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luding to his assertion of being king of Naples, which was false; and consequently dishonourable.

Line 658. He's gentle, and not fearful.] Fearful signifies both terrible and timorous. In this place it means timorous. She tells her father, that as he is gentle, rough usage is unnecessary, and as he is brave, it may be dangerous. STEEVENS.

Line 663. —come from thy ward;] Desist from any hope of awing me by that posture of defence. JOHNSON.

Line 681. Thy nerves are in their infancy again,] So Milton; in his Masque at Ludlow-Castle:

66

Thy nerves are all bound up in alabaster." STEEVENS.

ACT II. SCENE I.

Line 3. -our hint of woe] Hint is that which recals to the memory. The cause that fills our minds with grief is common. Dr. Warburton reads stint of woe.

Line 6.

JOHNSON.

our theme of woe :- -] This sudden repetition of the word "woe," was probably interpolated by the players. Line 10. Alon. Pr'ythee, peace.] All that follows from hence to this speech of the king's,

You cram these words into my ears against

The stomach of my sense,

seems to Mr. Pope to have been an interpolation by the players. For my part, though I allow the matter of the dialogue to be very poor, I cannot be of opinion that it is interpolated. THEOBALD.

Line 12. The visitor- -] Why Dr. Warburton should change visitor to 'viser for adviser, I cannot discover. Gonzalo gives not only advice but comfort, and is therefore properly called The Visitor, like others who visit the sick or distressed to give them consolation. In some of the Protestant churches there is a kind of officers termed consolators for the sick. JOHNSON.

Line 44. and delicate temperance.] Temperance here means temperature. STEEVENS.

Line 46. Temperance was a delicate wench.] In the puritanical times it was usual to christen children from the titles of religious and moral virtues. STEEVENS.

Line 55. How lush, &c.] Lush, i. e. of a dark full colour, the opposite to pale and faint. Sir T. HANMER.

Line 79.

Widow Dido!] The name of a widow brings to

their minds their own shipwreck, which they consider as having

made many widows in Naples.

Line 80.

JOHNSON. miraculous harp.] Alluding to Amphion's lyre. 101. The stomach of my sense :— -] The expression sense, here used, implies feeling.

Line 129. Weigh'd, &c.] i. e. Paused, or deliberated on.

134. Than we bring men to comfort them:] It does not clearly appear whether the king and these lords thought the ship lost. This passage seems to imply, that they were themselves confident of returning, but imagined part of the fleet destroyed. Why, indeed, should Sebastian plot against his brother in the following . scene, unless he knew how to find the kingdom which he was to inherit ? JOHNSON.

Line 157.

-bound of land,- -] i. e. Land-mark.

163. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.] All this dialogue is a fine satire on the Utopian treatises of government, and the impracticable inconsistent schemes therein recommended. WARBURTON.

Line 170. all foizon,-] Foison or foyzon signifies plenty, ubertas, not moisture, or juice of grass or other herbs, as Mr. Pope says.

Line 239. I am more serious than my custom: You
Must be so too, if heed me; which to do,

my proposal.

EDWARDS.

Trebles thee o'er.] i. e. If you pay proper attention to

Line 257. Although this lord of weak remembrance,-] This lord, who being now in his dotage, has outlived his faculty of remembering; and who, once laid in the ground, shall be as little remembered himself, as he can now remember other things.

JOHNSON.

Line 260. For he's a spirit of persuasion,-] Of this entangled sentence I can draw no sense from the present reading, and therefore imagine that the author gave it thus:

For he, a spirit of persuasion, only
Professes to persuade.

Of which the meaning may be either, that he alone, who is a spirit of persuasion, professes to persuade the king; or that, He only pro

fesses to persuade, that is, without being so persuaded himself, he makes a show of persuading the king.

JOHNSON.

Line 268. -a wink beyond,] That this is the utmost extent of the prospect of ambition, the point where the eye can pass no further, and where objects lose their distinctness, so that what is there discovered is faint, obscure, and doubtful.

Line. 276.

-she that from Naples

JOHNSON.

Can have no note, &c.] Shakspeare's great ignorance of geography is not more conspicuous in any instance than in this, where he supposes Tunis and Naples to have been at such an immeasurable distance from each other. STEEVENS.

Line 280.

—though some cast again;] Vide Macbeth, Act II.

Sc. 3. where the word retains the same meaning.

Line 283. In yours and my discharge.] i. e. Depends on what

you and I are to perform.

Line 290.

STEEVENS.

-keep in Tunis.] There is in this passage a pro

priety lost, which a slight alteration will restore :

-Sleep in Tunis,

And let Sebastian wake!

