ページの画像
PDF
ePub

a loathed enemy." Like two beautiful birds are they on St Valentine's day, that come fluttering from opposite sides into the heart of a grove, and from that first mutual touch of their shivering plumage, are mated for ever after in calm or storm, gloom or sunshine. A mysterious sympathy of nature links them together-an irresistible attraction-an instinct holier in its innocence than Reason's self-and such in the hearts of Juliet and her Romeo is-Love.

[March, "Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,

And find delight writ there with beauty's

Then how elegant and graceful the demeanour of the Pair! Romeo is privileged by the law and custom of such a festival, to make love after a somewhat warmer and bolder fashion than perchance he would have ventured on anywhere else than at a masquerade. He plays the Pilgrim-the Palmer-and she the Saint. Fancy hallows the passion which it emboldens, till it looks like what it is-religion. Our fair critic says beautifully," They are all love surrounded with all hate; all harmony surrounded with all discord; all pure nature in the midst of polished and artificial life. Juliet, like Portia, is the foster-child of opulence and splendour; she dwells in a fair city-she has been nurtured in a palace-she clasps her robe with jewels -she braids her hair with rainbowtinted pearls ;-but in herself she has no more connexion with the trappings around her, than the lovely exotic, transplanted from some Edenlike climate, has with the carved and gilded conservatory which has reared and sheltered its luxuriant beau

ty"

"The use of the Chorus here," says Dr Johnson, "is not easily discovered; it conduces nothing to the progress of the play, but relates what is already known, or what the next scene will shew, and relates it without adding the improvement of any moral sentiment." All very trueand yet we like the Chorus. It comes in well, with a sort of sweet solemnity, at the close of the night's festivities, like a preternatural voice heard in the hush.

Sudden as is the change in Juliet from child to woman-for under the power of passion the change is no less-it is not startling; we remember that she was marriageable, though she had never dreamt of that honour; her mother had told her to

pen;

Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content;

And what obscured in this fair volume

lies,

Find written in the margin of his eyes;" and Juliet has "fallen to such perusal" of the face of Romeo; an apt scholar, at a few glances she has got the whole volume by heart!

The Second Act is so full of the Passion of Love, that the very nightair seems sultry-yet as pure as it is voluptuous! We knew that there could be no rest that night for Romeo and Juliet.

"Benvolio. Romeo! my Cousin Romeo! Mercutio. He is wise,

And, on my life, hath stolen away to bed." But Mercutio is much mistaken, with all his wit, when he says—

"I conjure thee, by Rosalie's bright eyes, By her high forehead, and her scarlet lip, By her fine foot, straight leg," &c. and Romeo has the best of the joke when from Capulet's garden he beholds his "snowy dove" at a window

But soft, what light through yonder

window breaks!

IT IS THE EAST, AND JULIET IS THE SUN."

He is a poet-and speaks like Apollo. So is Juliet. How truly and finely does our lady critic say, "that every circumstance, and every personage, and every shade of character in each, tends to the developement of the sentiment which is the subject of the drama. The poetry, the richest that can possibly be conceived, is interfused through all the characters; the most splendid imagery is lavished upon all with the careless prodigality of genius; and all is lighted up into such a sunny brilliance of effect, as though Shakspeare had really transported himself into Italy, and had drunk to intoxication of her genial atmosphere." The picture in "Twelfth Night" of the wan girl dying of love," who pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy," never occurs to us, she adds, "when thinking on the enamoured and impassioned Juliet, in whose bosom love keeps a fiery vigil, kindling tenderness into enthusiasm, enthusiasm

And they speak, but of themselves only
"they see only themselves in the
universe-all things else are as idle
matter. Not a word they utter, though
every word is poetry-not a senti-
ment or description, though dressed
in the most luxuriant imagery, but has
a direct relation to themselves, or to
the situation in which they are placed,
engross them."
and the feelings that
In the second scene, in Capulet's
house, when Juliet is waiting for the
Nurse, who had gone to Romeo to
fix the marriage hour, what purity,
innocence, and artlessness in her im-
patience! How beautifully does her
passion express itself in poetry!

