Perhaps the
old saying held in her case:
ex forti dulcedo; perhaps her
confident strength had abandonments more flattering and complete than
those of weaker women; perhaps in those moments her forceful dark face
took on a soulful beauty that entranced his exquisite susceptibility;
perhaps--but the suppositions are infinite.
Though a lover and possessed by his mistress Shakespeare was still an
artist. In the sonnets he brings out her overbearing will, boldness,
pride--the elemental force of her nature; in the play, on the other
hand, while just mentioning her "power," he lays the chief stress upon
the cunning wiles and faithlessness of her whose trade was love. But
just as Cleopatra has power, so there can be no doubt of the wily
cunning--"the warrantise of skill"--of the sonnet-heroine, and no doubt
her faithlessness was that "just cause of hate" which Shakespeare
bemoaned.
It is worth while here to notice his perfect comprehension of the powers
and limits of the different forms of his art. Just as he has used the
sonnets in order to portray certain intimate weaknesses and maladies of
his own nature that he could not present dramatically without making his
hero ridiculously effeminate, so also he used the sonnets to convey to
us the domineering will and strength of his mistress--qualities which if
presented dramatically would have seemed masculine-monstrous.
Pages:
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454