ACT III.

Enter GowER.

Gow. Now fleep yflaked hath the rout;'
No din but fnores, the houfe about,
Made louder by the o'er-fed breaft
Of this moft pompous marriage feaft.
The cat, with eyne of burning coal,
3. Now couches 'fore the moufe's hole ;3

Now fleep yflaked hath the rout;

No din but fnores, &c.] The quarto, 1609, and the fubfequent copies, read:

No din but fnores about the house.

As Gower's fpeeches are all in rhyme, it is clear that the old copy is here corrupt. It firft occurred to me that the author might have written :

Now fleep yflaked hath the roufe;

i. e. the caroufal. But the mere tranfpofition of the latter part of the fecond line, renders any further change unneceffary. Rout is likewife ufed by Gower for a company in the tale of Appolinus, the Pericles of the prefent play :

Again:

Upon a tyme with a route

"This lord to play goeth hym out."

"It fell a daie thei riden oute,

"The kinge and queene and all the route." MALONE. No din but fnores, the houfe about,

Made louder by the o'er-fed breaft-] So Virgil, fpeaking of Rhamnes, who was killed in the midnight expedition of Nifus and Euryalus:

Rhamneten aggreditur, qui forte tapetibus altis "Extru&tus, toto proflabat pectore fomnum."

STEEVENS.

The quarto 1619, the folios, and Mr. Rowe, all read, o'er fee beast. The true reading has been recovered from the firft quarto. MALONE.

And crickets fing at th' oven's mouth,
As the blither for their drouth.4
Hymen hath brought the bride to bed,
Where, by the lofs of maidenhead,
A babe is moulded;5-Be attent,"
And time that is fo briefly spent,
With your fine fancies quaintly eche;7
What's dumb in fhow, I'll plain with speech.

which may perhaps mean-at fome little diftance from the moufe's hole. I believe, however, we ought to read-fore the moufe's hole. MALONE.

4 And crickets fing at th' oven's mouth,

As the blither for their drouth.] So, in Cymbeline:

"The crickets fing, and man's o'erlabour'd sense
Repairs itself by reft."

The old copy has-Are the blither &c. The emendation was fuggefted by Mr. Steevens. Perhaps we ought to read: And crickets, finging at the oven's mouth, Are the blither for their drouth. MALONE.

This additional syllable would derange the measure.

5 Hymen hath brought the bride to bed, Where, by the lofs of maidenhead,

STEEVENS.

"The

A babe is moulded:] So, in Twine's translation : bride was brought to bed, and Apollonius tarried not long from her, where he accomplished the duties of marriage, and faire Lucina conceived with childe the fame night." STEEVENS.

• Be attent,] This adjective is again used in Hamlet, A& I. fc. ii. MALONE.

7 With your fine fancies quaintly eche ;] i. e. eke out. So, in the Chorus to King Henry V. (first folio):

ftill be kind,

"And eche out our performance with your mind." Again, in The Merchant of Venice, quarto, 1600, (Heyes's edition) :

'tis to peeze the time,

"To ech it, and to draw it out in length." MALONE.

Dumb fhow.

Enter PERICLES and SIMONIDES at one door, with Attendants; a Messenger meets them, kneels, and gives PERICLES a Letter. PERICLES Shows it to SIMONIDES; the Lords kneel to the former. Then enter THAISA with child, and LYCHORIDA. SIMONIDES Shows his Daughter the Letter; fhe rejoices: She and PERICLES take leave of her Father, and depart. depart. Then SIMONIDES, &c. retire.

Gow. By many a dearn and painful perch,
Of Pericles the careful fearch
By the four oppofing coignes,'
Which the world together joins,

-the Lords kneel to the former.] The Lords kneel to Pericles, because they are now, for the first time, informed by this letter, that he is king of Tyre. "No man," fays Gower, in his Confeffio Amantis:

knew the foth cas,

"But he hym felfe; what man he was."

By the death of Antiochus and his daughter, Pericles has also fucceeded to the throne of Antioch, in confequence of having rightly interpreted the riddle proposed to him. "MAlone.