into passion, passion into heroism. No! The whole sentiment of the play is of a far different order. It is flushed with the genial spirit of the South; it tastes of youth, and of the essence of youth; of life, and of the very sap of life. In the delineation of that sentiment which forms the groundwork of the drama, nothing in fact can equal the power of the picture, but its inexpressible sweetness, and its perfect grace; the passion which has taken possession of Juliet's whole soul, has the force, the rapidity, the resistless violence of the torrent; but she is herself, 'as moving delicate,' as fair, as soft, as pliable as the willow that bends over it, whose light leaves tremble even with the motion of the current which hurries beneath them."

No lady surely did ever in this world, before or since, so blessedly make, unasked by words, and but by eyes, a promise, or rather proposal of marriage.

"Jul. Three words, dear Romeo, and
good night indeed!

If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word to

morrow,

By one that I'll procure to come to thee, Where, and what time, thou wilt perform the rite;

And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay, And follow thee, my Lord, throughout the world."

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Friar Lawrence himself, as he sees her entering his cell, forgets the philosophy he had been preaching to Romeo-his advice to "love moderately."

"There comes the lady; O, so light a foot

Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint; A lover may bestride the gossamers That idle in the wanton summer air, And yet not fall-so light is vanity." Vanity! nay-not vanity, good Father Lawrence-nor yet vexation of spirit. Love deserves a better name

and so thou thinkest in thy heartthough old, not dead to holiest humanities—as thou sayest compassionately

The truth is, that Romeo was not only as passionate, but as pure as Juliet. So she says-and it was true -in one line of her soliloquy, when expecting him in the bridal chamber. There is not one word breathed from his burning lips, that is not as reverential as enamoured; a delicious glow warms and colours all his speech; and Juliet innocently speaks of blushes at her own words-not at

his

"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."

"Come, come with me, and we will make short work,

For, by your leave, you shall not stay alone, Till holy church incorporate in one."

Juliet is now a bride-longing for the approach of her bridegroom; and Shakspeare does not fear to let us hear her breathing forth her virgin longings in a soliloquy. Let a wife speak of that soliloquy-an English wife-who knows and feels what is modesty, and what is virtue. And let maidens read what matrons pronounce blameless-let them read it as it was spoken-alone-in company only with their own pure thoughts,

and watched over by their guardian angel. They will not find it, we fear, in the Family Shakspeare-but in any good edition. Then let them read this comentary.

Hitherto all has been Passion. But Romeo and Juliet have now been in bliss; and Shakspeare, the High Priest of Nature, has drawn a veil over her holiest mysteries. How sacred, as he paints it, is their wedded love! Sadness and Sorrow are now seen waiting on Joy; and may we not venture to quote the Parting Hour?

And light thee on thy way to Mantua : Therefore stay yet, thou need'st not to be gone.

Rom. Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death;

C

"The famous soliloquy, Gallop apace, ye fiery-footed steeds,' teems with luxuriant imagery. The fond adjuration, 'Come night! Come Romeo! Come thou day in night!' expresses that fulness of enthusiastic admiration for her lover, which possesses her whole soul; but expresses it as only Juliet could or would have expressed it, -in a bold and beautiful metaphor. Let it be remembered, that in this speech, Juliet is not supposed to be addressing an audience, nor even a confidante. She is thinking aloud; it is the young heart " triumphing to itself in words.' I confess I have been shocked at the utter want of taste and refinement in those who, with coarse derision, or in a spirit of prudery, yet more gross and perverse, have dared to comment on this beautiful Hymn to the Night,' breathed out by Juliet, in the silence and solitude of her chamber. It is at the very moment too that her whole heart and fancy are abandoned to blissful O, now I would they had changed voices anticipation, that the Nurse enters with the news of Romeo's banishment; and the immediate transition from rapture to despair has a most powerful effect."

