The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [911]
The story is the well known one of Edgar, Elfrida, and Earl Athelwood. The king, hearing of Elfrida’s extraordinary beauty, commissions his favorite, Athelwood, to visit her and ascertain if report speaks truly of her charms. The earl, becoming himself enamored, represents the lady as anything but beautiful or agreeable. The king is satisfied. Athelwood soon afterward woos and weds Elfrida — giving Edgar to understand that the heiress’ wealth is the object. The true state of the case, however, is betrayed by an enemy; and the monarch resolves to visit the earl at his castle and to judge for himself. Hearing of this resolve, Athelwood, in despair, confesses to his wife his duplicity, and entreats her to render null as far as possible the effect of her charms by dressing with unusual plainness. This the wife promises to do; but, fired with ambition and resentment at the wrong done her, arrays herself in her most magnificent and becoming costume. The king is charmed, and the result is the destruction of Athelwood and the elevation of Elfrida to the throne.
These incidents are well adapted to dramatic purposes, and with more of that art which Mrs. Osgood does not possess, she might have woven them into a tragedy which the world would not willingly let die. As it is, she has merely succeeded in showing what she might, should, and could have done, and yet, unhappily, did not.
The character of Elfrida is the bright point of the play. Her beauty and consciousness of it — her indignation and uncompromising ambition — are depicted with power. There is a fine blending of the poetry of passion and the passion of poetry, in the lines which follow:
—— Why even now he bends
In courtly reverence to some mincing dame,
Haply the star of Edgar’s festival,
While I, with this high heart and queenly form,
Pine in neglect and solitude. Shall it be?
Shall I not rend my fetters and be free?
Ay! — be the cooing turtle-dove content,
Safe in her own loved nest! — the eagle soars
On restless plumes to meet the imperial sun.
And Edgar is my day-star in whose light
This heart’s proud wings shall yet be furled to rest.
Why wedded I with Athelwood? For this?
No! — even at the altar when I stood —
My hand in his, his gaze upon my cheek —
I did forget his presence and the scene;
A gorgeous vision rose before mine eyes
Of power and pomp and regal pageantry;
A king was at my feet and, as he knelt,
I smiled and, turning, met — a husband’s kiss.
But still I smiled — for in my guilty soul
I blessed him as the being by whose means
I should be brought within my idol’s sphere —
My haughty, glorious, brave, impassioned Edgar!
Well I remember when these wondering eyes
Beheld him first. I was a maiden then —
A dreaming child — but from that thrilling hour
I’ve been a queen in visions!
Very similar, but even more glowing, is the love-inspired eloquence of Edgar.
Earth hath no language, love, befitting thee,
For its own children it hath pliant speech;
And mortals know to call a blossom fair,
A wavelet graceful, and a jewel rich;
But thou! — oh, teach me, sweet, the angel tongue
They talked in Heaven ere thou didst leave its bowers
To bloom below!
To this Elfrida replies:
If Athelwood should hear thee!
And to this, Edgar:
Name not the felon knave to me, Elfrida!
My soul is flame whene’er I think of him.
Thou lovest him not? — oh, say thou dost not love him!
The answer of Elfrida at this point is profoundly true to nature, and would alone suffice to assure any critic of Mrs. Osgood’s dramatic talent:
When but a child I saw thee in my dreams!
The woman’s soul here shrinks from the direct avowal of want of love for her husband, and flies to poetry and appeals to fate, by way of excusing that infidelity which is at once her glory and her shame.
In general, the “situations” of “Elfrida” are improbable