Part 8 (1/2)
To return to ”Macbeth:” Why is the doctor of medicine introduced in the scene at the English court? He has nothing to do with the progress of the play itself, any more than the old man already alluded to.--He is introduced for a precisely similar reason.--As a doctor, he is the best testimony that could be adduced to the fact, that the English King Edward the Confessor, is a fountain of health to his people, gifted for his goodness with the sacred privilege of curing _The King's Evil_, by the touch of his holy hands. The English King himself is thus introduced, for the sake of contrast with the Scotch King, who is a raging bear amongst his subjects.
In the ”Winter's Tale,” to which he gives the name because of the altogether extraordinary character of the occurrences (referring to it in the play itself, in the words: ”_a sad tale's best for winter: I have one of sprites and goblins_”) Antigonus has a remarkable dream or vision, in which Hermione appears to him, and commands the exposure of her child in a place to all appearance the most unsuitable and dangerous. Convinced of the reality of the vision, Antigonus obeys; and the whole marvellous result depends upon this obedience. Therefore the vision must be intended for a genuine one. But how could it be such, if Hermione was not dead, as, from her appearance to him, Antigonus firmly believed she was? I should feel this to be an objection to the art of the play, but for the following answer:--At the time she appeared to him, she was still lying in that deathlike swoon, into which she fell when the news of the loss of her son reached her as she stood before the judgment-seat of her husband, at a time when she ought not to have been out of her chamber.
Note likewise, in the first scene of the second act of the same play, the changefulness of Hermione's mood with regard to her boy, as indicative of her condition at the time. If we do not regard this fact, we shall think the words introduced only for the sake of filling up the business of the play.
In ”Twelfth Night,” both ladies make the first advances in love. Is it not worthy of notice that one of them has lost her brother, and that the other believes she has lost hers? In this respect, they may be placed with Phoebe, in ”As You Like It,” who, having suddenly lost her love by the discovery that its object was a woman, immediately and heartily accepts the devotion of her rejected lover, Silvius. Along with these may be cla.s.sed Romeo, who, rejected and, as he believes, inconsolable, falls in love with Juliet the moment he sees her. That his love for Rosaline, however, was but a kind of _calf-love_ compared with his love for Juliet, may be found indicated in the differing tones of his speech under the differing conditions. Compare what he says in his conversation with Benvolio, in the first scene of the first act, with any of his many speeches afterwards, and, while _conceit_ will be found prominent enough in both, the one will be found to be ruled by the fancy, the other by the imagination.
In this same play, there is another similar point which I should like to notice. In Arthur Brook's story, from which Shakspere took his, there is no mention of any communication from Lady Capulet to Juliet of their intention of marrying her to Count Paris. Why does Shakspere insert this?--to explain her falling in love with Romeo so suddenly. Her mother has set her mind moving in that direction. She has never seen Paris. She is looking about her, wondering which may be he, and whether she shall be able to like him, when she meets the love-filled eyes of Romeo fixed upon her, and is at once overcome. What a significant speech is that given to Paulina in the ”Winter's Tale,” act v. scene 1: ”How? Not women?” Paulina is a thorough partisan, siding with women against men, and strengthened in this by the treatment her mistress has received from her husband. One has just said to her, that, if Perdita would begin a sect, she might ”make proselytes of who she bid but follow.” ”How? Not women?” Paulina rejoins. Having received a.s.surance that ”women will love her,” she has no more to say.
I had the following explanation of a line in ”Twelfth Night” from a stranger I met in an old book-shop:--Malvolio, having built his castle in the air, proceeds to inhabit it. Describing his own behaviour in a supposed case, he says (act ii. scene 5): ”I frown the while; and perchance, wind up my watch, or play with my some rich jewel”--A dash ought to come after _my_. Malvolio was about to say _chain_; but remembering that his chain was the badge of his office of steward, and therefore of his servitude, he alters the word to ”_some rich jewel_”
uttered with pretended carelessness.
In ”Hamlet,” act iii. scene 1, did not Shakspere intend the pa.s.sionate soliloquy of Ophelia--a soliloquy which no maiden knowing that she was overheard would have uttered,--coupled with the words of her father:
”How now, Ophelia?
You need not tell us what lord Hamlet said, We heard it all;”--
to indicate that, weak as Ophelia was, she was not false enough to be accomplice in any plot for betraying Hamlet to her father and the King?
They had remained behind the arras, and had not gone out as she must have supposed.
Next, let me request my reader to refer once more to the poem; and having considered the physiognomy of Ajax and Ulysses, as described in the fifth stanza, to turn then to the play of ”Troilus and Cressida,”
and there contemplate that description as metamorphosed into the higher form of revelation in speech. Then, if he will a.s.sociate the general principles in that stanza with the third, especially the last two lines, I will apply this to the character of Lady Macbeth.
Of course, Shakspere does not mean that one regarding that portion of the picture alone, could see the eyes looking sad; but that the _sweet observance_ of the whole so roused the imagination that it supplied what distance had concealed, keeping the far-off likewise in sweet observance with the whole: the rest pointed that way.--In a manner something like this are we conducted to a right understanding of the character of Lady Macbeth. First put together these her utterances:
”You do unbend your n.o.ble strength, to think So brainsickly of things.”
”Get some water, And wash this filthy witness from your hands.”
”The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures.”
”A little water clears us of this deed.”
”When all's done, You look but on a stool.”
”You lack the season of all natures, sleep.”--
Had these pa.s.sages stood in the play unmodified by others, we might have judged from them that Shakspere intended to represent Lady Macbeth as an utter materialist, believing in nothing beyond the immediate communications of the senses. But when we find them a.s.sociated with such pa.s.sages as these--
”Memory, the warder of the brain, Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason A limbeck only;”
”Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done't;
”These deeds must not be thought After these ways; so, it will make us mad;”--
then we find that our former theory will not do, for here are deeper and broader foundations to build upon. We discover that Lady Macbeth was an unbeliever _morally_, and so found it necessary to keep down all imagination, which is the upheaving of that inward world whose very being she would have annihilated. Yet out of this world arose at last the phantom of her slain self, and possessing her sleeping frame, sent it out to wander in the night, and rub its distressed and blood-stained hands in vain. For, as in this same ”Rape of Lucrece,”
”the soul's fair temple is defaced; To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares, To ask the spotted princess how she fares.”