The Development Of The Feeling For Nature In The Middle Ages And Modern Times Part 25

t.i.tania says:

I will wind thee in my arms....

So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle Gently entwist; the female ivy so Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.

O how I love thee!

That same dew, which sometime on the buds Was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls, Stood now within the pretty flow'rets' eyes Like tears.

(_Midsummer Night's Dream._)

Daffodils That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty.

(_Winter's Tale._)

Pale primroses That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength.

(_Winter's Tale._)

Goethe calls winds and waves lovers. In _Troilus and Cressida_ we have:

The sea being smooth, How many shallow bauble boats dare sail Upon her patient breast, making their way With those of n.o.bler bulk!

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage The gentle Thetis, and anon behold The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut, Bounding between two moist elements Like Perseus' horse.

And further on in the same scene:

What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!

Commotion in the winds!

... the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the sh.o.r.es.

The personification of the river in _Henry IV._ is half mythical:

When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank In single opposition, hand to hand, He did confound the best part of an hour In changing hardiment with great Glendower; Three times they breath'd, and three times did they drink, Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood; Who, then affrighted with their b.l.o.o.d.y looks, Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank, Blood-stained with these valiant combatants.

Striking instances of personification from _Antony and Cleopatra_ are:

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne Burn'd on the water; the p.o.o.p was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the time of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster As amorous of their strokes.

And Antony, enthron'd in the market-place, sat alone

Whistling to the air, which but for vacancy Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too And made a gap in nature.

Instead of acc.u.mulating further instances of these very modern and individual (and sometimes far-fetched) personifications, it is of more interest to see how Shakespeare used Nature, not only as background and colouring, but to act a part of her own in the play, so producing the grandest of all personifications.

At the beginning of Act III. in _King Lear_, Kent asks:

Who's there beside foul weather?

_Gentleman_: One minded like the weather, most unquietly.

_Kent_: Where's the King?

_Gent_: Contending with the fretful elements.

Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea, Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main, That things might change or cease; tears his white hair, Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage Catch in their fury and make nothing of; Strives in his little world of men to outscorn The to-and-fro conflicting wind and rain.

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_.