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Dido, Queen of Carthage.

"The Tragedie of Dido Queene of Carthage: Played by the Children of her Majesties Chappell. Written by Christopher Marlowe, and Thomas Nash. Gent.

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"At London, Printed, by the Widdowe Orwin, for Thomas Woodcocke, and are to be solde at his Shop, in Paule's Church-yard, at the Signe of the Blacke Beare. 1594."

P. 173 a.

By Saturn's soul, and this earth-threatening hair.

The old editions have aire. H's were liable to be dropped in Elizabeth's time as well as in Victoria's. The mistake was again repeated 175 a.

P. 174 a.

Yet shall the agèd sun shed forth kis aire !

Ah me! the stars surprised, like Rhesus' steeds,
Are drawn by darkness from Astræus' tents.

The old editions spell it supprised, which Mr. Dyce seems to think a different word from surprised, giving the instance of the Countess of Pembroke rendering the French combatu, supprised. But surely this is precisely the sense in which we say a fortress is surprised-i.e., captured suddenly when unprepared. So says MacbethThe castle of Macduff I will surprise."

"

Astræus, says Dr. Smith, "was a Titan and son of Crius and Eurybia. By Eos he became the father of the winds Zephyrus, Boreas, and Notus, Eosphorus (the morning star), and all the stars of heaven."

P. 174 b.

Till that a princess-priest, conceived by Mars. Princess-priest is taken from Virgil's regina sacerdos. Conceive is to become preg nant (the neuter verb). So also in the last line but two of this same columnHad not the heavens, conceived with hell-born clouds.

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P. 174 b.

And Phœbus, as in Stygian pools, refrains
To taint his tresses in the Tyrrhene main.

Mr. Dyce has here a long note to prove that taint in this particular place means to 'dip-to bathe, and not to stain-to sully." But, as I understand the passage, Marlowe expressly means that Phoebus appears to be as much afraid of dirtying his tresses, as if the Ocean were a "Stygian pool."

P. 176 a.

Achates, 'tis my mother that is fled;
I know her by the movings of her feet.

Marlowe had Virgil in his head

"Pedes vestis defluxit ad imos,

Et vera incessu patuit dea."

Which Dryden takes exactly double the number of words to render"In length of train descends her sweeping gown,

P. 176 a.

And by her graceful walk the queen of love is known.”

Or in these shades deceive mine eyes so oft.

I am inclined to think that shades is a misprint for shapes. "Falsis imaginibus" are Virgil's words; and shadows certainly are delusive images, but Dryden's version has it "borrowed shapes."

P. 176 a.

Wretches of Troy, envied of the winds.

Envied here, as ante, p. 120 b. means hated.

P. 176 b.

Aye, but the barbarous sort do threat our ships.

By this is meant the uncivilized rabble. The use of sort for a set or company, is constant with our old poets. See ante, 169 b. Shakspeare has―

P. 176 b.

"Remember whom you are to cope with all

A sort of vagabonds, rascals and runaways."—Richard IIÏ. v. 3.

As shall surpass the wonder of our speech.

There is some confusion here. Mr. Dyce suggests the substitution of all for shall, but this would still require wonder to be changed to power or some similar word.

P. 177 b.

Oh, tell me, for I long to be resolved.

Resolved, here, as in so many other places, means satisfied.

P. 179 a.

These hands did help to hale it to the gates.

Hale is the disused form of haul. The words were used indifferently by Shakspeare and even by Swift.

P. 179 a.

In whose stern faces shined the quenchless fire
That after burnt the pride of Asia.

In these and the preceding lines Marlowe has far excelled his original. We see the soldiers issuing from the wooden horse, as plainly as the advance of Bosquet's troops "with the light of battle on their faces."

P. 179 b.

At last came Pyrrhus, fell and full of ire,
His harness dropping blood.

Harness-i.e., armour. Virgil's description of the death of Priam, in words full of simplicity and dignity, is singularly affecting, and even schoolboys read it with a kind of awe. Dryden has made the scene steamy with gore, and utterly destroyed the picture :

P. 180 a.

"Sliddering through clottered blood and holy mire,
The mingled paste his murdered son had made."

And with the wind thereof the king fell down.

