Nature is disgusted at Othello's jealousy:
Heaven stops the nose at it, and the moon winks;
The bawdy wind, that kisses all it meets,
Is hush'd within the hollow mine of earth
And will not hear it.
In terrible mental confusion he cries:
O insupportable, O heavy hour!
Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse
Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe
Should yawn at alteration.
Unhappy Desdemona sings:
The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow;
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow;
The fresh streams ran by her and murmur'd her moans,
Sing willow, willow, willow.
A song in _Cymbeline_ contains a beautiful personification of
flowers:
Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chalic'd flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes;
With everything that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise;
Arise! Arise!
The clearest expression of sympathy for Nature is in _Macbeth_.
Repeatedly we meet the idea that Nature shudders before the crime,
and gives signs of coming disaster.
Macbeth himself says:
Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desires;
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
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