Clo.Whorefon dog!-I give him fatisfaction? 'Would, he had been one of my rank!

2. Lord. To have smelt like a fool.

[Afide. Clo. I am not vex'd more at any thing in the earth,A pox on't! I had rather not be fo noble as I am; they dare not fight with me, because of the queen my mother: every jack-flave hath his belly full of fighting, and I muft go up and down like a cock that no body can match.

2. Lord. You are cock and capon too; and you crow, cock, with your comb on 3. [Afide.

Clo. Sayeft thou?

1. Lord. It is not fit, your lordship fhould undertake every companion that you give offence to.

Clo. No, I know that: but it is fit, I fhould commit offence to my inferiors.

2. Lord. Áy, it is fit for your lordship only.

Clo. Why, fo I fay.

1. Lord. Did you hear of a ftranger, that's come to court to-night?

Clo. A ftranger! and I not know on't!

2.

not.

Lord. He's a strange fellow himself, and knows it

[Afide. 1. Lord. There's an Italian come; and, 'tis thought, one of Leonatus' friends.

Clo. Leonatus! a banifh'd rafcal; and he's another, whatsoever he be. Who told you of this stranger? 1. Lord. One of your lordship's pages.

1. Lord. No, my lord.

2. Lord. Nor crop the ears of them. [Afide. JOHNSON.

2 I give bim fatisfaction?] Old Copy-gave. Corrected by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE.

To bave smelt-] A poor quibble on the word rank in the preceding fpeech. MALONE.

3-with your comb on. The allufion is to a fool's cap, which hath a comb like a cock's. JOHNSON.

4every companion-] The ufe of companion was the fame as of fellow now. It was a word of contempt. JOHNSON.

See Vol. VII. p. 260, n. 3, and p. 392, n. 3. MALONE.

Clo.

Clo. Is it fit, I went to look upon him? Is there no derogation in't?

1. Lord. You cannot derogate, my lord. Clo. Not eafily, I think.

2. Lord. You are a fool granted; therefore your iffues being foolish, do not derogate.

[Afide. Clo. Come, I'll go fee this Italian: What I have loft to-day at bowls, I'll win to-night of him. Come, go. 2. Lord. I'll attend your lordship.

[Exeunt CLOTEN and firft Lord. That fuch a crafty devil as his mother

Should yield the world this afs! a woman, that
Bears all down with her brain; and this her for
Cannot take two from twenty for his heart,
And leave eighteen. Alas, poor princefs,
Thou divine Imogen, what thou endur'st!
Betwixt a father by thy ftep-dame govern'd;
A mother hourly coining plots; a wooer,
More hateful than the foul expulfion is
Of thy dear husband, than that horrid a&t

Of the divorce he'd make! The heavens hold firm

The walls of thy dear honour; keep unshak'd

That temple, thy fair mind; that thou may'ft ftand,
To enjoy thy banish'd lord, and this great land! [Exit.

A Bed-chamber; in one part of it a Trunk.

IMOGEN reading in ber bed; a lady attending.

Imo. Who's there? my woman Helen?

Lady. Please you, madam.

Imo. What hour is it?

Lady. Almoft midnight, madam.

Imo. I have read three hours then: mine eyes are

weak :

Fold down the leaf where I have left: To bed:

Take not away the taper, leave it burning;
And if thou canst awake by four o' the clock,

I pr'ythee,

I pr'ythee, call me. Sleep hath feiz'd me wholly.

[Exit Lady.

To your protection I commend me, gods!
From fairies, and the tempters of the night,
Guard me, beseech ye!

[Sleeps. IACHIMO from the trunk.

Iach. The crickets fing, and man's o'er-labour'd sense

Repairs itself by reft: Our Tarquin⚫ thus

Did foftly prefs the rushes, ere he waken'd

The chastity he wounded.-Cytherea,

How bravely thou becom'ft thy bed! frefh lily!
And whiter than the fheets! That I might touch!
But kifs; one kifs!-Rubies unparagon'd,

How dearly they do't!-'Tis her breathing that
Perfumes the chamber thus: The flame o' the taper

5 From fairies, &c.] In Macbeth is a prayer like this "Restrain in me the curfed thoughts that nature "Gives way to in repofe!" STEEVENS.

Bowe

-our Tarquin-] The speaker is an Italian. JOHNSON. 7 Did foftly prefs the rushes,-] It was the cuftom in the time of our authour to ftrew chambers with rushes, as we now cover them with carpets. The practice is mentioned in Coius de Ephemera Britannica. JONNSON.

So, in Thomas Newton's Herbal to the Bible, 8vo. 1587" Sedge and rushes, with the which many in this country do ufe in fummer time to strawe their parlours and churches, as well for coolness, as for pleasant smell."

