From bourn to bourn,] Making, &c. is travelling (with the hope of engaging your attention) from one division or boundary of the world to another; i. e. we hope to interest you by the variety of four scene, and the different countries through which we pursue our story. ld. l. 62. -for true old woe;] i. e. for such tears as were shed when, the world being in its infancy, dissimulation was unknown. All poetical writers are willing to persuade themselves that sincerity expired with the first ages. Id. 1. 69. A tempest, which his mortal vessel tears,] What is here called his mortal vessel (i. e. his body), is styled by Cleopatra her mortal house. Id. l. 70. Now please you wit-] Now be pleased to know. P. 500, c. 1, l. 6. -(and swears she'll never stint.)] She'll never cease. Id. l. 12. "while our scene must play"— MALONE. SCENE VI. Id. l. 50. Now, the gods to-bless your honour!] This use of to in composition with verbs (as Mr. Tyrwhitt remarks) is very common in Gower and Chaucer. Id. c. 2, l. 30. Were you a gamester, &c.] A gamester was formerly used to signify a wanton. Id. 1.71. Some more;-be sage.] Lysimachus says this with a sneer,-Proceed with your fine moral discourse. P. 501, c. 1, l. 9. under the cope,] i. e. under the cope or covering of heaven. Id. l. 37. my dish of chastity with rosemary and bays!] Anciently many dishes were served up with this garniture, during the season of Christmas. The bawd means to call her a piece of ostentatious virtue. ld. I. 51.. to every coystrel That hither comes enquiring for his tib;] To every mean or drunken fellow that comes to enquire for a girl. Coystrel is properly a wine-vessel. Tib is a contraction of Tabitha, probably it was formerly a cant name for a strumpet. Id. 1. 54. As hath been belch'd on by infected lungs.] Marina, who is designed for a character of juvenile innocence, appears much too knowing in the impurities of a brothel; nor are her expressions more chastised than her ideas. STEEVENS. Id. 1. 63. "For that which thou professest, a ba boon, could he speak, Would own a name too dear. That the gods Would safely from this place deliver me," &c. MALONE. 1. 33. Where what is done in action, more, if might,] Where all that may be displayed in action, shall be exhibited; and more should be shown, if our stage would permit. The poet seems to be aware of the difficulty of representing the ensuing scene. SCENE 1. Id.l.74. But to prorogue his grief.] To lengthen or prolong his grief. P. 502, c. 1, 7. 10. -one mortal night,] Mortal is here used for pernicious, destructive. Id. 1. 22. Through his deafen'd parts,] i. e. his 1d. ears. Id. l. 24. "She is all happy as the fairest of all, And, with her fellow maids, is now upon The leafy shelter,"-MALONE. 1. 29. Exit Lord, in the Barge of Lysimachus.] It may seem strange that a fable should have been chosen to form a drama upon, in which the greater part of the business of the last act should be transacted at sea: and wherein it should even be necessary to produce two vessels on the scene at the same time. But the customs and exhibitions of the modern stage give this objection to the play before us a greater weight than it really has. It appears, that when Pericles was originally performed, the theatres were furnished with no such apparatus as by any stretch of the imagination could be supposed to present either a sea, or a ship; and that the audience were contented to behold vessels sailing in and out of port, in their mind's eye only. This license being once granted to the poet, the lord, in the instance now before us, walked off the stage, and returned again in a few minutes, leading in Marina, without any sensible impropriety; and the present drama, exhibited before such indulgent spectators, was not more incommodious in the representation than any other woul have been. MALONE. Id. l. 50. Is't not a goodly presence?] Is she not beautiful in her form? Id. 1.58. "prosperous and artificial feat"-MALONE. Id. l. 76. "like a comet:"-MALONE. Id. c. 2, l. 4. - and awkward casualties-] Awkward is adverse. Id. 1. 36. You make more rich to owe?] To owe in ancient language is to possess. The meaning of the compliment is: These endowments. however valuable in themselves, are heightened by being in your possession. They acquire additional grace from their owner. STEEVENS. Id. l. 42. a palace For the crown'd truth to dwell in:] It is observable that our poet, when he means to represent any quality of the mind as eminently perfect, furnishes the imaginary being whom he personifies with a crown. Id. l. 62. and smiling Extremity out of act.] By her beauty and patient meekness disarming Calamity, and preventing her from using her uplifted sword. P. 503, c. 1, l. 5. No motion? i. e. no puppet dress'd up to deceive me. Id. l. 22. I will believe you by the syllable, &c.] i. e. I will believe every word you say. Id. l. 29. "drawn to do't,"-MALONE. Id. 1. 