Characteristics of Women Part 23

And though the situation of Hermione admits but of few general reflections, one little speech, inimitably beautiful and characteristic, has become almost proverbial from its truth. She says:--

One good deed, dying tongueless, Slaughters a thousand, waiting upon that.

Our praises are our wages; you may ride us With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs, ere With spur we heat an acre.

She receives the first intimation of her husband's jealous suspicions with incredulous astonishment. It is not that, like Desdemona, she does not or cannot understand; but she _will_ not. When he accuses her more plainly, she replies with a calm dignity:--

Should a villain say so-- The most replenished villain in the world-- He were as much more villain: you, my lord, Do but mistake.

This characteristic composure of temper never forsakes her; and yet it is so delineated that the impression is that of grandeur, and never borders upon pride or coldness: it is the fort.i.tude of a gentle but a strong mind, conscious of its own innocence. Nothing can be more affecting than her calm reply to Leontes, who, in his jealous rage, heaps insult upon insult, and accuses her before her own attendants, as no better "than one of those to whom the vulgar give bold t.i.tles."

How will this grieve you, When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that You have thus published me! Gentle my lord, You scarce can right me thoroughly then, to say You _did_ mistake.

Her mild dignity and saint-like patience, combined as they are with the strongest sense of the cruel injustice of her husband, thrill us with admiration as well as pity; and we cannot but see and feel, that for Hermione to give way to tears and feminine complaints under such a blow, would be quite incompatible with the character. Thus she says of herself, as she is led to prison:--

There's some ill planet reigns: I must be patient till the heavens look With an aspect more favorable. Good my lords, I am not p.r.o.ne to weeping, as our s.e.x Commonly are; the want of which vain dew Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have That honorable grief lodged here, that burns Worse than tears drown. Beseech you all, my lords With thought so qualified as your charities Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so The king's will be performed.

When she is brought to trial for supposed crimes, called on to defend herself, "standing to prate and talk for life and honor, before who please to come and hear," the sense of her ignominious situation--all its shame and all its horror press upon her, and would apparently crush even _her_ magnanimous spirit, but for the consciousness of her own worth and innocence, and the necessity that exists for a.s.serting and defending both.

If powers divine Behold our human actions, (as they do), I doubt not, then, but innocence shall make False accusation blush, and tyranny Tremble at patience.

For life, I prize it As I weigh grief, which I would spare. For honor-- 'Tis a derivative from me to mine, And only that I stand for.

Her earnest, eloquent justification of herself, and her lofty sense of female honor, are rendered more affecting and impressive by that chilling despair that contempt for a life which has been made bitter to her through unkindness, which is betrayed in every word of her speech, though so calmly characteristic. When she enumerates the unmerited insults which have been heaped upon her, it is without asperity or reproach, yet in a tone which shows how completely the iron has entered her soul. Thus, when Leontes threatens her with death:--

Sir, spare your threats; The bug which you would fright me with, I seek.

To me can life be no commodity; The crown and comfort of my life, your favor, I do give lost; for I do feel it gone, But know not how it went. My second joy, The first-fruits of my body, from his presence I am barr'd, like one infectious. My third comfort-- Starr'd most unluckily!--is from my breast, The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth, Haled out to murder. Myself on every post Proclaimed a strumpet; with immodest hatred, The childbed privilege denied, which 'longs To women of all fas.h.i.+on. Lastly, hurried Here to this place, i' the open air, before I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege, Tell me what blessings I have here alive, That I should fear to die. Therefore, proceed, But yet hear this; mistake me not. No! life, I prize it not a straw:--but for mine honor.

(Which I would free,) if I shall be condemned Upon surmises; all proof sleeping else, But what your jealousies awake; I tell you, 'Tis rigor and not law.

The character of Hermione is considered open to criticism on one point.

