The management of a plot so
terrible is very simple. The feelings of the characters in the hideous
maze which involves them are given only such expression as should come
from those utterly broken by their calamity. Imelda swoons when she
hears the letter of Eriberto declaring the fatal tie of blood that
binds her to her husband, and forever separates her from him. When she
is restored, she finds her father weeping over her, and says:
Ah, thou dost look on me
And weep! At least this comfort I can feel
In the horror of my state: thou canst not hate
A woman so unhappy....
... Oh, from all
Be hid the atrocity! to some holy shelter
Let me be taken far from hence. I feel
Naught can be more than my calamity,
Saving God's pity. I have no father now,
Nor child, nor husband (heavens, what do I say?
He is my brother now! and well I know
I must not ask to see him more). I, living, lose
Everything death robs other women of.
By far the greater feeling and passion are shown in the passages
describing the wrongs which the Sicilians have suffered from the
French, and expressing the aspiration and hate of Procida and his
fellow-patriots. Niccolini does not often use pathos, and he is on
that account perhaps the more effective in the use of it.
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