61. Though doubts did ever sleep.] i. e. though nothing ever happened to awake a scruple or doubt concerning your veracity. "tell me now ld. l. 68. My drowned queen's name (as in the rest you said Thou hast been goldlike perfect), the heir of kingdoms, And a mother like to Pericles thy father." MALONE. 510 EXPLANATORY NOTES ON PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE. SCENE II. P. 503, c. 2, l. 36. And give them repetition to the life.] i. e. Repeat your misfortunes so feelingly and so exactly, that the language of your narration may imitate to the life the transactions you relate. Id. i. 40. - goddess argentine,] That is, regent of the silver moon. Id. 1. 47. -blown sails;] i. e. swollen. Is by your fancy's thankful boon.] Thankful boon may signify-the license you grant grant us in return for the pleasure we have afforded you in the course of the play; or, the boon for which we thank you. But Mr. Malone reads "thankful doom." Id. l. 20. SCENE 111. who, O goddess, Wears yet thy silver livery.] i. e. her white robe of innocence, as being yet under the protection of the goddess of chastity. 1d. l. 51. -to my sense-] Sense is here used for sensual passion. Id. 1. 58. supposed dead, And drown'd.) Drown'd, in this instance, does not signify suffocated by water, but overwhelmed in it. Id. c. 2, l. 35. the fair-betrothed-] i. e. fairly contracted, honourably affianced. Id. l. 52. In Antioch,] i. e. Antiochus. To a former edition of this play were subjoined two Dissertations: one written by Mr. Steevens, the other by me. In the latter I urged such arguments as then appeared to me to have weight, to prove that it was the entire work of Shakspeare, and one of his earliest compositions. Mr. Steevens on the other hand maintained, that it was originally the production of some elder playwright, and afterwards improved by our poet, whose hand was acknowledged to be visible in many scenes throughout the play. On a review of the various arguments which each of us produced in favour of his own hypothesis, I am now convinced that the theory of Mr. Steevens was right, and have no difficulty in acknowledging my own to be erro neous. This play was entered on the Stationers books, together with Antony and Cleopatra, in the year 1608, by Edward Blount, a bookseller of eminence, and one of the publishers of the first folio edition of Shakspeare's works. It was printed with his name in the titlepage, in his lifetime; but this circumstance proves nothing; because by the knavery of booksellers other pieces were also ascribed to him in his lifetime, of which he indubitably wrote not a line. Nor is it necessary to urge in support of its genuineness, that at a subsequent period it was ascribed to him by several dramatic writers. I wish not to rely on any circumstance of that kind; because in all questions of this nature, internal evidence is the best that can be produced, and to every person intimately acquainted with our poet's writings, must in the present case be decisive. The congenial sentiments, the numerous expressions bearing a striking similitude to passages in his undisputed plays, some of the incidents, the situation of many of the persons, and in various places the colour of the style, all these combine to set the seal of Shakspeare on the play before us, and furnish us with internal and irresistible proofs, that a considerable portion of this piece, as it now appears, was written by him. The greater part of the last three acts, may, I think, on this ground be safely ascribed to him; and his hand may be traced occasionally in the other two divisions. To alter, new model, and improve the unsuccessful dramas of preceding writers, was, I believe, much more common in the time of Shakspeare than is generally supposed. This piece having been thus new-modelled by our poet, and enriched with many happy strokes from his pen, is unquestionably entitled to that place among his works, which it has now obtained MALONE. THE story of this tragedy had found its way into many ballads and other metrical pieces; yet Shakspeare seems to have been more indebted to The True Chronicle Historie of King Leir and his Three Daughters, Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordella, 1605, than to all the other performances together. It appears from the books at Stationers' Hall, that some play on this subject was entered by Edward White, May 14, 1594. "A booke entituled, The moste famous Chronicle Hystorie of Leire King of England, and his three Daughters." A piece with the same title is entered again, May 8, 1605; and again, Nov. 26, 1607. From The Mirror of Magistrates, 1587, Shakspeare has, however, taken the hint for the behaviour of the steward, and the reply of Cordelia to her father concerning her future marriage. The episode of Gloster and his sons must have been borrowed from Sidney's Arcadia, as I have not found the least trace of it in any other work. For the first King Lear, see likewise Six old Plays on which Shakspeare founded, &c. published for S. Leacroft, Charing-Cross. The reader will also find the story of K. Lear, in the second book and 10th canto