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Bid him farewell; commit him to the grave;
Do him that kindness, and take leave of him.
Boy. O, grandsire, grandsire! even with all my
heart.

Would I were dead, so you did live again!-
O, lord, I cannot speak to him for weeping;
My tears will choke me, if I ope my mouth.

Enter Attendants, with AAROn.

1 Rom. You sad Andronici, have done with woes; Give sentence on this execrable wretch, That hath been breeder of these dire events.

Luc. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish

him;

There let him stand, and rave and cry for food:
If any one relieves or pities him,

For the offence he dies. This is our doom:
Some stay, to see him fasten'd in the earth.1

Luc. Some loving friends convey the emperor
hence,

And give him burial in his father's grave:
My father, and Lavinia, shall forthwith
Be closed in our household's monument.
As for that heinous tiger, Tamora,

No funeral rite, nor man in mournful weeds,
No mournful bell shall ring her burial;
Her life was beast-like, and devoid of pity;
But throw her forth to beasts, and birds of prey:
And, being so, shall have like want of pity.
See justice done to Aaron, that damn'd Moor
By whom our heavy haps had their beginning
Then, afterwards, to order well the state;
That like events may ne'er it ruinate.

[Exeunt.

ALL the editors and critics agree in supposing this play

Aar. O, why should wrath be mute, and fury spurious. I see no reason for differing from them; for

dumb?

I am no baby, I, that with base prayers,

I should repent the evil I have done;

Ten thousand, worse than ever yet I did,
Would I perform if I might have my will;
If one good deed in all my life I did,
I do repent it from my very soul.

1 That justice and cookery may go hand in hand to the conclusion of the play, in Ravenscroft's alteration of it, Aaron is at once racked and roasted on the stage.

the colour of the style is wholly different from that of the other plays, and there is an attempt at regular ver sification,and artificial closes, not always inelegant, yet seldom pleasing. The barbarity of the spectacles, and the general massacre which are here exhibited, can scarcely be conceived tolerable to any audience, yet we are told by Jonson that they were not only borne but praised. That Shakspeare wrote any part, though Theobald declares it incontestable, I see no reason for believing. JOHNSON

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PERICLE S, PRINCE OF TYRE.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

Vicary, of Winborn Minster, in Dorsetshire. The portion I have given will continue the story of Appo lonius (the Pericles of the play) :

Wit hys wyf in gret solas

*

*

He lyvede after this do was,
And had twey sones by iunge age
That wax wel farynge men:

MR R. DOUCE observes that 'the very great popularity | name of the writer, who appears to have been Thomas of this play in former times may be supposed to have originated from the interest which the story must have excited. To trace the fable beyond the period in which the favourite romance of Apollonius Tyrius was composed, would be a vain attempt: that was the probable criginal; but of its author nothing decisive has been iscovered. Some have maintained that it was origirally written in Greek, and translated into Latin by a Christian about the time of the decline of the Roman empire; others have given it to Symposius, a writer whom they place in the eighth century, because the riddles which occur in the story are to be found in a work entitled Symposii Enigmata. It occurs in that storehouse of popular fiction the Gesta Romanorum, and its antiquity is sufficiently evinced by the existence of an Anglo Saxon version, mentioned in Wanley's list, and now in Bene't College, Cambridge. One Constantine is said to have translated it into modern Greek verse, about the year 1500, (this is probably the MS. mentioned by Dufresne in the index of authors appended to his Greek Glossary,) and afterwards printed at Venice in 1563. It had been printed in Latin prose at Augsburg in 1471, which is probably as early as the first dateless impression of the Gesta Romanorum.*

A very curious fragment of an old metrical romance on the subject was in the collection of the late Dr. Farmer, and is now in my possession. This we have the authority of Mr. Tyrwhitt for placing at an earlier period than the time of Gower. The fragment consists of two leaves of parchment, which had been converted into the cover of a book, for which purpose its edges were cut off, some words entirely lost, and the whole has suffered so much by time as to be scarcely legible. Yet I have considered it so curious a relic of our early poetry and language, that I have bestowed some pains in deciphering what remains, and have given a specimen or two in the notes toward the close of the play.I will here exhibit a further portion, comprising the

*Towards the latter end of the twelfth century,
Godfrey of Viterbo, in his Pantheon, or Universal
Chronicle, inserted this romance as part of the history
of the third Antiochus, about two hundred years before
Christ. It begins thus MS. Reg. 14, c. xi.]:
Filia Seleuci sta clara decore

Matreque defuncta pater arsit in ejus amore
Res habet effectum, pressa puella dolet.

The rest is in the same metre, with one pentameter
only to two hexameters.'-Tyrwhitt.

the kyndom of Antioche
Of Tire and of Cirenen,
Came never werre on hys londe
Ne hungr. ne no mesayse
Bot hit yede wel an hond,
He lyvede well at ayse.
He wrot twey bokys of hys lyf,
That in to hys owene bible he sette
at byddynge of hys wyf,

He lafte at Ephese thr he her fette.
He rulde hys londe in goud manere,
Tho he drow to age,

Anategora he made king of Tire,
That was his owene heritage.

best sone of that empire

He made king of Aitnage
that he louede dure,

Of Cirenen thr was

Whan that he hadde al thys y dyght
Cam deth and axede hys fee,

hys soule to God al myght

So wol God thr hit bee,

And sende ech housbonde grace
For to lovye so hys wyf
That cherysed hem wit oute trespace
As sche dyde him al here lyf,
me on alle lyues space
Heer to amende our mysdede,
In blisse of heuene to have a place;
Amen ye singe here y rede.
In trouth thys was translatyd
Almost at Engelondes ende,
to the makers stat
mynde,

Tak sich a

have ytake hys bedys on hond
And sayde hys patr nostr & crede,
Thomas vicary y understond
At Wymborne mynstre in that stods,
y thoughte you have wryte

Hit is nought worth to be knowe,
Ze that voll the sothe y wyte

Uc hider and men wol the schewe,
Now Fader & sone & holy gost
To wham y clemde at my bygynninge,
And God he hys of myghtes most
Brynge us alle to a goud endynge,
Lede us wide the payne of helle
O God lord & prsones three

In to the blysse of heuene to dwelle,
Amen pr Charite.

Explicit Appoloni Tyrus Rex nobilis & vrtuosus, &c. This story is also related by Gower in his Confessio Amiantis, lib. vii. p. 175–185, edit. 1554. Most of the incidents of the play are found in his narration, and a few of his expressions are occasionally borrowed. Gower, by his own acknowledgment, took his story from the Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo; and the author of Pericles fesses to have followed Gower. Chaucer also refers to the story in The Man of Lawe's Prologue :

'Or elles of Tyrius Appolonius, How that the cursed king Antiochus, Beraft his doughter of hire maidenhede; That is so horrible a tale for to rede,' &c. A French translation from the Latin prose, evidently of the fifteenth century, is among the Royal MSS. in the British Museum, 20, c. ii. There are several more recent French translations of the story: one under the title of La Chronique d'Appolin Roi de Thyr,' 4to. Geneva, blk. 1. no date. Another by Gilles Corrozet, Paris, 1530, Svo. It is also printed in the seventh vol. of the Histoires Tragiques de Belleforest, 12mo. 1604; and modernised by M. Le Brun, was printed at Amsterdam in 1710, and Paris in 1711. 120. There is an abstract of the story in the Melanges tirees d'une grande Bibliotheque, vol. Ixiv. p. 265.

The first English prose version of the story, translated by Robert Copland, was printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 1510. It was again translated by T. Twine, and originally published by W. Howe, 1576. Of this there was a second impression in 1607, under the title of The Patterne of painful Adventures, containing the most excellent, pleasant, and variable Historie of the strange Accidents that befel unto Prince Appolonius, the Lady Lucina his Wife, and Tharsia his Daughter, &c. translated into English by T. Twine, Gent. The poet seems to have made use of this prose narration as well as of Gower.

'That the greater part, if not the whole, of this drama, was the composition of Shakspeare, and that it is to be considered as his earliest dramatic effort, are positions, of which the first has been rendered highly probable by the elaborate disquisitions of Messrs. Steevens and Malone, and may possibly be placed in a clearer point of view by a more condensed and lucid arrangement of the testimony already produced, and by a further discussion of the merits and peculiarities of the play itself, while the second will, we trust, receive additional support by inferences legitimately deduced from a comprehensive survey of scattered and hitherto insulated premises.'

