ALL. Live, noble Helicane! HEL. Try honour's caufe;3 forbear your fuffrages: Where's hourly trouble, for a minute's ease.4 3- Try honour's caufe ;] Perhaps we should read: Where's hourly trouble, &c.] Thus the old copy. STEEVENS. It must be acknowledged that a line in Hamlet,"Or to take arms against a sea of troubles," as well as the rhyme, adds fome support to this reading: yet I have no doubt that the poet wrote: I leap into the seat, So, in Macbeth : I have no fpur "To prick the fides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'er-leaps itself," &c. On fhip-board the pain and pleasure may be in the proportion here stated; but the troubles of him who plunges into the fea, (unless he happens to be an expert swimmer) are seldom of an hour's duration. MALONE. Where's hourly trouble, for a minute's ease.] So, in King Richard III : "And each hour's joy wreck'd with a week of teen.” MALONE. The expreffion is figurative, and by the words-I leap into the feas, &c. I believe the speaker only means-I embark too haftily on an expedition in which ease is disproportioned to labour. To forbear &c.] Old copy: To forbear the abfence of your king. STEEVENS. Some word being omitted in this line, I read: To forbear choice i'the abfence of your king. STEEVENS. Go fearch like noblemen, like noble subjects, You fhall like diamonds fit about his crown." 1 LORD. To wifdom he's a fool that will not yield; And, fince lord Helicane enjoineth us, We with our travels will endeavour it.7 HEL. Then you love us, we you, and we'll clafp hands; When peers thus knit, a kingdom ever ftands. [Exeunt. You shall like diamonds fit about his crown.] As these are the concluding lines of a fpeech, perhaps they were meant to rhyme. We might therefore read: and win unto renown. i. e. if you prevail on him to quit his present obfcure retreat, and be reconciled to glory, you fhall be acknowledged as the brightest ornaments of his throne. STEEVENS. 7 We with our travels will endeavour it.] Old copy : We with our travels will endeavour. Endeavour what? I fuppofe, to find out Pericles. I have therefore added the fyllable which appeared wanting both to metre and fenfe. STEEVENS. The author might have intended an abrupt sentence. MALONE. I would readily concur with the opinion of Mr. Malone, had paffion, inftead of calm refolution, dictated the words of the speaker. STEEVENS. SCENE V. Pentapolis. A Room in the Palace. Enter SIMONIDES, reading a Letter, the Knights meet him. 1 KNIGHT. Good morrow to the good Simonides. That for this twelvemonth, fhe'll not undertake Her reason to herself is only known, 2 KNIGHT. May we not get access to her, my SIM. 'Faith, by no means; fhe hath so strictly tied her To her chamber, that it is impoffible. One twelve moons more fhe'll wear Diana's livery ; "two kynges In The Hiftorie of King Appolyn of Thyre, fones" pay their court to the daughter of Archystrates, (the Simonides of the prefent play). He fends two rolls of paper to her, containing their names, &c. and defires her to choose which the will marry. She writes him a letter (in answer), of which Appolyn is the bearer,—that she will have the man "which hath paffed the daungerous undes and perylles of the fea-all other to refufe." The fame circumftance is mentioned by Gower, who has introduced three fuitors instead of two, in which our author has followed him. MALone. In Twine's tranflation, these fuitors are also three in number, -Ardonius, Munditius, and Carnillus. STEEVENS. This by the eye of Cynthia hath fhe vow'd,' And on her virgin honour will not break it. 3 KNIGHT. Though loath to bid farewell, we take our leaves. SIM. SO [Exeunt. They're well despatch'd; now to my daughter's let ter: She tells me here, fhe'll wed the stranger knight, Mistress, 'tis well, your choice agrees with mine; And will no longer have it be delay'd. Enter PERICLES. PER. All fortune to the good Simonides ! SIM. To you as much, fir! I am beholden to you, For your sweet musick this last night:1 my ears, 9 This by the eye of Cynthia hath She vow'd,] It were to be wished that Simonides (who is represented as a blameless character) had hit on fome more ingenuous expedient for the difmiffion of these wooers. Here he tells them as a folemn truth, what he knows to be a fiction of his own. STEEVENS. I am beholden to you, For your sweet mufick this last night :] Here also our author has followed Gower: "She, to doone hir faders heft, "Hir harpe fet, and in the feste Upon a chaire, whiche thei fette, I do proteft, were never better fed PER. It is your grace's pleasure to commend; Not my defert. SIM. Sir, you are mufick's mafter. PER. The worst of all her scholars, my good lord. SIM. Let me ask one thing. What do fir, of My daughter? PER. you think, As of a moft virtuous princess. SIM. And the is fair too, is she not? PER. As a fair day in fummer; wond'rous fair. SIM. My daughter, fir, thinks very well of Ay, fo well, fir, that you must be her master, And fhe'll your scholar be; therefore look to it. 2 you; PER. Unworthy I to be her schoolmaster.2 "To make him chere; and ever he figheth, "Madame, certes well, he faied; "But if ye the measure plaied, "Whiche, if you lift, I fhall you lere, "Nowe take the harpe, and lete me fee ye mene. "He taketh the harpe, and in his wise "Synginge he harpeth forth withall, "Hem thought it fowned in her ere, MALONE. -to be her schoolmaster.] Thus the quarto, 1619. The first copy reads for her fchoolmafter. MALONE. |