Appear'd to me last night : for ne're was dreame So fill'd, and fo becomming: in pure white Robes 26. a waking] awaking Anon. ap. Cam. 27. on one] is on one Ff. fome] some' Cap. another] on other Anon. ap. Cam. 28. forrow] sorrow, Cap. et seq. 25 29 becomming] o'er-running Coll. ii, iii (MS), Huds. o'er-brimming Daniel. become it Kinnear. more set in motion the machinery necessary to create the visual impression of life. . . . [This vision of Antigonus] is a ‘phantasm of the living,' and is what The Society for Psychical Research would call a good case.' Doubtless it would require additional proof, but as a bare statement it would be hard to improve upon. . . . It adds value to note that Antigonus is positive that he was awake when the vision appeared. . . . In the play this scene is made to follow the Trial Scene. . . . We can believe that the poet intended to have the two incidents of Hermione's apparent death and the vision of her astral form seen by Antigonus, bear a close relationship in point of time. It certainly strengthens our 'case' to have it so. Then there would be that coincidence of time which is always necessary. There is reason in Hermione's case for this sudden separation of spirit and body: it is the mother's overwhelming love for her baby child; her great anxiety for its welfare; her fear of impending death in a desert land. Her spirit liberated would fly to that most dear to her. . . . Shall we be bold and say that we have found another proof of Shakespeare's universality? That whatever direction new thought may take, we find that he has been there before us. So 29. so becomming] COLLIER (ed. ii): 'So o'er-running' from the MS appears to us incontrovertible. A vessel of sorrow not only fill'd' but o'er-running from abundant tears. That 'becomming' is a blunder for o'er-running cannot, we think, be disputed; and we receive the change as a welcome restoration of the poet's original word in a situation where it was much needed.-R. G. WHITE (ed. i): That is, so decent. The expression, considered with the context, is a singular one, it must be admitted. Collier's MS most ridiculously reads:—' so o'er-flowing,' [sic].—SINGER: Antigonus describes an expression which only the greatest masters have realised in art: grief the most poignant rather enhancing the beauty of a countenance than deforming it.-STAUNTON: Collier's MS alteration at once destroys the meaning of the poet, and converts a beauteous image into one pre-eminently ludicrous! becoming' here means self-restrained; not as it is usually explained so decent or so dignified. Compare Rom. & Jul. IV, ii,-'I gave him what becomed love I might, Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.'-LETTSOM (ap. Dyce, iii): According to Singer [Sh. Vindicated, p. 75] 'becoming' here means decent and dignified; according to Staunton, self-restrained. The latter quotes, in support of his opinion, a suspicious passage from Rom. & Jul., which, even if correct, is nothing to the purpose. I do not understand why he calls the old Corrector's o'er-running 'pre-eminently ludicrous;' or how Grant White makes it out to be ridiculous.' According to Johnson, to over-run is to be more than full. Surely a vessel filled and over-running' is a rather better expression than a vessel filled and dignified,' or 'a vessel filled and 30 Like very fanctity fhe did approach. My Cabine where I lay thrice bow'd before me, 35 Of my poore babe, according to thine oath, Places remote enough are in Bohemia, There weepe, and leaue it crying and for the babe 40 I prethee call't: For this vngentle businesse Put on thee, by my Lord, thou ne're shalt fee Thy Wife Paulina more: and fo, with fhriekes 36. Thower-out] F. 39. weepe] wend Coll. ii, iii (MS), Dyce ii, iii, Huds. land Cartwright. bear't Gould. 40. euer] ever ever Rowe i. ever 43 and ever Rowe ii, Pope, Theob. Warb. Johns. 42. thee] theee F 43. more:] more? F. Shriekes] fhrickes F, Shrikes F self-restrained.' Or, if we suppose that here, as elsewhere, Shakespeare has intermingled the comparison and the thing compared, and that 'filled' relates to 'vessel' and becoming' to Hermione, how can this adjective be applied to a person? A becoming bonnet, colour, or attitude, I can understand; but what can be said to a becoming young lady, or a becoming queen? I will not assert that Shakespeare wrote 'So fill'd, e'en so o'er-running;' but I am quite sure that, if F, had given us this reading, and the old Corrector had altered it to and so becoming,' he would have had the whole vocabulary of vituperation hurled at his head, and nobody would have so much as dreamed that o'er-running was ludicrous or ridiculous.