We honour you with trouble:-but we came That which my daughter came to look upon, Paul. Still sleep "mock'd death: behold; and say 'tis well. [PAULINA draws back a curtain, and discovers HERMIONE standing as a statue. I like your silence,-it the more shows off 47. The queen's picture. Here the word "picture" is applied to what has been previously called a "statue." That which is intended to be understood is one of those pieces of painted sculpture which the ancients produced, which art in all ages since has occasionally executed, and which were known in Shakespeare's time, as we find by a passage from one of Ben Jonson's plays, that stigmatises them as evidences of bad taste :Rut. I'd have her statue cut now in white marble. Sir Moth And have it painted in most orient colours. Rut. That's right! all city statues must be painted, Else they be worth naught in their subtle judgments." Your wonder: but yet speak ;-first, you, my liege. her As she liv'd now.50 Leon. Oh, not by much. As now she might have done; So much to my good comfort, as it is Now piercing to my soul. Oh, thus she stood, Even with such life of majesty (warm life, As now it coldly stands), when first I woo'd her! I am asham'd: does not the stone rebuke me, For being more stone than it? Oh, royal piece, There's magic in thy majesty; which has My evils conjur'd to remembrance; and From thy admiring daughter took the spirits, Standing like stone with thee! There is an air comes from her: what fine 'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach; chisel Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me, 52. Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already. The passionate eloquence of this abrupt break in Leontes' speech is lost upon those who suppose the sentence to be a portion of a speech left unfinished by an omitted line, which they attempt to supply. Moreover, its style of diction is in characteristic accordance with that which is given to Leontes throughoutdisjointed, and full of sudden starts. See Note 27, Act ii. Mr. Staunton avers that "would I were dead," here is an imprecation, equivalent to 'would I may die,' or 'may I die;' but though the citations he adduces confirms his assertion that a similar form of phrase was thus used in Shakespeare's time, and by Shakespeare himself, they do not strictly conform in construction with the present phrase. In the only two other passages where Shakespeare uses the precise phrase, "would I were dead." it obviously means, 'I wish that I were dead,' 'I desire to die; moreover, the "that" in the line under consideration makes against the theory of "would I were dead" bearing the sense of an imprecation; for when Shakespeare employs this form of sentence, "but " is differently followed, as-"The gods rebuke me, but it is," &c. ("Anthony and Cleopatra," Act v., sc. 1); or "Oh, day and night, but this is," &c. ("Hamlet," Act i., sc. 5. We take the imperfectly-expressed sentence to imply-V -Would I were dead with her, but that methinks already she moves and breathes, and lives again to me!' The whole gist of his brokenly panted-forth speech confirms this view of his meaning; he is wholly possessed by the growing conviction that what he looks upon moves, breathes, exists. The very variety of interpretations which have been given to this line by various commentators upon it, form one tribute to its might of significant impression; it speaks the language of heart-born passion, and awakens heart-response from each person that considers it, in accordance with each person's individual nature. Strike all that look upon with marvel.57 Come; I'll fill your grave up: stir; nay, come away; Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him art.' 53. As we are mock'd with art. 'As we are thus mocked by Leontes refers to the contradiction in the first clause of his speech :-The immobility of eye proper to a statue seems to have the motion of a living eye, as we are thus beguiled by art.' "With" was often used for 'by.' 54. I'll draw the curtain. Paulina's anxiety on this point serves to manifest her dread lest Hermione's firmness should fail her during this agitating scene; while all that she else says helps gradually to lead Leontes towards the fact that his wife indeed lives. 55. With oily painting. This, and the words "fine chisel" in the previous speech, are calculated to keep well before our mind the point of a coloured statue being intended; and although it has been said that Shakespeare erred in making Julio Romano a sculptor, when he was, in fact, a painter, yet those who know how even to this day Italian ornamentation combines the two branches of art, can well believe that the poet was correct in representing the artist as executing a work requiring this twofold accomplishment. That such painted sculpture was in familiaruse in England at the period when Shakespeare wrote, we have notable evidence in his own monumental bust at Stratford-uponAvon; which was, according to Britton's account, "formed out of a block of soft stone, and originally painted in imitation of nature; the hands and face flesh colour, the eyes of a light hazel, the hair and beard auburn, the doublet or coat scarlet, and covered with a loose black gown or tabard without sleeves," &c. 56. Or those that think. "or;" Hanmer's correction. 57. Strike all that look upon with marvel. Shakespeare occasionally uses "look upon" unaccompanied by a following noun; in the sense of 'look on,' or 'enact the looker-on.' The Folio prints on here for 58. You kill her double. The adjective "double" used adverbially for 'doubly.' 59. She embraces him. Finely has Shakespeare depicted the incident of Hermione's return to life, and to her husband's arms, accompanying it solely by words put into the mouth of third persons, and by not one from herself. That she was not the woman to speak on such an occasion, that her heart was suffocating with unutterable emotions, that after her sixteen years' self-imposed silence, she was incapable of other than mute testimony of reconciliation, the poet has made us feel and made us Act 1. Scene 111. Leon. [Embracing her.] Oh, she's warm! If this be magic, let it be an art Lawful as eating. Pol. She embraces him.59 Cam. She hangs about his neck: If she pertain to life, let her speak too. Pol. Ay, and make 't manifest where she has liv'd, Or how stolen from the dead. see. That she is living, He knew, and caused Paulina to know, that the right method of touching her heart into the relief of words was to present to her her new-found daughter. The fact of her having been able to preserve her statue immobility when Perdita first knelt before her, is one of the strongest evidences of Hermione's almost superhuman firmness of soul; in any other woman it would have been next to unnatural, in her it is strictly characteristic: and the circumstance of her first uttered sentence being one of pious appeal is as perfectly so. |