May blame, but not control. Who's there? The traitor? Re-enter Servants, with GLOster. REG. Ingrateful fox! 'tis he. CORN. Bind fast his corky arms *. GLO. What mean your graces ?--Good my friends, consider You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends. CORN. Bind him, I say. REG. Servants bind him. Hard, hard :-O filthy traitor! GLO. Unmerciful lady as you are, I am none 3. CORN. To this chair bind him :-Villain, thou shalt find- [REGAN plucks his Beard. GLO. By the kind gods, 'tis most ignobly done To pluck me by the beard. in If this be not a good Play, the Devil is in it, 1612: " A jury of brokers, impanel'd, and deeply sworn to passe on all villains in hell." STEEVENS. 4- corky arms.] Dry, withered, husky arms. JOHNSON. As Shakspeare appears from other passages of this play to have had in his eye Bishop Harsnet's Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures, &c. 1603, 4to. it is probable, that this very expressive, but peculiar epithet, corky, was suggested to him by a passage in that very curious pamphlet: "It would pose all the cunning exorcists, that are this day to be found, to teach an old corkie woman to writhe, tumble, curvet, and fetch her morice gamboles, as Martha Bressier (one of the possessed mentioned in the pamphlet) did." PERCY. S -I am none.] Thus the folio. The quartos read-“ I am true." MALONE. By the kind gods,] We are not to understand by this the gods in general, who are beneficent and kind to men: but that particular species of them called by the ancients di hospitales, kind gods. So, Plautus, in Pœnulo: Deum hospitalem ac tesseram mecum fero. WARBURTON. Shakspeare hardly received any assistance from mythology to furnish out a proper oath for Gloster. People always invoke their deities as they would have them show themselves at particular times in their favour; and he accordingly calls those kind gods whom he would wish to find so on this occasion. He does so yet REG. So white, and such a traitor! GLO. Naughty lady, These hairs, which thou dost ravish from my chin, Will quicken, and accuse thee: I am your host; With robbers' hands, my hospitable favours You should not ruffle thus. What will you do? CORN. Come, sir, what letters had you late from France ? 8 REG. Be simple-answer'd, for we know the truth. CORN. And what confederacy have you with the traitors Late footed in the kingdom? REG. To whose hands have you sent the lunatick Speak. king, GLO. I have a letter guessingly set down, Which came from one that's of a neutral heart, And not from one oppos'd. CORN. REG. CORN. Where hast thou sent the king? GLO. REG. a second time in this scene. Cunning. And false. To Dover. Wherefore Our own liturgy will sufficiently evince the truth of my supposition. STEEVENS. Cordelia also uses the same invocation in the 4th Act: "O, you kind gods, "Cure this great breach in his abused nature! " M. MASON. 7 Will quicken,] i. e. quicken into life. M. MASON. 8 my hospitable FAVOURS] Favours means the same as features, i. e. the different parts of which a face is composed. So, in Drayton's epistle from Matilda to King John: "Within the compass of man's face we see, "How many sorts of several favours be. Again, in David and Bethsabe, 1599: "To daunt the favours of his lovely face." STEEVENS. 9 Be simple-answer'd,] The old quarto reads, Be simple answerer.-Either is good sense: simple means plain. STEEVENS. To Dover? Wast thou not charg'd at peril 1— CORN. Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that. GLO. I am tied to the stake 2, and I must stand 3 the course REG. Wherefore to Dover ? GLO. Because I would not see thy cruel nails Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs *. The sea, with such a storm as his bare head In hell-black night endur'd, would have buoy'd up, And quench'd the stelled * fires: yet, poor old heart, He holp the heavens to rain 3. If wolves had at thy gate howl'd that stern time, Thou should'st have said, Good porter, turn the key; I *First folio, steeled. THY peril] I have inserted the pronoun-thy, for the sake of metre. STEEVENS. 2 I am tied to the stake,] So, in Macbeth : 3 "They have chain'd me to a stake; I cannot fly, 66 But, bear-like, I must fight the course." STEEVENS. the course.] The running of the dogs upon me. JOHNSON. 4-STICK boarish fangs.] The quartos read-" rash boarish fangs." This verb occurs in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. iv. c. ii. : "And shields did share, and mailes did rash, and helmes did hew." Again, b. v. c. iii.: 66 Rashing off helmes, and ryving plates asunder." To rash is the old hunting term for the stroke made by a wild boar with his fangs. So, in Chapman's version of the eleventh Iliad : As when two chased boars "Turn head gainst kennels of bold hounds, and race way through their gores." STEEVENS. 5- to RAIN.] Thus the folio. The quartos read-to rage. STEEVENS. that STERN time,] Thus the folio. Both the quartos read-" that dearn time." Dearn is a north-country word, signifying lonely, solitary, secret, obscure, melancholy, uncomfortable, far from neighbours. So, in The Valiant Scot:, "Of all thy joys the dearne and dismal end." All cruels else subscrib'd' :-But I shall see 8 Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot. [GLOSTER is held down in his Chair, while CORNWALL plucks out one of his Eyes, and sets his Foot on it. GLO. He, that will think to live till he be old, Give me some help :-O cruel! O ye gods! REG. One side will mock another; the other too. CORN. If you see vengeance, SERV. Hold your hand, my lord: I have serv'd you ever since I was a child; But better service have I never done you, Than now to bid you hold. REG. How now, you dog? SERV. If you did wear a beard upon your chin, I'd shake it on this quarrel: What do you mean? Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. ii. c. i.: "They heard a rueful voice that dearnly cride.” Again, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 1609: "By many a dearne and painful pearch." The reading in the text, however, is countenanced by the following passage in Chapman's version of the 24th Iliad: in this so sterne a time 66 "Of night and danger-." STEEVENS. 7-subscrib'd ;] Yielded, submitted to the necessity of the occasion. JOHNSON. & Upon these eyes, &c.] In Selimus, Emperor of the Turks, one of the sons of Bajazet pulls out the eyes of an Aga on the stage, and says Yes, thou shalt live, but never see that day, "Wanting the tapers that should give thee light. [Pulls out his eys Immediately after, his hands are cut off. I have introduced this passage to show that Shakspeare's drama was not more sanguinary than that of his contemporaries. STEEVENS. In Marston's Antonio's Revenge, 1602, Piero's tongue is torn out on the stage. MALONE. CORN. My villain'!) [Draws and runs at him. SERV. Nay, then come on, and take the chance of anger. [Draws. They fight. CORNWALL is wounded. REG. Give me thy sword.-[To another Serv.] A peasant stand up thus ! Snatches a Sword, comes behind, and stabs him. SERV. O, I am slain !-My lord, you have one eye left To see some mischief on him:-O! [Dies. CORN. Lest it see more, prevent it :-Out, vile jelly! Where is thy lustre now? [Tears out GLOSTER'S other Eye, and throws it on the Ground. GLO. All dark and comfortless.-Where's my son Edmund ? Edmund, enkindle * all the sparks of nature, REG. Out, treacherous villain! Thou call'st on him that hates thee: it was he Who is too good to pity thee. GLO. Then Edgar was abus'd. 1 O my follies! Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him! REG. Go, thrust him out at gates, and let him smell His way to Dover.-How is't, my lord? you? * Quartos, unbridle. How look 9 My villain!] Villain is here perhaps used in its original sense of one in servitude. STEEVENS. -the OVERTURE of thy treasons-] Overture is here used for an opening or discovery. It was he who first laid thy treasons open to us. Coles, in his Dict. 1679, renders Overture, by apertior apertura. An overt act of treason, is the technical phrase. MALOne. |