of Spenser's Fairy Queen, and in the 15th chapter of the third book of Warner's Albion's England, 1602. The whole of this play, however, could not have been written till after 1603. Harsnet's pamphlet, to which it contains so many references, was not published till that year. STEEVENS. Camden, in his Remains (p. 306, ed. 1674), tells a similar story to this of Leir or Lear, of Ina king of the West-Saxons; which, if the thing ever happened, probably was the real origin of the fable. See under the head of Wise Speeches. PERCY. The story told by Camden in his Remaines, 4to. 1605, is this: "Ina, king of West-Saxons, had three daughters, of whom upon a time he demanded whether they did love him, and so would do during their lives, above all others: the two elder sware deeply they would; the youngest, but the wisest, told her father flatly, without flattery, that albeit she did love, honour, and reverence him, and so would whilst she lived, as much as nature and daughterly dutie at the uttermost could expect, yet she did think that one day it would come to passe that she should affect another more fervently, meaning her husband, when she were married; who being made one flesh with her, as God by commandment had told, and nature had taught her, she was to cleave fast to, forsaking father and mother, kiffe and kinne. (Anonymous.) One referred this to the daughters of King Leir." It is, I think, more probable that Shakspeare had this passage in his thoughts, when he wrote Cordelia's reply concerning her future marriage, than The Mirror for Magistrates, as Camden's book was published recently before he appears to have composed this play, and that portion of it which is entitled Wise Speeches, where the foregoing passage is found, furnished him with a hint in Coriolanus. The story of King Leir and his three daughters was originally told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, from whom Holinshed transcribed it; and in his Chronicle Shakspeare had certainly read it, as it occurs not far from that of Cymbeline; though the old play on the same subject probably first suggested to him the idea of making it the groundwork of a tragedy. Geoffrey of Monmouth says, that Leir, who was the eldest son of Bladud, "nobly governed his country for sixty years." According to that historian, he died about 800 years before the birth of Christ. The name of Leir's youngest daughter, which, in Geoffrey's history, in Holinshed, The Mirror for Magistrates, and the old anonymous play, is Cordeilla, Cordila, or Cordella, Shakspeare found softened into Cordelia, by Spenser, in his Second Book, Canto X. The names of Edgar and Edmund were probably suggested by Holinshed. See his Chronicle, Vol. I. p. 122. "Edgar, the son of Edmund, brother of Atheistane," &c. This tragedy, I believe, was written in 1605. MALONE KING LEAR. The tragedy of Lear is deservedly celebrated among the dramas of Shakspeare. There is perhaps no play which keeps the attention so strongly fixed; which so much agitates our passions, and interests our curiosity. The artful involutions of distinct interests, the striking oppositions of contrary characters, the sudden changes of fortune, and the quick succession of events, fill the mind with a perpetual tumult of indignation, pity, and hope. There is no scene which does not contribute to the aggravation of the distress or conduct to the action, and scarce a line which does not conduce to the progress of the scene. So powerful is the current of the poet's imagination, that the mind, which once ventures within it, is burried irresistibly along. On the seeming improbability of Lear's conduct, it may be observed, that he is represented according to histories at that time vulgarly received as true. And, perhaps, if we turn our thoughts upon the barbarity and ignorance of the age to which the story is referred, it will appear not so unlikely as while we estimate Lear's manners by our own. Such preference of one daughter to another, or resignation of dominion on such conditions, would be yet credible, if told of a petty prince of Guinea or Madagascar. Shakspeare, indeed, by the mention of his earls and dukes, has given us the idea of times more civilized, and of life regulated by softer manners; and the truth is, that though he so nicely discriminates, and so minutely describes the characters of men, he commonly neglects and confounds the chacharacters of ages, by mingling customs ancient and modern, English and foreign. My learned friend, Mr. Warton, who has in The Adventurer very minutely criticised this play, remarks, that the instances of cruelty are too savage and shocking, and that the intervention of Edmund destroys the simplicity of the story. These objections may, I think, be answered, by repeating, that the cruelty of the daughters is an historical fact, to which the poet has added little, having only drawn it into a series by dialogue and action. But I am not able to apologise with equal plausibility for the extrusion of Gloster's eyes, which