'Love lack'd a dwelling, and made him her place." 1 Sleided silk' is unwrought silk, prepared for weav-derly, fondly. ing by passing it through the weaver's sley or reedcomb.

2 The old copies read needle, but the metre shows that we should read neeld. The word is thus abbreviated in a subsequent passage in the first quarto. See King John, Act v. Sc. 2.

3 To record anciently signified to sing. Thus in Sir 10 This is the reading of the quarto copy; the folio Philip Sydney's Ourania, by [Nicholas Breton] 1606-reads grave. Weed, in old language, meant garment.

Bawd. Boult, spend thou that in the town: report what a sojourner we have: you'll lose nothing by custom. When nature framed this piece, she meant thee a good turn; therefore say what a paragon she is, and thou hast the harvest out of thine own report.

The reader may see the cut and the raillery in the variorum Shakspeare.

2 i. e. bid a high price for her.

3 i. e. unripe, unskilful. So in Hamlet:- And yet but rai neither in respect of his full sail.'

4 To cower is to sink or crouch down. Thus in King Henry VI. :

The splitting rocks cow'rd in the sinking sands.' Again in Gammer Gurton's Needle :

They coiner so o'er the coles, their eies be blear'd with smoke.'

5 i. e. renovate it. So in Cymbeline, Act i. Sc. 2.:O, disloyal thing!

Thou should'st repair my youth."

1 A hatch is a half door, sometimes placed within a street door, preventing access farther than the entry of a house. When the top of a hatch was guarded by a row of spikes, no person could reach over and undo its fastening, which was always within side, and near its bottom. This domestic portcullis perhaps was neces sary to our ancient brothels. Secured within such a barrier, Mrs. Overdone could parley with her customers, refuse admittance to the shabby visitor, bargain with the rich gallant, defy the beadle, or keep the constable at bay. From having been her usual defence, the hatch became the unequivocal denotement of her trade; for though the hatch with a flat top was a constant attendant on butteries in great families, colleges, &c. the hatch with spikes on it was peculiar to early houses of amorous entertainment, and Mr. Steevens was informed that the bagnios of Dublin were not long since so defended. Malone exhibited a copy of a wood cut. prefixed to an old pamphlet entitled Holland's Leaguer, 4to. 1632, in which is a representation of a celebrated brothel, on the Bank side, near the Globe play-house, in which he imagined the hatch was deli-of her wit heated. Steevens has pleasantly bantered him upon it.

6 The allusion is to the French coin ecus de soleil, crowns of the sun. The meaning of the passage is merely this, That the French knight will seek the shade of their house to scatter his money there.'

7 If a traveller from every part of the globe were to assemble in Mitylene, they would all resort to this house, while we had such a sign to it as this virgin.' A similar eulogy is pronounced on Imogen in Cymbeline: She's a good sign; but I have seen small reflection

8 i. e. an absolute, a certain profit.

Boull. I warrant you, mistress, thunder shall not | so awake the beds of eels, as my giving out her beauty stir up the lewdly-inclined. I'll bring home some to-night.

Bawd. Come your ways; follow me.

She did distain' my child, and stood between
Her and her fortunes: None would look on her,
But cast their gazes on Marina's face;
Whilst ours was blurted at, and held a malkin,"
Not worth the time of day. It pierc'd me thorough;

Mar. If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep, And though you call my course unnatural,
Untied I still my virgin knot will keep.
Diana, aid my purpose!

Bawd. What have we to do with Diana? Pray you, will you go with us?

[Exeunt. SCENE IV. Tharsus. A Room in Cleon's House. Enter CLEON and DIONYZA.

Dion. Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone?
Cle. O, Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter
The sun and moon ne'er look'd upon!
Dion.

You'll turn a child again.

I think

Cle. Were I chief lord of all the spacious world,
I'd give it to undo the deed. O, lady,
Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess
To equal any single crown o' the earth,

I' the justice of compare! O, villain Leonine,
Whom thou hast poison'd too!

If thou had'st drunk to him, it had been a kindness
Becoming well thy feat: what canst thou say,
When noble Pericles shall demand his child?

Dion. That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates
To foster it, nor ever to preserve.

She died at night; I'll say so. Who can cross it?
Unless you play the impious innocent,*
And for an honest attribute, cry out,
She died by foul play.

Cle.

O, go to. Well, well, Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods Do like this worst.

Dion.

Be one of those, that think
The pretty wrens of Tharsus will fly hence,
And open this to Pericles. I do shame
To think of what a noble strain you are,
And of how coward a spirit.

Cle.
To such proceeding
Who ever but his approbation added,
Though not his pre-consent, he did not flow
From honourable courses.

Dion.

Be it so, then :

You not your child well loving, yet I find,"
It greets me as an enterprise of kindness,
Perform'd to your sole daughter.

Cle.

Heavens forgive it!

Dion. And as for Pericles,
What should he say? We wept after her hearse,
And even yet we mourn; her monument
Is almost finish'd, and her epitaphs
In glittering golden characters express
A general praise to her, and care in us
At whose expense 'tis done.

