Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters Part 13

"Clear, loud, and lively is the din, From social warblers gathering in Their harvest of sweet lays";

and when he says of his Lucy,--

"The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pa.s.s into her face";--

in these lines we have four pure and perfect metaphors.

Again: In _Cymbeline_, old Belarius says of the "two princely boys"

that are with him,--

"They are as gentle As zephyrs, blowing below the violet, Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough, Their royal blood enchaf'd, as the rud'st wind, That by the top doth take the mountain pine, And make him stoop to th' vale."

Here are two similes, of the right Shakespeare mintage. As metaphors from the same hand, take this from Iachimo's temptation of Imogen, "This object, which takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye"; and this from Viola, urging Orsino's suit to the Countess,--

"Holla your name to the reverberate hills, And make the babbling gossip of the air Cry out, _Olivia_!"

and this of Cleopatra's with the asp at her bosom,--

"Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, That sucks the nurse asleep?"

Or, as an instance of both figures together, take the following from _King Lear_, iv. 3, where the Gentleman describes to Kent the behaviour of Cordelia on hearing of her father's condition:

"You have seen Suns.h.i.+ne and rain at once; her smiles and tears Were like: a better way,--those happy smilets That play'd on her ripe lip seem'd not to know What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence As pearls from diamonds dropp'd."

Here we have two similes, in the first two and last clauses; and also two metaphors, severally conveyed in,--"That play'd on her ripe lip,"

and, "What guests were in her eyes." Perhaps I ought to add that a simile is sometimes merely suggested or implied; as in these lines from Wordsworth:

"What is glory?--in the socket See how dying tapers fare!

What is pride?--a whizzing rocket That would emulate a star.

What is friends.h.i.+p?--do not trust her, Nor the vows which she has made; Diamonds dart their brightest l.u.s.tre From a palsy-shaken head."

Thus much by way of a.n.a.lyzing the two figures, and ill.u.s.trating the difference between them. In all these instances may be seen, I think, how in a metaphor the intensity and fire of imagination, instead of placing the two parts side by side, melts them down into one h.o.m.ogeneous ma.s.s; which ma.s.s is both of them and neither of them at the same time; their respective properties being so interwoven and fused together, that those of each may be affirmed of the other.

I have said that Shakespeare uses the Simile in a way somewhat peculiar. This may require some explication.--Homer, Virgil, Dante, Spenser, Milton, and the great Italian poets of the sixteenth century, all deal largely in what may be styled full-drawn similes; that is, similes carefully elaborated through all their parts, these being knit together in a balanced and rounded whole. Here is an instance of what I mean, from _Paradise Lost_, i.:

"As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Wav'd round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile; So numberless where those bad angels seen Hovering on wing under the cope of h.e.l.l, 'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires."

This may be fitly taken as a model specimen of the thing; it is severely cla.s.sical in style, and is well worthy of the great hand that made it. Here is another, somewhat different in structure, and not easy to beat, from Wordsworth's _Miscellaneous Sonnets_, Part ii.:

"Desponding Father! mark this alter'd bough, So beautiful of late, with suns.h.i.+ne warm'd, Or moist with dews; what more unsightly now, Its blossoms shrivell'd, and its fruit, if form'd, Invisible? yet Spring her genial brow Knits not o'er that discolouring and decay As false to expectation. Nor fret thou At like unlovely process in the May Of human life: a Stripling's graces blow, Fade, and are shed, that from their timely fall (Misdeem it not a cankerous change) may grow Rich mellow bearings, that for thanks shall call."

It may be worth noting, that the first member of this no less beautiful than instructive pa.s.sage contains one metaphor,--"Spring her genial brow knits not"; and the second two,--"in the May of human life," and, "a Stripling's graces blow, fade, and are shed." Herein it differs from the preceding instance; but I take it to be none the worse for that.

Shakespeare occasionally builds a simile on the same plan; as in the following from _Measure for Measure_, i. 3:

"Now, as fond fathers, Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch, Only to stick it in their children's sight For terror, not to use, in time the rod Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees, Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead; And liberty plucks justice by the nose; The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum."

