Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

SCENE III. Patience and Sorrow.

Patience and forrow strove

Which should express her goodlieft; you have seen
Sun-shine and rain at once :-her smiles and tears
(20) Were like a better day. Those happiest smiles,
That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know
What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence,
As pearls from diamonds dropt.-In brief,
Sorrow would be a rarity most belov'd,
If all could so become it.

SCENE IV. Description of Lear distracted. (21) Alack, 'tis he; why, he was met even now As mad as the vext sea; finging aloud; Crown'd with rank fumiterr, and furrow-weeds, With hardocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,

[blocks in formation]

(20) Were like a better day. So the old editions read; Mr.Warburton says, "without question we should read,

A wetter May

i. e. a spring-season wetter than ordinary:" I cannot come into his opinion; nor by any means apprehend, how her smiles and tears can with any propriety be compar'd to a spring-feason, wetter than ordinary: the poet is comparing her patience and forrow, expreft, the one by smiles, the other by tears, to a day, wherein there is both fun-shine and rain at the same time you have seen, fays he, fun-shine and rain at once; fuch was her patience and forrow: her smiles and tears were like a day so chequer'd, when the rain and the fun-fhine contended as it were together. This I apprehend to be the sense of the passage. But then what must we do with better? I own myself incapable of fixing any sense to it, nor does any emendation strike me, that the reader perhaps will judge plaufible enough he'll fee, I had an eye in the explaining of the passage, on chequer'd;

Her smiles and tears

Were like a chequer'd day;

which is the most probable word that occurs at present, tho' I advance it not with any degree of certainty. He speaks of a chequer'd shadow, in Titus Andronicus, Act 2. Sc. 4

(21) Alack, &c.] See Hamlet, Act 4. Sc. 10. and the note.

Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.

SCENE VI. Description of Dover-Cliff.

Come on, fir, here's the place-stand still. How fearful

And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low !
The crows and choughs, that wing the midway air,
Shew scarce so gross as beetles. Half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head.
The fisher-men, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for fight. The murmuring furge,
That on th' unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,
Left my brain turn, and the deficient fight
Topple down headlong.

Glofter's Farewel to the World.

(22) O, you mighty gods!

This world I do renounce; and in your fights
Shake patiently my great affliction off:
If I could bear it longer, and not fall

To quarrel with your great opposelefs wills,

My

(22) Gloffer is afterwards convinced of his mistake, and con

firmed in the duty of fufferance: he says;

I do remember now henceforth I'll bear

Affliction, till it do cry out itself,

Enough, enough, and die.

At the end of the Oedipus, Coloneus of Sophocles, there is a fine res

Hection like this;

[blocks in formation]

That which the gods bring on us, we should bear

With refignation, nor confume with forrow.

My snuff and loathed part of nature should
Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!

SCENE VII. Lear, in his Madness, on the gross Flatterers of Princes.

Ha! Goneril! ha! Regan! they flatter'd me like a dog, and told me I had white hairs in my beard, ere the black ones were there. To say, ay, and no, to every thing that I faid-Ay, and no too, was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I found 'em, there I finelt 'em out. Go to, they are not (23) men o' their words; they told me, I was every thing: 'tis a lie, I am not ague-prcof.

On the Abuse of Power.

Thou rafcal-beadle, hold thy bloody hand: Why doft thou lash that whore? strip thy own back; Thou hotly luft'st to use her in that kind,

For which thou whip'st her. The usurer hangs the

cozener.

Through tatter'd cloaths small vices do appear;
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate fins with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks:
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.
None does offend, none, I fay, none; I'll able 'em;"

Take

(23) See Act 2. Sc. 6. foregoing. Mr. Upton, misled by the beginning of this speech; and apprehending, the king in his madness used exact connexion, tells us, we should not read, men o their words, but women of their words: whereas it is plain, he runs off from the thought of his daughters, to those who flatter'd him, and all thro' the speech speaks of them only: the criticifm is scarce worth remarking, except it be to shew, how subject all of us are to mistakes, and how little reason the very wifeft have to triumph over the errors of others.

:

Take that of me, my friend, who have the pow'r
To feal th' accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes,
And, like a scurvy politician, seem
To fee the things thou do'st not.

SCENE X. Cordelia, on the Ingratitude of her
Sifters.

O, my dear father, restauration hang
Thy medicine on my lip; and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms that my two fifters
Have in thy reverence made!

Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Did challenge pity of them. Was this a face,
To be expos'd against the warring winds?

To stand against the deep, dread-bolted thunder?

In the most terrible and nimble stroke

Of quick, cross lightning?

*

*

*

And wast thou fain, poor father,

To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn,
In fhort and musty straw? alack, alack!
'Tis wonder, that thy life and wits, at once,

Had not concluded all.

ACT V.

SCENEV.

44

Lear to Cordelia, when taken Prisoners.

No, no, no, no come, let's away to prifon;
We two alone will fing, like birds i'th' cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness so we'll live,
And pray, and fing, and tell old tales, and laugh

At gilded butterflies: (24) and hear poor rogues

1

(24) And, &c.]

'Tis a catalogue

1

Of all the gamesters of the court and city:
Which lord lies with that lady, and what gallant
Sports with that merchant's wife; and does relate

Talk

Who

1

Talk of court-news, and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses, and who wins; who's in, who's out:
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies. And we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prifon, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by th' moon.
Edm. Take them away.

Lear. Upon fuch sacrifices, my Cordelia,
The gods themselves throw incenfe.

SCENE VIII. The Justice of the Gods.

(25) The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Makes instruments to scourge us.

Edgar's Account of his discovering himself to his Father, &c.

..List a brief tale,

And when 'tis told, O, that my heart would burst!
The bloody proclamation to escape,

Who fells her honour for a diamond,
Who for a tissue robe: whose husband's jealous.
And who so kind, that, to share with his wife,
Will make the match himself: harmless conceits,
Tho' fools say they are dangerous..

That

The False One, Act 1. Sc. 1.

The word spies, in the text, is taken in the fense of, Spies upon any one, to inspect their conduct, not spies emp'oy'd by a person.

(25) The, &c.] This retorting of punishments, and making the means by which we offended the scourge of our offence, is very common amongst the ancients, and perhaps had its rise from the Jewish people. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, &c. Callima sbus, in his Hymn to Pallas, tells us, that goddess deprived the young hunter of his eyes, because they had offended, having seen her in the bath. See the Hymn, v. 75. And, in Sophocles, at the end of Electra, Orestes cries out to Ægistus;

:

Peace, and attend me to that place where thou
Didst murder my poor father, that even there
I too may murder thee.

« ZurückWeiter »