Lysander is now ushered in by Gonippus, who, with Cesira, immediately withdraws. Left alone with the ambassador of his arrogant and triumphant enemies, the unhappy King shakes off his depression, and shows himself worthy of the exalted dignity he had so flagitiously acquired. This scene is written with considerable talent; but the political squabbles of Lacedæmon and Messenia are, at this time of day, too absolutely uninteresting to justify a detailed account of the arguments of the two interlocutors. Suffice it to say, that Aristodemus displays a lofty and resolved spirit, unbroken by adversity; and while he consents to purchase peace-impelled thereunto by the impatience and sufferings of his subjects with the surrender of a portion of his dominions, he positively rejects a condition, apparently of less moment, but which he considers dishonourable and that the Spartan character is well pourtrayed in Lysander, save and except a small deficiency in laconic brevity, such as we before imputed, more largely, to Palamedes. But then we must frankly own, that it would be no easy matter to eke out one of these incidental tragedies, half the dramatis personæ being Spartans born or bred, did all those individuals strictly adhere to the conversational fashion of their country. Lysander, who seems to set more store by solid profit, and less by the bubble reputation, than Aristodemus, agrees to a compromise; they strike hands upon the bargain; and the war and the second Act are at an end. : In the third Act, Aristodemus is discovered sitting beside Dirce's tomb, immersed in gloomy meditations. These he intimates in soliloquy, and their evident tendency is towards suicide. He is joined by Gonippus, who endeavours, by no means successfully, to console him, and presently gives place to Cesira. She comes to take leave of her royal and paternal friend, prior to quitting Messenia for Sparta. In this valedictory interview, much of that indistinct and unconscious natural affection, of which we have already given a specimen, is expressed on both sides, and sometimes in terms so energetic, that, in the representation, we should almost apprehend its approaching too nearly to the character of passion;certainly, if it is preserved from it, the preservation must be chiefly due to the spectators' consciousness of that consanguinity, of which the parties themselves are uninformed. But be that as it may, poor Cesira, from her ignorance of the real source of Aristodemus's distress, in her professions of attachment, her praises, and her various efforts at consolation, so irritates the wound she would fain heal, that the afflicted monarch breaks from her in an agony of despair. The Spartans immediately afterwards come in search of her; Lysander sternly rejects her entreaties to delay their departure, as well as the private remonstrances of Palamedes upon his inhumanity; and Cesira, yielding to the plea of filial duty, sets forth with them upon their homeward journey, leaving a kind message for the King with Gonippus, who had come to see them off. Aristodemus, when they are gone, returns upon the stage, again rejects his confidant's attempts at consolation, and announces his now settled purpose of self-slaughter. Against this intention Gonippus argues vehemently, and we cannot but think in somewhat too Christian a strain. The king, to prove the utter impossibility of his longer enduring life, now relates the fearful manner in which he is haunted by his daughter's ghost; but his description of the spectre reminds us too disagreeably of a subject in a dissecting-room, to be dwelt upon. The confidant's incredulity is overpowered, or at least silenced, and he begins proposing journeys, and such other received methods for the cure of sorrow; but Aristodemus, without attending to him, determines to enter Dirce's sepulchre, and there question the dreadful phantom. The utmost that Gonippus can obtain by his opposition, remonstrances, and supplications, is the surrender of the before-mentioned blood-stained dagger, and the king's visiting the abode of death unarmed. The third Act closes with the entrance of Aristodemus into the monument. In the first scene of the fourth Act Cesira again makes her appearance. Palamedes having contrived, in some unexplained way, to detain Lysander a little longer in Messenia, she has taken advantage of the delay, to return in quest of Aristodemus, and to decorate with flowers the tomb of the lamented although unknown Dirce. Whilst she is engaged in the latter occupation, the miserable father exclaims from within the monument, Leave, leave me, horrid spectre ! Did I not hear Aristodemus' voice? ARISTODEMUS bursts from the tomb, Arist. Leave me! hence! avaunt! Pity me, barbarous as thou art!