The evidence required for the establishment of a high degree of probability under the first of these positions, necessarily divides itself into two parts; the external and the internal evidence. The former commences with the original edition of Pericles, which was entered on the Stationers' books by Edward Blount, one of the printers of the first folio edition of Shakspeare's plays, on the 20th of May, 1608, but did not pass the press until the subsequent year, when it was published, not, as might have been expected, by Blount, but by one Henry Gosson, who placed Shakspeare's name at full length in the title page. It is worthy of remark, also, that this edition was entered at Stationers' hall,

This high eulogium on Pericles received a direct con tradiction very shortly afterwards from the pen of an obscure poet named Tatham, who bears, however, an equally strong testimony as to Shakspeare's being the author of the piece, which he thus presumes to

censure :-

'But Shakspeare, the plebeian driller, was Founder'd in his Pericles, and must not pass To these testimonies in 1646 and 1652, full and un qualified, and made at no distant period from the death of the bard to whom they relate, we have to add the still more forcible and striking declaration of Dryden, who tells us in 1677, and in words as strong and decisive as he could select, that

'Shakspeare's own muse, his Pericles first bore The only drawback on this accumulation of external evidence is the omission of Pericles in the first edition of our author's works: a negative fact which can have little weight, when we recollect that both the memory and judgment of Heminge and Condell, the poet's editors, were so defective, that they had forgotten Troilus and Cressida, until the entire folio, and the table of contents, had been printed; and admitted Titus Andronicus and the Historical Play of King Henry the Sixth, probably for no other reasons than that the former had been, from its unmerited popularity, brought forward by Shakspeare on his own theatre, though there is sufficient internal evidence to prove, without the addition of a single line; and because the latter, with a similar predilection of the lower orders in its favour, had obtained a similar, though not a more laboured attention from our poet, and was therefore deemed by his editors, though very unnecessarily, a requisite introduction to the two plays on the reign of that monarch, which Shakspeare had really newmodelled.'

'It cannot consequently be surprising, as they had forgotten Troilus and Cressida until the folio had been printed, they should have forgotten Pericles until the same folio had been in circulation, and when it was too late to correct the omission; an error which the second folio has, without doubt or examination, blindly copied.

If the external evidence in support of Shakspeare being the author of the greater part of this play be striking, the internal must be pronounced still more so, and, indeed, absolutely decisive of the question; for. whether we consider the style and phraseology, or the imagery, sentiment, and humour, the approximation to our author's uncontested dramas appears so close, frequent, and peculiar, as to stamp irresistible conviction on the mind.

'The result has accordingly been such as might have been predicted, under the assumption of the play being genuine; for the more it has been examined the more clearly has Shakspeare's large property in it been established. It is curious, indeed, to note the increased tone of confidence which each successive commentator has assumed, in proportion as he has weighed the testimony arising from the piece itself. Rowe, in his first edition, says, "it is owned that some part of Pericles certainly was written by him, particularly the last act :" Dr. Farmer observes that the hand of Shakspeare may be seen in the latter part of the play: Dr. Percy remarks that " more of the phraseology used in the genuine dramas of Shakspeare prevails in Pericles than in any of the other six doubted plays." Steevens says, "I admit without reserve that Shakspeare

'whose hopeful colours

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Advance a half fac'd sun, striving to shine,' is visible in many scenes throughout the play;-the together with Antony and Cleopatra, and that it (and purpurei panni are Shakspeare's, and the rest the the three following editions, which were also in quarto) wright;"-adding, in a subsequent paragraph, that production of some inglorious and forgotten playwas styled in the title page the much admired play of Pericles is valuable, "as the engravings of Mark Pericles. As the entry, however, was by Blount, and Antonio are valuable not only on account of their the edition by Gosson, it is probable that the former had beauty, but because they are suppposed to have been been anticipated by the latter, through the procurance executed under the eye of Raffaelle;" Malone gives it of a play house copy. It may also be added, that

many

Pericles was performed at Shakspeare's own theatre, timents, the numerous expressions bearing a striking Pericles was performed at Shakspeare's own theatre, as his corrected opinion, that "the congenial senThe Globe. The next ascription of this play to our similitude to passages in Shakspeare's undisputed author is in a poem entitled The Times Displayed, in Six Sestyads, by S. Sheppard, 4to. 1646, dedicated to the persons, and in various places the colour of the plays, some of the incidents, the situation of of Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and containing in ne ninth stanza of the sixth Sestiad a positive assertion before us, and furnish us with internal and irresistible style, all these combine to set his seal on the play f Shakspeare's property in this drama :proofs, that a considerable portion of this piece, as it now appears, was written by him." On this ground he thinks the greater part of the three last acts may be safely ascribed to him; and that his hand may be traced occasionally in the other two. "Many will ha of opinion (says Mr. Douce) that it contains more that

