Which, as a grife, or step, may help these lovers When remedies are paft, the griefs are ended," The robb'd, that fmiles, fteals fomething from the thief; He robs himself, that fpends a bootlefs grief. he fays he will fpeak like Brabantio, that he will fpeak fenten tiously. JOHNSON. Let me fpeak like yourself;] i.e. let me fpeak as yourself would fpeak, were you not too much heated with paffion. SIR J. REYNOLDS. as a grife,] Grize from degrees. A grize is a step. So, 4 in Timon: 66 for every grize of fortune "Is fmooth'd by that below." Ben Jonfon, in his Sejanus, gives the original word. "Whom when he faw lie fpread on the degrees." In the will of K. Henry VI. where the dimenfions of King's College chapel at Cambridge are fet down, the word occurs, as fpelt in fome of the old editions of Shakspeare: from the provost's stall, unto the greece called Gradus Chori, 90 feet." STEEVENS. 5 Into your favour.] This is wanting in the folio, but found in the quarto. JOHNSON. 6 When remedies are paft, the griefs are ended,] This our poet has elsewhere expreffed [In Love's Labour's Loft, A&t V. fc. ii.] by a common proverbial fentence, Paft cure is still paft care. MALONE. 7 new mischief on.] The quartos read-more mischief.— STEEVENS. 8 But the free comfort which from thence he hears:] But the moral precepts of confolation, which are liberally bestowed on occafion of the fentence. JOHNSON, But he bears both the fentence and the forrow, Being strong on both fides, are equivocal : ear." 9 But words are words; I never yet did hear, That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear.] The duke had by fage fentences been exhorting Brabantio to patience, and to forget the grief of his daughter's ftolen marriage, to which Brabantio is made very pertinently to reply to this effect: "My lord, I apprehend very well the wisdom of your advice; but though you would comfort me, words are but words; and the heart, already bruis'd, was never pierc'd, or wounded, through the ear." It is obvious that the text must be restored thus: That the bruis'd heart was pieced though the ear. i. e. that the wounds of forrow were ever cured, or a man made heart-whole merely by the words of confolation. WARBURTON. Shakspeare was continually changing his first expreffion for another, either ftronger or more uncommon; fo that very often the reader, who has not the fame continuity or fucceffion of ideas, is at a lofs for its meaning. Many of Shakspeare's uncouth ftrained epithets may be explained, by going back to the obvious and fimple expreffion, which is moft likely to occur to the mind in that state. I can imagine the first mode of expreffion that occurred to the poet was this: The troubled heart was never cured by words. To give it poetical force, he altered the phrase: The wounded heart was never reached through the ear. Wounded heart he changed to broken, and that to bruifed, as a more common expreffion. Reached he altered to touched, and the tranfition is then eafy to pierced, i. e. thoroughly touched. When the fentiment is brought to this ftate, the commentator, without this unravelling clue, expounds piercing the heart in its common acceptation wounding the heart, which making in this place nonsense, is corrected to pieced the heart, which is very stiff, and, as Polonius fays, is a vile phrafe. SIR J. REYNOLDS. Pierced may be right. The confequence of a bruife is fometimes matter collected, and this can no way be cured without piercing of letting it out. Thus, in Hamlet: I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of ftate. Again, "It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, This is th' impofthume of much wealth and peace, "That inward breaks, and shows no cause without, "Why the man dies.' Our author might have had in his memory the following quaint title of an old book: i.e." A lytell treatyfe called the dyfputacyon, or the complaynte of the herte through perced with the lokynge of the eye. Imprynted at Londo in Fleteftrete at ye fygne of the fonne by Wynkyn de Worde." STEEVENS. But words are words; I never yet did hear, That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear.] Thefe moral precepts, fays Brabantio, may perhaps be founded in wisdom, but they are of no avail. Words after all are but words; and I never yet heard that confolatory fpeeches could reach and penetrate the afflicted heart, through the medium of the ear. Brabantio here expreffes the fame fentiment as the father of Hero in Much Ado about Nothing, when he derides the attempts of those comforters who in vain endeavour to "Charm ache with air, and agony with words.” Our author has in various places fhewn a fondness for this antithefis between the heart and ear. Thus, in his Venus and Adonis: "This difmal cry rings fadly in her ear, "Through which it enters, to furprise her heart." Again, in Much Ado about Nothing: "My coufin tells him in his ear, that he is in her heart." Again, in Cymbeline : -I have fuch a heart as both mine ears "Muft not in hafte abufe." Again, in his Rape of Lucrece: "His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth A doubt has been entertained concerning the word pierced, which Dr. Warburton fupposed to mean wounded, and therefore substituted pieced in its room. But pierced is merely a figurative expression, and means not wounded, but penetrated, in a metaphorical fenfe; thooughly affected; as in the following paffage in Shakspeare's 46th . Sonnet: My heart doth plead, that thou in him doft lie; "A clofet never pierc'd with crystal eyes." DUKE. The Turk with a moft mighty preparation makes for Cyprus :-Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you: And though we have there a fubftitute of moft allow'd fufficiency, yet opinion, a fovereign mistress of effects, throws a more fafer voice on you: you must therefore be content to flubber the glofs of your new fortunes * with this more stubborn and boisterous expedition. So alfo, in Love's Labour's Loft: "Honeft plain words best pierce the ear of grief." Again, in his Rape of Lucrece: "With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear." In a word, a heart pierced through the ear, is a heart which (to use our poet's words elfewhere,) has granted a penetrable entrance to the language of confolation. So, in The Mirrour for Magiftrates, 1575: "My piteous plaint-the hardest heart may pierce." Spenfer has used the word exactly in the fame figurative fenfe in which it is here employed; Faery Queene, Book VI. c. ix: 66 Whyleft thus he talkt, the knight with greedy eare And in his Fourth Book, c. viii. we have the very words of the text: "Her words· "Which, paling through the eares, would pierce the bart." Some perfons have fuppofed that pierced when applied metaphorically to the heart, can only be used to exprefs pain; that the poet might have faid, pierced with grief, or pierced with plaints, &c. but that to talk of piercing a heart with confolatory fpeeches, is a catachrefis: but the paffage above quoted from Spenfer's fixth book fhows that there is no ground for the objection. So alfo, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 1590, we find— "Nor thee nor them, thrice noble Tamburlaine, MALONE. to flubber the glofs of your new fortunes-] To flubber, on this occafion, is to obfcure. So, in the First Part of Jeronimo, &c. 1605: "The evening too begins to flubber day." The latter part of this metaphor has already occurred in Macbeth: golden opinions— 66 "Which should be worn now in their newest glofs." STEEVENS. OTH. The tyrant custom, most grave fenators, I find in hardnefs; and do undertake 3 thrice-driven bed of down:] A driven bed, is a bed for which the feathers are felected, by driving with a fan, which feparates the light from the heavy. JOHNSON. 4—1 do agnize-] i. e. acknowledge, confefs, avow. So, in A Summarie Report, &c. of the Speaker relative to Mary Queen of Scots, 4to. 1586: a repentant convert, agnifing her Maiefties great mercie" &c. Again, in the old play of Cambyfes: 66 "The tenor of your princely will, from you for to agnize." In this inftance, however, it fignifies to know; as likewife in the following, from the fame piece: Why fo? I pray you let me agnize." STEEVENS. It is fo defined [i. e. to acknowledge] in Bullokar's Engli Expofitor, 8vo. 1616. MALONE. 5 Thefe prefent wars— -] The quarto, 1622, an error of the prefs, have-this present wars. tion I am refponfible. MALONE. I crave fit difpofition for my wife; and the folio, by For the emenda Due reference of place, and exhibition; &c.] I defire, that proper difpofition be made for my wife, that the may have precedency and revenue, accommodation and company fuitable to her rank. For reference of place, the old quartos have reverence, which Sir T. Hanmer has received. I should read, Due preference of place, JOHNSON. Exhibition is allowance. The word is at present used only at the univerfities. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona : "What maintenance he from his friends receives, "Like exhibition thou shalt have from me.” Again, in King Edward IV. by Heywood, 1626: "Of all the exhibition yet beftow'd, "This woman's liberality likes me beft." STEEVENS. See Vol. XIV. p. 35, n. 4. MALONE. |