"Here I have substituted wind for wound (as it stands in the old copy), in conformity, probably [i.e. certainly], with the author's meaning, and with the following corresponding lines in Hamlet:

"Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide,

But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword

The unnerved father fal's.'

Collier's Hist. of Dram. Poetry, ill. a26.

P. 180 b.

I die with melting ruth; Æneas, leave!

Leave-i.e., Cease. This makes me think of a most amusing scene in Mrs. Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans, where a young lady stops a gentleman from asking a question about a shirt, by saying "Quit, Mr. Smith."

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Of foul and favourless Mr. Dyce says, A pleonastic expression: for both words have much the same meaning-viz., ugly." Surely this is being a little hypercritical, especially as he has nothing to say against "rude and rustical" two lines lower down.

P. 182 b.

My oars broken and my tackling lost.

Oars is here a word of two syllables.

P. 182 b.

I'll give thee tackling made of rivelled gold.

Rivelled is evidently the same word as ravelled, which is used by Shakspeare, and preserved in the unravel of the present day. In Stubbes' Anatomie of Abuses, 1583, I find in the description of the London ladies, "some are pleated and ryveled down the back wonderfully with more knacks than I can declare."

P. 182 b.

Thy anchors shall be hewed from crystal rocks,
Which, if thou loose, shall shine above the waves.

All previous editions read lose, and I have ventured to substitute loose as a word naturally connected with anchor, and as conveying a more poetical image than the other. Dido is drawing a picture of Æneas' ships, and, in describing the crystal anchors, says that even when you have loosed them they will still contribute to the beauty of the scene by shining above the waves. It is very bold to differ from Collier and Dyce combined, but the reading which they have sanctioned appears to me to carry a Lloyd's whiff about it which is very prosaic.

P. 182 b.

The masts, whereon thy swelling sails shall hang,
Hollow pyramides of silver plate.

Marlowe has here anticipated the hollow metal masts of the nineteenth century. Mr. Collier thinks the general beauty of this exquisite passage would be heightened if we were to read pyramids instead of pyramides, but this last appears to have been Marlowe's favourite form of the word, which was not limited in its meaning as it now is. Cockeram (1621) defines pyramides "the like that Obelisk is.'

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The old edition reads meanly clad. Mr. Dyce alters it to seemly, and Mr. Collier proposes newly. Perhaps neither is right, but I prefer the latter, as conveying a better idea of bravery.

P. 183 b.

Juno. Here lies my hate, Æneas' cursèd brat,
The boy wherein false destiny delights,

The heir of Troy, the favourite of the Fates.

All previous editors have printed the "heir of Fury," which to my thinking is neither sense nor rhythm. The speech is Juno's, and her only reason for hating Ascanius was his being the heir of Troy.

P. 183 b.

Who warn me of such danger prest at hand.

Such I suspect should be some. Prest is the Fr. prêt, ready, at hand. Spenser has

"Loe! harde behind his backe his foe was prest.
With dreadfull weapon aymed at his head."

Hughes, in his edition of The Faerie Queene, altered the word to pressed, and made glorious nonsense of the passage. The great Dean of St. Patrick's, when prattling with Stella, calls himself Presto as a rendering of Swift.

P. 184 b.

All follow us now disposed alike to sport.

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Previous editions read "All fellows now disposed alike to sport," which I admit my inability to understand. Four lines lower down Dido says, Lords, go before," which in some measure supports the change I have ventured to make.

Some to the mountains, some unto the soil.

P. 185 b. Souille in French is explained to be lieu bourbeux où se vautre le sanglier, the miry place where the wild boar wallows; and this no doubt is the proper meaning of the old hunting term soil. When a beast was said to take soil it signified that he had turned to bay in, or taken refuge in, a swamp. In the course of time the meaning got extended. Drayton and Fairfax use it for game drinking, and Spenser employs it, in the exigencies of his oft-recurring rhymes, for the game itself.

P. 185 b.

To see a Phrygian, far fet o'er the sea.

The old edition reads far fet to the sea, which became far set to the sea, and Mr. Mitford was thus led to propose "a Phrygian o' the farthest sea." Fet is an old word for fetched; and is used by Marlowe in Hero and Leander, 205 b.

