Enter PISANIO and IACHIMO. Pis. Madam, a noble gentleman of Rome; Comes from my lord with letters. Iach. The worthy Leonatus is in safety, Change you, madam? [Presents a Letter. Thanks, good sir; Which season's comfort.] The last words are equivocal; but the meaning is this: Who are beholden only to the seasons for their support and nourishment; so that, if those be kindly, such have no more to care for, or desire. Warburton. I am willing to comply with any meaning that can be extorted from the present text, rather than change it, yet will propose, but with great diffidence, a slight alteration: Bless'd be those, How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills, With reason's comfort. Who gratify their innocent wishes with reasonable enjoyments. Johnson. I shall venture at another explanation, which, as the last words are admitted to be equivocal, may be proposed. "To be able to refine on calamity (says she) is the miserable privilege of those who are educated with aspiring thoughts and elegant desires. Blessed are they, however mean their condition, who have the power of gratifying their honest inclination, which circumstance bestows an additional relish on comfort itself." "You lack the season of all natures, sleep." Macbeth. Again, in Albumazar, 1615: 66 the memory of misfortunes past "Seasons the welcome." Steevens. I agree with Steevens that the word seasons, in this place, is used as a verb, but not in his interpretation of the former part of this passage. Imogen's reflection is merely this: "That those are happy who have their honest wills, which gives a relish to comfort; but that those are miserable who set their affections on objects of superior excellence, which are of course, difficult to obtain." The word honest means plain or humble, and is opposed to glorious. M. Mason. In my apprehension, Imogen's sentiment is simply thus: Had I been stolen by thieves in my infancy, (or, as she says in another place, born a neat-herd's daughter,) I had been happy. But instead of that, I am in a high, and, what is called, a glorious station; and most miserable in such a situation! Pregnant with calamity are those desires, which aspire to glory; to splendid titles, or elevation of rank! Happier far are those, how low soever their rank in life, who have it in their power to gratify their virtuous inclinations: a circumstance that gives an additional zest to comfort itself, and renders it something more; or, (to borrow our author's words in another place) which keeps comfort always fresh and lasting. Malone. You are kindly welcome. Iach. All of her, that is out of door, most rich! [Aside. If she be furnish'd with a mind so rare, She is alone the Arabian bird; and I Have lost the wager. Boldness be my friend! Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight; Rather, directly fly. Imo. [reads]-He is one of the noblest note, to whose kindnesses I am most infinitely tied. Reflect upon him accordingly, as you value your truest So far I read aloud: But even the very middle of my heart LEONATUS.1 Is warm'd by the rest, and takes it thankfully.- 1 Reflect upon him accordingly, as you value your truest LEONATUS.] [Old copy-your trust. LEONATUS.] Were Leonatus writing to his Steward, this style might be proper; but it is so strange a conclusion of a letter to a princess, and a beloved wife, that it cannot be right. I have no doubt therefore that we ought to read: as you value your truest LEONATUS. M. Mason. This emendation is at once so neat and elegant, that I cannot refuse it a place in the text; and especially as it returns an echo to the words of Posthumus when he parted from Imogen, and dwelt so much on his own conjugal fidelity: "The loyal'st husband that did e'er plight troth." Steevens. Mr. M. Mason's conjecture would have more weight, if it were certain that these were intended as the concluding words of the letter. It is more probable that what warmed the very middle of the heart of Imogen, formed the conclusion of Posthumus's letter; and the words-so far, and by the rest, support that supposition. Though Imogen reads the name of her husband, she might suppress somewhat that intervened. Nor, indeed, is the adjuration of light import, or unsuitable to a fond husband, supposing it to be the conclusion of the letter. Respect my friend, says Leonatus, as you value the confidence reposed in you by him to whom you have plighted your troth. Malone. It is certain, I think, from the break-" He is one" &c. that the omitted part of the letter was at the beginning of it; and that what follows (all indeed that was necessary for the audience to hear) was its regular and decided termination.-Was it not natural, that a young and affectionate husband, writing to a wife whom he adored, should express the feelings of his love, before he proceeded to the detail of his colder business? Steevens. Have words to bid you; and shall find it so, In all that I can do. Iach. Thanks, fairest lady.— What! are men mad? Hath nature given them eyes Of sea and land,] He is here speaking of the covering of sea and land. Shakspeare therefore wrote: and the rich cope Warburton. Surely no emendation is necessary. The vaulted arch is alike the cope or covering of sea and land. When the poet had spoken of it once, could he have thought this second introduction of it necessary? The crop of sea and land means only the productions of either element. Steevens. Upon the number'd beach?] I have no idea in what sense the beach, or shore, should be called number'd. I have ventured, against all the copies, to substitute Upon th' unnumber'd beach?. i. e. the infinite extensive beach, if we are to understand the epithet as coupled to the word. But, I rather think, the poet intended an hypallage, like that in the beginning of Ovid's Metamor phoses: "(In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas And then we are to understand the passage thus: and the infinite number of twinn'd stones upon the beach. Theobald. Sense and the antithesis oblige us to read this nonsense thus: Upon the humbled beach; i. e. because daily insulted with the flow of the tide. Warburton. I know not well how to regulate this passage. Number'd is perhaps numerous. Twinn'd stones I do not understand.