Page images
PDF
EPUB

A mother, and two brothers: But (O scorn!)
Gone! they went hence so soon as they were born.
And so I am awake.-Poor wretches that depend
On greatness' favour, dream as I have done;
Wake, and find nothing.-But, alas, I swerve:
Many dream not to find, neither deserve,
And yet are steep'd in favours; so am I,
That have this golden chance, and know not why.
What fairies haunt this ground? A book? O, rare one!
Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment
Nobler than that it covers: let thy effects
So follow, to be most unlike our courtiers,
As good as promise.

[Reads] When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown, without seeking find, and be embraced by a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall be lopped branches, which, being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate, and flourish in peace and plenty.

'Tis still a dream; or else such stuff as madmen
Tongue, and brain not:3 either both, or nothing:
Or senseless speaking, or a speaking such
As sense cannot untie. Be what it is,
The action of my life is like it, which
I'll keep, if but for sympathy.

Re-enter Gaolers.

Gaol. Come, sir, are you ready for death?

Post. Over-roasted rather: ready long ago.

Gaol. Hanging is the word, sir; if you be ready för

that, you are well cooked.

3 Tongue, and brain not:] To perfect the line we may read: Do tongue, and brain not: -. Steevens.

4 'Tis still a dream; or else such stuff as madmen Tongue, and brain not: either both, or nothing:

Or senseless speaking, or a speaking such

As sense cannot untie.] The meaning, which is too thin to be easily caught, I take to be this: This is a dream or madness, or both, or nothing,—but whether it be a speech without consciousness, as in a dream, or a speech unintelligible, as in madness, be it as it is, it is like my course of life. We might perhaps read:

Whether both, or nothing, Johnson.

Post. So, if I prove a good repast to the spectators, the dish pays the shot.

Gaol. A heavy reckoning for you, sir: But the comfort is, you shall be called to no more payments, fear no more tavern bills; which are often the sadness of parting, as the procuring of mirth: you come in faint for want of meat, depart reeling with too much drink; sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are paid too much;5 purse and brain both empty: the brain the heavier for being too light, the purse too light, being drawn of heaviness:6 O! of this contradiction you shall now be quiet.O the charity of a penny cord! it sums up thousands in a thrice: you have no true debitor and creditor but it; of what 's past, is, and to come, the discharge:-Your neck, sir, is pen, book, and counters; so the acquittance follows.

Post. I am merrier to die, than thou art to live.

Gaol. Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the tooth-ach: But a man that were to sleep your sleep, and a hangman to help him to bed, I think, he would change places with his officer: for, look you, sir, you know not which way you shall go.

Post. Yes, indeed, do I, fellow.

Gaol. Your death has eyes in 's head then; I have not

5 sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are paid too much ;] i. e. sorry that you have paid too much out of your pocket, and sorry that you are paid, or subdued, too much by the liquor. So, Falstaff: " -seven of the eleven I paid." Again, in the fifth scene of the fourth Act of The Merry Wives of WindSteevens.

sor.

The word has already occurred in this sense, in a former scene: "And though he came our enemy, remember

6

"He was paid for that." Malone.

being drawn of heaviness:] Drawn is embowelled, exenterated. So, in common language a fowl is said to be drawn, when its intestines are taken out.

7

Steevens.

of this contradiction you shall now be quit.] Thus, in Measure for Measure:

8

Death,

"That makes these odds all even."

Steevens.

· debitor and creditor -] For an accounting book. Johnson. So, in Othello:

"By debitor and creditor, this counter-caster;"

Steevens.

seen him so pictured: you must either be directed by some that take upon them to know; or take upon yourself that, which I am sure you do not know; or jump the after-enquiry on your own peril: and how you shall speed in your journey's end, I think, you'll never return to tell one.

Post. I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes, to direct them the way I am going, but such as wink, and will not use them.

Gaol. What infinite mock is this, that a man should have the best use of eyes, to see the way of blindness! I am sure, hanging 's the way of winking.

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. Knock off his manacles; bring your prisoner to the king.

Post. Thou bringest good news;-I am called to be made free.

Gaol. I'll be hanged then.

Post. Thou shalt be then freer than a gaoler; no bolts for the dead. [Exeunt PosT. and Mess.

