the wrongs and insults which drive her to desperation—the horrid refinement of cruelty with which she plans and executes her revenge upon her faithless husband—the gush of fondness with which she weeps over her children, whom in the next moment she devotes to destruction in a paroxysm of insane fury, carry the terror and pathos of tragic situation to their extreme height. But if we may be allowed to judge through the medium of a translation, there is a certain hardness in the manner of treating the character, which in some degree defeats the effect. Medea talks too much: her human feelings and superhuman power are not sufficiently blended. Taking into consideration the different impulses which actuate Medea and Lady Macbeth, as love, jealousy, and revenge on the one side, and ambition on the other, we expect to find more of female nature in the first than in the last: and yet the contrary is the fact: at least, my own impression as far as a woman may judge of a woman, is, that although the passions of Medea are more feminine, the character is less so; we seem to require more feeling in her fierceness, more passion in her frenzy; something less of poetical abstraction,—less art, fewer words: her delirious vengeance we might forgive, but her calmness and subtlety are rather revolting.
These two admirable characters, placed in contrast to each other, afford a fine illustration of Schlegel's distinction between the ancient or Greek drama, which he compares to sculpture, and the modern or romantic drama, which he compares to painting. The gothic grandeur, the rich chiaroscuro, and deep-toned colors of Lady Macbeth, stand thus opposed to the classical elegance and mythological splendor, the delicate yet inflexible outline of the Medea. If I might be permitted to carry this illustration still further, I would add, that there exists the same distinction between the Lady Macbeth and the Medea, as between the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci and the Medusa of the Greek gems and bas reliefs. In the painting, the horror of the subject is at once exalted and softened by the most vivid coloring, and the most magical contrast of light and shade. We gaze—until, from the murky depths of the background, the serpent hair seems to stir and glitter as if instinct with life, and the head itself, in all its ghastliness and brightness, appears to rise from the canvass with the glare of reality. In the Medusa of sculpture, how different is the effect on the imagination! We have here the snakes convolving round the winged and graceful head: the brows contracted with horror and pain; but every feature is chiselled into the most regular and faultless perfection; and amid the gorgon terrors, there rests a marbly, fixed, supernatural grace, which, without reminding us for a moment of common life or nature, stands before us a presence, a power, and an enchantment!
FOOTNOTES:
[66] Milton.
[67] "That the treachery of King John, the death of Arthur, and the grief of Constance, had a real truth in history, sharpens the sense of pain, while it hangs a leaden weight on the heart and the imagination. Something whispers us that we have no right to make a mock of calamities like these, or to turn the truth of things into the puppet and plaything of our fancies."—See Characters of Shakspeare's Plays.—To consider thus is not to consider too deeply, but not deeply enough.
[68] Grave, in the sense of mighty or potent.
[69] Fulvia, the first wife of Antony.
[70] The well-known violence and coarseness of Queen Elizabeth's manners, in which she was imitated by the women about her, may in Shakspeare's time have rendered the image of a royal virago less offensive and less extraordinary.
[71] She was as good as her word. See the life of Antony in Plutarch.
[72] i. e. retinue.