'See him whose tragic sceans Euripides
Doth equal, and with Sophocles we may
Compare great Shakspear; Aristophanes
N ver like him his fancy could display,
W tness the Prince of Tyre his Pericles

Shakspeare might have written than either Love's
Labour's Lost, or All's Well that Ends Well.

of incidents, and the great length of time which they occupy, yet it is, we may venture to assert, the most 'For satisfactory proof that the style, phraseology, spirited and pleasing specimen of the nature and fabric and imagery of the greater part of this play are truly of our earliest romantic drama which we possess, and Shaksp rian, the reader has only to attend to the the most valuable, as it is the only one with which numerous coincidences which, in these respects, occur Shakspeare has favoured us. We should therefore between Pericles and the poet's subsequent productions; welcome this play as an admirable example of "the similitudes so striking, as to leave no doubt that they neglected favourites of our ancestors, with something originated from one and the same source. of the same feeling that is experienced in the reception If we attend, however, a little further to the dra-of an old and valued friend of our fathers or grandmatic construction of Pericles, to its humour, sentiment, fathers. Nay, we should like it the better for its gothic and character, not only shall we find additional evidence appendages of pageants and chorusses, to explain the in favour of its being, in a great degree, the product of intricacies of the fable; and we can see no objection to our author, but fresh cause, it is expected, for award- the dramatic representation even of a series of ages in ing it a higher estimation than it has hitherto obtained.' a single night, that does not apply to every description Dr. Drake enters much more at large into the argu- of poem, which leads in perusal from the fireside at .nent for establishing this as a juvenile effort of our which we are sitting, to a succession of remote periods great poet, and for placing the date of its composition and distant countries. In these matters faith is allin the year 1590, but we must content ourselves with powerful; and without her influence, the most chastly referring the reader to his work for these particulars.-cold and critically correct of dramas is precisely as He continues:--unreal as the Midsummer Night's Dream, or the Winter's Tale."

'Steevens thinks that this play was originally named Pyrocles, after the hero of Sidney's Arcadia, the character, as he justly observes, not bearing the smallest affinity to that of the Athenian statesman. "It is remarkable," says he, "that many of our ancient writers were ambitious to exhibit Sidney's worthies on the stage, and when his subordinate heroes were advanced to such honour, how happened it that Pyrocles, their leader, should be overlooked? Musidorus, (his companion,) Argalus and Parthenia, Phalantus and Eudora, Andromana, &c. furnished titles for different tragedies; and perhaps Pyrocles, in the present instance, was defrauded of a like distinction. The names invented or employed by Sidney had once such popularity, that they were sometimes borrowed by pocts who did not profess to follow the direct current of his fables, or attend to the strict preservation of his characters. I must add, that the Appolyn of the Story. book and Gower could only have been rejected to make room for a more favourite name; yet however conciliating the name of Pyrocles might have been, that of Pericles could challenge no advantage with regard to general predilection. All circumstances therefore considered, it is not improbable that Shakspeare designed his chief character to be called Pyrocles, not Pericles, however ignorance or accident might have shuffled the latter (a name of almost similar sound) into the place of the former." This conjecture will amount almost to certainty if we diligently compare Pericles with the Pyrocles of the Arcadia; the same romantic, versatile, and sensitive disposition is ascribed to both characters, and several of the incidents pertaining to the latter are found mingled with the adventures of the former personage, while, throughout the play, the obligations of Its author to various other parts of the romance may be frequently and distinctly traced, not only in the assumption of an image or a sentiment, but in the adoption of the very words of his once popular predecessor, proving incontestibly the poet's familiarity with and study of the Arcadia to have been very considerable.