Gaol. Unless a man would marry a gallows, and beget young gibbets, I never saw one so prone. Yet, on my conscience, there are verier knaves desire to live, for all he be a Roman: and there be some of them too, that die against their wills; so should I, if I were one. I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good; O, there were desolation of gaolers, and gallowses! I speak against my present profit; but my wish hath a preferment in 't. [Exit.

9

-jump the after-enquiry-] That is, venture at it without thought. So, Macbeth:

"We'd jump the life to come." Johnson.

To jump is to hazard. So, in the passage quoted from Macbeth by Dr. Johnson. Again, in Coriolanus:

1

"To jump a body with a dangerous physick ·

Malone.

I never saw one so prone.] i. e. forward. In this sense the word is used in Wilfride Holme's poem, entitled The Fall and euil Success of Rebellion, &c. 1537:

"Thus lay they in Doncaster, with curtol and serpentine, "With bombard and basilisk, with men prone and vigorus." Again, in Sir A. Gorges' translation of the sixth Book of Lucan: Thessalian fierie steeds

[ocr errors]

"For use of war so prone and fit." Steevens.

SCENE V.2

Cymbeline's Tent.

Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, Lords, Officers, and Attendants.

Cym. Stand by my side, you, whom the gods have made Preservers of my throne. Woe is my heart, That the poor soldier, that so richly fought, Whose rags sham'd gilded arms, whose naked breast Stepp'd before targe of proof, cannot be found: He shall be happy that can find him, if

Our grace can make him so.

Bel.

I never saw

Such noble fury in so poor a thing;

Such precious deeds in one that promis'd nought
But beggary and poor looks.3

Сут.

No tidings of him? Pis. He hath been search'd among the dead and living, But no trace of him.

Cym.

Το

my grief, I am The heir of his reward; which I will add Το you, the liver, heart, and brain of Britain,

[To BEL. GUI. and ARV. By whom, I grant, she lives: Tis now the time To ask of whence you are :-report it.

Bel.

Sir,

In Cambria are we born, and gentlemen:
Further to boast, were neither true nor modest,

2 Scene V.] Let those who talk so confidently about the skill of Shakspeare's contemporary, Jonson, point out the conclusion of any one of his plays which is wrought with more artifice, and yet a less degree of dramatick violence than this. In the scene before us, all the surviving characters are assembled; and at the expence of whatever incongruity the former events may have been produced, perhaps little can be discovered on this occasion to offend the most scrupulous advocate for regularity and, I think, as little is found wanting to satisfy the spectator by a catastrophe which is intricate without confusion, and not more rich in ornament than in nature. Steevens.

3 one that promis'd nought

:

But beggary and poor looks.] To promise nothing but poor looks, may be, to give no promise of courageous behaviour. Johnson. So, in King Richard 11:

"To look so poorly, and to speak so fair." Steevens.

Bow your knees:

Unless I add, we are honest.

Cym.

Arise, my knights o' the battle; I create you
Champions to our person, and will fit you
With dignities becoming your estates.

Enter CORNELIUS and Ladies.

There's business in these faces:-Why so sadly
Greet you our victory? you look like Romans,
And not o' the court of Britain.

Cor.

Hail, great king!

To sour your happiness, I must report
The queen is dead.

Cym.
Whom worse than a physicians
Would this report become? But I consider,
By medicine life may be prolong'd, yet death
Will seize the doctor too."-How ended she?

Cor. With horror, madly dying, like her life;
Which, being cruel to the world, concluded
Most cruel to herself. What she confess'd,
I will report, so please you: These her women
Can trip me, if I err; who, with wet cheeks,
Were present when she finish'd.

Cym.

Pr'ythee, say.

Cor. First, she confess'd she never lov'd you; only

Affected greatness got by you, not you:

Married your royalty, was wife to your place;

Abhorr'd your person.

Cym.

She alone knew this:

And, but she spoke it dying, I would not

Believe her lips in opening it. Proceed.

Cor. Your daughter, whom she bore in hand to love"

4 knights o' the battle;] Thus, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 164, edit. 1615: "Philip of France made Arthur Plantagenet knight of the fielde." Steevens.

5 Whom worse than a physician-] Old copy-Who. Corrected in the second folio. Malone.

6

-yet death

Will seize the doctor too] This observation has been already made at the end of the second stanza of the funeral Song, p. 132:

[ocr errors]

"The sceptre, learning, physick, must

"All follow this, and come to dust." Steevens.

bore in hand to love —] i. e. insidiously taught to depend on her love. Steevens.

« PreviousContinue »