Like to the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont:
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up.
The climax of his expostulation afterwards with Desdemona is at that
passage:
But there where I have garner'd up my heart ...
To be discarded thence!
One mode in which the dramatic exhibition of passion excites our
sympathy without raising our disgust is that, in proportion as it
sharpens the edge of calamity and disappointment, it strengthens the
desire of good. It enhances our consciousness of the blessing, by
making us sensible of the magnitude of the loss. The storm of passion
lays bare and shows us the rich depths of the human soul: the whole
of our existence, the sum total of our passions and pursuits, of that
which we desire and that which we dread, is brought before us by
contrast; the action and reaction are equal; the keenness of immediate
suffering only gives us a more intense aspiration after, and a more
intimate participation with the antagonist world of good: makes us
drink deeper of the cup of human life: tugs at the heart-strings:
loosens the pressure about them, and calls the springs of thought and
feeling into play with tenfold force.
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