Shakspeare has the fame circumftance in his Rape of Lucrece :

by the light he spies

"Lucretia's glove wherein her needle sticks;

"He takes it from the rubes where it lies," &c. STEEVENS. -Cytherea,

How bravely thou becom'ft thy bed! fresh lily!

And whiter than the sheets!] So, in our authour's Venus and Adonis :

"Who feeks his true love in her naked bed,

"Teaching the fheets a whiter bue than white,—,”

Again, in the Rape of Lucrece :

Who o'er the white sheets peers her whiter chin." MALONE. 9-'Tis ber breathing that

Perfumes the chamber thus:] The fame hyperbole is found in the Metamorphofis of Pygmalion's Image, by J. Marston, 1598:

Bows toward her; and would under-peep her lids,
To fee the inclosed lights, now canopy'd'

Under these windows: White and azure, lac'd;
With blue of heaven's own tin&t 3.-But my design?
To note the chamber :-I will write all down :-
Such, and fuch, pictures ;-There the window :- Such
The adornment of her bed ;-The arras, figures,
Why, fuch, and fuch+: - And the contents o' the story,-

"In his conceit; through whick be thinks dotb flie
"So fweet a breath that doth perfume the air."

MALONE.

1 — now canopy'd] Shakspeare has the fame expreffion in The Rape

of Lucrece :

"Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheath'd their light,
"And, canopy'd in darkness, sweetly lay,

Till they might open to adorn the day."

MALONE.

2. Under thefe windows:] i. e. her eyelids. So, in Romeo and

Juliet:

- Thy eyes' windows fall,

"Like death, when he fhuts up the day of life."

Again, in his Venus and Adonis :

"The night of forrow now is turn'd to day;

"Her two blue windows faintly the up-heaveth-" MALONE. 3-white and azure, lac'd;

With blue of beaven's own tin.] So, in Romeo and Juliet:
"What envious ftreaks do lace the fevering clouds."

These words, I apprehend, refer not to Imogen's eye-lids, (of which the poet would fcarcely have given fo particular a defcription,) but to the inclofed lights, i. e. her eyes: which though now fhut, lachimo had feen before, and which are here faid in poetical language to be blue, and that blue celeftial.

Dr. Warburton was of opinion that the eye-lid was meant, and according to his notion, the poet intended to praife its white skin, and blue veins. MALONE.

The arras, figures,

Why, fucb, and jucb:-] We fhould print, fays Mr. Mafon, thus: the arras figures; that is, the figures of the arras." But he is, I think, mistaken. It appears from what lachimo fays afterwards, that he had noted, not only the figures of the arras, but the ftuff of which the arras was compofed :

It was hang'd

"With tapestry of filk and filver; the story
"Proud Cleopatra," &c.

Again, in Act V.

66 averring noses

"Of chamber-banging, pictures," &c. MALONE.

VOL. VIII.

A a

Ah,

Ah, but fome natural notes about her body,
Above ten thousand meaner moveables
Would teftify, to enrich mine inventory:
O fleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her!
And be her fenfe but as a monument,

Thus in a chapel lying!-Come off, come off;-
[taking off ber bracelet.

As flippery, as the Gordian knot was hard!-
'Tis mine; and this will witnefs outwardly,
As ftrongly as the confcience does within,
To the madding of her lord. On her left breaft
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I' the bottom of a cowflip 7: Here's a voucher,
Stronger than ever law could make this fecret
Will force him think I have pick'd the lock, and ta'en

Thus in a chapel lying!] Shakspeare was here thinking of the recumbent whole-length figures, which in his time were ufually placed on the tombs of confiderable perfons. The head was always repofed upon a pillow. He has again the fame allufion in his Rape of Lucrece. See Vol. X. p. 109, n. 4. See alfo Vol. III. p. 436, n. 9. MALONE.

-On her left brea

A mole cinque-fported:] Our authour certainly took this circumflance from fome tranflation of Boccaccio's novel; for it it does not occur in the imitation printed in Weftward for Smelts, which the reader will find at the end of this play. In the DECAMERONE, Ambregioulo, (the lachimo of our authour,) who is concealed in a cheft in the chamber of Madonna Gineura, (whereas in Weftward for Smelts the contemner of female chastity hides himself under the lady's bed,) withing to difcover fome particular mark about her perfon, which might help him to deceive her husband," at laft efpied a large mole under ber left breaft, with feveral hairs round it, of the colour of gold."

Though this mole is faid in the prefent paffage to be on Imogen's breaft, in the account that lachimo afterwards gives to Pofthumus, out authour has adhered clufely to his original:

7

"(Worthy the preffing) lies a mole, right proud

"Of that most delicate lodging." MALONE.

like the crimfon drops

I the bottom of a coruflip:] This fimile contains the smalleft out of a thousand proofs that Shakipeare was a moit accurate obferver of nature, STEEVENS.

The