[Aside. Alb. Our very loving sister, well be met.- With others, whom the rigour of our state Alb. Gon. No. Reg. 'Tis most convenient; pray you, go with us. Hear me one word. [go. I can produce a champion, that will prove [Exit. Alb. Why, fare thee well; I will o'erlook thy paper. powers. Re-enter EDMUND. Edm. The enemy's in view, draw up your Edm. To both these sisters have I sworn my love; Each jealous of the other, as the stung Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take? Enter EDGAR and GLOSTER. [Exit. Edg. Here, father, take the shadow of this tree Grace go with you, sir! Alarums; afterwards a Retreat. Edg. Away, old man, give me thy hand, away; Glo. No further, sir; a man may rot even here. Their going hence, even as their coming hither: SCENE III.-The British Camp near Dover. Edm. Some officers take them away: good Until their greater pleasures first be known prison: We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage: As if we were heaven's spies: And we'll wear We will greet the time. [Exit. That ebb and flow by the moon. His settled resolution. + i. e. Emboldens him. + Opposition. ? Be ready to meet the occasion. i.e. Make my part good. Pass judgment on them. He, that parts us, shall bring a brand from heaven, And fire us hence, like foxes. Wipe thine eyes; They shall not make us weep: we'll see them starve first. Come. [Exeunt LEAR and COR., guarded. One step I have advanc'd thee; if thou dost ment Does not become a sword :-Thy great employ[do 't, Will not bear question; either say, thou lt Or thrive by other means. I'll do't, my lord. Edm. About it; and write happy, when thou hast done. Mark, I say instantly; and carry it so, Off. If it be man's work, I will do it. [Exit Off. Flourish. Enter ALBANY, GONERIL, REGAN, Officers, and Attendants. Alb. Sir, you have shown to-day your valiant strain, And fortune led you well: You have the captives Edm. Sir, I thought it fit To send the old and miserable king To some retention, and appointed guard; Whose age has charms in it, whose title more, To pluck the common bosom on his side, And turn our impress'd lances in our eyes Which do command them. With him I sent the queen; My reason all the same; and they are ready And the best quarrels, in the heat, are curs'd Alb. Sir, by your patience, I hold you but a subject of this war, Reg. That's as we list to grace him. Methinks our pleasure might have been demanded, Ere you had spoke so far. He led our powers; Bore the commission of my place and person; The which immediacy* may well stand up, And call itself your brother. Gon. Not so hot: In his own grace he doth exalt himself, More than in your advancement. Reg. In my rights, By me invested, he compeers the best. [you. Gon. That were the most, if he should husband Reg. Jesters do oft prove prophets. Gon. Holla, holla! That eye, that told you so, look'd but a-squint.+ Reg. Lady, I am not well; else I should answer From a full-flowing stomach.-General, Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony; Dispose of them, of me; the walls are thine: * Authority to act on his own judgment. + Alluding to the proverb: "Love being jealous makes a good eye look a-squint." +i.e. Valour. ? Notwithstanding. Alb. Witness the world, that I create thee here I bar it in the interest of my wife; Tis she is sub-contracted to this lord, An interlude! Gon. Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less That names me traitor, villain-like, he lies: [diers, Alb. A herald, ho! Edm. A herald, ho, a herald ! Alb. Trust to thy single virtue; for thy solAll levied in my name, have in my name Took their discharge. Reg. This sickness grows upon me. Enter a Herald. Alb. She is not well; convey her to my tent. [Exit REG., led. Come hither, herald,-Let the trumpet sound,— And read out this. Off. Sound trumpet. [A Trumpet sounds. What are you? Your name, your quality? and why you answer This present summons? Edg. Know, my name is lost; Alb. Which is that adversary ? [of Gloster ? That, if my speech offend a noble heart, Despite thy victor sword, and fire-new fortune, Thou liest. What safe and nicely I might well delay By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn: This sword of mine shall give them instant way, Where they shail rest for ever.-Trumpets, speak. [Alarums. They fight. EDM. falls. Alb. O save him, save him! Gon. This is mere practice,+ Gloster: [swer By the law of arms, thou wast not bound to anAn unknown opposite; thou art not vanquish'd, But cozen'd and beguil'd. Alb. Shut your mouth, dame, Or with this paper shall I stop it :-Hold, sir :Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil:No tearing, lady; I perceive you know it. [Gives the Letter to EDM. Gon. Say, if I do; the laws are mine, not thine : Who shall arraign me for 't? Alb. Know'st thou this paper? Most monstrous! Gon. Ask me not what I know. [Exit GoN. And more, much more: the time will bring it Let's exchange charity. I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund; The dark and vicious place where thee he got, Alb. Methought, thy very gait did prophesy Edg. I know it well. Worthy prince, Alb. Where have you hid yourself? How have you known the miseries of your father? Edg. By nursing them, my lord.