It is certainly well related, and still better chosen, of deep meaning and very clear import. Her brother Flaminio says, aside:

"Excellent devil! she hath taught him in a dream
To make away his duchess and her husband."[480]

So, her husband, Camillo, is strangled, the Duchess poisoned, and Vittoria, accused of the two crimes, is brought before the tribunal. Step by step, like a soldier brought to bay with his back against a wall, she defends herself, refuting and defying advocates and judges, incapable of blenching or quailing, clear in mind, ready in word, amid insults and proofs, even menaced with death on the scaffold. The advocate begins to speak in Latin.

"Vittoria. Pray my lord, let him speak his usual tongue;
I'll make no answer else.
Francisco de Medicis. Why, you understand Latin.
V. I do, sir; but amongst this auditory
Which come to hear my cause, the half or more
May be ignorant in't."

She wants a duel, bare-breasted, in open day, and challenges the advocate:

"I am at the mark, sir: I'll give aim to you,
And tell you how near you shoot."

She mocks his legal phraseology, insults him, with biting irony:

"Surely, my lords, this lawyer here hath swallow'd
Some pothecaries' bills, or proclamations;
And now the hard and undigestible words
Come up, like stones we use give hawks for physic:
Why, this is Welsh to Latin."

Then, to the strongest adjuration of the judges:

"To the point,
Find me but guilty, sever head from body,
We'll part good friends; I scorn to hold my life
At yours, or any man's entreaty, sir....
These are but feigned shadows of my evils:
Terrify babes, my lord, with painted devils;
I am past such needless palsy. For your names
Of whore and murderess, they proceed from you,
As if a man should spit against the wind;
The filth returns in's face."[481]

Argument for argument: she has a parry for every blow: a parry and a thrust:

"But take you your course: it seems you have beggar'd me first,
And now would fain undo me. I have houses.
Jewels, and a poor remnant of crusadoes:
Would those would make you charitable!"

Then, in a harsher voice:

"In faith, my lord, you might go pistol flies;
The sport would be more noble."

They condemn her to be shut up in a house of convertites:

"V. A house of convertites! What's that?
Monticelso. A house of penitent whores.
V. Do the noblemen in Rome
Erect it for their wives, that I am sent
To lodge there?"[482]

The sarcasm comes home like a sword-thrust; then another behind it; then cries and curses. She will not bend, she will not weep. She goes off erect, bitter and more haughty than ever:

"I will not weep;
No, I do scorn to call up one poor tear
To fawn on your injustice: bear me hence
Unto this house of what's your mitigating title?
Mont. Of convertites.
V. It shall not be a house of convertites;
My mind shall make it honester to me
Than the Pope's palace, and more peaceable
Than thy soul, though thou art a cardinal."[483]

Against her furious lover, who accuses her of unfaithfulness, she is as strong as against her judges; she copes with him, casts in his teeth the death of his duchess, forces him to beg pardon, to marry her; she will play the comedy to the end, at the pistol's mouth, with the shamelessness and courage of a courtesan and an empress;[484] snared at last, she will be just as brave and more insulting when the dagger's point threatens her:

"Yes, I shall welcome death
As princes do some great ambassadors;
I'll meet thy weapon half way.... 'Twas a manly blow;
The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant;
And then thou wilt be famous."[485]

When a woman unsexes herself, her actions transcend man's, and there is nothing which she will not suffer or dare.

SECTION VII.—Female Characters

Opposed to this band of tragic characters, with their distorted features, brazen fronts, combative attitudes, is a troop of sweet and timid figures, pre-eminently tender-hearted, the most graceful and loveworthy whom it has been given to man to depict. In Shakespeare you will meet them in Miranda, Juliet, Desdemona, Virgilia, Ophelia, Cordelia, Imogen; but they abound also in the others; and it is a characteristic of the race to have furnished them, as it is of the drama to have represented them. By a singular coincidence, the women are more of women, the men more of men, here than elsewhere. The two natures go each to its extreme: in the one to boldness, the spirit of enterprise and resistance, the warlike, imperious, and unpolished character; in the other to sweetness, devotion, patience, inextinguishable affection[486]—a thing unknown in distant lands, in France especially so: a woman in England gives herself without drawing back, and places her glory and duty in obedience, forgiveness, adoration, wishing and professing only to be melted and absorbed daily deeper and deeper in him whom she has freely and forever chosen.[487] It is this, an old German instinct, which these great painters of instinct diffuse here, one and all: Penthea, Dorothea, in Ford and Greene; Isabella and the Duchess of Malfi, in Webster; Bianca, Ordella, Arethusa, Juliana, Euphrasia, Amoret, and others, in Beaumont and Fletcher: there are a score of them who, under the severest tests and the strongest temptations, display this wonderful power of self-abandonment and devotion.[488] The soul, in this race, is at once primitive and serious. Women keep their purity longer than elsewhere. They lose respect less quickly; weigh worth and characters less suddenly: they are less apt to think evil, and to take the measure of their husbands. To this day, a great lady, accustomed to company, blushes in the presence of an unknown man, and feels bashful like a little girl: the blue eyes are dropped, and a child-like shame flies to her rosy cheeks. Englishwomen have not the smartness, the boldness of ideas, the assurance of bearing, the precocity, which with the French make of a young girl, in six months, a woman of intrigue and the queen of a drawing-room.[489] Domestic life and obedience are more easy to them. More pliant and more sedentary, they are at the same time more concentrated and introspective, more disposed to follow the noble dream called duty, which is hardly generated in mankind but by silence of the senses. They are not tempted by the voluptuous sweetness which in southern countries is breathed out in the climate, in the sky, in the general spectacle of things; which dissolves every obstacle, which causes privation to be looked upon as a snare and virtue as a theory. They can rest content with dull sensations, dispense with excitement, endure weariness; and in this monotony of a regulated existence, fall back upon themselves, obey a pure idea, employ all the strength of their hearts in maintaining their moral dignity. Thus supported by innocence and conscience, they introduce into love a profound and upright sentiment, abjure coquetry, vanity, and flirtation: they do not lie nor simper. When they love, they are not tasting a forbidden fruit, but are binding themselves for their whole life. Thus understood, love becomes almost a holy thing; the spectator no longer wishes to be spiteful or to jest; women do not think of their own happiness, but of that of the loved ones; they aim not at pleasure, but at devotion. Euphrasia, relating her history to Philaster, says:

"My father oft would speak
Your worth and virtue; and, as I did grow
More and more apprehensive, I did thirst
To see the man so prais'd; but yet all this
Was but a maiden longing, to be lost
As soon as found; till sitting in my window,
Printing my thoughts in lawn, I saw a god,
I thought (but it was you), enter our gates.
My blood flew out, and back again as fast,
As I had puff'd it forth and suck'd it in
Like breath: Then was I call'd away in haste
To entertain you. Never was a man,
Heav'd from a sheep-cote to a sceptre, rais'd
So high in thoughts as I: You left a kiss
Upon these lips then, which I mean to keep
From you forever. I did hear you talk,
Far above singing! After you were gone,
I grew acquainted with my heart, and search'd
What stirr'd it so: Alas! I found it love;
Yet far from lust; for could I but have liv'd
In presence of you, I had had my end."[490]

She had disguised herself as a page,[491] followed him, was his servant; what greater happiness for a woman than to serve on her knees the man she loves? She let him scold her, threaten her with death, wound her.

"Blest be that hand!
It meant me well. Again, for pity's sake!"[492]

Do what he will, nothing but words of tenderness and adoration can proceed from this heart, these wan lips. Moreover, she takes upon herself a crime of which he is accused, contradicts him when he asserts his guilt, is ready to die in his place. Still more, she is of use to him with the Princess Arethusa, whom he loves; she justifies her rival, brings about their marriage, and asks no other thanks but that she may serve them both. And strange to say, the princess is not jealous.