-[Faints. Ces. Oh, where Shall I seek shelter! Me unhappy! neither Can I endure his sight, nor shriek, nor fly What shall I do?-Let me assist himgods! The ashy hue of death is on his brow, Whence sweat-drops thickly burst-his hair uprises His aspect terrifies-Aristodemus, Aristodemus, answer, hear'st thou not? Arist. Fly touch me not! Avaunt, revengeful shade! Ces. Look up, and recognize me-it is I Who call upon thee. Arist. How?-Is't vanish'd? Say, Whither is't gone? From such relentless rage Who rescued me? Thou be, why take so terrible a form? Who gave thee licence o'er thy father thus, O'er nature's self to tyrannize? 'Tis mute, Are Heaven's decrees; through their obscurity No mortal eye may penetrate. Perchance Heaven, as a warning to mankind, ordains Mine agonies, whence Nature to revere, Ay, and to dread, may every parent learn. Believe it, Nature outraged is ferocious. Ces. And thou hast wept. After such 'Tis time to dry thy tears, and to implore From adverse gods of thy long penitence The fruits. Take courage! Every crime admits Of expiation. This resentful shade With grateful incense and the choicest victims To overwhelm them. Thou no mother's Propitiate. blood Arist. Be it so I will. The victim Hast shed; the cry of Nature dooms not Already is selected. Arist. (aside.) No matter. I shall find another. Any may serve. Ces. Oh, stay! I pray thee, go not hence! Prostrate before thee, I adjure thee, stay! Hear me, renounce thy horrible intent! Arist. What strange intent shapes out thy startled fancy? Ces. Spare me the agony of utterance ! Dimly I see it, and with horror freeze. Arist. Nothing disastrous apprehend for me, Be thy vain terrors by this smile dispell'd. Cesi. That smile? Thou can'st not know how ghastly 'tis. It terrifies me. Thoughts whence spring such smiles, Cannot be innocent. Oh, change them, change them! Oh, fly me not, but look upon me! See, 'Tis I implore thee-Gods! he listens not. Frenzied he stands-I am undone-Oh, stay! Listen, I follow thee. [ARISTODEMUS, by threatening signs, forbids her following him, and rushes out. Alas! alas! Am I forbidden thus?-That sign, that glance, Have stunn'd my senses. Enter GONIPPUS. Oh, the gods be praised! A deity, Gonippus, sends thee hither. The king is frantic-Fly, pursue his steps, Preserve him from the frenzy of his soul. In Gonippus silently obeys, and after this powerfully-conceived and striking scene, Cesira remains alone, overwhelmed with grief and terror. this condition, she is found by Eumaeus, the guardian of her infancy, who, upon being liberated from his Spartan imprisonment, has forthwith hurried home. It can hardly be necessary to say what his arrival immediately reveals to Cesira, or, as she is thenceforward called, Argia, the mystery of her birth, and extorts from the still unwilling Lysander, a confirmation of the important discovery. Argia, delighted at learning her near affinity to him she already so filially loves, flies to seek her father; and the Spartans take their final departure from Messenia, which the good-natured Palamedes has no longer any object in retarding. Thus ends the fourth Act. The fifth is very short. It begins with the anxieties and alarms of Argia and Gonippus, neither of whom has been able to find Aristodemus. Argia desires Gonippus to prosecute the search, promising to wait the result where she is, the hall, containing Dirce's monument, being the king's favourite haunt. She is no sooner alone, however, than she recollects her unhappy father's recent visit to the interior of the tomb, and is seized with terror, lest he should have returned to a spot so well calculated to exaspe rate his previously frenzied feelings. After a moment's hesitation, proceeding from dread of the spectre, which she has learnt to believe inhabits the sepulchre, she resolves to enter it in quest of the royal penitent. She has scarcely disappeared in execution of her enterprize, when Aristodemus comes upon the stage, armed with a dagger, and after a very brief monologue, stabs himself. Argia, Gonippus, and Eumaeus, rush in, and the wretched man is presently inforined, that in his beloved Cesira, he