ALL. Live, noble Helicane! HEL. Try honour's cause; forbear your suffrages: Where's hourly trouble, for a minute's ease. I shall with aged patience bear your yoke. 3 STEEVENS. Try honour's cause;] Perhaps we should read: the seas, Thus the old copy. It must be acknowledged that a line in Hamlet STEEVENS. "Or to take arms against a sea of troubles," as well as the rhyme, adds some support to this reading: yet I have no doubt that the poet wrote: I leap into the seat, So, in Macbeth: 66 I have no spur "To prick the sides of my intent, but only 66 Vaulling ambition, which o'er-leaps itself," &c. On ship-board the pain and pleasure may be in the proportion here stated; but the troubles of him who plunges into the sea, (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 expression is figurative, and by the words- I leap into the seas, &c. 1 believe the speaker only means-I embark too hastily on an expedition in which ease is disproportioned to la bour. STEEVENS. To forbear &c.] Old copy: To forbear the absence of your king. Some word being omitted in this line, I read: To forbear choice i'the absence of your king. STEEVENS. Go search like noblemen, like noble subjects, And in your search spend your adventurous worth; Whom if you find, and win unto return, You shall like diamonds sit about his crown." 1 LORD. To wisdom he's a fool that will not yield; And, since lord Helicane enjoineth us, HEL. Then you love us, we you, and we'll clasp hands; When peers thus knit, a kingdom ever stands. 6 and win unto return, [Exeunt. You shall like diamonds sit about his crown.] As these are the concluding lines of a speech, 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 obscure retreat, and be reconciled to glory, you shall be acknowledged as the brightest ornaments of his throne. STEEVENS. Old copy: 7 We with our travels will endeavour it.] We with our travels will endeavour. Endeavour what? I suppose, to find out Pericles. I have therefore added the syllable which appeared wanting both to metre and sense. STEEVENS. The author might have intended an abrupt sentence. MALONE. I would readily concur with the opinion of Mr. Malone, had passion, instead of calm resolution, dictated the words of the speaker. STEEVENS, SCENE V. Pentapolis. A Room in the Palace. 8 Enter SIMONIDES, reading a Letter, the Knights. meet him. 1 KNIGHT. Good morrow to the good Simonides. SIM. Knights, from my daughter this I let you know, That for this twelvemonth, she'll not undertake A married life. Her reason to herself is only known, Which from herself by no means can I get. 2 KNIGHT. May we not get access to her, my lord? SIM. 'Faith, by no means; she hath so strictly · tied her To her chamber, that it is impossible. One twelve moons more she'll wear Diana's livery; In The Historie of King Appolyn of Thyre, "two kynges sones" pay their court to the daughter of Archystrates, (the Simonides of the present play). He sends two rolls of paper to her, containing their names, &c. and desires her to choose which she will marry. She writes him a letter (in answer), of which Appolyn is the bearer,-that she will have the man "which hath passed the daungerous undes and perylles of the sea-all other to refuse." The same circumstance is mentioned by Gower, who has introduced three suitors instead of two, in which our author has followed him. MALone. In Twine's translation, these suitors are also three in number, -Ardonius, Munditius, and Carnillus. STEEVens. This by the eye of Cynthia hath she 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 letter: She tells me here, she'll wed the stranger knight, Or never more to view nor day nor light. Mistress, 'tis well, your choice agrees with mine; I like that well :-nay, how absolute she's in't, Not minding whether I dislike or no! Well, I commend her choice; And will no longer have it be delay'd. Enter PERICLES. PER. All fortune to the good Simonides! you, For your sweet musick this last night: 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 some more ingenuous expedient for the dismission of these wooers. Here he tells them as a solemn truth, what he knows to be a fiction of his own. STEEVENS. 1 I am beholden to you, For your sweet musick this last night:] Here also our author has followed Gower: "She, to doone hir faders hest, "Hir harpe fet, and in the feste I do protest, were never better fed With such delightful pleasing harmony. PER. It is your grace's pleasure to commend; Not my desert. SIM. Sir, you are musick's master. PER. The worst of all her scholars, my good lord. SIM. Let me ask one thing. What do you think, sir, of My daughter? PER. As of a most virtuous princess. SIM. And she is fair too, is she not? PER. As a fair day in summer; wond'rous fair. SIM. My daughter, sir, thinks very well of you; Ay, so well, sir, that you must be her master, And she'll your scholar be; therefore look to it. PER. Unworthy I to be her schoolmaster.2 SIM. She thinks not so; peruse this writing else. PER. What's here! "To make him chere; and ever he sigheth, "Madame, certes well, he saied; "Whiche, if you list, I shall you lere, "Nowe take the harpe, and lete me see "Hem thought it sowned in her ere, MALONE. to be her schoolmaster.] Thus the quarto, 1619. The first copy reads-for her schoolmaster. MALONE. |