Part 25 (2/2)

In the stormy night on the wild heath the poor old man hears the echo of his own feelings in the elements; his daughters' ingrat.i.tude, hardness, and cruelty produce a moral disturbance like the disturbance in Nature; he breaks out:

Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks. Rage! Blow!

You cataracts and hurricanes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drowned the c.o.c.ks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt couriers of oak-cleaving thunder-bolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!

Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once That make ungrateful man....

Rumble thy bellyful! Spit fire, spout rain!

Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters, I tax you not, you elements, with unkindness; I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children, You owe me no subscription; then, let fall Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave, A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man: But yet I call you servile ministers, That will with two pernicious daughters join Your high engender'd battles 'gainst a head So old and white as this. O! O! 'tis foul!

How closely here animate and inanimate Nature are woven together, the reasoning with the unreasoning. The poet makes the storm, rain, thunder, and lightning live, and at the same time endues his human figures with a strength of feeling and pa.s.sion which gives them kins.h.i.+p to the elements. In _Oth.e.l.lo_, too, there _is_ uproar in Nature:

Do but stand upon the foaming sh.o.r.e, The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds....

I never did like molestation view On the enchafed flood.

but even the unruly elements spare Desdemona:

Tempests themselves, high seas and howling winds, The gather'd rocks and congregated sands.

Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel-- As having sense of beauty, do omit Their mortal natures, letting go safely by The divine Desdemona.

Ca.s.sio lays stress upon 'the great contention of the sea and skies'; but when Oth.e.l.lo meets Desdemona, he cries:

O my soul's joy!

If after every tempest come such calms, May the winds blow till they have wakened death!

And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas Olympus-high, and duck again as low As h.e.l.l's from heaven. If it were now to die, 'Twere now to be most happy.

Iago calls the elements to witness his truthfulness:

Witness, you ever-burning lights above, You elements that clip us round about, Witness, that here Iago doth give up The execution of his wit, hands, heart, To wrong'd Oth.e.l.lo's service.

Nature is disgusted at Oth.e.l.lo's jealousy:

Heaven stops the nose at it, and the moon winks; The bawdy wind, that kisses all it meets, Is hush'd within the hollow mine of earth And will not hear it.

In terrible mental confusion he cries:

O insupportable, O heavy hour!

Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe Should yawn at alteration.

Unhappy Desdemona sings:

The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree, Sing all a green willow; Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee, Sing willow, willow, willow; The fresh streams ran by her and murmur'd her moans, Sing willow, willow, willow.

A song in _Cymbeline_ contains a beautiful personification of flowers:

Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chalic'd flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes; With everything that pretty is, My lady sweet, arise; Arise! Arise!

The clearest expression of sympathy for Nature is in _Macbeth_.

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