K. Richard. What must the King do now? must he submit?
The King shall do it: must he be depos’d?
The King shall be contented: must he lose
The name of King? O’ God’s name, let it go:
I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads;
My gorgeous palace, for a hermitage;
My gay apparel, for an almsman’s gown;
My figur’d goblets, for a dish of wood;
My sceptre, for a palmer’s walking staff;
My subjects, for a pair of carved saints;
And my large kingdom, for a little grave;
A little, little grave;—— an obscure grave.
Or I’ll be bury’d in the King’s highway;
Some way of common tread, where subjects feet
May hourly trample on their sovereign’s head:
For on my heart they tread now, whilst I live;
And, bury’d once, why not upon my head?
Richard II. act 3. sc. 6.
Objects that strike terror in a spectator, have in poetry and painting a fine effect. The picture, by raising a slight emotion of terror, agitates the mind; and in that condition every beauty makes a deep impression. May not contrast heighten the pleasure, by opposing our present security to the danger we would be in by encountering the object represented?
—————————— The other shape,
If shape it might be call’d, that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance might be call’d that shadow seem’d,
For each seem’d either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart.
Paradise Lost, book 2. l. 666.
—————— Now storming fury rose,
And clamour such as heard in heav’n till now
Was never, arms on armour clashing bray’d
Horrible discord, and the madding wheels
Of brazen chariots rag’d; dire was the noise
Of conflict; over-head the dismal hiss
Of fiery darts in flaming vollies flew,
And flying vaulted either host with fire.
So under fiery cope together rush’d
Both battles main, with ruinous assault
And inextinguishable rage; all heav’n
Resounded, and had earth been then, all earth
Had to her centre shook.
Paradise Lost, book 6. l. 207.
Ghost.———— But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotty and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.
Hamlet, act 1. sc. 8.
Gratiano. Poor Desdemona! I’m glad thy father’s dead:
Thy match was mortal to him; and pure grief
Shore his old thread in twain. Did he live now,
This sight would make him do a desp’rate turn:
Yea, curse his better angel from his side,
And fall to reprobation.
Othello, act 5. sc. 8.
Objects of horror must be excepted from the foregoing theory; for no description, however masterly, is sufficient to overbalance the disgust raised even by the idea of such an object. Every thing horrible ought therefore to be avoided in a description. Nor is this a severe law: the poet will avoid such scenes for his own sake, as well as for that of his reader; and to vary his descriptions, nature affords plenty of objects that disgust us in some degree without raising horror. I am obliged therefore to condemn the picture of sin in the second book of Paradise Lost, though drawn with a masterly hand. The original would be a horrible spectacle; and the horror is not much softened in the copy.
—————— Pensive here I sat
Alone, but long I sat not, till my womb
Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown
Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes.
At last this odious offspring whom thou seest,
Thine own begotten, breaking violent way,
Tore through my intrails, that with fear and pain
Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew
Transform’d; but he my inbred enemy
Forth issu’d, brandishing his fatal dart,
Made to destroy: I fled, and cry’d out Death;
Hell trembl’d at the hideous name, and sigh’d
From all her caves, and back resounded Death.
I fled, but he pursu’d, (though more, it seems,
Inflam’d with lust than rage), and swifter far,
Me overtook, his mother all dismay’d,
And in embraces forcible and foul
Ingendring with me, of that rape begot
These yelling monsters that with ceaseless cry
Surround me, as thou saw’st, hourly conceiv’d
And hourly born, with sorrow infinite
To me; for when they list, into the womb
That bred them they return, and howl and gnaw
My bowels, their repast; then bursting forth
A fresh with conscious terrors vex me round,
That rest or intermission none I find.
Before mine eyes in opposition sits
Grim Death, my son and foe, who sets them on,
And me his parent would full soon devour
For want of other prey, but that he knows
His end with mine involv’d; and knows that I
Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane,
Whenever that shall be.
Book 2. l. 777.
Iago’s character in the tragedy of Othello, is so monstrous and satanical, as not to be sufferable in a representation: not even Shakespear’s masterly hand can make the picture agreeable.
Though the objects introduced in the following scenes, are not altogether so horrible as Sin is in Milton’s picture; yet with every person of taste, disgust will be the prevailing emotion.