Chapter VIII: Part 8

It appears to me that the whole character rests upon the two sublimest principles of human action, the love of truth and the sense of duty; but these, when they stand alone, (as in the Antigone,) are apt to strike us as severe and cold. Shakspeare has, therefore, wreathed them round with the dearest attributes of our feminine nature, the power of feeling and inspiring affection. The first part of the play shows us how Cordelia is loved, the second part how she can love. To her father she is the object of a secret preference, his agony at her supposed unkindness draws from him the confession, that he had loved her most, and "thought to set his rest on her kind nursery." Till then she had been "his best object, the argument of his praise, balm of his age, most best, most dearest!" The faithful and worthy Kent is ready to brave death and exile in her defence: and afterwards a farther impression of her benign sweetness is conveyed in a simple and beautiful manner, when we are told that "since the lady Cordelia went to France, her father's poor fool had much pined away." We have her sensibility "when patience and sorrow strove which should express her goodliest:" and all her filial tenderness when she commits her poor father to the care of the physician, when she hangs over him as he is sleeping, and kisses him as she contemplates the wreck of grief and majesty.

O my dear father! restoration hang
Its medicine on my lips: and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!
Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Had challenged pity of them! Was this a face
To be exposed against the warring winds,
To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick cross lightning? to watch, (poor perdu!)
With thin helm? mine enemy's dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire.

Her mild magnanimity shines out in her farewell to her sisters, of whose real character she is perfectly aware:--

Ye jewels of our father! with washed eyes
Cordelia leaves you! I know ye what ye are,
And like a sister, am most loath to call
Your faults as they are nam'd. Use well our father,
To your professed bosoms I commit him.
But yet, alas! stood I within his grace,
I would commend him to a better place;
So farewell to you both.

GONERIL.

Prescribe not us our duties!

The modest pride with which she replies to the Duke of Burgundy is admirable; this whole passage is too illustrative of the peculiar character of Cordelia, as well as too exquisite, to be mutilated

I yet beseech your majesty,
(If, for I want that glib and oily heart,
To speak and purpose not, since what I well intend
I'll do't before I speak,) that you make known,
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
No unchaste action, or dishonored step
That hath deprived me of your grace and favor;
But even for want of that, for which I am richer;
A still soliciting eye, and such a tongue
I am glad I have not, tho' not to have it
Hath lost me in your liking.

LEAR.

Better thou
Hadst not been born, than not to have pleased me better.

FRANCE.

Is it but this? a tardiness of nature,
That often leaves the history unspoke
Which it intends to do?--My lord of Burgundy,
What say you to the lady? love is not love
When it is mingled with respects that stand
Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.

BURGUNDY.

Royal Lear,
Give but that portion which yourself proposed,
And here I take Cordelia by the hand
Duchess of Burgundy.

LEAR.

Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm.

BURGUNDY.

I am sorry, then, you have lost a father
That you must lose a husband.

CORDELIA.

Peace be with Burgundy!
Since that respects of fortune are his love,
I shall not be his wife.

FRANCE.

Fairest Cordelia! thou art more rich, being poor,
Most choice, forsaken, and most lov'd, despised!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.

She takes up arms, "not for ambition, but a dear father's right." In her speech after her defeat, we have a calm fortitude and elevation of soul, arising from the consciousness of duty, and lifting her above all consideration of self. She observes,--

We are not the first
Who with best meaning have incurred the worst!

She thinks and fears only for her father.

For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;
Myself would else out-frown false fortune's frown.

To complete the picture, her very voice is characteristic, "ever soft, gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman."

But it will be said, that the qualities here exemplified--as sensibility, gentleness, magnanimity, fortitude, generous affection--are qualities which belong, in their perfection, to others of Shakspeare's characters--to Imogen, for instance, who unites them all; and yet Imogen and Cordelia are wholly unlike each other. Even though we should reverse their situations, and give to Imogen the filial devotion of Cordelia, and to Cordelia the conjugal virtues of Imogen, still they would remain perfectly distinct as women. What is it, then, which lends to Cordelia that peculiar and individual truth of character, which distinguishes her from every other human being?

It is a natural reserve, a tardiness of disposition, "which often leaves the history unspoke which it intends to do;" a subdued quietness of deportment and expression, a veiled shyness thrown over all her emotions, her language and her manner; making the outward demonstration invariably fall short of what we know to be the feeling within. Not only is the portrait singularly beautiful and interesting in itself, but the conduct of Cordelia, and the part which she bears in the beginning of the story, is rendered consistent and natural by the wonderful truth and delicacy with which this peculiar disposition is sustained throughout the play.

In early youth, and more particularly if we are gifted with a lively imagination, such a character as that of Cordelia is calculated above every other to impress and captivate us. Any thing like mystery, any thing withheld or withdrawn from our notice, seizes on our fancy by awakening our curiosity. Then we are won more by what we half perceive and half create, than by what is openly expressed and freely bestowed. But this feeling is a part of our young life: when time and years have chilled us, when we can no longer afford to send our souls abroad, nor from our own superfluity of life and sensibility spare the materials out of which we build a shrine for our idol--then do we seek, we ask, we thirst for that warmth of frank, confiding tenderness, which revives in us the withered affections and feelings, buried but not dead. Then the excess of love is welcomed, not repelled: it is gracious to us as the sun and dew to the seared and riven trunk, with its few green leaves. Lear is old--"fourscore and upward"--but we see what he has been in former days: the ardent passions of youth have turned to rashness and wilfulness: he is long passed that age when we are more blessed in what we bestow than in what we receive. When he says to his daughters, "I gave ye all!" we feel that he requires all in return, with a jealous, restless, exacting affection which defeats its own wishes. How many such are there in the world! How many to sympathize with the fiery, fond old man, when he shrinks as if petrified from Cordelia's quiet calm reply!

