Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

unable to live with you joyfully and openly, at the least I should die with you sadly and secretly;'-and holding the body straitly embraced, he awaited death.

"The hour was now arrived when, by the natural heat of the damsel, the cold and powerful effects of the powder should have been overcome, and when she should awake; and accordingly, embraced and violently agitated by Romeo, she awoke in his arms, and starting into life, after a heavy sigh, she cried, 'Alas! where am I? who is it thus embraces me? by whom am I thus kissed?' and, believing it was the Friar Lorenzo, she exclaimed, 'Do you thus, O friar, keep your faith with Romeo? is it thus you safely conduct me to him?' Romeo, perceiving the lady to be alive, wondered exceedingly, and thinking perhaps on Pygmalion, he said, 'Do you not know me, O, my sweet lady? See you not that I am your wretched spouse, secretly and alone come from Mantua to perish by you?' Julietta, seeing herself in the monument, and perceiving that she was in the arms of one who called himself Romeo, was well nigh out of her senses, and pushing him a little from her, and gazing on his face, she instantly knew him, and embracing, gave him a thousand kisses, saying, 'What folly has excited you, with such imminent danger, to enter here? Was it not sufficient to have understood by my letters how I had contrived, with the help of Friar Lorenzo, to feign death, and that I should shortly have been with you?' The unhappy youth, then perceiving this fatal mistake, thus began: 'O, miserable lot! O, wretched Romeo! O, by far the most afflicted of all lovers! On this subject never have I received your letters!' And he then proceeded to inform her how Pietro had given him intelligence of her pretended death, as if it had been real; whence, believing her dead, he had, in order to accompany her in death, even there, close by her, taken the poison, which, as most subtle, he already felt had sent forth death through all his limbs.

"The unfortunate damsel, hearing this, remained so overpowered with grief, that she could do nothing but tear her lovely locks, and beat and bruise her innocent breast; and at length to Romeo, who already lay supine, kissing him often, and pouring over him a flood of tears, more pale than ashes, and trembling all over, she thus spoke: 'Must you, then, O, lord of my heart, must you then die in my presence, and through my means! and will the heavens permit that I should survive you, though but for a moment? Wretched me! O, that I could at least transfer my life to you, and die alone!' To which, with a languid voice, the youth replied: "If ever my faith and my love were dear to you, live, O, my best hope! by these I conjure you, that after my death, life should

not be displeasing to you, if for no other reason, at least that you may think on him, who, penetrated with passion, for your sake, and before your dear eyes, now perishes!' To this the damsel answered: 'If for my pretended death you now die, what ought I to do for yours, which is real! It only grieves me that here, in your presence, I have not the means of death, and, inasmuch as I survive you, I detest myself! yet still will I hope, that ere long, as I have been the cause, so shall I be the companion of your death.' And, having with difficulty spoken these words,

she fainted, and, again returning to life, busied herself in sad endeavours to gather with her sweet lips the extreme breath of her dearest lover, who now hastily approached his end.

"In this interval, Friar Lorenzo had been informed how and when the damsel had drunk the potion, as also that, upon a supposition of her death, she had been buried; and, knowing that the time was now arrived when the powder should cease to operate, taking with him a trusty companion, about an hour before day he came to the vault; where being arrived, he heard the cries and lamentations of the lady, and, through a crevice in the cover, seeing a light within, he was greatly surprised, and imagined that, by some means or other, the damsel had contrived to convey with her a lamp into the tomb; and that now, having awaked, she wept and lamented, either through fear of the dead bodies by which she was surrounded, or perhaps from the apprehension of being for ever immured in this dismal place; and having, with the assistance of his companion, speedily opened the tomb, he beheld Julietta, who, with hair all dishevelled, and sadly grieving, had raised herself so far as to be seated, and had taken into her lap her dying lover. To her he thus addressed himself: Did you then fear, O, my daughter, that I should have left you to die here enclosed?' And she, seeing the friar, and redoubling her lamentations, answered: Far from it; my only fear is that you will drag me hence alive! Alas! for the love of God, away, and close the sepulchre, that I may here perish- or rather reach me a knife, that, piercing my breast, I may rid myself of my woes! O, my father, my father is it thus you have sent me the letter? Are these my hopes of happy marriage? Is it thus you have conducted me to my Romeo? Behold him here, in my bosom, already dead!' And, pointing to him, she recounted all that had passed. The friar, hearing these things, stood as one bereft of sense, and, gazing upon the young man, then ready to pass from this into another life, bitterly weeping, he called to him, saying, 'O, Romeo, what hard hap has torn you from me! Speak to me at least! Cast your eyes a moment upon me! O, Romeo, behold your dearest Julietta, who

beseeches you to look at her. Why, at the least, will you not answer her in whose dear bosom you lie?' At the beloved name of his mistress, Romeo raised a little his languid eyes, weighed down by the near approach of death, and, looking at her, reclosed them; and, immediately after, death thrilling through his whole frame, all convulsed, and heaving a short sigh, he expired.

