In vain the hero struggles with his yielding passion, and seeks to retain it. In vain he struggles with a sentiment which he himself describes as 'a gosling's instinct,' and seeks to subdue it. In vain he rallies his pride, and says, 'Let it be virtuous to be obstinate'; and determines to stand 'as if a man were author of himself, and knew no other kin.' His mother kneels. It is but a frail, aged woman kneeling to the victorious chieftain of the Volscian hosts; but to him it is 'as if Olympus to a mole-hill stooped in supplication.' His boy looks at him with an eye in which great Nature speaks, and says, 'Deny not'; he sees the tears in the dove's eyes of the beloved, he hears her dewy voice; we hear it, too, through the Poet's art, in the words she speaks; and he forgets his part. We reach the 'grub' once more. The dragon wings of armies melt from him. He is his young boy's father—he is his fair young wife's beloved.
'O a kiss, long as my exile, sweet as my revenge.'
There's no decision yet. The scales are even now. But there is another there, waiting to be saluted, and he himself is but a boy—his own mother's boy again, at her feet. It is she that schools and lessons him; it is she that conquers him. It was 'her boy,' after all—it was her boy still, that was 'coming home.'
Well might Menenius say—
'This Volumnia is worth of consuls, senators, patricians, A city full; of tribunes such as you, A sea and land full.'
But let us take the philosophic report of this experiment as we find it; for on the carefullest study, when once it is put in its connections, when once we 'have heard the argument,' we shall not find anything in it to spare. But we must not forget that this is still 'the election,' the ignorant election of the common-weal which is under criticism, and though this election has been revoked in the play already, and this is a banished man we are trying here, there was a play in progress when this play was played, in which that revocation was yet to come off; and this Poet was anxious that the subject should be considered first from the most comprehensive grounds, so that the principle of 'the election' need never again be called in question, so that the revolution should end in the state, and not in the principle of revolution.
'My wife comes foremost; then the honoured mould
Wherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand
The grand-child to her blood. But, out, affection!
All bond and privilege of nature, break!
Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.—
What is that curtsey worth? or those doves' eyes,
Which can make gods forsworn?
['He speaks of the people as if he were a god to punish, and not a man of infirmity.']
'I melt, and am not
Of STRONGER EARTH than others.—My mother bows;
As if Olympus to a molehill should
In supplication nod: and my young boy
Hath an aspect of intercession, which
Great Nature cries, 'Deny not!'—Let the Volsces
Plough Rome, and harrow Italy; I'll never
Be such a GOSLING to obey INSTINCT; but stand,
As if a MAN were author of himself,
And knew no other kin.
These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.
Vir.
The sorrow that delivers us thus changed,
Makes you think so.