I have heard it remarked that when she secludes herself from the world for sixteen years, during which time she is mourned as dead by her repentant husband, and is not won to relent from her resolve by his sorrow, his remorse, his constancy to her memory; such conduct, argues the critic, is unfeeling as it is inconceivable in a tender and virtuous woman. Would Imogen have done so, who is so generously ready to grant a pardon before it be asked? or Desdemona, who does not forgive because she cannot even resent? No, a.s.suredly; but this is only another proof of the wonderful delicacy and consistency with which Shakspeare has discriminated the characters of all three. The incident of Hermione's supposed death and concealment for sixteen years, is not indeed very probable in itself, nor very likely to occur in every-day life. But besides all the probability necessary for the purposes of poetry, it has all the likelihood it can derive from the peculiar character of Hermione, who is precisely the woman who could and would have acted in this manner. In such a mind as hers, the sense of a cruel injury, inflicted by one she had loved and trusted, without awakening any violent anger or any desire of vengeance, would sink deep--almost incurably and lastingly deep. So far she is most unlike either Imogen or Desdemona, who are portrayed as much more flexible in temper; but then the circ.u.mstances under which she is wronged are very different, and far more unpardonable. The self-created, frantic jealousy of Leontes is very distinct from that of Oth.e.l.lo, writhing under the arts of Iago: or that of Posthumus, whose understanding has been cheated by the most d.a.m.ning evidence of his wife's infidelity. The jealousy which in Oth.e.l.lo and Posthumus is an error of judgment, in Leontes is a vice of the blood; he suspects without cause, condemns without proof; he is without excuse--unless the mixture of pride, pa.s.sion, and imagination, and the predisposition to jealousy with which Shakspeare has portrayed him, be considered as an excuse. Hermione has been openly insulted: he to whom she gave herself, her heart, her soul, has stooped to the weakness and baseness of suspicion; has doubted her truth, has wronged her love, has sunk in her esteem, and forfeited her confidence. She has been branded with vile names; her son, her eldest hope, is dead--dead through the false accusation which has stuck infamy on his mother's name; and her innocent babe, stained with illegitimacy, disowned and rejected, has been exposed to a cruel death. Can we believe that the mere tardy acknowledgment of her innocence could make amends for wrongs and agonies such as these? or heal a heart which must have bled inwardly, consumed by that untold grief, "which burns worse than tears drown?" Keeping in view the peculiar character of Hermione, such as she is delineated, is she one either to forgive hastily or forget quickly? and though she might, in her solitude, mourn over her repentant husband, would his repentance suffice to restore him at once to his place in her heart: to efface from her strong and reflecting mind the recollection of his miserable weakness? or can we fancy this high-souled woman--left childless through the injury which has been inflicted on her, widowed in heart by the unworthness of him she loved, a spectacle of grief to all--to her husband a continual reproach and humiliation--walking through the parade of royalty in the court which had witnessed her anguish, her shame, her degradation, and her despair? Methinks that the want of feeling, nature, delicacy, and consistency, would lie in such an exhibition as this. In a mind like Hermione's, where the strength of feeling is founded in the power of thought, and where there is little of impulse or imagination,--"the depth, but not the tumult of the soul,"[48]--there are but two influences which predominate over the will,--time and religion. And what then remained, but that, wounded in heart and spirit, she should retire from the world?--not to brood over her wrongs, but to study forgiveness, and wait the fulfilment of the oracle which had promised the termination of her sorrows. Thus a premature reconciliation would not only have been painfully inconsistent with the character; it would also have deprived us of that most beautiful scene, in which Hermione is discovered to her husband as the statue or image of herself. And here we have another instance of that admirable art, with which the dramatic character is fitted to the circ.u.mstances in which it is placed: that perfect command over her own feelings, that complete self-possession necessary to this extraordinary situation, is consistent with all that we imagine of Hermione: in any other woman it would be so incredible as to shock all our ideas of probability.

This scene, then, is not only one of the most picturesque and striking instances of stage effect to be found in the ancient or modern drama, but by the skilful manner in which it is prepared, it has, wonderful as it appears, all the merit of consistency and truth. The grief, the love, the remorse and impatience of Leontes, are finely contrasted with the astonishment and admiration of Perdita, who, gazing on the figure of her mother like one entranced, looks as if she were also turned to marble.

There is here one little instance of tender remembrance in Leontes, which adds to the charming impression of Hermione's character.

Chide me, dear stone! that I may say indeed Thou art Hermione; or rather thou art she In thy not chiding, for she was as tender As infancy and grace.

Thus she stood, Even with such life of majesty--warm life-- As now it coldly stands--when first I woo'd her!

The effect produced on the different persons of the drama by this living statue--an effect which at the same moment is, and is _not_ illusion--the manner in which the feelings of the spectators become entangled between the conviction of death and the impression of life, the idea of a deception and the feeling of a reality; and the exquisite coloring of poetry and touches of natural feeling with which the whole is wrought up, till wonder, expectation, and intense pleasure, hold our pulse and breath suspended on the event,--are quite inimitable.

The expressions used here by Leontes,--

Thus she stood, Even with such life of majesty--_warm life_.

The fixture of her eye has motion in't.

And we are mock'd by art!

