So strongly guarded.-Cousin, look not sad: ARTH. O, this will make my mother die with grief. K. JOHN. Cousin [to the Bastard], away for England; haste before: And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags Of hoarding abbots; imprisoned angels Set thou at liberty: the fat ribs of peace Use our commission in his utmost force. BAST. Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back 15, When gold and silver becks me to come on. I leave your highness:-Grandame, I will pray (If ever I remember to be holy) For your fair safety; so I kiss your hand. ELI. Farewell, gentle cousin. ELI. Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word. K. JOHN. Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert, There is a soul counts thee her creditor, K. JOHN. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet: I had a thing to say, but let it go: The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day, Thou is not in the original. [To ARTHUR. [Exit Bastard. [She takes ARTHUR aside. Better tune. The old copy reads tune. Pope corrected this to time. We are by no means sure that the change was called for. The "tune" with which John expresses his willingness "to fit" the thing he had to say is a bribe;-he now only gives flattery and a promise. "The time" for saying "the thing" is discussed in the subsequent portion of John's speech. Sound on. So the original. But on and one were often spelt alike; and therefore the passage If this same were a churchyard where we stand, Had bak'd thy blood, and made it heavy-thick a, Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes, K. JOHN. Do not I know thou wouldst ? Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye On yon young boy: I'll tell thee what, my friend, And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread He lies before me: Dost thou understand me? must be determined by other principles than that of fidelity to the text. Which is the more poetical, "Sound on into the drowsy race of night," or "sound one?" "The midnight bell" sounding "on, into" (or unto, for the words were used convertibly) the drowsy march, race, of night, seems to us far more poetical than precisely determining the hour, which was already determined by the word "midnight." It must, however, be noticed, that when Bernardo describes the appearance of the Ghost, in 'Hamlet,' he marks the time by "the bell then beating one." Heavy-thick. The late eminent scholar, Mr. Sydney Walker, who has left a mass of notes upon Shakspere which we should earnestly desire to see published, holds that our poet has a much more frequent use of compound epithets than the ordinary text would exhibit. This appears to us one of the many examples. Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee: For England, cousin, go: Hubert shall be your man, attend on you With all true duty.-On toward Calais, ho! SCENE IV.-The same. The French King's Tent. Enter KING PHILIP, LEWIS, PANDULPH, and Attendants. K. PHI. So, by a roaring tempest on the flood, Is scatter'd and disjoin'd from fellowship. PAND. Courage and comfort! all shall yet go well. K. PHI. Well could I bear that England had this praise, Enter CONSTANCE. Look, who comes here! a grave unto a soul; CONST. Lo, now! now see the issue of your peace! But that which ends all counsel, true redress. Convicted-overpowered. Mr. Dyce suggests convected, from convectus. [Exeunt. Death, death, O amiable lovely death! Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness! And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows; And ring these fingers with thy household worms; Come, grin on me; and I will think thou smil'st, K. PHI. O fair affliction, peace! O, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth! I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine; The different plague of each calamity. Modern. We give the reading of the original. Thus, in 'As You Like It,'"Full of wise saws and modern instances." In 'Romeo and Juliet' we have "modern lamentation." Modern is trite, common. But the sentence is weak, and a slight change would make it powerful. We may read “a mother's invocation with little violence to the text: moder's (the old spelling) might have been easily mistaken for modern. We believe that it was so written; but upon re-consideration, we do not continue to alter the original. Not is wanting in the original. CONST. Yes, that I will; And wherefore will I do it? I tore them from their bonds; and cried aloud, O that these hands could so redeem my son, And will again commit them to their bonds, And, father cardinal, I have heard you say, That we shall see and know our friends in heaven: If that be true, I shall see my boy again; For, since the birth of Cain, the first male child, To him that did but yesterday suspire, There was not such a gracious creature born. But now will canker sorrow eat my bud, As dim and meagre as an ague's fit; When I shall meet him in the court of heaven Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, [Tearing off her head-dress. Friends. In the original, fiends. |