Characteristics of Women Part 8

The character of Isabella, considered as a poetical delineation, is less mixed than that of Portia; and the dissimilarity between the two appears, at first view, so complete that we can scarce believe that the same elements enter into the composition of each. Yet so it is; they are portrayed as equally wise, gracious, virtuous, fair, and young; we perceive in both the same exalted principle and firmness of character; the same depth of reflection and persuasive eloquence; the same self-denying generosity and capability of strong affections; and we must wonder at that marvellous power by which qualities and endowments, essentially and closely allied, are so combined and modified as to produce a result altogether different. "O Nature! O Shakespeare! which of ye drew from the other?"

Isabella is distinguished from Portia, and strongly individualized by a certain moral grandeur, a saintly grace, something of vestal dignity and purity, which render her less attractive and more imposing; she is "severe in youthful beauty," and inspires a reverence which would have placed her beyond the daring of one unholy wish or thought, except in such a man as Angelo--

O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint, With saints dost bait thy hook!

This impression of her character is conveyed from the very first, when Lucio, the libertine jester, whose coa.r.s.e audacious wit checks at every feather, thus expresses his respect for her,--

I would not--though 'tis my familiar sin With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest Tongue far from heart--play with all virgins so.

I hold you as a thing enskyed, and sainted; By your renouncement an immortal spirit, And to be talked with in sincerity, As with a saint.

A strong distinction between Isabella and Portia is produced by the circ.u.mstances in which they are respectively placed. Portia is a high-born heiress, "Lord of a fair mansion, master of her servants, queen o'er herself;" easy and decided, as one born to command, and used to it. Isabella has also the innate dignity which renders her "queen o'er herself," but she has lived far from the world and its pomps and pleasures; she is one of a consecrated sisterhood--a novice of St.

Clare; the power to command obedience and to confer happiness are to her unknown. Portia is a splendid creature, radiant with confidence, hope, and joy. She is like the orange-tree, hung at once with golden fruit and luxuriant flowers, which has expanded into bloom and fragrance beneath favoring skies, and has been nursed into beauty by the suns.h.i.+ne and the dews of heaven. Isabella is like a stately and graceful cedar, towering on some alpine cliff, unbowed and unscathed amid the storm. She gives us the impression of one who has pa.s.sed under the enn.o.bling discipline of suffering and self-denial: a melancholy charm tempers the natural vigor of her mind: her spirit seems to stand upon an eminence, and look down upon the world as if already enskyed and sainted; and yet when brought in contact with that world which she inwardly despises, she shrinks back with all the timidity natural to her cloistral education.

This union of natural grace and grandeur with the habits and sentiments of a recluse,--of austerity of life with gentleness of manner,--of inflexible moral principle with humility and even bashfulness of deportment, is delineated with the most beautiful and wonderful consistency. Thus when her brother sends to her, to entreat her mediation, her first feeling is fear, and a distrust in her own powers:

... Alas! what poor ability's in me To do him good?

LUCIO.

Essay the power you have.

ISABELLA.

My power, alas! I doubt.

In the first scene with Angelo she seems divided between her love for her brother and her sense of his fault; between her self-respect and her maidenly bashfulness. She begins with a kind of hesitation "at war 'twixt will and will not:" and when Angelo quotes the law, and insists on the justice of his sentence, and the responsibility of his station, her native sense of moral rect.i.tude and severe principles takes the lead, and she shrinks back:--

O just, but severe law!

I _had_ a brother then--Heaven keep your honor!

[_Retiring._

Excited and encouraged by Lucio, and supported by her own natural spirit, she returns to the charge,--she gains energy and self-possession as she proceeds, grows more earnest and pa.s.sionate from the difficulty she encounters, and displays that eloquence and power of reasoning for which we had been already prepared by Claudio's first allusion to her:--

... In her youth There is a p.r.o.ne and speechless dialect, Such as moves men; besides, she hath prosperous art, When she will play with reason and discourse, And well she can persuade.

It is a curious coincidence that Isabella, exhorting Angelo to mercy, avails herself of precisely the same arguments, and insists on the self-same topics which Portia addresses to Shylock in her celebrated speech; but how beautifully and how truly is the distinction marked! how like, and yet how unlike! Portia's eulogy on mercy is a piece of heavenly rhetoric; it falls on the ear with a solemn measured harmony; it is the voice of a descended angel addressing an inferior nature: if not premeditated, it is at least part of a preconcerted scheme; while Isabella's pleadings are poured from the abundance of her heart in broken sentences, and with the artless vehemence of one who feels that life and death hang upon her appeal. This will be best understood by placing the corresponding pa.s.sages in immediate comparison with each other.

PORTIA.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven, Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd; It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.

But mercy is above this sceptred sway-- It is enthron'd in the hearts of kings.

ISABELLA.

Well, believe this, No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe.

Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does.

PORTIA.

Consider this-- That in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy.

ISABELLA.

... Alas! alas!

Why all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He, that might the 'vantage best have took, Found out the remedy. How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are? O, think on that, And mercy then will breathe within your lips, Like man new made!

The beautiful things which Isabella is made to utter, have, like the sayings of Portia, become proverbial; but in spirit and character they are as distinct as are the two women. In all that Portia says, we confess the power of a rich poetical imagination, blended with a quick practical spirit of observation, familiar with the surfaces of things; while there is a profound yet simple morality, a depth of religious feeling, a touch of melancholy, in Isabella's sentiments, and something earnest and authoritative in the manner and expression, as though they had grown up in her mind from long and deep meditation in the silence and solitude of her convent cell:--

O it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.

Could great men thunder, As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet: For every pelting, petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder Merciful Heaven!

Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle. O but man, proud man!

Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most a.s.sured, His gla.s.sy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As make the angels weep.

Great men may jest with saints, 'tis wit in them; But in the less, foul profanation.

That in the captain's but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Authority, although it err like others, Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself That skins the vice o' the top. Go to you, bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know That's like my brother's fault: if it confess A natural guiltiness such as his is, Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue Against my brother's life.

Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better.

The sense of death is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies.

'Tis not impossible But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground, May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute As Angelo; even so may Angelo, In all his dressings, characts, t.i.tles, forms, Be an arch villain.

Her fine powers of reasoning, and that natural uprightness and purity which no sophistry can warp, and no allurement betray, are farther displayed in the second scene with Angelo.

ANGELO.

What would you do?

ISABELLA.

As much for my poor brother as myself; That is, were I under the terms of death, The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, And strip myself to death as to a bed That, longing, I have been sick for, ere I'd yield My body up to shame.

ANGELO.

Then must your brother die.

ISABELLA.

And 'twere the cheaper way; Better it were a brother died at once, Than that a sister, by redeeming him, Should die forever.

ANGELO.

Were you not then cruel as the sentence, That you have slander'd so!

ISABELLA.