LEAR.

Now our joy,
Although the last not least--
What can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters'? Speak!

CORDELIA.

Nothing, my lord.

LEAR.

Nothing!

CORDELIA.

Nothing.

LEAR.

Nothing can come of nothing: speak again!

CORDELIA.

Unhappy that I am! I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; nor more, nor less.

Now this is perfectly natural. Cordelia has penetrated the vile characters of her sisters. Is it not obvious, that, in proportion as her own mind is pure and guileless, she must be disgusted with their gross hypocrisy and exaggeration, their empty protestations, their "plaited cunning;" and would retire from all competition with what she so disdains and abhors,--even into the opposite extreme? In such a case, as she says herself--

What should Cordelia do?--love and be silent?

For the very expressions of Lear--

What can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters'?

are enough to strike dumb forever a generous, delicate, but shy disposition, such as Cordelia's, by holding out a bribe for professions.

If Cordelia were not thus portrayed, this deliberate coolness would strike us as verging on harshness or obstinacy; but it is beautifully represented as a certain modification of character, the necessary result of feelings habitually, if not naturally, repressed: and through the whole play we trace the same peculiar and individual disposition--the same absence of all display--the same sobriety of speech veiling the most profound affections--the same quiet steadiness of purpose--the same shrinking from all exhibition of emotion.

"Tous les sentimens naturels ont leur pudeur," was a _viva voce_ observation of Madame de Stael, when disgusted by the sentimental affectation of her imitators. This "pudeur," carried to an excess, appears to me the peculiar characteristic of Cordelia. Thus, in the description of her deportment when she receives the letter of the Earl of Kent, informing her of the cruelty of her sisters and the wretched condition of Lear, we seem to have her before us:--

KENT.

Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?

GENTLEMAN.

Ay, sir, she took them, and read them in my presence
And now and then an ample tear stole down
Her delicate cheek. It seemed she was a queen
Over her passion; who, most rebel-like
Sought to be king over her.

KENT.

O then it moved her!

GENTLEMAN.

Not to a rage.
Faith, once or twice she heaved the name of father
Pantingly forth, as if it pressed her heart,
Cried, _Sisters! sisters! Shame of ladies! Sisters!
What, i' the storm? i' the night?
Let pity not be believed._ Then she shook
The holy water from her heavenly eyes;

* * * *

Then away she started,
To deal with grief alone.

Here the last line--the image brought before us of Cordelia starting away from observation, "to deal with grief alone," is as exquisitely beautiful as it is characteristic.

But all the passages hitherto quoted must yield in beauty and power to that scene, in which her poor father recognizes her, and in the intervals of distraction asks forgiveness of his wronged child. The subdued pathos and simplicity of Cordelia's character, her quiet but intense feeling, the misery and humiliation of the bewildered old man, are brought before us in so few words, and at the same time sustained with such a deep intuitive knowledge of the innermost workings of the human heart, that as there is nothing surpassing this scene in Shakspeare himself, so there is nothing that can be compared to it in any other writer.

CORDELIA.

How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?

LEAR.

You do me wrong to take me out of the grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.

CORDELIA.

Sir, do you know me?

LEAR.

You are a spirit, I know: when did you die?

CORDELIA.

Still, still far wide!

PHYSICIAN.

He's scarce awake: let him alone awhile.

LEAR.

Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight!
I am mightily abused. I should even die with pity
To see another thus. I know not what to say.
I will not swear these are my hands: Let's see.
I feel this pin prick. Would I were assured
Of my condition.

CORDELIA.

O look upon me, sir,
And hold your hands in benediction o'er me--
No, sir, you must not kneel.

LEAR.

Pray, do not mock me:
I am a very foolish, fond old man,
Fourscore and upwards; and to deal plainly with you,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you, and know this man,
Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;
For as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.

CORDELIA.

And so I am, I am.

LEAR.

Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray you weep not
If you have poison for me I will drink it.
I know you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong:
You have some cause, they have not.

CORDELIA.

No cause, no cause!

As we do not estimate Cordelia's affection for her father by the coldness of her language, so neither should we measure her indignation against her sisters by the mildness of her expressions. What, in fact, can be more eloquently significant, and at the same time more characteristic of Cordelia, than the single line when she and her father are conveyed to their prison:--

Shall we not see these _daughters_ and these _sisters_?

The irony here is so bitter and intense, and at the same time so quiet, so feminine, so dignified in the expression, that who but Cordelia would have uttered it in the same manner, or would have condensed such ample meaning into so few and simple words?

We lose sight of Cordelia during the whole of the second and third, and great part of the fourth act; but towards the conclusion she reappears. Just as our sense of human misery and wickedness being carried to its extreme height, becomes nearly intolerable, "like an engine wrenching our frame of nature from its fixed place," then, like a redeeming angel, she descends to mingle in the scene, "loosening the springs of pity in our eyes," and relieving the impressions of pain and terror by those of admiration and a tender pleasure. For the catastrophe, it is indeed terrible! wondrous terrible! When Lear enters with Cordelia dead in his arms, compassion and awe so seize on all our faculties, that we are left only to silence and to tears. But if I might judge from my own sensations, the catastrophe of Lear is not so overwhelming as the catastrophe of Othello. We do not turn away with the same feeling of absolute unmitigated despair. Cordelia is a saint ready prepared for heaven--our earth is not good enough for her: and Lear!--O who, after sufferings and tortures such as his, would wish to see his life prolonged? What replace a sceptre in that shaking hand?--a crown upon that old gray head, on which the tempest had poured in its wrath?--on which the deep dread bolted thunders and the winged lightnings had spent their fury? O never, never!

