Moves like a ghost. - Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they take, for fear The very stones prate of my whereabout, And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it. — Whiles I threat, he lives: Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to Heaven or to Hell. [A bell rings. [Exit. Lady Macbeth (entering). That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold; What hath quench'd them, hath given me fire. Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it: The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugg'd their possets, Whether they live or die. Macbeth (within). Who's there? — what, ho! L. Macb. Alack! I am afraid they have awak'd, And 't is not done: - the attempt, and not the deed, Confounds us. - Hark! I laid their daggers ready; He could not miss them. - Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done 't. My husband! Macb. I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise? Did you not speak ? [Enter Macb. L. Macb. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight. [Looking on his hands. Macb. There's one did laugh in his sleep, and one cried, "Murder!" That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them; But they did say their prayers, and address'd them Again to sleep. L. Macb. There are two lodged together. Macb. One cried "God bless us!" and "Amen," the other; As they had seen me, with these hangman's hands. Listening their fear, I could not say, "Amen," Consider it not so deeply. L. Macb. L. Macb. These deeds must not be thought Macb. Methought I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more ! Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, L. Macb. What do you mean? Macb. Still it cried, "Sleep no more!" to all the house: “Glamis bath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more!" L. Macb. Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane, So brain-sickly of things. Go, get some water, How is 't with me, when every noise appals me? What hands are here? Ha! They pluck out mine eyes! Making the green one red. [Re-enter Lady Macbeth. L. Macb. My hands are of your color, but I shame To wear a heart so white. (Knock.) I hear a knocking At the south entry :-retire we to our chamber: A little water clears us of this deed : How easy it is then! Your constancy Hath left you unattended. (Knocking.) Hark! more knocking. Get on your night-gown, lest occasion call us, And show us to be watchers. Be not lost So poorly in your thoughts. Macb. To know my deed, 't were best not know myself (knock). Macbeth. Shakespeare. XII. IMAGINATION AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. IMAGINATION affects every form of expression, but its action is especially apparent in its modification of written language. It is the chief cause of figures of speech. A figure of speech is a departure from plain language, to express higher associations and relations of ideas, to awaken more vivid images, and to stimulate deeper feeling. This figurative action of the mind is manifest in the most familiar words. "Words are fossil poetry." Nearly all our words have been derived from some action of the imagination, and hold still an element of poetic expression. "He who first spake of a dilapidated fortune," says Archbishop Trench, "what an image must have risen up before his mind's eye of some falling house or palace, stone detaching itself from stone, till all had gradually sunk into desolation and ruin! Or he who to that Greek word which signifies that which will endure to be held up to and judged by sunlight,' gave first its ethical signification of 'sincere,' 'truthful,' or, as we sometimes say, 'transparent,' can we deny to him the poet's feeling and eye? Many a man had gazed, we are sure, at the jagged and indented mountain ridges of Spain, before one called them 'sierras,' or 'saws, the name by which now they are known, as Sierra Morena, Sierra Nevada; but that man coined his imagination into a word which will endure as long as the everlasting hills which he named." Take the names of flowers or of animals, or almost any class of words, and from their etymology it can be easily seen that they have been derived from imaginative conceptions. A more apparent effect of imagination on language is seen in the various rhetorical figures which especially characterize all poetic verbal expression. There have been many attempts to find a common principle underlying all figures. Without reviewing the many speculations, possibly the chief figures are due to two mental acts which are more or less the result of imagination. One is comparison. We compare the unknown with the known, and find a deeper principle of explanation, and so enlarge the scope of our minds. We discover unity in the midst of variety, and this is the secret of beauty. The act of discrimination is one of the most fundamental in the mind. The discovery of analogy, and of the kinship of things, is implied more or less in all thinking or expression. The other principle is personification. Imagination makes objects live. In our every-day speech, we are continually giving living attributes to physical things. To a vivid imagination nothing is dead. Many figures are at heart personifications, though we do not at first think of putting them under this name. The associative or comparative action of the imagination gives rise to simile, metaphor, contrast, antithesis, and many other figures. The other action of the mind the power that makes things live gives rise to personification, vision, apostrophe, allegory, and the like. The imagination is not present in the same degree in all figures. In some, it is hardly present at all; in others, it is almost the only element. For example, in the comparison of images, the more complete the union, the greater will be the abandon to the imagination. For this reason, there is usually more imaginative action in metaphors than in similes; the union is more immediate, and the identification more complete. Again, the imagination is more active where there is delicate allusion, or suggestion of some pictures, which brings about a union of the most complex ideas, suddenly discovers similarity, and causes great pleasure. THE healing of the seamless dress is by our beds of pain; We touch him in life's throng and press, and we are whole again. Our Master. Whittier. The figures of speech have been so carefully defined and so often illustrated that the student need only refer to his rhetoric for information. While it is very important to analyze and be able to recognize all rhetorical figures, the student should remember that the power to do so does not presuppose any imaginative action, or any power to use such figures. There should not be too much analysis and naming of figures. A certain amount of this work is helpful, but too much may make the study mechanical. The best way to simplify or to understand figures, is to study the action of the imagination which creates them. The means of developing the power to use them consist in stimulating the creative and artistic faculties of the mind, to cause their use in speaking or writing, and such an appreciation of their force as will enable them to be rendered by the voice. PROBLEM XV. Arrange short illustrations of all the rhetorical figures, and render their spirit by vocal expression. INTO her dream he melted, as the rose Blendeth its odours with the violet. Keats. ONE night, after ten hours' walking, I reached a little dwelling quite by itself at the bottom of a narrow valley which was about to throw itself into the sea a league farther on. E'EN at the last I have her still, With her delicious eyes as clear as heaven Guy de Maupassant. When rain in a quick shower has beat down mist, ON poured the Trojan masses; in the van Hurled down the steep cliff's face, when constant rains With giant bounds it flies; the crashing wood Until, arriving at the level plain, Browning Its headlong impulse checked, it rolls no more. Homer. |