6

Some say, the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us:
Some say, the lark and loathed toad
change eyes;

too!

Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,

Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day.

O, now be gone; more light and light it
grows.

Rom. More light and light?-more
dark and dark our woes.
Enter NURSE.

"Enter ROMEO and JULIET.

Jul. Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:

It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;

Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate

tree :

Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
Rom. It was the lark, the herald of
the morn,
No nightingale look, love, what envious

:

streaks

Do lace the severing clouds in yonder

east: Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops;

I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
Jul. Yon light is not daylight, I know
it, I:

It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,

I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I'll say, yon grey is not the morning's eye,
'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do

beat

The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:

I have more care to stay, than will to go;

Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills

it so.

How is't, my soul? let's talk, it is not day.

Jul. It is, it is, hie hence, be gone,

away;

It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords, and unpleasing sharps.

[blocks in formation]

cy, and her total want of elevated principle, or even common honesty, are brought before us like a living and palpable truth.

Jul. O God! I have an ill-divining soul:

Methinks, I see thee, now thou art below,

As one dead in the bottom of a tomb: Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.

"Among these harsh and inferior spirits is Juliet placed; her haughty parents, Rom. And trust me, love, in my eye and her plebeian nurse, not only throw

so do you: Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu ! adieu ! [Exit ROMEO. Jul. O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle :

into beautiful relief her own native softness and elegance, but are at once the cause and the excuse of her subsequent conduct. She trembles before her stern mother and her violent father; but like a petted child, alternately cajoles and commands her nurse. It is her old fostermother who is the confidante of her love.

If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him

It is the woman who cherished her infancy, who aids and abets her in her clandestine marriage. Do we not perceive how immediately our impression of Juliet's character would have been lowered, if Shakspeare had placed her in connexion with any common-place dramatic waiting-woman ?—even with Portia's adroit Nerissa, or Desdemona's Emilia? By giving her the Nurse for her confidante, the sweetness and dignity of Juliet's character are preserved inviolate to the fancy, even in the midst of all the romance and wilfulness of passion.

That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune;

For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,

But send him back."

How well now do we know the character of Juliet! and no one has helped us to see into it so well as the Lady whose work we have been studying-not criticising-for that were idle. In the dialogue between Juliet and her parents, she observes, and in the scenes with the nurse, we seem to have before us the whole of her previous education and habits; we see her, on the one hand, kept in severe subjection by her austere parents; and on the other, fondled and spoiled by a foolish old nurse-a situation perfectly accordant with the manners of the times. The Lady Capulet comes sweeping by, with her train of velvet, her black hood, fan, and rosary, the very beau-ideal of a proud Italian matron of the fifteenth century, whose offer to poison Romeo, in revenge for the death of Tybalt, stamps her with one very characteristic trait of the age and country; Yet she loves her daughter; and there is a touch of remorseful tenderness in her lamentation over her, which adds to our impression of the timid softness of Juliet. Capulet is the jovial, testy, old man, the selfwilled, violent, tyrannical father, to whom his daughter is but a property, the appanage of his house, and the object of his pride. And the nurse! She, says this critic, acute here as at other times delicate,-in the prosaic homeliness of the outline, and the magical illusion of the colouring, reminds us of some of the marvellous Dutch paintings, from which, with all their coarseness, we start back as from a reality. Her low humour, her shallow garrulity, mixed with the dotage and petulance of age, her subserviency, her secre

"The natural result of these extremes
of subjection and independence, is exhi-
bited in the character of Juliet, as it gra-
We behold it in
dually opens upon us.
the mixture of self-will and timidity, of
strength and weakness, of confidence and
reserve, which are developed as the ac-
tion of the play proceeds. We see it in
the fond eagerness of the indulged girl,
for whose impatience the nimblest of
too slow a messenger; in her petulance
the lightning-winged loves' had been
with her nurse; in those bursts of vehe-
ment feeling, which prepare us for the
climax of passion at the catastrophe; in
her invectives against Romeo, when she
hears of the death of Tybalt; in her in-
dignation when the Nurse echoes those
reproaches, and the rising of her temper
against unwonted contradiction:

Nurse. Shame come to Romeo!
Juliet.
Blister'd be thy tongue
For such a wish-he was not born to shame!'

