What I think wanting to Steevens' interpretation, is an increase, if I may so express myself, of intensity. He takes the word, I conceive, in its right bearing, but does not give it all the requisite force. I should suggest that it means not merely "recipient, capable of receiving," but, to coin a word, captatious, eager or greedy to receive, absorbing; as we say avidum mare, or a greedy gulf. The Latin analogous to it in this sense would be, not capax, or MR. SINGER'S captiosus, but captax, or captabundus; neither of which words, however, occurs.
The sense of the word, like that of many others in the same author, must be determined by the scope and object of the passage in which it is used. The object of Helena, in declaring her love to the Countess, is to show the all-absorbing nature of it; to prove that she is tota in illo; and that, however she may strive to stop the cravings of it, her endeavours are of no more use than the attempt to fill up a bottomless abyss.
The reader may, if he pleases, compare her case with that of other heroines in like predicaments. Thus Medæa, in Apollonius Rhodius:
"Παντη μοι φρενες εισιν αμηχανοι, ουδε τις αλκη Πηματος."
And the same lady in Ovid:
"—— Luctata diu, postquam ratione furorem,
Vincere non poterat. Frustra, Medea, repugnas.
——
Excute virgineo conceptas pectore flammas,
Si potes, infelix. Si possem sanior essem: