...
_Upon this promise did he raise his chin,
Like a dive-dipper, peering through a wave,
Who, being look'd on, ducks as quickly in...._
But in his later plays--so fast the images teem--he has to reach out
among nouns, verbs, adverbs, with both strong hands, grasping what comes
and packing it ere it can protest. Take for example:--
_Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care._
Or--
_The multitudinous sea incarnadine,
Making the green one red._
Or--
_In the dark backward and abysm of time._
Or this from Lear:--
_My face I'll grime with filth,
Blanket my loins, elf all my hair in knots
And with presented nakedness outface
The winds and persecutions of the sky._
Or (for vividness) this, from _Antony and Cleopatra_, when Cleopatra
cries out and faints over Antony's body:--
_O! withered is the garland of the war,
The soldier's pole is fall'n: young boys and girls
Are level now with men; the odds is gone,
And there is nothing left remarkable
Beneath the visiting moon ..._
"Madam! Madam!" "Royal Egypt!" "Empress!" cry the waiting-maids as she
swoons. She revives and rebukes them:--
_No more, but e'en a woman, and commanded
By such poor passion as the maid that milks
And does the meanest chares.
Pages:
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57