VI. 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. Shakspeare'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 favour 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." 1 She asks her favour: "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 0. No, not to-night. Des. To-morrow dinner, then? O. I shall not dine at home; I meet the captains at the citadel. 1 Othello, iii. 3. ? Des. Why, then, to-morrow night; or Tuesday morn; Exceed three days: in faith, he's penitent." 1 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, To your own person." A moment after, when he prays her to leave him alone for a while, mark the innocent gaiety, the ready curtsy, the playful child's tone: "Shall I deny you? no: farewell, my lord. Emilia, come : Be as your fancies teach you; 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." 4 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 ▲ Othello, iii. 3. 2 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 4 Cymbeline, iii. 5. VOL. II. H stamping on the field of battle, and wiping his bloody brow with his hand, she grows pale: "His bloody brow! O Jupiter, no blood! 2 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." 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 gaiety. When he does return, she can only blush and weep. This exalted sensibility must needs end in love. (All Shakspeare's women love without measure, and nearly all at first sight At the first look Juliet casts on Romeo, she says to the nurse: Go, ask his name: if he be married, My grave is like to be my wedding bed." 3 It is the revelation of their destiny. As Shakspeare 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 2 Ibid. 3 Romeo and Juliet, i. 5. 1 Coriolanus, i. 8. The 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. 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 I am your wife, if you will marry me ; 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. 1 The Tempest, iii. 1. 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 you kind gods, Cure this great breach in his abused nature! 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 . . Mine enemy's dog, How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?"1 |