-Twinn'd shells, or pairs of shells, are very common. For twinn'd we might read twin'd, that is, twisted, convolved: but this sense is more applicable to shells than to stones Johnson. The pebbles on the sea shore are so much of the same size and shape, that twinn'd may mean as like as twins. So, in The Maid of the Mill, by Beaumont and Fletcher: But is it possible that two faces "Should be so twinn'd in form, complexion," &c. Again, in our author's Coriolanus, Act IV, sc. iv: "Are still together, who twin as 'twere in love."" Mr. Heath conjectures the poet might have written-spurn'd stones. He might possibly have written that or any other word. -In Coriolanus, a different epithet is bestowed on the beach: Partition make with spectacles so precious "Twixt fair and foul? Imo. What makes your admiration? Iach. It cannot be i' the eye; for apes and monkeys, 'Twixt two such shes, would chatter this way, and Contemn with mows the other: Nor i' the judgment; For idiots, in this case of favour, would Be wisely definite: Nor i' the appetite; Sluttery, to such neat excellence oppos'd, Should make desire vomit emptiness, Not so allur'd to feed. "Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach Dr. Warburton's conjecture may be countenanced by the following passage in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. VI, c. vii: "But as he lay upon the humbled grass. "" Steevens. Mr. Theobald's conjecture may derive some support from a passage in King Lear: 66 the murm'ring surge "That on th' unnumber'd idle pebbles chases." Malone. 4 Should make desire vomit emptiness, Not so allur'd to feed. i. e. that appetite, which is not allured to feed on such excellence, can have no stomach at all; but, though empty, must nauseate every thing. Warburton. I explain this passage in a sense almost contrary. Iachimo, in this counterfeited rapture, has shewn how the eyes and the judgment would determine in favour of Imogen, comparing her with the present mistress of Posthumus, and proceeds to say, that appetite too would give the same suffrage. Desire, says he, when it approached sluttery, and considered it in comparison with such neat excellence, would not only be not so allured to feed, but, seized with a fit of loathing, would vomit emptiness, would feel the convulsions of disgust, though, being unfed, it had no object. Johnson. Dr. Warburton and Dr. Johnson have both taken the pains to give their different senses of this passage; but I am still unable to comprehend how desire, or any other thing, can be made to vomit emptiness. I rather believe the passage should be read thus: Sluttery to such neat excellence oppos'd, Should make desire vomit, emptiness Not so allure to feed. That is, Should not so, [in such circumstances] allure [even] emptiness to feed Tyrwhitt. This is not ill conceived; but I think my own explanation right. To vomit emptiness is, in the lauguage of poetry, to feel the con. vulsions of eructation without plenitude. Johnson. No one who has been ever sick at sea, can be at a loss to un Imo. What is the matter, trow? 擎 Iach. (That satiate yet unsatisfied desire, The cloyed will," That tub both fill'd and running,) ravening first The lamb, longs after for the garbage. Thus raps you? Are you well? What, dear sir, Iach. Thanks, madam; well:-'Beseech, you, sir, de sire My man's abode where I did leave him: he [To PIS. derstand what is meant by vomiting emptiness. Dr. Johnson's interpretation would perhaps be more exact, if after the word Desire he had added, however hungry, or sharp-set. A late editor, Mr. Capell, was so little acquainted with his author, as not to know that Shakspeare here, and in some other places, uses desire as a trisyllable; in consequence of which, he reads-vomit to emptiness. Malone. 5 The cloyed will, &c.] The present irregularity of metre has almost persuaded me that this passage originally stood thus: The cloyed will, (That's satiate, yet unsatisfied, that tub Both fill'd and running,) ravening first the lamb, Longs after for the garbage. What, dear sir, &c. The want, in the original MS. of the letter I have supplied, perhaps occasioned the interpolation of the word-desire. Steevens. Is strange and peevish.] He is a foreigner and easily fretted. Johnson. Strange, I believe, signifies shy or backward. So, Holinshed, p. 735: " brake to him his mind in this mischievous matter, in which he found him nothing strange." Peevish anciently meant weak, silly. So, in Lyly's Endymion, 1591: "Never was any so peevish to imagine the moon either capable of affection, or shape of a mistress." Again, in his Galatea, [1592] when a man has given a conceited answer to a plain question, Diana says, "let him alone, he is but peevish." Again, in his Love's Metamorphosis, 1601: "In the heavens I saw an orderly course, in the earth nothing but disorderly love and peevishness.” Again, in The Comedy of Errors: "How now! a madman! why thou peevish sheep, "No ship of Epidamnum stays for me Steevens. Minsheu, in his Dictionary, 1617, explains peevish by foolish.So again, in our author's King Richard III: "When Richmond was a little peevish boy.” See also Comedy of Errors, Act IV, sc. iv; and Vol. X, p. 423, n. 7. |