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THAL.

Enter THALIARD.4

Doth your highness call?

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

mind

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?"

THAL.

'Tis done.

My lord,

:

Enter a Messenger.

ANT. Enough;

Lest your breath cool yourself, telling your haste.

4

8

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

* 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.

• 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

MESS. My lord, prince Pericles is fled.

ANT.

1

[Exit Messenger.

As thou

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.

ANT. Thaliard, adieu! till Pericles be dead, My heart can lend no succour to my head.1 [Exit.

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.

See (for instances of the same typographical error,) p. 132,n.4. STEEVENS.

-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:

[blocks in formation]

"Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun."

:

MALONE.

SCENE II.

Tyre. A Room in the Palace.

Enter PERICLES, HELICANUS, and other Lords.

PER. Let none disturb us: Why this charge of thoughts??

The sad companion, dull-ey'd melancholy,

2

-Why this charge of thoughts?] [Old copy-why should &c.] The quarto, 1609, reads chāge. The emendation was suggested by Mr. Steevens. The folio 1664, for chāge 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. See Vol. XVII. p. 179, n. 1. 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 :

Let none disturb us: why this change of thoughts?

M. MASON.

* The sad companion, dull-ey'd melancholy,] So, in The Comedy of Errors:

By me so us'd a guest is, not an hour,
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,"

"Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue
"But moody and dull Melancholy,
"Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair?"

MALONE.

-dull-ey'd melancholy,] The same compound epithet occurs in The Merchant of Venice: " I'll not be made a soft and dull-ey'd fool."

4

STEEVENS.

- 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.

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

Since he, so great, &c.

otherwise the latter part of the line will be elliptical.

7

STEEVENS.

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

for the sake of the metre. MALONE.

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

• And with the ostent &c.] Old copies

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

Should not this be:

And with th' ostent of war &c.? TYRWHITT.

STEEVENS.

The emendation made by Mr. Tyrwhitt is confirmed by a

passage in The Merchant of Venice:

"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 care of them, &c.] Old copy

STEEVENS.

Which care of them, not pity of myself,
(Who once no more but as the tops of trees,
Which fence the roots they grow by, and defend them,)
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

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