Strikes life into my speech, and shows much more At three, and two years old, I stole these babes;5 Thou reft'st me of my lands. Euriphile, Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for their mother, They take for natural father. The game is up. [Exit. SCENE IV. Near Milford-Haven. Enter PISANIO and IMOGEN. Imo. Thou told'st me, when we came from horse, the place Was near at hand:-Ne'er long'd my mother so 5 I stole these babes;] Shakspeare seems to intend Belarius for a good character, yet he makes him forget the injury which he has done to the young princes, whom he has robbed of a kingdom only to rob their father of beirs.-The latter part of this soliloquy is very inartificial, there being no particular reason why Belarius should now tell to himself what he could not know better by telling it. Johnson. 6 to her grave:] i. e. to the grave of Euriphile; or, to the grave of their mother, as they suppose it to be. The poet ought rather to have written-to thy grave Malone. Perhaps he did write so, and the present reading is only a corruption introduced by his printers or publishers. Steevens. 7 Where is Posthumus?] Shakspeare's apparent ignorance of quantity is not the least among many proofs of his want of learning. Almost throughout this play he calls Posthumus, Posthumus, and Arvirăgus, always Arviragus. It may be said that quantity in the age of our author did not appear to have been much regarded. In the tragedy of Darius, by William Alexander of Menstrie, (lord Sterline) 1603, Darīus is always called Darius, and Euphrates, Euphrates. Steevens. Beyond self-explication: Put thyself A look untender? If it be summer news, But keep that countenance still.-My husband's hand! That drug-damn'd1 Italy hath out-craftied him,2 And he's at some hard point.-Speak, man; thy tongue May take off some extremity, which to read Would be even mortal to me. Pis. And you Please you, read; shall find me, wretched man, a thing The most disdain'd of fortune. Imo. [reads] Thy mistress, Pisanio, hath played the strumpet in my bed; the testimonies whereof lie bleeding in me. I speak not out of weak surmises; but from proof as strong as my grief, and as certain as I expect my revenge. That part, thou, Pisanio, must act for me, if thy faith be not tainted with the breach of hers. Let thine own hands take away her life: I shall give thee opportunities at Milford-Haven: she hath my letter for the purpose: Where, if thou fear to strike, and to make me certain it is done, thou art the pandar to her dishonour, and equally to me disloyal. Pis. What shall I need to draw my sword? the paper Hath cut her throat already.3-No, 'tis slander; 8 haviour -] This word, as often as it occurs in Shak speare, should not be printed as an abbreviation of behaviour, Haviour was a word commonly used in his time. See Spenser, Æglogue, IX: 9 1 "Their ill haviour garres men missay." Steevens. if it be summer news, Smile to 't before:] So, in our author's 98th Sonnet: "Could make me any summer's story tell" Malone. ·drug-damn'd-] This is another allusion to Italian poiSons. Johnson. 2 out-craftied him,] Thus the old copy, and so Shakspeare certainly wrote. So, in Coriolanus: "That's curdied by the frost from purest snow.” Mr. Pope and all the subsequent editors read-out-crafted here, and curdled in Coriolanus. Malone. Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue All corners of the world: kings, queens, and states, To lie in watch there, and to think on him?? To weep 'twixt clock and clock? if sleep charge nature, And cry myself awake? that's false to his bed? Pis. Alas, good lady! Imo. I false? Thy conscience witness :-Iachimo, Thou didst accuse him of incontinency; Thou then look'dst like a villain; now, methinks, Thy favour's good enough.-Some jay of Italy,8 Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him: 9 3 What shall I need to draw my sword? the paper "Struck dead at first, what needs a second striking?" Malone. 4 Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; &c.] So, in Churchyard's Discourse of Rebellion &c. 1570: "Hit venom castes as far as Nilus flood, [brood] "Hit poysoneth all it toucheth any wheare." Serpents and dragons by the old writers were called worms. Of this, several instances are given in the last Act of Antony and Cleopatra. Steevens. 5 Rides on the posting winds,] So, in King Henry V: 66 making the wind my post-horse " Malone. states,] Persons of high rank. Johnson. 7- What is it to be false? To lie in watch there, and to think on him?] This passage should be pointed thus: 8 What! is it to be false, To he in watch there, and to think on him? M. Mason. Some jay of Italy,] There is a prettiness in this expresjay and a whore: I sup Warburton. sion; pulta, in Italian, signifying both a pose from the gay feathers of that bird. So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: turtles from jays." Steevens. "Teach him to know 9 Whose mother was her painting,] Some jay of Italy, made by art; the creature, not of nature, but of painting. In this sense painting may be not improperly termed her mother. Johnson. Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion;1 Put on for villainy; not born, where 't grows; Pis. Good madam, hear me. I met with a similar expression in one of the old comedies, but forgot to note the date or name of the piece: "a parcel of conceited feather-caps, whose fathers were their garments." In All's Well that Ends Well, we have whose judgments are "Mere fathers of their garments." Malone. Whose mother was her painting,] i. e. her likeness. Steevens. Harris. 1 Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion;] This image occurs in Westward for Smelts, 1620, immediately at the conclusion of the tale on which our play is founded: "But (said the Brainford fish-wife) I like her as a garment out of fashion." Steevens. 2 And, for I am richer than to hang by the walls, I must be ripp'd:] To hang by the walls, does not mean, to be converted into hangings for a room, but to be hung up, as useless, among the neglected contents of a wardrobe. So, in Measure for Measure: "That have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall." When a boy, at an ancient mansion-house in Suffolk, I saw one of these repositories, which (thanks to a succession of old maids!) had been preserved, with superstitious reverence, for almost a century and a half. Clothes were not formerly, as at present, made of slight materials, were not kept in drawers, or given away as soon as lapse of time or change of fashion had impaired their value. On the contrary, they were hung on wooden pegs in a room appropriated to the purpose of receiving them; and though such cast-off things as were composed of rich substances, were occasionally ripped for domestick uses, (viz. mantles for infants, vests for children, and counterpanes for beds,) articles of inferior quailty were suffered to hang by the walls, till age and moths had destroyed what pride would not permit to be worn by servants or poor relations. "Comitem horridulum tritâ donare lacerna," seems not to have been customary among our ancestors.-When Queen Elizabeth died, she was found to have left above three thousand dresses behind her; and there is yet in the wardrobe of Covent-Garden Theatre, a rich suit of clothes that once belonged to King James I. When I saw it last, it was on the back of Justice Greedy, a character in Massinger's New Way to pay Old Debts. Steevens. VOL. XVI. K 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, Goodly, and gallant, shall be false, and perjur'd, I draw the sword myself: take it; and hit 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 That cravens my weak hand. Come, here's my heart; 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, I think the text is right. Malone. 4 Against self-slaughter &c.] So again, in Hamlet: 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, |