Do but stand upon the foaming shore, The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds.... I never did like molestation view On the enchafed flood. but even the unruly elements spare Desdemona: Tempests themselves, high seas and howling winds, The gather'd rocks and congregated sands. Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel-- As having sense of beauty, do omit Their mortal natures, letting go safely by The divine Desdemona. Cassio lays stress upon 'the great contention of the sea and skies'; but when Othello meets Desdemona, he cries: O my soul's joy! If after every tempest come such calms, May the winds blow till they have wakened death! And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas Olympus-high, and duck again as low As hell's from heaven. If it were now to die, 'Twere now to be most happy. Iago calls the elements to witness his truthfulness: Witness, you ever-burning lights above, You elements that clip us round about, Witness, that here Iago doth give up The execution of his wit, hands, heart, To wrong'd Othello's service. 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. and Lady Macbeth: ... The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements.... Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark To cry 'Hold! hold!'... The peaceful castle to which Duncan comes all unsuspectingly, is in most striking contrast to the fateful tone which pervades the tragedy. Duncan says: