coeur," was finely observed of Madame de Stael in her maturer years; it
would have been true of Hermione at any period of her life.
[49] Winter's Tale, act v scene 11
[50] Only in the last scene, when, with solemnity befitting the
occasion, Paulina invokes the majestic figure to "descend, and be stone
no more," and where she presents her daughter to her. "Turn, good lady!
our Perdita is found."
[51] Act iii, scene 3.
[52] Which being interpreted into modern English, means, I believe,
nothing more than that the pattern was what we now call _arabesque_.
[53] There is an incident in the original tale, "Il Moro di Venezia,"
which could not well be transferred to the drama, but which is very
effective, and adds, I think, to the circumstantial horrors of the
story. Desdemona does not accidentally drop the handkerchief; it is
stolen from her by Iago's little child, an infant of three years old,
whom he trains and bribes to the theft. The love of Desdemona for this
child, her little playfellow--the pretty description of her taking it in
her arms and caressing it, while it profits by its situation to steal
the handkerchief from her bosom, are well imagined, and beautifully
told; and the circumstance of Iago employing his own innocent child as
the instrument of his infernal villany, adds a deeper, and, in truth an
unnecessary touch of the fiend, to his fiendish character.
[54] Consequences are so linked together, that the exclamation of
Emilia,
O thou dull Moor!--That handkerchief thou speakest of
I found by fortune, and did give my husband!--
is sufficient to reveal to Othello the whole history of his ruin.
[55] Decamerone. Novella, 9mo. Giornata, 2do.
[56] _Vide_ Dr. Johnson, and Dunlop's History of Fiction.
[57] See Hazlitt and Schlegel on the catastrophe of Cymbeline.
[58] More rare--_i. e._ more exquisitely poignant.
[59] Characters of Shakspeare's Plays.
[60] _Vide_ act 1. scene 7.
[61] The character of Cloten has been pronounced by some unnatural, by
others inconsistent, and by others obsolete. The following passage
occurs in one of Miss Seward's letters, vol. iii p. 246: "It is curious
that Shakspeare should, in so singular a character as Cloten, have given
the exact prototype of a being whom I once knew. The unmeaning frown of
countenance, the shuffling gait, the burst of voice, the bustling
insignificance, the fever and ague fits of valor, the froward
tetchiness, the unprincipled malice, and, what is more curious, those
occasional gleams of good sense amidst the floating clouds of folly
which generally darkened and confused the man's brain, and which, in the
character of Cloten, we are apt to impute to a violation of unity in
character; but in the some-time Captain C----, I saw that the portrait
of Cloten was not out of nature."
[62] i. e. _full of words_.
[63] Dryden.
[64] King Lear may be supposed to have lived about one thousand years
before the Christian era, being the forth or fifth in descent from King
Brut, the great-grandson of AEneas, and the fabulous founder of the
kingdom of Britain.
[65] She is commemorated by Lord Byron. _Vide_ Childe Harold Canto iii.
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.
CLEOPATRA.
I cannot agree with one of the most philosophical of Shakspeare's
critics, who has asserted "that the actual truth of particular events,
in proportion as we are conscious of it, is a drawback on the pleasure
as well as the dignity of tragedy." If this observation applies at all,
it is equally just with regard to characters: and in either case can we
admit it? The reverence and the simpleness of heart with which
Shakspeare has treated the received and admitted truths of history--I
mean according to the imperfect knowledge of his time--is admirable; his
inaccuracies are few: his general accuracy, allowing for the distinction
between the narrative and the dramatic form, is acknowledged to be
wonderful. He did not steal the precious material from the treasury of
history, to debase its purity,--new-stamp it arbitrarily with effigies
and legends of his own devising and then attempt to pass it current,
like Dryden, Racine, and the rest of those poetical coiners: he only
rubbed off the rust, purified and brightened it, so that history herself
has been known to receive it back as sterling.
