Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

This youth, howe'er distress'd2, appears, he hath had Good ancestors.

ARV.

How angel-like he sings!

GUI. But his neat cookery! He cut our roots in
4
characters *;

And sauc'd our broths, as Juno had been sick,
And he her dieter.

ARV.

Nobly he yokes

A smiling with a sigh: as if the sigh

Was that it was, for not being such a smile;
The smile mocking the sigh, that it would fly

And so shall be ever.] The adverb-so, was supplied by Sir Thomas Hanmer for the sake of metre.

2 Imo. Well or ill

I am bound to you.

Bel. And so shalt be ever.

This youth, howe'er distressed, &c.]

STEEVENS.

These speeches are

improperly distributed between Imogen and Belarius; and I flatter myself that every reader of attention will approve of my amending the passage, and dividing them in the following manner: Imo. Well, or ill,

66

"I am bound to you; and shall be ever,

"Bel. This youth, howe'er distress'd," &c. M. MASON. "And shall be ever." That is, you shall ever receive from me the same kindness that you do at present: you shall thus only be bound to me for ever. MALONE.

3 Gui. But his neat cookery! &c.] Only the first four words of this speech are given in the old copy to Guiderius: The name of Arviragus is prefixed to the remainder, as well as to the next speech. The correction was made by Mr. Steevens. MALONE. Mr. Steevens adopted the correction; it was made by Mr. Capell. BOSWELL.

4

He CUT our roots IN CHARACTERS ;] So, in Fletcher's Elder Brother, Act IV:

"And how to cut his meat in characters."

STEEVENS.

From so divine a temple, to commix
With winds that sailors rail at.

GUI.

I do note,

That grief and patience, rooted in him both 5,
Mingle their spurs together".

ARV.

Grow, patience! And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine

His perishing root, with the increasing vine"! BEL. It is great mornings. Come; away.-Who's there ?

5

rooted in HIM both,] Old copy-in them. Corrected by Mr. Pope, MALONE.

6 Mingle their SPURS together.] Spurs, an old word for the fibres of a tree. РОРЕ.

Spurs are the longest and largest leading roots of trees. Our poet has again used the same word in The Tempest:

66

the strong bas'd promontory

"Have I made shake, and by the spurs
"Pluck'd up the pine and cedar."

Hence probably the spur of a post; the short wooden buttress affixed to it, to keep it firm in the ground. MALONE.

7 And let the stinking ELDER, GRIEF, UNTWINE

His perishing root, with the increasing VINE!] Shakspeare had only seen English vines which grow against walls, and therefore may be sometimes entangled with the elder. Perhaps we should read-untwine-from the vine. JOHNSON.

Surely this is the meaning of the words without any change. May patience increase, and may the stinking elder, grief, no longer twine his decaying [or destructive, if perishing is used actively,] root with the vine, patience thus increasing!-As to untwine is here used for to cease to twine, so, in King Henry VIII. Act III. Sc. II. the word uncontemned having been used, the poet has constructed the remainder of the sentence as if he had written not contemned. See vol. vi. p. 374, n. 7. MALone.

He says

"Let

Sir John Hawkins proposes to read-entwine. the stinking elder [Grief] entwine his root with the vine [Patience] and in the end Patience must outgrow Grief." STEEVENS. There is no need of alteration. The elder is a plant whose roots are much shorter lived than the vine's, and as those of the vine swell and outgrow them, they must of necessity loosen their hold. HENLEY.

It is great morning.] A Gallicism. Grand jour. See the same phrase vol. viii. p. 369. STEEVENS.

Enter CLOTEN.

CLO. I cannot find those runagates; that villain Hath mock'd me :-I am faint.

BEL.

Those runagates!

Means he not us? I partly know him; 'tis

Cloten, the son o' the queen. I fear some ambush.
I saw him not these many years, and yet

I know 'tis he :-We are held as outlaws:-Hence.
GUI. He is but one: You and my brother search
What companies are near: pray you, away;
Let me alone with him.

CLO.

[Exeunt BELARIUS and ARVIRagus.
Soft! What are you

That fly me thus ? some villain mountaineers ?
I have heard of such.-What slave art thou?

