: PER. O you gods! Why do you make us love your goodly gifts, And fnatch them straight away? We, here below, Recall not what we give, and therein may Vie honour with yourselves.5 Lyc. Even for this charge. PER. Patience, good fir, Now, mild may be thy life! For a more blust'rous birth had never babe: s Vie honour with yourselves.] Old copy-Use honour &. STEEVENS. The meaning is sufficiently clear.-In this particular you might learn from us a more honourable conduct. But the expreffion is so harsh, that I fufpect the passage to be corrupt. MALONE. I suspect the author wrote-Vie honour, a phrafe much in use among Shakfpeare and his contemporaries. Thus, in Chapman's version of the twentieth Iliad: "What then need we vie calumnies; like women-?" See also Vol. IX. p. 89, n. 1. Mr. M. Mason has offered the same conjecture. I read, however, for the fake of measure,yourselves. STEEVENS. The meaning is evidently this: "We poor mortals recal not what we give, and therefore in that respect we may contend with you in honour." I have therefore no doubt but we ought to read: And therein may Vie honour with &c. The fame expression occurs in the introduction to the fourth Act, where Gower says : "The dove of Paphos might with the crow The trace of the letters in the words vie and use is nearly the fame, especially if we suppose that the v was used instead of the u vowel; which is frequently the cafe in the old editions : "Nature wants stuff, "To vie strange forms with fancy." Antony and Cleopatra. M. MASON. Quiet and gentle thy conditions!6 As fire, air, water, earth, and heaven can make, • Quiet and gentle thy conditions!] Conditions anciently meant qualities; difpofitions of mind. So, in Othello : "And then of so gentle a condition!" He is speaking of Desdemona. Again, in King Henry V: "Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not fmooth." "The late Earl of Effex (fays Sir Walter Raleigh) told Queen Elizabeth that her conditions were as crooked as her carcafe ;but it cost him his head." See also Vol. XII. p. 521, n. 7. MALONE. welcom'd-] Old copy-welcome. For this correction I am answerable. 8 MALONE. - as chiding a nativity,] i. e. as noisy a one. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream; Hippolyta, speaking of the clamour of the hounds : - never did I hear "Such gallant chiding." See note on that passage, Vol. IV. p. 450. n. 5. STEEVENS. To herald thee from the womb: ) The old copy reads: For the emendation now made, the reader is indebted to Mr. only to herald thee into his prefence, "Not pay thee.". This word is in many ancient books written harold, and harauld. So, in Ives's SELECT PAPERS relative to English Antiquities, quarto, 1773, p. 130: "-and before them kings of armes, harolds, and pursuyvaunts." Again, in The Mirrour for Magistrates, 1610: "Truth is no harauld, nor no fophift, fure." See also Cowel's Interpreter, in v. Herald, Heralt, or Harold; which puts Mr. Steevens's emendation beyond a doubt. MALONE. So, more appofitely, in the Preface to Certaine Secrete Wonders of Nature, &c. 4to. bl. 1. by Edward Fenton, 1569: "-the Thy loss is more than can thy portage quit, Enter Two Sailors. 1 SAIL. What courage, fir? God save you. PER. Courage enough: I do not fear the flaw; It hath done to me the worst.3 Yet, for the love elementes have been harolds, trumpetters, minifters, and exe cutioners of the justice of heaven." STEEVENS. I Thy loss is more than can thy portage quit,] i. e. thou haft already loft more (by the death of thy mother) than thy safe arrival at the port of life can counterbalance, with all to boot that we can give thee. Portage is used for gate or entrance in one of Shakspeare's historical plays. STEEVENS. Portage is used in King Henry V. where it fignifies an open space: "Let it [the eye] pry through the portage of the head." Portage is an old word fignifying a toll or impost, but it will not commodioufly apply to the present paffage. Perhaps, however, Pericles means to say, you have loft more than the payment made to me by your birth, together with all that you may hereafter acquire, can countervail. MALONE. 