THE TEMPEST
There can be little doubt that Shakespear was the most universal genius that ever lived. ‘Either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, scene individable or poem unlimited, he is the only man. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light for him.’ He has not only the same absolute command over our laughter and our tears, all the resources of passion, of wit, of thought, of observation, but he has the most unbounded range of fanciful invention, whether terrible or playful, the same insight into the world of imagination that he has into the world of reality; and over all there presides the same truth of character and nature, and the same spirit of humanity. His ideal beings are as true and natural as his real characters; that is, as consistent with themselves, or if we suppose such beings to exist at all, they could not act, speak, or feel otherwise than as he makes them. He has invented for them a language, manners, and sentiments of their own, from the tremendous imprecations of the Witches inMacbeth, when they do ‘a deed without a name,’ to the sylph-like expressions of Ariel, who ‘does his spiriting gently’; the mischievous tricks and gossipping of Robin Goodfellow, or the uncouth gabbling and emphatic gesticulations of Caliban in this play.
TheTempestis one of the most original and perfect of Shakespear’s productions, and he has shewn in it all the variety of his powers. It is full of grace and grandeur. The human and imaginary characters, the dramatic and the grotesque, are blended together with the greatest art, and without any appearance of it. Though he has here given ‘to airy nothing a local habitation and a name,’ yet that part which is only the fantastic creation of his mind, has the same palpable texture, and coheres ‘semblably’ with the rest. As the preternatural part has the air of reality, and almost haunts the imagination with a sense of truth, the real characters and events partake of the wildness of a dream. The stately magician, Prospero, driven from his dukedom, but around whom (so potent is his art) airy spirits throng numberless to do his bidding; his daughter Miranda (‘worthy of that name’) to whom all the power of his art points, and who seems the goddess of the isle; the princely Ferdinand, cast by fate upon the haven of his happiness in this idol of his love; the delicate Ariel; the savage Caliban, half brute, half demon; the drunken ship’s crew—are all connected parts of the story, and can hardly be spared from the place they fill. Even the local scenery is of a piece and character with the subject. Prospero’s enchanted island seems to have risen up out ofthe sea; the airy music, the tempest-tost vessel, the turbulent waves, all have the effect of the landscape background of some fine picture. Shakespear’s pencil is (to use an allusion of his own) ‘like the dyer’s hand, subdued to what it works in.’ Every thing in him, though it partakes of ‘the liberty of wit,’ is also subjected to ‘the law’ of the understanding. For instance, even the drunken sailors, who are made reeling-ripe, share, in the disorder of their minds and bodies, in the tumult of the elements, and seem on shore to be as much at the mercy of chance as they were before at the mercy of the winds and waves. These fellows with their sea-wit are the least to our taste of any part of the play: but they are as like drunken sailors as they can be, and are an indirect foil to Caliban, whose figure acquires a classical dignity in the comparison.
The character of Caliban is generally thought (and justly so) to be one of the author’s master-pieces. It is not indeed pleasant to see this character on the stage any more than it is to see the god Pan personated there. But in itself it is one of the wildest and most abstracted of all Shakespear’s characters, whose deformity whether of body or mind is redeemed by the power and truth of the imagination displayed in it. It is the essence of grossness, but there is not a particle of vulgarity in it. Shakespear has described the brutal mind of Caliban in contact with the pure and original forms of nature; the character grows out of the soil where it is rooted, uncontrouled, uncouth and wild, uncramped by any of the meannesses of custom. It is ‘of the earth, earthy.’ It seems almost to have been dug out of the ground, with a soul instinctively superadded to it answering to its wants and origin. Vulgarity is not natural coarseness, but conventional coarseness, learnt from others, contrary to, or without an entire conformity of natural power and disposition; as fashion is the common-place affectation of what is elegant and refined without any feeling of the essence of it. Schlegel, the admirable German critic on Shakespear, observes that Caliban is a poetical character, and ‘always speaks in blank verse.’ He first comes in thus:
‘Caliban.As wicked dew as e’er my mother brush’dWith raven’s feather from unwholesome fen,Drop on you both: a south-west blow on ye,And blister you all o’er!Prospero.For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchinsShall for that vast of night that they may work,All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinchedAs thick as honey-combs, each pinch more stingingThan bees that made them.Caliban.I must eat my dinner.This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother,Which thou tak’st from me. When thou camest first,Thou stroak’dst me, and mad’st much of me; would’st give meWater with berries in ‘t; and teach me howTo name the bigger light and how the lessThat burn by day and night; and then I lov’d thee,And shew’d thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle,The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile:Curs’d be I that I did so! All the charmsOf Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!For I am all the subjects that you have,Who first was mine own king; and here you sty meIn this hard rock, whiles you do keep from meThe rest o’ th’ island.’
‘Caliban.As wicked dew as e’er my mother brush’dWith raven’s feather from unwholesome fen,Drop on you both: a south-west blow on ye,And blister you all o’er!Prospero.For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchinsShall for that vast of night that they may work,All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinchedAs thick as honey-combs, each pinch more stingingThan bees that made them.Caliban.I must eat my dinner.This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother,Which thou tak’st from me. When thou camest first,Thou stroak’dst me, and mad’st much of me; would’st give meWater with berries in ‘t; and teach me howTo name the bigger light and how the lessThat burn by day and night; and then I lov’d thee,And shew’d thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle,The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile:Curs’d be I that I did so! All the charmsOf Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!For I am all the subjects that you have,Who first was mine own king; and here you sty meIn this hard rock, whiles you do keep from meThe rest o’ th’ island.’
‘Caliban.As wicked dew as e’er my mother brush’dWith raven’s feather from unwholesome fen,Drop on you both: a south-west blow on ye,And blister you all o’er!
‘Caliban.As wicked dew as e’er my mother brush’d
With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen,
Drop on you both: a south-west blow on ye,
And blister you all o’er!
Prospero.For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchinsShall for that vast of night that they may work,All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinchedAs thick as honey-combs, each pinch more stingingThan bees that made them.
Prospero.For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins
Shall for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinched
As thick as honey-combs, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made them.
Caliban.I must eat my dinner.This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother,Which thou tak’st from me. When thou camest first,Thou stroak’dst me, and mad’st much of me; would’st give meWater with berries in ‘t; and teach me howTo name the bigger light and how the lessThat burn by day and night; and then I lov’d thee,And shew’d thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle,The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile:Curs’d be I that I did so! All the charmsOf Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!For I am all the subjects that you have,Who first was mine own king; and here you sty meIn this hard rock, whiles you do keep from meThe rest o’ th’ island.’
Caliban.I must eat my dinner.
