Chapter XII: Impersonation

By “impersonation” we mean the art of assuming for the time being the rôle of some character in a story or a play. We “play the part,” we assume the carriage, the gestures, the quality of voice belonging to the character.

How do we acquire this art? _First_: We study the part carefully till we are sure we understand it. _Second_: We visualize the scenes, and live them over again in our own imagination. _Third_: We begin to speak the lines. We try different inflections, different gestures which suggest themselves to us through our own experiences and our observation of characters in real life which are similar to those of the character we are depicting. This careful observation of the mannerisms and eccentricities of real people aids very materially in interpretation. _Finally_: We decide on the gestures and inflections which seem to us to most nearly interpret the part, and these we practice over and over again until they become a part of our very being, _then we are ready to “play the part.”_

PRACTICE SELECTION

_Merchant of Venice_

_Enter old Gobbo, with a basket._

_Gobbo._—Master young man, you, I pray you, which is the way to master Jew’s?

_Launcelot_ (_Aside_).—O heavens, this my true-begotten father! who, being more than sand-blind, high-gravel-blind, knows me not: I will try confusions with him.

_Gobbo._—Master young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to master Jew’s?

_Launcelot._—Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but, at the next turning of all, on your left; marry, at the very next turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the Jew’s house.

_Gobbo._—By God’s sonties, ’twill be a hard way to hit. Can you tell me whether one Launcelot, that dwells with him, dwell with him or no?

_Launcelot._—Talk you of young Master Launcelot? (_Aside._) Mark me now; now will I raise the waters. Talk you of young Master Launcelot?

_Gobbo._—No Master, sir, but a poor man’s son: his father, though I say’t, is an honest exceeding poor man, and, God be thank’d, well to live.

_Launcelot._—Well, let his father be what a will, we talk of young Master Launcelot.

_Gobbo._—Your worship’s friend, and Launcelot, sir.

_Launcelot._—But, I pray you, ergo, old man, ergo, I beseech you, talk you of young Master Launcelot?

_Gobbo._—Of Launcelot, an’t please your mastership.

_Launcelot._—Ergo, Master Launcelot. Talk not of Master Launcelot, father; for the young gentleman—according to Fates, and Destinies, and such odd saying, the Sisters Three, and such branches of learning—is, indeed, deceas’d; or, as you would say in plain terms, gone to heaven.

_Gobbo._—Marry, God forbid! the boy was the very staff of my age, my very prop.

_Launcelot_ (_Aside_).—Do I look like a cudgel or a hovelpost, a staff or a prop?—Do you know me, father?

_Gobbo._—Alack the day, I know you not, young gentleman: but, I pray you, tell me, is my boy—God rest his soul!—alive or dead?

_Launcelot._—Do you not know me, father?

_Gobbo._—Alack, sir, I am sand-blind; I know you not.

_Launcelot._—Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his own child. Well, old man, I will tell you news of your son: give me your blessing. Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long,—a man’s son may; but, in the end, truth will out.

_Gobbo._—Pray you, sir, stand up: I am sure you are not Launcelot, my boy.

_Launcelot._—Pray you, let’s have no more fooling about it, but give me your blessing: I am Launcelot, your boy that was, your son that is, your child that shall be.

_Gobbo._—I cannot think you are my son.

_Launcelot._—I know not what I shall think of that: but I am Launcelot, the Jew’s man; and I am sure Margery your wife is my mother.

_Gobbo._—Her name is Margery, indeed: I’ll be sworn, if thou be Launcelot, thou art mine own flesh and blood. Lord, worship’d might he be! What a beard hast thou got! thou hast got more hair on thy chin than Dobbin, my fill-horse, has on his tail.

_Launcelot._—It should seem, then, that Dobbin’s tail grows backward: I am sure he had more hair of his tail than I have on my face, when I last saw him.

_Gobbo._—Lord, how art thou chang’d! How dost thou and thy master agree? I have brought him a present. How ’gree you now?

