It is your fault that I have lov'd Posthumus. Cym. pays. What! art thou mad? Imo. Almost, sir: heaven restore me!-Would I were A neat-herd's daughter, and my Leonatus Our neighbour-shepherd's son! Cym. Re-enter QUEEN. Thou foolish thing!— [To the Queen. They were again together: you have done Queen. Beseech your patience.-Peace! Dear lady daughter, peace!- Sweet sovereign, Leave us to ourselves; and make yourself some comfort Queen. Fie!-you must give way: [Exit. Here is your servant.-How now, sir? What news? Queen. No harm, I trust, is done? Pis. Ha! There might have been, But that my master rather play'd than fought, Queen. I am very glad on't. Imo. Your son's my father's friend; he takes his part.To draw upon an exile!-Oh brave sir! the Rev. Mr. Dyce has endeavoured to re-introduce, has been the source of much corruption in the language of our early dramatists. We have already seen that he has gone the length of arguing, on account of the frequency of this old blunder, that "wild world" (as the text of "Antony and Cleopatra " properly stands in nearly every edition from 1623 down to the time of Malone) ought to be the poor and trite expression, “vile world :" see this Vol. p. 250. I would they were in Afric both together, The goer back.-Why came you from your master? This hath been Queen. Go see my lord aboard: for this time, leave me. [Exeunt. SCENE III. A Public Place. Enter CLOTEN, and two Lords. 1 Lord. Sir, I would advise you to shift a shirt: the violence of action hath made you reek as a sacrifice. Where air comes out, air comes in; there's none abroad so wholesome as that you vent. Clo. If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it—Have I hurt him? 2 Lord. [Aside.] No, faith; not so much as his patience. 1 Lord. Hurt him? his body's a passable carcass, if he be not hurt it is a thoroughfare for steel, if it be not hurt. 2 Lord. [Aside.] His steel was in debt; it went o' the backside the town. Clo. The villain would not stand me. 2 Lord. [Aside.] No; but he fled forward still, toward your face. 1 Lord. Stand you! you have land enough of your own; but he added to your having, gave you some ground. 3 Lord. [Aside.] As many inches as you have oceans.— Puppies! Clo. I would they had not come between us. 2 Lord. [Aside.] So would I, till you had measured how long a fool you were upon the ground. Clo. And that she should love this fellow, and refuse me! 2 Lord. [Aside.] If it be a sin to make a true election, she is damned. 1 Lord. Sir, as I told you always, her beauty and her brain go not together: she's a good sign, but I have seen small reflection of her wit°. 2 Lord. [Aside.] She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection should hurt her". Clo. Come, I'll to my chamber. Would there had been some hurt done! 2 Lord. [Aside.] I wish not so: unless it had been the fall of an ass, which is no great hurt. Clo. You'll go with us? 1 Lord. I'll attend your lordship. Clo. Nay, come; let's go together. 2 Lord. Well, my lord. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A Room in CYMBELINE'S Palace. Enter IMOGEN and PISANIO. Imo. I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' the haven, And question'dst every sail: if he should write, And I not have it, 'twere a paper lost, As offer'd mercy is. What was the last That he spake to thee? Pis. It was, his queen, his queen ! And kiss'd it, madam. Imo. Then wav'd his handkerchief? Pis. Imo. Senseless linen, happier therein than I!— And that was all? 6 Pis. No, madam; for so long but I have seen small reflection of her wit.] To understand (says Steevens) the whole force of Shakespeare's idea, it should be remembered that anciently almost every sign had a motto, or some attempt at a witticism, underneath it. 7 She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection should hurt her.] "Reflection" is here used in a double sense-lest the reflection that she had shone upon fools might cause her annoyance. As he could make me, with this eye or ear, Imo. Thou shouldst have made him As little as a crow, or less, ere left To after-eye him. Pis. Madam, so I did. Imo. I would have broke mine eye-strings, crack'd them, but To look upon him, till the diminution Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle; Nay, follow'd him, till he had melted from The smallness of a gnat to air; and then Have turn'd mine eye, and wept.-But, good Pisanio, Pis. With his next vantage. Be assur'd, madam, Imo. I did not take my leave of him, but had Such thoughts, and such; or I could make him swear Mine interest, and his honour; or have charg'd him, I am in heaven for him; or ere I could Give him that parting kiss, which I had set Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father, with THIS eye or car,] In the folios, "with his eye or ear;" but the eye or ear which was to distinguish Posthumus was that of Pisanio: it was, doubtless, a mere error of the press. Coleridge (Lit. Rem. Vol. ii. p. 127) recommends the substitution of the for his of the folio, but it seems more likely that the letter t had dropped out. 9 Betwixt two CHARMING words,] The old meaning of to "charm was to enchant, and in this sense we suppose it to have been used by Imogen in this passage: she would have set the kiss "betwixt two charming words," in order, perhaps, to secure it from "the shes of Italy." The allusion to them is an admirable preparation for what succeeds in the play. 1 SHAKES all our buds from GROWING.] Warburton substituted shuts for "shakes," and blowing for "growing," but without the slightest pretence. All Enter a Lady. Desires your highness' company. The queen, madam, Imo. Those things I bid you do, get them dispatch'd. I will attend the queen. Pis. Rome. An Apartment in PHILARIO'S House. Enter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, a Frenchman, a Dutchman, and a Spaniard. Iach. Believe it, sir, I have seen him in Britain: he was then of a crescent note; expected to prove so worthy, as since he hath been allowed the name of; but I could then have looked on him without the help of admiration, though the catalogue of his endowments had been tabled by his side, and I to peruse him by items. Phi. You speak of him when he was less furnished, than now he is, with that which makes him, both without and within. French. I have seen him in France: we had very many there could behold the sun with as firm eyes as he. Iach. This matter of marrying his king's daughter, (wherein he must be weighed rather by her value, than his own) words him, I doubt not, a great deal from the matter. French. And, then, his banishment.— Iach. Ay, and the approbations of those, that weep this lamentable divorce under her colours, are wont wonderfully to extend him; be it but to fortify her judgment, which else the old copies agree; and Shakespeare has expressed the same thought, in nearly the same words, in his 18th Sonnet, cited by Steevens: "Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May." Farmer quoted some lines from "The Two Noble Kinsmen," A. iii. sc. 1, in support of Warburton's changes, and Mr. Singer, re-quoting them without reference, commits Farmer's textual error: see Dyce's Beaumont and Fletcher, Vol. xi. p. 360. It is always dangerous to take a passage upon trust. are WONT wonderfully to extend him;] 1632, and some word of the kind is necessary. 2 "Wont" is from the corr. fo. Other emendations by the same |