As long a term as yet we have to live,
The loathness to depart would grow--Adieu!
IMOGEN.
Nay, stay a little:
Were you but riding forth to air yourself,
Such parting were too petty. Look here, love,
This diamond was my mother's; take it, heart
But keep it till you woo another wife,
When Imogen is dead!
Imogen, in whose tenderness there is nothing jealous or fantastic, does
not seriously apprehend that her husband will woo another wife when she
is dead. It is one of those fond fancies which women are apt to express
in moments of feeling, merely for the pleasure of hearing a protestation
to the contrary. When Posthumus leaves her, she does not burst forth in
eloquent lamentation; but that silent, stunning, overwhelming sorrow,
which renders the mind insensible to all things else, is represented
with equal force and simplicity.
IMOGEN.
There cannot be a pinch in death
More sharp than this is.
CYMBELINE.
O disloyal thing,
That should'st repair my youth; thou heapeat
A year's age on me!
IMOGEN.
I beseech you, sir,
Harm not yourself with your vexation; I
Am senseless of your wrath; a touch more rare[58]
Subdues all pangs, all fears.
CYMBELINE.
Past grace? obedience?
IMOGEN.
Past hope and in despair--that way past grace.
In the same circumstances, the impetuous excited feelings of Juliet,
and her vivid imagination, lend something far more wildly agitated, more
intensely poetical and passionate to her grief.
JULIET.
Art thou gone so? My love, my lord, my friend!
I must hear from thee every day i' the hour,
For in a minute there are many days--
O by this count I shall be much in years,
Ere I again behold my Romeo!
ROMEO.
Farewell! I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.
JULIET.
O! think'st thou we shall ever meet again?
ROMEO.
I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.
JULIET.
O God! I have an ill-divining soul:
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
Either my eye-sight fails, or thou look'st pale.
We have no sympathy with the pouting disappointment of Cressida, which
is just like that of a spoilt child which has lost its sugar-plum,
without tenderness, passions, or poetry: and, in short, perfectly
characteristic of that vain, fickle, dissolute, heartless
woman,--"unstable as water."
CRESSIDA.
And is it true that I must go from Troy?
TROILUS.
A hateful truth.
CRESSIDA.
What, and from Troilus too?
TROILUS.
From Troy and Troilus.
CRESSIDA.
Is it possible?
TROILUS.
And suddenly.
CRESSIDA.
I must then to the Greeks?
TROILUS.
No remedy.
CRESSIDA.
A woeful Cressid 'mongst the merry Greeks!
When shall we see again?
TROILUS.
Hear me, my love. Be thou but true of heart--
CRESSIDA.
I true! How now? what wicked deem is this?
TROILUS.
Nay, we must use expostulation kindly,
For it is parting from us;
I speak not, be thou true, as fearing thee;
For I will throw my glove to Death himself
That there's no maculation in thy heart:
But be thou true, say I, to fashion in
My sequent protestation. Be thou true,
And I will see thee.
CRESSIDA.
O heavens! be true again--
O heavens! you love me not.
TROILUS.
Die I a villain, then!
In this I do not call your faith in question,
So mainly as my merit--
--But be not tempted.
CRESSIDA.
Do you think I will?
* * * * *
In the eagerness of Imogen to meet her husband there is all a wife's
fondness, mixed up with the breathless hurry arising from a sudden and
joyful surprise; but nothing of the picturesque eloquence, the ardent,
exuberant, Italian imagination of Juliet, who, to gratify her
impatience, would have her heralds thoughts;--press into her service the
nimble pinioned doves, and wind-swift Cupids,--change the course of
nature, and lash the steeds of Phoebus to the west. Imogen only thinks
"one score of miles, 'twixt sun and sun," slow travelling for a lover,
and wishes for a horse with wings--
O for a horse with wings! Hear'st thou, Pisanio?
