An analysis of Act 4, Scene 4 of The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare:
Shakespeare
weaves a mellow portrayal of a rustic festival in Act 4 Scene 4, contrasting
greatly to the amplified pomp and tragedy of the previous act. The play
progresses from prosperity to devastation and then to regeneration, and this
scene exemplifies renewal born from the seeds of destruction; it depicts those
standards banished in Leontes’ court through the pure romance of
Florizel and Perdita, the liberal, tolerant attitude of the ordinary people
around them, and the fresh, convivial comedy that ensues.
The
passage in question commences with an exchange between Perdita and Polixenes,
as she welcomes him to the sheep shearing festival. A metaphorical thread is
established throughout this extract likening the stages of the year and their
flowers with the ages of a man’s life. Polixenes believes that his age is
matched with ‘flow’rs of winter’, especially compared to Perdita’s wholesome
and youthful elegance. She goes on to talk of the ‘fairest flow’rs o’
th’season’, those ‘carnations and streaked gillyvors’ known by some as
‘Nature’s bastards’: this opinion is ambivalent, for whilst such two-tone
flowers are created by the ‘art’ of cross-breeding, there are underlying
connotations that bastards are simply part of the natural order of occurrences;
a more accepting stance than that of Leontes, who cast Perdita as a baby from
his court, believing her to be a bastard ‘none of mine.’ Such a description of
the striking ‘piedness’ created by grafting is redolent of G.M. Hopkins’
celebrated poem, ‘Pied Beauty’, in which he praises God for ‘dappled things’,
and even those that are ‘fickle’, ‘sour’ and ‘dim’; again conveying the
impression that even these abstractions have a place in the inherent scheme of
humanity and nature.
Polixenes
continues to observe that there is nothing beyond nature: if it contradicts
itself, then it is merely being contradictory, for although grafting changes
nature, the ‘art itself is nature.’ Again, his words invoke a more profound
perception: marrying ‘a gentler scion to the wildest stock’, and conceiving a
‘bark of baser kind by a bud of nobler race’ can be interpreted on a human
level. It is a rejection of the contemporary conventions, deeming the
degradations of hierarchy redundant: the lowly marrying the higher is natural,
and this appears to be almost a unconscious blessing for the union between
Perdita, who believes herself a shepherd’s daughter, and Florizel, the son of a
king. There is a certain irony to be found in Polixenes’ defence of the very
manner of elopement planned by his son and Perdita, which he vehemently opposes
upon discovering it.
Surprisingly,
it is Perdita who is less willing to accept these imperfections, seeing them as
artifice rather than nature. However, she addresses Polixenes using directly
physical language such as ‘desire to breed by me’, with no hint of puritanical
austerity; all that her father loathes, she embraces. Perdita is a beacon of purity:
she possesses spirit imbued with sweetness, and displays the qualities of her
mother, wrought by her humble upbringing into a rustic, earthy charm. In his
essay, ‘The Tragic Pattern’, E.M.W. Tillyard suggests that Shakespeare sought
to picture ‘original virtue’, the antithesis of original sin, in Perdita; she
is ‘the play’s main symbol of the powers of creation’, whose speech is ‘acutely
contrasted to the tortured, arid and barren ravings of Leontes.’ Such is her
nature that Camillo, disguised, is enthralled by her, exclaiming, ‘I should
leave grazing, were I of your flock, and only live by gazing.’ This comment is
made witty by the chime of ‘grazing’ and ‘gazing’, and succinctly encapsulates
Perdita’s simple allure.
The
metaphor of age represented by seasonal flowers is continued: Perdita longs for
‘flow’rs o’th’spring’ to fit Florizel’s ‘time of day’, as well as the maidens
who surround her, to show their blossoming into maturity. In mythology, the
Roman goddess, Proserpina, is the cause of spring: her tale is tragic, and is
often used to convey sorrowful connotations, such as Keat’s, ‘ruby grape of
Proserpine’, which bound her to the Underworld for half the year. However,
Perdita instead appeals to her for the flowers that ‘thou let’st fall from Dis’s
waggon’, as she was abducted. She calls for ‘daffodils that come before the
swallow dares’, which enchant and command even the elements (‘winds of March’)
with their beauty, as well as daringly appearing early in the year, and for
‘violets’ that are ‘sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes or Cytherea’s breath.’