Cle.
Which, to betray, doth with thine angel's face
Seize with thine eagle's talons.

Thou art like the harpy,

Dion. You are like one, that superstitiously
Doth swear to the gods, that winter kills the flies;1
[Exeunt,
But yet I know you'll do as I advise.

Enter GowER, before the Monument of MARINA
Tharsus.

Gow. Thus time we waste, and longest leagues
make short;

Sail seas in cockles, have, and wish but for't;
Making (to take your imagination,)
From bourn to bourn, region to region.

By you being pardon'd, we commit no crime
To use one language, in each several clime,
Where our scenes seem to live. I do beseech you,
To learn of me, who stand i' the gap to teach you
The stages of our story. Pericles

Is now again thwarting the wayward seas12
(Attended on by many a lord and knight,)
To see his daughter, all his life's delight.
Old Escanes, whom Helicanus latel
Advanc'd in time to great and high estate,
Is left to govern. Bear you it in mind,

Old Helicanus goes along behind.

Well sailing ships, and bounteous winds, have

brought

This king to Tharsus (think this pilot-thought ;14
So with his steerage shall your thoughts grow on,)

Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead, To fetch his daughter home, who first is gone.'
Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.

1 Thunder is supposed to have the effect of rousing eels from the mud, and so render them more easy to take in stormy weather. Marston alludes to this in his Satires:-

They are nonght but eeles that never will appeare
Till that tempestuous winds, or thunder, teare
Their slimy beds.'

2 So in Macbeth:- Wake Duncan with this knock-
ing:-Ay, 'would, thou couldst !? In Pericles, as in
Macbeth, the wife is more criminal than the husband,
whose repentance follows immediately on the murder.
3 The old copy reads face. The emendation is Ma-
son's. Feat is deed, or exploit.

4 An innocent was formerly a common appellation for an idiot. She calls him an impious simpleton, because such a discovery would touch the life of one of his own family, his wife. This is the ingenious interpretation of Malone; but I incline to think with Mason that we should read, " the pious innocent.?

5 The old copy reads, She did disdain my child. But Marina was not of a disdainful temper. Her excellence indeed eclipsed the meaner qualities of her companion, i. e. in the language of the poet, distained them. In Tarquin and Lucrece we meet with the same verb again:

Were Tarquin night, (as he is but night's child,) The silver-shining queen he would distain, The verb is several times used by Shakspeare in the sense of to eclipse, to throw into the shade; and not in that of to disgrace, as Steevens asserts.

The same cause for Diony za's hatred to Marina is also alleged in Twine's translation:-The people be holding the beautie and comlinesse of Tharsia, saidHappy is the father that hath Tharsia to his daughter; but her companion that goeth with her is foule and illfavoured. When Dionisiades heard Tharsia commend ed, and her owne daughter, Philomacia, so dispraised, she returned home wonderful wrath,' &c.

6 This contemptuous expression frequently occurs in So in King Edward III. 1596:our ancient dramas. This day hath set derision on the French, And all the world will blurt and scorn at us.' 7 A coarse wench, not worth a good morrow.

8 'It greets me' appears to mean it sulutes me, or is grateful to me. So in King Henry VIII:

Would, I had no being,

If this salute my blood a jot.”

9 With thine angel's face,' &c. means 'You haring an angel's face, a look of innocence, have at the same time an eagle's talons.'

10 This passage appears to mean, You are so affectedly humane, that you would appeal to heaven against the cruelty of winter in killing the flies. Superstitious is explained by Johnson, scrupulous beyond need.'-Bostrell.

11 So in a former passage:-'0, make for Tharsas." Making, &c. is travelling (with the hope of engaging your attention) from one division or boundary of the world to another; i. e. we hope to interest you by the variety of our scene, and the different countries through which we pursue our story.-We still use a phrase exactly corresponding with take your imagination ; i. e. to take one's fancy.'

12 So in King Henry V.:

6

and there being seen,

Heave him away upon your winged thoughts
Athwart the seas.

13 These lines are strangely misplaced in the old copy.
The transposition and corrections are by Steevens.
14 This is the reading of the old copy, which Malone
altered to his pilot thought.' I do not see the necessity
of the change. The passage as it is will bear the inter-
pretation given to the correction:- Let your imagina-
tion steer with him, be his pilot, and, by accompanying
him in his voyage, think this pilot-thought."

15 Who has left Tharsus before her father's arrival there.

By wicked Dionyza.

[Reads the Inscription on MARINA's Monument.
The fairest, sweet'st, and best, lies here,
Who wither'd in her spring of year.
She was of Tyrus, the king's daughter,

On whom foul death hath made this slaughter;
Marina was she call'd; and at her birth,
Thetis, being proud, swallow'd some part o' the earth:
Therefore the earth, fearing to be o'erflow'd,
Hath Thetis birth-child on the heavens bestow'd:
Wherefore she does (and swears she'll never stint,)"
Make raging battery upon shores of flint.
No visor does become black villany,
So well as soft and tender flattery.
Let Pericles believe his daughter's dead,
And bear his courses to be ordered
By lady fortune; while our scenes display
His daughter's wo and heavy well-a-day,
In her unholy service. Patience, then,
And think you now are all in Mitylen.
SCENE V. Mitylene. A Street before the Brothel.
Enter, from the Brothel, Two Gentlemen.