This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak’st from me. When thou camest first,
Thou stroak’dst me, and mad’st much of me; would’st give me
Water with berries in ‘t; and teach me how
To name the bigger light and how the less
That burn by day and night; and then I lov’d thee,
And shew’d thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile:
Curs’d be I that I did so! All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the subjects that you have,
Who first was mine own king; and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o’ th’ island.’
And again, he promises Trinculo his services thus, if he will free him from his drudgery.
‘I’ll shew thee the best springs; I’ll pluck thee berries,I’ll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.I pr’ythee let me bring thee where crabs grow,And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts:Shew thee a jay’s nest, and instruct thee howTo snare the nimble marmozet: I’ll bring theeTo clust’ring filberds; and sometimes I’ll get theeYoung scamels from the rock.’
‘I’ll shew thee the best springs; I’ll pluck thee berries,I’ll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.I pr’ythee let me bring thee where crabs grow,And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts:Shew thee a jay’s nest, and instruct thee howTo snare the nimble marmozet: I’ll bring theeTo clust’ring filberds; and sometimes I’ll get theeYoung scamels from the rock.’
‘I’ll shew thee the best springs; I’ll pluck thee berries,I’ll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.I pr’ythee let me bring thee where crabs grow,And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts:Shew thee a jay’s nest, and instruct thee howTo snare the nimble marmozet: I’ll bring theeTo clust’ring filberds; and sometimes I’ll get theeYoung scamels from the rock.’
‘I’ll shew thee the best springs; I’ll pluck thee berries,
I’ll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.
I pr’ythee let me bring thee where crabs grow,
And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts:
Shew thee a jay’s nest, and instruct thee how
To snare the nimble marmozet: I’ll bring thee
To clust’ring filberds; and sometimes I’ll get thee
Young scamels from the rock.’
In conducting Stephano and Trinculo to Prospero’s cell, Caliban shews the superiority of natural capacity over greater knowledge and greater folly; and in a former scene, when Ariel frightens them with his music, Caliban to encourage them accounts for it in the eloquent poetry of the senses.
—‘Be not afraid, the isle is full of noises,Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twanging instrumentsWill hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices,That if I then had waked after long sleep,Would make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,The clouds methought would open, and shew richesReady to drop upon me; when I wak’d,I cried to dream again.’
—‘Be not afraid, the isle is full of noises,Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twanging instrumentsWill hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices,That if I then had waked after long sleep,Would make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,The clouds methought would open, and shew richesReady to drop upon me; when I wak’d,I cried to dream again.’
—‘Be not afraid, the isle is full of noises,Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twanging instrumentsWill hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices,That if I then had waked after long sleep,Would make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,The clouds methought would open, and shew richesReady to drop upon me; when I wak’d,I cried to dream again.’
—‘Be not afraid, the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twanging instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices,
That if I then had waked after long sleep,
Would make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and shew riches
Ready to drop upon me; when I wak’d,
I cried to dream again.’
This is not more beautiful than it is true. The poet here shews us the savage with the simplicity of a child, and makes the strange monster amiable. Shakespear had to paint the human animal rude and without choice in its pleasures, but not without the sense ofpleasure or some germ of the affections. Master Barnardine inMeasure for Measure, the savage of civilized life, is an admirable philosophical counterpart to Caliban.
Shakespear has, as it were by design, drawn off from Caliban the elements of whatever is ethereal and refined, to compound them in the unearthly mould of Ariel. Nothing was ever more finely conceived than this contrast between the material and the spiritual, the gross and delicate. Ariel is imaginary power, the swiftness of thought personified. When told to make good speed by Prospero, he says, ‘I drink the air before me.’ This is something like Puck’s boast on a similar occasion, ‘I’ll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes.’ But Ariel differs from Puck in having a fellow feeling in the interests of those he is employed about. How exquisite is the following dialogue between him and Prospero!
‘Ariel.Your charm so strongly works ‘em,That if you now beheld them, your affectionsWould become tender.Prospero.Dost thou think so, spirit?Ariel.Mine would, sir, were I human.Prospero.And mine shall.Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feelingOf their afflictions, and shall not myself,One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,Passion’d as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?’
‘Ariel.Your charm so strongly works ‘em,That if you now beheld them, your affectionsWould become tender.Prospero.Dost thou think so, spirit?Ariel.Mine would, sir, were I human.Prospero.And mine shall.Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feelingOf their afflictions, and shall not myself,One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,Passion’d as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?’
‘Ariel.Your charm so strongly works ‘em,That if you now beheld them, your affectionsWould become tender.
‘Ariel.Your charm so strongly works ‘em,
That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.
Prospero.Dost thou think so, spirit?
Prospero.Dost thou think so, spirit?
Ariel.Mine would, sir, were I human.
Ariel.Mine would, sir, were I human.
Prospero.And mine shall.Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feelingOf their afflictions, and shall not myself,One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,Passion’d as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?’
Prospero.And mine shall.
Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
Passion’d as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?’
It has been observed that there is a peculiar charm in the songs introduced in Shakespear, which, without conveying any distinct images, seem to recall all the feelings connected with them, like snatches of half-forgotten music heard indistinctly and at intervals. There is this effect produced by Ariel’s songs, which (as we are told) seem to sound in the air, and as if the person playing them were invisible. We shall give one instance out of many of this general power.
‘EnterFerdinand;andArielinvisible, playing and singing.
‘EnterFerdinand;andArielinvisible, playing and singing.
‘EnterFerdinand;andArielinvisible, playing and singing.
