Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

Dion. How now, Marina! why do you keep alone! How chance my daughter is not with you? Do not Consume your blood with sorrowing: you have A nurse of me. Lord! how your favour's chang'd With this unprofitable woe! Come, come;

Give me your wreath of flowers. Ere the sea mar it, Walk forth with Leonine9; the air is quick there, Piercing, and sharpens well the stomach. Come;Leonine, take her by the arm, walk with her.

Mar. No, I pray you;

I'll not bereave you of your servant.

Dion.

Come, come; I love the king your father, and yourself, With more than foreign heart10. We every day Expect him here: when he shall come, and find Our paragon to all reports11, thus blasted, He will repent the breadth of his great voyage; Blame both my lord and me, that we have ta’en No care to your best courses. Go, I pray you, Walk, and be cheerful once again; reserve12

Whirring is often used by Chapman in his version of the Iliad: so in book xvii :- through the Greeks and Ilians they rapt The whirring chariot.'

[ocr errors]

The two last lines uttered by Marina, very strongly resemble a passage in Homer's Iliad, b. xx. 1. 377 :

6

τοὺς δ ̓ οὐκ ἐθέλοντας ἄελλαι

Πόντον επ' ίχθυοέντα ΦΙΛΩΝ ΑΠΑΝΕΙ ΘΕ ΦΕΡΟΥ ΞΙΝ.

6 So in Macbeth:

How now, my lord! why do you keep alone?'

And in King Henry IV. Part 11.:

How chance thou art not with the prince thy brother?' Milton employs a similar form of words in Comus, v. 508 :How chance she is not in your company?'

In King Henry VI. Part 11. we have blood-consuming sighs.' See also Hamlet, Act. iv. Sc. 7, note.

8 Countenance, look.

9 i. e. ere the sea by the coming in of the tide mar your walk. 10 That is, with the same warmth of affection as if I was his countryman.

11 Our fair charge, whose beauty was once equal to all that fame said of it. So in Othello :

He hath achiev'd a maid

That paragons description and wild fame?'

12 Reserve has here the force of preserve. So in Shakspeare's thirty-second sonnet:

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhymes.'

That excellent complexion, which did steal
The eyes of young and old. Care not for me;
I can go home alone.

Mar.

Well, I will go;

But yet I have no desire to it.

Dion. Come, come, I know 'tis good for you, Walk half an hour, Leonine, at the least; Remember what I have said.

Leon.

I warrant you, madam.

Dion. I'll leave you, my sweet lady, for a while; Pray you walk softly, do not heat your blood: What! I must have a care of you.

Mar.

Thanks, sweet madam.

[Exit DIONYZA.

Is this wind westerly that blows?
Leon.
South-west.
Mar. When I was born, the wind was north.
Leon.

Was't so?
Mar. My father, as nurse said, did never fear,
But cry'd, Good seamen! to the sailors, galling
His kingly hands with hauling of the ropes;
And, clasping to the mast, endur'd a sea
That almost burst the deck.

Leon. When was this?

Mar. When I was born:

Never was waves nor wind more violent;
And from the ladder-tackle washes off

A canvass-climber13. Ha! says one, wilt out?
And with a dropping industry they skip

From stem to stern: the boatswain whistles, and
The master calls, and trebles their confusion14.

13 i. e. a sailor, one who climbs the mast to furl or unfurl the canvass or sails.

14 Mr. Steevens thus regulates and reads this passage :"That almost burst the deck, and from the ladder-tackle Wash'd off a canvas-climber. Ha! says one,

Wilt out? and, with a dropping industry

They skip from stem to stern: the boatswain whistles,
The master calls, and trebles their confusion.
Leon. And when was this?
Mar.
Never was waves nor wind more violent,

It was when I was born:

Leon. Come, say your prayers speedily."

[blocks in formation]

What mean you?

Leon. If you require a little space for prayer, I grant it: Pray! but be not tedious,

For the gods are quick of ear, and I am sworn
To do my work with haste.

Mar.

Why, will you kill me? Leon. To satisfy my lady.

Mar. Why should she have me kill'd?
Now, as I can remember, by my troth,
I never did her hurt in all my life;
I never spake bad word, nor did ill turn
To any living creature: believe me, la,
I never kill'd a mouse, nor hurt a fly:
I trod upon a worm against my will,
But I wept for it. How have I offended,
Wherein my death might yield her profit, or
My life imply her danger?