-DEIGHTON: But it seems allowable to suppose that it was the sorrow that was so 'becoming' to her. [If any meaning is to be detected in 'becoming,' I think Singer has found it, but at such a minute to allude at all to personal beauty strikes a false note, so it seems to me. I prefer Collier's change; Antigonus goes on to refer to the vision's unrestrained weeping, and says her eyes became two spouts.-Ed.] 29. pure white Robes] WALKER (Crit. iii, 102]: Compare Milton, Sonnet xxiii, on his deceased wife,- Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.' 39. weepe] COLLIER (ed. ii): Here again we are greatly indebted to the MS [which changes 'weepe'] to wend, i. e. go. The word 'crying' probably misled the compositor, and he fancied that wend was 'weep,' and so printed.—R. G. WHITE (ed. i): Wend is a very plausible emendation, and one which should perhaps be received into the text. But the subsequent passage, in which Antigonus' oath is alluded to,- Weep I cannot,' etc. by its implication of the duty of shedding tears, supports the original reading. [It is these very words: Weep I cannot' which convinced DYCE (ed. iii) that the 'weepe' of F, could not be defended by appealing to them.] She melted into Ayre. Affrighted much, I did in time collect my felfe, and thought 45 This was fo, and no flumber : Dreames, are toyes, Yet for this once, yea fuperftitiously, I will be fquar'd by this. I do beleeue 50 Of it's right Father. Bloffome, speed thee well, There lye, and there thy charracter: there these, Which may if Fortune please, both breed thee (pretty) 55 And still reft thine. The storme beginnes, poore wretch, To loffe, and what may follow. Weepe I cannot, 58 pretty one, Rowe +, Var. '73, Ktly. breed thee pretty, Harness, Knt, Wh. i. breed thee (pretty!) Sta. breed thee pity Gould. 46. fo] footh Warb. conj. 51. Polixenes] Polixenus F. 53. it's] Ff, Cap. its Rowe. et seq. [Laying down the Child. Rowe 54. [Laying down a bundle. Johns. 55. breed thee (pretty)] breed thee, 56. beginnes,] begins; Rowe. 46. toyes] Babioles. Trifles, niphles, trinkets, toyes.'-Cotgrave. 47. superstitiously] Superstitieusement. Superstitiously, ouerscrupulously, ceremoniously, curiously.'-Cotgrave. 48. squar'd] SCHMIDT: Regulate, shape. See V, i, 63. 53. thee] For other examples of 'thee' used for thou, see, if necessary, Abbott, § 212. Also looke thee here,' lines 117, 120, 121 below. 54. charracter] STEEVENS: That is, thy description, the writing afterwards discovered with Perdita.-STAUNTON: Some ciphers and the name 'Perdita' by which the child hereafter might be recognised. 56. still rest thine] STAUNTON: The meaning is manifestly,' Poor Blossom, good speed to thee! which may happen, despite thy present desolate condition, if Fortune please to adopt thee (thou pretty one!), and remain thy constant friend;' the intermediate line,— There lie,' etc., being, of course, parenthetical. From the punctuation hitherto adopted: Which may, if Fortune please, both breed thee pretty, And still rest thine,' the editors, one and all, must have supposed Antigonus to anticipate that the rich clothes, etc. which he leaves with the child, might breed it beautiful and prove of permanent utility to it in its after course of life. [Staunton, unwittingly of course, exaggerates the number of editors who have, 'one and all,' hitherto adopted the reading he quotes. HARNESS, KNIGHT, and R. G. WHITE (ed. i) are the only editors who have the reading he criticises; the Cam. Ed. ascribes it to 'Reed (1813),' but this is not the reading in my copy of that edition, which here follows the Folio.-ED.] 58. To losse] See II, iii, 228. But my heart bleedes: and most accurft am I To be by oath enioyn'd to this. Farewell, 60 The day frownes more and more: thou'rt like to haue A lullabie too rough: I neuer saw The heauens fo dim, by day. A fauage clamor ? Well may I get a-boord: This is the Chace, I am gone for euer. Exit pursued by a Beare. Shep. I would there were no age betweene ten and three and twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest : for there is nothing (in the betweene) but getting wenches with childe, wronging the Auncientry, stealing, fighting, hearke you now would any but these boyldebraines of nineteene, and two and twenty hunt this wea 61. thou'rt] FF,, Cap. Dyce, Wh. Sta. Cam. thou art F, Rowe et cet. 63. day.] day. [Bear roars] Coll. i. day.-[Noise without of Hunters and Dogs] Sta., Dyce adds 'Bears.' clamor?] clamour! F2F ̧· 64. a-boord:] aboard!-[sees a Bear.] 65 70 66-80. As mnemonic lines, Warb. 69. Auncientry] ancientry Rowe. now Rowe. fighting,] Wh. ii. ... fighting-[Horns.] 