Re-enter ANTIOCHUS.

ANT. He hath found the meaning3, for the which

we mean

To have his head.

He must not live to trumpet forth my infamy,
Nor tell the world, Antiochus doth sin

In such a loathed manner :

And therefore instantly this prince must die;
For by his fall my honour must keep high.
Who attends on us there?

THAL.

Enter THALIARD*.

Doth your highness call?

ANT. Thaliard, you're of our chamber, and our

mind

6

Partakes her private actions to your secresy:
And for your faithfulness we will advance you.
Thaliard, behold, here's poison, and here's gold;
We hate the prince of Tyre, and thou must kill
him ;

It fits thee not to ask the reason why,

Because we bid it. Say, is it done??

3 He hath found the meaning,] So, in Twine's book: "Apollonius prince of Tyre hath found out the solution of my question; wherefore take shipping," &c. STEEVENS.

4

Thaliard.] This name is somewhat corrupted from Thaliarch, i. e. Thaliarchus, as it stands in Twine's translation.

STEEVENS.

5 Thaliard, you're of our chamber, &c.] So, in Twine's translation: "Thaliarchus, the only faithfull and trustie minister of my secrets," &c. The rest of the scene is formed on the same original. STEEVens.

PARTAKES her private actions-] Our author in the Winter's Tale uses the word partake in an active sense, for participate:

your exultation

Partake to every one."

MALONE.

7-Say, is it done?] We might point differently: "It fits thee not to ask the reason why:

"Because we bid it, say is it done?" MALONE. VOL. XXI.

D

THAL.

Tis done.

My lord,

Enter a Messenger.

ANT. Enough.

Let your breath cool yourself, telling your haste *. MESS. My lord, prince Pericles is fled.

[Exit Messenger.

As thou

ANT.
Wilt live, fly after: and, as an arrow, shot
From a well-experienc'd archer, hits the mark
His eye doth level at, so ne'er return,
Unless thou say, Prince Pericles is dead.

THAL. My lord, if I

Can get him once within my pistol's length,

I'll make him sure: so farewell to your highness.

[Exit.

[Exit.

ANT. Thaliard, adieu! till Pericles be dead, My heart can lend no succour to my head'.

LEST your breath, &c.] Old copy:

"Let your breath cool yourself, telling your haste." This passage is little better than nonsense, as it stands, and evidently requires amendment.-The words are addressed, not to the Messenger, but to Thaliard, who has told the King that he may consider Pericles as already dead; to which the King replies

"Enough;

"Lest your breath cool yourself, telling you haste." That is, Say no more of it, lest your breath, in describing your alacrity, should cool your ardour.' The words let and lest might easily have been confounded. M. MASON.

The words are evidently addressed to the Messenger, and are much in the style of many other passages in Shakspeare, where those who come in to report intelligence are generally represented as entering hastily. MALONE.

9 - and, As-] Thus the folio. The quarto reads and like an arrow. MALONE.

1

My heart can lend no succour to my head.] So, the King in Hamlet:

SCENE II.

Tyre. A Room in the Palace.

Enter PERICLES, HELICANUS, and other Lords. PER. Let none disturb us: Why should this charge of thoughts 2?

3

The sad companion, dull-ey'd melancholy 3,
By me so us'd a guest is, not an hour,

"How ere my haps, my joys were ne'er begun." MALONE. -Why SHOULD this CHARGE of thoughts?] The quarto 1609 reads-chage. The emendation was suggested by Mr. Steevens. The folio 1664, for chage substituted change. Change is substituted for charge in As You Like It, 1623, Act I. Sc. III. and in Coriolanus, Act V. Sc. III:

Thought was formerly used in the sense of melancholy.

MALONE.

In what respect are the thoughts of Pericles changed? I would read, "charge of thoughts," i. e. weight of them, burthen, pressure of thought. So afterwards in this play:

"Patience, good sir, even for this charge."

The first copy reads chage.

Although thought, in the singular number, often means melancholy, in the plural, I believe, it is never employed with that signification. STEEVENS.

