Guard me, beseech ye! [Sleeps. IACH. from the Trunk. Did softly press the rushes, ere he waken'd How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily! How dearly they do 't!-'Tis her breathing that Under these windows: White and azure, lac'd "Restrain in me the cursed thoughts, that nature Steevens. 3 Our Tarquin -] The speaker is an Italian. Johnson. Tarquin thus 4 Did softly press the rushes,] This shows that Shakspeare's idea was, that the ravishing strides of Tarquin were softly ones, and may serve as a comment on that passage in Macbeth. See Vol. VII, p. 85, n. 4. Blackstone. the rushes,] It was the custom in the time of our author to strew chambers with rushes, as we now cover them with carpets: the practice is mentioned in Caius de Ephemera Britannica. Johnson. So, in Thomas Newton's Herball to the Bible, 8vo. 1587: "Sedge and rushes, with the which many in this country do use in sommer time to strawe their parlors and churches, as well for coolenes as for pleasant smell." Again, in Arden of Feversham, 1592: his blood remains. 'Why strew rushes." Again, in Bussy d'Ambois, 1607: "Were not the king here, he should strew the chamber like a rush." Shakspeare has the same circumstance in his Rape of Lucrece : 66 by the light he spies. "Lucretia's glove wherein her needle sticks; "He takes it from the rushes where it lies," &c. The ancient English stage also, as appears from more than one passage in Decker's Gul's Hornbook, 1609, was strewn with rushes: "Salute all your gentle acquaintance that are spred either on the rushes or on stooles about you, and drawe what troope you can from the stage after you." Steevens. 5 Under these windows:] i. e. her eyelids. So, in Romeo and Juliet: "Thy eyes' windows fall, "Like death, when he shuts up the day of life." Again, in his Venus and Adonis : With blue of heaven's own tinct."-But my design? "The night of sorrow now is turn'd to day; “Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth." Malone. With blue of heaven's own tinct.] We should read: The blue of heaven's own tinct. i. e. the white skin laced with blue veins. Warburton. So, in Macbeth: "His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood." The passage before us, without Dr. Warburton's emendation, is, to me at least, unintelligible. Steevens. So, in Romeo and Juliet: "What envious streaks do lace the severing clouds." These words, I apprehend, refer not to Imogen's eye-lids, (of which the poet would scarcely have given so particular a description) but to the inclosed lights, i. e. her eyes: which though now shut, Iachimo had seen before, and which are here said in poetical language to be blue, and that blue celestial. Dr. Warburton is of opinion that the eye-lid was meant, and according to his notion, the poet intended to praise its white skin, and blue veins. Drayton, who has often imitated Shakspeare, seems to have viewed this passage in the same light: "And these sweet veins by nature rightly plac'd, "Wherewith she seems the white skin to have lac'd, Malone. We learn from a quotation in n. 5, that by blue windows were meant blue eye-lids; and indeed our author has dwelt on corresponding imagery in The Winter's Tale: "But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes." A particular description, therefore, of the same objects, might, in the present instance, have been designed. Thus, in Chapman's translation of the twenty-third Book of Homer's Odyssey, Minerva is the person described: the Dame "That bears the blue sky intermix'd with flame "In her fair eyes," &c. The arras, figures, Steevens. Why, such, and such:] We should print, says Mr. M. Mason, thus: "- the arras-figures; that is, the figures of the arras." But, I think, he is mistaken. It appears, from what Iachimo says afterwards, that he had noted, not only the figures of the arras, but the stuff of which the arras was composed: Ah, but some natural notes about her body, As slippery, as the Gordian knot was hard!