Let him pass! he hates him
That would upon the rack of this rough world
Stretch him out longer.

In the story of King Lear and his three daughters, as it is related in the "delectable and mellifluous" romance of Perceforest, and in the Chronicle of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the conclusion is fortunate. Cordelia defeats her sisters, and replaces her father on his throne. Spenser, in his version of the story, has followed these authorities. Shakspeare has preferred the catastrophe of the old ballad, founded apparently on some lost tradition. I suppose it is by way of amending his errors, and bringing back this daring innovator to sober history, that it has been thought fit to alter the play of Lear for the stage, as they have altered Romeo and Juliet: they have converted the seraph-like Cordelia into a puling love heroine, and sent her off victorious at the end of the play--exit with drums and colors flying--to be married to Edgar. Now any thing more absurd, more discordant with all our previous impressions, and with the characters as unfolded to us, can hardly be imagined. "I cannot conceive," says Schlegel, "what ideas of art and dramatic connection those persons have, who suppose we can at pleasure tack a double conclusion to a tragedy--a melancholy one for hard-hearted spectators, and a merry one for those of softer mould." The fierce manners depicted in this play, the extremes of virtue and vice in the persons, belong to the remote period of the story.[64] There is no attempt at character in the old narratives; Regan and Goneril are monsters of ingratitude, and Cordelia merely distinguished by her filial piety; whereas, in Shakspeare, this filial piety is an affection quite distinct from the qualities which serve to individualize the human being; we have a perception of innate character apart from all accidental circumstance: we see that if Cordelia had never known her father, had never been rejected from his love, had never been a born princess or a crowned queen, she would not have been less Cordelia; less distinctly _herself_; that is, a woman of a steady mind, of calm but deep affections, of inflexible truth, of few words, and of reserved deportment.

As to Regan and Goneril--"tigers, not daughters"--we might wish to regard them as mere hateful chimeras, impossible as they are detestable; but fortunately there was once a Tullia. I know not where to look for the prototype of Cordelia: there was a Julia Alpinula, the young priestess of Aventicum,[65] who, unable to save her father's life by the sacrifice of her own, died with him--"_infelix patris, infelix proles_"--but this is all we know of her. There was the Roman daughter, too. I remember seeing at Genoa, Guido's "Pieta Romana," in which the expression of the female bending over the aged parent, who feeds from her bosom, is perfect,--but it is not a Cordelia: only Raffaelle could have painted Cordelia.

But the character which at once suggests itself in comparison with Cordelia, as the heroine of filial tenderness and piety, is certainly the Antigone of Sophocles. As poetical conceptions, they rest on the same basis: they are both pure abstractions of truth, piety, and natural affection; and in both, love, as a passion, is kept entirely out of sight: for though the womanly character is sustained, by making them the objects of devoted attachment, yet to have portrayed them as influenced by passion, would have destroyed that unity of purpose and feeling which is one source of power; and, besides, have disturbed that serene purity and grandeur of soul, which equally distinguishes both heroines. The spirit, however, in which the two characters are conceived, is as different as possible; and we must not fail to remark, that Antigone, who plays a principal part in two fine tragedies, and is distinctly and completely made out, is considered as a masterpiece, the very triumph of the ancient classical drama; whereas, there are many among Shakspeare's characters which are equal to Cordelia as dramatic conceptions, and superior to her in finishing of outline, as well as in the richness of the poetical coloring.

When Oedipus, pursued by the vengeance of the gods, deprived of sight by his own mad act, and driven from Thebes by his subjects and his sons, wanders forth, abject and forlorn, he is supported by his daughter Antigone; who leads him from city to city, begs for him, and pleads for him against the harsh, rude men, who, struck more by his guilt than his misery, would drive him from his last asylum. In the opening of the "Oedipus Coloneus," where the wretched old man appears leaning on his child, and seats himself in the consecrated Grove of the Furies, the picture presented to us is wonderfully solemn and beautiful. The patient, duteous tenderness of Antigone; the scene in which she pleads for her brother Polynices, and supplicates her father to receive his offending son; her remonstrance to Polynices, when she entreats him not to carry the threatened war into his native country, are finely and powerfully delineated; and in her lamentation over Oedipus, when he perishes in the mysterious grove, there is a pathetic beauty, apparent even through the stiffness of the translation.

Alas! I only wished I might have died
With my poor father; wherefore should I ask
For longer life?
O I was fond of misery with him;
E'en what was most unlovely grew beloved
When he was with me. O my dearest father,
Beneath the earth now in deep darkness hid,
Worn as thou wert with age, to me thou still
Wert dear, and shalt be ever.
--Even as he wished he died,
In a strange land--for such was his desire--
A shady turf covered his lifeless limbs,
Nor unlamented fell! for O these eyes,
My father, still shall weep for thee, nor time
E'er blot thee from my memory.

