pastime with us a day, or two, longer: If you seek us afterwards in other terms, you shall find us in our salt-water girdle: if you beat us out of it, it is yours; if you fall in the adventure, our crows shall fare the better for you; and there's an end. Luc. So, sir. CYм. I know your master's pleasure, and he mine: All the remain is, welcome. [Exeunt. SCENE II. Another Room in the Same. Enter PISANIO. PIs. How! of adultery? Wherefore write you not What monster's her accuser1?-Leonatus! O, master! what a strange infection Is fallen into thy ear? What false Italian On thy too ready hearing ?-Disloyal? No : vens. I What MONSTER's her ACCUSER?] The old copy has-What monsters her accuse? The correction was suggested by Mr. SteeThe order of the words, as well as the single person named by Pisanio, fully support the emendation. "What monsters her accuse?" for "What monsters accuse her?" could never have been written by Shakspeare in a soliloquy like the present. Mr. Pope and the three subsequent editors read-What monsters have accus'd her?" MALONE. (As poisonous tongue'd, as handed,)] About Shakspeare's time the practice of poisoning was very common in Italy, and the suspicion of Italian poisons yet more common. JOHNSON. 3 More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults As would take in some virtue 3.-O, my master! Thy mind to her is now as low, as were Thy fortunes. How! that I should murder her? Upon the love, and truth, and vows, which I Have made to thy command ?-I, her ?-her blood? If it be so to do good service, never Let me be counted serviceable. How look I, That I should seem to lack humanity, So much as this fact comes too? Do't. The letter [Reading. That I have sent her, by her own command 3 TAKE IN Some virtue.] To take in a town, is to conquer it. JOHNSON.. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: 66 - cut the Ionian seas, "And take in Toryne-." STEEVENS. 4 Thy mind to HER is now as low.] That is, thy mind compared to hers is now as low, as thy condition was, compared to hers. Our author should rather have written-thy mind to hers; but the text, I believe, is as he gave it. MALONE. That I have sent her, by her own command, Shall give thee opportunity:] Here we have another proof of what I have observed in The Dissertation at the end of King Henry VI. that our poet from negligence sometimes make words change their form under the eye of the speaker; who in different parts of the same play recites them differently, though he has a paper or letter in his hand, and actually reads from it. A former instance of this kind has occurred in All's Well That Ends Well. See vol. xi. p. 421. The words here read by Pisanio from his master's letter, (which is afterwards given at length, and in prose,) are not found there, though the substance of them is contained in it. This is one of many proofs that Shakspeare had no view to the publication of his pieces. There was little danger that such an inaccuracy should be detected by the ear of the spectator, though it could hardly escape an attentive reader. MALONE. Art thou a feodary for this act, and look'st Enter IMOGEN. I am ignorant in what I am commanded". PIs. Madam, here is a letter from my lord. 6 Art thou a FEODARY for this act,] A feodary is one who holds his estate under the tenure of suit and service to a superior lord. HANMER. "Art thou a feodary for this act." Art thou too combined, art thou a confederate, in this act?-A feodary did not signify a feudal vassal, as Sir Thomas Hanmer and the subsequent editors have supposed, (though if the word had borne that signification, it certainly could not bear it here,) but was an officer appointed by the Court of Wards, by virtue of the statute 32 Henry VIII. c. 46, to be present with, and assistant to the Escheators in every county at the finding of offices, and to give in evidence for the king. His duty was to survey the lands of the ward after office found, [i. e. after an inquisition had been made to the king's use,] and to return the true value thereof to the court, &c. "In cognoscendis rimandisque feudis (says Spelman) ad regem pertinentibus, et ad tenuras pro rege manifestandas tuendasque, operam navat; Escaetori ideo adjunctus, omnibusque nervis regiam promovens utilitatem." He was therefore, we see, the Escheator's associate, and hence Shakspeare, with his usual licence, uses the word for a confederate or associate in general. The feudal vassal was not called a feodary, but a feodatary and feudatory. In Latin, however, feudatarius signified both. MALONE. How a letter could be considered as a feudal vassal, according to Hanmer's interpretation, I am at a loss to know. Feodary means, here, a confederate, or accomplice. So, Leontes says of Hermione, in The Winter's Tale: 66 More, she's a traitor, and Camillo is "A federary with her." I also think that the word feodary has the same signification in Measure for Measure, though the other commentators do not, and have there assigned my reasons for being of that opinion. M. MASON. 