I have three daughters; the eldest is eleven; Land-damn is probably one of those words which caprice brought into fashion, and which, after a short time, reason and grammar drove irrecoverably away. It perhaps meant no more than I will rid the country of him, condemn him to quit the land. JOHNSON. "Land-damn him," if such a reading can be admitted, may mean, he would procure sentence to be past on him in this world, on this earth.' 6 Antigonus could no way make good the threat of stopping his urine. Besides, it appears too ridiculous a punishment for so atrocious a criminal. Yet it must be confessed, that what Sir T. Hanmer has said concerning the word lant, is true. I meet with the following instance in Glapthorne's Wit in a Constable, 1639: "Your frequent drinking country ale with lant in't.” And, in Shakspeare's time, to drink a lady's health in urine appears to have been esteemed an act of gallantry. One instance (for I could produce many,) may suffice: "Have I not religiously vow'd my heart to you, been drunk for your health, eat glasses, drank urine, stabb'd arms, and done all the offices of protested gallantry for your sake?" Antigonus, on this occasion, may therefore have a dirty meaning. It should be remembered, however, that to damn anciently signified to condemn. So, in Promos and Cassandra, 1578: "Vouchsafe to give my damned husband life." Again, in Julius Cæsar, Act IV. Sc. I.: "He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him." STEEVENS. I am persuaded that this is a corruption, and that either the printer caught the word damn from the preceding line, or the transcriber was deceived by similitude of sounds.-What the poet's word was, cannot now be ascertained, but the sentiment was probably similar to that in Othello: O heaven, that such companions thou'dst unfold," &c. I believe, we should read-land-dam; i. e. kill him; bury him in earth. So, in King John: "His ears are stopp'd with dust; he's dead." Again, ibid. : 66 And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust." Again, in Kendal's Flowers of Epigrams, 1577: "The corps clapt fast in clotter'd claye, "That here engrav'd doth lie-." Again, in Ben Jonson's Volpone: Speak to the knave ? "I'll ha' my mouth first stopp'd with earth." MALOne. If this prove true, they'll pay for't: by mine ho nour, I'll geld them all; fourteen they shall not see, After all these aukward struggles to obtain a meaning, we might, I think, not unsafely read "I'd laudanum him—," i. e. poison him with laudanum. So, in Ben Jonson's Silent Wo"Have I no friend, that will make her drunk, or give her a little laudanum, or opium ?” man: The word is much more ancient than the time of Shakspeare. I owe this remark to Dr. Farmer. STEEVENS. 4 The second, and the third, nine, and some five ;] The second folio reads-sonnes five. REED. This line appears obscure, because the word nine seems to refer to both "the second and the third." But it is sufficiently clear, "referendo singula singulis." The second is of the age of nine, and the third is some five years old." The same expression, as Theobald has remarked, is found in King Lear: "For that I am, some twelve or fourteen moonshines, 66 The editor of the second folio reads-sons five; startled probably by the difficulty that arises from the subsequent lines, the operation that Antigonus threatens to perform on his children, not being commonly applicable to females. But for this, let our author answer. Bulwer in his Artificial Changeling, 1656, shows it may be done. Shakspeare undoubtedly wrote some; for were we, with the ignorant editor above mentioned, to read—sons five, then the second and third daughter would both be of the same age; which, as we are not told that they are twins, is not very reasonable to suppose. Besides; daughters are by the law of England coheirs, but sons never. MALONE. 5 And I had rather GLIB myself, &c.] For glib I think we should read lib, which, in the northern language, is the same with geld. In The Court Beggar, by Mr. Richard Brome, Act IV. the word lib is used in this sense :- "He can sing a charm (he says) shall make you feel no pain in your libbing, nor after it: no toothdrawer, or corn-cutter, did ever work with so little feeling to a patient." GREY. So, in the comedy of Fancies Chaste and Noble, by Ford, 1638: "What a terrible sight to a lib'd breech, is a sow-gelder?" LEON. Cease; no more. You smell this business with a sense as cold Again, in Chapman's Translation of Hesiod's Booke of Daies, 4to. 1618: "The eight, the bellowing bullock lib, and gote." Though lib may probably be the right word, yet glib is at this time current in many counties, where they say-to glib a boar, to glib a horse. So, in St. Patrick for Ireland, a play by Shirley, 1640: "If I come back, let me be glib'd." STEEVENS. 