The filial piety of Antigone is the most affecting part of the tragedy of "Oedipus Coloneus:" her sisterly affection, and her heroic self-devotion to a religious duty, form the plot of the tragedy called by her name. When her two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, had slain each other before the walls of Thebes, Creon issued an edict forbidding the rites of sepulture to Polynices, (as the invader of his country,) and awarding instant death to those who should dare to bury him. We know the importance which the ancients attached to the funeral obsequies, as alone securing their admission into the Elysian fields. Antigone, upon hearing the law of Creon, which thus carried vengeance beyond the grave, enters in the first scene, announcing her fixed resolution to brave the threatened punishment: her sister Ismene shrinks from sharing the peril of such an undertaking, and endeavors to dissuade her from it, on which Antigone replies:--

Wert thou to proffer what I do not ask--
Thy poor assistance--I would scorn it now;
Act as thou wilt, I'll bury him myself:
Let me perform but that, and death is welcome.
I'll do the pious deed, and lay me down
By my dear brother; loving and beloved,
We'll rest together.

She proceeds to execute her generous purpose; she covers with earth the mangled corse of Polynices, pours over it the accustomed libations, is detected in her pious office, and after nobly defending her conduct, is led to death by command of the tyrant: her sister Ismene, struck with shame and remorse, now comes forward to accuse herself as a partaker in the offence, and share her sister's punishment; but Antigone sternly and scornfully rejects her; and after pouring forth a beautiful lamentation on the misery of perishing "without the nuptial song--a virgin and a slave," she dies _a l'antique_--she strangles herself to avoid a lingering death.

Hemon, the son of Creon, unable to save her life, kills himself upon her grave: but throughout the whole tragedy we are left in doubt whether Antigone does or does not return the affection of this devoted lover.

Thus it will be seen that in the Antigone there is a great deal of what may be called the effect of situation, as well as a great deal of poetry and character: she says the most beautiful things in the world, performs the most heroic actions, and all her words and actions are so placed before us as to _command_ our admiration. According to the classical ideas of virtue and heroism, the character is sublime, and in the delineation there is a severe simplicity mingled with its Grecian grace, a unity, a grandeur, an elegance, which appeal to our taste and our understanding, while they fill and exalt the imagination: but in Cordelia it is not the external coloring or form, it is not what she says or does, but what she is in herself, what she feels, thinks, and suffers, which continually awaken our sympathy and interest. The heroism of Cordelia is more passive and tender--it melts into our heart; and in the veiled loveliness and unostentatious delicacy of her character, there is an effect more profound and artless, if it be less striking and less elaborate than in the Grecian heroine. To Antigone we give our admiration, to Cordelia our tears. Antigone stands before us in her austere and statue-like beauty, like one of the marbles of the Parthenon. If Cordelia reminds us of any thing on earth, it is of one of the Madonnas in the old Italian pictures, "with downcast eyes beneath th' almighty dove?" and as that heavenly form is connected with our human sympathies only by the expression of maternal tenderness or maternal sorrow, even so Cordelia would be almost too angelic, were she not linked to our earthly feelings, bound to our very hearts, by her filial love, her wrongs, her sufferings, and her tears.

FOOTNOTES:

[48]

----The gods approve
The depth, and not the tumult of the soul.

WORDSWORTH.

"Il pouvait y avoir des vagues majestueuses et non de l'orage sans son coeur," was finely observed of Madame de Stael in her maturer years; it would have been true of Hermione at any period of her life.

[49] Winter's Tale, act v scene 11

[50] Only in the last scene, when, with solemnity befitting the occasion, Paulina invokes the majestic figure to "descend, and be stone no more," and where she presents her daughter to her. "Turn, good lady! our Perdita is found."

[51] Act iii, scene 3.

[52] Which being interpreted into modern English, means, I believe, nothing more than that the pattern was what we now call _arabesque_.

[53] There is an incident in the original tale, "Il Moro di Venezia," which could not well be transferred to the drama, but which is very effective, and adds, I think, to the circumstantial horrors of the story. Desdemona does not accidentally drop the handkerchief; it is stolen from her by Iago's little child, an infant of three years old, whom he trains and bribes to the theft. The love of Desdemona for this child, her little playfellow--the pretty description of her taking it in her arms and caressing it, while it profits by its situation to steal the handkerchief from her bosom, are well imagined, and beautifully told; and the circumstance of Iago employing his own innocent child as the instrument of his infernal villany, adds a deeper, and, in truth an unnecessary touch of the fiend, to his fiendish character.

[54] Consequences are so linked together, that the exclamation of Emilia,

O thou dull Moor!--That handkerchief thou speakest of
I found by fortune, and did give my husband!--

is sufficient to reveal to Othello the whole history of his ruin.

[55] Decamerone. Novella, 9mo. Giornata, 2do.

[56] _Vide_ Dr. Johnson, and Dunlop's History of Fiction.

[57] See Hazlitt and Schlegel on the catastrophe of Cymbeline.

[58] More rare--_i. e._ more exquisitely poignant.

[59] Characters of Shakspeare's Plays.

[60] _Vide_ act 1. scene 7.

[61] The character of Cloten has been pronounced by some unnatural, by others inconsistent, and by others obsolete. The following passage occurs in one of Miss Seward's letters, vol. iii p. 246: "It is curious that Shakspeare should, in so singular a character as Cloten, have given the exact prototype of a being whom I once knew. The unmeaning frown of countenance, the shuffling gait, the burst of voice, the bustling insignificance, the fever and ague fits of valor, the froward tetchiness, the unprincipled malice, and, what is more curious, those occasional gleams of good sense amidst the floating clouds of folly which generally darkened and confused the man's brain, and which, in the character of Cloten, we are apt to impute to a violation of unity in character; but in the some-time Captain C----, I saw that the portrait of Cloten was not out of nature."

