Dryden's Nobly Ignoble Heroine: Sigismonda from Fables

Dryden's Nobly Ignoble Heroine:zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQ Sigismonda from Fables CEDRIC D. REVERAND II* It might come as a surprise to learn that “Sigismonda and Guiscardo,” a Boccaccio tale Dryden included in his last major work, Fables Ancient and Modern (1700), was Wordworth’s favorite Dryden poem. It might come as a surprise to learn that Wordsworth actually had a favorite Dryden poem: “I think [Dryden’s] . . . translations from Boccace are the best at least the most poetical of his Poems.... I think Dryden has much injured the story by the marriage, and degraded Sigismonda’s character by it. He has also to the best of my remembrance degraded her character still more by making her love absolute sensuality and appetite, (Dryden had no other notion of the passion). With all these defects, and some other very gross ones it is a noble Poem.”1 However casual this response, and whatever it may be lacking in the thoughtful analytic technique of later commentators, it compensates by having a certain freshness, imme­ diacy, and confusion about it —what Wordsworth sees is an injured, degraded, grossly defective, noble poem. He seems to be struggling; he wants to admire Sigismonda, a proper heroine for what he considers a noble poem, and yet he finds that Dryden has degraded her character. Wordsworth has discovered something important: Sigismonda as a char­ acter both succeeds and fails. Furthermore, as I hope to demonstrate, this is no accident; it is part of Dryden’s strategy. The problem begins when Sigismonda starts acting nobly; she actually 23 24 / KJIHGFEDCBA R E V E R A N D I I achieves heroic stature suddenly and unexpectedly, and one can pin down the exact moment of her transformation. In the first part of the tale, Sigismonda seems ordinary enough; she falls in love with Guiscardo, arranges for the two of them to meet secretly. Her cruel father, Prince Tancred, discovers the liaison and in a rage confronts his daughter and threatens to have the young man killed. Other star-tossed women charac­ ters in fedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Fables, like Althaea and Alcyone, lose control in such situations and find themselves pushed to desperate acts by their violent passion and intense grief. Like them, Sigismonda feels “all the Pangs of Sorrow in her Breast” (371), and one might reasonably expect her to crumble, cry, and scream. But something happens. When pushed to despair, Sigismonda pushes back. She refuses to indulge in hysterical “Cries, and Tears” (373), and she discovers within herself a strength of character and self-control that were not there moments before: But in-born Worth, that Fortune can controul, New strung, and stiffer bent her softer Soul; The Heroine assum’d the Womans Place, Confirm’d her Mind, and fortifi’d her Face. (374-77)2 Far from being impulsive, Sigismonda is deliberate; far from being driven beyond control, she is fiercely, even coolly controlled; and far from being speechless in her grief, which is true of other sobbing and screaming heroines in Fables, she talks, and talks, and talks, defending herself forcefully and rationally. She begins by standing up to her demanding father: Tancred, I neither am dispos’d to make Request for Life, nor offer’d Life to take: Much less deny the Deed; but least of all Beneath pretended Justice weakly fall. My Words to sacred Truth shall be confin’d, My Deeds shall shew the Greatness of my Mind. (390-95) She continues in this vein for nearly two hundred lines, during which she defends her act as lawful, defends Guiscardo as worthy, and argues for intrinsic merit being more important than rank. She also gives her cruel father, who does not manage to get a word in edgewise during her ora­ tion, a lesson in justice as well as kingly behavior: “Nor did her Father fail to find, / In all she spoke, the Greatness of her Mind” (582-83). Impressed as Tancred may be by his daughter’s greatness of mind, he has Guiscardo killed anyway. He then cuts out the young man’s heart, Sigismonda fromzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJ Fables / 25 puts it in a goblet, and sends it to Sigismonda, along with this witty message: “Thy Father...