Truth, wherever manifested, should be sacred: so Shakspeare deemed, and
laid no profane hand upon her altars. But tragedy--majestic tragedy, is
worthy to stand before the sanctuary of Truth, and to be the priestess
of her oracles. "Whatever in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue
amiable or grave, whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all the
changes of that which is called fortune from without, or the wily
subtleties and refluxes of man's thought from within;"[66]--whatever is
pitiful in the weakness, sublime in the strength, or terrible in the
perversion of human intellect, these are the domain of Tragedy. Sibyl
and Muse at once, she holds aloft the book of human fate, and is the
interpreter of its mysteries. It is not, then, making a mock of the
serious sorrows of real life, nor of those human beings who lived,
suffered and acted upon this earth, to array them in her rich and
stately robes, and present them before us as powers evoked from dust and
darkness, to awaken the generous sympathies, the terror or the pity of
mankind. It does not add to the pain, as far as tragedy is a source of
emotion, that the wrongs and sufferings represented, the guilt of Lady
Macbeth, the despair of Constance, the arts of Cleopatra, and the
distresses of Katherine, had a real existence; but it adds infinitely to
the moral effect, as a subject of contemplation and a lesson of
conduct.[67]
I shall be able to illustrate these observations more fully in the
course of this section, in which we will consider those characters which
are drawn from history; and first, Cleopatra.
Of all Shakspeare's female characters, Miranda and Cleopatra appear to
me the most wonderful. The first, unequalled as a poetic conception; the
latter, miraculous as a work of art. If we could make a regular
classification of his characters, these would form the two extremes of
simplicity and complexity; and all his other characters would be found
to fill up some shade or gradation between these two.
Great crimes, springing from high passions, grafted on high qualities,
are the legitimate source of tragic poetry. But to make the extreme of
littleness produce an effect like grandeur--to make the excess of
frailty produce an effect like power--to heap up together all that is
most unsubstantial, frivolous, vain, contemptible, and variable, till
the worthlessness be lost in the magnitude, and a sense of the sublime
spring from the very elements of littleness,--to do this, belonged only
to Shakspeare that worker of miracles. Cleopatra is a brilliant
antithesis, a compound of contradictions, of all that we most hate,
with what we most admire. The whole character is the triumph of the
external over the innate; and yet like one of her country's
hieroglyphics, though she present at first view a splendid and
perplexing anomaly, there is deep meaning and wondrous skill in the
apparent enigma, when we come to analyze and decipher it. But how are we
to arrive at the solution of this glorious riddle, whose dazzling
complexity continually mocks and eludes us? What is most astonishing in
the character of Cleopatra is its antithetical construction--its
_consistent inconsistency_, if I may use such an expression--which
renders it quite impossible to reduce it to any elementary principles.
It will, perhaps, be found on the whole, that vanity and the love of
power predominate; but I dare not say it _is_ so, for these qualities
and a hundred others mingle into each other, and shift and change, and
glance away, like the colors in a peacock's train.
In some others of Shakspeare's female characters, also remarkable for
their complexity, (Portia and Juliet, for instance,) we are struck with
the delightful sense of harmony in the midst of contrast, so that the
idea of unity and simplicity of effect is produced in the midst of
variety; but in Cleopatra it is the absence of unity and simplicity
which strikes us; the impression is that of perpetual and irreconcilable
contrast. The continual approximation of whatever is most opposite in
character, in situation, in sentiment, would be fatiguing, were it not
so perfectly natural: the woman herself would be distracting, if she
were not so enchanting.
I have not the slightest doubt that Shakspeare's Cleopatra is the real
historical Cleopatra--the "Rare Egyptian"--individualized and placed
before us. Her mental accomplishments, her unequalled grace, her woman's
wit and woman's wiles, her irresistible allurements, her starts of
irregular grandeur, her bursts of ungovernable temper, her vivacity of
imagination, her petulant caprice, her fickleness and her falsehood, her
tenderness and her truth, her childish susceptibility to flattery, her
magnificent spirit, her royal pride, the gorgeous eastern coloring of
the character; all these contradictory elements has Shakspeare seized,
mingled them in their extremes, and fused them into one brilliant
impersonation of classical elegance, Oriental voluptuousness, and gipsy
sorcery.
What better proof can we have of the individual truth of the character
than the admission that Shakspeare's Cleopatra produces exactly the same
effect on us that is recorded of the real Cleopatra? She dazzles our
faculties, perplexes our judgment, bewilders and bewitches our fancy;
from the beginning to the end of the drama, we are conscious of a kind
of fascination against which our moral sense rebels, but from which
there is no escape. The epithets applied to her perpetually
by Antony and others confirm this impression: "enchanting
queen!"--"witch"--"spell"--"great fairy"--"cockatrice"--"serpent of old
Nile"--"thou grave charm!"[68] are only a few of them; and who does not
know by heart the famous quotations in which this Egyptian Circe is
described with all her infinite seductions?
