CONSTANCE.
Ay, who doubts that? A will! a wicked will—
A woman's will—a canker'd grandam's will!
KING PHILIP.
Peace, lady: pause, or be more moderate.
And in a very opposite mood, when struggling with the consciousness of her own helpless situation, the same susceptible and excitable fancy still predominates:—
Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me;
For I am sick, and capable of fears;
Oppressed with wrongs, and therefore full of fears
A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;
A woman, naturally born to fears;
And though thou now confess thou didst but jest
With my vexed spirits, I cannot take a truce,
But they will quake and tremble all this day.
What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?
Why dost thou look so sadly on my son?
What means that hand upon that breast of thine?
Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,
Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds?
Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?
* * * *
Fellow, begone! I cannot brook thy sight—
This news hath made thee a most ugly man!
It is the power of imagination which gives so peculiar a tinge to the maternal tenderness of Constance; she not only loves her son with the fond instinct of a mother's affection, but she loves him with her poetical imagination, exults in his beauty and his royal birth, hangs over him with idolatry, and sees his infant brow already encircled with the diadem. Her proud spirit, her ardent enthusiastic fancy, and her energetic self-will, all combine with her maternal love to give it that tone and character which belongs to her only: hence that most beautiful address to her son, which coming from the lips of Constance, is as full of nature and truth as of pathos and poetry, and which we could hardly sympathize with in any other:—
ARTHUR.