"However wild and extravagant the fable of Pericles may appear, if we consider its numerous chorusses, its pageantry, and dumb shows, its continual succession

'A still more powerful attraction in Pericles is, that the interest accumulates as the story proceeds; for, though many of the characters in the earlier part of the drama, such as Antiochus and his Daughter, Simonides and Thaisa, Cleon and Diony za, disappear and drop into oblivion, their places are supplied by more pleasing and efficient agents, who are not less fugacious, but better calculated for theatric effect. The inequalities of this production are, indeed, considerable, and only to be accounted for, with probability, on the supposition that Shakspeare either accepted a coadjutor, or improved on the rough sketch of a previous writer, the former, for many reasons, seems entitled to a preference, and will explain why, in compliment to his dramatic friend, he has suffered a few passages, and one entire scene, of a character totally dissimilar to his own style and mode of composition, to stand uncor rected; for who does not perceive that of the closing scene of the second act not a sentence or a word escaped from the pen of Shakspeare.

'No play, in fact, more openly discloses the hand of Shakspeare than Pericles, and fortunately his share 'n its composition appears to have been very considerable he may be distinctly, though not frequently, traced in the first and second acts; after which, feeling the incompetency of his fellow-labourer, he seems to have assumed almost the entire management of the remainder, nearly the whole of the third, fourth, and fifth acts bearing indisputable testimony to the genius and execution of the great master.'*

'The most corrupt of Shakspeare's other dramas, compared with Pericles, is purity itself. The metre is seldom attended to; verse is frequently printed as prose, and the grossest errors abound in every page I mention these circumstances only as an apology to the reader for having taken somewhat more licence with this drama tn would have been justifiable if the old copies had been less disfigured by the negligence and ignorance of the printer or transcriber.—Malone.

* Shakspeare and his Times, by Dr. Drake, vol. ii. p. 262 and seq.

ANTIOCHUS, King of Antioch.
PERICLES, Prince of Tyre.

HELICANUS,
ESCANES,

}

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

two Lords of Tyre.

SIMONIDES, King of Pentapolis.*

CLEON, Governor of Tharsus.

LYSIMACHUS, Governor of Mitylene.
CERIMON, a Lord of Ephesus.

THALIARD, a Lord of Antioch.
PHILEMON, Servant to Cerimon.
LEONINE, Servant to Dionyza. Marshal.

* We meet with Pentapolitana regio, a country in Africa, consisting of five cities. Pentapolis occurs in the thirty-seventh chapter of King Appolyn of Tyre, 1510; in Gower; the Gesta Romanorum; and Twine's translation from it. Its site is marked in an ancient map of the world, MS. in the Cotton Library, Brit. Mus. Tioerius, b. v. In the original Latin romance of Apollonius Tyrius is most accurately called Pentapolis Cyrenorum aud was, as both Strabo and Ptolemy inforTM

A Pandar, and his Wife. BOULT, their Servant.
GOWER, as Chorus.

The Daughter of Antiochus.

DIONYZA, Wife to Cleon.

THAISA, Daughter to Simonides.

MARINA, Daughter to Pericles and Thaisa.
LYCHORIDA, Nurse to Marina. DIANA.

Lords, Ladies, Knights, Gentlemen, Sailors, Pi-
rates, Fishermen, and Messengers, &c.
SCENE, dispersedly in various Countries.†

us, a district of Cyrenaica in Africa, comprising five cities, of which Cyrene was one.

That the reader may know through how many re gions the scene of this drama is dispersed, it is necessary to observe that Antioch was the metropolis of Syria Tyre a city of Phoenicia in Asia; Tharsus, the metropolis of Cilicia, a country of Asia Minor; Mitylene, the capital of Lesbos, an island in the gcan sea; and Ephesus, 1ate capital of Ionia, a country of the Lesser Asiá

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Enter GOWER.

ACT }.

Defore the Palace of Antioch.
To sing a song tha, old was sung,
From ashes ancient Gower is come
Assuming man's infirmities,

To glad your ear, and please your eyes.
It hath been sung at festivals,
On ember-eves, and holy ales ;4
And lords and ladies in their lives
Have read it for restoratives:

The purchase is to make men glorious;
Et bonum quo antiquius, eo melius.