_Launcelot._—Well, well; but, for mine own part, as I have set up my rest to run away, so I will not rest till I have run some ground. My master’s a very Jew: give him a present! give him a halter: I am famish’d in his service; you may tell every finger I have with my ribs. Father, I am glad you are come: give me your present to one Master Bassanio, who, indeed, gives rare new liveries: if I serve not him, I will run as far as God has any ground.—O rare fortune! here comes the man:—to him, father, for I am a Jew, if I serve the Jew any longer.

—Act II, Scene II, Lines 29-104.

HAMLET’S DECLARATION OF FRIENDSHIP

_Hamlet._ What ho! Horatio!

_Horatio._ Here, sweet lord, at your service.

_Hamlet._ Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man
As e’er my conversation coped withal.

_Horatio._ O, my dear lord,—

_Hamlet._ Nay, do not think I flatter;
For what advancement may I hope from thee
That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits,
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter’d?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath sealed thee for herself; for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that fortune’s buffets and rewards
Hast ta’en with equal thanks: and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled
That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger
To sound what stop she pleases. Give me that man
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of hearts,
As I do thee.

—From Act III, Scene 2.

OTHELLO’S APOLOGY

[The speech calls for great dignity, ease, and power, in both speech and manner.]

Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,
That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her:
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
And little bless’d with the soft phrase of peace;
For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
Their dearest action in the tented field,
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,
And therefore little shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
I will a round unvarnish’d tale deliver
Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,
What conjuration, and what mighty magic,—
For such proceeding I am charg’d withal,—
I won his daughter.
...
Her father loved me; oft invited me;
Still question’d me the story of my life,
From year to year,—the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have pass’d.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it:
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hair-breadth scapes i’ the imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
And portance in my travels’ history:
...

This to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline:
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with haste despatch,
She’d come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively: I did consent,
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffer’d. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
She swore, in faith, ’twas strange, ’twas passing strange,
’Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful:
She wish’d she had not heard it, yet she wish’d
That heaven had made her such a man: she thank’d me,
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d;
And I lov’d her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used.

THE SEVEN AGES

[This is a succession of purely imaginative ideas which the voice should touch lightly. In this speech one meets always the question of impersonation: shall the mewling infant, the whining schoolboy, the sighing lover and the rest be imitated by the reader? It is in better taste not to impersonate these seven characters beyond certain almost imperceptible hints which the gayety of Jaques’s mind might naturally throw off.]

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms:
And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

—“As You Like it,” Act II, Scene 7.

SOLITUDE PREFERRED TO COURT LIFE

_Duke S._ Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam.
The season’s difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which, when it bite and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
’Tis no flattery; these are counselors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
I would not change it.

_Amiens._ Happy is your grace,
That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

...

_Duke S._ Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should in their own confines with forked heads
Have their round haunches gor’d.

—“As You Like It,” Act II.

THE POTION SCENE

SCENE: JULIET’S CHAMBER

(_Enter Juliet and Nurse, who bears wedding garments._)

_Juliet_ (_looking at garments_).

Ay, those attires are best; but, gentle nurse,
I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night;
For I have need of many orisons
To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
Which, well thou knowest, is cross and full of sin.

(_Enter Lady Capulet._)

_Lady Capulet._

What are you busy, ho? need you my help?

_Juliet._

No, madam; we have cull’d such necessaries
As are behoveful for our state to-morrow:
So please you, let me now be left alone,
And let the nurse this night sit up with you;
For, I am sure, you have your hands full all,
In this so sudden business.

_Lady Capulet_ (_crossing and kissing Juliet on the forehead_).

Good night;
Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need.

(_Exit Lady Capulet with nurse._)

_Juliet_ (_looking after them_).

Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life:
I’ll call them back again to comfort me. (_Runs to R._)
Nurse! What should she do there?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, vial. (_Takes vial from bosom._)
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?
No, no! (_draws dagger_) this shall forbid it.

(_Lays dagger on table._)

Lie you there. (_To vial._)
What if it be a poison, which the friar
Subtly hath ministered to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonored
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear it is; and yet, methinks, it should not,
For he hath still been tried a holy man.