Fie! wrangling queen!
Whom every thing becomes--to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety:--
For vilest things
Become themselves in her.
And the pungent irony of Enobarbus has well exposed her feminine arts,
when he says, on the occasion of Antony's intended departure,--
Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies
instantly: I have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer
moment.
ANTONY.
She is cunning past man's thought.
ENOBARBUS.
Alack, sir, no! her passions are made of nothing but the
finest part of pure love. We cannot call her winds and
waters, sighs and tears; they are greater storms and
tempests than almanacs can report; this cannot be cunning
in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as
Jove.
The whole secret of her absolute dominion over the facile Antony may be
found in one little speech:--
See where he is--who's with him--what he does--
(I did not send you.) If you find him sad,
Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report
That I am sudden sick! Quick! and return.
CHARMIAN.
Madam, methinks if you did love him dearly,
You do not hold the method to enforce
The like from him.
CLEOPATRA.
What should I do, I do not?
CHARMIAN.
In each thing give him way; cross him in nothing.
CLEOPATRA.
Thou teachest like a fool: the way to lose him.
CHARMIAN.
Tempt him not too far.
But Cleopatra is a mistress of her art, and knows better: and what a
picture of her triumphant petulance, her imperious and imperial
coquetry, is given in her own words!
That time--O times!
I laugh'd him out of patience; and that night
I laughed him into patience: and next morn,
Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed;
Then put my tires and mantles on, whilst
I wore his sword, Philippan.
When Antony enters full of some serious purpose which he is about to
impart, the woman's perverseness, and the tyrannical waywardness with
which she taunts him and plays upon his temper, are admirably depicted.
I know, by that same eye, there's some good news.
What says the married woman?[69] You may go;
Would she had never given you leave to come!
Let her not say, 'tis I that keep you here;
I have no power upon you; hers you are.
ANTONY.
The gods best know--
CLEOPATRA.
O, never was there queen
So mightily betray'd! Yet at the first,
I saw the treasons planted.
ANTONY.
Cleopatra!
CLEOPATRA.
Why should I think you can be mine, and true,
Though you in swearing shake the throned gods,
Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness
To be entangled with those mouth-made vows,
Which break themselves in swearing!
ANTONY.
Most sweet queen!
CLEOPATRA.
Nay, pray you, seek no color for your going,
But bid farewell, and go.
She recovers her dignity for a moment at the news of Fulvia's death, as
if roused by a blow:--
Though age from folly could not give me freedom,
It does from childishness. Can Fulvia die?
And then follows the artful mockery with which she tempts and provokes
him, in order to discover whether he regrets his wife.
O most false love!
Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill
With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see
In Fulvia's death, how mine receiv'd shall be.
ANTONY.
Quarrel no more; but be prepared to know
The purposes I bear: which are, or cease,
As you shall give th' advice. Now, by the fire
That quickens Nilus' shrine, I go from hence
Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war,
As thou affectest.
CLEOPATRA.
Cut my lace, Charmian, come--But
let it be. I am quickly ill, and well.
So Antony loves.
ANTONY.
My precious queen, forbear:
And give true evidence to his love which stands
An honorable trial.
CLEOPATRA.
So Fulvia told me.
I pr'ythee turn aside, and weep for her:
Then bid adieu to me, and say, the tears
Belong to Egypt. Good now, play one scene
Of excellent dissembling; and let it look
Like perfect honor.
ANTONY.
You'll heat my blood--no more.
CLEOPATRA.
You can do better yet; but this is meetly.
ANTONY.
Now, by my sword--
CLEOPATRA.
And target--still he mends:
But this is not the best. Look, pr'ythee, Charmian,
How this Herculean Roman does become
The carriage of his chafe!
This is, indeed, most "excellent dissembling;" but when she has fooled
and chafed the Herculean Roman to the verge of danger, then comes that
return of tenderness which secures the power she has tried to the
utmost, and we have all the elegant, the poetical Cleopatra in her
beautiful farewell.
Forgive me!
Since my becomings kill me when they do not
Eye well to you. Your honor calls you hence,
Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,
And all the gods go with you! Upon your sword
Sit laurell'd victory; and smooth success
Be strew'd before your feet!