beholds his long-lost, and vainly-regretted daughter, Argia. He exclaims, in despair at thus discovering, too late, what happiness had been within his reach, And thus must I recover thee! Oh, now Of Heav'n's revenge the direful consummation I see, the agonies of death now feel! A daughter to mine arms. Argia. Ye pitying gods, Oh, give me back my father, or with him Here let me die! Arist. Art raving, that thou hopest Compassion from the gods? That gods there are, Those dreadful scourges are design'd? Argia. Woe's me! Eum. Unhappy king! Gon. The agony of death Causes insanity. Aristodemus, must trouble our readers; because, being perhaps rather of a negative than of a positive character, no power of genius could, without an attentive perusal of the whole play, enable them to make it for themselves. It is this-to not a soul of the dramatis persona, from the commencement of the first Act to the close of the fifth, does it ever occur to suggest as a topic of consolation to the grieving monarch, the good use he has made of his royal authority, however nefariously acquired; to dilate upon the battles he has fought for the protection of his people; upon the happiness he has diffused around him by wise government; or upon the grateful affection borne him by his My sovereign, dost thou know me? Me, subjects. Once indeed, Cesira, in com Gonippus? See'st thou thy daughter? Arist. Well, what would my daughter? If I destroy'd, have I not wept for her? Is't not enough of vengeance? Let her come, I'll speak to her myself. Look on her, see; Her tresses bristle on her brow like thorns, And in those empty sockets, eyes are none ! Who tore them out? Why do her nostrils pour Rivers of blood! Alas!-O'er all the rest ments Rend, crush the diadem her blood distains, And with the remnants of its dust bestrew The thrones of earth. Proclaim to haughtiest kings, bating his belief of being an object of divine wrath, observes, that on the contrary, the gods must be favourably disposed towards so good a father, citizen, and king. This, of course, is previous to her knowledge of her royal friend's guilt. And once Gonippus invites him, by way of a diversion to his sorrows, to walk forth, and see how the people rejoice in the peace concluded with Sparta. This last is the only passage in which we find the slightest intimation of what ought to constitute the enjoyments of sovereignty, or the slightest tendency towards what might have been conceived to be the topics best adapted for soothing the pangs of the miserable criminal with hopes that his unnatural deed had been in any degree expiated. Through the whole That royal state by guilt is dearly pur- play, the pomp and exaltation of royal chased Gon. Oh, what a dreadful end! We have in general little relish for a long critique, appended, epilogue fashion, to the end of the analysis of a drama. If the analysis and extracts be worth anything, the faults and merits of the piece in question must have been already made manifest; and moreover, in these enlightened days, when, whatever reading and writing may do, criticism indisputably "comes by nature," all the labours of the Reviewer, whether laudatory or damnatory, but more especially explanatory of either sentence, might seem to be works of absolute supererogation. But notwithstanding these motives for suppressing all further reflections upon this extraordinary tragedy, and following our author's example by abruptly concluding our article as he does his drama, with the death of its hero, there is one remark with which we ty seem to be the principal, if not the only ideas connected with the kingly office, or, to speak more in the spirit of the work we are reviewing, with the kingly title; and the remorse, tears, and secluded melancholy of the sorrowing penitent, including, we cannot but apprehend, the at least occasional dereliction of duties which neither nature nor fortune had thrust upon him, are the sole grounds upon which he is encouraged to hope for pardon. We suspect that this marvellous apparent deficiency of all philosophical conceptions of public virtue, love of fame, or even of generous ambition, as at least not incompatible with high station, must be ascribed rather to the moral and political mal aria of the fair, but degraded land, where our poet's "young idea" first learned" to shoot," than to any vulgar or jacobinical prejudices appertaining more idiosyncratically to il Cavaliere Vincenzo Monti. |