[62] i. e. _full of words_.

[63] Dryden.

[64] King Lear may be supposed to have lived about one thousand years before the Christian era, being the forth or fifth in descent from King Brut, the great-grandson of AEneas, and the fabulous founder of the kingdom of Britain.

[65] She is commemorated by Lord Byron. _Vide_ Childe Harold Canto iii.

HISTORICAL CHARACTERS.

CLEOPATRA.

I cannot agree with one of the most philosophical of Shakspeare's critics, who has asserted "that the actual truth of particular events, in proportion as we are conscious of it, is a drawback on the pleasure as well as the dignity of tragedy." If this observation applies at all, it is equally just with regard to characters: and in either case can we admit it? The reverence and the simpleness of heart with which Shakspeare has treated the received and admitted truths of history--I mean according to the imperfect knowledge of his time--is admirable; his inaccuracies are few: his general accuracy, allowing for the distinction between the narrative and the dramatic form, is acknowledged to be wonderful. He did not steal the precious material from the treasury of history, to debase its purity,--new-stamp it arbitrarily with effigies and legends of his own devising and then attempt to pass it current, like Dryden, Racine, and the rest of those poetical coiners: he only rubbed off the rust, purified and brightened it, so that history herself has been known to receive it back as sterling.

Truth, wherever manifested, should be sacred: so Shakspeare deemed, and laid no profane hand upon her altars. But tragedy--majestic tragedy, is worthy to stand before the sanctuary of Truth, and to be the priestess of her oracles. "Whatever in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or grave, whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all the changes of that which is called fortune from without, or the wily subtleties and refluxes of man's thought from within;"[66]--whatever is pitiful in the weakness, sublime in the strength, or terrible in the perversion of human intellect, these are the domain of Tragedy. Sibyl and Muse at once, she holds aloft the book of human fate, and is the interpreter of its mysteries. It is not, then, making a mock of the serious sorrows of real life, nor of those human beings who lived, suffered and acted upon this earth, to array them in her rich and stately robes, and present them before us as powers evoked from dust and darkness, to awaken the generous sympathies, the terror or the pity of mankind. It does not add to the pain, as far as tragedy is a source of emotion, that the wrongs and sufferings represented, the guilt of Lady Macbeth, the despair of Constance, the arts of Cleopatra, and the distresses of Katherine, had a real existence; but it adds infinitely to the moral effect, as a subject of contemplation and a lesson of conduct.[67]

I shall be able to illustrate these observations more fully in the course of this section, in which we will consider those characters which are drawn from history; and first, Cleopatra.

Of all Shakspeare's female characters, Miranda and Cleopatra appear to me the most wonderful. The first, unequalled as a poetic conception; the latter, miraculous as a work of art. If we could make a regular classification of his characters, these would form the two extremes of simplicity and complexity; and all his other characters would be found to fill up some shade or gradation between these two.

Great crimes, springing from high passions, grafted on high qualities, are the legitimate source of tragic poetry. But to make the extreme of littleness produce an effect like grandeur--to make the excess of frailty produce an effect like power--to heap up together all that is most unsubstantial, frivolous, vain, contemptible, and variable, till the worthlessness be lost in the magnitude, and a sense of the sublime spring from the very elements of littleness,--to do this, belonged only to Shakspeare that worker of miracles. Cleopatra is a brilliant antithesis, a compound of contradictions, of all that we most hate, with what we most admire. The whole character is the triumph of the external over the innate; and yet like one of her country's hieroglyphics, though she present at first view a splendid and perplexing anomaly, there is deep meaning and wondrous skill in the apparent enigma, when we come to analyze and decipher it. But how are we to arrive at the solution of this glorious riddle, whose dazzling complexity continually mocks and eludes us? What is most astonishing in the character of Cleopatra is its antithetical construction--its _consistent inconsistency_, if I may use such an expression--which renders it quite impossible to reduce it to any elementary principles. It will, perhaps, be found on the whole, that vanity and the love of power predominate; but I dare not say it _is_ so, for these qualities and a hundred others mingle into each other, and shift and change, and glance away, like the colors in a peacock's train.

In some others of Shakspeare's female characters, also remarkable for their complexity, (Portia and Juliet, for instance,) we are struck with the delightful sense of harmony in the midst of contrast, so that the idea of unity and simplicity of effect is produced in the midst of variety; but in Cleopatra it is the absence of unity and simplicity which strikes us; the impression is that of perpetual and irreconcilable contrast. The continual approximation of whatever is most opposite in character, in situation, in sentiment, would be fatiguing, were it not so perfectly natural: the woman herself would be distracting, if she were not so enchanting.

I have not the slightest doubt that Shakspeare's Cleopatra is the real historical Cleopatra--the "Rare Egyptian"--individualized and placed before us. Her mental accomplishments, her unequalled grace, her woman's wit and woman's wiles, her irresistible allurements, her starts of irregular grandeur, her bursts of ungovernable temper, her vivacity of imagination, her petulant caprice, her fickleness and her falsehood, her tenderness and her truth, her childish susceptibility to flattery, her magnificent spirit, her royal pride, the gorgeous eastern coloring of the character; all these contradictory elements has Shakspeare seized, mingled them in their extremes, and fused them into one brilliant impersonation of classical elegance, Oriental voluptuousness, and gipsy sorcery.

