Читать книгу History of English Literature (Vol. 1-3) - Taine Hippolyte - Страница 58

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Let us consider the different personages which this art, so suited to depict real manners, and so apt to paint the living soul, goes in search of amidst the real manners and the living souls of its time and country. They are of two kinds, as befits the nature of the drama: one which produces terror, the other which moves to pity; these graceful and feminine, those manly and violent. All the differences of sex, all the extremes of life, all the resources of the stage, are embraced in this contrast; and if ever there was a complete contrast, it is here.

The reader must study for himself some of these pieces, or he will have no idea of the fury into which the stage is hurled: force and transport are driven every instant to the point of atrocity, and further still, if there be any further. Assassinations, poisonings, tortures, outcries of madness and rage; no passion and no suffering are too extreme for their energy or their effort. Anger is with them a madness, ambition a frenzy, love a delirium. Hippolyto, who has lost his mistress, says, "Were thine eyes clear as mine, thou mightst behold her, watching upon yon battlements of stars, how I observe them."[458] Aretus, to be avenged on Valentinian, poisons him after poisoning himself, and with the death-rattle in his throat, is brought to his enemy's side, to give him a foretaste of agony. Queen Brunhalt has panders with her on the stage, and causes her two sons to slay each other. Death everywhere; at the close of every play, all the great people wade in blood: with slaughter and butcheries, the stage becomes a field of battle or a churchyard.[459] Shall I describe a few of these tragedies? In the "Duke of Milan," Francesco, to avenge his sister, who has been seduced, wishes to seduce in his turn the Duchess Marcelia, wife of Sforza, the seducer; he desires her, he will have her; he says to her, with cries of love and rage:

"For with this arm I'll swim through seas of blood,

Or make a bridge, arch'd with the bones of men,

But I will grasp my aims in you, my dearest,

Dearest, and best of women!"[460]

For he wishes to strike the duke through her, whether she lives or dies, if not by dishonor, at least by murder; the first is as good as the second, nay, better, for so he will do a greater injury. He calumniates her, and the duke, who adores her, kills her; then, being undeceived, loses his senses, will not believe she is dead, has the body brought in, kneels before it, rages and weeps. He knows now the name of the traitor, and at the thought of him he swoons or raves:

"I'll follow him to hell, but I will find him,

And there live a fourth Fury to torment him.

Then, for this cursed hand and arm that guided

The wicked steel, I'll have them, joint by joint,

With burning irons sear'd off, which I will eat,

I being a vulture fit to taste such carrion."[461]

Suddenly he gasps for breath, and falls; Francesco has poisoned him. The duke dies, and the murderer is led to torture. There are worse scenes than this; to find sentiments strong enough, they go to those which change the very nature of man. Massinger puts on the stage a father who judges and condemns his daughter, stabbed by her husband; Webster and Ford, a son who assassinates his mother; Ford, the incestuous loves of a brother and sister.[462] Irresistible love overtakes them; the ancient love of Pasiphaë and Myrrha, a kind of madness-like enchantment, and beneath which the will entirely gives way. Giovanni says:

"Lost! I am lost! My fates have doom'd my death!

The more I strive, I love; the more I love,

The less I hope: I see my ruin certain....

I have even wearied heaven with pray'rs, dried up

The spring of my continual tears, even starv'd

My veins with daily fasts: what wit or art

Could counsel, I have practis'd; but, alas!

I find all these but dreams, and old men's tales,

To fright unsteady youth: I am still the same;

Or I must speak, or burst."[463]

What transports follow! what fierce and bitter joys, and how short too, how grievous and mingled with anguish, especially for her! She is married to another. Read for yourself the admirable and horrible scene which represents the wedding night. She is pregnant, and Soranzo, the husband, drags her along the ground, with curses, demanding the name of her lover:

"Come strumpet, famous whore?...

Harlot, rare, notable harlot,

That with thy brazen face maintain'st thy sin,

Was there no man in Parma to be bawd

To your loose cunning whoredom else but I?