Change of thoughts, it seems, was the old reading, which I think preferable to the amendment. By change of thoughts, Pericles means, that change in the disposition of his mind-that unusual propensity to melancholy and cares, which he afterwards describes, and which made his body pine, and his soul to languish. There appears, however, to be an error in the passage; we should leave out the word should, which injures both the sense and the metre, and read:

66

Let none disturb us: why this change of thoughts?" M. MASON. The sad companion, DULL-EY'D MELANCHOLY,] So, in The Comedy of Errors:

"Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue
"But moody and dull Melancholy,

"Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair?
dull-ey'd melancholy."

occurs in The Merchant of Venice:

MALONE.

The same compound epithet

"I'll not be made a soft and dull-ey'd fool." STEEVENS.

In the day's glorious walk, or peaceful night, (The tomb where grief should sleep,) can breed me

quiet!

Here pleasures court mine eyes, and mine eyes shun them,

And danger, which I feared, is at Antioch,
Whose arm seems far too short to hit me here:
Yet neither pleasure's art can joy my spirits,
Nor yet the other's distance comfort me.
Then it is thus: the passions of the mind,
That have their first conception by mis-dread,
Have after-nourishment and life by care;
And what was first but fear what might be done*,
Grows elder now, and cares it be not done".
And so with me ;-the great Antiochus
('Gainst whom I am too little to contend,
Since he's so great, can make his will his act,)
Will think me speaking, though I swear to silence;
Nor boots it me to say, I honour him',

If he suspect I may dishonour him:

And what may make him blush in being known,
He'll stop the course by which it might be known;
With hostile forces he'll o'erspread the land,
And with the ostent of war will look so huge

8

4- but fear what might be done,] But fear of what might happen. MALONE.

5

- and cares it be not done.] And makes provision that it may not be done. MALONE.

6 Since HE's so great,] Perhaps we should read:

66

Since he, so great," &c.

otherwise the latter part of the line will be elliptical. STEEVENS.

7

to say, I honour HIM,] Him was supplied by Mr. Rowe

for the sake of the metre. MALONE.

8 And with the OSTENT, &c.] Old copies

"And with the stent of war will look so huge."

Should not this be:

STEEVENS.

"And with th' ostent of war," &c.? TYRWHITT. The emendation made by Mr. Tyrwhitt is confirmed by a passage in The Merchant of Venice :

Amazement shall drive courage from the state;
Our men be vanquish'd, e'er they do resist,
And subjects punish'd, that ne'er thought offence:
Which care of them, not pity of myself,

(Who wants no more but as the tops of trees, Which fence the roots they grow by, and defend

them,)

Makes both my body pine, and soul to languish, And punish that before, that he would punish.

"Like one well studied in a sad ostent,

"To please his grandam."

Again, in King Richard II. :

"With ostentation of despised arms." MALONE. Again, and more appositely, in Chapman's translation of Homer's Batrachomuomachia :

"Both heralds bearing the ostents of war."

Again, in Decker's Entertainment of James I. 1604 :

"And why you bear, alone, th' ostent of warre."

"Which fence the roots they grow by, and defend them,) 66 Makes," &c.

I would read-Who am no more, &c. FARMER.

Pericles means to compare the head of a kingdom to the upper branches of a tree. As it is the office of the latter to screen the roots they grow by, so it is the duty of the former to protect his subjects, who are no less the supporters of his dignity. So, in King Henry VI. Part III. :

66

Thus yields the cedar, &c.

"Whose top branch over-peer'd Jove's spreading tree, And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind."

66

STEEVENS.

"Once more must have been a corruption. I formerly thought the poet might have written-"Who owe no more," but am now persuaded that he wrote, however ungrammatically,-Who wants no more, i. e. which self wants no more; has no other wish or desire, but to protect its subjects. The transcriber's ear, I suppose, deceived him in this as in various other instances. should be remembered that self was formerly used as a substantive, and it is so used at this day by persons of an inferior rank, who frequently say-his self. Hence, I suppose, the author wrote wants rather than want. MALONE.

It