1 Gent. Did you ever hear the like?

[Exit.

2 Gent. No, nor never shall do in such a place as this, she being once gone.

1 Gent. But to have divinity preached there! did

you ever dream of such a thing?

must either get her ravish'd, or be rid of her. When she should do for clients her fitment, and do me the kindness of our profession, she has me her quirks, her reasons, her master-reasons, her prayers, her knees; that she would make a puritan of the devil, if he should cheapen a kiss of her.

Boult. 'Faith, I must ravish her, or she'll disfurnish us of all our cavaliers, and make all our swearers priests.

Pand. Now, the pox upon her green-sickness for me!

Bawd. 'Faith, there's no way to be rid on't, but by the way to the pox. Here comes the Lord Lysimachus, disguised.

Boult. We should have both lord and lown, if the peevish baggage would but give way to cus

tomers.

Enter LYSIMACHUS.

Lys. How now? How a dozen of virginities? Baud. Now, the gods to-bless your honour! Boult. I am glad to see your honour in good health.

Lys. You may so; 'tis the better for you that your resorters stand upon sound legs. How now, wholesome iniquity? Have you that a man may deal withal, and defy the surgeon?

Bawd. We have here one, sir, if she wouldbut there never came her like in Mitylene.

Lys. If she'd do the deeds of darkness, thou would'st say.

Bawd. Your honour knows what 'tis to say well enough.

Lys. Well; call forth, call forth.

Boult. For flesh and blood, sir, white and red you shall see a rose; and she were a rose indeed, if she had but

Lys. What, pr'ythee?

Boult. O, sir, I can be modest.

Lys. That dignifies the renown of a bawd, no less than it gives a good report to an anchor to be chaste.

Enter MARINA.

Bawd. Here comes that which grows to the stalk; -never plucked yet, I can assure you. Is she not a fair creature?

Lys. 'Faith, she would serve after a long voyage at sea. Well, there's for you ;-leave us.

Bawd. I beseech your honour, give me leave: a

2 Gent. No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdy-word, and I'll have done presently. houses: shall we go hear the vestals sing?

1 Gent. I'll do any thing now that is virtuous; but I am out of the road of rutting, for ever.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI. The same. A Room in the Brothel.
Enter PANDER, Bawd, and BoULT.

Pand. Well, I had rather than twice the worth of her, she had ne'er come here.

Bawd. Fie, fie upon her: she is able to freeze the god Priapus, and undo a whole generation. We

1 i. e. for such tears as were shed when the world being in its infancy, dissimulation was unknown. Perhaps, however, we ought to read, 'true told wo.' 2 So in King Richard III. :

O, then began the tempest of my soul." What is here called his mortal vessel (i. e. his body) is styled by Cleopatra her mortal house.

3 Now be pleased to know.' So in Gower :In which the lorde hath to him writte That he would understand and witte.' 4 Sweet'st must be read here as a monosyllable, as highest in the Tempest:- Highest queen of state,' &c. Steevens observes that we might more elegantly read, ommitting the conjunction and

The fairest, sweetest, best, lies here.'

5 The inscription alludes to the violent storm which accompanied the birth of Marina; at which time the sea, proudly overswelling its bounds, swallowed, as is usual in such hurricanes, some part of the earth. The poet ascribed the swelling of the sea to the pride which Thetis felt at the birth of Marina in her element; and supposes that the earth, being afraid to be overflowed, bestowed this birth-child of Thetis on the heavens; and

Lys. I beseech you, do.

Bawd. First, I would have you note, this is an honourable man. [To MAR. whom she takes aside. Mar. I desire to find him so, that I may worthily note him.

Bawd. Next, he's the governor of this country, and a man whom I am bound to.

Mar. If he govern the country, you are bound to him indeed; but how honourable he is in that, I know not.

Bawd. 'Pray you, without any more virginal19 that Thetis, in revenge, makes raging battery against the shores.—Mason.

6 i. e. never cease.

7 This is Justice Shallow's mode of asking the price of a different kind of commodity :-

'How a score of ewes now??

8 The use of to in composition with verbs is very common in Gower and Chaucer.

9 The old copy, which both Steevens and Malone considered corrupt in this place, reads, "That dignifies the renown of a bawd, no less than it gives good report to a number to be chaste.' I have ventured to substitute an anchor, i. e. hermit, or anchoret. The word being formerly written ancher, anchor, and even anker, it is evi dent that in old MSS. it might readily be mistaken for a number. The word is used by the Player Queen in Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 2:

An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope.' It is evident that some character contrasted to bawd is required by the context.

10 This uncommon adjective is again used in Corio lanus:the virginal palms of your daughters'