GUI.

More slavish did I ne'er, than answering
A slave without a knock 9.

CLO.

A thing

Thou art a robber,

A law-breaker, a villain: Yield thee, thief.

GUI. To who? to thee? What art thou? Have

not I

An arm as big as thine ? a heart as big?

Thy words, I grant, are bigger; for I wear not My dagger in my mouth'. Say, what thou art ; Why I should yield to thee?

[blocks in formation]

A SLAVE without a knock.] Than answering that abusive word slave. Slave should be printed in Italicks. M. MASON. Mr. M. Mason's interpretation is supported by a passage in

Romeo and Juliet:

"Now, Tybalt, take the villain back again."

1 - for I wear not

MALONE.

My dagger in my mouth,] So, in Solyman and Perseda,

1599:

66

"I fight not with my tongue: this is my oratrix."

MALONE.

CLO.

Thou villain base,

Know'st me not by my clothes?

Gui.

No2, nor thy tailor, rascal,

Who is thy grandfather; he made those clothes, Which, as it seems, make thee 3.

CLO.

My tailor made them not.

GUI.

Thou precious varlet,

Hence then, and thank

The man that gave them thee. Thou art some

fool;

I am loath to beat thee.

CLO.

Thou injurious thief,

What's thy name?

Hear but my name, and tremble.

GUI.

CLO. Cloten, thou villain.

GUI. Cloten, thou double villain, be thy name, I cannot tremble at it: were it toad, or adder,

spider,

"Twould move me sooner.

CLO.

Nay, to thy mere confusion, thou shalt know

I'm son to the queen.

GUI.

So worthy as thy birth.

CLO.

To thy further fear,

I'm sorry for't; not seeming

Art not afeard?

GUI. Those that I reverence, those I fear, the

[blocks in formation]

My voice is in my sword." BoSWELL.

No,] This negation is at once superfluous and injurious to

[blocks in formation]

3 No, nor thy TAILOR, rascal,

Who is thy GRANDFATHER; he made those clothes,

Which as it seems, make thee.] See a note on a similar passage in a former scene, p. 117, n. 9. STEEVens.

CLO.

Die the death 4:

When I have slain thee with my proper hand,
I'll follow those that even now fled hence,

And on the gates of Lud's town set your heads :
Yield, rustick mountaineer".

[Exeunt, fighting.

Enter BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS.

BEL. No company's abroad.

ARV. None in the world: You did mistake him,

sure.

BEL. I cannot tell: Long is it since I saw him, But time hath nothing blurr'd those lines of favour Which then he wore; the snatches in his voice,

4 Die the death:] See vol. ix. p. 92, n. 1; and vol. v. p. 179, n. 3. STEEVENS.

5 Yield, rustick mountaineer.] I believe, upon examination, the character of Cloten will not prove a very consistent one. Act I. Sc. IV. the Lords who are conversing with him on the subject of his rencontre with Posthumus, represent the latter as having neither put forth his strength or courage, but still advancing forwards to the prince, who retired before him; yet at this his last appearance, we see him fighting gallantly, and falling by the hand of Guiderius. The same persons afterwards speak of him as of a mere ass or ideot; and yet, Act III. Sc. I. he returns one of the noblest and most reasonable answers to the Roman envoy and the rest of his conversation on the same occasion, though it may lack form a little, by no means resembles the language of folly. He behaves with proper dignity and civility at parting with Lucius, and yet is ridiculous and brutal in his treatment of Imogen. Belarius describes him as not having sense enough to know what fear is (which he defines as being sometimes the effect of judgment); and yet he forms very artful schemes for gaining the affection of his mistress, by means of her attendants; to get her person into his power afterwards; and seems to be no less acquainted with the character of his father, and the ascendancy the Queen maintained over his uxorious weakness. We find Cloten, in short, represented at once as brave and dastardly, civil and brutish, sagacious and foolish, without that subtilty of distinction, and those shades of gradation between sense and folly, virtue and vice, which constitute the excellence of such mixed characters as Polonius in Hamlet, and the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. STEEVENS.

« PreviousContinue »