Antony. My Cleopatra ? Ventidius. Your Cleopatra. Every man's Cleopatra. Antony. Thou liest. Ventidius. I do not lie, my lord. Is this so strange? Should mistresses be left, You know she's not much used to lonely nights.'1 It was just the way to make Antony jealous, and bring him back furious to Cleopatra. But what a noble heart has this Ventidius, and how we catch, when he is alone with Antony, the man's voice, the deep tones which had been heard on the battlefield! He loves his general like a good dog, and asks no better than to die, so it be at his master's feet. He growls ominously on seeing him cast down, crouches round him, and suddenly weeps: 'Ventidius. Look, emperor, this is no common dew. I have not wept this forty years; but now My mother comes afresh into my eyes, I cannot help her softness. Antony. By Heaven, he weeps! poor, good old man, he weeps! The big round drops course one another down The furrows of his cheeks.-Stop them, Ventidius, Or I shall blush to death: they set my shame, That caused them, full before me. Ventidius. I'll do my best. Antony. Sure there's contagion in the tears of friends: For my own griefs, but thine. Nay, father!' As we hear these terrible sobs, we think of Tacitus' veterans, who, escaping from the marshes of Germany, with scarred breasts, white heads, limbs stiff with service, kissed the hands of Drusus, carried his fingers to their gums, that he might feel their worn and loosened teeth, incapable to bite the wretched bread which was given to them: 'No; 'tis you dream; you sleep away your hours In desperate sloth, miscall'd philosophy. Up, up, for honour's sake; twelve legions wait you, "Twill do you good to see their sun-burnt faces, Their scarr'd cheeks, and chopt hands; there's virtue in them. They'll sell those mangled limbs at dearer rates Than yon trim bands can buy.'3 And when all is lost, when the Egyptians have turned traitors, and there is nothing left but to die well, Ventidius says: 1 1 All for Love, 4. 1. 2 Ibid. 1. 1. 3 Ibid. 'There yet remain Three legions in the town. The last assault An honest pile for burial. . . . Chuse your death; For, I have seen him in such various shapes, I care not which I take: I'm only troubled. The life I bear is worn to such a rag, "Tis scarce worth giving. I could wish, indeed, That, like two lions taken in the toils, We might at least thrust out our paws, and wound Antony begs him to go, but he refuses: 'Antony. Do not deny me twice. Ventidius. By Heaven I will not. Let it not be to outlive you. Antony. Kill me first, And then die thou; for 'tis but just thou serve Thy friend, before thyself. Ventidius. Give me your hand. We soon shall meet again. Now, farewell, emperor ! .. I will not make a business of a trifle : And yet I cannot look on you, and kill you. Antony. I do: strike home, be sure. Ventidius. Home, as my sword will reach.'' And with one blow he kills himself. These are the tragic, stoical manners of a military monarchy, the great profusion of murders and sacrifices wherewith the men of this overturned and shattered society killed and died. This Antony, for whom so much has been done, is not undeserving of their love: he has been one of Cæsar's heroes, the first soldier of the van; kindness and generosity breathe from him to the last; if he is weak against a woman, he is strong against men; he has the muscles and heart, the wrath and passions of a soldier; it is this heat of blood, this too quick sentiment of honour, which has caused his ruin; he cannot forgive his own crime; he possesses not that lofty genius which, dwelling in a region superior to ordinary rules, emancipates a man from hesitation, from discouragement and remorse; he is only a soldier, he cannot forget that he has not executed the orders given to him: Antony. Emperor? Why, that's the style of victory ; Salutes his general so; but never more Shall that sound reach my ears. Ventidius. I warrant you. Antony. Actium, Actium! Oh- Antony. Here, here it lies; a lump of lead by day; The hag that rides my dreams. . . . Ventidius. That's my royal master; Antony. I warrant thee, old soldier. And at the head of our old troops, that beat The Parthians, cry aloud, “Come, follow me. 1 He fancies himself on the battlefield, and already passion carries him away. Such a man is not one to govern men; we cannot master fortune until we have mastered ourselves; this man is only made to belie and destroy himself, and to be veered round alternately by every passion. As soon as he believes Cleopatra faithful, honour, reputation, empires, everything vanishes: Ventidius. And what's this toy, In balance with your fortune, honour, fame? Antony. What is't, Ventidius? it outweighs them all. My queen's not only innocent, but loves me. ... Ventidius. I'll rather die than take it. Will you go? . . Give, you gods, Give to your boy, your Cæsar, Go from all that's excellent! This rattle of a globe to play withal, This gewgaw world; and put him cheaply off: I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.'2 Dejection follows excess; these souls are only tempered against fear; their courage is but that of the bull and the lion; to be fully themselves, they need bodily action, visible danger; their temperament sustains them; before great moral sufferings they give way. When Antony thinks himself deceived, he despairs, and has nothing left but to die: Such verses remind us of Othello's gloomy dreams, of Macbeth, of Hamlet's even; beyond the pile of swelling tirades and characters of painted cardboard, it is as though the poet had touched the ancient drama, and brought its emotion away with him. 1 All for Love, 1. 1. 2 Ibid. 2. 1, end. 3 Ibid. 5. 