Lychorida, her nurse, she takes, Varies again; the grizzled north half the flood Hath their keel cut;] They have made half their voyage with a favourable wind. So, Gower: 8 "When thei were in the sea amid, "Out of the north thei see a cloude; "The welkin was all over-caste." MALONE. but fortune's mood -) The old copy reads-but forMALONE. tune mov'd. Mov'd could never be designed as a rhyme to flood. I suppose we should read-but fortune's mood, i. e. disposition. So, in The Comedy of Errors: My wife's in a wayward mood to-day." Again, in All's well that ends well : - muddied in fortune's mood." STEEVENS. 9-well-a-near 1] This exclamation is equivalent to wella-day, and is still used in Yorkshire, where I have often heard it. The Gloffary to the Praise of Yorkshire Ale, 1697, fays, wellaneerin is lack-a-day, or alas, alas! REED. I - and, well-a-near! Doth falt in travail with her fear :) So, in Twine's tranflation: "Lucina, what with sea-fickneffe, and fear of danger, fell in labour of a child," &C. STEEVENS. 2 in this fell storm, This is the reading of the earliest quarto. The folios and the modern editions have felf storm. MALONE. I nill relate, action may Which might not what by me is told.4 This stage, the ship, upon whose deck SCENE I. on a Ship at Sea. Enter PERICLES, PER. Thou God of this great vast, rebuke these furges," Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou, that haft 31 nill relate;] The further consequences of this storm I shall not describe. MALONE. 4 Which might not what by me is told.] i. e. which might not conveniently convey what by me is told, &c. What ensues may conveniently be exhibited in action; but action could not well have displayed all the events that I have now related. 5 In your imagination hold This stage, the ship, upon whose deck MALONE. The fea toft &c.] It is clear from these lines, that when the play was originally performed, no attempt was made to exhibit either a fea or a ship. The ensuing scene and some others muft have fuffered confiderably in the representation, from the poverty of the stage-apparatus in the time of our author. The old copy has-feas toft. Mr. Rowe made the correction. MALONE. • The Sea-toft prince-) The old copy reads-the fea-toft Pericles. The transcriber perhaps mistook the abbreviation of Prince, for that of Pericles, a trifyllable which our present metre refuses to admit. STEEVENS. Thou God of this great vast, rebuke these surges,] The expression is borrowed from the sacred writings: "The waters Upon the winds command, bind them in brass, Having call'd them from the deep! O ftill thy deaf'ning, Thy dreadful thunders; gently quench thy nimble, nomoufly stood above the mountains; -at thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away." It should be remembered, that Pericles is here supposed to speak from the deck of his fhip. Lychorida, on whom he calls, in order to obtain some intelligence of his queen, is supposed to be beneath, in the cabin. -This great vaft, is, this wide expanfe. See Vol. IX. p. 214, n. 3. This speech is exhibited in so strange a form in the original, and all the subsequent editions, that I fhall lay it before the reader, that he may be enabled to judge in what a corrupted state this play has hitherto appeared, and be induced to treat the editor's imperfect attempts to reftore it to integrity, with the more indulgence : "The God of this great vast, rebuke these surges, MALONE. * Having call'd them from the deep! O ftill-] Perhaps a word was omitted at the press. We might read: Having calld them from th' enchafed deep, MALONE. The present regulation of the lines, by the mere repetition of the pronouns thy and thou, renders, perhaps, any other infertion needless. STEEVENS, Wilt thou spit all thyself? -The seaman's whistle Is as a whifper in the ears of death, Unheard. Lychorida!-Lucina, O و -Thou Storm, thou! venomously Wilt thou Spit all thyself?] All the copies read-Then ftorm, &c. which cannot be right, because it renders the paffage nonfenfe. The flight change that I have made, [Thou storm] affords an easy sense. MALONE. Pericles, having called to Lychorida, without the power to make her hear on account of the tempeft, at last with frantick peevithness addresses himself to it -Thou storm, thou! venomoufly "Wilt thou spit all thyself?" • Having indulged himself in this question, he grows cooler, and observes that the very boatswain's whistle has no more effect on the failors, than the voices of those who speak to the dead. He then repeats his enquiries to Lychorida, but receiving no answer, concludes with a prayer for his queen in her present dangerous condition. • Venomously is maliciously. Shakspeare has somewhat of the fame expreffion in one of his hiftorical plays: "The watry kingdom, whose ambitious head Spits in the face of heaven, -." Chapman likewise, in his version of the fourth Iliad, says of the fea that she - spits every way her foam." STEEVENS. Is as a whisper in the ears of death,] In another place the poet supposes death to be awakened by the turbulence of the ftorm: -And in the vifitation of the winds, "Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them "With deafning clamours in the flippery clouds, "That with the hurly, death itself awakes." King Henry IV. Part II. The image in the text might have been suggested by Sidney's Arcadia, Book II : "-They could scarcely, when they directed, hear their own whistle; for the fea strave with the winds which should be lowder, and the shrowds of the ship, with a ghasiful noise to them that were in it, witnessed that their ruine was the wager of the others' contention." STEEVENS. Divinest patroness, and midwife, gentle Enter LYCHORIDA, with an Infant. Lyc. Here is a thing Too young for fuch a place, who if it had Lyc. Patience, good fir; do not affift the storm.4 2 Divineft patroness, and midwife, &c.] The quarto, 160g, and the subsequent copies, read and my wife. Mr. Steevens's happy emendation, which I have inserted in the text, is so clearly right, that it requires neither support nor illustration. If it wanted the latter, Horace would furnish it : "Montium cuftos nemorumque virgo, "Diva triformis." Again, in the Andria of Terence : " Juno Lucina, fer opem; serva me, obfecro!" 3who if it had MALONE. Conceit,] If it had thought. So, in King Richard III : "There's fome conceit or other likes him well, "When that he bids good morrow with such a spirit." MALONE, * Patience, good fir; do not assist the storm.] Our author uses the fame expreffion, on the same occafion, in The Tempest : " You mar our labour; keep your cabins; you do affift the Storm." MALONE. |