-List + a brief tale; [burst!-And, when 'tis told, O, that my heart would The bloody proclamation to escape, [ness! That follow'd me so near, (O our lives' sweetThat with the pain of death we'd hourly die, Rather than die at once!) taught me to shift Into a madman's rags; to assume a semblance That very dogs disdain'd: and in this habit Met I my father with his bleeding rings, Edm. This speech of yours hath mov'd me, And shall, perchance, do good: but speak you on; You look as you had something more to say. Alb. If there be more, more woful, hold it in ; Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man, Enter a Gentleman hastily, with a bloody Knife. Alb. What kind of help? Edg. What means that bloody knife? 'Tis hot, it smokes; It came even from the heart of Alb. Who, man? speak. Gent. Your lady, sir, your lady: and her sister By her is poison'd; she confesses it. Edm. I was contracted to them both; all three Now marry in an instant. Alb. Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead! [tremble, This judgment of the heavens, that makes us Touches us not with pity. [Exit Gent. I am come To bid my king and master aye good night; Alb. Yet Edmund was belov'd: The cne the other poison'd for my sake, And after slew herself. Alb. Even so.-Cover their faces. Edm. I pant for life :-Some good I mean to do, Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send,Be brief in it,-to the castle; for my writ Is on the life of Lear, and on Cordelia :Nay, send in time. Edm. He hath commission from thy wife and me To hang Cordelia in the prison, and To lay the blame upon her own despair, That she forbid herself. Alb. The gods defend her! Bear him hence a while. [EDM. is borne off. Enter LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Officer, and Others. Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl!-O, you are men of stones; Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so That heaven's vault should crack:-0, she is gone for ever! I know when one is dead, and when one lives; Kent. O my good master! [Kneeling. Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha! Did I not, fellow? I have seen the day, with my good biting faulchion I would have made them skip: I am old now, And these same crosses spoil me.-Who are you? Mine eyes are none o' the best :-I'll tell you straight. Kent. If fortune brag of two she lov'd and hated, One of them we behold. Lear. This is a dull sight: Are you not Kent? Your servant Kent: Where is your servant rotten. Off. Edmund is dead, my lord. Alb. That's but a trifle here.You lords, and noble friends, know our intent. What comfort to this great decay may come, Shall be applied: For us we will resign, During the life of this old majesty, To him our absolute power:-You, to your rights; [To EDG. and KENT. With boot, and such addition as your honours Have more than merited.-All friends shall taste The wages of their virtue, and all foes The cup of their deservings.-O, see, see! Lear. And my poor fool is hanged! no life : No, no, Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, Never, never, never, never, never!— Look there, look there! [He dies. Edg. He faints!-My lord, my lord,Kent. Break, heart; I pr'ythee, break! Edg. Look up, my lord. [hates him, Kent. Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer. Edg. O, he is gone, indeed. Kent. The wonder is, he hath endur'd so long: He but usurp'd his life. Alb. Bear them from hence.-Our present business Is general woe. Friends of my soul, you twain [TO KENT and EDG. Rule in this realm, and the gor'd state sustain. Kent. I have a journey, sir, shortly to go; My master calls, and I must not say, no. [obey; Alb. The weight of this sad time we must Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we, that are young, Shall never see so much, nor live so long. [Exeunt, with a dead March. INTRODUCTION TO ROMEO AND JULIET. SCHLEGEL, in his consideration of this tragedy, rises in his enthusiasm from the critic to the poet, and eloquently exclaims-"All that is most intoxicating in the odour of a southern spring, all that is languishing in the song of the nightingale, or voluptuous in the first opening of the rose-all alike breathe forth from this poem." But the touching story of the young + Useless. * Destroyed herself. and unfortunate lovers was not invented by Shakespeare: he has told it beautifully, indeed; but it had been long popular in England; and a play upon that subject held possession of our stage before the appearance of his tragedy. There has been considerable discussion, which it is needless to investigate (as it merely relates to the choice of but slender probabilities), concerning the date of this play; but I will accept the