"The miserable lover being now dead, in the manner I have related, as the day was already approaching, after much lamentation, the friar thus addressed the young damsel: And you, Julietta, what do you mean to do?' To which she instantly replied, 'Here enclosed will I die.'-'Say not so, daughter,' said he: 'come forth from hence; for, though I know not well how to dispose of you, the means cannot be wanting of shutting yourself up in some holy monastery, where you may continually offer your supplications to God, as well for yourself as for your deceased husband, if he should need your prayers.'-'Father,' replied the lady, 'one favour alone I entreat of you, which, for the love you bear to the memory of him—and so saying, she pointed to Romeo-'you will willingly grant me; and that is, that you will never make known our death, that so our bodies may for ever remain united in this sepulchre: and if, by any accident, the manner of our dying should be discovered, by the love already mentioned, I conjure you, that in both our names you would implore our miserable parents that they should make no difficulty of suffering those whom love has consumed in one fire, and conducted to one death, to remain in one and the same tomb.' Then, turning to the prostrate body of Romeo, whose head she had placed on a pillow which had been left with her in the vault, having carefully closed his eyes, and bathing his cold visage with tears, Lord of my heart,' said she, 'without you, what should I do with life? and what more remains to be done by me toward you but to follow you in death? Certainly, nothing more! in order that death itself, which alone could possibly have separated you from me, should not now be able to part us!' And having thus spoken, reflecting upon the horror of her destiny, and calling to mind the loss of her dear lover, determined no longer to live, she suppressed her respiration, and for a long space holding in her breath, at length sent it forth with a loud cry, and fell dead upon the dead body."

II. THE STORY OF HAMLET.

The relation given in Saxo's Danish History must be considered as the original and oldest source of Shakespeare's Hamlet, though the poet may have been more immediately indebted to an older tragedy on the same subject, ascribed to Thomas Kyd,' and from an English tale which appeared several times in a separate form, under the title, "The Hystorie of Hamblet," 4to., which was immediately taken from Belleforest's Tragical Relations, the fifth volume of which contains it, under the title, Avec qu'elle ruse Amleth qui depuis fuit Roi de Dannemark vengea la mort de son pere Horvendille, occis par Fengou, son frère, et autre occurrence de son histoire. The English relation which Shakespeare had in his view had probably received many arbitrary additions; for, according to Capell, all the chief circumstances and the most important characters of the tragedy lie in the germ, as it were, in this

1 This is mere conjecture. If, as is most probable, an older play on the subject of Hamlet existed at the time when Shakespeare wrote his tragedy, we have no evidence whatever that will lead us to believe it was written by Kyd.-ED.

2 The only perfect copy of this work known to exist was published at London in 1608, and has been reprinted by Mr. Collier. The original is preserved in Capell's rich collection, in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, and was procured by him from the collection of the Duke of Newcastle. I have seen a fragment of this rare book, which, as far as one can offer an opinion, without comparing it with the perfect copy, appeared to be earlier than the date above mentioned. Dr. Farmer had only two leaves of the book, not an imperfect copy, as stated by Mr. Collier.-ED.

story: an assertion which could hardly be made of the original relation of Saxo-Grammaticus.

Yet, even in this last named author, we can distinguish the figures out of which Shakespeare has formed some of his characters. Horatio, Hamlet's fellow-student at Wittenberg, may be recognised in the foster-brother of the Prince; Polonius, in the bold courtier; and Ophelia in the young lady. The last passage may serve for a confirmation of Tieck's well known opinion respecting Hamlet's relation to Ophelia. The companions of Hamlet, in his journey to England, appear in Shakespeare as Rosenkranz and Guildenstern.

2

We have not succeeded in finding the origin of the interlude which Hamlet causes to be represented in the second scene of the third act, before his uncle. That there is such a source may be suspected from Hamlet's own words:" The piece is the representation of a murder which happened in Vienna: Gonzago is the name of the Duke, his consort Battista; the history is extant, and is written in choice Italian." This, to be sure, may be merely a pretence, which Shakespeare makes Hamlet use, to conceal the allusion to his uncle; but the mode of Gonzago's death, by poison dropped into his ear during sleep, does not occur in Saxo, and our great dramatist may certainly have taken this circumstance from an Italian story now lost to us. Shakespeare knew that Battista is a man's name, as is proved by the list of the Dramatis Per

1 I fear that Capell's words have been misinterpreted; for, with a trifling exception, the tale of Saxo-Grammaticus furnishes the same particulars as the novel of Belleforest.-ED.

2 In a play called "A Warning for fair Women," supposed, by Mr. Collier, to have been written before 1590, it is stated that a woman who had murdered her husband witnessed a tragedy acted at Lynn, in Norfolk, which expressed a similar crime so perfectly, she was consciencestricken, and confessed the transaction she had been guilty of. Heywood, in his "Apology for Actors," 1612, relates the affair more circumstantially. Perhaps some of our Norfolk antiquaries will be able to tell us whether it has any foundation in truth.-ED.

« AnteriorContinua »