So the keen, swooping falcon settles at last composedly upon his wrist: love draws a hood over the bright, fearless eye, and claps the jesses upon her spirits. But at the very moment of capture, her strong wings fillip him: "I yield upon great persuasion; and, partly, to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption." That tone has in it the promise of lively times for Benedick. He will never be able to train the delight of liberty out of this falcon, who will slip her jesses still, and circle overhead, but not forget to return. He told her once that, as long as she had no mind to love, "some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face." But, though love has pared her talons, Benedick will not find matrimony to be dull. Portia's whole temperament is joyous, even when she pretends that her little body is aweary of the world. Not one of Shakspeare's women shows such a perfect balance of the senses and the soul. Not a muscle of the body ever owned to being tired; not a function ever behaved ill enough to clog her gayety. It flows with mild and even sparkle through all the varied scenes, like a sunlit runnel that carries gilded dimples into woods and through them without lingering to have them catch a damp from shadows. Even the judicial fitness of her great language in the scene with Shylock does not sprinkle chancellor's wig-powder over her cheek. The style has the bloom of health, as it always is with her, "rosy, clear-ringing. How warm with joy are her words! How beautiful all her images, which are for the most part borrowed from mythology!" And we notice that her fancy always selects the classic allusions which are most vital with thought, freshness, sentiment. "If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will." And when she watches Bassanio, as he is on the point of choosing among the caskets, what is he like? she thinks; and the mighty youth of Greece supplies her thought:-- "Now he goes, With no less presence, but with much more love, Than young Alcides, when he did redeem The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy To the sea-monster; I stand for sacrifice, The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives, With bleared visages, come forth to view The issue of th' exploit. Go, Hercules! Live thou, I live." FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 11: W. Shakspeare, Sein Leben und Dichten dargestellt, 1866, xvi. 534.] [Footnote 12: Shakspeare's Staat und Königthum, nachgewiesen aus der Lancaster Tetralogie. 1866.] [Footnote 13: Shakspeare in Verhältnisz zum Mittelalter und der Gegenwart.]