"Euphrasia. Never, Sir, will I
Marry; it is a thing within my vow:
But if I may have leave to serve the princess,
To see the virtues of her lord and her,
I shall have hope to live.
Arethusa.... Come, live with me;
Live free as I do. She that loves my lord,
Curst be the wife that hates her!"[493]

What notion of love have they in this country? Whence happens it that all selfishness, all vanity, all rancor, every little feeling, either personal or base, flees at its approach? How comes it that the soul is given up wholly, without hesitation, without reserve, and only dreams thenceforth of prostrating and annihilating itself, as in the presence of a god? Biancha, thinking Cesario ruined, offers herself to him as his wife; and learning that he is not so, gives him up straightway, without a murmur:

"Biancha. So dearly I respected both your fame
And quality, that I would first have perish'd
In my sick thoughts, than e'er have given consent
To have undone your fortunes, by inviting
A marriage with so mean a one as I am:
I should have died sure, and no creature known
The sickness that had kill'd me... Now since I know
There is no difference 'twixt your birth and mine,
Not much 'twixt our estates (if any be,
The advantage is on my side) I come willingly
To tender you the first-fruits of my heart,
And am content t' accept you for my husband.
Now when you are at the lowest....
Cesario. Why, Biancha,
Report has cozen'd thee; I am not fallen
From my expected honors or possessions,
Tho' from the hope of birth-right.
B. Are you not?
Then I am lost again! I have a suit too;
You'll grant it, if you be a good man....
Pray do not talk of aught what I have said t'ye....
... Pity me;
But never love me more!... I'll pray for you,
That you may have a virtuous wife, a fair one;
And when I'm dead...
C. Fy, fy!
B. Think on me sometimes,
With mercy for this trespass!
C. Let us kiss
At parting, as at coming!
B. This I have
As a free dower to a virgin's grave,
All goodness dwell with you!"[494]

Isabella, Brachiano's duchess, is defrayed, insulted by her faithless husband; to shield him from the vengeance of her family, she takes upon herself the blame of the rupture, purposely plays the shrew, and leaving him at peace with his courtesan, dies embracing his picture. Arethusa allows herself to be wounded by Philaster, stays the people who would hold back the murderer's arm, declares that he has done nothing, that it is not he, prays for him, loves him in spite of all, even to the end, as though all his acts were sacred, as if he had power of life and death over her. Ordella devotes herself, that the king, her husband, may have children;[495] she offers herself for a sacrifice, simply, without grand words, with her whole heart:

"Ordella. Let it be what it may then, what it dare,
I have a mind will hazard it.
Thierry. But, hark you;
What may that woman merit, makes this blessing?
O. Only her duty, sir.
T. 'Tis terrible!
O. 'Tis so much the more noble.
T. 'Tis full of fearful shadows!
O. So is sleep, sir,
Or anything that's merely ours, and mortal;
We were begotten gods else: but those fears,
Feeling but once the fires of noble thoughts,
Fly, like the shapes of clouds we form, to nothing.
T. Suppose it death!
O. I do.
T. And endless parting
With all we can call ours, with all our sweetness,
With youth, strength, pleasure, people, time, nay reason!
For in the silent grave, no conversation,
No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers,
No careful father's counsel, nothing's heard,
Nor nothing is, but all oblivion,
Dust and endless darkness: and dare you, woman,
Desire this place?
O. 'Tis of all sleeps the sweetest:
Children begin it to us, strong men seek it,
And kings from height of all their painted glories
Fall, like spent exhalations, to this centre....
T. Then you can suffer?
O. As willingly as say it.
T. Martell, a wonder!
Here is a woman that dares die.—Yet, tell me,
Are you a wife?
O. I am, sir.
T. And have children?—
She sighs and weeps!
O. Oh, none, sir.
T. Dare you venture
For a poor barren praise you ne'er shall hear,
To part with these sweet hopes?
O. With all but Heaven."[496]