ARIEL’S SONG.Come unto these yellow sands,And then take hands;Curt’sied when you have, and kiss’d,(The wild waves whist;)Foot it featly here and there;And sweet sprites the burden bear.|[Burden dispersedly.|Hark, hark! bowgh-wowgh: the watch-dogs bark,Bowgh-wowgh.Ariel.Hark, hark! I hearThe strain of strutting chanticleerCry cock-a-doodle-doo.Ferdinand.Where should this music be? i’ the air or the earth?It sounds no more: and sure it waits uponSome god o’ th’ island. Sitting on a bankWeeping against the king my father’s wreck,This music crept by me upon the waters,Allaying both their fury and my passionWith its sweet air; thence I have follow’d it,Or it hath drawn me rather:—but ’tis gone.—No, it begins again.ARIEL’S SONG.Full fathom five thy father lies,Of his bones are coral made:Those are pearls that were his eyes,Nothing of him that doth fade,But doth suffer a sea change,Into something rich and strange.Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell—Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong bell.|[Burden ding-dong.|Ferdinand.The ditty does remember my drown’d father.This is no mortal business, nor no soundThat the earth owes: I hear it now above me.’—
ARIEL’S SONG.Come unto these yellow sands,And then take hands;Curt’sied when you have, and kiss’d,(The wild waves whist;)Foot it featly here and there;And sweet sprites the burden bear.|[Burden dispersedly.|Hark, hark! bowgh-wowgh: the watch-dogs bark,Bowgh-wowgh.Ariel.Hark, hark! I hearThe strain of strutting chanticleerCry cock-a-doodle-doo.Ferdinand.Where should this music be? i’ the air or the earth?It sounds no more: and sure it waits uponSome god o’ th’ island. Sitting on a bankWeeping against the king my father’s wreck,This music crept by me upon the waters,Allaying both their fury and my passionWith its sweet air; thence I have follow’d it,Or it hath drawn me rather:—but ’tis gone.—No, it begins again.ARIEL’S SONG.Full fathom five thy father lies,Of his bones are coral made:Those are pearls that were his eyes,Nothing of him that doth fade,But doth suffer a sea change,Into something rich and strange.Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell—Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong bell.|[Burden ding-dong.|Ferdinand.The ditty does remember my drown’d father.This is no mortal business, nor no soundThat the earth owes: I hear it now above me.’—
ARIEL’S SONG.
ARIEL’S SONG.
Come unto these yellow sands,And then take hands;Curt’sied when you have, and kiss’d,(The wild waves whist;)Foot it featly here and there;And sweet sprites the burden bear.|[Burden dispersedly.|Hark, hark! bowgh-wowgh: the watch-dogs bark,Bowgh-wowgh.
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands;
Curt’sied when you have, and kiss’d,
(The wild waves whist;)
Foot it featly here and there;
And sweet sprites the burden bear.
|[Burden dispersedly.|
Hark, hark! bowgh-wowgh: the watch-dogs bark,
Bowgh-wowgh.
Ariel.Hark, hark! I hearThe strain of strutting chanticleerCry cock-a-doodle-doo.
Ariel.Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry cock-a-doodle-doo.
Ferdinand.Where should this music be? i’ the air or the earth?It sounds no more: and sure it waits uponSome god o’ th’ island. Sitting on a bankWeeping against the king my father’s wreck,This music crept by me upon the waters,Allaying both their fury and my passionWith its sweet air; thence I have follow’d it,Or it hath drawn me rather:—but ’tis gone.—No, it begins again.
Ferdinand.Where should this music be? i’ the air or the earth?
It sounds no more: and sure it waits upon
Some god o’ th’ island. Sitting on a bank
Weeping against the king my father’s wreck,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air; thence I have follow’d it,
Or it hath drawn me rather:—but ’tis gone.—
No, it begins again.
ARIEL’S SONG.
ARIEL’S SONG.
Full fathom five thy father lies,Of his bones are coral made:Those are pearls that were his eyes,Nothing of him that doth fade,But doth suffer a sea change,Into something rich and strange.Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell—Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong bell.|[Burden ding-dong.|
Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea change,
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell—
Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong bell.
|[Burden ding-dong.|
Ferdinand.The ditty does remember my drown’d father.This is no mortal business, nor no soundThat the earth owes: I hear it now above me.’—
Ferdinand.The ditty does remember my drown’d father.
This is no mortal business, nor no sound
That the earth owes: I hear it now above me.’—
The courtship between Ferdinand and Miranda is one of the chief beauties of this play. It is the very purity of love. The pretended interference of Prospero with it heightens its interest, and is in character with the magician, whose sense of preternatural power makes him arbitrary, tetchy, and impatient of opposition.
TheTempestis a finer play than theMidsummer Night’s Dream, which has sometimes been compared with it; but it is not so fine a poem. There are a greater number of beautiful passages in the latter. Two of the most striking in theTempestare spoken by Prospero. The one is that admirable one when the vision which he has conjured up disappears, beginning ‘The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,’ etc., which has been so often quoted, that every school-boy knows it by heart; the other is that which Prospero makes in abjuring his art.
‘Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,And ye that on the sands with printless footDo chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly himWhen he comes back; you demi-puppets, thatBy moon-shine do the green sour ringlets make,Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastimeIs to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoiceTo hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid(Weak masters tho’ ye be) I have be-dimm’dThe noon-tide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,And ‘twixt the green sea and the azur’d vaultSet roaring war; to the dread rattling thunderHave I giv’n fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oakWith his own bolt; the strong-bas’d promontoryHave I made shake, and by the spurs pluck’d upThe pine and cedar: graves at my commandHave wak’d their sleepers; oped, and let ‘em forthBy my so potent art. But this rough magicI here abjure; and when I have requir’dSome heavenly music, which even now I do,(To work mine end upon their senses thatThis airy charm is for) I’ll break my staff,Bury it certain fadoms in the earth,And deeper than did ever plummet sound,I’ll drown my book.’—
‘Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,And ye that on the sands with printless footDo chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly himWhen he comes back; you demi-puppets, thatBy moon-shine do the green sour ringlets make,Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastimeIs to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoiceTo hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid(Weak masters tho’ ye be) I have be-dimm’dThe noon-tide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,And ‘twixt the green sea and the azur’d vaultSet roaring war; to the dread rattling thunderHave I giv’n fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oakWith his own bolt; the strong-bas’d promontoryHave I made shake, and by the spurs pluck’d upThe pine and cedar: graves at my commandHave wak’d their sleepers; oped, and let ‘em forthBy my so potent art. But this rough magicI here abjure; and when I have requir’dSome heavenly music, which even now I do,(To work mine end upon their senses thatThis airy charm is for) I’ll break my staff,Bury it certain fadoms in the earth,And deeper than did ever plummet sound,I’ll drown my book.’—
‘Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,And ye that on the sands with printless footDo chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly himWhen he comes back; you demi-puppets, thatBy moon-shine do the green sour ringlets make,Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastimeIs to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoiceTo hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid(Weak masters tho’ ye be) I have be-dimm’dThe noon-tide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,And ‘twixt the green sea and the azur’d vaultSet roaring war; to the dread rattling thunderHave I giv’n fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oakWith his own bolt; the strong-bas’d promontoryHave I made shake, and by the spurs pluck’d upThe pine and cedar: graves at my commandHave wak’d their sleepers; oped, and let ‘em forthBy my so potent art. But this rough magicI here abjure; and when I have requir’dSome heavenly music, which even now I do,(To work mine end upon their senses thatThis airy charm is for) I’ll break my staff,Bury it certain fadoms in the earth,And deeper than did ever plummet sound,I’ll drown my book.’—
‘Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets, that
By moon-shine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid
(Weak masters tho’ ye be) I have be-dimm’d
The noon-tide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,
And ‘twixt the green sea and the azur’d vault
Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder
Have I giv’n fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-bas’d promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck’d up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have wak’d their sleepers; oped, and let ‘em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure; and when I have requir’d
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
(To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for) I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fadoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound,
I’ll drown my book.’—
We must not forget to mention among other things in this play, that Shakespear has anticipated nearly all the arguments on the Utopian schemes of modern philosophy.