The exquisiteness of these flowers is such to Perdita that they surpass even
the fragrant breath of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. On the other hand, the
primroses are lovelorn, for, as they bloom in spring, they never ‘behold bright
Phoebus in his strength’: encounter the full strength of Apollo, the sun-god.
The line, ‘a malady most incident to maids’ could be interpreted and dramatized
as either a mention of those girls around her, or as a wistful aside refering
to herself. In the final lines, ‘garlands’ and ‘crown imperial’ bestow royal
qualities on nature, made more fitting by her own noble origins.
The
gods, elements and imperial allusions in this floral-poetry are not only
decorative: by employing them, the impression that nature is simple, yet
heavenly and verging on transcendental, is invoked, whilst Perdita herself is
elevated to an almost divine status. As the flowers that she praises are meant
to befit Florizel’s state, so the audience also perceives how highly she
treasures her lover, as she desires to ‘strew him o’er and o’er’ with ‘these I
lack’. Florizel questions whether she means ‘like a corse’, but this notion of
death is swiftly dismissed by Perdita with the candid, ‘No, like a bank, for
love to lie and play on’. M. M. Mahood said of it: ‘Play here has the same connotation
as ‘thy Mother playes’, but it is used with an innocent sexuality which
represents that acceptance of the ways of nature that Perdita is to restore to
her father.’ An antithesis is contained in the lines, ‘not like a corse; or if,
not to be buried, but quick, and in mine arms’; this juxtaposition of a body
swiftly becoming an embrace conveys the sense that the two lovers are so aglow
with passion that they believe themselves to be beyond Time and ‘its winged
chariot’, as so aptly described by Andrew Marvel.
Florizel
reaches a state of mind above reason and rationality, and voices his adoration
in lyrical prose. He wishes Perdita’s every action to be perpetuated: so
valuable is her voice to him that ‘when you speak, sweet, I’d have you do it
ever.’ Such a voice reminds one of Daisy Buchanan’s in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s,
‘The Great Gatsby’: ‘the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if
each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again’, which
is later described as a ‘deathless song’ for it can not ‘be over-dreamed’. However, Gatsby himself did over-dream Daisy's voice, and its mellifluous quality is as far as the similarity goes with Perdita.
Perdita
gives ‘alms’ by her singing, implying that all else is impoverished in
comparison; she dispenses charity merely by her mellifluous song. Florizel then
glorifies her movements, telling her that ‘when you do dance, I wish you a wave
o’th’sea, that you might ever do nothing but that’, as he so cherishes the
sight of her. At the climax of his honour, he expresses that each of Perdita’s
unique acts ‘are queens’ to him; ironically, unbeknown to them, she is truly
royal.
Found
within this shell of poetry is an inner prosodic kernel. The lines are both
written in iambic pentameter, and so move gracefully, but are afforded a
quality of stasis through their assonance and alliteration; in particular,
sibilance, demonstrated by phrases such as, ‘speak, sweet’, ‘sell so; so give
alms, pray so.’ In this way, the prose imitates the slow eternity so longed for
by Florizel. Such words almost need no explanation, for after reading, their
meaning subtly diffuses through the mind, filling it with their beauty. Florizel’s
rapture is a celebration of life and vitality, made more poignant by the
immediacy of time, which whisks all away. The Dutch critic, Georg Brandes,
wrote that there were ‘certain peculiarities’ found in the relationships
portrayed in Shakespeare’s final works: the lovers are ‘regarded with a
father’s eye’, with a ‘certain tenderness for those who may still hope and
yearn for happiness, a renunciation, as it were, by the author of all thought
of happiness for himself.’