Leon.

My commission Is not to reason of the deed, but do it.

Mar. You will not do't for all the world, I hope. You are well favour'd, and your looks foreshow You have a gentle heart. I saw you lately, When you caught hurt in parting two that fought: Good sooth, it show'd well in you: do so now: Your lady seeks my life: come you between, And save poor me, the weaker.

Leon.

And will despatch.

I am sworn,

Enter Pirates, whilst MARINA is struggling.

1 Pirate. Hold, villain!

2 Pirate. A prize! a prize!

[LEONINE runs away.

3 Pirate. Half-part, mates, half-part. Come, let's

have her aboard suddenly.

[Exeunt Pirates with MARINA.

Leon.

SCENE II. The same.

Re-enter LEonine.

1

These roving thieves serve the great pirate Valdes2;

And they have seiz'd Marina.

Let her go:

There's no hope she'll return. I'll swear she's dead, And thrown into the sea.-But I'll see further; Perhaps they will but please themselves upon her, Not carry her aboard. If she remain,

Whom they have ravish'd, must by me be slain.

[Exit.

SCENE III. Mitylene. A Room in a Brothel. Enter PANDER, Bawd, and BOULT.

Pand. Boult.

Boult. Sir.

Pand. Search the market narrowly; Mitylene is full of gallants. We lost too much money this mart, by being too wenchless.

Bawd. We were never so much out of creatures. We have but poor three, and they can do no more than they can do; and with continual action are even as good as rotten.

Pand. Therefore let's have fresh ones, whate'er we pay for them. If there be not a conscience to be us'd in every trade, we shall never prosper.

1 Old copy reads 'roguing thieves."

Don Pedro

2 The Spanish armada perhaps furnished this name. de Valdes was an admiral in that fleet, and had the command of the great galleon of Andalusia. His ship being disabled, he was taken by Sir Francis Drake on the 22d of July, 1588, and sent to Dartmouth. This play was not written, we may conclude, till after that period, The making one of this Spaniar'ds ancestors a pirate was probably relished by the audience in those days. There is a particular account of this Faldes in Robert Greene's Spanish Masquerado, 1589. He was then prisoner in England.

Bawd. Thou say'st true: 'tis not the bringing up of poor bastards, as I think I have brought up some eleven

Boult. Ay, to eleven, and brought them down again1. But shall I search the market?

Bawd. What else, man? The stuff we have, a strong wind will blow it to pieces, they are so pitifully sodden.

Pand. Thou say'st true; they are too unwholesome o'conscience. The poor Transilvanian is dead, that lay with the little baggage.

Boult. Ay, she quickly pooped him; she made him roast meat for worms: but I'll go search the market. [Exit BOULT. Pand. Three or four thousand chequins were as pretty a proportion to live quietly, and so give over. Bawd. Why, to give over, I pray you? is it a shame to get when we are old?

Pand. O, our credit comes not in like the commodity; nor the commodity wages not with the danger2; therefore, if in our youths we could pick up some pretty estate, 'twere not amiss to keep our door hatch'd3. Besides, the sore terms we stand

1 I have brought up (i. e. educated), says the baw'd, some eleven. Yes, answers Boult, to eleven (i. e. as far as eleven years of age), and then brought them down again. The latter clause of the sentence requires no explanation. In the play of The Wether, by John Heywood, 4to. blk. 1. Merry Report says:

Oft tyme is sene both in court and towne,

Longe be women a bryngynge up, and sone brought down. 2 i. e. is not equal to it. So in Othello:To wake and wage a danger profitless." And in Antony and Cleopatra, vol. viii. :— his taunts and honours

Wag'd equal with him.'

3 A hatch is a half door, sometimes placed within a street door, preventing access farther than the entry of a house. When the top of a hatch was guarded by a row of spikes no person could reach over and undo its fastening, which was always within side, and near its bottom. This domestic portcullis perhaps was necessary to our ancient brothels. Secured within such a barrier, Mrs. Overdone could parley with her customers, refuse admittance to the shabby visitor, bargain with the rich gallant, defy the beadle, or keep the constable at bay. From having been her usual defence, the hatch became the unequivocal denotement of her trade; for though the hatch with a flat top was a constant attendant on but

« FöregåendeFortsätt »