Imo. True honest men being heard, like false Æneas, Were, in his time, thought false: and Sinon's weeping Did scandal many a holy tear; took pity

From most true wretchedness: So, thou, Posthúmus,
Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men ;3

Goodly, and gallant, shall be false, and perjur'd,
From thy great fail.-Come, fellow, be thou honest:
Do thou thy master's bidding: When thou see'st him,
A little witness my obedience: Look!

I draw the sword myself: take it; and hit
The innocent mansion of my love, my heart:
Fear not; 'tis empty of all things, but grief:
Thy master is not there; who was, indeed,
The riches of it: Do his bidding; strike.
Thou may'st be valiant in a better cause;
But now thou seem'st a coward.

Pis.

Thou shalt not damn my hand.

Imo.

Hence, vile instrument!

Why, I must die;

And if I do not by thy hand, thou art

No servant of thy master's: Against self-slaughter
There is a prohibition so divine,

That cravens my weak hand. Come, here's my heart;
Something's afore 't:—Soft, soft; we 'll no defence;
Obedient as the scabbard.-What is here?

The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus,

3 Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men; &c.]i. e. says Mr. Upton, "wilt infect and corrupt their good name, (like sour dough that leaveneth the whole mass) and wilt render them suspected." In the line below he would read-fall, instead of fail. So, in King Henry V:

"And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot

"To mark the full-fraught man, and best-indued,
"With some suspicion."

I think the text is right. Malone.

Against self-slaughter &c.] So again, in Hamlet:

66

the Everlasting fix'd

"His canon 'gainst self-slaughter." Steevens.

5 That cravens my weak hand.] i. e. makes me a coward. Pope. That makes me afraid to put an end to my own life. See Vol. VI, p. 68, n. 7. Malone.

6 Something's afore 't:] The old copy reads-Something 's a-foot. Johnson.

The correction was made by Mr. Rowe. Malone.

All turn'd to heresy? Away, away,
Corrupters of my faith! you shall no more

Be stomachers to my heart! Thus may poor fools
Believe false teachers: Though those that are betray'd
Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor
Stands in worse case of woe.

And thou, Posthumus, thou that did'st set up
My disobedience 'gainst the king my father,
And make me put into contempt the suits
Of princely fellows, shalt hereafter find
It is no act of common passage, but
A strain of rareness: and I grieve myself,
To think, when thou shalt be disedg'd' by her
That now thou tir❜st on,1 how thy memory

Will then be pang'd by me.-Pr'ythee, despatch:
The lamb entreats the butcher: Where's thy knife?
Thou art too slow to do thy master's bidding,
When I desire it too.

Pis.

O gracious lady,

Since I receiv'd command to do this business,
I have not slept one wink.

Imo.

Do 't, and to bed then.

Pis. I'll wake mine eye-balls blind first.2

7 The scriptures -] So, Ben Jonson, in The Sad Shepherd: "The lover's scriptures, Heliodore's, or Tatius'" Shakspeare, however, means in this place, an opposition between scripture, in its common signification, and heresy. Steevens.

8- thou that-] The second thou, which is not in the old copies, has been added for the sake of recovering metre. Steevens. disedg'd-] So, in Hamlet: "It would cost you a groang, to take off mine edge." Steevens.

9

1 That now thou tir'st on,] A hawk is said to tire upon that which she pecks; from tirer, French. Johnson.

2 I'll wake mine eye-balls blind first.] [In the old copies, the word-blind is wanting] The modern editions for wake read break, and supply the deficient syllable by-Ah wherefore. I read—I'll wake mine eye-balls out first, or, blind first. Johnson.

Sir T. Hanmer had made the same emendation. Malone. Dr. Johnson's conjecture (which I have inserted in the text) may receive support from the following passage in The Bugbears, a MS. comedy more ancient than the play before us:

I doubte

"Least for lacke of my slepe I shall watche my eyes oute."

Steevens.

Imo.

Wherefore then

Didst undertake it? Why hast thou abus'd
So many miles, with a pretence? this place?
Mine action, and thine own? our horses' labour?
The time inviting thee? the perturb'd court,
For my being absent; whereunto I never
Purpose return? Why hast thou gone so far,
To be unbent, when thou hast ta'en thy stand,
The elected deer before thee?4

Pis.
But to win time
To lose so bad employment: in the which ·
I have consider'd of a course; Good lady,
Hear me with patience.

Imo.
Talk thy tongue weary; speak :
I have heard, I am a strumpet; and mine ear,

Therein false struck, can take no greater wound,
Nor tent to bottom that. But speak.

But if I were as wise as honest, then

My purpose would prove well. It cannot be,
But that my master is abus'd:

Some villain, ay, and singular in his art,
Hath done you both this cursed injury.

