As you did mean indeed to be our brother; Joyed are we that you are. Post. Your servant, princes. Good my lord of Whom heavens, in justice (both on her and hers), Rome, Luc. Read, and declare the meaning. "When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown, without seeking, find, and be embraced by a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall be lopped branches, which, being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate, and flourish in peace and plenty." Thou, Leonatus, art the lion's whelp; Have laid most heavy hand. Sooth. The fingers of the powers above do tune The harmony of this peace. The vision Which I made known to Lucius ere the stroke Of this yet scarce-cold battle, at this instant Is full accomplished: for the Roman eagle, From south to west on wing soaring aloft, Lessened herself, and in the beams o' the sun So vanished which forshewed our princely eagle, The imperial Caesar, should again unite His favor with the radiant Cymbeline, Which shines here in the west. NOTES. "His father Was called Sicilius, who did join his honor, But had his titles by Tenantius." Act I., Scene 1. Tenantius was the father of Cymbeline, and nephew of Cassibelan, being the younger son of Cassibelan's elder brother Lud, on whose death Cassibelan was admitted king. He repulsed the Romans on their first attack; but, being vanquished on Cæsar's second invasion. he agreed to pay an annual tribute to Rome. After his death, Tenantius, Lud's younger son (the elder brother, Androgeus, having fled to Rome), was established on the throne, of which they had been deprived by their uncle. According to some authorities, Tenantius quietly paid the tribute stipulated by Cassibelan: according to others, he refused to pay it, and warred with the Romans. Shakspeare supposes the last account to be the true one. "Enter the QUEEN, POSTHUMUS, and IMOGEN." Act I., Scene 2. Holinshed's "CHRONICLE" probably supplied Shakspeare with the beautiful name "Imogen." In the old black letter, it is scarcely distinguishable from "Innogen," the wife of Brute, King of Britain. From the same source, the Poet may have derived the name of Cloten, who, when the line of Brute became extinct, was one of the five kings that governed Britain. Cloten, or Cloton, was King of Cornwall.-Leonatus (the prefix of Posthumus) is a name found in Syd"ARCADIA." It is that of the legitimate son of the blind King of Pophlagonia, on whose story is founded the episode of Glo'ster, Edgar, and Edmund, in "KING LEAR." ney's "Thou took'st a beggar; would' st have made my throne A seat for baseness."— Act I., Scene 2. Such, however, has not been the punctuation in ancient or modern editions; and the fact appears to be, that it was not intended as a question, for a slight manuscript alteration in the folio, 1632, makes it run, "Thou took'st a beggar would have made my throne A seat for baseness:" that is, "a beggar, who would have made my throne," &c., by a very common ellipsis: Imogen's indignant counter-assertion, "No; I rather added a lustre to it," seems to render it probable that a question was not intended. "A man worth any woman; overbuys me Almost the sum he pays."— Act I., Scene 2. inal. A thought resembling this occurs in "ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS "WELL; " "Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried." "Enter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, a Frenchman, a Dutchman, and a Spaniard." Act I., Scene 5. The name of Giacomo occurs in the "Two GENTLEMEN OF VENICE," a novel which immediately follows that of " ROMEO AND JULIETTA," in the second tome of Painter's " PALACE OF PLEASURE."— The behavior of the Spaniard and the Dutchman, who are stated to be present during this animated scene, is in humorous accordance with the apathy and taciturnity usually attributed to their countrymen. Neither the Don nor Mynheer utters a syllable. "What was Imogen to them, or they to Imogen, that they should speak of her?" "Ay, and the approbation of those, that weep this lamentable divorce under her colors, are wonderfully to extend him; be it but to fortify her judgment, which else an easy battery might lay flat, for taking a beggar without less quality." Act I., Scene 5. Johnson tells us that "under her colors" is to be understood as by her influence." Surely not: Posthumus was not banished by the influence of Imogen, but in direct opposition to her wishes. How does the annotator of the folio, 1632, explain the matter? By showing that here occurs another of the many gross mistakes of the scribe, or of the printer, which have been from time to time pointed out: "under her colors" ought to have been and her dolours. But besides this error, there are several others in the sentence, together with the omission of the verb wont, carelessly excluded, because, perhaps, as the next word begins with won, the compositor missed what is almost essential to the intelligibility of the passage: then, near the close, we have "less" for more, although Malone, not aware of any of the preceding defects, strives hard to justify "less." Read the whole, therefore, as the corrector says it was written, and nothing can well be plainer: "Ay, and the approbations of those, that weep this lamentable divorce and her dolours, are wont wonderfully to extend him; be it but to fortify her judgment, which else an easy battery might lay flat, for taking a beggar without more quality." "Let us have articles betwixt us.