If born in these latter times,
you,
When wit's more ripe, accept my rhymes,
And that to hear an old man sing,
May to your wishes pleasure bring,
I life would wish, and that I might
Waste it for you, like taper-light.-
This Antioch then, Antiochus the Great
Built up
this city for his chiefest seat;
The fairest in all Syria;

(I tell you what mine authors say :)
This king unto him took a pheere,
Who died and left a female heir,
So buxom, blithe, and full of face,"
As heaven had lent her all his grace;
With whom the father liking took,
And her to incest did provoke :

Bad child, worse father! to entice his own
To evil, should be done by none.
By custom what they did begin,

Was, with long use, account no sin.
The beauty of this sinful dame
Made many princes thither frame,"
To seek her as a bed-fellow,
In marriage-pleasures playfellow:
Which to prevent, he made a law
(To keep her still, and men in awe,)10
That whoso ask'd her for his wife,
His riddle told not, lost his life:
So for her many a wight did die,

As yon grim looks do testify.11

What now ensues, to the judgment of your eye
I give, my cause who best can justify.12 [Exit.
SCENE I. Antioch. A Room in the Palace,
Enter ANTIOCHUS, PERICLES, and Attendants.
Ant. Young prince of Tyre,13 you have at large
receiv'd

The danger of the task you undertake.

Per. I have, Antiochus, and with a soul Embolden'd with the glory of her praise, Think death no hazard, in this enterprise. [Music. Ant. Bring in our daughter, clothed like a bride," For the embracements even of Jove himself; At whose conception (till Lucina reign'd, Nature this dowry gave, to glad her presence,)' The senate-house of planets all did sit, To knit in her their best perfections.

Enter the Daughter of ANTIOCHUS.

Per. See, where she comes, apparell'd like ‘be spring,

Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king
Of every virtue gives renown to men!16

Her face the book of praises,17 where is read
Nothing but curious pleasures, as from thence
Sorrow were ever ras'd, and testy wrath
Could never be her mild companion.18
Ye gods that made me man, and sway in love,
That have inflam'd desire in my breast,
To taste the fruit of yon celestial tree,
Or die in the adventure, be my helps,
As I am son and servant to your will,
To compass such a boundless happiness!
Ant. Prince Pericles,-

Per. That would be son to great Antiochus.
Ant. Before thee stands this fair Hesperides,
With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touch'd;
For death-like dragons here affright thee hard:
Her face, like heaven, enticeth thee to view
Her countless glory, which desert must gain:
And which, without desert, because thine eye
Presumes to reach, all thy whole heap must die.
Yon sometime famous princes, like thyself,
Drawn by report, advent'rous by desire,

1 Chorus, in the character of Gower, an ancient Eng-Tell thee with speechless tongues, and semblance lish poet, who has related the story of this play in his Confessio Amantis.

2 i. e. that of old.

pale,

That without covering, save yon field of stars,20

The defect of metre (sung and come being no father of Pericles is living. By prince, therefore, rhymes) points out that we should read—

"From ancient ashes Gower sprung;'

alluding to the restoration of the Phoenix.

4 That is, says Dr. Farmer, by whom this emendation was made, church-ales. The old copy has 'holy days.' Gower's speeches were certainly intended to rhyme throughout.

5 The purchase' is the reading of the old copy; which Steevens, among other capricious alterations, changed to purpose. That Steevens and Malone were gnorant of the true meaning of the word purchase, I have shown, King Henry IV. part i. act ii. sc. 1. It was anciently used to signify gain, profit; any good or advantage obtained; as in the following instances: James the First, when he made the extravagant gift of 30,000l. to Rich, said, 'You think now that you have a great purchase; but I am far happier in giving you that sum than you can be in receiving it.'

'No purchase passes a good wife, no losse Is, than a bad wife a more cursed crosse.'

Chapman's Georgics of Hesiod, b. ii. 44, p. 32. Long would it be ere thou hast purchase bought, Or welthier wexen by such idle thought.' Hall, Satire ii. b. 2. 6 Wife; the word signifies a mate or companion. i. e. completely exuberantly beautiful. A full fortune, in Othello, means a complete one.

9 Account for accounted.

9 i. e. shape or direct their course thither. 10 To keep her still to himself, and to deter others from demanding her in marriage.'

11 Gower must be supposed to point to the scene of the palace gate at Antioch, on which the heads of those unfortunate wights were fixed.

