The Bride of Messina, and On the Use of the Chorus in Tragedy Part 20

[BEATRICE appears at the entrance of the scene.

DONNA ISABELLA, DON CAESAR, and the Chorus.

DON CAESAR (on seeing her, covers his face with his hands).

My mother!

What hast thou done?

ISABELLA (leading BEATRICE forwards).

A mother's prayers are vain!

Kneel at his feet--conjure him--melt his heart!

Oh, bid him live!

DON CAESAR.

Deceitful mother, thus Thou triest thy son! And wouldst thou stir my soul Again to pa.s.sion's strife, and make the sun Beloved once more, now when I tread the paths Of everlasting night? See where he stands-- Angel of life!--and wondrous beautiful, Shakes from his plenteous horn the fragrant store Of golden fruits and flowers, that breathe around Divinest airs of joy;--my heart awakes In the warm sunbeam--hope returns, and life Thrills in my breast anew.

ISABELLA (to BEATRICE).

Thou wilt prevail!

Or none! Implore him that he live, nor rob The staff and comfort of our days.

BEATRICE.

The loved one A sacrifice demands. Oh, let me die To soothe a brother's shade! Yes, I will be The victim! Ere I saw the light forewarned To death, I live a wrong to heaven! The curse Pursues me still: 'twas I that slew thy son-- I waked the slumbering furies of their strife-- Be mine the atoning blood!

CAJETAN.

Ill-fated mother!

Impatient all thy children haste to doom, And leave thee on the desolate waste alone Of joyous life.

BEATRICE.

Oh, spare thy precious days For nature's band. Thy mother needs a son; My brother, live for her! Light were the pang To lose a daughter--but a moment shown, Then s.n.a.t.c.hed away!

DON CAESAR (with deep emotion).

'Tis one to live or die, Blest with a sister's love!

BEATRICE.

Say, dost thou envy Thy brother's ashes?

DON CAESAR.

In thy grief he lives A hallowed life!--my doom is death forever!

BEATRICE.

My brother!

DON CAESAR.

Sister! are thy tears for me?

BEATRICE.

Live for our mother!

DON CAESAR (dropping her hand, and stepping back).

For our mother?

BEATRICE (hiding her head in his breast).

Live For her and for thy sister!

Chorus (BOHEMUND).

She has won!

Resistless are her prayers. Despairing mother, Awake to hope again--his choice is made!

Thy son shall live!

[At this moment an anthem is heard. The folding doors are thrown open, and in the church is seen the catafalque erected, and the coffin surrounded with candlesticks.

DON CAESAR (turning to the coffin).

I will not rob thee, brother!

The sacrifice is thine:--Hark! from the tomb, Mightier than mother's tears, or sister's love, Thy voice resistless cries:--my arms enfold A treasure, potent with celestial joys, To deck this earthly sphere, and make a lot Worthy the G.o.ds! but shall I live in bliss, While in the tomb thy sainted innocence Sleeps unavenged? Thou, Ruler of our days, All just--all wise--let not the world behold Thy partial care! I saw her tears!--enough-- They flowed for me! I am content: my brother!

I come!

[He stabs himself with a dagger, and falls dead at his sister's feet. She throws herself into her mother's arms.

Chorus, CAJETAN (after a deep silence).

In dread amaze I stand, nor know If I should mourn his fate. One truth revealed Speaks in my breast;--no good supreme is life; But all of earthly ills the chief is--Guilt!

THE END

ON THE USE OF THE CHORUS IN TRAGEDY.

A poetical work must vindicate itself: if the execution be defective, little aid can be derived from commentaries.

On these grounds I might safely leave the chorus to be its own advocate, if we had ever seen it presented in an appropriate manner. But it must be remembered that a dramatic composition first a.s.sumes the character of a whole by means of representation on the stage. The poet supplies only the words, to which, in a lyrical tragedy, music and rhythmical motion are essential accessories. It follows, then, that if the chorus is deprived of accompaniments appealing so powerfully to the senses, it will appear a superfluity in the economy of the drama--a mere hinderance to the development of the plot--destructive to the illusion of the scene, and wearisome to the spectators.

To do justice to the chorus, more especially if our aims in poetry be of a grand and elevated character, we must transport ourselves from the actual to a possible stage. It is the privilege of art to furnish for itself whatever is requisite, and the accidental deficiency of auxiliaries ought not to confine the plastic imagination of the poet. He aspires to whatever is most dignified, he labors to realize the ideal in his own mind--though in the execution of his purpose he must needs accommodate himself to circ.u.mstances.

The a.s.sertion so commonly made that the public degrades art is not well founded. It is the artist that brings the public to the level of his own conceptions; and, in every age in which art has gone to decay, it has fallen through its professors. The people need feeling alone, and feeling they possess. They take their station before the curtain with an unvoiced longing, with a multifarious capacity. They bring with them an apt.i.tude for what is highest--they derive the greatest pleasure from what is judicious and true; and if, with these powers of appreciation, they deign to be satisfied with inferior productions, still, if they have once tasted what is excellent, they will in the end insist on having it supplied to them.

It is sometimes objected that the poet may labor according to an ideal-- that the critic may judge from ideas, but that mere executive art is subject to contingencies, and depends for effect on the occasion.

Managers will be obstinate; actors are bent on display--the audience is inattentive and unruly. Their object is relaxation, and they are disappointed if mental exertion be required, when they expected only amus.e.m.e.nt. But if the theatre be made instrumental towards higher objects, the diversion, of the spectator will not be increased, but enn.o.bled. It will be a diversion, but a poetical one. All art is dedicated to pleasure, and there can be no higher and worthier end than to make men happy. The true art is that which provides the highest degree of pleasure; and this consists in the abandonment of the spirit to the free play of all its faculties.

Every one expects from the imaginative arts a certain emanc.i.p.ation from the bounds of reality: we are willing to give a scope to fancy, and recreate ourselves with the possible. The man who expects it the least will nevertheless forget his ordinary pursuits, his everyday existence and individuality, and experience delight from uncommon incidents:--if he be of a serious turn of mind he will acknowledge on the stage that moral government of the world which he fails to discover in real life. But he is, at the same time, perfectly aware that all is an empty show, and that in a true sense he is feeding only on dreams. When he returns from the theatre to the world of realities, he is again compressed within its narrow bounds; he is its denizen as before--for it remains what it was, and in him nothing has been changed. What, then, has he gained beyond a momentary illusive pleasure which vanished with the occasion?

It is because a pa.s.sing recreation is alone desired that a mere show of truth is thought sufficient. I mean that probability or vraisemblance which is so highly esteemed, but which the commonest workers are able to subst.i.tute for the true.

Art has for its object not merely to afford a transient pleasure, to excite to a momentary dream of liberty; its aim is to make us absolutely free; and this it accomplishes by awakening, exercising, and perfecting in us a power to remove to an objective distance the sensible world; (which otherwise only burdens us as rugged matter, and presses us down with a brute influence;) to transform it into the free working of our spirit, and thus acquire a dominion over the material by means of ideas.

For the very reason also that true art requires somewhat of the objective and real, it is not satisfied with a show of truth. It rears its ideal edifice on truth itself--on the solid and deep foundations of nature.