- Only, thus far you shall answer : if you make your voyage upon her, and give me directly to understand you have prevailed, I am no farther your enemy,” &c.— Act I., Scene 5. The word "voyage" is a misprint, in part, perhaps, occasioned by the omission of an adjective which ought almost immediately to precede it: Posthumus observes, that if Iachimo make good his boast, That is the most minute portion of his worth would be too high then Imogen would not be worth anger: he therefore says,a price for the wife he has acquired. "If he should write, And I not have it, 't were a paper lost, The meaning probably is, that the loss of that paper would prove as fatal to her (Imogen) as the loss of a pardon to a condemned crim "Only, thus far you shall answer: if you make good your vauntage upon her, and give me directly to understand you have prevailed, I am no farther your enemy.” It seems probable that good was left out in the manuscript, and that the compositor mistook rauntage, and printed "voyage," knowing that Iachimo must necessarily cross the sea, in order to carry out his project. "Your highness Shall from this practice but make hard your heart." Act I., Scene 6. Johnson's indignant comment on these lines is highly honorable to his feelings. It tends to justify Goldsmith's remark, that he had nothing of the bear but the skin: -“There is in this passage nothing that much requires a note, yet I cannot forbear to push it forward into observation. The thought would probably have been more amplified, had our author lived to be shocked with such experiments as have been published in later times, by a race of men that have practiced tortures without pity, and are yet suffered to erect their heads among human beings." To what particular "experiments" the moralist alluded, we are not at present aware: but the great duty which both he and the Poet seek to inculcate, that of mercy towards the inferior creatures, is of imperishable application. "What! are men mad? Hath nature given them eyes For cope the ordinary text has been "crop," for O'er "Of," and for th' unnumber'd "the number'd." We may in future safely adopt these emendations, which require no explanation. O'er is proposed for the first time. "Was there ever man had such luck! when I kissed the jack upon an up-cast, to be hit away!"-Act II., Scene 1. Cloten is here describing his fate at bowls. The subject is mentioned in the notes to "TROILUS AND CRESSIDA." It is objected by Steevens to the character of Cloten, that "he is represented at once as brave and dastardly, civil and brutish, sagacious and cruel, without that subtilty of distinction, and those shades of gradation between sense and folly, virtue and vice, which constitute the excellence of such mixed characters as Polonius in HAMLET,' and the Nurse in ROMEO AND JULIET.'"-Such inconsistency is, however, far more puzzling than unnatural. Miss Seward (as quoted by Mr. Singer) assures us, in one of her letters, that singular as the character of Cloten may appear, it is the exact prototype of a being she once knew:-"The unmeaning frown of the countenance; the shuffling gait; the burst of voice; the bustling insignificance; the fever and ague fits of valor; the froward techineas; the unprincipled malice; and, what is most curious, those occasional gleams of good sense amidst the floating clouds of folly which generally darkened and confused the man's brain, and which, in the character of Cloten, we are apt to impute to a violation of unity of character; but in the sometime Captain C-n I saw the portrait of Cloten was not out of nature." "Swift, swift, you dragons of the night!"-Act II., Scene 2. The task of drawing the chariot of night was assigned to dragons, on account of their supposed watchfulness. Milton mentions" the dragon yoke of night" in "IL PENSEROSO;" and in his " MASQUE AT LUDLOW CASTLE " we find "the dragon womb of Stygian darkness." "Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings." — Act II., Seene 3. The same highly poetic hyperbole occurs in Milton's "PARADISE LOST," (book v.) : -“Ye birds, That, singing, up to heaven's gate ascend." Also in Shakspeare's 29th Sonnet: "Like to the lark, at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate." And again in "VENUS AND ADONIS:" (I had forgot them) were two winking Cupids The andirons of our ancestors were sometimes costly pieces of furniture; the standards were often, as in this instance, of silver, representing some terminal figure or device; the transverse or horizontal pieces, upon which the wood was supported, were what Shakspeare here calls the brands, properly brandirons. Upon these the Cupids which formed the standards "nicely depended," seeming to stand on one foot. "Her attendants are All sworn and honorable."— Act II., Scene 4. It was anciently the custom for attendants on the nobility (as it is now for the servants of the sovereign) to take an oath of fidelity, on their entrance into office. "Under her breast (Worthy the pressing)."