Characteristics of Women Part 20

are the only allusions to herself and her own feelings in the course of the play; and these, uttered almost without consciousness on her own part, contain the revelation of a life of love, and disclose the secret burthen of a heart bursting with its own unuttered grief. She believes Hamlet crazed; she is repulsed, she is forsaken, she is outraged, where she had bestowed her young heart, with all its hopes and wishes; her father is slain by the hand of her lover, as it is supposed, in a paroxysm of insanity: she is entangled inextricably in a web of horrors which she cannot even comprehend, and the result seems inevitable.

Of her subsequent madness, what can be said? What an affecting--what an astonis.h.i.+ng picture of a mind utterly, hopelessly wrecked!--past hope--past cure! There is the frenzy of excited pa.s.sion--there is the madness caused by intense and continued thought--there is the delirium of fevered nerves; but Ophelia's madness is distinct from these: it is not the suspension, but the utter destruction of the reasoning powers; it is the total imbecility which, as medical people well know, frequently follows some terrible shock to the spirits. Constance is frantic; Lear is mad; Ophelia is _insane_. Her sweet mind lies in fragments before us--a pitiful spectacle! Her wild, rambling fancies; her aimless, broken speeches; her quick transitions from gayety to sadness--each equally purposeless and causeless; her s.n.a.t.c.hes of old ballads, such as perhaps her nurse sung her to sleep with in her infancy--are all so true to the life, that we forget to wonder, and can only weep. It belonged to Shakspeare alone so to temper such a picture that we can endure to dwell upon it:--

Thought and affliction, pa.s.sion, h.e.l.l itself, She turns to favor and to prettiness.

That in her madness she should exchange her bashful silence for empty babbling, her sweet maidenly demeanor for the impatient restlessness that spurns at straws, and say and sing precisely what she never would or could have uttered had she been in possession of her reason, is so far from being an impropriety, that it is an additional stroke of nature. It is one of the symptoms of this species of insanity, as we are a.s.sured by physicians. I have myself known one instance in the case of a young Quaker girl, whose character resembled that of Ophelia, and whose malady arose from a similar cause.

The whole action of this play sweeps past us like a torrent, which hurries along in its dark and resistless course all the personages of the drama towards a catastrophe that is not brought about by human will, but seems like an abyss ready dug to receive them, where the good and the wicked are whelmed together.[43] As the character of Hamlet has been compared, or rather contrasted, with the Greek Orestes, being like him, called on to avenge a crime by a crime, tormented by remorseful doubts, and pursued by distraction, so, to me, the character of Ophelia bears a certain relation to that of the Greek Iphigenia,[44] with the same strong distinction between the cla.s.sical and the romantic conception of the portrait. Iphigenia led forth to sacrifice, with her unresisting tenderness, her mournful sweetness, her virgin innocence, is doomed to perish by that relentless power, which has linked her destiny with crimes and contests, in which she has no part but as a sufferer; and even so, poor Ophelia, "divided from herself and her fair judgment,"

appears here like a spotless victim offered up to the mysterious and inexorable fates.

"For it is the property of crime to extend its mischiefs over innocence, as it is of virtue to extend its blessings over many that deserve them not, while frequently the author of one or the other is not, as far as we can see, either punished or rewarded."[45] But there's a heaven above us!

MIRANDA.

We might have deemed it impossible to go beyond Viola, Perdita, and Ophelia, as pictures of feminine beauty; to exceed the one in tender delicacy, the other in ideal grace, and the last in simplicity,--if Shakspeare had not done this; and he alone could have done it. Had he never created a Miranda, we should never have been made to feel how completely the purely natural and the purely ideal can blend into each other.

The character of Miranda resolves itself into the very elements of womanhood. She is beautiful, modest, and tender, and she is these only; they comprise her whole being, external and internal. She is so perfectly unsophisticated, so delicately refined, that she is all but ethereal. Let us imagine any other woman placed beside Miranda--even one of Shakspeare's own loveliest and sweetest creations--there is not one of them that could sustain the comparison for a moment; not one that would not appear somewhat coa.r.s.e or artificial when brought into immediate contact with this pure child of nature, this "Eve of an enchanted Paradise."

What, then, has Shakspeare done?--"O wondrous skill and sweet wit of the man!"--he has removed Miranda far from all comparison with her own s.e.x; he has placed her between the demi-demon of earth and the delicate spirit of air. The next step is into the ideal and supernatural; and the only being who approaches Miranda, with whom she can be contrasted, is Ariel. Beside the subtle essence of this ethereal sprite, this creature of elemental light and air, that "ran upon the winds, rode the curl'd clouds, and in the colors of the rainbow lived," Miranda herself appears a palpable reality; a woman, "breathing thoughtful breath," a woman, walking the earth in her mortal loveliness, with a heart as frail-strung, as pa.s.sion-touched, as ever fluttered in a female bosom.