‘Gonzalo.Had I the plantation of this isle, my lord—Antonio.He’d sow it with nettle-seed.Sebastian.Or docks or mallows.Gonzalo.And were the king on’t, what would I do?Sebastian.‘Scape being drunk, for want of wine.Gonzalo.I’ the commonwealth I would by contrariesExecute all things: for no kind of trafficWould I admit; no name of magistrate;Letters should not be known; wealth, poverty,And use of service, none; contract, succession,Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;No occupation, all men idle, all,And women too; but innocent and pure:No sovereignty.Sebastian.And yet he would be king on ‘t.Antonio.The latter end of his commonwealth forgets thebeginning.Gonzalo.All things in common nature should produceWithout sweat or endeavour. Treason, felony,Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engineWould I not have; but nature should bring forth,Of its own kind, all foizon, all abundanceTo feed my innocent people!Sebastian.No marrying ‘mong his subjects?Antonio.None, man; all idle; whores and knaves.Gonzalo.I would with such perfection govern, sir,To excel the golden age.Sebastian.Save his majesty!’
‘Gonzalo.Had I the plantation of this isle, my lord—Antonio.He’d sow it with nettle-seed.Sebastian.Or docks or mallows.Gonzalo.And were the king on’t, what would I do?Sebastian.‘Scape being drunk, for want of wine.Gonzalo.I’ the commonwealth I would by contrariesExecute all things: for no kind of trafficWould I admit; no name of magistrate;Letters should not be known; wealth, poverty,And use of service, none; contract, succession,Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;No occupation, all men idle, all,And women too; but innocent and pure:No sovereignty.Sebastian.And yet he would be king on ‘t.Antonio.The latter end of his commonwealth forgets thebeginning.Gonzalo.All things in common nature should produceWithout sweat or endeavour. Treason, felony,Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engineWould I not have; but nature should bring forth,Of its own kind, all foizon, all abundanceTo feed my innocent people!Sebastian.No marrying ‘mong his subjects?Antonio.None, man; all idle; whores and knaves.Gonzalo.I would with such perfection govern, sir,To excel the golden age.Sebastian.Save his majesty!’
‘Gonzalo.Had I the plantation of this isle, my lord—
‘Gonzalo.Had I the plantation of this isle, my lord—
Antonio.He’d sow it with nettle-seed.
Antonio.He’d sow it with nettle-seed.
Sebastian.Or docks or mallows.
Sebastian.Or docks or mallows.
Gonzalo.And were the king on’t, what would I do?
Gonzalo.And were the king on’t, what would I do?
Sebastian.‘Scape being drunk, for want of wine.
Sebastian.‘Scape being drunk, for want of wine.
Gonzalo.I’ the commonwealth I would by contrariesExecute all things: for no kind of trafficWould I admit; no name of magistrate;Letters should not be known; wealth, poverty,And use of service, none; contract, succession,Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;No occupation, all men idle, all,And women too; but innocent and pure:No sovereignty.
Gonzalo.I’ the commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things: for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; wealth, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
No occupation, all men idle, all,
And women too; but innocent and pure:
No sovereignty.
Sebastian.And yet he would be king on ‘t.
Sebastian.And yet he would be king on ‘t.
Antonio.The latter end of his commonwealth forgets thebeginning.
Antonio.The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the
beginning.
Gonzalo.All things in common nature should produceWithout sweat or endeavour. Treason, felony,Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engineWould I not have; but nature should bring forth,Of its own kind, all foizon, all abundanceTo feed my innocent people!
Gonzalo.All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour. Treason, felony,
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine
Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
Of its own kind, all foizon, all abundance
To feed my innocent people!
Sebastian.No marrying ‘mong his subjects?
Sebastian.No marrying ‘mong his subjects?
Antonio.None, man; all idle; whores and knaves.
Antonio.None, man; all idle; whores and knaves.
Gonzalo.I would with such perfection govern, sir,To excel the golden age.
Gonzalo.I would with such perfection govern, sir,
To excel the golden age.
Sebastian.Save his majesty!’
Sebastian.Save his majesty!’
Bottom the Weaver is a character that has not had justice done him. He is the most romantic of mechanics. And what a list of companions he has—Quince the Carpenter, Snug the Joiner, Flute the Bellows-mender, Snout the Tinker, Starveling the Tailor; and then again, what a group of fairy attendants, Puck, Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed! It has been observed that Shakespear’s characters are constructed upon deep physiological principles; and there is something in this play which looks very like it. Bottom the Weaver, who takes the lead of
‘This crew of patches, rude mechanicals,That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,’
‘This crew of patches, rude mechanicals,That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,’
‘This crew of patches, rude mechanicals,That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,’
‘This crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,’
follows a sedentary trade, and he is accordingly represented as conceited, serious, and fantastical. He is ready to undertake any thing and every thing, as if it was as much a matter of course as the motion of his loom and shuttle. He is for playing the tyrant, the lover, the lady, the lion. ‘He will roar that it shall do any man’s heart good to hear him’; and this being objected to as improper, he still has a resource in his good opinion of himself, and ‘will roar you an ‘twere any nightingale.’ Snug the Joiner is the moral man of the piece, who proceeds by measurement and discretion in all things. You see him with his rule and compasses in his hand. ‘Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.’ ‘You may do it extempore,’ says Quince, ‘for it is nothing but roaring.’ Starveling the Tailor keeps the peace, and objects to the lion and the drawn sword. ‘I believe we must leave the killing out when all’s done.’ Starveling, however, does not start the objections himself, but seconds them when made by others, as if he had not spirit to express his fears without encouragement. It is too much to suppose all this intentional: but it very luckily falls out so. Nature includes all that is implied in the most subtle analytical distinctions; and the same distinctions will be found in Shakespear. Bottom, whois not only chief actor, but stage-manager for the occasion, has a device to obviate the danger of frightening the ladies: ‘Write me a prologue, and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and for better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom the Weaver: this will put them out of fear.’ Bottom seems to have understood the subject of dramatic illusion at least as well as any modern essayist. If our holiday mechanic rules the roast among his fellows, he is no less at home in his new character of an ass, ‘with amiable cheeks, and fair large ears.’ He instinctively acquires a most learned taste, and grows fastidious in the choice of dried peas and bottled hay. He is quite familiar with his new attendants, and assigns them their parts with all due gravity. ‘Monsieur Cobweb, good Monsieur, get your weapon in your hand, and kill me a red-hipt humble bee on the top of a thistle, and, good Monsieur, bring me the honey-bag.’ What an exact knowledge is here shewn of natural history!
Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is the leader of the fairy band. He is the Ariel of theMidsummer Night’s Dream; and yet as unlike as can be to the Ariel inThe Tempest. No other poet could have made two such different characters out of the same fanciful materials and situations. Ariel is a minister of retribution, who is touched with the sense of pity at the woes he inflicts. Puck is a mad-cap sprite, full of wantonness and mischief, who laughs at those whom he misleads—‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’ Ariel cleaves the air, and executes his mission with the zeal of a winged messenger; Puck is borne along on his fairy errand like the light and glittering gossamer before the breeze. He is, indeed, a most Epicurean little gentleman, dealing in quaint devices, and faring in dainty delights. Prospero and his world of spirits are a set of moralists: but with Oberon and his fairies we are launched at once into the empire of the butterflies. How beautifully is this race of beings contrasted with the men and women actors in the scene, by a single epithet which Titania gives to the latter, ‘the human mortals!’ It is astonishing that Shakespear should be considered, not only by foreigners, but by many of our own critics, as a gloomy and heavy writer, who painted nothing but ‘gorgons and hydras, and chimeras dire.’ His subtlety exceeds that of all other dramatic writers, insomuch that a celebrated person of the present day said that he regarded him rather as a metaphysician than a poet. His delicacy and sportive gaiety are infinite. In theMidsummer Night’s Dreamalone, we should imagine, there is more sweetness and beauty of description than in the whole range of French poetry put together. What we mean is this, that we will produceout of that single play ten passages, to which we do not think any ten passages in the works of the French poets can be opposed, displaying equal fancy and imagery. Shall we mention the remonstrance of Helena to Hermia, or Titania’s description of her fairy train, or her disputes with Oberon about the Indian boy, or Puck’s account of himself and his employments, or the Fairy Queen’s exhortation to the elves to pay due attendance upon her favourite, Bottom; or Hippolita’s description of a chace, or Theseus’s answer? The two last are as heroical and spirited as the others are full of luscious tenderness. The reading of this play is like wandering in a grove by moonlight: the descriptions breathe a sweetness like odours thrown from beds of flowers.
Titania’s exhortation to the fairies to wait upon Bottom, which is remarkable for a certain cloying sweetness in the repetition of the rhymes, is as follows:—
‘Be kind and courteous to this gentleman.Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes,Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,With purple grapes, green figs and mulberries;The honey-bags steal from the humble bees,And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs,And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,To have my love to bed, and to arise:And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes;Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.’
‘Be kind and courteous to this gentleman.Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes,Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,With purple grapes, green figs and mulberries;The honey-bags steal from the humble bees,And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs,And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,To have my love to bed, and to arise:And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes;Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.’
‘Be kind and courteous to this gentleman.Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes,Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,With purple grapes, green figs and mulberries;The honey-bags steal from the humble bees,And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs,And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,To have my love to bed, and to arise:And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes;Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.’
‘Be kind and courteous to this gentleman.
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes,
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs and mulberries;
The honey-bags steal from the humble bees,
And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,
To have my love to bed, and to arise:
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes;
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.’
The sounds of the lute and of the trumpet are not more distinct than the poetry of the foregoing passage, and of the conversation between Theseus and Hippolita.
‘Theseus.Go, one of you, find out the forester,For now our observation is perform’d;And since we have the vaward of the day,My love shall hear the music of my hounds.Uncouple in the western valley, go,Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain’s top,And mark the musical confusionOf hounds and echo in conjunction.Hippolita.I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bearWith hounds of Sparta; never did I hearSuch gallant chiding. For besides the groves,The skies, the fountains, every region nearSeem’d all one mutual cry. I never heardSo musical a discord, such sweet thunder.Theseus.My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,So flew’d, so sanded, and their heads are hungWith ears that sweep away the morning dew;Crook-knee’d and dew-lap’d, like Thessalian bulls.Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,Each under each. A cry more tuneableWas never halloo’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:Judge when you hear.’—
‘Theseus.Go, one of you, find out the forester,For now our observation is perform’d;And since we have the vaward of the day,My love shall hear the music of my hounds.Uncouple in the western valley, go,Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain’s top,And mark the musical confusionOf hounds and echo in conjunction.Hippolita.I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bearWith hounds of Sparta; never did I hearSuch gallant chiding. For besides the groves,The skies, the fountains, every region nearSeem’d all one mutual cry. I never heardSo musical a discord, such sweet thunder.Theseus.My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,So flew’d, so sanded, and their heads are hungWith ears that sweep away the morning dew;Crook-knee’d and dew-lap’d, like Thessalian bulls.Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,Each under each. A cry more tuneableWas never halloo’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:Judge when you hear.’—
‘Theseus.Go, one of you, find out the forester,For now our observation is perform’d;And since we have the vaward of the day,My love shall hear the music of my hounds.Uncouple in the western valley, go,Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain’s top,And mark the musical confusionOf hounds and echo in conjunction.
‘Theseus.Go, one of you, find out the forester,
For now our observation is perform’d;
And since we have the vaward of the day,
My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
Uncouple in the western valley, go,
Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.
We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain’s top,
And mark the musical confusion
Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
Hippolita.I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bearWith hounds of Sparta; never did I hearSuch gallant chiding. For besides the groves,The skies, the fountains, every region nearSeem’d all one mutual cry. I never heardSo musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
Hippolita.I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
When in a wood of Crete they bay’d the bear
With hounds of Sparta; never did I hear
Such gallant chiding. For besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem’d all one mutual cry. I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
Theseus.My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,So flew’d, so sanded, and their heads are hungWith ears that sweep away the morning dew;Crook-knee’d and dew-lap’d, like Thessalian bulls.Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,Each under each. A cry more tuneableWas never halloo’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:Judge when you hear.’—
Theseus.My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew’d, so sanded, and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-knee’d and dew-lap’d, like Thessalian bulls.
Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Was never halloo’d to, nor cheer’d with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:
Judge when you hear.’—
Even Titian never made a hunting-piece of agustoso fresh and lusty, and so near the first ages of the world as this.—
It had been suggested to us, that theMidsummer Night’s Dreamwould do admirably to get up as a Christmas after-piece; and our prompter proposed that Mr. Kean should play the part of Bottom, as worthy of his great talents. He might, in the discharge of his duty, offer to play the lady like any of our actresses that he pleased, the lover or the tyrant like any of our actors that he pleased, and the lion like ‘the most fearful wild-fowl living.’ The carpenter, the tailor, and joiner, it was thought, would hit the galleries. The young ladies in love would interest the side-boxes; and Robin Goodfellow and his companions excite a lively fellow-feeling in the children from school. There would be two courts, an empire within an empire, the Athenian and the Fairy King and Queen, with their attendants, and with all their finery. What an opportunity for processions, for the sound of trumpets and glittering of spears! What a fluttering of urchins’ painted wings; what a delightful profusion of gauze clouds and airy spirits floating on them!
Alas the experiment has been tried, and has failed; not through the fault of Mr. Kean, who did not play the part of Bottom, nor of Mr. Liston, who did, and who played it well, but from the nature of things. TheMidsummer Night’s Dream, when acted, is converted from a delightful fiction into a dull pantomime. All that is finest in the play is lost in the representation. The spectacle was grand: but the spirit was evaporated, the genius was fled.—Poetry and the stage do not agree well together. The attempt to reconcile them in this instance fails not only of effect, but of decorum. Theidealcan have no place upon the stage, which is a picture without perspective; everything there is in the foreground. That which was merely an airy shape, a dream, a passing thought, immediately becomes an unmanageable reality. Where all is left to the imagination (as is the case in reading) every circumstance, near or remote, has an equal chance of being kept in mind, and tells according to the mixed impression of all that has been suggested. But the imagination cannotsufficiently qualify the actual impressions of the senses. Any offence given to the eye is not to be got rid of by explanation. Thus Bottom’s head in the play is a fantastic illusion, produced by magic spells: on the stage it is an ass’s head, and nothing more; certainly a very strange costume for a gentleman to appear in. Fancy cannot be embodied any more than a simile can be painted; and it is as idle to attempt it as to personateWallorMoonshine. Fairies are not incredible, but fairies six feet high are so. Monsters are not shocking, if they are seen at a proper distance. When ghosts appear at mid-day, when apparitions stalk along Cheapside, then may theMidsummer Night’s Dreambe represented without injury at Covent Garden or at Drury Lane. The boards of a theatre and the regions of fancy are not the same thing.
Romeo and Julietis the only tragedy which Shakespear has written entirely on a love-story. It is supposed to have been his first play, and it deserves to stand in that proud rank. There is the buoyant spirit of youth in every line, in the rapturous intoxication of hope, and in the bitterness of despair. It has been said ofRomeo and Julietby a great critic, that ‘whatever is most intoxicating in the odour of a southern spring, languishing in the song of the nightingale, or voluptuous in the first opening of the rose, is to be found in this poem.’ The description is true; and yet it does not answer to our idea of the play. For if it has the sweetness of the rose, it has its freshness too; if it has the languor of the nightingale’s song, it has also its giddy transport; if it has the softness of a southern spring, it is as glowing and as bright. There is nothing of a sickly and sentimental cast. Romeo and Juliet are in love, but they are not love-sick. Every thing speaks the very soul of pleasure, the high and healthy pulse of the passions: the heart beats, the blood circulates and mantles throughout. Their courtship is not an insipid interchange of sentiments lip-deep, learnt at second-hand from poems and plays,—made up of beauties of the most shadowy kind, of ‘fancies wan that hang the pensive head,’ of evanescent smiles, and sighs that breathe not, of delicacy that shrinks from the touch, and feebleness that scarce supports itself, an elaborate vacuity of thought, and an artificial dearth of sense, spirit, truth, and nature! It is the reverse of all this. It is Shakespear all over, and Shakespear when he was young.
We have heard it objected toRomeo and Juliet, that it is founded on an idle passion between a boy and a girl, who have scarcely seen and can have but little sympathy or rational esteem for one another, who have had no experience of the good or ills of life, and whose raptures or despair must be therefore equally groundless and fantastical. Whoever objects to the youth of the parties in this play as ‘too unripe and crude’ to pluck the sweets of love, and wishes to see a first-love carried on into a good old age, and the passions taken at the rebound, when their force is spent, may find all this done in theStrangerand in other German plays, where they do things by contraries, and transpose nature to inspire sentiment and create philosophy. Shakespear proceeded in a more strait-forward, and, we think, effectual way. He did not endeavour to extract beauty from wrinkles, or the wild throb of passion from the last expiring sigh of indifference. He did not ‘gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles.’ It was not his way. But he has given a picture of human life, such as it is in the order of nature. He has founded the passion of the two lovers not on the pleasures they had experienced, but on all the pleasures they hadnotexperienced. All that was to come of life was theirs. At that untried source of promised happiness they slaked their thirst, and the first eager draught made them drunk with love and joy. They were in full possession of their senses and their affections. Their hopes were of air, their desires of fire. Youth is the season of love, because the heart is then first melted in tenderness from the touch of novelty, and kindled to rapture, for it knows no end of its enjoyments or its wishes. Desire has no limit but itself. Passion, the love and expectation of pleasure, is infinite, extravagant, inexhaustible, till experience comes to check and kill it. Juliet exclaims on her first interview with Romeo—
‘My bounty is as boundless as the sea,My love as deep.’
‘My bounty is as boundless as the sea,My love as deep.’
‘My bounty is as boundless as the sea,My love as deep.’
‘My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep.’
And why should it not? 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 and her senses had just tasted, but indifference which she was yet a stranger to? What was there to check the ardour of hope, of faith, of constancy, just rising in her breast, but disappointment which she had not yet felt! As are the desires and the hopes of youthful passion, such is the keenness of its disappointments, and their baleful effect. Such is the transition in this play from the highest bliss to the lowest despair, from the nuptial couch to anuntimely grave. The only evil that even in apprehension befalls the two lovers is the loss of the greatest possible felicity; yet this loss is fatal to both, for they had rather part with life than bear the thought of surviving all that had made life dear to them. In all this, Shakespear has but followed nature, which existed in his time, as well as now. The modern philosophy, which reduces the whole theory of the mind to habitual impressions, and leaves the natural impulses of passion and imagination out of the account, had not then been discovered; or if it had, would have been little calculated for the uses of poetry.