Finer still are the workings of her variable mind and lively
imagination, after Antony's departure; her fond repining at his absence,
her violent spirit, her right royal wilfulness and impatience, as if it
were a wrong to her majesty, an insult to her sceptre, that there should
exist in her despite such things as space and time; and high treason to
her sovereign power, to dare to remember what she chooses to forget
Give me to drink mandragora,
That I might sleep out this great gap of time
My Antony is away.
O Charmian!
Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he,
Or does he walk? or is he on his horse?
O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
Do bravely, horse! for wot'st thou whom thou mov'st?
The demi-Atlas of this earth--the arm
And burgonet of men. He's speaking now,
Or murmuring, Where's my serpent of old Nile?
For so he calls me.
Met'st thou my posts?
ALEXAS.
Ay, madam, twenty several messengers:
Why do you send so thick?
CLEOPATRA.
Who's born that day
When I forget to send to Antony,
Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian.
Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian,
Ever love Caesar so?
CHARMIAN.
O that brave Caesar!
CLEOPATRA.
Be chok'd with such another emphasis!
Say, the brave Antony.
CHARMIAN.
The valiant Caesar!
CLEOPATRA.
By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth,
If thou with Caesar paragon again
My man of men!
CHARMIAN.
By your most gracious pardon,
I sing but after you.
CLEOPATRA.
My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then. But, come away--
Get me some ink and paper: he shall have every day
A several greeting, or I'll unpeople Egypt.
We learn from Plutarch, that it was a favorite amusement with Antony and
Cleopatra to ramble through the streets at night, and bandy ribald jests
with the populace of Alexandria. From the same authority, we know that
they were accustomed to live on the most familiar terms with their
attendants and the companions of their revels. To these traits we must
add, that with all her violence, perverseness, egotism, and caprice,
Cleopatra mingled a capability for warm affections and kindly feeling,
or rather what we should call in these days, a constitutional
_good-nature_; and was lavishly generous to her favorites and
dependents. These characteristics we find scattered through the play;
they are not only faithfully rendered by Shakspeare, but he has made the
finest use of them in his delineation of manners. Hence the occasional
freedom of her women and her attendants, in the midst of their fears and
flatteries, becomes most natural and consistent: hence, too, their
devoted attachment and fidelity, proved even in death. But as
illustrative of Cleopatra's disposition, perhaps the finest and most
characteristic scene in the whole play, is that in which the messenger
arrives from Rome with the tidings of Antony's marriage with Octavia.
She perceives at once with quickness that all is not well, and she
hastens to anticipate the worst, that she may have the pleasure of being
disappointed. Her impatience to know what she fears to learn, the
vivacity with which she gradually works herself up into a state of
excitement, and at length into fury, is wrought out with a force of
truth which makes us recoil.
CLEOPATRA.
Antony's dead!
If thou say so, villain, thou kill'st thy mistress.
But well and free,
If thou so yield him, there is gold, and here
My bluest veins to kiss; a hand that kings
Have lipp'd, and trembled kissing.
MESSENGER.
First, madam, he is well.
CLEOPATRA.
Why, there's more gold. But, sirrah, mark! we use
To say, the dead are well: bring it to that,
The gold I give thee will I melt, and pour
Down thy ill-uttering throat.
MESSENGER.
Good madam, hear me.
CLEOPATRA.
Well, go to, I will.
But there's no goodness in thy face. If Antony
Be free and healthful, why so tart a favor
To trumpet such good tidings? If not well,
Thou should'st come like a fury crown'd with snakes.
MESSENGER.
Wil't please you hear me?
CLEOPATRA.
I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak'st;
Yet if thou say Antony lives, is well,
Or friends with Caesar, or not captive to him,
I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail
Rich pearls upon thee.
MESSENGER.
Madam, he's well.
CLEOPATRA.
Well said.
MESSENGER.
And friends with Caesar.
CLEOPATRA.
Thou art an honest man.
MESSENGER.
Caesar and he are greater friends than ever.
CLEOPATRA.
Make thee a fortune from me.
MESSENGER.
But yet, madam--
CLEOPATRA.
I do not like _but yet_--it does allay
The good precedence. Fie upon _but yet_:
_But yet_ is as a gaoler to bring forth
Some monstrous malefactor. Pr'ythee, friend,
Pour out thy pack of matter to mine ear,
The good and bad together. He's friends with Caesar
In state of health, thou say'st; and thou say'st free.
