2 FISH. Ho! come, and bring away the nets. 1 FISH. What Patch-breech, I fay!

3 Fish. What fay you, mafter?

1 FISH. Look how thou stirreft now! come away, or I'll fetch thee with a wannion.2

3 FISH. 'Faith, mafter, I am thinking of the poor men that were caft away before us, even now.

1 FISH. Alas, poor fouls, it grieved my heart to hear what pitiful cries they made to us, to help them,3 when, well-a-day, we could fcarce help our felves.

3 FISH. Nay, mafter, faid not I as much, when I faw the porpus, how he bounced and tumbled ?4

coat. The context confirms this correction. The first fisherman appears to be the mafter, and fpeaks with authority, and fome degree of contempt, to the third fisherman, who is a fervant.His next fpeech, What, Patch-breech, I fay! is in the fame ftyle. The fecond fisherman feems to be a fervant likewise; and, after the mafter has called-What, ho Pilche!(for fo I read,) explains what it is he wants:-Ho, come and bring away the nets. MALONE.

In Twine's tranflation we have the following paffage:-" He was a rough fisherman, with an hoode upon his head, and a filthie leatherne pelt upon his backe." STEEVENS.

2

with a wannion.] A phrafe of which the meaning is obvious, though I cannot explain the word at the end of it. It is common in many of our old plays. STEEVENS.

3 Alas, poor fouls, it grieved my heart &c.] So, in The Winter's Tale: "O the most piteous cry of the poor fouls! Sometimes to fee 'em, and not to fee 'em;-now the ship boring the moon with her main-maft, and anon swallowed with yeft and froth, as you'd thruft a cork into a hogfhead. And then for the land-fervice-To fee how the bear tore out his fhoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help." MALONE.

4 when I faw the porpus how he bounced and tumbled?] The rifing of porpufes near a veffel at fea, has long been confidered by the fuperftition of failors, as the fore-runner of a storm. So, in The Duchefs of Malfy, by Webster, 1623: "He lifts up his nofe like a foul porpus before a storm." MALONE.

they fay, they are half fish, half flesh a plague on them, they ne'er come, but I look to be washed. Mafter, I marvel how the fishes live in the fea.

1 FISH. Why, às men do a-land ;5 the great ones eat up the little ones: I can compare our rich mifers to nothing fo fitly as to a whale; 'a plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at laft devours them all at a mouthful. Such whales have I heard on a'the land, who never leave gaping, till they've swallowed the whole parifh, church, fteeple, bells and all.

PER. A pretty moral.

3 FISH. But, mafter, if I had been the fexton, I would have been that day in the belfry."

2 FISH. Why, man?

3 FISH. Because he fhould have swallowed me too and when I had been in his belly, I would have kept fuch a jangling of the bells, that he fhould never have left, till he caft bells, fteeple, church, and parish, up again. But if the good king Simonides were of my mind

PER. Simonides?

Malone confiders this prognoftick as arifing merely from the fuperftition of the failors: but Captain Cook, in his fecond voyage to the South Seas, mentions the playing of porpuffes round the hip as a certain fign of a violent gale of wind. M. MASON.

$ a-land;] This word occurs feveral times in Twine's tranflation, as well as in P. Holland's translation of Bliny's Nat. Hift. STEEVENS.

6

as to a whale; 'a plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him,] So in Coriolanus:

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like fcaled fculls

"Before the belching whale." STEEVENS.

↑ I would have been that day in the belfry.] That is, I should wish to have been that day in the belfry. M. MASON.

3 FISH. We would purge the land of thefe drones, that rob the bee of her honey.

PER. How from the finny fubject of the fea3
These fishers tell the infirmities of men ;
And from their watry empire recollect
All that may men approve, or men detect!-
Peace be at your labour, honeft fishermen.

2 FISH. Honeft! good fellow, what's that? if it be a day fits you, fcratch it out of the calendar, and no body will look after it.9

8

the finny fubject of the fea-] Old copies-fenny. Corrected by Mr. Steevens. MALONE.

This thought is not much unlike another in As you like it: this our life, exempt from publick haunt, "Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, "Sermons in ftones, and good in every thing."

STEEVENS.