He is at Milford Haven. Read, and tell me
How far 'tis thither. If one of mean affairs
May plod it in a week, why may not I
Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio,
(Who long'st like me, to see thy lord--who long'st--
O let me bate, but not like me--yet long'st,
But in a fainter kind--O not like me,
For mine's beyond beyond,) say, and speak thick--
(Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing
To the smothering of the sense)--how far is it
To this same blessed Milford? And by the way,
Tell me how Wales was made so happy, as
To inherit such a haven. But, first of all,
How we may steal from hence; and for the gap
That we shall make in time, from our hence going
And our return, to excuse. But first, how get hence.
Why should excuse be born, or e'er begot?
We'll talk of that hereafter. Pr'ythee speak,
How many score of miles may we well ride
'Twixt hour and hour?
PISANIO.
One score, 'twixt sun and sun,
Madam, 's enough for you; and too much too.
IMOGEN.
Why, one that rode to his execution, man,
Could never go so slow!
There are two or three other passages bearing on the conjugal tenderness
of Imogen, which must be noticed for the extreme intensity of the
feeling, and the unadorned elegance of the expression.
I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' the haven
And question'dst every sail: if he should write,
And I not have it, 'twere a paper lost
As offer'd mercy is. What was the last
That he spake to thee?
PISANIO.
'Twas, His queen! his queen!
IMOGEN.
Then wav'd his hankerchief?
PISANIO.
And kiss'd it, madam.
IMOGEN.
Senseless linen! happier therein than I!--
And that was all?
PISANIO.
No, madam; for so long
As he could make me with this eye or ear
Distinguish him from others, he did keep
The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief
Still waving, as the fits and stirs of his mind
Could best express how slow his soul sail'd on,
How swift his ship.
IMOGEN.
Thou should'st have made him
As little as a crow, or less, ere left
To after-eye him.
PISANIO.
Madam, so I did.
IMOGEN.
I would have broke my eye-strings; cracked them, but
To look upon him; till the diminution
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;
Nay, followed him, till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air; and then
Have turn'd mine eye, and wept.
Two little incidents, which are introduced with the most unobtrusive
simplicity, convey the strongest impression of her tenderness for her
husband, and with that perfect unconsciousness on her part, which adds
to the effect. Thus when she has lost her bracelet--
Go, bid my woman
Search for a jewel, that too casually,
Hath left my arm. It was thy master's: 'shrew me,
If I would lose it for a revenue
Of any king in Europe. I do think
I saw't this morning; confident I am,
Last night 'twas on mine arm--_I kiss'd it.
I hope it has not gone to tell my lord
That I kiss aught but he._
It has been well observed, that our consciousness that the bracelet is
really gone to bear false witness against her, adds an inexpressibly
touching effect to the simplicity and tenderness of the sentiment.
And again, when she opens her bosom to meet the death to which her
husband has doomed her, she finds his letters preserved next her heart
What's here!
The letters of the loyal Leonatus?--
Soft, we'll no defence.
The scene in which Posthumus stakes his ring on the virtue of his wife,
and gives Iachimo permission to tempt her, is taken from the story. The
baseness and folly of such conduct have been justly censured; but
Shakspeare, feeling that Posthumus needed every excuse, has managed the
quarrelling scene between him and Iachimo with the most admirable
skill. The manner in which his high spirit is gradually worked up by the
taunts of this Italian fiend, is contrived with far more probability,
and much less coarseness, than in the original tale. In the end he is
not the challenger, but the challenged; and could hardly (except on a
moral principle, much too refined for those rude times) have declined
the wager without compromising his own courage and his faith in the
honor of Imogen.
IACHIMO.
I durst attempt it against any lady in the world.
POSTHUMUS.
You are a great deal abused in too bold a persuasion; and I
doubt not you sustain what you're worthy of, by your
attempt.
IACHIMO.
What's that?
POSTHUMUS.
A repulse: though your _attempt_, as you call it, deserve
more--a punishment too.
PHILARIO.
Gentlemen, enough of this. It came in too suddenly; let it
die as it was born, and I pray you be better acquainted.
IACHIMO.
Would I had put my estate and my neighbor's on the
approbation of what I have said!
POSTHUMUS.
What lady would you choose to assail?
IACHIMO.
