Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch! That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul, *And from his bosom purge this black despair! 'War. See, how the pangs of death do make him grin. Sal. Disturb him not, let him pass peaceably. *K. Hen. Peace to his soul, if God's good pleasure be! Lord cardinal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss, Hold up thy hand5, make signal of thy hopeHe dies, and makes no sign; O God, forgive him! War. So bad a death argues a monstrous life. 'K. Hen. Forbear to judges, for we are sinners all. Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close; And let us all to meditation. [Exeunt. Thus in the old play of King John, 1591, Pandulph sees the king dying, and says: Then, good my lord, if you forgive them all, And again: 6 Lift up thy hand, that we may witness here Thou diest the servant of our Saviour Christ.' 'Peccantes culpare cave, nam labimur omnes Aut sumus, aut fuimus, vel possumus esse, quod hic est.' • This is one of the scenes which have been applauded by the critics, and which will continue to be admired when prejudices shall cease, and bigotry give way to impartial examination. These are beauties that rise out of nature and of truth; the superficial reader cannot miss them, the profound can image nothing beyond them.'-Johnson. SCENE I. Kent. Firing heard at Sea. ACT IV. The Seashore near Dover1. Then enter, from a Boat, a Captain, a Master, a Master's Mate, WALTER WHITMORE, and Others; with them SUFFOLK, and other Gentlemen, Prisoners. Cap. The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful2 day Is crept into the bosom of the sea; *And now loud howling wolves arouse the jades That drag the tragic melancholy night; Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings 3 *Clip dead men's graves, and from their misty jaws Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air. Therefore, bring forth the soldiers of our prize; 1 Gent. What is my ransome, master? let me 1 There is a curious circumstantial account of the event on which this scene is founded in the Paston Letters, published by Sir John Feun, vol. i. p. 38, Letter x. The scene is founded on the narration of Hall, which is copied by Holinshed. 2 The epithet blabbing, applied to the day by a man about to commit murder, is exquisitely beautiful. Guilt, if afraid of light, considers darkness as a natural shelter, and makes night the confidant of those actions which cannot be trusted to the tell-tale day.-Johnson. Spenser and Milton make use of the epithet :For Venus hated his all-blabbing light." Britain's Ida, c. ii. 'Ere the blabbing eastern scout.— Comus, v. 138. Remorseful is pitiful. 3 The chariot of the night is supposed by Shakspeare to be drawn by dragons. Vide Cymbeline, Act ii. Sc. 2. Vol. VI. 9 Mast. A thousand crowns, or else lay down your head. Mate. And so much shall you give, or off goes yours. *Cap. What, think you much to pay two thousand crowns, And bear the name and port of gentlemen?— Cut both the villains' throats;-for die you shall; * The lives of those which we have lost in fight Cannot be counterpois'd with such a petty sum. * 1 Gent. I'll give it, sir; and therefore spare my life. *2 Gent. And so will I, and write home for it straight. • Whit. I lost mine eye in laying the prize aboard, And therefore, to revenge it, shalt thou die; [ To SUF. And so should these, if I might have my will. Cap. Be not so rash; take ransome, let him live. Suf. Look on my George, I am a gentleman; Rate me at what thou wilt, thou shalt be paid. 'Whit. And so am I; my name is Walter Whit more. 'How now? why start'st thou? what, doth death affright? Suf. Thy name affrights me5, in whose sound is death. A cunning man did calculate my birth, suc 4 The word cannot, which is necessary to complete the sense of the passage, is not in the old copy: it was supplied by Malone. The difference between the captain's present and ceeding sentiments may be thus accounted for. Here he is only striving to intimidate his prisoners into a ready payment of their ransom. Afterwards his natural disposition inclines him to mercy, till he is provoked by the upbraidings of Suffolk. 5 Suffolk had heard his name before without being startled by it. In the old play, as soon as ever the captain has consigned him to Walter Whickmore,' he immediately exclaims, 'Walter Whickmore asks him why he fears him; and Suffolk replies, 'It is thy name affrights me.' The poet here, as in other instances, has fallen into an impropriety by sometimes following and sometimes deserting his original. And told me that by Water I should die": Ne'er yet did base dishonour blur our name, The duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole. Whit. The duke of Suffolk, muffled up in rags! Suf. Ay, but these rags are no part of the duke; Jove sometime went disguis'd, and why not I? Cap. But Jove was never slain, as thou shalt be. Suf. Obscure and lowly swain, King Henry's blood, The honourable blood of Lancaster, Must not be shed by such a jaded grooms. Hast thou not kiss'd thy hand, and held my stirrup? 'Bare-headed plodded by my footcloth mule, 6 Thus Drayton, in Queen Margaret's Epistle to this duke of Suffolk: I pray thee, Poole, have care how thou dost pass; And one foretold by water thou should'st die.' A note on these lines says, The witch of Eye received answer from the spirit, that the duke of Suffolk should take heed of water. See the fourth Scene of the first Act of this play The prophecy is differently stated by a contemporary in the Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 40:—Also he asked the name of the ship; and when he knew it, he remembered Stacy that said if he might escape the danger of the Tower he should be safe, and then his heart failed him.' The new image which Shakspeare has introduced into this speech- my arms torn and defaced'-is also found in King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 2. See note on that passage. 8 A jaded groom is a low fellow. Suffolk's boast of his own blood was hardly warranted by his origin. His great grandfather had been a merchant at Hull. If Shakspeare had known his pedigree he would not have failed to make some of his adversaries reproach him with it. And thought thee happy when I shook my head? Fed from my trencher, kneel'd down at the board, This hand of mine hath writ in thy behalf, swain? Cap. First let my words stab him, as he hath me. Suf. Base slave! thy words are blunt, and so art thou. Cap. Convey him hence, and on our longboat's Cap. Thou dar'st not for thy own. Poole? Poole? Sir Poole ? lord? Ay, kennel, puddle, sink; whose filth and dirt And thou, that smil'dst at good Duke Humphrey's death, Against the senseless winds shalt grin in vain, Who, in contempt, shall hiss at thee again: Pride that has had birth too soon. 10 By this expression, 'charm thy riotous tongue,' the poet meant Suffolk to say that it should be as potent as a charm in stopping his licentious talk. The same expression occurs in Othello, Act iv. Sc. 1, and is of common occurrence in the books of the poet's age. Thus in Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels: 6- charm your skipping tongue.' And Spenser, Faerie Queenc, b. v. c. 9: That well could charm his tongue and time his speech." |