6 - I see't, and feel't,] The old copy-but I do see't and feel't. I have followed Sir T. Hanmer, who omits these expletives, which serve only to derange the metre, without improving the sense. STEEVENS. 7 I see't, and feel't, feel doing thus ; and see withal As you The instruments that feel.] Some stage direction seems necessary in this place; but what that direction should be, it is not easy to decide. Sir T. Hanmer gives-" Laying hold of his arm; " Dr. Johnson-" striking his brows." STEEVENS. As a stage direction is certainly requisite, and as there is none in the old copy, I will venture to propose a different one from any hitherto mentioned. Leontes, perhaps, "touches the forehead of Antigonus with his fore and middle fingers forked in imitation of a Snail's Horns;" for "these, (or imaginary horns of his own like them,) are the instruments that feel," to which he alluded.—There is a similar reference in The Merry Wives of Windsor, from whence the direction of " striking his brows" seems to have been adopted :-"he so takes on,so curses all Eve's daughters, and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying Peer out, peer out!"The word lunes, it should be noted, occurs in the context of both passages, and in the same sense. HENLEY. I see and feel my disgrace, as you Antigonus, now feel me, on my doing thus to you, and as you now see the instruments that feel, i. e. my fingers. So, in Coriolanus: 66 all the body's members "Rebell'd against the belly; thus accus'd it :- where, the other instruments "Did see, hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel," &c. Leontes must here be supposed to lay hold of either the beard or arm, or some other part, of Antigonus. See a subsequent note in the last scene of this Act. MALONE. ANT. If it be so, We need no grave to bury honesty ; There's not a grain of it, the face to sweeten LEON. What! lack I credit? 1 LORD. I had rather you did lack, than I, my lord, Upon this ground: and more it would content me LEON. ANT. And I wish, my liege, You had only in your silent judgment tried it, LEON. How could that be? 8dungy earth.] So, in Antony and Cleopatra : 9 66 our dungy earth alike "Feeds beast as man." STEEVENS. which,-if you Relish as truth,] The old copy reads-a truth. Mr. Rowe made the necessary correction-as. STEEVENS. Our author is frequently inaccurate in the construction of his sentences, and the conclusions of them do not always correspond with the beginning. So, before, in this play : 66 who,-if I The late editions read-as truth, which is certainly more grammatical; but a wish to reduce our author's phraseology to the modern standard, has been the source of much error in the regulation of his text. MALONE. Either thou art most ignorant by age, Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight, (Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture, Made up to the deed,) doth push on this proceeding: Yet, for a greater confirmation, (For, in an act of this importance, 'twere LEON. Though I am satisfied, and need no more Than what I know, yet shall the oracle Give rest to the minds of others; such as he, Come up to the truth: So have we thought it good, 2 I nought for approbation, But only seeing,] Approbation in this place is put for proof. JOHNSON. stuff'd sufficiency:] That is, of abilities more than enough. JOHNSON. See note on Othello, vol. ix. p. 237, n. 9. So, in Dallington's Method of Travell: "I remember a countriman of ours well seene in arts and language, well stricken in yeares, a mourner for his second wife; a father of marriageable children, who with other his booke studies abroad, joyned also the exercise of dancing; it was his hap in an honourable Bal (as they call it) to take a fall, which in mine opinion was not so disgracefull as the dancing itselfe, to a man of his stuffe." BOSWELL. 3 Lest that the treachery of the two, &c.] He has before declared, that there is a plot against his life and crown, and that Hermione is federary with Polixenes and Camillo. JOHNSON. |