And by Polixines,--

The very life seems warm upon her lip,

appear strangely applied to a statue, such as we usually imagine it--of the cold colorless marble; but it is evident that in this scene Hermione personates one of those images or effigies, such as we may see in the old gothic cathedrals, in which the stone, or marble, was colored after nature. I remember coming suddenly upon one of these effigies, either at Basle or at Fribourg, which made me start: the figure was large as life; the drapery of crimson, powdered with stars of gold; the face and eyes, and hair, tinted after nature, though faded by time: it stood in a gothic niche, over a tomb, as I think, and in a kind of dim uncertain light. It would have been very easy for a living person to represent such an effigy, particularly if it had been painted by that "rare Italian master, Julio Romano,"[49] who, as we are informed, was the reputed author of this wonderful statue.

The moment when Hermione descends from her pedestal, to the sound of soft music, and throws herself without speaking into her husband's arms, is one of inexpressible interest. It appears to me that her silence during the whole of this scene (except where she invokes a blessing on her daughter's head) is in the finest taste as a poetical beauty, besides being an admirable trait of character. The misfortunes of Hermione, her long religious seclusion, the wonderful and almost supernatural part she has just enacted, have invested her with such a sacred and awful charm, that any words put into her mouth, must, I think, have injured the solemn and profound pathos of the situation.

There are several among Shakspeare's characters which exercise a far stronger power over our feelings, our fancy, our understanding, than that of Hermione; but not one,--unless perhaps Cordelia,--constructed upon so high and pure a principle. It is the union of gentleness with power which const.i.tutes the perfection of mental grace. Thus among the ancients, with whom the _graces_ were also the _charities_, (to show, perhaps, that while form alone may const.i.tute beauty, sentiment is necessary to grace,) one and the same word signified equally _strength_ and _virtue_. This feeling, carried into the fine arts, was the secret of the antique grace--the grace of repose. The same eternal nature--the same sense of immutable truth and beauty, which revealed this sublime principle of art to the ancient Greeks, revealed it to the genius of Shakspeare; and the character of Hermione, in which we have the same largeness of conception and delicacy of execution,--the same effect of suffering without pa.s.sion, and grandeur without effort, is an instance, I think, that he felt within himself, and by intuition, what we study all our lives in the remains of ancient art. The calm, regular, cla.s.sical beauty of Hermione's character is the more impressive from the wild and gothic accompaniments of her story, and the beautiful relief afforded by the pastoral and romantic grace which is thrown around her daughter Perdita.

The character of Paulina, in the Winter's Tale, though it has obtained but little notice, and no critical remark, (that I have seen,) is yet one of the striking beauties of the play: and it has its moral too. As we see running through the whole universe that principle of contrast which may be called the life of nature, so we behold it every where ill.u.s.trated in Shakspeare: upon this principle he has placed Emilia beside Desdemona, the nurse beside Juliet; the clowns and dairy-maids, and the merry peddler thief Autolycus round Florizel and Perdita;--and made Paulina the friend of Hermione.

Paulina does not fill any ostensible office near the person of the queen, but is a lady of high rank in the court--the wife of the Lord Antigones. She is a character strongly drawn from real and common life--a clever, generous, strong-minded, warmhearted woman, fearless in a.s.serting the truth, firm in her sense of right, enthusiastic in all her affections: quick in thought, resolute in word, and energetic in action; but heedless, hot-tempered, impatient, loud, bold, voluble, and turbulent of tongue; regardless of the feelings of those for whom she would sacrifice her life, and injuring from excess of zeal those whom she most wishes to serve. How many such are there in the world! But Paulina, though a very termagant, is yet a poetical termagant in her way; and the manner in which all the evil and dangerous tendencies of such a temper are placed before us, even while the individual character preserves the strongest hold upon our respect and admiration, forms an impressive lesson, as well as a natural and delightful portrait.

In the scene, for instance, where she brings the infant before Leontes, with the hope of softening him to a sense of his injustice--"an office which," as she observes, "becomes a woman best"--her want of self-government, her bitter, inconsiderate reproaches, only add, as we might easily suppose, to his fury.

PAULINA.

I say I come From your good queen!

LEONTES.

Good queen!

PAULINA.

Good queen, my lord, good queen: I say good queen; And would by combat make her good, so were I A man, the worst about you.

LEONTES.

Force her hence.

PAULINA.

Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes, First hand me: on mine own accord I'll off; But first I'll do mine errand. The good queen (For she is good) hath brought you forth a daughter-- Here 'tis; commends it to your blessing.

LEONTES.

Traitors!

Will you not push her out! Give her the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

PAULINA.

Forever Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou Tak'st up the princess by that forced baseness Which he has put upon't!

LEONTES.

He dreads his wife.

PAULINA.