HORAT. Ars Poet. 95.
Figurative expression, being the work of an enlivened imagination, cannot be the language of anguish or distress. Otway, sensible of this, has painted a scene of distress in colours finely adapted to the subject: there is scarcely
Passion. scarcely a figure in it, except a short and natural simile with which the speech is introduced. Belvidera, talking to her father of her husband :
Think you saw what past at our last parting ;
Think you beheld him like a raging lion,
Pacing the earth, and tearing up his steps,
Fate in his eyes, and roaring with the pain
Of burning fury ; think you saw his one hand
Fix'd on my throat, while the extended other
Grasp'd a keen threat'ning dagger : oh, 'twas thus
We last embrac'd, when, trembling with revenge,
He dragg'd me to the ground, and at my bosom
Presented horrid death ; cry'd out, My friends !
Where are my friends ? swore, wept, rag'd, threaten'd,
lov'd ;
For he yet lov'd, and that dear love preserv'd me
To this last trial of a father's pity.
I fear not death, but cannot bear a thought
That that dear hand should do th' unfriendly office.
If I was ever then your care, now hear me ;
Fly to the senate, save the promis'd lives
Of his dear friends, ere mine be made the sacrifice.
Venice Preserv'd, Act v.
To preserve the foresaid resemblance between words and their meaning, the sentiments of active and hurrying passions ought to be dressed in words where syllables prevail that are pronounced short or fast ; for these make an impression of hurry and precipitation. Emotions, on the other hand, that rest upon their objects, are best expressed by words where syllables prevail that are pronounced long or slow. A person affected with melancholy, has a languid and slow train of perceptions. The expression best suited to that state of mind, is where words, not only of long, but of many syllables, abound in the composition ; and for that reason, nothing can be finer than the following passage :
In those deep solitudes, and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-pensive Contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing Melancholy reigns.
Pore, Eloisa to Abelard.
To preserve the same resemblance, another circumstance is requisite, that the language, like the emotion, be rough or smooth, broken or uniform. Calm and sweet emotions are best expressed by words that glide softly : surprise, fear, and other turbulent passions, require an expression both rough and broken.
It cannot have escaped any diligent inquirer into nature, that, in the hurry of passion, one generally expresses that thing first which is most at heart ; which is beautifully done in the following passage :
Me, Me ; adsum qui feci : in me convertite ferrum,
O Rutuli, mea fraus omnis. Æneid, ix. 427.
Passion has often the effect of redoubling words, the better to make them express the strong conception of the mind. This is finely imitated in the following examples.
Thou sun, said I, fair light !
And thou enlighten'd earth, so fresh and gay !
Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains !
And ye that live, and move, fair creatures ! tell,
Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here.—
Paradise Lost, viii. 273.
Both have sinn'd ! but thou
Against God only ; I, 'gainst God and thee ;
And to the place of judgment will return ;
There with my cries importune Heav'n, that all
The sentence, from thy head remov'd, may light
On me, sole cause to thee of all this wo ;
Me ! me ! only just object of his ire.
Paradise Lost, x. 930.
In general, the language of violent passion ought to be broken and interrupted. Soliloquies ought to be so in a peculiar manner : language is intended by nature for society ; and a man when alone, though he always clothes his thoughts in words, seldom gives his words utterance, unless when prompted by some strong emotion ; and even then by starts and intervals only. Shakespeare's soliloquies may be justly established as a model ; for it is not easy to conceive any model more perfect. Of his many incomparable soliloquies, the two following only shall be quoted, being different in their manner.
Hamlet. Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew !
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter ! O God ! O God !
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world !
Eie on't ! O fie ! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to feed : things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.—That it should come to this !
But two months dead ! nay, not so much ; not two—
So excellent a king, that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr : so loving to my mother,
That he permitted not the winds of heav'n
Visit her face too roughly. Heav'n and earth !
Must I remember—why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on : yet, within a month—
Let me not think—Frailty, thy name is Woman !
A little month ! or ere those shoes were old,
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears—why she, ev'n she—
(O heav'n ! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer—) married with mine
uncle,
My father's brother ; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month !—
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married—Oh, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets !
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
Hamlet, Act i. sc. 3.