— Act II., Scene 4. The original folio reads, "worthy her pressing." Rowe made the correction. We mention the matter merely as it affords an opportunity of saying, in justice to Rowe, that in his edition he made many other verbal emendations of unquestionable taste and correctness, which are now incorporated with the received text. "Is there no way for men to be, but women This bitter sarcasm of Posthumus (which, by the way, is in reality caused by the villainy of a man, not by the frailty of a woman) probably suggested to the similar sentiment that Milton has put into the mouth of Adam: "O why did God, Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven Of nature, and not fill the world at once 249 With men, as angels, without feminine, Or find some other way to generate thirty-five years, leaving behind him two sons, Guiderius and Arviragus." "Perchance he spoke not, but Like a full Acorn'd Boare, a Iarmen on, There is an evident misprint, and the emendator of the folio, 1632, points out what it was: "Like a full acorn'd boar, a foaming one, "Which to shake off Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon The clumsy contrivance of making Cymbeline use the expression, "We do say, then, to Cæsar," has proceeded (as an emendation in the folio, 1632, shows) from a blunder on the part of the compositor or of the copyist, who made one of Cloten's impertinent interjections a portion of the speech of Cymbeline. This part of the dialogue is there divided as follows:-Cymbeline ends, "Mulmutius made our laws, Who was the first of Britain which did put The title of the first chapter of Holinshed's third book of the "HISTORY OF ENGLAND," is:-"Of Mulmutius, the first King of Britain who was crowned with a golden crown, his laws, his foundations, &c. "Mulmutius, the son of Cloten, got the upper hand of the other dukes or rulers; and, after his father's decease, began his reign over the whole monarchy of Britain in the year of the world 3529. He made many good laws, which were long after used, called Mulmutius' laws, turned out of the British speech into Latin by Gildas Priscus, and long time after translated out of Latin into English by Alfred, King of England, and mingled in his statutes. After he had established his land, he ordained him, by the advice of his lords, a crown of gold, and caused himself with great solemnity to be crowned: - and because he was the first that bare a crown here in Britain, after the opinion of some writers, he is named the first king of Britain, and all the other before rehearsed are named rulers, dukes, or governors. Among other of his ordinances, he appointed weights and measures, with the which men should buy and sell: and further, he caused sore and strait orders for the punishment of theft." "Thou art welcome, Caius. Thy Cesar knighted me: my youth I spent Much under him."- Act III., Scene 1. Holinshed throws light on this passage also:-"Kymbeline (as some write) was brought up at Rome, and there was made knight by Augustus Cæsar, under whom he served in the wars, and was in such favor with him that he was at liberty to pay his tribute or not.— Yet we find in the Roman writers, that after Julius Cæsar's death, when Augustus had taken upon him the rule of the empire, the Britons refused to pay that tribute. But whether the controversy which appeared to fall forth between the Britons and Augustus was occasioned by Kymbeline, I have not a vouch.- Kymbeline reigned “Good war, thy leave. Blessed be, You bees, that make these locks of counsel! Lovers Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet You clasp young Cupid's tables."- Act III., Scene 2. The meaning is, that the bees are not blessed by the man who is sent to prison for forfeiting a bond, which is sealed with their product-wax, as they are by lovers, for whom the same substance performs the more pleasing office of sealing letters. "O! this life Is nobler, than attending for a check; Richer, than doing nothing for a bribe; Prouder, than rustling in unpaid-for silk." Act III., Scene 3. The passage, properly printed, appears to be this:- Is nobler than attending for a check, "What should we speak of, When we are old as you.”—Act III., Scene 3. This dread of an old age unsupplied with matter for discourse and meditation, is a sentiment natural and noble. No state can be more destitute than that of him who, when the delights of sense forsake him, has no pleasures of the mind.-JOHNSON. "He sweats, Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture Strikes life into my speech," &c.