Is not this prodigious? Can you understand how one human being can thus be separated from herself, forget and lose herself in another? They do so lose themselves, as in an abyss. When they love in vain and without hope, neither reason nor life resist; they languish, grow mad, die like Ophelia. Aspasia, forlorn,

"Walks discontented, with her watry eyes
Bent on the earth. The unfrequented woods
Are her delight; and when she sees a bank
Stuck full of flowers, she with a sigh will tell
Her servants what a pretty place it were
To bury lovers in; and make her maids
Pluck 'em, and strew her over like a corse.
She carries with her an infectious grief,
That strikes all her beholders; she will sing
The mournful'st things that ever ear hath heard,
And sigh and sing again; and when the rest
Of our young ladies, in their wanton blood,
Tell mirthful tales in course, that fill the room
With laughter, she will with so sad a look
Bring forth a story of the silent death
Of some forsaken virgin, which her grief
Will put in such a phrase, that, ere she end,
She'll send them weeping one by one away."[497]

Like a spectre about a tomb, she wanders forever about the remains of her destroyed love, languishes, grows pale, swoons, ends by causing herself to be killed. Sadder still are those who, from duty or submission, allow themselves to be married while their heart belongs to another. They are not resigned, do not recover, like Pauline in "Polyeucte." They are crushed to death. Penthea, in Ford's "Broken Heart," is as upright, but not so strong, as Pauline; she is the English wife, not the Roman, stoical and calm.[498] She despairs sweetly, silently, and pines to death. In her innermost heart she holds herself married to him to whom she has pledged her soul: it is the marriage of the heart which in her eyes is alone genuine; the other is only disguised adultery. In marrying Bassanes she has sinned against Orgilus; moral infidelity is worse than legal infidelity, and thenceforth she is fallen in her own eyes. She says to her brother:

"Pray, kill me....
Kill me, pray; nay, will ye
Ithocles. How does thy lord esteem thee?
P. Such an one
As only you have made me; a faith-breaker,
A spotted whore; forgive me, I am one—
In act, not in desires, the gods must witness....
For she's that wife to Orgilus, and lives
In known adultery with Bassanes,
Is, at the best, a whore. Wilt kill me now?...
The handmaid to the wages
Of country toil, drinks the untroubled streams
With leaping kids, and with the bleating lambs,
And so allays her thirst secure; whiles I
Quench my hot sighs with fleetings of my tears."[499]

With tragic greatness, from the height of her incurable grief, she throws her gaze on life:

"My glass of life, sweet princess, hath few minutes
Remaining to run down; the sands are spent;
For by an inward messenger I feel
The summons of departure short and certain.... Glories
Of human greatness are but pleasing dreams,
And shadows soon decaying; on the stage
Of my mortality, my youth hath acted
Some scenes of vanity, drawn out at length
By varied pleasures, sweeten'd in the mixture,
But tragical in issue... That remedy
Must be a winding-sheet, a fold of lead,
And some untrod-on corner in the earth."[500]

There is no revolt, no bitterness; she affectionately assists her brother who has caused her unhappiness; she tries to enable him to win the woman he loves; feminine kindness and sweetness overflow in her in the depths of her despair. Love here is not despotic, passionate, as in southern climes. It is only deep and sad; the source of life is dried up, that is all; she lives no longer, because she cannot; all go by degrees—health, reason, soul; in the end she becomes mad, and behold her dishevelled, with wide staring eyes, with words that can hardly find utterance. For ten days she has not slept, and will not eat any more; and the same fatal thought continually afflicts her heart, amidst vague dreams of maternal tenderness and happiness brought to nought, which come and go in her mind like phantoms:

"Sure, if we were all sirens, we would sing pitifully,
And 'twere a comely music, when in parts
One sung another's knell; the turtle sighs
When he hath lost his mate; and yet some say
He must be dead first: 'tis a fine deceit
To pass away in a dream! indeed, I've slept
With mine eyes open, a great while. No falsehood
Equals a broken faith; there's not a hair
Sticks on my head, but, like a leaden plummet,
It sinks me to the grave: I must creep thither;
The journey is not long....
Since I was first a wife, I might have been
Mother to many pretty prattling babes;
They would have smiled when I smiled; and, for certain,
I should have cried when they cried:—truly, brother,
My father would have pick'd me out a husband,
And then my little ones had been no bastards;
But 'tis too late for me to marry now,
I'm past child-bearing; Tis not my fault....
Spare your hand;
Believe me, I'll not hurt it....
Complain not though I wring it hard: I'll kiss it,
Oh, 'tis a fine soft palm!—hark, in thine ear;
Like whom do I look, prithee?—nay, no whispering,
Goodness! we had been happy; too much happiness
Will make folk proud, they say....
There is no peace left for a ravish'd wife,
Widow'd by lawless marriage; to all memory
Penthea's, poor Penthea's name is strumpeted....
Forgive me; Oh! I faint."[501]

She dies, imploring that some gentle voice may sing her a plaintive air, a farewell ditty, a sweet funeral song. I know nothing in the drama more pure and touching.

When we find a constitution of soul so new, and capable of such great effects, it behooves us to look at the bodies. Man's extreme actions come not from his will, but his nature.[502] In order to understand the great tensions of the whole machine, we must look upon the whole—I mean man's temperament, the manner in which his blood flows, his nerves quiver, his muscles act, the moral interprets the physical, and human qualities have their root in the animal species. Consider then the species in this case—namely, the race; for the sisters of Shakespeare's Ophelia and Virgilia, Goethe's Clara and Margaret, Otway's Belvidera, Richardson's Pamela, constitute a race by themselves, soft and fair, with blue eyes, lily whiteness, blushing, of timid delicacy, serious sweetness, framed to yield, bend, cling. Their poets feel it clearly when they bring them on the stage; they surround them with the poetry which becomes them, the murmur of streams, the pendant willow-tresses, the frail and humid flowers of the country, so like themselves:

"The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor
The azure harebell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath."[503]

They make them sweet, like the south wind, which with its gentle breath causes the violets to bend their heads, abashed at the slightest reproach, already half bowed down by a tender and dreamy melancholy.[504] Philaster, speaking of Euphrasia, whom he takes to be a page, and who has disguised herself in order to be near him, says:

"Hunting the buck,
I found him sitting by a fountain-side,
Of which he borrow'd some to quench his thirst,
And paid the nymph again as much in tears.
A garland lay him by, made by himself,
Of many several flowers, bred in the bay,
Stuck in that mystic order, that the rareness
Delighted me: But ever when he turn'd
His tender eyes upon 'em, he would weep,
As if he meant to make 'em grow again.
Seeing such pretty helpless innocence
Dwell in his face, I asked him all his story.
He told me, that his parents gentle dy'd,
Leaving him to the mercy of the fields,
Which gave him roots; and of the crystal springs,
Which did not stop their courses; and the sun,
Which still, he thank'd him, yielded him his light.
Then he took up his garland, and did shew
What every flower, as country people hold,
Did signify; and how all, order'd thus,
Express'd his grief: And, to my thoughts, did read
The prettiest lecture of his country art
That could be wish'd.... I gladly entertain'd him,
Who was as glad to follow; and have got
The trustiest, loving'st, and the gentlest boy
That ever master kept."[505]

The idyl is self-produced among these human flowers: the dramatic action is stopped before the angelic sweetness of their tenderness and modesty. Sometimes even the idyl is born complete and pure, and the whole theatre is occupied by a sentimental and poetical kind of opera. There are two or three such plays in Shakespeare; in rude Jonson, "The Sad Shepherd"; in Fletcher, "The Faithful Shepherdess." Ridiculous titles nowadays, for they remind us of the interminable platitudes of d'Urfé, or the affected conceits of Florian; charming titles, if we note the sincere and overflowing poetry which they contain. Amoret, the faithful shepherdess, lives in an imaginary country, full of old gods, yet English, like the dewy verdant landscapes in which Rubens sets his nymphs dancing:

"Thro' yon same bending plain
That flings his arms down to the main,
And thro' these thick woods, have I run,
Whose bottom never kiss'd the sun
Since the lusty spring began."...

