O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet South3, Stealing, and giving odour.-Enough; no more; 'Tis not so sweet now, as it was before. O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou! CUR. Will you go hunt, my lord? DUKE. CUR. What, Curio? The hart. DUKE. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have: O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, 3 -the sweet SOUTH,] The old copy reads-sweet sound, which Mr. Rowe changed into wind, and Mr. Pope into south. The thought might have been borrowed from Sidney's Arcadia, lib. i.: more sweet than a gentle South-west wind, which comes creeping over flowery fields," &c. This work was published in 1590. STEEVENS. 66 I see no reason for disturbing the text of the old copy, which reads-sound. The wind, from whatever quarter, would produce a sound in breathing on the violets, or else the simile is false. Besides, sound is a better relative to the antecedent, strain. DovCE. 4 That breathes upon a bank of VIOLETS,] Here Shakspeare makes the wind steal odour from the violet. In his 99th Sonnet, the violet is made the thief: ! "The forward violet thus did I chide : "Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, "If not from my love's breath?" MALONE. 5 of what VALIDITY and pitch soe'er,] Validity is here used for value. MALONE. So, in King Lear : "No less in space, validity, and pleasure." STEEVENS. 6 That it alone is HIGH-FANTASTICAL.] High-fantastical, means fantastical to the height.' So, in All's Well That Ends Well, vol. x. p. 474: 66 My high-repented blames, "Dear sovereign, pardon me." STEEVENS. Methought, she purg'd the air of pestilence; And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, E'er since pursue me 7.-How now? what news from her? 7 That instant was I turn'd into a hart; And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, E'er since pursue me.] This image evidently alludes to the story of Acteon, by which Shakspeare seems to think men cautioned against too great familiarity with forbidden beauty. Acteon, who saw Diana naked, and was torn to pieces by his hounds, represents a man, who, indulging his eyes, or his imagination, with the view of a woman that he cannot gain, has his heart torn with incessant longing. An interpretation far more elegant and natural than that of Sir Francis Bacon, who, in his Wisdom of the Ancients, supposes this story to warn us against enquiring into the secrets of princes, by showing, that those who know that which for reasons of state is to be concealed, will be detected and destroyed by their own servants. JOHNSON. "That instant was I turn'd into a hart; "And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, "E'er since pursue me." Our author had here undoubtedly Daniel's fifth Sonnet in his thoughts: "Whilst youth and error led my wand'ring mind, "And sette my thoughts in heedles waies to range, "All unawares, a goddesse chaste I finde, 66 66 (Diana like) to worke my suddaine change. "For her no sooner had mine eye bewraid, 66 "Are made by her to murder thus theyr lord." Delia and Rosamond, augmented, 16mo. 1594. The same observation has been made by an anonymous writer in the Gentleman's Magazine; but I had noticed this parallelism in my manuscript notes long before. Daniel, however, was not the original proprietor of this thought. He appears to have borrowed it from Whitney's Emblems, 1586, p. 15, where it thus appears: Enter VALENtine. VAL. So please my lord, I might not be admitted, But from her handmaid do return this answer: "Actæon, heare, [here] unhappie man, behoulde, "And as his howndes, so theire affections base "Shall them devoure, and all theire deedes deface." And Whitney himself should seem to have been indebted in this instance to a passage of the Dedication to the Earl of Sussex, prefixed by William Adlington to his translation of The Golden Ages of Apuleius, 4to. 1566: "And not only that profit ariseth to children by such fained fables, but also the vertues of men are covertly thereby commended and their vices discommended and abhorred. For by the fable of Actæon, where it is feined that when he saw Diana washing herselfe in a well, he was immediately turned into a hart, and so was slaine of his owne dogs, may be meant, that when a man casteth his eies on the vaine and soon-fading beauty of the world, consenting thereto in his minde, he seemes to be turned into a bruite beast, and so to be slaine through the inordinate desire of his own affects." MALONE. 8 The element itself, till seven years HEAT,] Heat for heated. The air, till it shall have been warmed by seven revolutions of the sun, shall not, &c. So, in King John: "The iron of itself, though heat red hot-." Again, in Macbeth : 66 And this report "Hath so exasperate the king-." MALONE. Again, in Chapman's version of the nineteenth Odyssey: 66 "And darkness rose, they slept till days fire het Shall not behold her face at ample view; And lasting, in her sad remembrance. DUKE. O, she that hath a heart of that fine To pay this debt of love but to a brother, That live in her': when liver, brain, and heart, These sovereign thrones2, are all supplied, and fill'd, (Her sweet perfections,) with one self king. 66 9 -the FLOCK of all affections -] So, in Sidney's Arcadia : has the flock of unspeakable virtues." STEEVENS. IO, she, that hath a heart of that fine frame, Το pay this debt of love but to a brother, Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else That live in her!] Dr. Hurd observes, that Simo, in the Andrian of Terence, reasons on his son's concern for Chrysis in the same manner: Nonnunquam conlacrumabat: placuit tum id mihi. Causâ mortem hujus tam fert familiariter : Quid si ipse amâsset? quid mihi hic faciet patri? 2 THESE Sovereign thrones,] We should read-" three sovereign thrones." This is exactly in the manner of Shakspeare. So, afterwards, in this play: "Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit, do give thee fivefold blazon." WARBURTON. 3 (Her sweet perfections,)] Liver, brain, and heart, are admitted in poetry as the residence of passions, judgement, and sentiments. These are what Shakspeare calls, "her sweet perfections," though he has not very clearly expressed what he might design to have said. STEEVENS. Away before me to sweet beds of flowers; Love-thoughts lie rich, when canopied with bowers. [Exeunt. 4 with one SELF king!] Thus the original copy. The editor of the second folio, who in many instances appears to have been equally ignorant of our author's language and metre, reads— self-same king; a reading which all the subsequent editors have adopted. The verse is not defective. Perfections is here used as a quadrisyllable. So, in a subsequent scene: "Methinks I feel this youth's perfections." Self-king means self-same king; one and the same king. So, in King Richard II.: that self-mould that fashion'd thee, 66 As this has been controverted, I will support the reading of the genuine copy by one or two additional authorities. So, in King Lear, vol. x. p. 210: "The stars above us govern our conditions ; Again, King Henry V. Act I. Sc. II. ; "As many fresh streams run in one self-sea." So also, in Marlowe's Hero and Leander, 1598: "At one self-instant she poor soul assaies," &c. So also, in Gascoigne's Steele Glasse, 1576: 66 A pair of twinnes at one self-burden borne." MALONE, In my opinion, the reading of the second folio ought to be adopted, as it improves both the language and the metre. Malone has proved, that in Richard II. the word self is used to signify-same; but there it is a licentious expression. Once more he accuses the editor of the second folio as ignorant of Shakspeare's language and metre. It is surely rather hardy in a commentator, at the close of the 18th century, to pronounce that an editor in 1632, but 16 years after the death of Shakspeare, was totally ignorant of his language and metre; and it happens unfortunately, that in both the passages on which Mr. Malone has preferred this accusation, the second folio is clearly a correction of the first, which is the case with some other passages in this very play. M. MASON. |