12 Which (the judgment of your eye) best can justify, I. e. prove its resemblance to the ordinary course of nature. Thus afterwards :

'When thou shalt kneel and justify in knowledge.' 18 It does not appear in the present drama that the

throughout this play, we are to understand prince reg nant. In the Gesta Romanorum, Appolonius is king of Tyre; and Appolyn in Copland's translation from the French. In Twine's translation he is repeatedly called prince of Tyrus, as he is in Gower.

14 In the old copy this line stands :

'Music, bring in our daughter clothed like a bride.' Malone thinks it a marginal direction, inserted in the text by mistake. Mr. Boswell thinks it only an Alexandrine, and adds, "It does not seem probable that music would commence at the close of Pericles' speech, without an order from the king.'

15 The words whose and her refer to the daughter of C The construction is, at whose conception Antiochus. the senate-house of planets all did sit,' &c.; and the words, 'till Lucina reign'd, Nature,' &c. are parenthetical. The leading thought may have been taken from Sidney's Arcadia, book ii. :-The senate-house of the planets was at no time to set for the decreeing of perfection in a man,' &c. Thus also Milton, Paradise Lost, viii. 511:

all heaven,

And happy constellations on that hour
Shed their selectest influence.'

16 The Graces are her subjects, and her thoughts the sovereign of every virtue that gives renown to men.' The ellipsis in the second line is what obscured this passage, which Steevens would have altered, because he did not comprehend it.

17 Her face is a book where may be read all that is praiseworthy, every thing that is the cause of admiration and praise.' Shakspeare has often this image. 19 By her mild companion''the companion of her mildness' is meant.

19 Hesperides is here taken for the name of the garden in which the golden apples were kept; as we find it in Love's Labour's Lost, Act iv. 20 Thus Lucan, lib. vii :

cœlo tegitur qui non habet urnam."

They here stand martyrs, slain in Cupid's wars;
And with dead cheeks advise thee to desist,
For going' on death's net whom none resist.

Per. Antiochus, I thank thee who hath taught
My frail mortality to know itse.f,
And by those fearful objects to prepare
This body, like to them, to what I must:2
For death remember'd, should be like a mirror,
Who tells us, life's but breath
life's but breath; to trust it, error.
I'll make my will, then; and as sick men do,
Who know the world, see heaven, but feeling wo,3
Gripe not at earthly joys, as erst they did;
So I bequeath a happy peace to you,

And all good men, as every prince should do;
My riches to the earth from whence they came:
But my unspotted fire of love to you.

[To the Daughter of ANTIOCHUS.
Thus ready for the way of life or death,
I wait the sharpest blow, Antiochus.

Ant. Scorning advice.--Read the conclusion then;
Which read and not expounded, 'tis decreed,
As these before thee thou thyself shalt bleed.
Daugh. In all, save that, may'st thou prove pros-
perous!

In all, save that, I wish thee happiness !4

Per. Like a bold champion, I assume the lists,
Nor ask advice of any other thought
But faithfulness, and courage.5

[He reads the Riddle.]

I am no viper, yet I feed

On mother's flesh which did me breed :
I sought a husband, in which labour,
I found that kindness in a father.
He's father, son, and husband mild,
I, mother, wife, and yet his child.
How they may be, and yet in two,
As you will live, resolve it
you.
Sharp physic is the last : but O, you powers!
That give heaven countless eyes to view men's

acts,

Why cloud they not their sights perpetually
If this be true, which makes me pale to read it?
Fair glass of light, I lov'd you, and could still,

[Takes hold of the Hand of the Princess.
Were not this glorious casket stor'd with ill:
But I must tell you,-now, my thoughts revolt;
For he's no man on whom perfections wait,"
That knowing sin within, will touch the gate.
You're a fair viol, and your sense the strings:
Who, finger'd to make man his lawful music,

1 i. e. for fear of going,' or 'lest they should go.'Dr. Percy proposed to read, 'in death's net; but on and in were anciently used the one for the other.

That is, to prepare this body for that state to which I must come.'

3 I will act as sick men do; who having had experience of the pleasures of the world, and only a vision ary and distant prospect of heaven, have neglected the Latter for the former; but at length, feeling themselves decaying, grasp no longer at temporal pleasures, out prepare calmly for futurity.'

