Clo. Thou precious varlet, My tailor made them not. Hence then, and thank Gui. Clo. Hear but my name, and tremble. Gui. Thou injurious thief, What 's thy name? Clo. Cloten, thou villain. Gui. Cloten, thou double villain, be thy name, I cannot tremble at it; were 't toad, or adder, spider, 'Twould move me sooner. Clo. Nay, to thy mere confusion, thou shalt know I'm son to the queen. Gui. So worthy as thy birth. Clo. To thy further fear, I'm sorry for 't; not seeming Art not afeard? Gui. Those that I reverence, those I fear; the wise: At fools I laugh, not fear them. Clo. [Exeunt, fighting. 3 Yield, rustick mountaineer.] I believe, upon examination, the character of Cloten will not prove a very consistent one. Act I, sc. iv, the Lords who are conversing with him on the subject of his rencontre with Posthumus, represent the latter as having neither put forth his strength or courage, but still advancing forwards to the prince, who retired before him; yet at this his last appearance, we see him fighting gallantly, and falling by the hand of Guiderius. The same persons afterwards speak of him as of a mere ass or ideot; and yet, Act III, sc. i, he returns one of the noblest and most reasonable answers to the Roman envoy: and the rest of his conversation on the same cccasion, though it may lack form a little, by no means resembles the language of folly. He behaves with proper dignity and civility at parting with Lucius, and yet is ridiculous and brutal in his treatment of Imogen. Belarius describes him as not having sense enough to know what fear is (which he defines as being sometimes the effect of judg ment); and yet he forms very artful schemes for gaining the affection of his mistress, by means of her attendants; to get her person into his power afterwards; and seems to be no less acquainted with the character of his father, and the ascendancy Enter BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS. Bel. No company's abroad. Arv. None in the world: You did mistake him, sure. Bel. I cannot tell: Long is it since I saw him, But time hath nothing blurr'd those lines of favour Which then he wore; the snatches in his voice, And burst of speaking, were as his: I am absolute, 'Twas very Cloten. Arv. 4 In this place we left them: I wish my brother make good time with him, You say he is so fell. Bel. Being scarce made up, Of roaring terrors; for the effect of judgment the Queen maintained over his uxorious weakness. We find Cloten, in short, represented at once as brave and dastardly, civil and brutal, sagacious and foolish, without that subtilty of distinction, and those shades of gradation between sense and folly, virtue and vice, which constitute the excellence of such mixed characters as Polonius in Hamlet, and the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. Steevens. 4 the snatches in his voice, And burst of speaking,] This is one of our author's strokes of observation. An abrupt and tumultuous utterance very frequently accompanies a confused and cloudy understanding. Johnson. 5 for the effect of judgment L Is oft the cause of fear:] Old copy-defect of judgement-] If I understand this passage, it is mock reasoning as it stands, and the text must have been slightly corrupted. Belarius is giving a description of what Cloten formerly was; and in answer to what Arviragus says of his being so fell, “Ay, (says Belarius) he was so fell; and being scarce then at man's estate, he had no ap. prehension of roaring terrors, i. e. of any thing that could check him with fears." But then, how does the inference come in, built upon this? For defect of judgment is oft the cause of fear. I think. the poet meant to have said the mere contrary. Cloten was de fective in judgment, and therefore did not fear. Apprehensions of fear grow from a judgment in weighing dangers. And a very easy change, from the traces of the letters, gives us this sense,, and reconciles the reasoning of the whole passage: for th' effect of judgment Is oft the cause of fear, Theobald. Sir T. Hanmer reads with equal justness of sentiment: Re-enter GUIDERIUS, with CLOTEN'S Head. Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none: My head, as I do his. Bel. What hast thou done? Gui. I am perfect, what:7 cut off one Cloten's head, Son to the queen, after his own report; Who call'd me traitor, mountaineer; and swore, Displace our heads, where (thank the gods!) they grow, -for defect of judgment Is oft the cure of fear, - But, I think, the play of effect and cause more resembling the manner of our author Johnson. If fear, as in other passages of Shakspeare, be understood in an active signification for what may cause fear, it means that Cloten's defect of judgment caused him to commit actions to the terror of others, without due consideration of his own danger therein. Thus, in King Henry IV, Part II: 6 66 all these bold fears, "Thou see'st with peril I have answered." Tollet. --not Hercules Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none:] This thought had occurred before in Troilus and Cressida: 66 - if he knock out either of your brains, a' were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel " Steevens. I am perfect, what:] I am well informed, what. So, in this play: "I am perfect, the Pannonians are in arms." Johnson. 8 take us in,] To take in, was the phrase in use for to apprehend an out-law, or to make him amenable to publick justice. Johnson. To take in means, simply, to conquer, to subdue. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: cut the Ionian seas, "And take in Toryne." Steevens. That Mr. Steevens's explanation of this phrase is the true one, appears from the present allusion to Cloten's speech, and also from the speech itself in the former part of this scene. He had not threatened to render these outlaws amenable to justice, but to kill them with his own hand: "Die the death: "When I have slain thee with my proper hand," &c. "He'd fetch us in," is used a little lower by Belarius, in the sense assigned by Dr. Johnson to the phrase before us. Malone. And set them on Lud's town. Bel. We are all undone. Bel. No single soul Can we set eye on, but, in all safe reason, He must have some attendants. Though his huinour Was nothing but mutation;3 ay, and that 9 (thank the gods!)] The old copies have-(thanks the gods). Mr. Rowe, and other editors after him,-thanks to the gods. But by the present omission of the letter s, and the restoration of the parenthesis, I suppose this passage, as it now stands in the text, to be as our author gave it. Steevens. 1- The law Protects not us:] We meet with the same sentiment in Romeo and Juliet: "The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law." Steevens. 2 For we do fear the law?] For is here used in the sense of because. So, in Marlowe's Few of Malta, 1633: "See the simplicity of these base slaves! "Who, for the villains have no faith themselves, Again, in Othello: "And, for I know thou art full of love," &c. Malone. 31 Though his humour Was nothing but mutation; &c.] [Old copy-his honour.] What has his honour to do here, in his being changeable in this sort? in his acting as a madman, or not? I have ventured to substi tute humour, against the authority of the printed copies: and the meaning seems plainly this: Though he was always fickle to the last degree, and governed by humour, not sound sense; yet not madness itself could make him so hardy to attempt an enterprize of this nature alone, and unseconded" Theobald. The text is right, and means, that the only notion he had of ho nour, was the fashion which was perpetually changing. Warburton. This would be a strange description of honour; and appears to me in its present form to be absolute nonsense. The sense indeed absolutely requires that we should adopt Theobald's amendment, and read humour instead of honour. Belarius is speaking of the disposition of Cloten, not of his principles-and this account of him agrees with what Imogen From one bad thing to worse; not frenzy, not To come alone, either be so undertaking, Or they so suffering: then on good ground we fear, More perilous than the head. Let ordinance Arv. I had no mind Bel. Did make my way long forth.4 With his own sword, Gui. And tell the fishes, he's the queen's son, Cloten: Bel. I fear, 'twill be reveng'd: [Exit. 'Would, Polydore, thou had'st not done 't! though valour Becomes thee well enough. Arv. says in the latter end of the scene, where she calls him " that irregulous devil Cloten." M. Mason. I am now convinced that the poet wrote-his humour, as Mr. Theobald suggested. The context strongly supports the emendation; but what decisively entitles it to a place in the text is, that the editor of the folio has, in like manner printed honour instead of humour in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I, sc. iii: "Falstaff will learn the honour of the age." The quarto reads rightly-" the humour of the age." Sir, Sir, my hu 4 Did make my way long forth.] Fidele's sickness made my walk forth from the cave tedious. Johnson. |