70, 71. boylde-braines] F boyld-brains F. boyld brains F -brains Coll. boiled 63. clamor?] JOHNSON: This clamor was the cry of the dogs and hunters; then seeing the bear, he cries, 'This is the chace,' or, the animal pursued. 66. Shep.] COLLIER (ed. ii): It is worth noting that Crooke' is written in the margin of the corrected F, to indicate that the Shepherd was to be furnished with that appropriate property. 66. ten] CAPELL followed the change, silently made by Hanmer, of 'ten' to thirteen, because,' as he says, 'ten is rather too early for some of the pranks complain'd of.'-CAMBRIDGE EDITORS [see Text. Notes]: If written in Arabic numerals 16 would be more likely to be mistaken for 10 than 13, which Capell suggested. Besides, sixteen seems to suit the context better than thirteen. Another mistake of one number for another occurs IV, ii, 6, but this may have been an error on the author's part.-Gildemeister (Anmerkungen, p. 115): The connection clearly demands an age older than 'ten'; but if a change must be made, nineteen is to be preferred, which the old Shepherd himself mentions a few lines further on. A compositor would be as likely to convert 19 into 10, as he would 16.-DEIGHTON: The alteration of the Cambridge Editors is by no means an improvement; 'ten' marks extreme boyishness, sixteen does not. 69. Auncientry] MURRAY (N. E. D.): Ancients, elder people, elders. 70, 71. boylde-braines] When Prospero has woven his spells about his enemies, he commands solemn music to sound, with the words :- A solemn air, and the best ther? They haue fcarr'd away two of my best Sheepe, which I feare the Wolfe will fooner finde then the Maifter; if any where I haue them, 'tis by the sea-side, brouzing of Iuy. Good-lucke (and't be thy will) what haue we heere? Mercy on's, a Barne? A very pretty barne; A boy, or a Childe I wonder? (A pretty one, a verie prettie 72. fearr'd] Ff, Sing. Ktly. scar'd Rowe et cet. 73, 74. Maifter] Ff, Sing. 75. of Iuy] on ivy Steev. Var. '03,' 13. and't] an't Pope ii, et seq. 75. thy] the Ff, Rowe i. Dyce. 72 75 77 bairn 77. boy] god Wh. i, Huds. boy- Ktly. Childe] maid-child Ktly. comforter To an unsettled fancy, cure thy braines, Now useless, boiled within thy skull,' V, i, 70. With this clew, and with Theseus's assertion that Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,' we may understand the old Shepherd's phrase. Without this hint, the temptation would be strong to mistrust the word 'boylde.' There are several words for which it might be plausibly exchanged; these may be safely left to be suggested by those to whom the emendation of Shakespeare is a light and airy pastime.-ED. 75. of Iuy] See Dorastus and Fawnia. For other examples of of after verbal nouns, see ABBOTT, § 178. Iuie is called Edera, and hath that name, for it cleaueth to trees, as Isi. saith: or it hath the name of Edus, a Kid, for it multiplieth milke in Goates, that eate thereof, & with that milke Kids be fed and nourished.'-Batman vppon Bartholome, p. 289 verso..-ED. 75, 76. haue we heere ?] With the exception of CAPELL and R. G. WHITE (ed. i) every editor, from Rowe down to DYCE (ed. ii) has, after these words, the stagedirection, substantially: 'Taking up the child,' overlooking the fact that in line 83 the shepherd says he'll wait until his son comes before taking it up; possibly, the child is not lifted from the ground until line 121. It is hardly likely that the old man, while listening to his son's account of the ship-wreck, stands holding the child in his arms.-ED. 76. Barne?] MURRAY (N. E. D.): The obsolete form of Bairn, a child; it still survives in northern English; bairn is the Scotch form, occasionally used in literary English since 1700. 77. Childe] STEEVENS: I am told that in some of our inland counties, a female infant, in contradistinction to a male one, is still termed, among the peasantry,—a child.-NARES: This may perhaps be referred to the simplicity of the shepherd, reversing the common practice, than taken as an authority for it.—R. G. WHITE : The true reading [which White adopts], I have not a doubt is ‘A god or a child'— meaning 'a babe of immortal or mortal origin.' The typographical mistake involved might easily have been made; and the correspondent passage, hitherto unnoticed, of the old tale (the language of which was deeply impressed upon Shakespeare's mind) seems quite decisive on the point: The sheepeheard . . . thought assuredly that it was some little god. . . . The babe began to cry a freshe, whereby the poore man knew it was a childe.' It should be remembered that the time is that of Apollo's Oracle, when demigods were begotten upon the Earth, and the children of Jupiter, Mars, and Apollo were exposed and found by shepherds. [In his Second Ed. White |