chronology of Mr. Malone, and refer it to the year 1595. It is one of our poet's earliest pro- | too positive convictions of youth. Romeo deductions, and derives a more than ordinary degree of interest from the highly credible supposition that it was his first effort in tragedy. The story is to be found in Paynter's Palace of Pleasure, a work which Shakespeare had read; but he seems to be indebted for his materials rather to Arthur Brooke's poem of The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, written first in Italien by Bandell, and now in English by Ar. Br. In the preface to this poem, published in 1562, Brooke mentions a play which he had seen upon the subject, and, according to his judgment, one of no mean merit, from which also it is probable that Shakespeare derived some assistance. "I saw the same argument lately set foorth on stage with more commendation than I can looke for; (being there much better set foorth than I have or can dooe); yet the same matter penned as it is, may serve to lyke good effect, if the readers do brynge with them lyke good mindes to consider it, which hath the more incouraged me to publishe it such as it is." There was, therefore, a play on this subject upon the stage thirty years before the appearance of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, but it appears to have been permitted to sink into utter oblivion, and will, perhaps, never be discovered. Few can fail to admire the admirable construction of this tragedy of our poet's: had it been merely a love story, it would have run the risk of becoming tedious; how artfully this is obviated. The broils of the rival factions of Capulet and Montague, extending even to their humblest retainers; the high spirits of Mercutio, with his lively wit and florid imagination; the unconquerable pugnaciousness of Tybalt, "the very butcher of a silk button;" the garrulous coarseness of the Nurse, and the peevishness of old Capulet;-all these give a briskness and rapidity to the early scenes of the play; while the latter ones are, as they should be, almost confined to the afflictions of the two lovers. clared his unalterable fidelity to Rosaline, and Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek, How admirably also does Shakespeare provide for every improbable circumstance; and not only takes away their improbability, but renders them highly consistent and natural: thus when Juliet drinks the potion which is to consign her, a living woman, to a loathsome tomb, she is made to work upon her own imagination by a vivid picture of the horrors of her incarceration in the vault where the festering remains of all her "buried ancestors are packed," and at length swallows the potion in a paroxysm of terror. The naturalness of the incident is also heightened by the first introduction of the Friar gathering medicinal herbs, and descanting upon their nature and properties. It is likely that he who was so well acquainted with the uses of "baleful weeds and precious juic'd flowers," would employ them to carry out a difficult and dangerous stratagem. Shakespeare seldom omits an opporRomeo is an idealisation of the early youth of tunity for the utterance of any instructive truth genius; he is, in truth, a poet in his love. I or moral maxim: he was the educator of his fancy that Shakespeare wrote it with a vivid audiences; and it gives us a higher opinion of the recollection of some early attachment of his playgoers of his time, to know that they were own; and that Romeo utters the intense and pleased with the introduction of severe moral extravagant passion which a gifted, but affec- truths into their amusements. The language of tionate nature, such as Shakespeare might have this Friar is full of them how fine is the reflecgiven way to, before the judgment of maturer tion which crosses his mind when going forth in years had caimed down this frantic tyranny of love. the early dawn to gather his medicinal herbs; The poet has been censured for making Juliet and how naturally it arises out of the situation. Romeo's second love; and Garrick, in his adap-Mercutio is one of Shakespeare's peculiarities, tation of the play, cut out all allusion to Rosaline, whom Romeo first loves with as much earnestness, and even more extravagance, than that which he displays in his subsequent passion for Juliet. But his love for Rosaline was a mere creation of fancy; in her he worshipped an ideal of his own warm imagination, which painted her as an angel amongst women. Shakespeare also indulges a gentle satire on the one of the favourite children of his sportive fancy, bred in the sunshine of his finely balanced mind. The mercurial and brilliant nature of the Veronese gentleman is full of that natural gladness, that "overflow of youthful life, wafted on over the laughing waves of pleasure and prosperity," which few authors besides Shakespeare impart to their creations. Well might Dr. Johnson say that his comedy seems to be instinct. |