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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 DIONΥΖΑ.

DION. Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone ?*
CLE. O Dionyza, such a piece of flaughter

The fun 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,

"if knife, drugs, serpents, have

"Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe." STEEVENS,

Again, more appofitely, in Othello :

"

-If there be cords, or knives,

"Poifon, or fire, or fuffocating fireams,

"I'll not endure it."

MALONE.

Untied I still my virgin knot will keep.] We have the fame

classical allufion in The Tempest :

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" If thou doft break her virgin-knot," &c. MALONE.

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Can it be undone?] Thus, Lady Macbeth:
what's done, is done." STEEVENS.

- to undo the deed.] So, in Macbeth :

"Wake Duncan with this knocking:-Ay, would thou

could'st!"

In Pericles, as in Macbeth, the wife is more criminal than the hufband, whose repentance follows immediately on the murder. Thus also, in Twine's tranflation: "But Strangulio himself consented not to this treason, but so soon as he heard of the foul mischaunce, being as it were all amort, and amazed with heaviness &c. and therewithal he looked towardes his wife, faying, Thou wicked woman" &C. STEEVENS.

Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess
To equal any fingle crown o'the earth,
I'the justice of compare ! O villain Leonine,
Whom thou hast poison'd too!

If thou hadft drunk to him, it had been a kindness
Becoming well thy feat:1 what canst thou say,
When noble Pericles shall demand his child ?2

DION. That she is dead.

fates,

Nurses are not the

To foster it, nor ever to preserve.3

If thou hadst drunk to him, it had been a kindness

Becoming well thy feat :) Old copy-face: which, if this reading be genuine, must mean-hadft thou poisoned thyself by pledging him, it would have been an action well becoming thee. For the fake of a more obvious meaning, however, I read, with Mr. M. Mafon, feat instead of face. STEEVENS.

Feat, 1. e. of a piece with the rest of thy exploit. So, in The Two Noble Kinsmen, Palamon says :

"Cozener Arcite, give me language such
"As thou hast shewed me feat." M. MASON.

So, in Holinshed, p. 756: "-aiders and partakers of his feat and enterprize." STEEVENS.

2

what canst thou say,

When noble Pericles shall demand his child?] So, in the ancient romance already quoted : "-tell me now what rekenynge we shall gyve hym of his doughter," &c.

Again, in Twine's tranflation : "Thou reportedst that Prince Appollonius was dead; and loe now where he is come to require his daughter. What shall we now doe or say to him?"

STEEVENS.

So also, in the Gesta Romanorum : "Quem [Apollonium] cum vidiffet Strangulio, perrexit rabido cursu, dixitque uxori fuæ Dyonifidi-Dixifti Apollonium naufragum esse mortuum, Ecce, venit ad repetendam filiam. Ecce, quid dicturi sumus pro filia?" MALONE.

3

- Nurses are not the fates,

To foster it, nor ever to preserve.] So King John, on re

ceiving the account of Arthur's death : VOL. XXI.

Y

She died by night ;4 I'll say so. Who can cross it ?5

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 petty wrens of Tharsus will fly hence,

"We cannot hold mortality's strong hand :

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Why do you bend such folemn brows on me ?

"Think you I bear the Shears of destiny?

"Have I commandment on the pulfe of life?"

MALONE.

* She died by night ;) Old copy-at night. I suppose Dionyza means to say that the died by night; was found dead in the morning. The words are from Gower:

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"She faith, that Thaisa fodeynly

By night is dead." STEEVENS.

-I'll say fo. Who can cross it?] So, in Macbeth :

"Macb.

- Will it not be receiv'd,

"When we have mark'd with blood those fleepy two "Of his own chamber, and us'd their yery daggers, "That they have done't?

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Lady M. Who dares receive it other,

"As we shall make our grief and clamour roar

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Upon his death?" MALONE.

• Unless you play the impious innocent,] The folios and the modern editions have omitted the word impious, which is neceffary to the metre, and is found in the first quarto. She calls him, an impious fimpleton, because such a discovery would touch the life of one of his own family, his wife.