(_Puts vial in bosom._)

How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? there’s a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,—
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where, for these many hundred years, the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are packed;
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud; where as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort; ...
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears?
And madly play with my forefathers’ joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
O, look! methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out Romeo, ...
Stay, Tybalt, stay!—
Romeo, I come! (_Drawing out vial—then cork._)
This do I drink to thee.

(_Throws away vial. She is overcome and sinks to the floor._)

—From “Romeo and Juliet,” Act IV, Scene 3.

BANISHMENT SCENE

SCENE III, A ROOM IN THE PALACE

(_Enter Celia and Rosalind._)

_Cel._ Why, cousin; why Rosalind;—Cupid have mercy;—Not a word?

_Ros._ Not one to throw to a dog.

_Cel._ No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs, throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.

_Ros._ Then there were two cousins laid up; when the one should be lamed with reasons, and the other mad without any.

_Cel._ But is all this for your father?

_Ros._ No, some of it for my father’s child: O, how full of briars is this working-day world!

_Cel._ They are but burrs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery; if we walk not in the trodden paths, our very coats will catch them.

_Ros._ I could shake them off my coat; these burrs are in my heart.

_Cel._ Hem them away.

_Ros._ I would try; if I could cry hem, and have him.

_Cel._ Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.

_Ros._ O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself.

_Cel._ Is it possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland’s youngest son?

_Ros._ The duke my father lov’d his father dearly.

_Cel._ Doth it therefore ensue, that you should love his son dearly? By this kind of chase, I should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly; yet I hate not Orlando.

_Ros._ No ’faith, hate him not, for my sake.

_Cel._ Why should I not? Doth he not deserve well?

_Ros._ Let me love him for that; and do you love him, because I do: Look, here comes the duke.

_Cel._ With his eyes full of anger.

(_Enter Duke Frederick, with Lords._)

_Duke F._ Mistress, despatch you with your safest haste, and get you from our Court.

_Ros._ Me, uncle?

_Duke F._ You, cousin, within these ten days if thou be’st found so near our public court as twenty miles, thou diest for it.

_Ros._ I do beseech your grace, let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me: if with myself I hold intelligence, or have acquaintance with mine own desires; if that I do not dream, or be not frantic (as I do trust I am not), then, dear uncle, never so much as in a thought unborn, did I offend your highness.

_Duke F._ Thus do all traitors, if their purgation did consist in words, they are as innocent as grace itself: let it suffice thee, that I trust thee not.

_Ros._ Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor: tell me, whereon the likelihood depends.

_Duke F._ Thou art thy father’s daughter, there’s enough.

_Ros._ So was I, when your highness took his dukedom; so was I, when your highness banish’d him: treason is not inherited, my lord: or, if we did derive it from our friends, what’s that to me? my father was no traitor: then, good my liege, mistake me not so much, to think my poverty is treacherous.

_Cel._ Dear sovereign, hear me speak.

_Duke F._ Aye, Celia; we stay’d here for your sake. Else had she with her father rang’d along.

_Cel._ I did not then entreat to have her stay, it was your pleasure, and your own remorse; I was too young that time to value her, but now I know her; if she be a traitor, so am I: we still have slept together; rose at an instant, learn’d, play’d, eat together;

And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans,
Still we went coupled, and inseparable.

_Duke F._ She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,
Her very silence, and her patience,
Speak to the people and they pity her.
Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name;
And thou wilt show more bright, and seem more virtuous,
When she is gone: then open not thy lips;
Firm and irrevocable is my doom
Which I have pass’d upon her; she is banish’d.

_Cel._ Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege;
I cannot live out of her company.

_Duke F._ You are a fool:—You, niece, provide yourself;
If you outstay the time, upon my honor,
And in the greatness of my word, you die.

(_Exeunt Duke Frederick and Lords._)

_Cel._ O my poor Rosalind: whither wilt thou go?
Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
I charge thee, be not thou more griev’d than I am.

_Ros._ I have more cause.