"Ford. Hum ! ha ! is this a vision ? is this a dream ?
do I sleep ? Mr Ford, awake ; awake, Mr Ford ;
there's a hole made in your best coat, Mr Ford ! this
'tis to be married ! this 'tis to have linen and buck
baskets ! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am ;
"I will now take the leacher; he is at my house; he cannot escape me; 'tis impossible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper-box. But lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places; tho' what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not, shall not make me tame."
Merry Wives of Windsor, act iii. sc. last.
These soliloquies are accurate and bold copies of nature: in a passionate soliloquy one begins with thinking aloud, and the strongest feelings only are expressed; as the speaker warms, he begins to imagine one listening, and gradually slides into a connected discourse.
How far distant are soliloquies generally from these models? So far indeed as to give disgust instead of pleasure. The first scene of Iphigenia in Tauris discovers that princess, in a soliloquy, gravely reporting to herself her own history. There is the same impropriety in the first scene of Alcestes, and in the other introductions of Euripides, almost without exception. Nothing can be more ridiculous; it puts one in mind of a most curious device in Gothic paintings, that of making every figure explain itself by a written label issuing from its mouth. The description which a parasite, in the Eunuch of Terence (act ii. sc. 2.) gives of himself, makes a sprightly soliloquy: but it is not consistent with the rules of propriety; for no man, in his ordinary state of mind and upon a familiar subject, ever thinks of talking aloud to himself. The same objection lies against a soliloquy in the Adelphi of the same author (act i. sc. 1.). The soliloquy which makes the third scene, act third of his Hecyra, is insufferable; for there Pamphilus, soberly and circumstantially, relates to himself an adventure which had happened to him a moment before.
Corneille is unhappy in his soliloquies: Take for a specimen the first scene of Cinna.
Racine is extremely faulty in the same respect. His soliloquies are regular harangues, a chain completed in every link, without interruption or interval: that of Antiochus in Berenice (act i. sc. 2.) resembles a regular pleading, where the parties pro and con display their arguments at full length. The following soliloquies are equally faulty: Bajazet, act iii. sc. 7.; Mithridate, act iii. sc. 4. and act iv. sc. 5.; Iphigenia, act iv. sc. 8.
Soliloquies upon lively or interesting subjects, but without any turbulence of passion, may be carried on in a continued chain of thought. If, for example, the nature and sprightliness of the subject prompt a man to speak his thoughts in the form of a dialogue, the expression must be carried on without break or interruption, as in a dialogue between two persons; which justifies Estafette's soliloquy upon honour:
"What need I be so forward with Death, that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter, Honour pricks me on. But how if Honour prick me off, when I come on? how then? Can honour set a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of an wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is Honour? A word.—What is that word honour? Air; a trim reckoning.—Who hath it? He that dy'd a Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea,
"to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it; honour is a mere scutcheon: and so ends my catechism."
First Part, Henry IV. act v. sc. 2.
And even without dialogue a continued discourse may be justified, where a man reasons in a soliloquy upon an important subject; for if in such a case it be at all excusable to think aloud, it is necessary that the reasoning be carried on in a chain; which justifies that admirable soliloquy in Hamlet upon life and immortality, being a serene meditation upon the most interesting of all subjects. And the same consideration will justify the soliloquy that introduces the 5th act of Addison's Cato.
Language ought not to be elevated above the tone of the sentiment.
Zara. Swift as occasion I
Myself will fly; and earlier than the morn
Wake thee to freedom. Now 'tis late; and yet
Some news few minutes past arriv'd, which seem'd
To shake the temper of the king.—Who knows
What racking cares disease a monarch's bed?
Or love, that late at night still lights his lamp,
And strikes his rays through dusk, and folded lids,
Forbidding rest, may stretch his eyes awake,
And force their balls abroad at this dead hour.
I'll try. Mourning Bride, act iii. sc. 4.
The language here is undoubtedly too pompous and laboured for describing so simple a circumstance as absence of sleep. In the following passage, the tone of the language, warm and plaintive, is well suited to the passion, which is recent grief: but every one will be sensible, that in the last couplet save one the tone is changed, and the mind suddenly elevated to be let fall as suddenly in the last couplet:
Il déteste à jamais sa coupable victoire,
Il renonce à la cour, aux humains, à la gloire
Et se fuyant lui-même, au milieu des déserts,
Il va cacher sa peine au bout de l'univers;
Là, soit que le soleil rendit le jour au monde,
Soit qu'il finit sa course au vaste sein de l'onde,
Sa voix faisoit redire aux échos attendris,
Le nom, le triste nom, de son malheureux fils.
