SCENE V.

The fame. The Senate-House.

The Senate fitting. Enter ALCIBIADES, attended.

1. Sen. My lord, you have my voice to't; the

fault's bloody; 'Tis necessary, he should die: Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

8

2. SEN. Most true; the law shall bruise him. ALCIB. Honour, health, and compassion to the

fenate!

I. SEN. Now, captain?

ALCIB. I am an humble suitor to your virtues;

For pity is the virtue of the law,
And none but tyrants use it cruelly.
It pleases time, and fortune, to lie heavy
Upon a friend of mine, who, in hot blood,
Hath stepp'd into the law, which is past depth
To those that, without heed, do plunge into it.
He is a man, setting his fate afide,
Of comely virtues: *

2

* shall bruise him.) The old copy reads-shall bruise 'em. The same mistake has happened often in these plays. In a subsequent line in this scene we have in the old copy-with him, instead of-with 'em. For the correction, which is fully justified by the context, I am answerable. MALONE.

Sir Thomas Hanmer also reads bruise him. STEEVENS. 9-fetting his fate afide,] i. e. putting this action of his, which was pre-determined by fate, out of the question.

STEEVENS.

2 He is a man, &c.] I have printed these lines after the original copy, except that, for an honour, it is there, and honour. All the

Nor did he foil the fact with cowardice;
(An honour in him, which buys out his fault,)
But, with a noble fury, and fair spirit,
Seeing his reputation touch'd to death,

He did oppose his foe:

And with such fober and unnoted passion
He did behave his anger, ere 'twas spent,

As if he had but prov'd an argument.

latter editions deviate unwarrantably from the original, and give

the lines thus:

He is a man, fetting his fault afide,

Of virtuous honour, which buys out his fault;

Nor did he foil, &c. JOHNSON.

This licentious alteration of the text, with a thousand others of

the fame kind, was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

3 And with fuch fober and unnoted passion

He did behave his anger, ere 'twas spent, &c.] Unnoted for common, bounded. Behave, for curb, manage. WARBURTON. I would rather read:

and unnoted paffion

He did behave, ere was his anger spent.

Unnoted passion means, I believe, an uncommon command of his paffion, fuch a one as has not hitherto been observed. Behave his anger may, however, be right. In fir W. D'Avenant's play of The Just Italian, 1630, behave is used in as fingular a manner:

Again:

"How well my stars behave their influence."

You an Italian, fir, and thus

"Behave the knowledge of disgrace!"

In both these inftances, to behave is to manage. STEEVENS.

"Unnoted paffion," I believe, means a passion operating inwardly, but not accompanied with any external or boisterous appearances; so regulated and fubdued, that no spectator could note, or observe, its operation.

The old copy reads-He did behoove &c. which does not afford any very clear meaning. Behave, which Dr. Warburton interprets, manage, was introduced by Mr. Rowe. I doubt the text is not yet right. Our author so very frequently converts nouns into verbs, that I have sometimes thought he might have written " He did behalve his anger," i. e. fupprefs it. So, Milton :

- yet put he not forth all his strength,

"But check'd it mid-way."

I. SEN. You undergo too strict a paradox, Striving to make an ugly deed look fair: Your words have took such pains, as if they la

bour'd

To bring manslaughter into form, fet quarrelling
Upon the head of valour; which, indeed,
Is valour misbegot, and came into the world
When sects and factions were newly born:
He's truly valiant, that can wisely suffer
The worst that man can breathe; and make his

wrongs

His outsides; wear them like his raiment, carelessly;

Behave, however, is used by Spenser, in his Faery Queene, B. I. c. iii. in a sense that will suit sufficiently with the passage before

us:

"But who his limbs with labours, and his mind
"Behaves with cares, cannot so easy miss."

To behave certainly had formerly a very different fignification from that in which it is now used. Cole in his Dictionary, 1679, renders it by tratto, which he interprets to govern, or manage.

MALONE.