What better proof can we have of the individual truth of the character than the admission that Shakspeare's Cleopatra produces exactly the same effect on us that is recorded of the real Cleopatra? She dazzles our faculties, perplexes our judgment, bewilders and bewitches our fancy; from the beginning to the end of the drama, we are conscious of a kind of fascination against which our moral sense rebels, but from which there is no escape. The epithets applied to her perpetually by Antony and others confirm this impression: "enchanting queen!"--"witch"--"spell"--"great fairy"--"cockatrice"--"serpent of old Nile"--"thou grave charm!"[68] are only a few of them; and who does not know by heart the famous quotations in which this Egyptian Circe is described with all her infinite seductions?

Fie! wrangling queen!
Whom every thing becomes--to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety:--
For vilest things
Become themselves in her.

And the pungent irony of Enobarbus has well exposed her feminine arts, when he says, on the occasion of Antony's intended departure,--

Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies
instantly: I have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer
moment.

ANTONY.

She is cunning past man's thought.

ENOBARBUS.

Alack, sir, no! her passions are made of nothing but the
finest part of pure love. We cannot call her winds and
waters, sighs and tears; they are greater storms and
tempests than almanacs can report; this cannot be cunning
in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as
Jove.

The whole secret of her absolute dominion over the facile Antony may be found in one little speech:--

See where he is--who's with him--what he does--
(I did not send you.) If you find him sad,
Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report
That I am sudden sick! Quick! and return.

CHARMIAN.

Madam, methinks if you did love him dearly,
You do not hold the method to enforce
The like from him.

CLEOPATRA.

What should I do, I do not?

CHARMIAN.

In each thing give him way; cross him in nothing.

CLEOPATRA.

Thou teachest like a fool: the way to lose him.

CHARMIAN.

Tempt him not too far.

But Cleopatra is a mistress of her art, and knows better: and what a picture of her triumphant petulance, her imperious and imperial coquetry, is given in her own words!

That time--O times!
I laugh'd him out of patience; and that night
I laughed him into patience: and next morn,
Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed;
Then put my tires and mantles on, whilst
I wore his sword, Philippan.

When Antony enters full of some serious purpose which he is about to impart, the woman's perverseness, and the tyrannical waywardness with which she taunts him and plays upon his temper, are admirably depicted.

I know, by that same eye, there's some good news.
What says the married woman?[69] You may go;
Would she had never given you leave to come!
Let her not say, 'tis I that keep you here;
I have no power upon you; hers you are.

ANTONY.

The gods best know--

CLEOPATRA.

O, never was there queen
So mightily betray'd! Yet at the first,
I saw the treasons planted.

ANTONY.

Cleopatra!

CLEOPATRA.

Why should I think you can be mine, and true,
Though you in swearing shake the throned gods,
Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness
To be entangled with those mouth-made vows,
Which break themselves in swearing!

ANTONY.

Most sweet queen!

CLEOPATRA.

Nay, pray you, seek no color for your going,
But bid farewell, and go.

She recovers her dignity for a moment at the news of Fulvia's death, as if roused by a blow:--

Though age from folly could not give me freedom,
It does from childishness. Can Fulvia die?

And then follows the artful mockery with which she tempts and provokes him, in order to discover whether he regrets his wife.

O most false love!
Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill
With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see
In Fulvia's death, how mine receiv'd shall be.

ANTONY.

Quarrel no more; but be prepared to know
The purposes I bear: which are, or cease,
As you shall give th' advice. Now, by the fire
That quickens Nilus' shrine, I go from hence
Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war,
As thou affectest.

CLEOPATRA.

Cut my lace, Charmian, come--But
let it be. I am quickly ill, and well.
So Antony loves.

ANTONY.

My precious queen, forbear:
And give true evidence to his love which stands
An honorable trial.

CLEOPATRA.

So Fulvia told me.
I pr'ythee turn aside, and weep for her:
Then bid adieu to me, and say, the tears
Belong to Egypt. Good now, play one scene
Of excellent dissembling; and let it look
Like perfect honor.

ANTONY.

You'll heat my blood--no more.

CLEOPATRA.

You can do better yet; but this is meetly.

ANTONY.

Now, by my sword--

CLEOPATRA.

And target--still he mends:
But this is not the best. Look, pr'ythee, Charmian,
How this Herculean Roman does become
The carriage of his chafe!

This is, indeed, most "excellent dissembling;" but when she has fooled and chafed the Herculean Roman to the verge of danger, then comes that return of tenderness which secures the power she has tried to the utmost, and we have all the elegant, the poetical Cleopatra in her beautiful farewell.

Forgive me!
Since my becomings kill me when they do not
Eye well to you. Your honor calls you hence,
Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,
And all the gods go with you! Upon your sword
Sit laurell'd victory; and smooth success
Be strew'd before your feet!

Finer still are the workings of her variable mind and lively imagination, after Antony's departure; her fond repining at his absence, her violent spirit, her right royal wilfulness and impatience, as if it were a wrong to her majesty, an insult to her sceptre, that there should exist in her despite such things as space and time; and high treason to her sovereign power, to dare to remember what she chooses to forget

Give me to drink mandragora,
That I might sleep out this great gap of time
My Antony is away.

O Charmian!
Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he,
Or does he walk? or is he on his horse?
O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
Do bravely, horse! for wot'st thou whom thou mov'st?
The demi-Atlas of this earth--the arm
And burgonet of men. He's speaking now,
Or murmuring, Where's my serpent of old Nile?
For so he calls me.
Met'st thou my posts?

ALEXAS.

Ay, madam, twenty several messengers:
Why do you send so thick?

CLEOPATRA.

Who's born that day
When I forget to send to Antony,
Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian.
Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian,
Ever love Caesar so?

CHARMIAN.

O that brave Caesar!

CLEOPATRA.

Be chok'd with such another emphasis!
Say, the brave Antony.

CHARMIAN.

The valiant Caesar!

CLEOPATRA.

By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth,
If thou with Caesar paragon again
My man of men!

CHARMIAN.

By your most gracious pardon,
I sing but after you.

CLEOPATRA.

My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then. But, come away--
Get me some ink and paper: he shall have every day
A several greeting, or I'll unpeople Egypt.

We learn from Plutarch, that it was a favorite amusement with Antony and Cleopatra to ramble through the streets at night, and bandy ribald jests with the populace of Alexandria. From the same authority, we know that they were accustomed to live on the most familiar terms with their attendants and the companions of their revels. To these traits we must add, that with all her violence, perverseness, egotism, and caprice, Cleopatra mingled a capability for warm affections and kindly feeling, or rather what we should call in these days, a constitutional _good-nature_; and was lavishly generous to her favorites and dependents. These characteristics we find scattered through the play; they are not only faithfully rendered by Shakspeare, but he has made the finest use of them in his delineation of manners. Hence the occasional freedom of her women and her attendants, in the midst of their fears and flatteries, becomes most natural and consistent: hence, too, their devoted attachment and fidelity, proved even in death. But as illustrative of Cleopatra's disposition, perhaps the finest and most characteristic scene in the whole play, is that in which the messenger arrives from Rome with the tidings of Antony's marriage with Octavia. She perceives at once with quickness that all is not well, and she hastens to anticipate the worst, that she may have the pleasure of being disappointed. Her impatience to know what she fears to learn, the vivacity with which she gradually works herself up into a state of excitement, and at length into fury, is wrought out with a force of truth which makes us recoil.

CLEOPATRA.

Antony's dead!
If thou say so, villain, thou kill'st thy mistress.
But well and free,
If thou so yield him, there is gold, and here
My bluest veins to kiss; a hand that kings
Have lipp'd, and trembled kissing.

MESSENGER.

First, madam, he is well.

CLEOPATRA.

Why, there's more gold. But, sirrah, mark! we use
To say, the dead are well: bring it to that,
The gold I give thee will I melt, and pour
Down thy ill-uttering throat.

MESSENGER.

Good madam, hear me.

CLEOPATRA.

Well, go to, I will.
But there's no goodness in thy face. If Antony
Be free and healthful, why so tart a favor
To trumpet such good tidings? If not well,
Thou should'st come like a fury crown'd with snakes.

MESSENGER.

Wil't please you hear me?

CLEOPATRA.

I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak'st;
Yet if thou say Antony lives, is well,
Or friends with Caesar, or not captive to him,
I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail
Rich pearls upon thee.

MESSENGER.

Madam, he's well.

CLEOPATRA.

Well said.

MESSENGER.

And friends with Caesar.

CLEOPATRA.

Thou art an honest man.

MESSENGER.

Caesar and he are greater friends than ever.

CLEOPATRA.

Make thee a fortune from me.

MESSENGER.

But yet, madam--

CLEOPATRA.

I do not like _but yet_--it does allay
The good precedence. Fie upon _but yet_:
_But yet_ is as a gaoler to bring forth
Some monstrous malefactor. Pr'ythee, friend,
Pour out thy pack of matter to mine ear,
The good and bad together. He's friends with Caesar
In state of health, thou say'st; and thou say'st free.

MESSENGER.

Free, madam! No: I made no such report,
He's bound unto Octavia.

CLEOPATRA.

For what good turn?

MESSENGER.

Madam he's married to Octavia.

CLEOPATRA.

The most infectious pestilence upon thee!
[_Strikes him down._

MESSENGER.

Good madam, patience.

CLEOPATRA.

What say you? [_Strikes him again._
Hence horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes
Like balls before me--I'll unhair thine head--
Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stewed in brine
Smarting in ling'ring pickle.

MESSENGER.

Gracious madam!
I, that do bring the news, made not the match.

CLEOPATRA.

Say 'tis not so, a province I will give thee,
And make thy fortunes proud: the blow thou hadst
Shall make thy peace for moving me to rage;
And I will boot thee with what gift beside
Thy modesty can beg.

MESSENGER.

He's married, madam.

CLEOPATRA.

Rogue, thou hast lived too long. [_Draws a dagger._

MESSENGER.

Nay then I'll run.
What mean you, madam? I have made no fault. [_Exit._

CHARMIAN.

Good madam, keep yourself within yourself;
The man is innocent.

CLEOPATRA.

Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt.
Melt Egypt into Nile! and kindly creatures
Turn all to serpents! Call the slave again;
Though I am mad, I will not bite him--Call!

CHARMIAN.

He is afraid to come.

CLEOPATRA.

I will not hurt him.
These hands do lack nobility, that they strike
A meaner than myself.

* * * *

CLEOPATRA.

In praising Antony I have dispraised Caesar.

CHARMIAN.

Many times, madam.

CLEOPATRA.

I am paid for't now--
Lead me from hence.
I faint. O Iras, Charmian--'tis no matter
Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him
Report the features of Octavia, her years,
Her inclination--let him not leave out
The color of her hair. Bring me word quickly.
[_Exit Alex._

Let him forever go--let him not--Charmian,
Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,
T'other way he's a Mars. Bid you Alexas
[_To Mardian._

Bring me word how tall she is. Pity me, Charmian.
But do not speak to me. Lead me to my chamber.

I have given this scene entire because I know nothing comparable to it The pride and arrogance of the Egyptian queen, the blandishment of the woman, the unexpected but natural transitions of temper and feeling, the contest of various passions, and at length--when the wild hurricane has spent its fury--the melting into tears, faintness, and languishment, are portrayed with the most astonishing power, and truth, and skill in feminine nature. More wonderful still is the splendor and force of coloring which is shed over this extraordinary scene. The mere idea of an angry woman beating her menial, presents something ridiculous or disgusting to the mind; in a queen or a tragedy heroine it is still more indecorous;[70] yet this scene is as far as possible from the vulgar or the comic. Cleopatra seems privileged to "touch the brink of all we hate" with impunity. This imperial termagant, this "wrangling queen, whom every thing becomes," becomes even her fury. We know not by what strange power it is, that in the midst of all these unruly passions and childish caprices, the poetry of the character, and the fanciful and sparkling grace of the delineation are sustained and still rule in the imagination; but we feel that it is so.

I need hardly observe, that we have historical authority for the excessive violence of Cleopatra's temper. Witness the story of her boxing the ears of her treasurer, in presence of Octavius, as related by Plutarch. Shakspeare has made a fine use of this anecdote also towards the conclusion of the drama, but it is not equal in power to this scene with the messenger.

The man is afterwards brought back, almost by force, to satisfy Cleopatra's jealous anxiety, by a description of Octavia:--but this time, made wise by experience, he takes care to adapt his information to the humors of his imperious mistress, and gives her a satirical picture of her rival. The scene which follows, in which Cleopatra--artful, acute, and penetrating as she is--becomes the dupe of her feminine spite and jealousy, nay, assists in duping herself; and after having cuffed the messenger for telling her truths which are offensive, rewards him for the falsehood which flatters her weakness--is not only an admirable exhibition of character, but a fine moral lesson.

She concludes, after dismissing the messenger with gold and thanks,

I repent me much
That I so harry'd him. Why, methinks by him
This creature's no such thing?

CHARMIAN.

O nothing, madam.

CLEOPATRA.

The man hath seen some majesty, and should know!

Do we not fancy Cleopatra drawing herself up with all the vain consciousness of rank and beauty as she pronounces this last line? and is not this the very woman who celebrated her own apotheosis,--who arrayed herself in the robe and diadem of the goddess Isis, and could find no titles magnificent enough for her children but those of _the Sun_ and _the Moon_?

The despotism and insolence of her temper are touched in some other places most admirably. Thus, when she is told that the Romans libel and abuse her, she exclaims,--

Sink Rome, and their tongues rot
That speak against us!

And when one of her attendants observes, that "Herod of Jewry dared not look upon her but when she were well pleased," she immediately replies, "That Herod's head I'll have."[71]

When Proculeius surprises her in her monument, and snatches her poniard from her, terror, and fury, pride, passion, and disdain, swell in her haughty soul, and seem to shake her very being.

CLEOPATRA.

Where art thou, death?
Come hither, come! come, come and take a queen
Worth many babes and beggars!

PROCULEIUS.

O temperance, lady?

CLEOPATRA.

Sir, I will eat no meat; I'll not drink, sir:
If idle talk will once be necessary.
I'll not sleep neither; this mortal house I'll ruin,
Do Caesar what he can! Know, sir, that I
Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,
Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye
Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up,
And show me to the shouting varletry
Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt
Be gentle grave to me! Rather on Nilus' mud
Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies
Blow me into abhorring! Rather make
My country's high pyramids my gibbet,
And hang me up in chains!

In the same spirit of royal bravado, but finer still, and worked up with a truly Oriental exuberance of fancy and imagery, is her famous description of Antony, addressed to Dolabella:--

Most noble empress you have heard of me?

CLEOPATRA.

I cannot tell.

DOLABELLA.

Assuredly, you know me.

CLEOPATRA.

No matter, sir, what I have heard or known.
You laugh when boys, or women, tell their dreams
Is't not your trick?

DOLABELLA.

I understand not, madam.

CLEOPATRA.

I dream'd there was an emperor Antony;
O such another sleep, that I might see
But such another man!

DOLABELLA.

If it might please you--

CLEOPATRA.

His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck
A sun and moon; which kept their course, and lighted
The little O, the earth.

DOLABELLA.

Most sovereign creature--

CLEOPATRA.

His legs bestrid the ocean: his reared arm
Crested the world; his voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail or shake the orb
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas,
That grew the more by reaping. His delights
Were dolphin like; they show'd his back above
The element they liv'd in. In his livery[72]
Walk'd crowns and coronets; realms and islands were
As plates[73] dropp'd from his pocket.

DOLABELLA.

Cleopatra!

CLEOPATRA.

Think you there was, or might be, such a man
As this I dream'd of?

DOLABELLA.

Gentle madam, no.

CLEOPATRA.

You lie,--up to the hearing of the gods!

There was no room left in this amazing picture for the display of that passionate maternal tenderness, which was a strong and redeeming feature in Cleopatra's historical character; but it is not left untouched, for when she is imprecating mischiefs on herself, she wishes, as the last and worst of possible evils, that "thunder may smite Caesarion!"