- 66 It was hang'd "With tapestry of silk and silver; the story Again, in Act V: 66 averring notes "Of chamber-hanging pictures," &c. Malone. but as a monument, Thus in a chapel lying!] Shakspeare was here thinking of the recumbent whole-length figures, which in his time were usually placed on the tombs of considerable persons. The head was always reposed upon a pillow. He has again the same allusion in his Rape of Lucrece. [See Mr. Malone's edition, Vol. X, p. 109, n. 4.] See also Vol. V, p. 259, n. 7. Malone. A mole cinque-spotted,] Our author certainly took this circum- stance from some translation of Boccacio's novel; for it does not occur in the imitation printed in Westward for Smelts, which the reader will find at the end of this play. In the DECAMERONE, Ambrogioulo, (the Iachimo of our author) who is concealed in a chest in the chamber of Madonna Gineura, (whereas in Westward for Smelts the contemner of female chastity hides himself under the lady's bed,) wishing to discover some particular mark about her person, which might help him to deceive her husband, "at last espied a large mole under her left breast, with several hairs round it, of the colour of gold." Though this mole is said in the present passage to be on Imogen's breast, in the account that Iachimo afterwards gives to Posthumus, our author has adhered closely to his original: 66 under her breast (Worthy the pressing) lies a mole, right proud "Of that most delicate lodging." Malone. like the crimson drops I' the bottom of a cowslip:] This simile contains the smallest out of a thousand proofs that Shakspeare was an observer of na Stronger than ever law could make: this secret Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here. [Clock strikes. [Goes into the Trunk. The Scene closes. ture, though, in this instance, no very accurate describer of it, for the drops alluded to are of a deep yellow. Steevens. -6 She hath been reading late The Tale of Tereus:] [See Rape of Lucrece, Mr. Malone's edit. Vol. X, p. 149, n. 1.] Tereus and Progne is the second tale in A Petite Palace of Pettie his Pleasure, printed in quarto, in 1576. The same tale is related in Gower's poem De Confessione Amantis, B. V, fol. 113, b. and in Ovid's Metamorphoses, L. VI. 3 Malone. you dragons of the night!] The task of drawing the chariot of night was assigned to dragons, on account of their supposed watchfulness. Milton mentions the dragon yoke of night in Il Penseroso; and in his Masque at Ludlow Castle: the dragon woomb "Of Stygian darkness." Again, In Obitum Præsulis Eliensis : sub pedibus deam "Vidi triformem, dum coërcebat suos "Frænis dracones aureis.” It may be remarked, that the whole tribe of serpents sleep with their eyes open, and therefore appear to exert a constant vigilance. See Vol. X, p. 217, n. 8. Steevens. that dawning May bare the raven's eye:] The old copy has-beare. The correction was proposed by Mr. Theobald; and I think properly adopted by Sir T. Hanmer and Dr. Johnson. Malone. The poet means no more than that the light might wake the raven; or, as it is poetically expressed, bare his eye. Steevens. It is well known that the raven is a very early bird, perhaps earlier than the lark. Our poet says of the crow, (a bird whose properties resemble very much those of the raven) in his Troilus and Cressida: "O Cressida, but that the busy day "Wak'd by the lark, has rous'd the ribbald crows —.” Heath SCENE III. An Ante-Chamber adjoining Imogen's Apartment. Enter CLOTEN and Lords. 1 Lord. Your Lordship is the most patient man in loss, the most coldest that ever turned up ace. Clo. It would make any man cold to lose. 1 Lord. But not every man patient, after the noble temper of your lordship; You are most hot, and furious, when you win. Clo. Winning will put any man into courage: If I could get this foolish Imogen, I should have gold enough: It's almost morning, is 't not? 1 Lord. Day, my lord. Clo. I would this musick would come: I am advised to give her musick o' mornings; they say, it will pene trate. Enter Musicians. Come on; tune: If you can penetrate her with your fin gering, so; we 'll try with tongue too: if none will do, let her remain; but I'll never give o'er. First, a very excellent good-conceited thing; after, a wonderful sweet air, with admirable rich words to it,—and then let her consider. SONG. Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,6 And Phabus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chalic'd flowers that lies ;1 7 5 One, two, three,] Our author is hardly ever exact in his computation of time. Just before Imogen went to sleep, she asked her attendant what hour it was, and was informed by her, it was almost midnight. Iachimo, immediately after she has fallen asleep, comes from the trunk, and the present soliloquy cannot have consumed more than a few minutes:-yet we are now told it is three o'clock. Malone. 6 Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,] The same hyperbole occurs in Milton's Paradise Lost, Book V: 66 ye birds "That singing up to heaven's gate ascend.” Again, in Shakspeare's 29th Sonnet: "Like to the lark at break of day arising "From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate." Steevens. |