Yours, whom in constancy you think stands so safe
In the interview between Imogen and Iachimo, he does not begin his
attack on her virtue by a direct accusation against Posthumus; but by
dark hints and half-uttered insinuations, such as Iago uses to madden
Othello, he intimates that her husband, in his absence from her, has
betrayed her love and truth, and forgotten her in the arms of another.
All that Imogen says in this scene is comprised in a few lines--a brief
question, or a more brief remark. The proud and delicate reserve with
which she veils the anguish she suffers, is inimitably beautiful. The
strongest expression of reproach he can draw from her, is only, "My
lord, I fear, has forgot Britain." When he continues in the same strain,
she exclaims in an agony, "Let me hear no more." When he urges her to
revenge, she asks, with all the simplicity of virtue, "How should I be
revenged?" And when he explains to her how she is to be avenged, her
sudden burst of indignation, and her immediate perception of his
treachery, and the motive for it, are powerfully fine: it is not only
the anger of a woman whose delicacy has been shocked, but the spirit of
a princess insulted in her court.
Away! I do condemn mine ears, that have
So long attended thee. If thou wert honorable,
Thou would'st have told this tale for virtue not
For such an end thou seek'st, as base as strange
Thou wrong'st a gentleman, who is as far
From thy report as thou from honor; and
Solicit'st here a lady that disdains
Thee and the devil alike.
It has been remarked, that "her readiness to pardon Iachimo's false
imputation, and his designs against herself, is a good lesson to prudes,
and may show that where there is a real attachment to virtue, there is
no need of an outrageous antipathy to vice."[59]
This is true; but can we fail to perceive that the instant and ready
forgiveness of Imogen is accounted for, and rendered more graceful and
characteristic by the very means which Iachimo employs to win it? He
pours forth the most enthusiastic praises of her husband, professes that
he merely made this trial of her out of his exceeding love for
Posthumus, and she is pacified at once; but, with exceeding delicacy of
feeling, she is represented as maintaining her dignified reserve and her
brevity of speech to the end of the scene.[60]
We must also observe how beautifully the character of Imogen is
distinguished from those of Desdemona and Hermione. When she is made
acquainted with her husband's cruel suspicions, we see in her deportment
neither the meek submission of the former, nor the calm resolute dignity
of the latter. The first effect produced on her by her husband's letter
is conveyed to the fancy by the exclamation of Pisanio, who is gazing on
her as she reads.--
What shall I need to draw my sword? The paper
Has cut her throat already! No, 'tis slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword!
And in her first exclamations we trace, besides astonishment and
anguish, and the acute sense of the injustice inflicted on her, a flash
of indignant spirit, which we do not find in Desdemona or Hermione
False to his bed!--What is it to be false?
To lie in watch there, and to think of him?
To weep 'twixt clock and clock? If sleep charge nature,
To break it with a fearful dream of him,
And cry myself awake?--that's false to his bed,
Is it?
This is followed by that affecting lamentation over the falsehood and
injustice of her husband, in which she betrays no atom of jealousy or
wounded self-love, but observes in the extremity of her anguish, that
after _his_ lapse from truth, "all good seeming would be discredited,"
and she then resigns herself to his will with the most entire
submission.
In the original story, Zinevra prevails on the servant to spare her, by
her exclamations and entreaties for mercy. "The lady, seeing the
poniard, and hearing those words, exclaimed in terror, 'Alas! have pity
on me for the love of Heaven! do not become the slayer of one who never
offended thee, only to pleasure another. God, who knows all things,
knows that I have never done that which could merit such a reward from
my husband's hand.'"
Now let us turn to Shakspeare. Imogen says,--
Come, fellow, be thou honest;
Do thou thy master's bidding: when thou seest him,
A little witness my obedience. Look!
I draw the sword myself; take it, and hit
The innocent mansion of my love, my heart.
Fear not; 'tis empty of all things but grief:
Thy master is not there, who was, indeed,
The riches of it. Do his bidding; strike!
The devoted attachment of Pisanio to his royal mistress, all through the
piece, is one of those side touches by which Shakspeare knew how to give
additional effect to his characters.
Cloten is odious;[61] but we must not overlook the peculiar fitness and
propriety of his character, in connection with that of Imogen. He is
precisely the kind of man who would be most intolerable to such a woman.
