Why should excuse be born or e'er begot11? Pis. One score, 'twixt sun and suc, Madam, 's enough for you; and too much too. Imo. Why, one that rode to his execution, man, Could never go so slow: I have heard of riding wagers12, Where horses have been nimbler than the sands That run 'the clock's behalf13: -But this is foolery: Go, bid my woman feign a sickness; say She'll home to her father: and provide me, presently, Pis. Madam, you're best15 consider. Imo. I see before me, man, nor here, nor here, Nor what ensues; but have a fog in them, That I cannot look through16. Away, I pr'ythee; Do as I bid thee: There's no more to say; Accessible is none but Milford way. 'He cannot temperately support his honours From where he should begin and end." See note on that passage, p. 153, vol. viii. [Exeunt. 11 i. e. before the act is done for which excuse will be necessary. 12 This practice was, perhaps, not much less prevalent in Shakspeare's time than it is at present. Fynes Moryson, speaking of his brother's putting out money to be paid with interest on his return from Jerusalem (or, as we should now speak, travelling thither for a wager), defends it as an honest means of gaining the charges of his journey, especially when no meane lords and lords' sonnes, and gentlemen in our court, put out money upon a horse race under themselves, yea, upon a journey afoote." 13 It may be necessary to apprize the reader that the sand of an hour glass used to measure time is meant. The figurative meaning is swifter than the flight of time. 14 A franklin is a yeoman. See vol. v. p. 146, note 12. 15 That is you'd best consider." Thus again in Sc. 6. 'I were best not call." 16 see neither on this side nor on that, nor behind me; but find a fog in each of those quarters that my eye cannot pierce. The way to Milford is alone clear and open: Let us therefore instantly set forward. By what ensues,' Imogen means what will be the consequence of the step I am going to take. SCENE III. Wales. A mountainous Country, with a Cave. Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS. Bel. A goodly day not to keep house, with such Whose roof's as low as ours! Stoop, boys: This gate Instructs you how to adore the heavens; and bows you To a morning's holy office: The gates of monarchs Are arch'd so high, that giants may jet through And keep their impious turbans on, without Good morrow to the sun.-Hail, thou fair heaven! We house i'the rock, yet use thee not so hardly As prouder livers do. Gui. Arv. Hail, heaven ! Hail, heaven! Bel. Now, for our mountain sport : Up to yon hill, Your legs are young; I'll tread these flats. Consider, When you above perceive me like a crow, That it is place which lessens, and sets off. 1 Strut, walk proudly. So in Twelfth Night, How he jets under his advanced plumes. The idea of a giant was, among the readers of romances, who were almost all the readers of those times, always confounded with that of a Saracen. 2In any service done, the advantage rises not from the act, but from the allowance (i. e. approval) of it." 3 i. e. scaly winged beetle. See vol. iv. p. 249, note 8. And Antony and Cleopatra, Aet iii Sc. 2, note 3. The epithet fullwinged, applied to the cagle, sufficiently marks the contrast of the poet's imagery; for whilst the bird can soar beyond the reach of human eye, the insect can but just rise above the surface of the earth, and that at the close of day. Than is the full-wing'd eagle. O, this life Such gain the cap of him, that makes him fine, Have never wing'd from view know not o'the nest; nor What air's from home. Haply, this life is best, That have a sharper known: well corresponding Arv. What should we speak of, When we are old as you? when we shall hear 4 The old copy reads babe; the uncommon word brabe not being familiar to the compositor. A brabe is a contemptuous or proud look, word, or gesture; quasi, a brave. Speght, in his Glossary to Chaucer, edit. 1602, explains 'Heth [or hething] brabes and such like,' i. e. scornful or contumelious looks or words. The context requires a word of this meaning. To check is to reprove, to taunt, to rebuke. 6 Doing nothing means being busied in petty and unimportant employments, Nihil agere. Dr. Johnson proposed the word brabe from brabium, Lat. or Boaßeιov, a fee or reward; but he was not aware that it existed in our language with a different meaning. Bauble and bribe have been proposed and adopted by some editors. 5 i. e. compared to ours. See vol. iv. p. 254, note 9. 6 To stride a limit is to overpass his bound. This dread of an old age unsupplied with matter for discourse and meditation, is a sentiment natural and noble. No state can be more destitute than that of him, who, when the delights of sense forsake him, has no pleasures of the mind.' JOHNSON. We make a quire, as doth the prison bird, Bel. How you speaks! Did you but know the city's usuries, And felt them knowingly: the art o'the court, The fear's as bad as falling: the toil of the war, And hath as oft a slanderous epitaph, Doth ill deserve by doing well; what's worse, Gui. Uncertain favour! Bel. My fault being nothing (as I have told you oft), But that two villains, whose false oaths prevail'd Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline, I was confederate with the Romans: so, Follow'd my banishment; and, this twenty years, This rock, and these demesnes, have been my world: 8 Otway seems to have taken many hints for the conversation which passes between Acasto and his sons from the scene be fore us. 9 Thus in Timon of Athens: That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush Fallen from their boughs, and left me, open, bare, the Where I have liv'd at honest freedom; paid The fore-end of my time.-But, up to the mountains; And we will fear no poison, which attends In place of greater state1o. I'll meet you in the How hard it is, to hide the sparks of nature! They think, they are mine: and, though train'd up hen) I'the cave, wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit Strikes life into my speech, and shows much more At three, and two years old, I stole these babes 11; 10 ' --- nulla aconita, bibuntur Fictilibus; tunc illa time, cum pocula sumes Juv. 11 Shakspeare seems to intend Belarius for a good character, yet he makes him forget the injury which he has done to the young princes, whom he has robbed of a kingdom, only to rob their |