CAM. You pay a great deal too dear, for what's given freely.

ARCH. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utter

ance.

CAM. Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection, which cannot choose but branch now. Since their more mature dignities, and royal necessities, made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attornied, with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies; that they have seemed to be together, though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds." The heavens continue their loves!

royally attornied,] Nobly supplied by substitution of embassies, &c. JOHNSON.

shook hands, as over a vast; and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds.] Thus the folio, 1623. The folio, 1632:-over a vast sea. I have since found that Sir T. Hanmer attempted the same correction; though I believe the old reading to be the true one. Vastum was the ancient term for waste uncultivated land. Over a vast, therefore, means at a great and vacant distance from each other. Vast, however, may be used for the sea, as in Pericles, Prince of Tyre:

"Thou God of this great vast, rebuke the surges.' STEEVENS.

Shakspeare has, more than once, taken his imagery from the prints, with which the books of his time were ornamented. If my memory do not deceive me, he had his eye on a wood cut in Holinshed, while writing the incantation of the weird sisters in Macbeth. There is also an allusion to a print of one of the Henries holding a sword adorned with crowns. In this passage he refers to a device common in the title-page of old books, of two hands extended from opposite clouds, and joined as in token of friendship over a wide waste of country. HENLey.

ARCH. I think, there is not in the world either malice, or matter, to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young prince Mamillius; it is a gentleman of the greatest promise, that ever came into my note.

Сам. І very well agree with you in the hopes of him: It is a gallant child; one that, indeed, physicks the subject, makes old hearts fresh; they, that went on crutches ere he was born, desire yet their life, to see him a man.

ARCH. Would they else be content to die?

CAM. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.

ARCH. If the king had no son, they would desire to live on crutches till he had one. [Exeunt.

4

physicks the subject,] Affords a cordial to the state; has the power of assuaging the sense of misery. JOHNSON. So, in Macbeth :

"The labour we delight in, physicks pain."

STEEVENS.

SCENE II.

The same. A Room of State in the Palace.

Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and Attendants.

POL. Nine changes of the watʼry star have been The shepherd's note, since we have left our throne Without a burden: time as long again

Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thanks; And yet we should, for perpetuity,

Go hence in debt: And therefore, like a cipher,
Yet standing in rich place, I multiply,

With one we-thank-you, many thousands more
That go before it.

Stay your thanks awhile;

Sir, that's to-morrow.

I am question'd by my fears, of what may chance,
Or breed upon our absence: That may blow
No sneaping winds at home, to make us say,

that may blow

No sneaping winds ] Dr. Warburton calls this nonsense; and Dr. Johnson tells us it is a Gallicism. It happens, however, to be both sense and English. That, for Oh! that-is not uncommon. In an old translation of the famous Alcoran of the Franciscans: "St. Francis observing the holiness of friar Juniper, said to the priors, That I had a wood of such Junipers!" And, in The Two Noble Kinsmen :

"In thy rumination,

"That I poor man might eftsoons come between!"' And so in other places. This is the construction of the passage in Romeo and Juliet :

"That runaway's eyes may wink!"

Which in other respects Mr. Steevens has rightly interpreted.

FARMER.

This is put forth too truly! Besides, I have stay'd To tire your royalty.

LEON. We'll part the time between's then: and in that

I'll no gain-saying.

POL.

Press me not, 'beseech you, so; There is no tongue that moves, none, none i̇' the

world,

So soon as yours, could win me: so it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although
'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs

Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder,
Were, in your love, a whip to me; my stay,
To you a charge, and trouble: to save both,
Farewell, our brother.

LEON. Tongue-tied, our queen? speak you. HER. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace, until

You had drawn oaths from him,not to stay. You, sir, Charge him too coldly: Tell him, you are sure, All in Bohemia's well: this satisfaction'

sneaping winds-] Nipping winds. So, in Gawin Douglas's Translation of Virgil's Eneid. Prologue of the seuynth Booke:

66

Scharp soppis of sleit, and of the snyppand snaw."
HOLT WHITE.

This is put forth too truly!] i. e. to make me say, I had too good reason for my fears concerning what might happen in my absence from home. MALONE.

7 this satisfaction-] We had satisfactory accounts yesterday of the state of Bohemia. JOHNSON.

The by-gone day proclaim'd; say this to him,
He's beat from his best ward.

LEON.

Well said, Hermione.

HER. To tell, he longs to see his son, were strong: But let him say so then, and let him go;

But let him swear so, and he shall not stay,
We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.-

Yet of your royal presence [To POLIXENES.] I'll adventure

The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
You take my lord, I'll give him my commission,
To let him there a month, behind the gest9

8 ------ I'll give him my commission,] We should read: I'll give you my commission,

The verb let, or hinder, which follows, shows the necessity of it for she could not say she would give her husband a commission to let or hinder himself. The commission is given to Polixenes, to whom she is speaking, to let or hinder her husband. WARBURTON.

"I'll give him my licence of absence, so as to obstruct or retard his departure for a month," &c. To let him, however, may be used as many other reflective verbs are by Shakspeare, for to let or hinder himself: then the meaning will be: "I'll give him my permission to tarry for a month," &c. Dr. Warburton and the subsequent editors read, I think, without necessity-"I'll give you my commission," &c. MALONE.

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behind the gest] Mr. Theobald says: he can neither trace, nor understand the phrase, and therefore thinks it should be just. But the word gest is right, and signifies a stage or journey. In the time of royal progresses the king's stages, as we may see by the journals of them in the herald's office, were called his gests; from the old French word giste, diversorium. WARBURTON.

In Strype's Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, p. 283,-The Archbishop entreats Cecil," to let him have the new resolved upon gests, from that time to the end, that he might from time to time know where the king was."

Again, in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 1594: "Castile, and lovely Elinor with him,

"Have in their gests resolv'd for Oxford town.”