MESSENGER.
Free, madam! No: I made no such report,
He's bound unto Octavia.
CLEOPATRA.
For what good turn?
MESSENGER.
Madam he's married to Octavia.
CLEOPATRA.
The most infectious pestilence upon thee!
[_Strikes him down._
MESSENGER.
Good madam, patience.
CLEOPATRA.
What say you? [_Strikes him again._
Hence horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes
Like balls before me--I'll unhair thine head--
Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stewed in brine
Smarting in ling'ring pickle.
MESSENGER.
Gracious madam!
I, that do bring the news, made not the match.
CLEOPATRA.
Say 'tis not so, a province I will give thee,
And make thy fortunes proud: the blow thou hadst
Shall make thy peace for moving me to rage;
And I will boot thee with what gift beside
Thy modesty can beg.
MESSENGER.
He's married, madam.
CLEOPATRA.
Rogue, thou hast lived too long. [_Draws a dagger._
MESSENGER.
Nay then I'll run.
What mean you, madam? I have made no fault. [_Exit._
CHARMIAN.
Good madam, keep yourself within yourself;
The man is innocent.
CLEOPATRA.
Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt.
Melt Egypt into Nile! and kindly creatures
Turn all to serpents! Call the slave again;
Though I am mad, I will not bite him--Call!
CHARMIAN.
He is afraid to come.
CLEOPATRA.
I will not hurt him.
These hands do lack nobility, that they strike
A meaner than myself.
* * * *
CLEOPATRA.
In praising Antony I have dispraised Caesar.
CHARMIAN.
Many times, madam.
CLEOPATRA.
I am paid for't now--
Lead me from hence.
I faint. O Iras, Charmian--'tis no matter
Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him
Report the features of Octavia, her years,
Her inclination--let him not leave out
The color of her hair. Bring me word quickly.
[_Exit Alex._
Let him forever go--let him not--Charmian,
Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,
T'other way he's a Mars. Bid you Alexas
[_To Mardian._
Bring me word how tall she is. Pity me, Charmian.
But do not speak to me. Lead me to my chamber.
I have given this scene entire because I know nothing comparable to it
The pride and arrogance of the Egyptian queen, the blandishment of the
woman, the unexpected but natural transitions of temper and feeling, the
contest of various passions, and at length--when the wild hurricane has
spent its fury--the melting into tears, faintness, and languishment, are
portrayed with the most astonishing power, and truth, and skill in
feminine nature. More wonderful still is the splendor and force of
coloring which is shed over this extraordinary scene. The mere idea of
an angry woman beating her menial, presents something ridiculous or
disgusting to the mind; in a queen or a tragedy heroine it is still more
indecorous;[70] yet this scene is as far as possible from the vulgar or
the comic. Cleopatra seems privileged to "touch the brink of all we
hate" with impunity. This imperial termagant, this "wrangling queen,
whom every thing becomes," becomes even her fury. We know not by what
strange power it is, that in the midst of all these unruly passions and
childish caprices, the poetry of the character, and the fanciful and
sparkling grace of the delineation are sustained and still rule in the
imagination; but we feel that it is so.
I need hardly observe, that we have historical authority for the
excessive violence of Cleopatra's temper. Witness the story of her
boxing the ears of her treasurer, in presence of Octavius, as related by
Plutarch. Shakspeare has made a fine use of this anecdote also towards
the conclusion of the drama, but it is not equal in power to this scene
with the messenger.
The man is afterwards brought back, almost by force, to satisfy
Cleopatra's jealous anxiety, by a description of Octavia:--but this
time, made wise by experience, he takes care to adapt his information to
the humors of his imperious mistress, and gives her a satirical picture
of her rival. The scene which follows, in which Cleopatra--artful,
acute, and penetrating as she is--becomes the dupe of her feminine spite
and jealousy, nay, assists in duping herself; and after having cuffed
the messenger for telling her truths which are offensive, rewards him
for the falsehood which flatters her weakness--is not only an admirable
exhibition of character, but a fine moral lesson.
She concludes, after dismissing the messenger with gold and thanks,
I repent me much
That I so harry'd him. Why, methinks by him
This creature's no such thing?
CHARMIAN.
O nothing, madam.
CLEOPATRA.
The man hath seen some majesty, and should know!