  THERE is in the greatest poetry a kind of extravagance that touches the infinite, and in this Shakespeare exceeds all others. You will remember the description given of the voyage of Paris in search of Helen: "The seas and winds, old wranglers, made a truce, And did him service; he touched the ports desired," And for an old aunt, whom the Greeks held captive, "He brought a Grecian queen whose youth and freshness Wrinkles Apollo, and makes stale the morning." So, in Pericles, when the father finds his daughter, he cries out: "O Helicanus! strike me, honored sir; Give me a gash, put me to present pain, Lest this great sea of joys, rushing upon me, O'erbear the shores of my mortality." The greatest compliment that man has ever paid to the woman he adores is this line: "Eyes that do mislead the morn." Nothing can be conceived more perfectly poetic. In that marvellous play, the "Midsummer Nights Dream," is one of the most extravagant things in literature: "Thou rememberest Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath That the rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres To hear the sea-maid's music." This is so marvellously told that it almost seems probable. So the description of Mark Antony: "For his bounty There was no winter in't—an autumn t'was That grew the more by reaping. His delights Were dolphin-like—they showed his back above The element they lived in." Think of the astronomical scope and amplitude of this: "Her bed is India—there she lies a pearl." Is there anything more intense than these words of Cleopatra? "Rather on Nilus mud lay me stark naked And let the water-flies blow me into abhorring." Or this of Isabella: "The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, And strip myself to death as to a bed That longing I've been sick for, ere I yield My body up to shame." Is there an intellectual man in the world who will not agree with this? "Let me not live After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff Of younger spirits." Can anything exceed the words of Troilus when parting with Cressida: "We two, that with so many thousand sighs Did buy each other, most poorly sell ourselves With the rude brevity and discharge of one. "Injurious time now with a robber's haste Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how; As many farewells as be stars in heaven, With distinct breath and consigned kisses to them, He fumbles up into a loose adieu, And scants us with a single famished kiss, Distasted with the salt of broken tears." Take this example, where pathos almost touches the grotesque. "O dear Juliet, why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous, And that the lean, abhorred monster keeps thee here I' the dark, to be his paramour?" Often when reading the marvellous lines of Shakespeare, I feel that his thoughts are "too subtle potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness, for the capacity of my ruder powers." Sometimes I cry out, "O churl!—write all, and leave no thoughts for those who follow after." |
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