"For to that holy wood is consecrate
A virtuous well, about whose flow'ry banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds,
By the pale moon-shine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh, and dull mortality...[506]

"See the dew-drops, how they kiss
Ev'ry little flower that is;
Hanging on their velvet heads,
Like a rope of christal beads.
See the heavy clouds low falling,
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead Night from underground."[507]

These are the plants and the aspects of the ever fresh English country, now enveloped in a pale diaphanous mist, now glistening under the absorbing sun, teeming with grasses so full of sap, so delicate, that in the midst of their most brilliant splendor and their most luxuriant life, we feel that to-morrow will wither them. There, on a summer night, the young men and girls, after their custom,[508] go to gather flowers and plight their troth. Amoret and Perigot are together; Amoret,

"Fairer far
Than the chaste blushing morn, or that fair star
That guides the wand'ring seaman thro' the deep,"

modest like a virgin, and tender as a wife, says to Perigot:

"I do believe thee: 'Tis as hard for me
To think thee false, and harder, than for thee
To hold me foul."[509]

Strongly as she is tried, her heart, once given, never draws back. Perigot, deceived, driven to despair, persuaded that she is unchaste, strikes her with his sword, and casts her bleeding to the ground. The "sullen shepherd" throws her into a well; but the god lets fall "a drop from his watery locks" into the wound; the chaste flesh closes at the touch of the divine water, and the maiden, recovering, goes once more in search of him she loves:

"Speak, if thou be here,
My Perigot! Thy Amoret, thy dear,
Calls on thy loved name.... 'Tis thy friend,
Thy Amoret; come hither, to give end
To these consumings. Look up, gentle boy,
I have forgot those pains and dear annoy
I suffer'd for thy sake, and am content
To be thy love again. Why hast thou rent
Those curled locks, where I have often hung
Ribbons, and damask-roses, and have flung
Waters distill'd to make thee fresh and gay,
Sweeter than nosegays on a bridal day?
Why dost thou cross thine arms, and hang thy face
Down to thy bosom, letting fall apace,
From those two little Heav'ns, upon the ground,
Show'rs of more price, more orient, and more round,
Than those that hang upon the moon's pale brow?
Cease these complainings, shepherd! I am now
The same I ever was, as kind and free,
And can forgive before you ask of me:
Indeed, I can and will."[510]

Who could resist her sweet and sad smile? Still deceived, Perigot wounds her again; she falls, but without anger.

"So this work hath end!
Farewell, and live! be constant to thy friend
That loves thee next."[511]

A nymph cures her, and at last Perigot, disabused, comes and throws himself on his knees before her. She stretches out her arms; in spite of all that he had done, she was not changed:

"I am thy love,
Thy Amoret, for evermore thy love!
Strike once more on my naked breast, I'll prove
As constant still. Oh, could'st thou love me yet,
How soon could I my former griefs forget!"[512]

Such are the touching and poetical figures which these poets introduce in their dramas, or in connection with their dramas, amidst murders, assassinations, the clash of swords, the howl of slaughter, striving against the raging men who adore or torment them, like them carried to excess, transported by their tenderness as the others by their violence; it is a complete exposition, as well as a perfect opposition of the feminine instinct ending in excessive self-abandonment, and of masculine harshness ending in murderous inflexibility. Thus built up and thus provided, the drama of the age was enabled to bring out the inner depths of man, and to set in motion the most powerful human emotions; to bring upon the stage Hamlet and Lear, Ophelia and Cordelia, the death of Desdemona and the butcheries of Macbeth.