On second confideration, the sense of this passage, (however perversely expressed on account of rhyme,) may be this: He managed his anger with fuch sober and unnoted passion [i. e. fuffering. forbearance, before it was spent, [i. e. before that disposition to endure the infult he had received, was exhausted, that it seemed as if he had been only engaged in supporting an argument he had advanced in conversation. Paffion may as well be used to fignify fuffering, as any violent commotion of the mind: and that our author was aware of this, may be inferred from his introduction of the Latin phrase" hysterica passio," in King Lear. See alfo Vol. XII. р. 249, п. 9. STEEVENS.

4 You undergo too strict a paradox,] You undertake a paradox too hard. JOHNSON.

S

that man can breathe;] i. e. can utter. So afterwards: "You breathe in vain." MALONE.

Again, in Hamlet :

Having ever seen, in the prenominate crimes,

"The youth you breathe of, guilty." STEEVENS.

And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,
To bring it into danger.
If wrongs be evils, and enforce us kill,
What folly 'tis, to hazard life for ill?

ALCIB. My lord,

1. SEN. You cannot make gross fins look clear; To revenge is no valour, but to bear.

ALCIB. My lords, then, under favour, pardon me, If I speak like a captain.Why do fond men expose themselves to battle, And not endure all threatnings? sleep upon it, And let the foes quietly cut their throats, Without repugnancy? but if there be Such valour in the bearing, what make we Abroad? why then, women are more valiant, That stay at home, if bearing carry it;

And th' ass, more captain than the lion; the felon,

6

- threatnings?] Old copy-threats. This flight, but judicious change, is Sir Thomas Hanmer's. In the next line but one, he also added, for the sake of metre, -but-. STEEVENS.

Abroad?

what make we

What do we, or what have we to do in the field.

See Vol. III. p. 447, n. 6. MALONE.

JOHNSON.

8 And th' afs, more captain than the lion; &c.] Here is another arbitrary regulation, [the omiffion of captain] the original reads

thus:

what make we

Abroad? why then, women are more valiant

That stay at home, if bearing carry it:

And the ass, more captain than the lion,

The fellow, loaden with irons, wiser than the judge,

If wisdom, &c.

I think it may be better adjusted thus:

what make we

Abroad? why then the women are more valiant

That stay at home ;

*

Loaden with irons, wiser than the judge,
If wisdom be in suffering. O my lords,
As you are great, be pitifully good:
Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood?
To kill, I grant, is fin's extremest gust ;

If bearing carry it, then is the ass
More captain than the lion; and the felon
Loaden with irons, wifer &c. JOHNSON.

if bearing carry

it;]

Dr. Johnson, when he proposed to connect this hemistich with the following line instead of the preceding words, seems to have forgot one of our author's favourite propenfities. I have no doubt that the present arrangement is right.

Mr. Pope, who rejected whatever he did not like, omitted the words-more captain. They are supported by what Alcibiades has already faid:

"My lords, then, under favour, pardon me,
" If I speak like a captain.”

and by Shakspeare's 66th Sonnet, where the word captain is used
with at least as much harshness as in the text:

"And captive good attending captain ill."

Again, in another of his Sonnets:

" Like ftones of worth they thinly placed are,
"Or captain jewels in the carkanet."

Dr. Johnson with great probability proposes to read felon instead of fellow. MALONE.

The word captain has been very injudiciously restored. That it cannot be the author's is evident from its spoiling what will otherwise be a metrical line. Nor is his using it elfewhere any proof that he meant to use it here. RITSON.

I have not fcrupled to infert Dr. Johnson's emendation, felon, for fellow, in the text; but do not perceive how the line can become strictly metrical by the omission of the word-captain, unless, with Sir Thomas Hanmer, we transpose the conjunction-and, and

read:

The ass more than the lion, and the felon, -. STEEVENS. 9-fin's extremest gust;) Gust, for aggravation. WARBURTON, Guft is here in its common sense; the utmost degree of appetite for fin. JOHNSON.