waiting until he knows the name of the father; then he arrives all of a sudden, means to kill her, but so that she shall taste the lees of death. She must suffer much, but above all, she must not die too quickly! She must suffer in mind; these griefs are worse than the body's. He sends assassins to kill Antonio, and meanwhile comes to her in the dark, with affectionate words; pretends to be reconciled, and suddenly shows her waxen figures, covered with wounds, whom she takes for her slaughtered husband and children. She staggers under the blow, and remains in gloom without crying out. Then she says: "Good comfortable fellow, Persuade a wretch that's broke upon the wheel Bosola. Come, be of comfort, I will save your life. So small a business. B. Now, by my life, I pity you. D. Thou art a fool, then, To waste thy pity on a thing so wretched As cannot pity itself. I am full of daggers.”1 Slow words, spoken in a whisper, as in a dream, or as if she were speaking of a third person. Her brother sends to her a company of madmen, who leap and howl and rave around her in mournful wise; a pitiful sight, calculated to unseat the reason; a kind of foretaste of hell. She says nothing, looking upon them; her heart is dead, her eyes fixed, with vacant stare: "Cariola. What think you of, madam? When I muse thus, I sleep. C. Like a madman, with your eyes open? D. Dost thou think we shall know one another C. Yes, out of question. D. O that it were possible we might But hold some two days' conference with the dead! I never shall know here. I'll tell thee a miracle; The heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass, As the tann'd galley-slave is with his oar. "12 1 Duchess of Malfi, iv. 1. VOL. I. 2 Ibid. iv. 2. 25 In this state, the limbs, like those of one who has been newly executed, still quiver, but the sensibility is worn out; the miserable body only stirs mechanically; it has suffered too much. At last the gravedigger comes with executioners, a coffin, and they sing before her a funeral dirge: "Duchess. Farewell, Cariola. I pray thee, look thou giv'st my little boy Say her prayers ere she sleep.-Now, what you please: Bosola. Strangling; here are your executioners. My body The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o' the lungs you? After the mistress the maid; the latter cries and struggles: "Cariola. I will not die; I must not; I am contracted To a young gentleman. Ist. Executioner. Here's your wedding-ring. C. If you kill me now, They strangle her also, and the two children of the duchess. Antonio is assassinated; the cardinal and his mistress, the duke and his confidant, are poisoned or butchered; and the solemn words of the dying, in the midst of this butchery, utter, as from funereal trumpets, a general curse upon existence: "We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves, "In all our quest of greatness, Like wanton boys, whose pastime is their care, 1 Duchess of Malfi, iv. 2. 2 "When," an exclamation of impatience, equivalent to "make haste," very comnion among the old English dramatists.-TR. 4 Ibid. v. 5. 3 Duchess of Malfi, iv, 2. Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust." 1 You will find nothing sadder or greater from the Edda to Lord Byron. We can well imagine what powerful characters are necessary to sustain these terrible dramas. All these personages are ready for extreme acts; their resolves break forth like blows of a sword; we follow, meet at every change of scene their glowing eyes, wan lips, the starting of their muscles, the tension of their whole frame. Their powerful will contracts their violent hands, and their accumulated passion breaks out in thunderbolts, which tear and ravage all around them, and in their own hearts. We know them, the heroes of this tragic population, Iago, Richard III., Lady Macbeth, Othello, Coriolanus, Hotspur, full of genius, courage, desire, generally mad or criminal, always self-driven to the tomb. There are as many around Shakespeare as in his own works. Let me exhibit one character more, written by the same dramatist, Webster. No one, except Shakespeare, has seen further into the depths of diabolical and unchained nature. The "White Devil" is the name which he gives to his heroine. His Vittoria Corombona receives as her lover the Duke of Brachiano, and at the first interview dreams of the issue: "To pass away the time, I'll tell your grace It is certainly well related, and still better chosen, of deep meaning and very clear import. Her brother Flaminio says, aside: "Excellent devil! she hath taught him in a dream To make away his duchess and her husband." 2 So, her husband, Camillo, is strangled, the Duchess poisoned, and Vittoria, accused of the two crimes, is brought before the tribunal. Step by step, like a soldier brought to bay with his back against a wall, she defends herself, refuting and defying advocates and judges, incapable of blenching or quailing, clear in mind, ready in word, amid insults and proofs, even menaced 2 Vittoria Corombona, i. 2. 1 Duchess of Malfii, v. 4 and 5. with death on the scaffold. The advocate begins to speak in Latin. "Vittoria. Pray my lord, let him speak his usual tongue; Francisco de Medicis. Why, you understand Latin. Which come to hear my cause, the half or more She wants a duel, bare-breasted, in open day, and challenges the advocate: "I am at the mark, sir: I'll give aim to you, She mocks his legal phraseology, insults him, with biting irony: "Surely, my lords, this lawyer here hath swallow'd Some pothecaries' bills, or proclamations; Come up, like stones we use give hawks for physic: Then, to the strongest adjuration of the judges: "To the point, Find me but guilty, sever head from body, We'll part good friends; I scorn to hold my life These are but feigned shadows of my evils: Argument for argument: she has a parry for every blow: a parry and a thrust: "But take you your course: it seems you have beggar'd me first, Jewels, and a poor remnant of crusadoes: "In faith, my lord, you might go pistol flies; They condemn her to be shut up in a house of convertites: 1 Webster Dyce, 1857, Vittoria Corombona, p. 20-21. What's that? "V. A house of convertites! Erect it for their wives, that I am sent The sarcasm comes home like a sword-thrust; then another behind it; then cries and curses. She will not bend, she will not weep. She goes off erect, bitter and more haughty than ever: "I will not weep; No, I do scorn to call up one poor tear To fawn on your injustice: bear me hence Unto this house of. what's your mitigating title? Mont. Of convertites. V. It shall not be a house of convertites; My mind shall make it honester to me Against her furious lover, who accuses her of unfaithfulness, she is as strong as against her judges; she copes with him, casts in his teeth the death of his duchess, forces him to beg pardon, to marry her; she will play the comedy to the end, at the pistol's mouth, with the shamelessness and courage of a courtesan and an empress; 3 snared at last, she will be just as brave and more insulting when the dagger's point threatens her: "Yes, I shall welcome death As princes do some great ambassadors; 'Twas a manly blow; When a woman unsexes herself, her actions transcend man's, and there is nothing which she will not suffer or dare. VII. Opposed to this band of tragic characters, with their distorted features, brazen fronts, combative attitudes, is a troop of sweet and timid figures, pre-eminently tender-hearted, the most graceful and loveworthy whom it has been given to man to depict. In Shakespeare you will meet them in Miranda, Juliet, Desde 1 Vittoria Corombona, iii. 2, p. 23. 2. Ibid. p. 24. 3 Compare Mme. Marneffe in Balzac's La Cousine Bette. |