Nature is shameless and gross amidst this mass of flesh, heavy with wine
and fatness. It is delicate in the delicate body of women, but as
unreasoning and impassioned in Desdemona as in Falstaff. Shakespeare's
women are charming children, who feel in excess and love passionately.
They have unconstrained manners, little rages, nice words of friendship,
a coquettish rebelliousness, a graceful volubility, which recall the
warbling and the prettiness of birds. The heroines of the French stage
are almost men; these are women, and in every sense of the word. More
imprudent than Desdemona a woman could not be. She is moved with pity
for Cassio, and asks a favor for him passionately, recklessly, be the
thing just or no, dangerous or no. She knows nothing of man's laws, and
does not think of them. All that she sees is, that Cassio is unhappy:
"Be thou assured, good Cassio... My lord shall never rest;
I'll watch him, tame and talk him out of patience;
His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;
I'll intermingle everything he does
With Cassio's suit."[666]
She asks her favor:
"_Othello._ Not now, sweet Desdemona; some other time.
_Desdemona._ But shall't be shortly?
_O._ The sooner, sweet, for you.
_Des._ Shall't be to-night at supper?
_O._ No, not to-night.
_Des._ To-morrow dinner, then?
_O._ I shall not dine at home;
I meet the captains at the citadel.
_Des._ Why, then, to-morrow night; or Tuesday morn;
On Tuesday noon, or night; on Wednesday morn;
I prithee, name the time, but let it not
Exceed three days: in faith, he's penitent."[667]
She is somewhat astonished to see herself refused: she scolds Othello.
He yields: who would not yield seeing a reproach in those lovely sulking
eyes? O, says she, with a pretty pout:
"This is not a boon;
'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,
Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm,
Or sue to you to do peculiar profit
To your own person."[668]
A moment after, when he prays her to leave him alone for a while, mark
the innocent gayety, the ready observance, the playful child's tone:
"Shall I deny you? no: farewell, my lord....
Emilia, come: Be as your fancies teach you;
Whate'er you be, I am obedient."[669]
This vivacity, this petulance, does not prevent shrinking modesty and
silent timidity: on the contrary, they spring from a common cause,
extreme sensibility. She who feels much and quickly has more reserve and
more passion than others; she breaks out or is silent; she says nothing
or everything. Such is this Imogen.
"So tender of rebukes that words are strokes,
And strokes death to her."[670]
Such is Virgilia, the sweet wife of Coriolanus; her heart is not a Roman
one; she is terrified at her husband's victories: when Volumnia
describes him stamping on the field of battle, and wiping his bloody
brow with his hand, she grows pale:
"His bloody brow! O Jupiter, no blood!...
Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!"[671]
She wishes to forget all that she knows of these dangers; she dare not
think of them. When asked if Coriolanus does not generally return
wounded, she cries, "O, no, no, no." She avoids this cruel picture, and
yet nurses a secret pang at the bottom of her heart. She will not leave
the house: "I'll not over the threshold till my lord return."[672] She
does not smile, will hardly admit a visitor; she would blame herself, as
for a lack of tenderness, for a moment's forgetfulness or gayety. When
he does return, she can only blush and weep. This exalted sensibility
must needs end in love. All Shakespeare's women love without measure,
and nearly all at first sight. At the first look Juliet cast on Romeo,
she says to the nurse:
"Go, ask his name: if he be married,
My grave is like to be my wedding bed."[673]
It is the revelation of their destiny. As Shakespeare has made them,
they cannot but love, and they must love till death. But this first look
is an ecstasy: and this sudden approach of love is a transport. Miranda
seeing Fernando, fancies that she sees "a thing divine." She halts
motionless, in the amazement of this sudden vision, at the sound of
these heavenly harmonies which rise from the depths of her heart. She
weeps, on seeing him drag the heavy logs; with her slender white hands
she would do the work whilst he reposed. Her compassion and tenderness
carry her away; she is no longer mistress of her words, she says what
she would not, what her father has forbidden her to disclose, what an
instant before she would never have confessed. The too full heart
overflows unwittingly, happy, and ashamed at the current of joy and new
sensations with which an unknown feeling has flooded her:
"_Miranda._ I am a fool to weep at what I am glad of....
_Fernando._ Wherefore weep you?
_M._ At mine unworthiness that dare not offer
What I desire to give, and much less take
What I shall die to want....
I am your wife, if you will marry me;
If not, I'll die your maid."[674]
This irresistible invasion of love transforms the whole character. The
shrinking and tender Desdemona, suddenly, in full Senate, before her
father, renounces her father; dreams not for an instant of asking his
pardon, or consoling him. She will leave for Cyprus with Othello,
through the enemy's fleet and the tempest. Everything vanishes before
the one and adored image which has taken entire and absolute possession
of her whole heart. So, extreme evils, bloody resolves, are only the
natural sequence of such love. Ophelia becomes mad, Juliet commits
suicide; no one but looks upon such madness and death as necessary. You
will not then discover virtue in these souls, for by virtue is implied a
determinate desire to do good, and a rational observance of duty. They
are only pure through delicacy or love. They recoil from vice as a gross
thing, not as an immoral thing. What they feel is not respect for the
marriage vow, but adoration of their husband. "O sweetest, fairest
lily!" So Cymbeline speaks of one of these frail and lovely flowers
which cannot be torn from the tree to which they have grown, whose least
impurity would tarnish their whiteness. When Imogen learns that her
husband means to kill her as being faithless, she does not revolt at the
outrage; she has no pride, but only love. "False to his bed!" She faints
at the thought that she is no longer loved. When Cordelia hears her
father, an irritable old man, already almost insane, ask her how she
loves him, she cannot make up her mind to say aloud the flattering
protestations which her sisters have been lavishing. She is ashamed to
display her tenderness before the world, and to buy a dowry by it. He
disinherits her, and drives her away; she holds her tongue. And when she
afterwards finds him abandoned and mad, she goes on her knees before
him, with such a touching emotion, she weeps over that dear insulted
head with so gentle a pity, that you might fancy it was the tender voice
of a desolate but delighted mother, kissing the pale lips of her child:
"O yon kind gods,
Cure this great breach in his abused nature!
The untuned and jarring senses, O, wind up
Of this child-changed father!...
O my dear father! Restoration hang
Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!... Was this a face
To be opposed against the warring winds?
... Mine enemy's dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire....
How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?"[675]
If, in short, Shakespeare comes across a heroic character, worthy of
Corneille, a Roman, such as the mother of Coriolanus, he will explain by
passion what Corneille would have explained by heroism. He will depict
it violent and thirsting for the violent feelings of glory. She will not
be able to refrain herself. She will break out into accents of triumph
when she sees her son crowned; into imprecations of vengeance when she
sees him banished. She will descend to the vulgarities of pride and
anger; she will abandon herself to mad effusions of joy, to dreams of an
ambitious fancy,[676] and will prove once more that the impassioned
imagination of Shakespeare has left its trace in all the creatures whom
it has called forth.