It is the inadequacy of the same false system of philosophy to account for the strength of our earliest attachments, which has led Mr. Wordsworth to indulge in the mystical visions of Platonism in his Ode on the Progress of Life. He has very admirably described the vividness of our impressions in youth and childhood, and how ‘they fade by degrees into the light of common day,’ and he ascribes the change to the supposition of a pre-existent state, as if our early thoughts were nearer heaven, reflections of former trails of glory, shadows of our past being. This is idle. It is not from the knowledge of the past that the first impressions of things derive their gloss and splendour, but from our ignorance of the future, which fills the void to come with the warmth of our desires, with our gayest hopes, and brightest fancies. It is the obscurity spread before it that colours the prospect of life with hope, as it is the cloud which reflects the rainbow. There is no occasion to resort to any mystical union and transmission of feeling through different states of being to account for the romantic enthusiasm of youth; nor to plant the root of hope in the grave, nor to derive it from the skies. Its root is in the heart of man: it lifts its head above the stars. Desire and imagination are inmates of the human breast. The heaven ‘that lies about us in our infancy’ is only a new world, of which we know nothing but what we wish it to be, and believe all that we wish. In youth and boyhood, the world we live in is the world of desire, and of fancy: it is experience that brings us down to the world of reality. What is it that in youth sheds a dewy light round the evening star? That makes the daisy look so bright? That perfumes the hyacinth? That embalms the first kiss of love? It is the delight of novelty, and the seeing no end to the pleasure that we fondly believe is still in store for us. The heart revels in the luxury of its own thoughts, and is unable to sustain the weight of hope and love that presses upon it.—The effects of the passion of love alone might have dissipated Mr. Wordsworth’s theory, if he means any thing more by it than an ingenious and poetical allegory.Thatat least is not a link in thechain let down from other worlds; ‘the purple light of love’ is not a dim reflection of the smiles of celestial bliss. It does not appear till the middle of life, and then seems like ‘another morn risen on mid-day.’ In this respect the soul comes into the world ‘in utter nakedness.’ Love waits for the ripening of the youthful blood. The sense of pleasure precedes the love of pleasure, but with the sense of pleasure, as soon as it is felt, come thronging infinite desires and hopes of pleasure, and love is mature as soon as born. It withers and it dies almost as soon!
This play presents a beautifulcoup-d’œilof the progress of human life. In thought it occupies years, and embraces the circle of the affections from childhood to old age. Juliet has become a great girl, a young woman since we first remember her a little thing in the idle prattle of the nurse. Lady Capulet was about her age when she became a mother, and old Capulet somewhat impatiently tells his younger visitors,
——‘I’ve seen the day,That I have worn a visor, and could tellA whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear,Such as would please: ’tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone.’
——‘I’ve seen the day,That I have worn a visor, and could tellA whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear,Such as would please: ’tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone.’
——‘I’ve seen the day,That I have worn a visor, and could tellA whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear,Such as would please: ’tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone.’
——‘I’ve seen the day,
That I have worn a visor, and could tell
A whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear,
Such as would please: ’tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone.’
Thus one period of life makes way for the following, and one generation pushes another off the stage. One of the most striking passages to show the intense feeling of youth in this play is Capulet’s invitation to Paris to visit his entertainment.
‘At my poor house, look to behold this nightEarth-treading stars that make dark heav’n light;Such comfort as do lusty young men feelWhen well-apparel’d April on the heelOf limping winter treads, even such delightAmong fresh female-buds shall you this nightInherit at my house.’
‘At my poor house, look to behold this nightEarth-treading stars that make dark heav’n light;Such comfort as do lusty young men feelWhen well-apparel’d April on the heelOf limping winter treads, even such delightAmong fresh female-buds shall you this nightInherit at my house.’
‘At my poor house, look to behold this nightEarth-treading stars that make dark heav’n light;Such comfort as do lusty young men feelWhen well-apparel’d April on the heelOf limping winter treads, even such delightAmong fresh female-buds shall you this nightInherit at my house.’
‘At my poor house, look to behold this night
Earth-treading stars that make dark heav’n light;
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
When well-apparel’d April on the heel
Of limping winter treads, even such delight
Among fresh female-buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house.’
The feelings of youth and of the spring are here blended together like the breath of opening flowers. Images of vernal beauty appear to have floated before the author’s mind, in writing this poem, in profusion. Here is another of exquisite beauty, brought in more by accident than by necessity. Montague declares of his son smit with a hopeless passion, which he will not reveal—
‘But he, his own affection’s counsellor,Is to himself so secret and so close,So far from sounding and discovery,As is the bud bit with an envious worm,Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.’
‘But he, his own affection’s counsellor,Is to himself so secret and so close,So far from sounding and discovery,As is the bud bit with an envious worm,Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.’
‘But he, his own affection’s counsellor,Is to himself so secret and so close,So far from sounding and discovery,As is the bud bit with an envious worm,Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.’
‘But he, his own affection’s counsellor,
Is to himself so secret and so close,
So far from sounding and discovery,
As is the bud bit with an envious worm,
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.’
This casual description is as full of passionate beauty as when Romeo dwells in frantic fondness on ‘the white wonder of his Juliet’s hand.’ The reader may, if he pleases, contrast the exquisite pastoral simplicity of the above lines with the gorgeous description of Juliet when Romeo first sees her at her father’s house, surrounded by company and artificial splendour.
‘What lady’s that which doth enrich the handOf yonder knight?O she doth teach the torches to burn bright;Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night,Like a rich jewel in an Æthiop’s ear.’
‘What lady’s that which doth enrich the handOf yonder knight?O she doth teach the torches to burn bright;Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night,Like a rich jewel in an Æthiop’s ear.’
‘What lady’s that which doth enrich the handOf yonder knight?O she doth teach the torches to burn bright;Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night,Like a rich jewel in an Æthiop’s ear.’
‘What lady’s that which doth enrich the hand
Of yonder knight?
O she doth teach the torches to burn bright;
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night,
Like a rich jewel in an Æthiop’s ear.’
It would be hard to say which of the two garden scenes is the finest, that where he first converses with his love, or takes leave of her the morning after their marriage. Both are like a heaven upon earth; the blissful bowers of Paradise let down upon this lower world. We will give only one passage of these well known scenes to shew the perfect refinement and delicacy of Shakespear’s conception of the female character. It is wonderful how Collins, who was a critic and a poet of great sensibility, should have encouraged the common error on this subject by saying—‘But stronger Shakespear felt for man alone.’
The passage we mean is Juliet’s apology for her maiden boldness.
‘Thou know’st the mask of night is on my face;Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheekFor that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain denyWhat I have spoke—but farewel compliment:Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say, ay,And I will take thee at thy word—Yet if thou swear’st,Thou may’st prove false; at lovers’ perjuriesThey say Jove laughs. Oh gentle Romeo,If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully;Or if thou think 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 ‘haviour light;But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove more trueThan those that have more cunning to be strange.I should have been more strange, I must confessBut that thou over-heard’st, ere I was ware,My true love’s passion; therefore pardon me,And not impute this yielding to light love,Which the dark night hath so discovered.’