JOHNSON.

Line 297.

A chough] i. e. A jack-daw.

314. And melt e'er they molest.-] I had rather read,

Would melt e'er they molest.

i.e. Twenty consciences, such as stand between me and my hopes, though they were congealed, would melt before they could molest one, or prevent the execution of my purposes. JOHNSON.

Line 319.

for aye] i. e. For ever.

Line 320. This ancient morsel,- -] For morsel Dr. Warburton reads ancient moral, very elegantly and judiciously; yet I know not whether the author might not write morsel, as we say a piece of a man. JOHNSON.

Line 322.

villainy.

-take suggestion,- -] i. e. Receive any hint of

JOHNSON.

Line 337. -to keep them living.] i. e. Alonzo and Antonio; for it was on their lives that his project depended. Yet the Oxford Editor alters them to you, because in the verse before, it is said, —you are his friend; as if, because Ariel was sent forth to

save his friend, he could not have another purpose in sending him viz. to save his project too. WARBURTON.

I think Dr. Warburton and the Oxford Editor both mistaken. The sense of the passage, as it now stands, is this: He sees your danger, and will therefore save them. Dr. Warburton has mistaken Antonio for Gonzalo. Ariel would certainly not tell Gonzalo, that his master saved him only for his project. He speaks to himself as he approaches,

My master through his art foresees the danger
That these his friends are in.

These written with a y, according to the old practice, did not much differ from you.

Line 347.

Romeo and Juliet:

JOHNSON.

-drawn?] Having your swords drawn. So in

"What art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?" JOHNS.

Line 382.

ACT II. SCENE II.

that moe, &c.] i. e. Make mouths. So in the

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Line 385. Their pricks at my foot fall;-] i. e. Their prickles. Line 386. All wound with adders,] Enwrapped by adders, wound or twisted about me. JOHNSON.

Line 394. --looks like a foul bumbard-] This term again occurs in The First Part of Henry IV.-" that swoln parcel of dropsies," that huge bumbard of sack"-and again in Henry VIII. "And here you lie baiting of bumbards when ye should do ser"vice." By these several passages, 'tis plain, the word meant a large vessel for holding drink, as well as the piece of ordinance so called. THEOBALD.

Ben Jonson, in his Masque of Augurs, confirms the conjecture of Theobald." The poor cattle yonder are passing away the time “with a cheat loaf, and a bumbard of broken beer.”

So in Middleton's Inner Temple Masque, 1619," they "would have beat out his brains with bombards.”

So again in The Martyr'd Soldier, by Shirley, 1638. "His boots as wide as the black-jacks,

"Or bumbards toss'd by the king's guards."

And it appears from a passage in Ben Jonson's Masque of Love Restor'd, that a bombard-man was one who carried about provisions. "I am to deliver into the buttery so many firkins of

"

aurum potabile, as it delivers out bombards of bouge," &c.

STEEVENS.

Line 402. —and had but this fish painted,-] It was very common in the time of our author to hang out and exhibit real and artificial fishes.

Line 404. make a man;-] That is, make a man's fortune. So in Midsummer Night's Dream—" we are all made men." JOHNS. Line 407. -to see a dead Indian.-] And afterwards— Men of Inde. Probably some allusion to a particular occurrence, now obscured by time. In Henry VIII. the porter asks the mob, if they think-some strange Indian, &c. is come to court. STEEV. Line 412. his gaberdine;-] A gaberdine is properly the coarse frock or outward garment of a peasant. Ital. gaverdina.

Line 452.

STEEVENS.

-too much- -] Meaning let me take or get

what I can for him, it will not be too much.

Line 455.

-I know it by thy trembling:— -] Fear, convulsive startings, were represented as the effects of being possessed by the devil.

Line 458.

-cat ;- -] Alluding to the old proverb, that

good liquor will make a cat speak.

Line 470.

STEEVENS.

STEEVENS.

-Amen!- -] means stop your draught, come

to a conclusion. I will pour some, &c.

Line 474.

I have no long spoon.] Alluding to the proverb,

A long spoon to eat with the devil.

STEEVENS.

See also, Comedy of Errors, Act 4.

Line 481. to be the siege of this moon-calf?] Siege is a stool of easement, as Dr. Ph. Holland phrases it, in his translation of Pliny's Natural History.

TOLLET.

A moon-calf, we are informed by Pliny, is a lump of inanimate and shapeless matter, engendered only by a woman.

Line 502. Here: swear then, how escap'dst thou?] The mean

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