An innocent was formerly a common appellation for an idiot. See Mr. Whalley's note in Vol. VIII. p. 357, n. 6. MALONE. Notwithstanding Malone's ingenious explanation, I should wish to read the pious innocent, instead of impious. M. MASON.

1 The petty wrens of Tharsus will fly hence,] Thus the quarto, 1609; that of 1619 reads-pretty. STEEVENS.

And open this to Pericles. I do fhame
To think of what a noble strain you are,

And of how cow'd a spirit.

CLE.

To fuch proceeding

Who ever but his approbation added,
Though not his pre-confent, he did not flow

From honourable courses.

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To think of what a noble strain you are,

And of how cow'd a spirit.] Old copy-coward. I read (for the fake of metre)-of how cow'd a spirit. So, in Maсbeth:

"For it hath cow'd my better part of man."

STEEVENS.

Lady Macbeth urges the fame argument to perfuade her hufband to commit the murder of Duncan, that Dionyza here uses to induce Cleon to conceal that of Marina :

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"To be the fame in thine own act and valour,

"As thou art in defire? Would'st thou have that

"Which thou esteem'ft the ornament of life,
"And live a coward in thine own esteem?

"

Letting I dare not wait upon I would, "Like the poor cat i'the adage ?"

Again, after the murder, she exclaims :

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My hands are of your colour, but I Shame "To wear a heart so white." MALONE.

• Though not his pre-confent,] The first quarto reads-prince consent. The second quarto, which has been followed by the modern editions, has-whole consent. In the second edition, the editor or printer seems to have corrected what was apparently erroneous in the first, by substituting something that would afford sense, without paying any regard to the corrupted reading, which often leads to the discovery of the true. For the emendation inferted in the text the reader is indebted to Mr. Steevens. A passage in King John bears no very distant resemblance to the present :

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If thou didst but confent

"To this most cruel act, do but despair,

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And, if thou want'st a cord, the smalleft thread

"That ever spider twisted from her womb
"Will serve to strangle thee." MALONE.

DION.

Be it so then :

Yet none does know, but you, how the came dead,

Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.
She did disdain my child, and stood between
Her and her fortunes: None would look on her,
But caft their gazes on Marina's face;

Whilft ours was blurted at, and held a malkin,

She did disdain my child,] Thus the old copy, but I think erroneously. Marina was not of a disdainful temper. Her excellence indeed disgraced the meaner qualities of her companion, i. e. in the language of Shakspeare, distained them. Thus, Adriana, in The Comedy of Errors, says-" I live distained;" and, in Tarquin and Lucrece, we meet with the same verb again:

"Were Tarquin night (as he is but night's child)
"The filver-shining queen he would diftain.”

The verb-to stain is frequently used by our author in the sense of to disgrace. See Vol. XVII. p. 146, n. 8.

2

STEEVENS.

Whilft ours was blurted at,] Thus the quarto, 1609. All the subsequent copies have-blurred at.

This contemptuous expreffion frequently occurs in our ancient dramas. So, in King Edward III. 1596:

"This day hath set derision on the French,
"And all the world will blurt and scorn at us."

She did disdain my child, and stood between
Her and her fortunes: None would look on her,
But caft their gazes on Marina's face;

MALONE.

Whilst ours was blurted at,] The ufurping Duke in As you like it, gives the fame reasons for his cruelty to Rosalind :

-she robs thee of thy name;

"And thou wilt show more bright, and seem more virtuous,

"When the is gone."

The fame cause for Dionyza's hatred to Marina, is also alledged in Twine's tranflation: "The people beholding the beautie and comlinesse of Tharsia said: Happy is the father that hath Tharsia to his daughter; but her companion that goeth with her is foule and evil favoured. When Dionifiades heard Tharsia commended, and her owne daughter Philomacia so difpraised, she returned home wonderful wrath," &c. STEEVENS.

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