‘Thou know’st the mask of night is on my face;Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheekFor that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain denyWhat I have spoke—but farewel compliment:Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say, ay,And I will take thee at thy word—Yet if thou swear’st,Thou may’st prove false; at lovers’ perjuriesThey say Jove laughs. Oh gentle Romeo,If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully;Or if thou think 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 ‘haviour light;But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove more trueThan those that have more cunning to be strange.I should have been more strange, I must confessBut that thou over-heard’st, ere I was ware,My true love’s passion; therefore pardon me,And not impute this yielding to light love,Which the dark night hath so discovered.’
‘Thou know’st the mask of night is on my face;Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheekFor that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain denyWhat I have spoke—but farewel compliment:Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say, ay,And I will take thee at thy word—Yet if thou swear’st,Thou may’st prove false; at lovers’ perjuriesThey say Jove laughs. Oh gentle Romeo,If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully;Or if thou think 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 ‘haviour light;But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove more trueThan those that have more cunning to be strange.I should have been more strange, I must confessBut that thou over-heard’st, ere I was ware,My true love’s passion; therefore pardon me,And not impute this yielding to light love,Which the dark night hath so discovered.’
‘Thou know’st the mask of night is on my face;
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.
Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny
What I have spoke—but farewel compliment:
Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say, ay,
And I will take thee at thy word—Yet if thou swear’st,
Thou may’st prove false; at lovers’ perjuries
They say Jove laughs. Oh gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully;
Or if thou think 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 ‘haviour light;
But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove more true
Than those that have more cunning to be strange.
I should have been more strange, I must confess
But that thou over-heard’st, ere I was ware,
My true love’s passion; therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.’
In this and all the rest, her heart, fluttering between pleasure, hope, and fear, seems to have dictated to her tongue, and ‘calls true love spoken simple modesty.’ Of the same sort, but bolder in virgin innocence, is her soliloquy after her marriage with Romeo.
‘Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,Towards Phœbus’ mansion; such a waggonerAs Phaëton would whip you to the west,And bring in cloudy night immediately.Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night;That run-aways’ eyes may wink; and RomeoLeap to these arms, untalked of, and unseen!——Lovers can see to do their amorous ritesBy their own beauties: or if love be blind,It best agrees with night.—Come, civil night,Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,And learn me how to lose a winning match,Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:Hold my unmann’d blood bating in my cheeks,With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,Thinks true love acted, simple modesty.Come night!—Come, Romeo! come, thou day in night;For thou wilt lie upon the wings of nightWhiter than new snow on a raven’s back.——Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow’d night,Give me my Romeo: and when he shall die,Take him and cut him out in little stars,And he will make the face of heaven so fine,That all the world shall be in love with night,And pay no worship to the garish sun.——O, I have bought the mansion of a love,But not possess’d it; and though I am sold,Not yet enjoy’d: so tedious is this day,As is the night before some festivalTo an impatient child, that hath new robes,And may not wear them.’
‘Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,Towards Phœbus’ mansion; such a waggonerAs Phaëton would whip you to the west,And bring in cloudy night immediately.Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night;That run-aways’ eyes may wink; and RomeoLeap to these arms, untalked of, and unseen!——Lovers can see to do their amorous ritesBy their own beauties: or if love be blind,It best agrees with night.—Come, civil night,Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,And learn me how to lose a winning match,Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:Hold my unmann’d blood bating in my cheeks,With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,Thinks true love acted, simple modesty.Come night!—Come, Romeo! come, thou day in night;For thou wilt lie upon the wings of nightWhiter than new snow on a raven’s back.——Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow’d night,Give me my Romeo: and when he shall die,Take him and cut him out in little stars,And he will make the face of heaven so fine,That all the world shall be in love with night,And pay no worship to the garish sun.——O, I have bought the mansion of a love,But not possess’d it; and though I am sold,Not yet enjoy’d: so tedious is this day,As is the night before some festivalTo an impatient child, that hath new robes,And may not wear them.’
‘Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,Towards Phœbus’ mansion; such a waggonerAs Phaëton would whip you to the west,And bring in cloudy night immediately.Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night;That run-aways’ eyes may wink; and RomeoLeap to these arms, untalked of, and unseen!——Lovers can see to do their amorous ritesBy their own beauties: or if love be blind,It best agrees with night.—Come, civil night,Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,And learn me how to lose a winning match,Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:Hold my unmann’d blood bating in my cheeks,With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,Thinks true love acted, simple modesty.Come night!—Come, Romeo! come, thou day in night;For thou wilt lie upon the wings of nightWhiter than new snow on a raven’s back.——Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow’d night,Give me my Romeo: and when he shall die,Take him and cut him out in little stars,And he will make the face of heaven so fine,That all the world shall be in love with night,And pay no worship to the garish sun.——O, I have bought the mansion of a love,But not possess’d it; and though I am sold,Not yet enjoy’d: so tedious is this day,As is the night before some festivalTo an impatient child, that hath new robes,And may not wear them.’
‘Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phœbus’ mansion; such a waggoner
As Phaëton would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night;
That run-aways’ eyes may wink; and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalked of, and unseen!——
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties: or if love be blind,
It best agrees with night.—Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
Hold my unmann’d blood bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,
Thinks true love acted, simple modesty.
Come night!—Come, Romeo! come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.——
Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo: and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world shall be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.——
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess’d it; and though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy’d: so tedious is this day,
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child, that hath new robes,
And may not wear them.’
We the rather insert this passage here, inasmuch as we have no doubt it has been expunged from the Family Shakespear. Such critics do not perceive that the feelings of the heart sanctify, without disguising, the impulses of nature. Without refinement themselves, they confound modesty with hypocrisy. Not so the German critic, Schlegel. Speaking ofRomeo and Juliet, he says, ‘It was reserved for Shakespear to unite purity of heart and the glow of imagination, sweetness and dignity of manners and passionate violence, in one ideal picture.’ The character is indeed one of perfect truth and sweetness. It has nothing forward, nothing coy, nothing affected or coquettishabout it;—it is a pure effusion of nature. It is as frank as it is modest, for it has no thought that it wishes to conceal. It reposes in conscious innocence on the strength of its affections. Its delicacy does not consist in coldness and reserve, but in combining warmth of imagination and tenderness of heart with the most voluptuous sensibility. Love is a gentle flame that rarifies and expands her whole being. What an idea of trembling haste and airy grace, borne upon the thoughts of love, does the Friar’s exclamation give of her, as she approaches his cell to be married—