— Act III., Scene 3. Here vigour was misheard "figure" (which could only refer to the "posture" of Guiderius), and for this reason the old corrector alters the word in the margin of the folio, 1632: "The younger brother, Cadwal, "If it be summer news, A similar phrase occurs in the Poet's 98th Sonnet:- "Some jay of Italy, Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him: Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion;" &c. Act III., Scene 4. Now, for "whose mother was her painting," of all editions, we are told by the amendor of the folio, 1632, to read, "Some jay of Italy, Who smothers her with painting, hath betray'd him.” "Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion; And, for I am richer than to hang by the walls, I must be ripped: to pieces with me!" Act III., Scene 4. Clothes were not formerly, as at present, made of slight materials; they were not kept in drawers, or given away as soon as lapse of time or change of fashion had impaired their value. On the contrary, they were hung up on wooden pegs, in a room appropriated to the sole purpose of receiving them; and though such cast-off things as were composed of rich substances were occasionally ripped for domestic uses, articles of inferior quality were suffered to hang by the wall till age and moths had destroyed what pride would not permit to be worn by servants or poor relations. When Queen Elizabeth died, she was found to have left above three thousand dresses behind her. Steevens states himself to have seen, at an ancient mansion in Suffolk, one of these dress repositories, which had been preserved with superstitious reverence for almost a century and a half. "Come, here's my heart: Something's afore 't: soft, soft; we'll no defense." Act III., Scene 4. In this passage, we have another of Rowe's happy verbal corrections. The original copy reads, "Something 's afoot." "Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night, It seems probable that here, as also on a similar occasion in "RICHARD II.," Shakspeare had in his thoughts a passage in Lily's "EUPHUES: "—"Nature hath given to no man a country, no more than she hath house, or lands, or living. Plato would never account him banished that had the sun, air, water, and earth, that he had before: where he felt the winter's blast, and the summer's blaze; where the same sun and the same moon shined: whereby he noted that every place was a country to a wise man, and all parts a palace to a quiet mind." "True to thee, Were to prove false (which I will never be) To him that is most true."— Act III., Scene 5. Pisanio, notwithstanding his master's letter commanding the murder of Imogen, considers him true; supposing, as he has already said to her, that Posthumus was abused by some villain, equally an enemy to them both. "The bird is dead That we have made so much on."-Act IV., Scene 2. The sweet and wholesome pathos of this scene has been thus noted by Mrs. Radcliffe-"No master ever knew how to touch the accordant springs of sympathy by small circumstances, like our own Shakspeare. InCYMBELINE,' for instance, how finely such circumstances are made use of to awaken, at once, solemn expectation and tenderness, and, by recalling the softened remembrance of a sorrow long past, to prepare the mind to melt at one that was approaching; mingling at the same time, by means of a mysterious occurrence, a slight tremor of awe with our pity. Thus, when Belarius and Arviragus return to the cave where they had left the unhappy and wornout Imogen to repose, while they are yet standing before it, and Arviragus-speaking of her with tenderest pity as poor sick Fidele'— goes out to inquire for her, solemn music is heard from the cave, sounded by that harp of which Guiderius says, 'Since the death of my dearest mother, it did not speak before. All solemn things should answer solemn accidents.' Immediately Arviragus enters with Fidele senseless in his arms: "The ruddock would With charitable bill."- Act IV., Scene 2. The ruddock is the redbreast. It is so called by Chaucer and Spenser. The office of covering the dead is likewise ascribed to this bird by Drayton, in his poem called "THE OWL" (1604): — "Covering with moss the dead's unclosed eye, The little redbreast teacheth charity." "Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none, To winter-ground thy corse.”—Act IV., Scene 2. The puzzle has been the compound verb " to winter-ground;" and Warburton insisted upon "winter-gown," while Malone and Steevens were for preserving the text unaltered. Warburton was right in treating" winter-ground" as a blunder, but no farther; and when we show, from the corrected folio, 1632, what must have been the poet's language, it will be seen that the compositor's mistake was an easy one: "Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none, "This," says Warburton, " is the topic of consolation that nature dictates to all men on these occasions. The same farewell we have over the dead body in Lucian."-In the same strain of regret and tender envy, it may be added, Macbeth speaks of his slaughtered victim Duncan: feeling, at the very instant when he should rejoice in the consummation of his wishes, the utter nothingness of perturbed earthly pleasures, when compared with the peaceful slumbers of the innocent dead. Collins has given an imitation, rather than a version, of this beautiful dirge. It exhibits his usual exquisite taste and felicity of expression, although inferior to the original in condensation and characteristic simplicity: "To fair Fidele's grassy tomb Soft maids and village hinds shall bring Each opening sweet of earliest bloom, And rifle all the breathing spring. "No wailing ghost shall dare appear To vex with shrieks this quiet grove; But shepherd lads assemble here, And melting virgins own their love. "No withered witch shall here be seen; No goblins lead their nightly crew: The female fays shall haunt the green, And dress thy grave with pearly dew. "Each lonely scene shall thee restore; |