extends to her his hand.
DON CAESAR.
Farewell!
ISABELLA.
I can no more;
Too well my tortured bosom owns how weak
A mother's prayers: a mightier voice shall sound
Resistless on thy heart.
[She goes towards the entrance of the scene.
My daughter, come.
A brother calls him to the realms of night;
Perchance with golden hues of earthly joy
The sister, the beloved, may gently lure
The wanderer to life again.
[BEATRICE appears at the entrance of the scene.
DONNA ISABELLA, DON CAESAR, and the Chorus.
DON CAESAR (on seeing her, covers his face with his hands).
My mother!
What hast thou done?
ISABELLA (leading BEATRICE forwards).
A mother's prayers are vain!
Kneel at his feet-conjure him-melt his heart!
Oh, bid him live!
DON CAESAR.
Deceitful mother, thus
Thou triest thy son! And wouldst thou stir my soul
Again to passion's strife, and make the sun
Beloved once more, now when I tread the paths
Of everlasting night? See where he stands-
Angel of life!-and wondrous beautiful,
Shakes from his plenteous horn the fragrant store
Of golden fruits and flowers, that breathe around
Divinest airs of joy;-my heart awakes
In the warm sunbeam-hope returns, and life
Thrills in my breast anew.
ISABELLA (to BEATRICE).
Thou wilt prevail!
Or none! Implore him that he live, nor rob
The staff and comfort of our days.
BEATRICE.
The loved one
A sacrifice demands. Oh, let me die
To soothe a brother's shade! Yes, I will be
The victim! Ere I saw the light forewarned
To death, I live a wrong to heaven! The curse
Pursues me stilclass="underline" 'twas I that slew thy son-
I waked the slumbering furies of their strife-
Be mine the atoning blood!
CAJETAN.
Ill-fated mother!
Impatient all thy children haste to doom,
And leave thee on the desolate waste alone
Of joyous life.
BEATRICE.
Oh, spare thy precious days
For nature's band. Thy mother needs a son;
My brother, live for her! Light were the pang
To lose a daughter-but a moment shown,
Then snatched away!
DON CAESAR (with deep emotion).
'Tis one to live or die,
Blest with a sister's love!
BEATRICE.
Say, dost thou envy
Thy brother's ashes?
DON CAESAR.
In thy grief he lives
A hallowed life!-my doom is death forever!
BEATRICE.
My brother!
DON CAESAR.
Sister! are thy tears for me?
BEATRICE.
Live for our mother!
DON CAESAR (dropping her hand, and stepping back).
For our mother?
BEATRICE (hiding her head in his breast).
Live
For her and for thy sister!
Chorus (BOHEMUND).
She has won!
Resistless are her prayers. Despairing mother,
Awake to hope again-his choice is made!
Thy son shall live!
[At this moment an anthem is heard. The folding doors
are thrown open, and in the church is seen the catafalque
erected, and the coffin surrounded with candlesticks.
DON CAESAR (turning to the coffin).
I will not rob thee, brother!
The sacrifice is thine:-Hark! from the tomb,
Mightier than mother's tears, or sister's love,
Thy voice resistless cries:-my arms enfold
A treasure, potent with celestial joys,
To deck this earthly sphere, and make a lot
Worthy the gods! but shall I live in bliss,
While in the tomb thy sainted innocence
Sleeps unavenged? Thou, Ruler of our days,
All just-all wise-let not the world behold
Thy partial care! I saw her tears!-enough-
They flowed for me! I am content: my brother!
I come!
[He stabs himself with a dagger, and falls dead
at his sister's feet. She throws herself into her
mother's arms.
Chorus, CAJETAN (after a deep silence).
In dread amaze I stand, nor know
If I should mourn his fate. One truth revealed
Speaks in my breast;-no good supreme is life;
But all of earthly ills the chief is-Guilt!
THE END
ON THE USE OF THE CHORUS IN TRAGEDY.
A poetical work must vindicate itself: if the execution be defective, little aid can be derived from commentaries.
On these grounds I might safely leave the chorus to be its own advocate, if we had ever seen it presented in an appropriate manner. But it must be remembered that a dramatic composition first assumes the character of a whole by means of representation on the stage. The poet supplies only the words, to which, in a lyrical tragedy, music and rhythmical motion are essential accessories. It follows, then, that if the chorus is deprived of accompaniments appealing so powerfully to the senses, it will appear a superfluity in the economy of the drama-a mere hinderance to the development of the plot-destructive to the illusion of the scene, and wearisome to the spectators.
To do justice to the chorus, more especially if our aims in poetry be of a grand and elevated character, we must transport ourselves from the actual to a possible stage. It is the privilege of art to furnish for itself whatever is requisite, and the accidental deficiency of auxiliaries ought not to confine the plastic imagination of the poet. He aspires to whatever is most dignified, he labors to realize the ideal in his own mind-though in the execution of his purpose he must needs accommodate himself to circumstances.
The assertion so commonly made that the public degrades art is not well founded. It is the artist that brings the public to the level of his own conceptions; and, in every age in which art has gone to decay, it has fallen through its professors. The people need feeling alone, and feeling they possess. They take their station before the curtain with an unvoiced longing, with a multifarious capacity. They bring with them an aptitude for what is highest-they derive the greatest pleasure from what is judicious and true; and if, with these powers of appreciation, they deign to be satisfied with inferior productions, still, if they have once tasted what is excellent, they will in the end insist on having it supplied to them.
It is sometimes objected that the poet may labor according to an ideal- that the critic may judge from ideas, but that mere executive art is subject to contingencies, and depends for effect on the occasion. Managers will be obstinate; actors are bent on display-the audience is inattentive and unruly. Their object is relaxation, and they are disappointed if mental exertion be required, when they expected only amusement. But if the theatre be made instrumental towards higher objects, the diversion, of the spectator will not be increased, but ennobled. It will be a diversion, but a poetical one. All art is dedicated to pleasure, and there can be no higher and worthier end than to make men happy. The true art is that which provides the highest degree of pleasure; and this consists in the abandonment of the spirit to the free play of all its faculties.
Every one expects from the imaginative arts a certain emancipation from the bounds of reality: we are willing to give a scope to fancy, and recreate ourselves with the possible. The man who expects it the least will nevertheless forget his ordinary pursuits, his everyday existence and individuality, and experience delight from uncommon incidents:-if he be of a serious turn of mind he will acknowledge on the stage that moral government of the world which he fails to discover in real life. But he is, at the same time, perfectly aware that all is an empty show, and that in a true sense he is feeding only on dreams. When he returns from the theatre to the world of realities, he is again compressed within its narrow bounds; he is its denizen as before-for it remains what it was, and in him nothing has been changed. What, then, has he gained beyond a momentary illusive pleasure which vanished with the occasion?