This charm of womanhood, this purely delightful quality, of which the play has so much, though it remains, I think, the predominant feeling with us after reading or seeing the course of action, is not, we must remember, the only quality, the whole course of the action. Besides the ripe comedy, characteristic of Shakespeare at his latest, which indeed harmonizes admirably with the idyl of love to which it serves as background, there is also a harsh exhibition, in Leontes, of the meanest of the passions, an insane jealousy, petty and violent as the man who nurses it. For sheer realism, for absolute insight into the most cobwebbed corners of our nature, Shakespeare has rarely surpassed this brief study, which, in its total effect, does but throw out in brighter relief the noble qualities of the other actors beside him, the pleasant qualities of the play they make by their acting. With Othello there is properly no comparison. Othello could no more comprehend the workings of the mind of Leontes than Leontes could fathom the meaning of the attitude of Othello. Leontes is meanly, miserably, degradedly jealous, with a sort of mental alienation or distortion-a disease of the brain like some disease of vision, by which he still "sees yellow" everywhere. The malady has its course, disastrously, and then ends in the only 320 way possible-by an agonizing cure, suddenly applied. Are those sixteen years of mourning, we may wonder, really adequate penance for the man? Certainly his suffering, like his criminal folly, was great; and not least among the separate heartaches in that purifying ministry of grief must have been the memory of the boy Mamillius, the noblest and dearest to our hearts of Shakespeare's children. When the great day came (is it fanciful to note?) Hermione embraced her husband in silence; it was to her daughter that she first spoke. The end, certainly, is reconciliation, mercy -mercy extended even to the unworthy, in a spirit of something more than mere justice; as, in those dark plays of Shakespeare's great penultimate period, the end came with a sort of sombre, irresponsible injustice, an outrage of nature upon her sons, wrought in blind anger. We close The Winter's Tale with a feeling that life is a good thing, worth living; that much trial, much mistake and error, may be endured to a happier issue, though the scars, perhaps, are not to be effaced. This end, on such a note, is indeed the mood in which Shakespeare took leave of life-in no weakly optimistic spirit, certainly, but with the air of one who has conquered fortune, not fallen under it-with a genial faith in the ultimate result of things. Cam. I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.-(Act i. 1. 6-8.) THE WINTER'S TALE. ACT I. SCENE I. Antechamber in Leontes' palace. Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS. Arch. If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia. Cam. I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him. Arch. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be justified in our loves; for indeed Cam. Beseech you, 10 Arch. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance. Cam. Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. They were train'd together in their childhood; and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection, which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attorneyed1 with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies; that they have seem'd to be together, though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and embrac'd, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves! 35 Cam. I very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it is a gallant child; one that, indeed, physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh: they that went on crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to see him a man. Arch. Would they else be content to die? Cam. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live. Arch. If the king had no son, they would desire to live on crutches till he had one. 50 [Exeunt. SCENE II. A state-room in Leontes' palace. Enter LEONTES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, POLIXENES, CAMILLO, and Attendants. Pol. Nine changes of the watery star1 hath been The shepherd's note since we have left our throne Without a burden: time as long again Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thanks; And yet we should, for perpetuity, Go hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher, So soon as yours, could win me: so it should now, Leon. Tongue-tied our queen? speak you. Her. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir, 38 But let him say so then, and let him go; Her. Nay, but you will? Her. Verily! No, madam. I may not, verily. Leon. [Aside] 112 Too hot, too hot! To mingle friendship far, is mingling bloods. I have tremor cordis on me; my heart dances; But not for joy; not joy. This entertainment May a free face put on; derive a liberty From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom, And well become the agent; 't may, I grant; But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers, As now they are, and making practis'd smiles, As in a looking-glass; and then to sigh, as 't were 4 130 To be full like me: yet they say we are Most dear'st! my collop! Can thy dam?may't be? Affection! thy intention stabs the centre: [Thou dost make possible things not so held, Communicat'st with dreams;-how can this With what's unreal thou coactive art, And that beyond commission, and I find it, Pol. Her. You look as if you held a brow of much distraction: Are you mov'd, my lord? 1 Mort, death. 3 Pash, head. 149 21' fecks! In faith! + Blacks, mourning garments. 5 Welkin, blue, or heavenly. 6 Affection, natural instinct. |