'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank,' when Love solves all
differences in the _Merchant of Venice_! On the other hand, when
Macbeth is meditating the murder of Duncan, the wolf howls, the owl
hoots, and the cricket cries. And since Shakespeare's characters
often act out of part, so that intelligible motive fails, while it is
important to the poet that each scene be raised to dramatic level and
viewed in a special light, Goethe's words apply:
Here everything which in a great world event passes secretly
through the air, everything which at the very moment of a
terrible occurrence men hide away in their hearts, is expressed;
that which they carefully shut up and lock away in their minds is
here freely and eloquently brought to light; we recognize the
truth to life, but know not how it is achieved.
Amorous passion in his hands is an interpreter of Nature; in one of
his sonnets he compares it to an ocean which cannot quench thirst.
In Sonnet 130 he says:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dim;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
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