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4 The old copy reads :

Of all said yet, may'st thou prove prosperous ;
Of all said yet, I wish thee happiness!'
The emendation is Mr. Mason's.

5 This is from the third book of Sidney's Arcadia :Whereupon asking advice of no other thought but faithfulness and courage, he presently lighted from ais own horse,' &c.

6 i. e. the intimation in the last line of the riddle, that his life depends on resolving it: which he properly enough calls sharp physic, or a bitter potion.

7 Thus in A Midsummer Night's Dream :who more engilds the night

8

Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.
stars hide your fires,

Let not light see,' &c.

Macbeth.

9 i. e. he is no perfect or honest man, that knowing,

kc.

10 This is a stroke of nature. The incestuous king cannot bear to see a rival touch the hand of the woman he loves. His jealousy resembles that of Antony :to let him be familiar with

My play-fellow, your hand; this kingly seal
And plighter of high hearts.'

Would draw heaven down, and all the gods to
harken;

But, being play'd upon before your time,
Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime :
Good sooth, I care not for you,

Ant. Prince Pericles, touch not,10 upon thy life,
For that's an article within our law,

As dangerous as the rest. Your time's expir'd;
Either expound now, or receive your sentence.
Per. Great king,

Few love to hear the sins they love to act;
"Twould 'braid yourself too near for me to tell it.
Who has a book of all that monarchs do,
He's more secure to keep it shut, than shown;
For vice repeated, is like the wand'ring wind,
Blows dust in others' eyes, to spread itself;11
And yet the end of all is bought thus dear,
The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear
To stop the air would hurt them. The blind mole

casts

Copp'd12 hills towards heaven, to tell, the earth is throng'd

By man's oppression;13 and the poor worm14 doth
die for't.

Kings are earth's gods: in vice their law's their will;
And if Jove stray, who dares say, Jove doth ill?
It is enough you know; and it is fit,

What being more known grows worse, to smother it.
All love the womb that their first beings bred,
Then give my tongue like leave to love my head.
Ant. Heaven, that I had thy head! he has found
the meaning;

But I will gloze15 with him. [Aside.] Young prince
of Tyre,

Though by the tenor of our strict edict,
Your exposition misinterpret.ng,

We might proceed to cancel of your days ;16
Yet hope, succeeding from so fair a tree
As your fair self, doth tune us otherwise :
Forty days longer we do respite you ;
If by which time our secret be undone,
This mercy shows, we ll joy in such a son:
And until then, your entertain shall be,
As doth befit our honour, and your worth.

[Exeunt ANT. his Daughter, and Attend.
Per. How courtesy would seem to cover sin!
When what is done is like a hypocrite,
The which is good in nothing but in sight.
If it be true that I interpret false,
Then were it certain, you were not so bad,
As with foul incest to abuse your soul;
Where1 now you're both a father and a son,
Malefort, in Massinger's Unnatural Combat, expresses
the like impatient jealousy, when Beaufort touches
his daughter Theocrine, to whom he was betrothed.

11 The man who knows the ill practices of princes is unwise if he reveals what he knows; for the publisher of vicious actions resembles the wind, which while it passes along, blows dust into men's eyes. When the blast is over, the eyes that have been affected by the dust, though sore, see clear enough to stop for the fu ture the air that would annoy them.' Pericles means by this similitude to show the danger of revealing the crimes of princes; for as they feel hurt by the publication of their shame, they will of course prevent the repetition of it, by destroying the person who divulged He pursues the same idea in the instance of the mole.

12 Copp'd hills' are hills rising in a conical form, something of the shape of a sugarloaf. Thus in Horman's Vulgaria, 1519: Sometime men wear copped caps like a sugar loaf.' So Baret: To make copped, or sharpe at top; cacumino.' In Anglo-Saxon, cop is a head.

13 The earth is oppressed by the injuries which crowd upon her. Steevens altered throng'd to wrong'd; but apparently without necessity.

14 The mole is called poor worm as a term of commiseration. In The Tempest, Prospero, "peaking to Miranda, says, Poor worm, thou art infected. The mole remains secure till it has thrown up those hillocks which betray his course to the mole-catcher. 15 Flatter, insinuate.

16 To the destruction of ycur life.

17 Where has here the power of whereus; as in other passages of these plays. It occurs again with the same meaning in Act ii. Sc. 3, of this play

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