Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/338

 Nature spoke more truly than Bertram's passing inclination. As she claims the precious fee, the blushes in her cheeks whisper,—

"We blush that thou shouldst choose: but, be repuls'd, Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever; We'll ne'er come there again."

Bertram feigns compliance with the wishes of the King; but, determining to get rid of her, he hurries from the marriage rite to the Florentine wars. There was a technical marriage of two persons who are not yet wedded, for he does not yet deserve her. The shadow of her plebeian origin is large enough to obscure her merit; so that poetic justice requires that he must wait till she is appreciated, when he will find that he has gained every thing in yielding every thing to the supremacy of pure womanhood. He flings himself away to the wars, exclaiming, "Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France."

When she perceives that she is the cause of his expatriation, her decision is made to leave France, so that he may be free to enter it again. She becomes a pilgrim, with bared feet, to do penance for ambitious love, wandering here and there, keeping out of the way that he may be recalled from the dangers of war:—

"He is too good and fair for death and me; Whom I myself embrace, to set him free."

By and by, Bertram, believing that she is dead, is overwhelmed with an access of love for her. His awakened conviction "cries to see what's done." Sup