7 I am ignorant in what I am commanded.] i. e. I am unpractised in the arts of murder. STEEVENS. So, in King Henry IV. Part I. : "O, I am ignorance itself in this." MALONE. 8 IMO. Who? thy lord? that is my lord? Leonatus? O, learn'd indeed were that astronomer, That knew the stars, as I his characters; He'd lay the future open.-You good gods, Let what is here contain'd relish of love, Of my lord's health, of his content, yet not, That we two are asunder,-let that grieve him 3, (Some griefs are med'cinable; that is one of them, For it doth physick love 9;)—of his content, All but in that !-Good wax, thy leave:-Bless'd be, You bees, that make these locks of counsel! Lovers, And men in dangerous bonds, pray not alike; Though forfeiters* you cast in prison, yet You clasp young Cupid's tables '.-Good news, gods! 8 * First folio, forfeytours. [Reads. let that grieve him,] I should wish to read: "Of my lord's health, of his content,—yet no ; "That we two are asunder, let that grieve him! TYRWHITT. Tyrwhitt wishes to amend this passage by reading no, instead of not, in the first line; but it is right as it stands, and there is nothing wanting to make it clear, but placing a stop longer than a comma, after the word asunder. The sense is this:-" Let the letter bring me tidings of my lord's health, and of his content; not of his content that we are asunder-let that circumstance grieve him; but of his content in every shape but that.” M. MASON. The text is surely right. Let what is here contained relish of my husband's content, in every thing except our being separate from each other. Let that one circumstance afflict him! MALONE. 9 For it doth PHYSICK love;] That is, grief for absence keeps love in health and vigour. JOHNSON. So, in The Winter's Tale; "It is a gallant child; one that indeed, physicks the subject, makes old hearts fresh." STEEVENS. Bless'd be, 1 You bees, that make these locks of counsel! Lovers, And men in dangerous bonds, pray not alike; Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet You clasp young Cupid's tables.] The meaning of this, which had been obscured by printing forfeitures for forfeiters, is no more than that the bees are not blessed by the man who forfeiting a bond is sent to prison, as they are by the lover for whom they perform the more pleasing office of sealing letters. STEEVENS. Justice, and your father's wrath, should he take me in his dominion, could not be so cruel to me, as you, O the dearest of creatures, would not even renew me with your eyes2. Take notice, that I am in Cambria, at Milford-Haven: What your own love will, out of this, advise you, follow. So, he wishes you all happiness, that remains loyal to his vow 3, and your, increasing in love, LEONATUS POSTHUMUS. 3 O, for a horse with wings!-Hear'st thou, Pisanio? 2 Justice, &c.] Old copy-"Justice, and your father's wrath, &c. could not be so cruel to me as you, O, the dearest of creatures, would even renew me with your eyes." This passage, which is probably erroneous, is nonsense, unless we suppose that the word as has the force of but. "Your father's wrath could not be so cruel to me, but you could renew me with your eyes." M. MASON. I know not what idea this passage presented to the late editors, who have passed it in silence. As it stands in the old copy, it appears to me unintelligible. The word not was, I think, omitted at the press, after would. By its insertion a clear sense is given : Justice and the anger of your father, should I be discovered here, could not be so cruel to me, but that you, O thou dearest of creatures, would be able to renovate my spirits by giving me the happiness of seeing you. Mr. Pope obtained the same sense by a less justifiable method'; by substituting but instead of as; and the three subsequent editors adopted that reading. MALONE. Mr. Malone reads-" would not," and I have followed him. STEEVENS. 3 that remains LOYAL TO HIS Vow, &c.] This subscription to the second letter of Posthumus, affords ample countenance to to Mr. M. Mason's conjecture concerning the conclusion of a former one. See p. 44, n. 4. STEEVENS. 4 and YOUR, increasing, &c.] We should, I think, read thus:-" and your, increasing in love, Leonatus Posthumus,”—to make it plain, that your is to be joined in construction with Leonatus, and not with increasing; and that the latter is a participle present, and not a noun. TYRWHITT. |