1. By his side another also has felt it, a young man, a poor adventurer, by turns a student, actor, officer, always wild and always poor, who lived madly and sadly in excess and misery, like the old dramatists, with their inspiration, their fire, and who died at the age of thirty-four, according to some of a fever caused by fatigue, according to others of a prolonged fast, at the end of which he swallowed too quickly a morsel of bread bestowed on him in charity. Through the pompous cloak of the new rhetoric, Thomas Otway now and then reached the passions of the other age. It is plain that the times he lived in marred him, that the oratorical style, the literary phrases, the classical declamation, the wellpoised antitheses, buzzed about him, and drowned his note in their sustained and monotonous hum. Had he but been born a hundred years earlier! In his Orphan and Venice Preserved we encounter the sombre imaginations of Webster, Ford, and Shakspeare, their gloomy idea of life, their atrocities, murders, pictures of irresistible passions, which riot blindly like a herd of savage beasts, and make a chaos of the battlefield, with their yells and tumult, leaving behind them but devastation and heaps of dead. Like Shakspeare, his events are human transports and furies-a brother violating his brother's wife, a husband perjuring himself for his wife; Polydore, Chamont, Jaffier, weak and violent souls, the sport of chance, the prey of temptation, with whom transport or crime, like poison poured into the veins, gradually ascends, envenoms the whole man, is spread on all whom he touches, and contorts and casts them down together in a convulsive delirium. Like Shakspeare, he has found poignant and living words,' which lay bare the depths of humanity, the strange noise of a machine which is getting out of order, the tension of the will stretched to breaking-point, the simplicity of real sacrifice, the humility of exasperated and craving passion, which longs to the end and against all hope for its fuel and its gratification.3 Like Shakspeare, he has conceived genuine women,‘— 1 Monimia says, in the Orphan (5, end), when dying, 'How my head swims! 'Tis very dark; good night.' 2 See the death of Pierre and Jaffier in Venice Preserved (5, last scene). Pierre, stabbed once, bursts into a laugh. For that poor little one you've ta'en such care of; There is jealousy in this last word. 'Oh, thou art tender all, Gentle and kind, as sympathizing nature, Dove-like, soft and kind. . . . I'll ever live your most obedient wife, Nor ever any privilege pretend Beyond your will.'—Orphan, 4. 1. Monimia, above all Belvidera, who, like Imogen, has given herself wholly, and is lost as in an abyss of adoration for him whom she has chosen, who can but love, obey, weep, suffer, and who dies like a flower plucked from the stalk, when her arms are torn from the neck around which she has locked them. Like Shakspeare again, he has found, at least once, the large bitter buffoonery, the crude sentiment of human baseness; and he has introduced into his most painful tragedy, an obscene caricature, an old senator, who unbends from his official gravity in order to play at his mistress' house the clown or the valet. How bitter! how true was his conception, in making the busy man eager to leave his robes and his ceremonies! how ready the man is to abase himself, when, escaped from his part, he comes to his real self! how the ape and the dog crop out of him! The senator Antonio comes to his Aquilina, who insults him; he is amused; hard words relieve other compliments; he minces, runs into a falsetto like a zany at a country fair: 'Antonio. Nacky, Nacky, Nacky,-how dost do, Nacky? Hurry, durry. I am come, little Nacky. Past eleven o'clock, a late hour; time in all conscience to go to bed, Nacky.-Nacky did I say? Ay, Nacky, Aquilina, lina, lina, quilina; Aquilina, Naquilina, Acky, Nacky, queen Nacky.-Come, let's to bed. -You fubbs, you pug you-You little puss.-Purree tuzzy-I am a senator. Aquilina. You are a fool, I am sure. ... Antonio. May be so too, sweet-heart. Never the worse senator for all that. Come, Nacky, Nacky; let's have a game at romp, Nacky! . . . You won't sit down? Then look you now; suppose me a bull, a Basan-bull, the bull of bulls, or any bull. Thus up I get, and with my brows thus bent-I broo; I say I broo, I broo, I broo. You won't sit down, will you-I broo. . . . Now, I'll be a senator again, and thy lover, little Nicky, Nacky. Ah, toad, toad, toad, toad, spit in my face a little, Nacky; spit in my face, pry'thee, spit in my face, never so little ; spit but a little bit,—spit, spit, spit, spit when you are bid, I say; do pry'thee, spit.-Now, now spit. What, you won't spit, will you? Then I'll be a dog. Aquilina. A dog, my lord! Antonio. Ay, a dog, and I'll give thee this t'other purse to let me be a dogand to use me like a dog a little. Hurry durry, I will-here 'tis. (Gives the purse.)... Now bough waugh waugh, bough, waugh. Aquilina. Hold, hold, sir. If curs bite, they must be kicked, sir. Do you see, kicked thus ? Antonio. Ay, with all my heart. Do, kick, kick on, now I am under the table, kick again,-kick harder-harder yet-bough, waugh, waugh, bough.—Odd, I'll have a snap at thy shins.-Bough, waugh, waugh, waugh, bough―odd, she kicks bravely.' At last she takes a whip, thrashes him soundly, and turns him out of the house. He will return, you may be sure; it has been a pleasant night for him; he rubs his back, but he was amused. In fine, he was but a clown who had missed his vocation, whom chance has given an 1 Venice Preserved, 3. 1. Antonio is meant as a copy of the 'celebrated Earl of Shaftesbury, the lewdness of whose latter years,' says Mr. Thornton in his edition of Otway's Works, 3 vols. 1815, was a subject of general notoriety.'—TR. |