Must your hot itch and plurisy of lust,

The heyday of your luxury, be fed

Up to a surfeit, and could none but I

Be pick'd out to be cloak to your close tricks,

Your belly-sports?—Now I must be the dad

To all that gallimaufry that is stuff'd

In thy corrupted bastard-bearing womb?

Say, must I?

Annabella. Beastly man? why, 'tis thy fate. I su'd not to thee.... S. Tell me by whom."[464]

She gets excited, feels and cares for nothing more, refuses to tell the name of her lover, and praises him in the following words. This praise in the midst of danger is like a rose she has plucked, and of which the odor intoxicates her:

"A. Soft! 'twas not in my bargain. Yet somewhat, sir, to stay your longing stomach I am content t' acquaint you with the man, The more than man, that got this sprightly boy— (For 'tis a boy, and therefore glory, sir, Your heir shall be a son.) S. Damnable monster? A. Nay, and you will not hear, I'll speak no more. S. Yes, speak, and speak thy last. A. A match, a match?... You, why you are not worthy once to name His name without true worship, or, indeed, Unless you kneel'd to hear another name him. S. What was he call'd? A. We are not come to that; Let it suffice that you shall have the glory To father what so brave a father got.... S. Dost thou laugh? Come, whore, tell me your lover, or, by truth, I'll hew thy flesh to shreds; who is't?"[465]

She laughs; the excess of shame and terror has given her courage; she insults him, she sings; so like a woman!

"A. (Sings) Che morte piu dolce che morire per amore. S. Thus will I pull thy hair, and thus I'll drag Thy lust be-leper'd body through the dust.... (Hales her up and down) A. Be a gallant hangman.... I leave revenge behind, and thou shalt feel't.... (To Vasquez.) Pish, do not beg for me, I prize my life As nothing; if the man will needs be mad, Why, let him take it."[466]

In the end all is discovered, and the two lovers know they must die. For the last time, they see each other in Annabella's chamber, listening to the noise of the feast below which shall serve for their funeral feast. Giovanni, who has made his resolve like a madman, sees Annabella richly dressed, dazzling. He regards her in silence, and remembers the past. He weeps and says:

"These are the funeral tears,

Shed on your grave; these furrow'd-up my cheeks

When first I lov'd and knew not how to woo....

Give me your hand: how sweetly life doth run

In these well-colour'd veins! How constantly

These palms do promise health!...

Kiss me again, forgive me.... Farewell."[467]

He then stabs her, enters the banqueting room, with her heart upon his dagger:

"Soranzo see this heart, which was thy wife's.

Thus I exchange it royally for thine."[468]

He kills him, and casting himself on the swords of banditti, dies. It would seem that tragedy could go no further.

But it did go further; for if these are melodramas, they are sincere, composed, not like those of to-day, by Grub Street writers for peaceful citizens, but by impassioned men, experienced in tragical arts, for a violent, over-fed, melancholy race. From Shakespeare to Milton, Swift, Hogarth, no race has been more glutted with coarse expressions and horrors, and its poets supply them plentifully; Ford less so than Webster; the latter a sombre man, whose thoughts seem incessantly to be haunting tombs and charnel-houses. "Places in court," he says, "are but like beds in the hospital, where this man's head lies at that man's foot, and so lower and lower."[469] Such are his images. No one has equalled Webster in creating desperate characters, utter wretches, bitter misanthropes,[470] in blackening and blaspheming human life, above all, in depicting the shameless depravity and refined ferocity of Italian manners.[471] The Duchess of Malfi has secretly married her steward Antonio, and her brother learns that she has children; almost mad[472] with rage and wounded pride, he remains silent, waiting until he knows the name of the father; then he arrives all of a sudden, means to kill her, but so that she shall taste the lees of death. She must suffer much, but above all, she must not die too quickly! She must suffer in mind; these griefs are worse than the body's. He sends assassins to kill Antonio, and meanwhile comes to her in the dark, with affectionate words; he pretends to be reconciled, and suddenly shows her waxen figures, covered with wounds, whom she takes for her slaughtered husband and children. She staggers under the blow, and remains in gloom without crying out. Then she says:

"Good comfortable fellow,

Persuade a wretch that's broke upon the wheel

To have all his bones new set; entreat him live

To be executed again. Who must despatch me?...