Imo. Some Roman courtezan.

Pis.

No, on my life.

I'll give but notice you are dead, and send him
Some bloody sign of it; for 'tis commanded
I should do so: You shall be miss'd at court,
And that will well confirm it.

Imo.

Why, good fellow, What shall I do the while? Where bide? How live? Or in my life what comfort, when I am

3 To be unbent,] To have thy bow unbent, alluding to an hunter.

4

when thou hast ta'en thy stand,

Johnson.

The elected deer before thee?] So, in one of our author's poems, Passionate Pilgrim, 1599:

"When as thine eye hath chose the dame,

"And stall'd the deer that thou should'st strike." Malone.

Dead to my
Pis.

husband?

If you 'll back to the court,
Imo. No court, no father; nor no more ado
With that harsh, noble, simple, nothing:5
That Cloten, whose love-suit hath been to me
As fearful as a siege.

Pis.

If not at court,

Then not in Britain must you bide.

Where then?6

Imo.
Hath Britain all the sun that shines?" Day, night,
Are they not but in Britain? I' the world's volume
Our Britain seems as of it, but not in it;

In a great pool, a swan's nest; Pr'ythee, think
There's livers out of Britain.8

Pis.
I am most glad
You think of other place. The embassador,
Lucius the Roman, comes to Milford-Haven

5 With that harsh, noble, &c.] Some epithet of two syllables has here been omitted by the compositor; for which, having but one copy, it is now vain to seek. Malone.

Perhaps the poet wrote:

With that harsh, noble, simple, nothing, Cloten;

6 Where then?] Hanmer has added these two words to Pisanio's speech. Malone.

7 Where then?

Hath Britain all the sun that shines?] The rest of Imogen's speech induces me to think that we ought to read" What then?" instead of "Where then?" The reason of the change is evident. M. Mason.

Shakspeare seems here to have had in his thoughts a passage in Lyly's Euphues, 1580, which he has imitated in K. Richard II: "Nature hath given to man a country no more than she hath house, or lands, or living. Plato would never account him banished, that had the sunne, ayre, water, and earth, that he had before; where he felt the winter's blast, and the summer's blaze; where the same sunne and the same moone shined; whereby he noted, that every place was a country to a wise man, and all parts a palace to a quiet mind. But thou art driven out of Naples: that is nothing. All the Athenians dwell not in Colliton, nor every Corinthian in Greece, nor all the Lacedemonians in Pitania. How can any part of the world be distant far from the other, when as the mathematicians set downe that the earth is but a point compared to the heavens ?" Malone.

8 There's livers out of Britain.] So, in Coriolanus: "There is a world elsewhere." Steevens.

To-morrow: Now, if you could wear a mind
Dark as your fortune is; and but disguise
That, which, to appear itself, must not yet be,
But by self-danger; you should tread a course
Pretty, and full of view:1 yea, haply, near
The residence of Posthumus; so nigh, at least,
That though his actions were not visible, yet
Report should render him hourly to your ear,
As truly as he moves.

2

Imo.
O, for such means!
Though peril to my modesty, not death on 't,
I would adventure.

Pis.

Well then, here's the point:

You must forget to be a woman; change
Command into obedience; fear, and niceness,
(The handmaids of all women, or, more truly,
Woman its pretty self,) to3 a waggish courage;
Ready in gibes, quick-answer'd, saucy, and
As quarrellous as the weasel:4 nay, you must

9 - Now, if you could wear a mind

Dark as your fortune is;] To wear a dark mind, is to carry a mind impenetrable to the search of others. Darkness, applied to the mind, is secrecy, applied to the fortune, is obscurity. The next lines are obscure. You must, says Pisanio, disguise that greatness, which, to appear hereafter in its proper form, cannot yet appear without great danger to itself. Johnson.

1 full of view:] With opportunities of examining your affairs with your own eyes. Johnson.

Full of view may mean-affording an ample prospect, a complete opportunity of discerning circumstances which it is your in terest to know. Thus, in Pericles, "Full of face" appears to sig. nify-amply beautiful; and Duncan assures Banquo that he will labour to make him "full of growing," i. e. of ample growth.

Steevens.

2 Though peril to my modesty,] I read-Through peril. I would for such means adventure through peril of modesty; I would risque every thing but real dishonour. Johnson.

3

to-] Old copies, unmetrically,-into. Steevens.

4 As quarrellous as the weasel:] So, in King Henry IV, P. 1: "A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen

"As you are toss'd with "

This character of the weasel is not warranted by naturalists. Weasels, however, were formerly kept in houses instead of cats, for the purpose of killing vermin. So, Phædrus, IV, i, 10; "Mustela, quum annis et senecta debilis, "Mures veloces non valeret adsequi."