Henriade, chant. viii. 229.
Light and airy language is unsuitable to a severe passion.
Imagery and figurative expression are discordant, in the highest degree, with the agony of a mother, who is deprived of two hopeful sons by a brutal murder. Therefore the following passage is undoubtedly in a bad taste:
Queen. Ah, my poor princes! ah, my tender babes?
My unblown flowers, new appearing sweets?
If yet your gentle souls fly in the air,
And be not fixt in doom perpetual,
Hover about me with your airy wings,
And hear your mother's lamentation.
Richard III. act iv. sc. 4.
Again:
K. Philip. You are as fond of grief as of your child.
Constance. Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies
Passion. Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garment with his form;
Then have I reason to be fond of grief.
K. John, act iii. sc. 9.
Thoughts that turn upon the expression instead of the subject, commonly called a play of words, being low and childish, are unworthy of any composition, whether gay or serious, that pretends to any degree of elevation.
In the Amynta of Tasso, the lover falls into a mere play of words, demanding how he who had lost himself, could find a mistress. And for the same reason, the following passage in Corneille has been generally condemned:
Chimene. Mon père est mort, Elvire, et la premiere
épée
Dont s'est armée Rodrigue à sa trame coupée.
Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez-vous en eaux,
La moitié de ma vie a mis l'autre au tombeau,
Et m'oblige à venger, après ce coup funeste,
Celle que je n'ai plus, sur celle que me reste.
Cid, act iii. sc. 3.
To die is to be banish'd from myself:
And Sylvia is myself: banish'd from her,
Is self from self; a deadly banishment!
Two Gentlemen of Verona, act iii. sc. 3.
Countess. I pray thee, Lady, have a better cheer:
If thou engross'est all the griefs as thine,
Thou robb'st me of a moiety.
All's well that ends well, act iii. sc. 3.
K. Henry. O my poor kingdom, sick with civil
blows!
When that my care could not withhold thy riots,
What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?
O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,
Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants.
Second Part, Henry IV. act iv. sc. 11.
Cruda Amarilli, che col nome ancora
D'amor, ahi lasso, amaramente insegni.
Pastor Fido, act i. sc. 2.
Antony, speaking of Julius Cæsar:
O world! thou wast the forest of this hart;
And this, indeed, O world, the heart of thee.
How like a deer, stricken by many princes,
Dost thou here lie! Julius Cæsar, act iii. sc. 3.
Playing thus with the sound of words, which is still worse than a pun, is the meanest of all conceits. But Shakespeare, when he descends to a play of words, is not always in the wrong; for it is done sometimes to denote a peculiar character, as in the following passage:
K. Philip. What say'st thou, boy? look in the lady's face.
Lewis. I do, my Lord, and in her eye I find
A wonder, or a wondrous miracle;
The shadow of myself form'd in her eye;
Which being but the shadow of your son,
Becomes a son, and makes your son a shadow.
I do protest, I never lov'd myself
Till now infix'd I beheld myself
Drawn in the flatt'ring table of her eye.
Faulconbridge. Drawn in the flatt'ring table of her eye!
Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow!
And quarter'd in her heart! he doth espy
Himself Love's traitor: this is pity now,
That hang'd, and drawn, and quarter'd there should be,
In such a love so vile a lout as he.
King John, act ii. sc. 5.
A jingle of words is the lowest species of that low wit, which is scarcely sufferable in any case, and least of all in an heroic poem: and yet Milton in some instances has descended to that puerility:
And brought into the world a world of wo.
—Begirth th' Almighty throne
Beseeching or besieging—
Which tempted our attempt—
At one flight bound high overleap'd all bound.
—With a shout
Loud as from numbers without number.
One should think it unnecessary to enter a caveat against an expression that has no meaning, or no distinct meaning; and yet somewhat of that kind may be found even among good writers.
Sebastian. I beg no pity for this mould'ring clay.
For if you give it burial, there it takes
Possession of your earth:
If burnt and scatter'd in the air; the winds
That strow my dust, diffuse my royalty,
And spread me o'er your clime; for where one atom
Of mine shall light, know there Sebastian reigns.