Honeft! good fellow, what's that? if it be a day fits you, fcratch it out of the calendar, and no body will look after it.] The old copy reads-if it be a day fits you, fearch out of the calendar, and nobody look after it.

Part of the emendation fuggefted by Mr. Steevens, is confirmed by a paffage in The Coxcomb, by Beaumont and Fletcher, quoted by Mr. Mason:

I fear fhrewdly, I fhould do fomething

"That would quite fcratch me out of the calendar.”

MALONE.

The preceding speech of Pericles affords no apt introduction to the reply of the fisherman. Either fomewhat is omitted that cannot now be supplied, or the whole paffage is obfcured by more than common depravation.

It should seem that the prince had made fome remark on the badnefs of the day. Perhaps the dialogue originally ran thus: "Per. Peace be at your labour, honeft fishermen;" "The day is rough and thwarts your occupation." "2 Fish. Honeft! good fellow, what's that? If it be not a day fits you, fcratch it out of the calendar, and nobody will look after it."

PER. Nay, fee, the fea hath caft upon your

coaft

2 FISH. What a drunken knave was the fea, to caft thee in our way

PER. A man whom both the waters and the wind, In that vaft tennis-court, hath made the ball For them to play upon, entreats you pity him; He asks of you, that never us'd to beg.

2

1 FISH. No, friend, cannot you beg? here's them

The following speech of Pericles is equally abrupt and incon fiftent: "May fee the fea hath caft upon your coaft." The folio reads:

"Y may fee the fea hath caft me upon your coaft." I would rather fuppofe the poet wrote:

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Nay, fee the fea hath caft upon your coaftHere the fisherman interpofes. The prince then goes on: "A man," &c. STEEVENS.

May not here be an allufion to the dies honeftiffimus of Cicero? "If you like the day, find it out in the almanack, and nobody will take it from you." FARMER.

The allufion is to the lucky and unlucky days which are put down in fome of the old calendars. DOUCE.

Some difficulty, however, will remain, unless we fuppofe a preceding line to have been loft; for Pericles (as the text ftands) has faid nothing about the day. I fufpect that in the loft line he wifhed the men a good day. MALONE.

I to caft thee in our way!] He is playing on the word caft, which anciently was used both in the fenfe of to throw, and to vomit. So, in Macbeth:

yet I made a fhift to cast him." It is ufed in the latter fenfe above: MALONE.

up again."

till he caft bells, &c.

For them to play upon,] So, in Sidney's Arcadia, Book V: "In fuch a fhadow &c. mankind lives, that neither they know how to foresee, nor what to feare; and are, like tenis bals, tossed by the racket of the higher powers." STEEVENS.

in our country of Greece, gets more with begging, than we can do with working.

2 FISH. Can't thou catch any fishes then? PER. I never practis'd it.

2 FISH. Nay, then thou wilt ftarve fure; for here's nothing to be got now a-days, unless thou can't fish for't.

PER. What I have been, I have forgot to know; But what I am, want teaches me to think on; A man fhrunk up with cold :3 my veins are chill, And have no more of life, than may fuffice To give my tongue that heat, to ask your help; Which if you fhall refufe, when I am dead, For I am a man,4 pray fee me buried.

1 FISH. Die quoth-a? Now gods forbid! I have a gown here; come, put it on ;5 keep thee warın.

3 A man fhrunk up with cold:] Old copy.

A man throng'd up with cold;

I fufpect that throng'd, which is the reading of all the copies, is corrupt. We might read:

A man thrunk up with cold;

(It might have been anciently written fhronk.) So, in Cymbeline:

"The Shrinking flaves of winter." MALONE.

The expreffion-shrunk up, is authorised by Pope in his version of the 16th Iliad, 488:

"Shrunk up he fat, with wild and haggard eye,
"Nor ftood to combat, nor had force to fly."

STEEVENS.

4 For I am a man,] Old copy-for that I am. I omit that, which is equally unneceffary to fenfe and metre. So, in Othello: Haply for I am black."

For is becaufe. STEEVENS.

5 -I have a gown here; &c.] In the profe hiftory of Kynge Appolyn of Thyre, already quoted, the fisherman alfo gives him" one halfe of his black mantelle for to cover his body with." STEEVENS.