and Thekla, that in which she describes her father's
astrological chamber, and that in which he replies with reflections on
the influence of the stars, are said to "form in themselves a fine
poem." They do so; but never would Shakspeare have placed such
extraneous description and reflection in the mouths of _his_ lovers.
Romeo and Juliet speak of themselves only; they see only themselves in
the universe, all things else are as an idle matter. Not a word they
utter, though every word is poetry--not a sentiment or description,
though dressed in the most luxuriant imagery, but has a direct relation
to themselves, or to the situation in which they are placed, and the
feelings that engross them: and besides, it may be remarked of Thekla,
and generally of all tragedy heroines in love, that, however beautifully
and distinctly characterized, we see the passion only under one or two
aspects at most, or in conflict with some one circumstance or contending
duty or feeling. In Juliet alone we find it exhibited under every
variety of aspect, and every gradation of feeling it could possibly
assume in a delicate female heart: as we see the rose, when passed
through the colors of the prism, catch and reflect every tint of the
divided ray, and still it is the same sweet rose.
I have already remarked the quiet manner in which Juliet steals upon us
in her first scene, as the serene, graceful girl, her feelings as yet
unawakened, and her energies all unknown to herself, and unsuspected by
others. Her silence and her filial deference are charming:--
I'll look to like, if looking liking move;
But no more deep will I endart mine eye,
Than your consent shall give it strength to fly
Much in the same unconscious way we are impressed with an idea of her
excelling loveliness:--
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
and which could make the dark vault of death "a feasting presence full
of light." Without any elaborate description, we behold Juliet, as she
is reflected in the heart of her lover, like a single bright star
mirrored in the bosom of a deep, transparent well. The rapture with
which he dwells on the "white wonder of her hand;" on her lips,
That even in pure and vestal modesty
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.
And then her eyes, "two of the fairest stars in all the heavens!" In his
exclamation in the sepulchre,
Ah, dear Juliet, why art thou yet so fair!
there is life and death, beauty and horror, rapture and anguish
combined. The Friar's description of her approach,
O, so light a step
Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint!
and then her father's similitude,
Death lies on her, like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field;--
all these mingle into a beautiful picture of youthful, airy, delicate
grace, feminine sweetness, and patrician elegance.
And our impression of Juliet's loveliness and sensibility is enhanced,
when we find it overcoming in the bosom of Romeo a previous love for
another. His visionary passion for the cold, inaccessible Rosaline,
forms but the prologue, the threshold, to the true--the real sentiment
which succeeds to it. This incident, which is found in the original
story, has been retained by Shakspeare with equal feeling and judgment;
and far from being a fault in taste and sentiment, far from prejudicing
us against Romeo, by casting on him, at the outset of the piece, the
stigma of inconstancy, it becomes, if properly considered, a beauty in
the drama, and adds a fresh stroke of truth to the portrait of the
lover. Why, after all, should we be offended at what does not offend
Juliet herself? for in the original story we find that her attention is
first attracted towards Romeo, by seeing him "fancy sick and pale of
cheer," for love of a cold beauty. We must remember that in those times
every young cavalier of any distinction devoted himself, at his first
entrance into the world, to the service of some fair lady, who was
selected to be his fancy's queen; and the more rigorous the beauty, and
the more hopeless the love, the more honorable the slavery. To go about
"metamorphosed by a mistress," as Speed humorously expresses it,[23]--to
maintain her supremacy in charms at the sword's point; to sigh; to walk
with folded arms; to be negligent and melancholy, and to show a careless
desolation, was the fashion of the day. The Surreys, the Sydneys, the
Bayards, the Herberts of the time--all those who were the mirrors "in
which the noble youth did dress themselves," were of this fantastic
school of gallantry--the last remains of the age of chivalry; and it was
especially prevalent in Italy. Shakspeare has ridiculed it in many
places with exquisite humor; but he wished to show us that it has its
serious as well as its comic aspect. Romeo, then, is introduced to us
with perfect truth of costume, as the thrall of a dreaming, fanciful
passion for the scornful Rosaline, who had forsworn to love; and on her
charms and coldness, and on the power of love generally, he descants to
his companions in pretty phrases, quite in the style and taste of the
day.[24]
Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lover's eyes;
Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lover's tears.
But when once he has beheld Juliet, and quaffed intoxicating draughts of
hope and love from her soft glance, how all these airy fancies fade
before the soul-absorbing reality! The lambent fire that played round
his heart, burns to that heart's very core. We no longer find him
adorning his lamentations in picked phrases, or making a confidant of
his gay companions: he is no longer "for the numbers that Petrarch
flowed in;" but all is consecrated, earnest, rapturous, in the feeling
and the expression. Compare, for instance, the sparkling antithetical
passages just quoted, with one or two of his passionate speeches to or
of Juliet:--
Heaven is here,
Where Juliet lives! &c.
Ah Juliet! if the measure of thy joy
Be heaped like mine, and that thy skill be more
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue
Unfold the imagin'd happiness, that both
Receive in either by this dear encounter.
Come what sorrow may,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight.
How different! and how finely the distinction is drawn! His first
passion is indulged as a waking dream, a reverie of the fancy; it is
depressing, indolent, fantastic; his second elevates him to the third
heaven, or hurries him to despair. It rushes to its object through all
impediments, defies all dangers, and seeks at last a triumphant grave,
in the arms of her he so loved. Thus Romeo's previous attachment to
Rosaline is so contrived as to exhibit to us another variety in that
passion, which is the subject of the poem, by showing us the distinction
between the fancied and the real sentiment. It adds a deeper effect to
the beauty of Juliet; it interests us in the commencement for the tender
and romantic Romeo; and gives an individual reality to his character, by
stamping him like an historical, as well as a dramatic portrait, with
the very spirit of the age in which he lived.[25]