_Cel._ Thou hast not, cousin,
Pr’ythee, be cheerful: know’st thou not, the duke
Hath banish’d me his daughter?

_Ros._ That he hath not.

_Cel._ No? hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love
Which teaches thee that thou and I art one:
Shall we be sunder’d? shall we part, sweet girl?
No; let my father seek another heir.
Therefore devise with me, how we may fly,
Whither to go, and what to bear with us:
And do not seek to take your charge upon you,
To bear your griefs yourself, and leave me out;
For by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
Say what thou can’st, I’ll go along with thee.

_Ros._ Why, whither shall we go?

_Cel._ To seek my uncle.

_Ros._ Alas, what danger will it be to us,
Maids as we are, to travel so far?
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

_Cel._ I’ll put myself in poor and mean attire,
And with a kind of umber smirch my face;
The like do you; so shall we pass along,
And never stir assailants.

_Ros._ Were it not better,
Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did suit me in all points like a man?
A boar-spear in my hand; and in my heart
Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will,
We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside;
As many other mannish cowards have,
That do outface it with their semblances.

_Cel._ What shall I call thee when thou art a man?

_Ros._ I’ll have no other worse than Jove’s own page,
And therefore, look you, call me Ganymede.
But what will you be call’d?

_Cel._ Something that hath a reference to my state:
No longer Celia, but Aliena.

_Ros._ But, cousin, what if we assayed to steal
The clownish fool out of your father’s court?
Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

_Cel._ He’ll go along o’er the wide world with me;
Leave me alone to woo him: Let’s away
And get our jewels and our wealth together;
Devise the fittest time, and safest way
To hide us from pursuit that will be made
After my flight: Now go we in content,
To liberty, and not to banishment.

—From “As You Like It,” Act I.

CORYDON

BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

SCENE, A ROAD-SIDE IN ARCADY

_Shepherd._ Good sir, have you seen pass this way
A mischief straight from market-day?
You’d know her at a glance, I think;
Her eyes are blue, her lips are pink;
She has a way of looking back
Over her shoulder, and alack!
Who gets that look one time, good sir,
Has naught to do but follow.

_Pilgrim._ I have not seen this maid methinks,
Though she that passed had lips like pinks.

_Shepherd._ Or like two strawberries made one
By some sly trick of dew and sun.

_Pilgrim._ A poet.

_Shepherd._ Nay, a simple swain
That tends his flocks on yonder plain
Naught else I swear by book and bell.
But she that passed you marked her well
Was she not smooth as any be
That dwells here—in Arcady?

_Pilgrim._ Her skin was the satin bark of birches.

_Shepherd._ Light or dark?

_Pilgrim._ Quite dark.

_Shepherd._ Then ’twas not she.

_Pilgrim._ The peaches side
That next the sun is not so dyed
As was her cheek. Her hair hung down
Like summer twilight falling brown;
And when the breeze swept by, I wist
Her face was in a somber twist.

_Shepherd._ No that is not the maid I seek;
Her hair lies gold against her cheek,
Her yellow tresses take the morn,
Like silken tassels of the corn,
And yet brown-locks are far from bad.

_Pilgrim._ Now I bethink me this one had
A figure like the willow tree
Which, slight and supple, wondrously
Inclines to droop with pensive grace,
And still retain its proper place.
A foot so arched and very small
The marvel was she walked at all;
Her hand in sooth, I lack for words—
Her hand, five slender snow-white birds,
Her voice, tho’ she but said “God Speed”—
Was melody blown through a reed;
The girl Pan changed into a pipe
Had not a note so full and rife.
And then her eye—my lad, her eye!
Discreet, inviting, candid, shy,
An outward ice, an inward fire,
And lashes to the heart’s desire.
Soft fringes blacker than the sloe—

_Shepherd._ Good sir, which way did this one go?

_Pilgrim._ So he is off! The silly youth
Knoweth not love in sober sooth,
He loves—thus lads at first are blind—
No woman, only womankind.
I needs must laugh, for by the mass
No maid at all did this way pass.