P. 186 a.
But now that I have found what to affect.
Affect meant to love, and affected was beloved.
the desperate hours of his affected Hercules."

Chapman, in his Homer, speaks of

P. 186 b.

In all this coil where have ye left the queen?

Johnson defines coil to be "tumult, turmoil, bustle, stir, hurry, confusion."

P. 187 a.

The air is clear, and southern winds are whist.

In Scotland the word whisht is still used as the English hush. Milton uses the word, in his Ode to the Nativity, precisely as Marlow does here—

P. 188 b.

"The winds with wonder whist
Smoothly the waters kist."

Her silver arms will coil me round about.

The original edition has coll-i.e., embrace round the neck, and Mr. Dyce is probably right in retaining it. Yet the "round about" and the general idea of forcible detention speak strongly for coil.

P. 189 b.

And will my guard with Mauritanian darts, &c.
See ante, p. 169 b.

Will-i.e., direct.

P. 189 b.

Henceforth you shall be our Carthage gods.

There are only nine syllables in this line, and Mr. Dyce suggests that the word 'mong should be inserted before "our Carthage gods." But Marlowe frequently leave out a syllable in order that extra force may be given to some particular word in th line; and here I think you (the tempests and sand) is intended to be dwelt upon.

P. 190 a. To pack was to agree, to conspire. Nares quotes Stanyhurst's Virgil, 1582"With two gods packing one silly woman to cozen,

Packed with the winds to bear Æneas hence.

P. 190 a.

And let rich Carthage fleet upon the seas,

Fleet is to go afloat. The same idea in the same words almost is expressed with regard to Britain in Edward II. See ante, 123 4.

P. 190 b.

Instead of oars let him use his hands.

Here again oars is made into two syllables. See ante 182 b.

P. 190 b.

Brown almonds, services, ripe figs and dates.

The service tree is the Pyrus domestica, the common pear being Pyrus communis. Johnson quotes Peacham:-"October is drawn in a garment of yellow and carnation; in his left hand a basket of services, medlars, and other fruit, that ripen late.”

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You'll be a twigger when you come to age.

A twigger was a "gay Lothario"

"Now, Benedicite, her mother said,

And hast thou beene already such a twigger."
Pasquil's Night Cap. 1612.

Marlowe's Nurse always makes me think of the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet.

P. 191 a.

And plant our pleasant suburbs with her fumes.

Mr. Dyce most unnecessarily changes her into their. As if the fumes came from the bees and not from Hybla!

P. 191 b.

And left me neither sail nor stern aboard.

Stern, derived from to steer, meant the rudder of the vessel. It came from this to be applied very naturally to the tail of an animal, and is so used by Spenser, whose Knight is felled to the ground by the "sturdy sterne" of the Dragon. Mr. Collier, in his admirable edition of Spenser, has no note on this verse. The word is now used for the hinder part of a ship, and metaphorically of man, beast, or thing,

P. 192 a. Johnson defines platform to be "the sketch of anything horizontally delineated; the ichnography," in other words the ground plan. The sense in which the Americans use it, and which strikes our ears as so strange, was at least as old as Hooker, who speaks of a church being "founded conformable to the platform of Geneva.' The stage direction-"a platform before the castle"-at the opening scene of Hamlet, found in the first folio, and is

When I was laying a platform for these walls.

is, I presume, of modern concoction, at least it is it as a definition of the word.

something like nonsense, although Johnson has

Guards are usually placed inside, not outside, a fortress, and in the old technical dictionaries I find the definition of platform to be "a place made level on the rampart for the planting of cannon; also the whole work raised in a re-entering angle,"

P. 192 b.

Let me go [is] farewell! I must from hence.

The line wants a syllable. Readers may prefer Mr. Dyce's suggestion, although it appears to me too harsh and abrupt for the occasion

P. 192 b.

Let me go; farewell none: I must from hence.

Si bene quid de te merui, fuit aut tibi quidquam.

These three lines, 317-319, of the Fourth Book of the Eneid are thus translated by
Dryden→→→

"If ever Dido, when you most were kind,
Were pleasing in your eyes, or touched your mind;
By these my prayers, if prayers may yet have place,
Pity the fortunes of a falling race.

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