Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/235

220 fuller sway.

The irritable nerves would act and re-act on

the irritated mind. Emotion would obtain more complete and disastrous empire.

When Constance, unobserved before, rises from the ground amidst the congratulating court, with the dignified and solemn denunciation of kingly treachery, one of the finest possible dramatic effects is produced with the simplest means. Her eloquence throughout this scene is magnificent. The interests

even of kingdoms seem below its lofty aim.

The truth of

kings, and, as a minor term, the truth of all other men, is counterfeit. The invocation to the Heavens, that they should arm for her, and be husband to her, and set discord betwixt

these perjured kings, is the climax of eloquence. To Aus tria's entreaty, “Lady Constance, peace;” she replies in utter forgetfulness of all miseries except her own : “War : War : War: peace is to me a war.” No idea of the Pythoness, or of any woman inspired by good

or evil influences, ever represented a more extatic state of eloquent emotion. The poet's own representation insanity, Cassandra in Troilus and Cressida, is indistinct, in comparison. “Cry Trojans, cry Lend me ten thousand And I will fill them with prophetic tears,”

of inspired tame and eyes &c.

Constance descends from this exalted strain, to wither Austria

with her unmatched powers of vituperation, in which she does not even disdain a ridiculous image: “Thou wear a lion's hide

doff it, for shame,

And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs.” The war she invokes is near at hand in the “holy errand” of

the Legate. When this clerical despot pours the vials of the church's wrath on the head of John, who “blasphemes” in terms of English patriotism and protestantism, Constance must vie with the curses of authority, for which there’s “law and warrant.”

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