9 By many a dearn and painful perch, &c.] Dearn is direful, difmal. See Skinner's Etymol. in v. Dere. The word is ufed by Spenfer, B. II. c. i. ft. 35.-B. III. c. i. ft. 14. The conftruction is somewhat involved. The careful fearch of Pericles is made by many a dearn and painful perch-by the four oppofing coignes, which join the world together;-with all due diligence, &c. MALONE.

Dearn fignifies lonely, folitary. See note on King Lear, Vol. XVII. p. 499, n. 6. A perch is a measure of five yards

and a half. STEEVENS.

I

By the four oppofing coignes,] By the four oppofite cornerStones that unite and bind together the great fabrick of the world. The word is again used by Shakspeare in Macbeth:

Is made, with all due diligence,

2

That horfe, and fail, and high expence,
Can ftead the queft. At last from Tyre
(Fame answering the moft ftrong inquire,3)
To the court of king Simonides

Are letters brought the tenour these :
Antiochus and his daughter's dead;
The men of Tyrus, on the head
Of Helicanus would fet on

The crown of Tyre, but he will none:
The mutiny there he haftes t'appease ;4
Says to them, if king Pericles

"Buttress, or coigne of vantage, but this bird

"Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle."

In the paffage before us, the author feems to have confidered the world as a ftupendous edifice, artificially conftructed.-To feek a man in every corner of the globe, is ftill common language. All the ancient copies read:

By the four oppofing crignes.

but there is no fuch English word. For the ingenious emendation inferted in the text, which is produced by the change of a fingle letter, the reader is indebted to Mr. Tyrwhitt.

The word-coign, occurs alfo in Coriolanus:

MALONE.

"See you yond' coign o'the Capitol ?" STEEVens.

2 Can ftead the quest.] i. e. help, befriend, or assist the search. So, in Measure for Measure:

can you fo ftead me,

"To bring me to the fight of Ifabella?" STEEVENS.

3 (Fame anfwering the most strong inquire,)] The old copy reads-the moft Strange inquire; but it furely was not ftrange, that Pericles' fubjects should be solicitous to know what was become of him. We should certainly read-the most strong inquire; this earneft, anxious inquiry. The fame mistake has happened in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, folio, 1623: "Whose weakness married to thy Stranger state-:' instead of stronger. The fame mistake has also happened in other places. MALONE.

4 The mutiny &c.] Old copy:

Come not, in twice fix moons, home,
He obedient to their doom,5

Will take the crown. The fum of this,
Brought hither to Pentapolis,
Y-ravifhed the regions round,"

And every one with claps, 'gan found,
Our heir apparent is a king:

Who dream'd, who thought of fuch a thing?
Brief, he must hence depart to Tyre:
His queen with child makes her defire
(Which who fhall crofs?) along to go;
(Omit we all their dole and woe ;)

The mutiny he there haftes t'opprefs;
Says to them, if king Pericles.

Surely both fenfe and rhyme direct us to read :

The mutiny here he haftes t'appeafe; &c. STEEvens.

5 Come not, &c.] Old copy:

Come not home in twice fix moons,

He obedient to their dooms,

Moons and dooms are very miserable rhymes; nor do I recollect that a plural of the fubftantive doom is ever used.-A slight transpofition will remedy the prefent defect

Come not, in twice fix moons, home,

He obedient to their doom, &c.

STEEVENS.

• Y-ravished the regions round,] From the false print of the firft edition, Iranifhed, the fubfequent editors formed a still more abfurd reading:

Irony fhed the regions round,.

Mr. Steevens's ingenious emendation, to which I have paid due attention by inferting it in the text, is strongly confirmed by the following paffage in Gower, De Confeffione Amantis:

This tale after the kynge it had
"Pentapolin all overfprad,
"There was no joye for to feche,
"For every man it had in fpeche,

"And faiden all of one accorde,

"A worthy kynge fhall ben our lorde.

"That thought us firft an heavines,

"Is fhape us nowe to great gladnes.

"Thus goth the tydinge over all." MALONE.