I have said that Miranda possesses merely the elementary attributes of womanhood, but each of these stand in her with a distinct and peculiar grace. She resembles nothing upon earth; but do we therefore compare her, in our own minds, with any of those fabled beings with which the fancy of ancient poets peopled the forest depths, the fountain or the ocean?--oread or dryad fleet, sea-maid, or naiad of the stream? We cannot think of them together. Miranda is a consistent, natural, human being. Our impression of her nymph-like beauty, her peerless grace, and purity of soul, has a distinct and individual character. Not only is she exquisitely lovely, being what she is, but we are made to feel that she _could_ not possibly be otherwise than as she is portrayed. She has never beheld one of her own s.e.x; she has never caught from society one imitated or artificial grace. The impulses which have come to her, in her enchanted solitude, are of heaven and nature, not of the world and its vanities. She has sprung up into beauty beneath the eye of her father, the princely magician; her companions have been the rocks and woods, the many-shaped, many-tinted clouds, and the silent stars; her playmates the ocean billows, that stooped their foamy crests, and ran rippling to kiss her feet. Ariel and his attendant sprites hovered over her head, ministered duteous to her every wish, and presented before her pageants of beauty and grandeur. The very air, made vocal by her father's art, floated in music around her. If we can presuppose such a situation with all its circ.u.mstances, do we not behold in the character of Miranda not only the credible, but the natural, the necessary results of such a situation? She retains her woman's heart, for that is unalterable and inalienable, as a part of her being; but her deportment, her looks, her language, her thoughts--all these, from the supernatural and poetical circ.u.mstances around her, a.s.sume a cast of the pure ideal; and to us, who are in the secret of her human and pitying nature, nothing can be more charming and consistent than the effect which she produces upon others, who never having beheld any thing resembling her, approach her as "a wonder," as something celestial:--

Be sure! the G.o.ddess on whom these airs attend!

And again:--

What is this maid?

Is she the G.o.ddess who hath severed us, And brought us thus together?

And Ferdinand exclaims, while gazing on her,

My spirits as in a dream are all bound up!

My father's loss, the weakness that I feel, The wreck of all my friends, or this man's threats, To whom I am subdued, are but light to me Might I but through my prison once a day Behold this maid: all corners else o' the earth Let liberty make use of, s.p.a.ce enough Have I in such a prison.

Contrasted with the impression of her refined and dignified beauty, and its effect on all beholders, is Miranda's own soft simplicity, her virgin innocence, her total ignorance of the conventional forms and language of society. It is most natural that in a being thus const.i.tuted, the first tears should spring from compa.s.sion, "suffering with those that she saw suffer:"--

O the cry did knock Against my very heart. Poor souls! they perished.

Had I been any G.o.d of power, I would Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er It should the good s.h.i.+p so have swallowed, And the freighting souls within her;

and that her first sigh should be offered to a love at once fearless and submissive, delicate and fond. She has no taught scruples of honor like Juliet; no coy concealments like Viola; no a.s.sumed dignity standing in its own defence. Her bashfulness is less a quality than an instinct; it is like the self-folding of a flower, spontaneous and unconscious. I suppose there is nothing of the kind in poetry equal to the scene between Ferdinand and Miranda. In Ferdinand, who is a n.o.ble creature, we have all the chivalrous magnanimity with which man, in a high state of civilization, disguises his real superiority, and does humble homage to the being of whose destiny he disposes; while Miranda, the mere child of nature, is struck with wonder at her own new emotions. Only conscious of her own weakness as a woman, and ignorant of those usages of society which teach us to dissemble the real pa.s.sion, and a.s.sume (and sometimes abuse) an unreal and transient power, she is equally ready to place her life, her love, her service beneath his feet.

MIRANDA.

Alas, now! pray you, Work not so hard: I would the lightning had Burnt up those logs, that you are enjoined to pile!

Pray set it down and rest you: when this burns, 'Twill weep for having weary'd you. My father Is hard at study; pray now, rest yourself: He's safe for these three hours.

FERDINAND.

O most dear mistress, The sun will set before I shall discharge What I must strive to do.

MIRANDA.

If you'll sit down, I'll bear your logs the while. Pray give me that, I'll carry it to the pile.

FERDINAND.

No, precious creature; I had rather crack my sinews, break my back, Than you should such dishonor undergo, While I sit lazy by.

MIRANDA.

It would become me As well as it does you; and I should do it With much more ease; for my good will is to it, And yours against.

MIRANDA.

You look wearily.

FERDINAND.

No, n.o.ble mistress; 'tis fresh morning with me When you are by at night. I do beseech you, (Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers,) What is your name?

MIRANDA.

Miranda. O my father I have broke your 'hest to say so!

FERDINAND.

Admir'd Miranda!

Indeed the top of admiration; worth What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady I have eyed with best regard: and many a time The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues Have I liked several women; never any With so full soul, but some defect in her Did quarrel with the n.o.blest grace she owed And put it to the foil. But you, O you, So perfect and so peerless, are created Of every creature's best!

MIRANDA.

I do not know One of my s.e.x: no woman's face remember, Save, from my gla.s.s, mine own; nor have I seen Mere that I may call men, than you, good friend, And my dear father. How features are abroad I am skill-less of: but, by my modesty, (The jewel in my dower,) I would not wish Any companion in the world but you; Nor can imagination form a shape, Besides yourself, to like of--But I prattle Something too wildly, and my father's precepts Therein forget.

FERDINAND.

I am, in my condition A prince, Miranda--I do think a king-- (I would, not so!) and would no more endure This wooden slavery, than I would suffer The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak The very instant that I saw you, did My heart fly to your service; there resides, To make me slave to it; and for your sake, Am I this patient log-man.

MIRANDA.

Do you love me?

FERDINAND.

O heaven! O earth! bear witness to this sound And crown what I profess with kind event, If I speak true: if hollowly, invert What best is boded me, to mischief! I, Beyond all limit of what else i' the world, Do love, prize, honor you.