2 - I do not fear the flaw;] i. e. the blast. See Hamlet, Act V. fc. i. MALONE. So, in Chapman's version of the eleventh Iliad: " Wraps waves on waves, hurls up the froth beat with a vehement flaw." STEEVENS. * It hath done to me the worst.] So, in the Confeffio Amantis: " " a wife! My joye, my luft, and my defyre, My welth and my recoverire! Why shall I live, and thou shalt die? "Ha, thou fortune, I thee defie, " Now haft thou do to me thy werft; "A herte! why ne wilt thou berst?" MALONE. Of this poor infant, this fresh-new fea-farer,4 1 SAIL. Slack the bolins there ;5 thou wilt not, wilt thou? Blow, and split thyself.6 2 SAIL. But fea-room, an the brine and cloudy billow kiss the moon, I care not.7 1 SAIL. Sir, your queen must overboard; the sea works high, the wind is loud, and will not lie till the ship be cleared of the dead.8 4this fresh-new fea-farer,] We meet a fimilar.compound epithet in King Richard III: "Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current." MALONE. 5 Slack the bolins there ;] Bowlines are ropes by which the fails of a ship are governed when the wind is unfavourable. They are flackened when it is high. This term occurs again in The Two Noble Kinsmen : the wind is fair, Top the bowling." They who wish for more particular information concerning bolings, may find it in Smith's Sea Grammar, 4to. 1627, p. 23. • 1 Sail. - Blow and split thyself, 7 2 Sail. But fea-room, &c.] So, in The Tempest: STEEVENS. "Blow till thou burst thy wind, if room enough." MALONE. an the brine and cloudy billow kiss the moon, I care not.] So, in The Winter's Tale : Now the ship boring the moon with her main-mast." An is used here, as in many other places, for if, or though. MALONE. till the ship be cleared of the dead.] So, in Twine's tranflation: "My lord, plucke up your hearte, and be of good cheere, and confider, I pray you, that the ship may not abide to carry the dead carkas, and therefore commaund it to be caft into the fea, that we may the better escape." This superftitious belief is also commemorated by Fuller in his Historie of the Holy Warre, Book IV. ch. 27: " His body was carried into France there to be buried, and was most miferably toffed; it being observed, that the fea cannot digest the crudity PER. That's your superstition. 1 SAIL. Pardon us, fir; with us at sea it still hath been observed; and we are strong in earnest.9 Therefore briefly yield her; for she must overboard straight. PER. Be it as you think meet.---Most wretched queen! Lrc. Here she lies, fir. PER. A terrible child-bed haft thou had, my dear; No light, no fire: the unfriendly elements Forgot thee utterly; nor have I time To give thee hallow'd to thy grave, but straight Must caft thee, scarcely coffin'd, in the ooze;3 of a dead corpse, being a due debt to be interred where it dieth; and a Jhip cannot abide to be made a bier of." A circumftance exactly similar is found in the Lyfe of Saynt Mary Magdalene, in the Golden Legend, Wynkyn de Worde's edition, fo. CLXIX. STEEVENS, 9-strong in earnest.] Old copy-ftrong in eaftern. STEEVENS. I have no doubt that this passage is corrupt, but know not how to amend it. MALONE. I read, with Mr. M. Mafon, (transposing only the letters of the original word,)-strong in earnest. So, in Cymbeline, we have-" ftrong in appetite;" and in Timon, "Be Strong in whore." STEEVENS. I - for The must overboard straight.] These words are in the old copy, by an evident mistake, given to Pericles. MALONE. 2 To give thee hallow'd to thy grave.] The old Shepherd, in The Winter's Tale, expresses the fame apprehenfion concerning the want of fepulchral rites, and that he shall be buried - where no priest shovels in duft." MALONE, 3 Muft cast thee, scarcely coffin'd, in the ooze ;) The defect both of metre and sense shows that this line, as it appears in the old copy, is corrupted. It reads : Muft cast thee, Scarcely coffin'd, in oare. MALONE. |