A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, • As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun;] Mr. Rowe altered these lines, because they have insufficient connection with the preceding ones, thus: Stars shone with trains of fire, dews of blood fell, Disasters veil'd the sun, This passage is not in the folio. By the quartos therefore our imperfect text is supplied; for an intermediate verse being evidently lost, it were idle to attempt a union that never was intended. I have therefore signified the supposed deficiency by a vacant space. When Shakspeare had told us that the graves stood tenantless, &c. which are wonders confined to the earth, he naturally proceeded to say (in the line now lost) that yet other prodigies appeared in the sky; and these phænomena he exemplified by adding,—As [i. e. as for instance] Stars with trains of fire, &c. So, in King Henry IV. P. II: "-to bear the inventory of thy shirts; as, one for superfluity," &c. Again, in King Henry VI. P. III: "Two Cliffords, as the father and the son, Again, in The Comedy of Errors: They say, this town is full of cozenage; "As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye" &c. Disasters dimm'd the sun;] The quarto, 1604, reads: Disasters in the sun; For the emendation I am responsible. It is strongly supported not only by Plutarch's account in The Life of Cæsar, [" also the brightness of the sunne was darkened, the which, all that yeare through, rose very pale, and shined not out,"] but by various passages in our author's works. So, in The Tempest: I have be-dimm'd 66 "The noon-tide sun." Again, in King Richard II: "As doth the blushing discontented sun, "When he perceives the envious clouds are bent Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands, Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse. Again, in our author's 18th Sonnet: "Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, "And often is his gold complexion dimm'd." I suspect that the words As stars are a corruption, and have no doubt that either a line preceding or following the first of those quoted at the head of this note, has been lost; or that the beginning of one line has been joined to the end of another, the intervening words being omitted. That such conjectures are not merely chimerical, I have already proved. See Vol. XI. p. 376, &c. n. 3; and Vol. XIV. p. 351, n. 8. The following lines in Julius Caesar, in which the prodigies that are said to have preceded his death, are recounted, may throw some light on the passage before us: 66 There is one within, "Besides the things that we have heard and seen, "And graves have yawn'd and yielded up their dead: "The noise of battle hurtled in the air, "Horses do neigh, and dying men did groan; "And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.” The lost words perhaps contained a description of fiery warriors fighting on the clouds, or of brands burning bright beneath the stars. The 15th Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Golding, in which an account is given of the prodigies that preceded Cæsar's death, furnished Shakspeare with some of the images in both these passages: 66 -battels fighting in the clouds with crashing armour flew, "And dreadful trumpets sounded in the ayre, and hornes eke blew, "As warning men beforehand of the mischiefe that did brew; "And Phoebus also looking dim did cast a drowsie light, "Uppon the earth, which seemde likewise to be in plighte: sory "From underneath beneath the starres brandes oft seemde burning bright, And even the like precurse of fierce events,As harbingers preceding still the fates, "It often rain'd drops of blood. The morning star look'd blew, "And was bespotted here and there with specks of rustie hew. "The moone had also spots of blood.- "Salt teares from ivorie images in sundry places fell ;- "And with an earthquake shaken was the towne.". Plutarch only says, that "the sunne was darkened," that "diverse men were seen going up and down in fire;" there were "fires in the element; sprites were seene running up and downe in the night, and solitarie birds sitting in the great marketplace." The disagreeable recurrence of the word stars in the second line induces me to believe that As stars in that which precedes, is a corruption. Perhaps Shakspeare wrote: Astres with trains of fire, and dews of blood Disasterous dimm'd the sun. The word astre is used in an old collection of poems entitled Diana, addressed to the Earl of Oxenforde, a book of which I know not the date, but believe it was printed about 1580. In Othello we have antres, a word exactly of a similar formation. MALONE. The word-astre, (which is no where else to be found) was affectedly taken from the French by John Southern, author of the poems cited by Mr. Malone. This wretched plagiarist stands indebted both for his verbiage and his imagery to Ronsard. See the European Magazine, for June, 1788, p. 389. 7 STEEVENS. and the moist star, &c.] i. e. the moon. So, in Marlowe's Hero and Leander, 1598: "Not that night-wand'ring, pale, and watry star," &c. MALONE. And even-] Not only such prodigies have been seen in Rome, but the elements have shown our countrymen like forerunners and foretokens of violent events. JOHNSON. 9 precurse of fierce events,] Fierce, for terrible. WARBURTON. And prologue to the omen coming on,' I rather believe that fierce signifies conspicuous, glaring. It is used in a somewhat similar sense in Timon of Athens: "O the fierce wretchedness that glory brings!" Again, in King Henry VIII. we have "fierce vanities." STEEVENS. 1 And prologue to the omen coming on,] But prologue and omen are merely synonymous here. The poet means, that these strange phænomena are prologues and forerunners of the events presag'd: and such sense the slight alteration which I have ventured to make, by changing omen to omen'd, very aptly gives. THEOBALD. Omen, for fate. WARBURTON. Hanmer follows Theobald. A distich from the life of Merlin, by Heywood, however, will show that there is no occasion for correction: "Merlin well vers'd in many a hidden spell, "His countries omen did long since foretell." FARMER. Again, in The Vowbreaker: "And much I fear the weakness of her braine "Should draw her to some ominous exigent." Omen, I believe, is danger. STEEvens. And even the like precurse of fierce events, As harbingers preceding still the fates, And prologue to the omen coming on,] So, in one of our author's poems: "But thou shrieking harbinger Augur of the fever's end," &c. The omen coming on is, the approaching dreadful and portentous event. So, in King Richard III: "Thy name is ominous to children." i. e. (not boding ill fortune, but) destructive to children. "O Pomfret, Pomfret, O, thou bloody prison, Re-enter Ghost. But, soft; behold! lo, where it comes again! I'll cross it, though it blast me.-Stay, illusion! If thou hast any sound, or use of voice, Speak to me: If there be any good thing to be done, If thou art privy to thy country's fate, Or, if thou hast uphoarded3 in thy life For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death, [Cock crows. Speak of it:-stay, and speak.-Stop it, Marcellus. MAR. Shall I strike at it with my partizan? HOR. Do, if it will not stand. 2 BER. HOR. 'Tis here! 'Tis here! * If thou hast any sound,] The speech of Horatio to the spectre is very elegant and noble, and congruous to the common traditions of the causes of apparitions. JOHNSON. 3 Or, if thou hast uphoarded &c.] So, in Decker's Knight's Conjuring, &c. "If any of them had bound the spirit of gold by any charmes in caves, or in iron fetters under the ground, they should for their own soules quiet (which questionlesse else would whine up and down) if not for the good of their children, release it." STEEVENS. Stop it, Marcellus. Hor. Do, if it will not stand.] I am unwilling to suppose that Shakspeare could appropriate these absurd effusions to Horatio, who is a scholar, and has sufficiently proved his good un |