But the Poet does not much affect this formal mode of the thing: he has comparatively few instances of it; while his pages abound in similes of the informal mode, like those quoted before. And his peculiarity in the use of the figure consists partly in what seems not a little curious, namely, that he sometimes begins with building a simile, and then runs it into a metaphor before he gets through; so that we have what may be termed a mixture of the two; that is, he sets out as if to form the two parts distinct, and ends by identifying them. Here is an instance from the Second Part of _King Henry the Fourth_, iv. 1:

"His foes are so enrooted with his friends, That, plucking to unfix an enemy, He doth unfasten so and shake a friend.

So that this land, like an offensive wife That hath enrag'd him on to offer strokes, As he is striking, holds his infant up, And hangs resolv'd correction in the arm That was uprear'd to execution."

And so in _King Henry the Fifth_, ii. 4:

"In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh The enemy more mighty than he seems: So the proportions of defence are fill'd; Which of a weak and n.i.g.g.ardly projection, Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting A little cloth."

Also in _Hamlet_, iv. 1:

"So much was our love, We would not understand what was most fit; But, like the owner of a foul disease, To keep it from divulging, let it feed Even on the pith of life."

And somewhat the same again in iii. 4:

"No, in despite of sense and secrecy, Unpeg the basket on the house's top, Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape, To try conclusions, in the basket creep, And break your own neck down."

Something very like this mixing of figures occurs, also, in _Timon of Athens_, iv. 3:

"But myself, Who had the world as my confectionary; The mouths, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts of men At duty, more than I could frame employment; That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves Do on an oak, have with one Winter's brush Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare For every storm that blows."

And I suspect that certain pa.s.sages, often faulted for confusion of metaphors, are but instances of the same thing, as this:

"Blest are those Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger To sound what stop she please."

This feature mainly results, no doubt, from the Poet's aptness or endeavour to make his style of as highly symbolical a character as possible without smothering the sense. And by _symbolical_ I here mean the taking a representative part of a thing, and using it in such a way as to convey the sense and virtue of the whole. Metaphors are the strongest and surest mode of doing this; and so keen was the Poet's quest of this, that his similes, in the very act of forming, often become half-metaphors, as from a sort of instinct. Thus, instead of fully forming a simile, he merely _suggests_ it; throwing in just enough of it to start the thoughts on that track, and then condensing the whole into a semi-metaphorical shape. Which seems to explain why it is that these suggestions of similes, notwithstanding the stereotyped censures of a too formal criticism, seldom trouble any reader who is so unsophisticated as to care little for the form, so he be sure of the substance.

The thoughtful student can hardly choose but feel that there is something peculiar in Shakespeare's metaphors. And so indeed there is.

But the peculiarity is rather in degree than kind. Now the Metaphor, as before remarked, proceeds upon a likeness in the relations of things; whereas the Simile proceeds upon a likeness in the things themselves, which is a very different matter. And so surpa.s.sing was Shakespeare's quickness and acuteness of eye to discern the most hidden resemblances in the former kind, that he outdoes all other writers in the exceeding fineness of the threads upon which his metaphors are often built. In other words, he beats all other poets, ancient and modern, in constructing metaphors upon the most subtile, delicate, and un.o.bvious a.n.a.logies.

Among the English poets, Wordsworth probably stands next to Shakespeare in the frequency, felicity, originality, and strength of his metaphorical language. I will therefore quote a few of his most characteristic specimens, as this seems the fairest way for bringing out the unequalled virtue of Shakespeare's poetry in this kind.

"With heart as calm as lakes that sleep, In frosty moonlight glistening; Or mountain rivers, where they creep Along a channel smooth and deep, To their own far-off murmurs listening."

_Memory_.

"Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; A privacy of glorious light is thine; Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood Of harmony, with instinct more divine."

_To a Skylark_.

"And this huge Castle, standing here sublime, I love to see the look with which it braves-- Cas'd in th' unfeeling armour of old time-- The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves."

_Peele Castle_.

"Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark; The happiest bird that sprang out of the Ark!"

_A Morning Exercise_.

"One who was suffering tumult in his soul, Yet fail'd to seek the sure relief of prayer, Went forth,--his course surrendering to the care Of the fierce wind, while midday lightnings prowl Insidiously, untimely thunders growl; While trees, dim-seen, in frenzied numbers tear The lingering remnants of their yellow hair."

_Mis. Son., Pt. ii_. 15.

"So deem'd the man who fas.h.i.+on'd for the sense These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof Self-pois'd, and scoop'd into ten thousand cells, Where light and shade repose, where music dwells Lingering,--and wandering on as loth to die."