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1469

that I can thus, with such a sweet neglect,

pluck from them all the pleasure of their malice. B. JONSON

THE MORAL USES OF TRAGEDY

NAY, my good friend, but hear me! I confess

man is the child of sorrow, and this world,

in which we breathe, hath cares enough to plague us;
but it hath means withal to sooth these cares,
and he, who meditates on others' woes,

shall in that meditation lose his own:
call then the Tragic poet to your aid,

hear him, and take instruction from the stage:
let Telephus appear; behold a prince,

a spectacle of poverty and pain,

wretched in both.-And what if you are poor?
are you a demi-god? are you the son

of Hercules? begone! complain no more.

Doth your mind struggle with distracting thoughts?
Do your wits wander? are you mad? Alas!
so was Alcmæon, whilst the world ador'd
his father as their God. Your eyes are dim;
what then? the eyes of Edipus were dark,
totally dark. You mourn a son; he's dead;
turn to the tale of Niobe for comfort,

and match your loss with hers. You're lame of foot;

compare it with the foot of Philoctetes,

and make no more complaint. But you are old,

old and unfortunate; consult Oëneus;

hear what a king endur'd, and learn content.
Sum up your miseries, number up your sighs,
the tragic stage shall give you tear for tear,
and wash out all afflictions but its own.

R. CUMBERLAND

1470 Bot. Quin.

Bot.

BOTTOM-QUINCE-SNOUT-STARVELING

RE we all met?

ARE

1

Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action as we will do it before the duke. Peter Quince,

Quin. What say'st thou, bully Bottom?

Bot.

There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?

Snout. By'r lakin, a parlous fear.

Star. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.

Bot. Not a whit: I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue: and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed: and, for the more better assurance, tell them, that I Pyramus am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put them out of fear.

Quin. Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight and six.

Bot. No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and

eight.

Snout. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?

Star. Bot.

I fear it, I promise you.

Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in,-God shield us!-a lion among ladies, is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living; and we ought to look to it.

Snout. Therefore another prologue must tell, he is not a lion.

Bot. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion's neck; and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect,—Ladies, or fair ladies, I would wish you, or, I would request you, or, I would entreat you, not to fear, not to tremble: my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life: : no, I am no such thing; I am a man as other men are:-and there, indeed, let him name his name; and tell them plainly, he is Snug the joiner.

W. SHAKESPEARE

NOTES

SECTION

259 from The Sea-voyage, Act iv. sc. 2.

262 from Richard III. Act i. sc. 1: 1. 2, barbed, caparisoned, clothed in the trappings of war: barbe (a corrupt form of barde) being the general name for the defensive armour with which the horses of knights were covered in war. NARES' Glossary, s.v. 267 from The Night-Walker, Act iv. sc. 6.

269 quoted by CICERO, Tusc. Disp. I. c. 48.

287 1. 1, thilke, this same : 1. 4, ywexith, grows: sote, sweet.

288 1. 2, spreint, sprinkled: 1. 5, sikernesse, security: 1. 7, unware, unforeseen.

312 mell, meddle.

316 from The Dance of Death by Rabbi don Santob.

324 from The Maid of Honour, Act iii. sc. 1.

325 from The Picture, Act iv. sc. 2.

331 from Bonduca, Act v. sc. 5.

344 from The Virgin Martyr, Act ii. sc. 1.

346 1. 8, quillets, slight tricks or turns in argument; probably for quibblets, dim. of quibbles.

353 from Valentinian, Act v. sc. 2.

356 1. 5, spets, i. q. spits.

359 from Henry IV. Act i. sc. 3: 1. 3, confound, spend, lose : 1. 9, crisp, curled by the breeze: Shakespeare uses the same word to express the twisted form of the clouds, crisp heaven, Tim. Act iv. sc. 3.

361 from Rollo, Act ii. sc. 1.

366 from The Mourning Bride, Act ii. sc. 7.

385 from The Arraignment of Paris: 1. 7, raught, reached.

388 from The Two Noble Kinsmen, Act ii. sc. I.

390 from Philip Van Artevelde, PART II. Act ii. sc. 7.

392 1. 4, fair vestal, a compliment to Queen Elizabeth: 1. 10, fancyfree, exempt from the power of love.

SECTION

395 l. 10, I, i. q. aye.

396 from Agrippina, an unfinisht tragedy.

401 from 2 Henry IV. Act v. sc. 2: 1. 1, the meaning is, My wild

dispositions having ceased on my father's death, and being now,

as it were, buried in his tomb, sin and wildness are interred in the same grave: 1. 3, sadly, seriously.