He is a fool,--so is Slender, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek: but the folly
of Cloten is not only ridiculous, but hateful; it arises not so much
from a want of understanding as a total want of heart; it is the
perversion of sentiment, rather than the deficiency of intellect; he has
occasional gleams of sense, but never a touch of feeling. Imogen
describes herself not only as "sprighted with a fool," but as "frighted
and anger'd worse." No other fool but Cloten--a compound of the booby
and the villain--could excite in such a mind as Imogen's the same
mixture of terror, contempt, and abhorrence. The stupid, obstinate
malignity of Cloten, and the wicked machinations of the queen--
A father cruel, and a step-dame false,
A foolish suitor to a wedded lady--
justify whatever might need excuse in the conduct of Imogen--as her
concealed marriage and her flight from her father's court--and serve to
call out several of the most beautiful and striking parts of her
character: particularly that decision and vivacity of temper, which in
her harmonize so beautifully with exceeding delicacy, sweetness, and
submission.
In the scene with her detested suitor, there is at first a careless
majesty of disdain, which is admirable.
I am much sorry, sir,
You put me to forget a lady's manners,
By being so verbal;[62] and learn now, for all,
That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce,
By the very truth of it, I care not for you,
And am so near the lack of charity,
(T' accuse myself,) I hate you; which I had rather
You felt, than make 't my boast.
But when he dares to provoke her, by reviling the absent Posthumus, her
indignation heightens her scorn, and her scorn sets a keener edge on her
indignation.
CLOTEN.
For the contract you pretend with that base wretch,
One bred of alms, and fostered with cold dishes,
With scraps o' the court; it is no contract, none.
IMOGEN.
Profane fellow!
Wert thou the son of Jupiter, and no more,
But what thou art, besides, thou wert too base
To be his groom; thou wert dignified enough,
Even to the point of envy, if 'twere made
Comparative for your virtues, to be styl'd
The under hangman of his kingdom; and hated
For being preferr'd so well.
He never can meet more mischance than come
To be but nam'd of thee. His meanest garment
That ever hath but clipp'd his body, is dearer
In my respect, than all the hairs above thee.
Were they all made such men.
One thing more must be particularly remarked because it serves to
individualize the character from the beginning to the end of the poem.
We are constantly sensible that Imogen, besides being a tender and
devoted woman, is a princess and a beauty, at the same time that she is
ever superior to her position and her external charms. There is, for
instance, a certain airy majesty of deportment--a spirit of accustomed
command breaking out every now and then--the dignity, without the
assumption of rank and royal birth, which is apparent in the scene with
Cloten and elsewhere; and we have not only a general impression that
Imogen, like other heroines, is beautiful, but the peculiar style and
character of her beauty is placed before us: we have an image of the
most luxuriant loveliness, combined with exceeding delicacy, and even
fragility of person: of the most refined elegance, and the most
exquisite modesty, set forth in one or two passages of description; as
when Iachimo is contemplating her asleep:--
Cytherea,
How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily.
And whiter than the sheets.
'Tis her breathing that
Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o' the taper
Bows toward her; and would underpeep her lids
To see the enclos'd lights, now canopied
Under those windows, white and azure, lac'd
With blue of heaven's own tinct!
The preservation of her feminine character under her masculine attire;
her delicacy, her modesty, and her timidity, are managed with the same
perfect consistency and unconscious grace as in Viola. And we must not
forget that her "neat cookery," which is so prettily eulogized by
Guiderius:--
He cuts out roots in characters,
And sauc'd our broths, as Juno had been sick,
And he her dieter,
formed part of the education of a princess in those remote times.
Few reflections of a general nature are put into the mouth of Imogen;
and what she says is more remarkable for sense, truth, and tender
feeling, than for wit, or wisdom, or power of imagination. The following
little touch of poetry reminds us of Juliet:--
Ere I could
Give him that parting kiss, which I had set
Between two charming words, comes in my father;
And, like the tyrannous breathing of the north,
Shakes all our buds from growing.