Bosola. Come, be of comfort, I will save your life. Duchess. Indeed, I have not leisure to tend So small a business. B. Now, by my life, I pity you. D. Thou art a fool, then, To waste thy pity on a thing so wretched As cannot pity itself. I am full of daggers."[473]

Slow words, spoken in a whisper, as in a dream, or as if she were speaking of a third person. Her brother sends to her a company of madmen, who leap and howl and rave around her in mournful wise; a pitiful sight, calculated to unseat the reason; a kind of foretaste of hell. She says nothing, looking upon them; her heart is dead, her eyes fixed, with vacant stare:

"Cariola. What think you of, madam? Duchess. Of nothing: When I muse thus, I sleep. C. Like a madman, with your eyes open? D. Dost thou think we shall know one another In the other world? C. Yes, out of question. D. O that it were possible we might But hold some two days' conference with the dead! From them I should learn somewhat, I am sure, I never shall know here. I'll teach thee a miracle; I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow: The heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass, The earth of flaming sulphur, yet I am not mad. I am acquainted with sad misery As the tann'd galley-slave is with his oar...."[474]

In this state, the limbs, like those of one who has been newly executed, still quiver, but the sensibility is worn out; the miserable body only stirs mechanically; it has suffered too much. At last the gravedigger comes with executioners, a coffin, and they sing before her a funeral dirge:

"Duchess. Farewell, Cariola... I pray thee, look thou giv'st my little boy Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl Say her prayers ere she sleep.—Now, what you please: What death? Bosola. Strangling; here are your executioners. D. I forgive them: The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o' the lungs Would do as much as they do.... My body Bestow upon my women, will you?... Go, tell my brothers, when I am laid out, They then may feed in quiet."[475]

After the mistress the maid; the latter cries and struggles:

"Cariola. I will not die; I must not; I am contracted To a young gentleman. 1st Executioner. Here's your wedding-ring. C. If you kill me now, I am damn'd. I have not been at confession This two years. B. When?[476] C. I am quick with child."[477]

They strangle her also, and the two children of the duchess. Antonio is assassinated; the cardinal and his mistress, the duke and his confidant, are poisoned or butchered; and the solemn words of the dying, in the midst of this butchery, utter, as from funereal trumpets, a general curse upon existence:

"We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves,

That, ruin'd yield no echo. Fare you well....

O this gloomy world!

In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness,

Doth womanish and fearful mankind live!"[478] "In all our quest of greatness, Like wanton boys, whose pastime is their care, We follow after bubbles blown in the air. Pleasure of life, what is't? only the good hours Of an ague; merely a preparative to rest, To endure vexation.... Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust."[479]

You will find nothing sadder or greater from the Edda to Lord Byron.

We can well imagine what powerful characters are necessary to sustain these terrible dramas. All these personages are ready for extreme acts; their resolves break forth like blows of a sword; we follow, meet at every change of scene their glowing eyes, wan lips, the starting of their muscles, the tension of their whole frame. Their powerful will contracts their violent hands, and their accumulated passion breaks out in thunderbolts, which tear and ravage all around them, and in their own hearts. We know them, the heroes of this tragic population, Iago, Richard III, Lady Macbeth, Othello, Coriolanus, Hotspur, full of genius, courage, desire, generally mad or criminal, always self-driven to the tomb. There are as many around Shakespeare as in his own works. Let me exhibit one character more, written by the same dramatist, Webster. No one, except Shakespeare, has seen further into the depths of diabolical and unchained nature. The "White Devil" is the name which he gives to his heroine. His Vittoria Corombona receives as her lover the Duke of Brachiano, and at the first interview dreams of the issue:

"To pass away the time, I'll tell your grace

A dream I had last night."

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.