[ocr errors]

"Then comes that revulsion of strong feeling, that burst of magnificent exulta

tion in the virtue and honour of her lo

ver:

Upon his brow Shame is asham'd to sit,
For 'tis a throne where Honour may be crown'd
Sole monarch of the universal earth!'

"And this, by one of those quick transitions of feeling which belong to the character, is immediately succeeded by a gush of tenderness and self-reproach—

Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy

"

When I, thy three hours' wife, have mangled it?

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

"The old woman, true to her vocation, and fearful lest her share in these events should be discovered, counsels her to for. get Romeo and marry Paris; and the moment which unveils to Juliet the weakness and the baseness of her confidante, is the moment which reveals her to herself. She does not break into upbraidings; it is no moment for anger; it is incredulous amazement succeeded by the extremity of scorn and abhorrence which take possession of her mind. She assumes at once and asserts all her own superiority, and rises to majesty in the strength of her despair.

Juliet. Speakest thou from thy heart? Nurse. Aye, and from my soul too;-or else Beshrew them both!

Juliet. AMEN!'

"This final severing of all the old familiar ties of her childhood

owed to them; a more sacred tie has severed all others. Her parents are pictured as they are, that no feeling for them may interfere in the slightest degree with our sympathy for the lovers. In the mind of Juliet there is no struggle between her filial and her conjugal duties, and there ought to be none. The Friar, her spiritual director, dismisses her with these instructions:

6 Go, counsellor ! Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain !' and the calm, concentrated force of her resolve,

'If all else fail,-myself have power to die!' have a sublime pathos. It appears to me also an admirable touch of nature, considering the master passion which, at this moment, rules in Juliet's soul, that she is as much shocked by the Nurse's dispraise of her lover, as by her wicked, time-serving advice.

"This scene is the crisis in the character; and henceforth we see Juliet assume a new aspect. The fond, impatient, timid girl, puts on the wife and the woman; she has learned heroism from suffering, and subtlety from oppression. It is idle to criticise her dissembling submission to her father and mother; a higher duty has taken place of that which she

Go home,-be merry,-give consent
To marry Paris ;'

and she obeys him. Death and suffering in every horrid form she is ready to brave, without fear or doubt, to live an unstained wife;' and the artifice to which she has recourse, which she is even instructed to use, in no respect impairs the beauty of the character: we regard it with pain and pity, but excuse it, as the natural and inevitable consequence of the situation in which she is placed. Nor should we forget, that the dissimulation, as well as the courage of Juliet, though they spring from passion, are justified by principle:

My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven;

How shall my faith return again to earth,
Unless that husband send it me from heaven !'

In her successive appeals to her father, her mother, her nurse, and the Friar, she seeks those remedies which would first suggest themselves to a gentle and virtuous nature, and grasps her dagger only as the last resource against dishonour and violated faith

'God join'd my heart with Romeo's,-thou our
hands.

And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart, with treacherous revolt,
Turn to another,-this shall slay them both !'

"Thus, in the very tempest and whirlwind of passion and terror, preserving, to a certain degree, that moral and feminine dignity which harmonizes with our best feelings, and commands our unreproved sympathy."

We could add nothing to this noble passage, nor could we to what is said of the catastrophe.

"Soft you now! THE FAIR OPHELIA!"

In her all intellectual energy, saith our fair critic well, and all moral energy too, are in a manner latent, if existing; in her love is an unconscious impulse, and imagination lends the external charm and hue, not the internal power; in her the feminine character appears resolved into its very elementary principles-modesShakty, grace, and tenderness. speare has shewn us that these elemental feminine qualities, when expanded under genial influences, suf

« 前へ次へ »