Found there rich jewels'; recover'd her, and plac'd her Here in Diana's temple. PER. May we see them; CER. Great sir, they shall be brought you to my house, Whither I invite you'. Look! Thaisa is THAI. O, let me look! If he be none of mine, my sanctity 8 Will to my sense bend no licentious ear, PER. The voice of dead Thaisa! s Found THERE rich jewels ;] The second quarto, the folios, and Mr. Rowe, read-these jewels. Pericles's next question shows that these could not be the poet's word. The true reading is found in the first quarto. It should be remembered, that Cerimon delivered these jewels to Thaisa, (before she left the house) in whose custody they afterwards remained. MALONE. 6 Here in DIANA'S TEMPLE.] The same situation occurs again in The Comedy of Errors, where Ægeon loses his wife at sea, and finds her at last in a nunnery. STEEVENS. 7 - they shall be brought you to my house, Whither I invite you.] This circumstance bears some resemblance to the meeting of Leontes and Hermione. The office of Cerimon is not unlike that of Paulina in The Winter's Tale. 8 STEEVENS. to my SENSE-] Sense is here used for sensual passion. So also, in Measure for Measure, and in Hamlet. [See note onSense, sure, you have 66 "Else could you not have motion." In the latter, vol. vii. p. 394, n. 2.] STEEVENS. 9supposed dead, And drown'd.] Supposed dead, and that my death was by drowning. MALONE. Drown'd, in this instance, does not signify suffocated by water, but overwhelmed in it. Thus, in Knolles's History: "Galleys THAI. Now I know you better. When we with tears parted Pentapolis, The king, my father, gave you such a ring. Shews a Ring. PER. This, this: no more, you gods! your present kindness 2 Makes my past miseries sport: You shall do well, That on the touching of her lips I may Melt, and no more be seen 3. O come, be buried A second time within these arms *. MAR. 4 My heart Leaps to be gone into my mother's bosom. [Kneels to THAISA. PER. Look, who kneels here! Flesh of thy flesh, Thaisa; Thy burden at the sea, and call'd Marina, For she was yielded there. might be drowned in the harbour with the great ordnance, before they could be rigged." STEEVENS. 2 This, this: no more, you gods! your present kindness Makes my past miseries sport :] So, in King Lear: "It is a chance that does redeem all sorrows "That ever I have felt." MALONE. 3 I may -- Melt, and no more be seen.] This is a sentiment which Shakspeare never fails to introduce on occasions similar to the present. So, in Othello: If I were now to die " "Twere now to be most happy," &c. Again, in The Winter's Tale : "If I might die within this hour, I have liv'd "To die when I desire." 66 Melt, and no more be seen." MALONE. So, in the 39th Psalm :-" O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength, before I hence, and be no more seen." STEEVENS. O come, be buried go A second time within these arms.] So, in The Winter's Tale: "Not like a corse ;- THAI. Bless'd, and mine own 5! HEL. Hail, madam, and my queen! THAI. I know you not. PER. You have heard me say, when I did fly from Tyre, I left behind an ancient substitute, Can you remember what I call'd the man? I have nam'd him oft. THAI. "Twas Helicanus then. PER. Still confirmation: Embrace him, dear Thaisa; this is he. Now do I long to hear how you were found; THAI. Lord Cerimon, my lord; this man Through whom the gods have shown their power; that can From first to last resolve you. PER. Reverend sir, The gods can have no mortal officer More like a god than you. Will you deliver CER. I will, my lord. Where shall be shown you all was found with her ; PER. Pure Diana! I bless thee for thy vision, and will offer This prince, the fair-betrothed' of your daughter, 5 Bless'd, and MINE OWN!] So, in The Winter's Tale : "Tell me, mine own, "Where hast thou been preserv'd? Where liv'd? How Thy father's court? MALONE. 6 I bless thee-] For the insertion of the personal pronoun I am responsible. MALONE. Shall marry her at Pentapolis". And now, This ornament that makes me look so dismal, And what this fourteen years no razor touch'd, THAI. Lord Cerimon hath letters of good credit, Sir, that my father's dead. 7the fair-betrothed-] i. e. fairly contracted, honourably affianced. STEEVENS. This prince, the fair-betrothed of your daughter, Shall marry her at Pentapolis.] So, in the last scene of The Winter's Tale, Leontes informs Paulina: "And son unto the king, (whom heavens directing,) "Is troth-plight to your daughter." MALONE. And now, This ORNAMENT that makes me look so dismal, And what this fourteen years no razor touch'd, 66 To grace thy marriage-day, I'll beautify.] So, in Much Ado About Nothing: the barber's man hath been seen with him; and the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis balls." The author has here followed Gower, or Gesta Romanorum : this a vowe to God I make 66 "That I shall never for hir sake, 66 My berde for no likynge shave, "Till it befalle that I have “In convenable time of age "Besette hir unto mariage." Confessio Amantis. The word so in the first line, and the words-my lov'd Marina, in the second, which both the sense and metre require, I have supplied. MALONE. The author is in this place guilty of a slight inadvertency. It was but a short time before, when Pericles arrived at Tharsus, and heard of his daughter's death, that he made a vow never to wash his face or cut his hair. M. MASON. See p. 126, n. 3; where, if my reading be not erroneous, a proof will be found that this vow was made almost immediately after the birth of Marina; and consequently that Mr. M. Mason's present remark has no sure foundation. STEEVENS. Yet still there is an inadvertency somewhere; for if Pericles made such a vow once, he would scarcely have to make it again. BOSWLLL. PER. Heavens make a star of him! Yet there, my queen, We'll celebrate their nuptials, and ourselves To hear the rest untold.-Sir, lead the way 2. Enter Gower. [Exeunt. Gow. In Antioch, and his daughter3, you Of monstrous lust the due and just reward: ' Heavens make a STAR of him!] So, in Romeo and Juliet: "Take him and cut him into little stars-." Again, in Cymbeline: "To inlay heaven with stars." STEEVENS. Sir, lead the way.] Dr. Johnson has justly objected to the lame and impotent conclusion of The Second Part of King Henry IV.: " Come, will you hence?" The concluding line of The Winter's Tale furnishes us with one equally abrupt, and nearly resembling the present:-"Hastily lead away." This passage will justify the correction of the old copy now made. It reads "Sir, leads the way." MALONE. "In 3 In ANTIOCH, and his daughter.] The old copies readAntiochus and his daughter," &c. The correction was suggested by Mr. Steevens. "So, (as he observes,) in Shakspeare's other plays, France, for the king of France; Morocco, for the king of Morocco," &c. MALONE. 4 Virtue PRESERV'D from fell destruction's blast, Led on by heaven, and crown'd with joy at last.] All the copies are here, I think, manifestly corrupt.-They read: "Virtue preferr'd from fell destruction's blast-." The gross and numerous errors of even the most accurate copy of this play, will, it is hoped, justify the liberty that has been taken on this and some other occasions. 5 |
