Havergal College - Magazine Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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Havergal College Magazine Prayer written by Mary Queen of Scots on the morning of her execution at Fotheringay. O Domine Deus ! speravi in te O care me Jesu, nunc libera, me ! In dura catena, in misera poena desidero Languendo, gemendo, et genu flectendo Adoro, imploro ut liberes me. Lord God Almighty My hope is in Thee ! Jesu beloved Now liberate me ! In fetters oppressing In pain sore distressing I, longing, crave Thee. With fainting and weeping, On bended knee keeping, Adore I, implore I That Thou set me free. (English rendering by the Rev. R. C. Johnstone) THE BROOK. So sparkling and clear Where the buffalo and deer Wallow and drink ; Where the sunbeams wink, And one takes a nap To the water ' s lap, lap. Hear the sound of the trees In the rush of the breeze, And the water ripples on. And up comes the little fawn To drink, drink, drink At the brooklet ' s brink. Flow on to the sea — You a river will be, Where many a little boat On your surface will float ; So let the birds above you throng, I ' m at the end of this my song. Doris Bury, Form IV. Lower. 32

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Havergal College Magazine SHAKESPEARE ' S HEROINES. Of the 137 feminine characters in Shakespeare ' s plays, 71 are finished character studies, possessing their own value as such, as well as their dramatic value. Among these come readily to mind Opheiia, Portia, Lady Macbeth. The remaining 66 may be class- ed as minor studies, and while they do not play important roles as do their more exalted sisters, yet they are indispensable to the plots in which they appear, and Shakespeare is remarkable for the care which he expends on his minor characters. Though Shake- speare portrays ideal women, yet his characters on the whole are so human and true to life as to warrant the assumption that he adapted them from living originals, as he did his plots from exist- ing plays. Dividing the women characters into groups according to their chronological order, it is interesting to denote the development and the various phrases through which the poet passes. The first period is bounded roughly by Love ' s Labour Lost and Romeo and Juiiet ; the second period includes The Merchant of Venice and several Chronicle plays ; the third period embraces higher come- dies, as Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, and later tragedies, as Lear, Othello, Macbeth ; while the fourth period contains three beautiful romances, The Tempest, A Win- ter ' s Tale and Cymbeline. The early heroines, with the exception of Juliet, are not as clearly defined as the later ones. They have sparkle, poetry and youth, but they are not grown up yet. They deal in love philtres and poison cups, they dabble in love in rhymed stanzas, and not love in real earnest. Here we have Helena and Hermia eloping with their respective lovers without a second thought, running hand-in- hand through the woods and quarrelling outrageously under the trees. A serious theme is taken in Two Gentlemen of Verona, but Julia is portrayed as fondly oblivious of any wrong, and thus materials for tragedy are treated as comedy. All the women of this period show the poet ' s great potentialities of strength and genius, which he fully developed in his later plays. The second group covers most of the chronicle plays, but takes in one great comedy, at least, The Merchant of Venice. Here we find the feminine character has gained much in strength, the women ha e intellect as well as heart — there is still the music and poetry as of old, but for the conjunction of poetry and strength Shakespeare is unique. Portia is a good example of this. She shows a balance of heart and head, and possesses besides what writers of less perspi- cacity have denied her sex, namely, a sense of humour. One of Shakespeare ' s own adjectives, sunny, aptly describes her, and this smiling, sweet temper must have considerably softened her lot under her father ' s embarrassing will. Again, how Portia must have enjoyed her adventure in man ' s costume, and what joy she must have felt at nonplussing the learn- 34