Thou art not holy to belie me so;
I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;
My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;
Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost:
I am not mad; I would to Heaven I were!
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:
O, if I could, what grief should I forget!

Not only has Constance words at will, and fast as the passionate
feelings rise in her mind they are poured forth with vivid, overpowering
eloquence; but, like Juliet, she may be said to speak in pictures. For
instance:--

Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum?
Like a proud river peering o'er its bounds.

And throughout the whole dialogue there is the same overflow of
eloquence, the same splendor of diction, the same luxuriance of imagery;
yet with an added grandeur, arising from habits of command, from the
age, the rank, and the matronly character of Constance. Thus Juliet
pours forth her love like a muse in a rapture: Constance raves in her
sorrow like a Pythoness possessed with the spirit of pain. The love of
Juliet is deep and infinite as the boundless sea: and the grief of
Constance is so great, that nothing but the round world itself is able
to sustain it.

I will instruct my sorrows to be proud;
For grief is proud and makes his owner stout.
To me, and to the state of my great grief
Let kings assemble, for my grief's so great,
That no supporter but the huge firm earth
Can hold it up. Here I and Sorrow sit;
Here is my throne,--bid kings come bow to it!

An image more majestic, more wonderfully sublime, was never presented to
the fancy; yet almost equal as a flight of poetry is her apostrophe to
the heavens;--

Arm, arm, ye heavens, against these perjured kings
A widow calls!--be husband to me, heavens!

And again--

O that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth,
Then with a passion would I shake the world!

Not only do her thoughts start into images, but her feelings become
persons: grief haunts her as a living presence:

Grief fills the room up of my absent child;
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then have I reason to be fond of grief.

And death is welcomed as a bridegroom; she sees the visionary monster as
Juliet _saw_ "the bloody Tybalt festering in his shroud," a