Her exclamation on opening her husband's letter reminds us of the
profound and thoughtful tenderness of Helen:--
O learned indeed were that astronomer
That knew the stars, as I his characters!
He'd lay the future open.
The following are more in the manner of Isabel:--
Most miserable
Is the desire that's glorious: bless'd be those,
How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills,
That seasons comfort,
Against self-slaughter
There is a prohibition so divine
That cravens my weak hand.
Thus may poor fools
Believe false teachers; though those that are betray'd
Do feel the reason sharply, yet the traitor
Stands in worse case of woe,
Are we not brothers?
So man and man should be;
But clay and clay differs in dignity,
Whose dust is both alike.
Will poor folks lie
That have afflictions on them, knowing 'tis
A punishment or trial? Yes: no wonder,
When rich ones scarce tell true: to lapse in fulness
Is sorer than to lie for need; and falsehood
Is worse in kings than beggars.
The sentence which follows, and which I believe has become proverbial,
has much of the manner of Portia, both in the thought and the
expression:--
Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night,
Are they not but in Britain? I' the world's volume
Our Britain seems as of it, but not in it;
In a great pool, a swan's nest; pr'ythee, think
There's livers out of Britain.
* * * * *
The catastrophe of this play has been much admired for the peculiar
skill with which all the various threads of interest are gathered
together at last, and entwined with the destiny of Imogen. It may be
added, that one of its chief beauties is the manner in which the
character of Imogen is not only preserved, but rises upon us to the
conclusion with added grace: her instantaneous forgiveness of her
husband before he even asks it, when she flings herself at once into his
arms--
Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
and her magnanimous reply to her father, when he tells her, that by the
discovery of her two brothers she has lost a kingdom--
No--I have gain'd two worlds by it--
clothing a noble sentiment in a noble image, give the finishing touches
of excellence to this most enchanting portrait.
On the whole, Imogen is a lovely compound of goodness, truth, and
affection, with just so much of passion and intellect and poetry, as
serve to lend to the picture that power and glowing richness of effect
which it would otherwise have wanted; and of her it might be said, if we
could condescend to quote from any other poet with Shakespeare open
before us, that "her person was a paradise, and her soul the cherub to
guard it."[63]
CORDELIA.
There is in the beauty of Cordelia's character an effect too sacred for
words, and almost too deep for tears; within her heart is a fathomless
well of purest affection, but its waters sleep in silence and
obscurity,--never failing in their depth and never overflowing in their
fulness. Every thing in her seems to lie beyond our view, and affects us
in a manner which we feel rather than perceive. The character appears to
have no surface, no salient points upon which the fancy can readily
seize: there is little external development of intellect, less of
passion, and still less of imagination. It is completely made out in the
course of a few scenes, and we are surprised to find that in those few
scenes there is matter for a life of reflection, and materials enough
for twenty heroines. If Lear be the grandest of Shakspeare's tragedies,
Cordelia in herself, as a human being, governed by the purest and
holiest impulses and motives, the most refined from all dross of
selfishness and passion, approaches near to perfection; and in her
adaptation, as a dramatic personage, to a determinate plan of action,
may be pronounced altogether perfect. The character, to speak of it
critically as a poetical conception, is not, however, to be comprehended
at once, or easily; and in the same manner Cordelia, as a woman, is one
whom we must have loved before we could have known her, and known her
long before we could have known her truly.
Most people, I believe, have heard the story of the young German artist
Mueller, who, while employed in copying and engraving Raffaelle's Madonna
del Sisto, was so penetrated by its celestial beauty, so distrusted his
own power to do justice to it, that between admiration and despair he
fell into a sadness; thence through the usual gradations, into a
melancholy, thence into madness; and died just as he had put the
finishing stroke to his own matchless work, which had occupied him for
eight years. With some slight tinge of this concentrated kind of
enthusiasm I have learned to contemplate the character of Cordelia; I
have looked into it till the revelation of its hidden beauty, and an
intense feeling of the wonderful genius which created it, have filled me
at once with delight and despair. Like poor Mueller, but with more
reason, I _do_ despair of ever conveying, through a different and
inferior medium, the impression made on my own mind to the mind of
another.