6

402 translated from a fragment of the Thyestes of Sophocles.
405 from The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act v. sc. 4 : 1. 6, record,
sing: so J. Fletcher, Valentinian, II. I, as birds record their
lessons.' According to Douce, the term was formed from the
recorder or flageolet, by which birds were taught.

430 from The Arraignment of Paris, Act iii. sc. 3: 1. 8, wrape, i. e.
ravish, delight; 1.9, amiss, i. e. fault.

483 from T. SOUTHERN's Loyal Brothers.

484 from Philip Van Artevelde.

509 from Madoc's narrative of the battle between the Hoamen or tribe of Erillyab, and the Aztecars, or people of Aztlan: 1. 15, the arrow of the omen: The Tlaxcaltecas had two arrows, which they regarded with great reverence, and by which they augured the event of a battle. Two of their bravest chiefs were to shoot them at the enemy, and recover them or die. If the arrow struck and wounded, it was held an omen that the fight would be prosperous; but if they neither struck, nor drew blood, the army retired.' TORQUEMADA, I. 34, quoted in SOUTHEY'S Works, Vol. v. p. 56.

511 from Prometheus Unbound, Act ii. sc. 3.

514 from The Double Marriage, Act ii. sc. 3.

515 from Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. sc. 3: 1. 5, fleckéd, dappled, streaked.

516 1. 1, grace, efficacious virtue: 1. 4, to the earth, i.e. to the inhabitants of the earth: 1. 11, with that part, i. e. the sense that smells.

517 from Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iv. sc. 1: 1. I, vaward, the early part of the day: 1. 9, flewed, with large chaps, deepmouthed: sanded, of a sandy colour.

521 from Act v. sc. 5: 1. 5, fell of hair, my hairy part: fell is skin or hide with the hair or wool on it. Thus King Lear, Act v.

Sc. 3: The gougeres shall devour them flesh and fell.

526 1. 6, palmy, planted with palm-trees.

528 1. 11, ballasséd, i. q. ballasted.

529 1.

4, huddling, hurrying: madrigal, a species of musical composition: 1. 10, his next joy, his younger son : 1. 11, toy, trifle. 530 1. 2, sadly, seriously.

531 1. 11, charactered, graven: 1. 12, crofts, a croft is a small home

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SECTION

531 close in a farm: 1. 13, bottom-glade, glade in the bottom or

valley. 532 1. 4, by then, by the time that: 1. 6, besprent, besprinkled: 1. 11, meditate, practise, Lat. meditari: comp. Lycidas, v. 66: and strictly meditate the thankless Muse:

1. 12, had, i. e. should have, satis habuisset: ere a close, ere I came to an end.

540 l. 10, I, i. q. aye.

543 from Taming of the Shrew, Act iv. sc. 3: 1. 6, peereth, appeareth. 545 l. 14, common trade, common resort.

546 from Thyestes, a tragedy, 1681.

547 from H. TAYLOR'S Philip Van Artevelde, Act ii. sc. 5.

549 from All's Well that ends Well, Act i. sc. I: 1. 12, capable of every line, sensible, open to, the impression produced by every lineament, and trace of his sweet countenance.

550 1. 10, painted imagery, tapestry hung from the windows. 558 1. 8, forestalled remission, a pardon solicited in advance, when it should have been proffered unasked.

559 1. 2, hearsed, see note on § 13, PART I.

561 from The Renegado, Act iv. sc. 3.

562 from Maon and Moriat.

566 from Duchess of Malfi, Act v. sc. 3.

567 from Philaster, Act iii. sc. 2.

571 from Jane Shore, Act v. sc. I.

573 1. 6, Bermoothes, Bermudas: 1. 11, flote, i. e. the waves, sea. 574 from The Great Duke of Florence, Act i. sc. I.

576 from The Duke of Milan, Act i. sc. I.

579 from A Wife for a Month, Act ii. sc. 2.
580 from All for Love, Act i. sc. I.
588 from The Virgin Martyr, Act iii. sc. 2.
595 from Sardanapalus, Act i. sc. 2.

599 from The Double Marriage, Act iv. sc. 1.
602 from The Maid's Tragedy, Act ii. sc. 2.
603 from The Two Noble Kinsmen, Act i. sc. I.

616 1. 3, kinde, nature, as in Shakespeare, Ant. and Cleop. Act v.
sc. 2, to do his kind, to act according to his nature: 1. 15, with-
out protract, without delay: 1. 16, in ure, i. q. in use, in prac-
tice: in Chaucer, the word means 'fortune,' 'adventure.'
623 1. 10, Milton has several imitations of this beautiful passage:
v. Comus, v. 205 and v. 432: 1. 15, tole, originally 'to pull'
(whence to toll a bell,' i. e. to pull), but usual in the sense of
to draw on by enticement, illicere.

625 from All for Love: 1. 9, he comes, sc. Dolabella.

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