* What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails, * Can neither call it perfect day, nor night. 'Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea, 'Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind; 'Now fways it that way, like the self-fame sea Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind : 'Sometime, the flood prevails; and then, the wind; 'Now, one the better; then, another best; 'Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast, Yet neither conqueror, nor conquered : So is the equal poise of this fell war. * Here on this molehill will I fit me down. * To whom God will, there be the victory! For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too, * Have chid me from the battle; swearing both, 'They profper best of all when I am thence. ''Would I were dead! if God's good will were so: 'For what is in this world, but grief and woe? * O God! methinks, it were a happy life, Virgil, however, Æn. Lib. X. v. 354, has a fimilar comparifon: "Nunc hi, nunc illi: certatur limine in ipso "Anceps pugna diu: stant obnixi omnia contra," &c. This fimile, however, originates with Homer; Iliad, XIV. STEEVENS. 6 the Shepherd, blowing of his nails,] So, in Love's La bour's Loft : "When icicles hang by the wall, "And Dick the Shepherd blows his nail,-." MALONE. Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,] Hence, perhaps, the vulgarism that gives such acknowledged force to the following line in Lee's Rival Queens : "When Greeks join'd Greeks, then was the tug of war." STEEVENS. methinks, it were a happy life,] This speech is mournful and soft, exquifitely fuited to the character of the King, and ** To be no better than a homely swain; * To fit upon a hill, as I do now, * To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, * Thereby to fee the minutes how they run : * How many make the hour full complete, * How many hours bring about the day, * How many days will finish up the year, * How many years a mortal man may live. * When this is known, then to divide the times : * So many hours must I tend my flock; * So many hours must I take my reft; * So many hours must I cóntemplate; * So many hours must I sport myself; * So many days my ewes have been with young; * So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean; * So many years ere I shall sheer the fleece: makes a pleasing interchange, by affording, amidst the tumult and horror of the battle, an unexpected glimse of rural innocence and paftoral tranquillity. JOHNSON. This speech strongly confirms the remark made by Sir Joshua Reynolds on a passage in Macbeth, Vol. X. p. 72, n. 3. MALONE. Thereby to see the minutes how they run : How many make the hour full complete,] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece: I "Stuff up his lufst, as minutes fill up hours." MALONE. -ere the poor fools will yean;] Poor fool, it has already been observed, is an expreffion of tenderness, often used by our author. MALONE. So, in King Lear, scene the last : "And my poor fool is hang'd." See notes on this passage, Vol. XVII. STEEVENS. 2 So many years ere I shall sheer the fleece:] i. e. the years which must elapse between the time of the yeaning of the ewes, and the lambs arriving to such a state as to admit of being shorn. Mr. Rowe changed years to months; which was followed by the subsequent editors; and in the next line inserted the word weeks; not observing that hours is used there, and throughout this speech, VOL, XIV. G * So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years, * Pass'd over to the end they were created, * Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. * Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely! * Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade * To shepherds, looking on their filly sheep, * Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy * To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery? * O, yes it doth; a thousand fold it doth. * And to conclude, -the shepherd's homely curds, * His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle, * His wonted fleep under a fresh tree's shade, * All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, * Is far beyond a prince's delicates, * His viands fparkling in a golden cup, * His body couched in a curious bed, * When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him. Alarum. Enter a Son that has killed his Father,3 dragging in the dead Body. SON. Ill blows the wind, that profits no-body.• This man, whom hand to hand I flew in fight, May be possessed with some store of crowns: * And I, that haply take them from him now, * May yet ere night yield both my life and them as a dissyllable. Years is in that line likewise used as a word of two syllables. MALONE. This diffyllabical pronunciation will by no means fuit the conelusion of a verfe, however it may be admitted in other parts of it. I have retained Mr. Rowe's very necessary infertion. STEEVENS. 3 Enter a Son &c.] These two horrible incidents are selected to show the innumerable calamities of civil war. JOHNSON. In the battle of Conftantine and Maxentius, by Raphael, the fecond of these incidents is introduced on a fimilar occafion. STEEVENS. * To fome man else, as this dead man doth me.'Who's this?-O God! it is my father's face, • Whom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd. O heavy times, begetting fuch events ! From London by the king was I press'd forth; 'My father, being the earl of Warwick's man, 'Came on the part of York, press'd by his master; 'And I, who at his hands receiv'd my life, 'Have by my hands of life bereaved him.'Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did!And pardon, father, for I knew not thee!* My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks; * And no more words, till they have flow'd their fill. 'K. HEN. O piteous spectacle ! O bloody times! Whilft lions war, and battle for their dens, • Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity,* Weep, wretched man, I'll aid thee tear for tear; * And let our hearts, and eyes, like civil war, * Be blind with tears, and break o'ercharg'd with grief.5 4 O piteous spectacle! &c.] In the old play the King does not fpeak, till both the Son and the Father have appeared, and spoken, and then the following words are attributed to him, out of which Shakspeare has formed two distinct speeches : "Woe above woe! grief more than common grief! MALONE. $ And let our hearts, and eyes, like civil war, Be blind with tears, and break o'ercharg'd with grief.] The meaning is here inaccurately expressed. The King intends to fay that the ftate of their hearts and eyes shall be like that of the kingdom in a civil war, all shall be destroyed by power formed within themselves. JOHNSON. 1 Enter a Father, who has killed his Son, with the Body in his Arms. FATH. Thou that so stoutly hast resisted me, 'Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold; For I have bought it with an hundred blows.'But let me fee: -is this our foeman's face? 'Ah, no, no, no, it is mine only son !* Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee, * Throw up thine eye; see, see, what showers arife, * Blown with the windy tempeft of my heart, * Upon thy wounds, that kill mine eye and heart!O, pity, God, this miferable age! What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly, Blown with the windy tempest of my heart, This image had occurred in the preceding Act : For raging wind blows up incessant Showers. STEEVENS. 1 What ftratagems,] Stratagem seems to stand here only for an event of war, or may intend snares and furprizes. JOHNSON. Stratagem is used by Shakspeare not merely to express the events and furprizes of war. The word means in this place some dreadful event, as it does also in The Second Part of K. Henry IV. where Northumberland says : Every minute now "Should be the father of some stratagem." Stratagemma, in Italian, bears the fame acceptation which Shakspeare gives to the English word Stratagem, in these two passages. Bernini in his History of Herefies, says: "Ma Dio puni la Francia, & la Spagna, co'l flagello dei Vandali, per l'Erefia abbracciata, & piu gravamente puni Roma, prevaricata di nuovo, al culto de gl' idoli, con il sacco che gli diedero. Orofio, che descrisse quelle ftratagemme, paragoni Roma a Sodoma, chiamando i Romani peccatori." It is evident, that in this passage stratagemme means disaftrous events, as ftratagem does in this place. M. MASON. "Stratageme. A policie or fubtle device in warre, whereby the enemie is often vanquished." Bullokar's English Expofitor, |