seems an act too horrid to be endured in dramatic exhibition, and such as must always compel the mind to relieve its distress by incredulity. Yet let it be remembered that our author well knew what would please the audience for which he wrote. The injury done by Edmund to the simplicity of the action is abundantly recompensed by the addition of variety, by the art with which he is made to co-operate with the chief design, and the opportunity which he gives the poet of combining perfidy, and connecting the wicked son with the wicked daughters, to impress this important moral, that villany is never at a stop, that crimes lead to crimes, and at last terminate in ruin. But though this moral be incidentally enforced, Shakspeare has suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and what is yet more strange, to the faith of chronicles. Yet this conduct is justified by The Spectator, who blames Tate for giving Cordelia success and happiness in his alteration, and declares, that in his opinion, the tragedy has lost half its beauty. Dennis has remarked, whether justly or not, that, to secure the favourable reception of Cato, the town was poisoned with much false and abominable criticism and that endeavours had been used to discredit and decry poetical justice. A play in which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry, may doubtless be good, because it is a just representation of the common events of human life: but since all reasonable beings naturally love justice, I cannot easily be persuaded, that the observation of justice makes a play worse; or that, if other excellencies are equal, the audience will not always rise better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue. In the present case, the public has decided. Cordelia, from the time of Tate, has always retired with victory and felicity. And, if my sensations could add any thing to the general suffrage, I might relate, I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia's death, that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play, till I undertook to revise them as an editor. There is another controversy among the critics concerning this play. It is disputed whether the predominant image in Lear's disordered mind be the loss of his kingdom or the cruelty of his daughters. Mr. Murphy, a very judicious critic, has evinced, by induction of particular passages, that the cruelty of his daughters is the primary source of his distress, and that the loss of royalty affects him only as a secondary and subordinate evil. He observes, with great justness, that Lear would move our compassion but little, did we not rather consider the injured father than the degraded king. The story of this play, except the episode of Edmund, which is derived, I think, from Sidney, is taken originally from Geoffry of Moumouth, whom Holinshed generally copied; but perhaps immediately from an old historical ballad. My reason for believing that the play was posterior to the ballad, rather than the ballad to the play, is, that the ballad has nothing of Shakspeare's nocturnal tempest, which is too striking to have been omitted, and that it follows the chronicle; it has the rudiments of the play, but none of its amplifications; it first hinted Lear's madness, but did not array it in circumstances. The writer of the ballad added something to the history, which is a proof that he would have added more, if more had occurred to his mind; and more must have occurred if he had seen Shakspeare. Johnson. Knights attending on the King, Officers, Messengers, SCENE,-Britain. SCENE I-A Room of State in King Lear's Palace. Enter KENT, GLOSTER, and EDMUND. Kent. I thought, the king had more affected the duke of Albany, than Cornwall. Glo. It did always seem so to us: but now, in the division of the kingdom, it appears not which of the dukes he values most; for equalities are so weigh'd, that curiosity in neither can make choice of either's moiety. Kent. Is not this your son, my lord? Glo. His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blush'd to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to it. Kent. I cannot conceive you. Gio. Sir, this young fellow's mother could: whereupon she grew round-wombed; and had, indeed, sir, a sou for her cradle, ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault? Kent. I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper. Glo. But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account: though this knave came somewhat saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair; there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged.-Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund ? Edm. No, my lord. Glo. My lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as my honourable friend. Edm. My services to your lordship. Kent. I must love you, and sue to know you better. Edm. Sir, I shall study deserving. Glo. He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again:-The king is coming. Trumpets sound within.) KK |