Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

Lychorida, her nurse, she takes,
And so to sea. Their vessel shakes
On Neptune's billow; half the flood
Hath their keel cut; but fortune's mood
Varies again: the grizzled north
Disgorges such a tempest forth
That, as a duck for life that dives
So up and down the poor ship drives.
The lady shrieks, and, well-a-near!
Doth fall in travail with her fear:9
And what ensues in this fell storm,1
Shall, for itself, itself perform.

- half the flood

th their keel cut;] They have made half their voyage Favourable wind. So, Gower:

When thei were in the sea amid,

Out of the north thei see a cloude;

'The storme arose, the wyndes loude

'Thei blewen many a dredeful blaste,

The welkin was all over caste."

Malone.

- but fortune's mood - The old copy reads-but for

[blocks in formation]

d could never be designed as a rhyme to flood. I supe should read-but fortune's mood, i. e. disposition. So, Comedy of Errors :

My wife's in a wayward mood to-day."

In All's Well that Ends Well:

muddied in fortune's mood." Steevens.

- well-a-near!] This exclamation is equivalent to well-a■ is still used in Yorkshire, where I have often heard it. Ossary to the Praise of Yorkshire Ale, 1697, says,-wellalack-a-day, or alas, alas! Reed.

- and, well-a-near !

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Malone.

the

Ch fall in travail with her fear:] So, in Twine's translaLucina, what with sea-sicknesse, and fear of danger, bour of a child," &c. Steevens.

- in this fell storm, This is the reading of the earliest The folios and the modern editions have self storm.

1

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

Enter PERICLES, on a Ship a

Per. Thou god of this great vast, rebuk Which wash both heaven and hell; and

2 I nill relate;) The further consequence shall not describe. Malone.

3 Which might not what by me is told.] i. e. conveniently convey what by me is told, &c. conveniently be exhibited in action; but acti have displayed all the events that I have now 4 In your imagination hold

This stage, the ship, upon whose deck

The sea-tost &c.] It is clear from these lit play was originally performed, no attempt wa either a sea or a ship. The ensuing scene and have suffered considerably in the representa verty of the stage-apparatus in the time of ou copy has-seas tost. Mr. Rowe made the cori

5 The sea-tost prince - ) The old copy re Pericles. The transcriber perhaps mistook t Prince, for that of Pericles, a trisyllable which refuses to admit. Steevens.

* Thou God of this great vast, rebuke these pression is borrowed from the sacred writin stood above the mountains;-at thy rebuke voice of thy thunder they hasted away." It bered, that Pericles is here supposed to speak his ship. Lychorida, on whom he calls, in ord intelligence of his queen, is supposed to be ben -This great vast, is, this wide expanse. Se n. 3.

This speech is exhibited in so strange a for and all the subsequent editions, that I shall reader, that he may he enabled to judge in state this play has hitherto appeared, and be the editor's imperfect attempts to restore it

the more indulgence:

VOL. XVII.

S

e God of this great vast, rebuke these surges,
aich wash both heaven and hell; and thou that hast
on the windes commaund, bind them in brasse;
ving call'd them from the deepe, ô still
y deafning dreadful thunders, gently quench
y nimble sulphirous flashes, ô How Lychorida!
w does my queene? than storm venomously,
It thou speat all thyself? the sea-man's whistle
as a whisper in the eares of death,
heard Lychorida? Lucina oh!
Finest patrioness and my wife gentle

those that cry by night, convey thy deitie
Dard our dauncing boat, make swift the pangues
my queene's travayles? now Lychorida." Malone.

call'd them from the deep! O still - Perhaps a word
- at the press. We might read :

ag call'd them from th' enchafed deep, -. Malone. ent regulation of the lines, by the mere repetition of s-thy and thou, renders, perhaps, any other inser5. Steevens.

Corm, thou! venomously

u spit all thyself?] All the copies read-Then storm, annot be right, because it renders the passage nonslight change that I have made, [Thou storm] afy sense. Malone.

having called to Lychorida, without the power to ear on account of the tempest, at last with frantick addresses himself to it

- Thou storm, thou! venomously It thou spit all thyself?"

Iged himself in this question, he grows cooler, and t the very boatswain's whistle has no more effect on han the voices of those who speak to the dead. He his enquiries to Lychorida, but receiving no andes with a prayer for his queen in her present dan

tion.

is maliciously. Shakspeare has somewhat of the sion in one of his historical plays :

e watry kingdom, whose ambitious head

Es in the face of heaven,

[ocr errors]

likewise, in his version of the fourth Iliad, says of

she

- spits every way her foam." Steevens.

[blocks in formation]

; and thou tha them in brasse

, ô still eatly quench Low Lychorida! venomously, a-man's whistle

ط,

ntle thy deitie wift the pangues chorida." Mas

- Perhaps a w

mere repetitica 5, any other inse

ead-Then stor the passage note [Thou storm] af

ut the powert ast with frantick

row's cooler, and o more effect of to the dead. He eceiving no an her present dar

mewhat of the

ead

Iliad, says of

Too young for such a place, who if it h
Conceit, would die as I am like to do.
Take in your arms this piece of your d
Per. How! how, Lychorida!

Lyc. Patience, good sir; do not assist

9 Is as a whisper in the ears of death,] In poet supposes death to be awakened by the

storm:

66

And in the visitation of the wir "Who take the ruffian billows by the "Curling their monstrous heads, and "With deafning clamours in the slipp "That with the hurly, death itself awa King Henry IV,

The image in the text might have been sug Arcadia, Book II: " - They could scarcely, ed, hear their own whistle; for the sea stra which should be lowder, and the shrowdsc ghastful noise to them that were in it, witness was the wager of the others' contention."

A

1 Divinest patroness, and midwife, &c.] and the subsequent copies, read and my wif happy emendation, which I have inserted in th ly right, that it requires neither support nor wanted the latter, Horace would furnish it:

"Montium custos nemorumque virgo,
"Quæ laborantes utero puellas
"Ter vocata audis, adimisque leto,
"Diva triformis."

Again, in the Andria of Terence:

2

"Juno Lucina, fer opem; serva me, of

[blocks in formation]

3 Patience, good sir; do not assist the storm the same expression, on the same occasion, in

[blocks in formation]

our labour; keep your cabins; you do assist the

one.

ur with yourselves.] Old copy-Use honour &c.

Steevens.

ng is sufficiently clear.-In this particular you might
sa more honourable conduct. --But the expression is
t I suspect the passage to be corrupt. Malone.
he author wrote-Vie honour, a phrase much in
hakspeare and his contemporaries. Thus, in Chap-
n of the twentieth Iliad:

then need we vie calumnies; like women -?"
-VI, p. 71, n. 4. Mr. M. Mason has offered the same
I read, however, for the sake of measure,-your-

vens.

ing is evidently this: "We poor mortals recal not , and therefore in that respect we may contend with r." I have therefore no doubt but we ought to read: herein may

nour with &c.

expression occurs in the introduction to the fourth Gower says:

SO

e dove of Paphos might with the crow

feathers white."

of the letters in the words vie and use is nearly the ally if we suppose that the v was used instead of which is frequently the case in the old editions : Cure wants stuff,

vie strange forms with fancy."

Antony and Cleopatra. M. Mason.

ad gentle thy conditions!] Conditions anciently meant

spositions of mind. So, in Othello:

d then of so gentle a condition!"

ing of Desdemona. Again, in King Henry V:

congue is rough, coz, and my condition is not smooth."

[blocks in formation]
« ПредишнаНапред »