Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/232

Rh exclamation so easily stopped. When Salisbury bears to her the message of the kings, and the information of their new com pact, her rage knows no bounds, and the expression of it is as vehemently eloquent as that of her passionate grief when she has really lost all. Those, who in deference to the sacred virtues of womanhood attribute all the language and conduct of Constance to the all-sanctifying motive of maternal love, will do well to remark that this passionate scene takes place while her son is with her and free from danger, except that which her own ambition prepares for him. Her rage arises from the thought that Blanch shall have those provinces instead of her son :

“Const. Gone to be married 1 gone to swear a peace False blood to false blood join'd / Gone to be friends ! Shall Lewis have Blanch 7 and Blanch those provinces ! It is not so ; thou hast misspoke, misheard ;

Be well advis'd, tell o'er thy tale again : It cannot be ; thou dost but say, 't is so : I trust I may not trust thee; for thy word Is but the vain breath of a common man.

Believe me, I do not believe thee, man;

I have a king's oath to the contrary. Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me, For I am sick, and capable of fears;

Oppress'd 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 vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce, But they will quake and tremble all this day.” “O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow, Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die ; And let belief and life encounter so, As doth the fury of two desperate men,

Which in the very meeting fall, and die.— Lewis marry Blanch O, boy, then where art thou ? France friend with England ' What becomes of me — Fellow, be gone : I cannot brook thy sight;

This news hath made thee a most ugly man.”