Characteristics of Women Part 44

ELINOR.

There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.

CONSTANCE.

There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee.

ELINOR.

Come to thy grandam, child.

CONSTANCE.

Do child; go to its grandam, child: Give grandam kingdom, and its grandam will Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig: There's a good grandam.

ARTHUR.

Good my mother, peace!

I would that I were low laid in my grave; I am not worth this coil that's made for me.

ELINOR.

His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.

CONSTANCE.

Now shame upon you, whe'r she does or no!

His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's shame, Draw those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee: Ay, with these crystal beads heav'n shall be bribed To do him justice, and revenge on you.

ELINOR.

Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!

CONSTANCE.

Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth!

Call me not slanderer; thou and thine usurp The dominations, royalties, and rights Of this oppressed boy. This is thy eldest son's son Infortunate in nothing but in thee.

ELINOR.

Thou unadvised scold, I can produce A will that bars the t.i.tle of thy son.

CONSTANCE.

Ay, who doubts that? A will! a wicked will-- A woman's will--a canker'd grandam's will!

KING PHILIP.

Peace, lady: pause, or be more moderate.

And in a very opposite mood, when struggling with the consciousness of her own helpless situation, the same susceptible and excitable fancy still predominates:--

Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me; For I am sick, and capable of fears; Oppressed with wrongs, and therefore full of fears A widow, husbandless, subject to fears; A woman, naturally born to fears; And though thou now confess thou didst but jest With my vexed spirits, I cannot take a truce, But they will quake and tremble all this day.

What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?

Why dost thou look so sadly on my son?

What means that hand upon that breast of thine?

Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum, Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds?

Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?

Fellow, begone! I cannot brook thy sight-- This news hath made thee a most ugly man!

It is the power of imagination which gives so peculiar a tinge to the maternal tenderness of Constance; she not only loves her son with the fond instinct of a mother's affection, but she loves him with her poetical imagination, exults in his beauty and his royal birth, hangs over him with idolatry, and sees his infant brow already encircled with the diadem. Her proud spirit, her ardent enthusiastic fancy, and her energetic self-will, all combine with her maternal love to give it that tone and character which belongs to her only: hence that most beautiful address to her son, which coming from the lips of Constance, is as full of nature and truth as of pathos and poetry, and which we could hardly sympathize with in any other:--

ARTHUR.

I do beseech you, madam, be content.

CONSTANCE.

If thou, that bid'st me be content, wert grim, Ugly, and slanderous to thy mother's womb, Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains, Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious.

Patched with foul moles and eye-offending marks, I would not care--I then would be content; For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown.

But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy!

Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great: Of Nature's gifts thou mayest with lilies boast, And with the half-blown rose: but Fortune, O!

She is corrupted, chang'd, and won from thee; She adulterates hourly with thine uncle John; And with her golden hand hath pluck'd on France To tread down fair respect of sovereignty.

It is this exceeding vivacity of imagination which in the end turns sorrow to frenzy. Constance is not only a bereaved and doating mother, but a generous woman, betrayed by her own rash confidence; in whose mind the sense of injury mingling with the sense of grief, and her impetuous temper conflicting with her pride, combine to overset her reason; yet she is not mad: and how admirably, how forcibly she herself draws the distinction between the frantic violence of uncontrolled feeling and actual madness!--

Thou art not holy to belie me so; I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine; My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife; Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost: I am not mad; I would to Heaven I were!

For then, 'tis like I should forget myself: O, if I could, what grief should I forget!

Not only has Constance words at will, and fast as the pa.s.sionate feelings rise in her mind they are poured forth with vivid, overpowering eloquence; but, like Juliet, she may be said to speak in pictures. For instance:--

Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum?

Like a proud river peering o'er its bounds.

And throughout the whole dialogue there is the same overflow of eloquence, the same splendor of diction, the same luxuriance of imagery; yet with an added grandeur, arising from habits of command, from the age, the rank, and the matronly character of Constance. Thus Juliet pours forth her love like a muse in a rapture: Constance raves in her sorrow like a Pythoness possessed with the spirit of pain. The love of Juliet is deep and infinite as the boundless sea: and the grief of Constance is so great, that nothing but the round world itself is able to sustain it.

I will instruct my sorrows to be proud; For grief is proud and makes his owner stout.

To me, and to the state of my great grief Let kings a.s.semble, for my grief's so great, That no supporter but the huge firm earth Can hold it up. Here I and Sorrow sit; Here is my throne,--bid kings come bow to it!

An image more majestic, more wonderfully sublime, was never presented to the fancy; yet almost equal as a flight of poetry is her apostrophe to the heavens;--