162 As Dice are to be wifh'd, by one that fixes 163. borne] born FF, Rowe i. bourne Rowe ii. bourn Cap. et seq. by false sons and widows.' [-II, i. Steevens continues the quotation with 'I would not hear of blacks'—a line which I cannot find in Gifford's ed. of the play. I should not have mentioned the circumstance, but have made the correction silently as in so many other quotations, had not Collier and Halliwell also given the line. Either they did not verify Steevens or the line is to be found in some edition other than Gifford's.] It seems that blacks was the common term for mourning. Thus in A Mad World, My Masters: 'I'll pay him when he dies in so many blacks; I'll have the church hung round with a noble a yard' [II, ii]. Black, however, will receive no other colour without discovering itself through it. See Plin. Nat. Hist. viii.-MALONE: The following passage in a book which our author had certainly read, inclines me to believe that the last is the true interpretation. Truly quoth Camilla, my Wooll was blacke, and therefore it could take no other colour.'-Lyly's Euphues and his England, 1580 [p. 408, Arber.].-COLLIER (ed. ii) adopts and upholds the emendation of his MS: 'our dead blacks;' which, he says, means 'only our blacks worn for the dead; Leontes emphatically calls this mourning false, inasmuch as it often does not represent the real state of feeling of the wearer.' [When Collier published this emendation in his Notes, etc. five years before his second edition appeared, he said that it means 'blacks worn for the deaths of persons whose loss was not at all lamented.' This phrase LETTSOM (Blackwod's Maga., Aug., 1853) selected as his only criticism of the change, in the remark: But surely all persons who wear mourning are not hypocrites; and therefore this new reading falls ineffectual to the ground,' which is, I am afraid, feeble; Collier successfully answered this criticism in his edition by saying that mourning often does not represent,' etc. If, as Collier acknowledges, ""blacks" was the ordinary term for mourning in Shakespeare's time' (I quote his words), an argument against the phrase 'dead blacks' lies in its pleonasm.-STAUNTON calls Collier's change absurd;' which is no argument. The phrase meant,' he says, 'such garments as had become rotten and faded by frequent immersion in the dye.' Is a garment which is frequently immersed apt to look faded? It may be 'rotten,' but it would look fresh, not faded. If,' continues Staunton,' any change in the text be admissible, we should read "oft-dyed blacks." Thus, in Webster's Dutchess of Malfi, V, ii: "I do not think but sorrow makes her look Like an oft dy'd garment." Leontes' primary idea is falseness, and 'o're-dy'd Blacks' are, I think, blacks rendered false by o'er-dyeing, which falseness, since black is black, must refer to the texture.-ED.] 6 161. Wind] DYCE (ed. iii): The context evidently requires the plural winds (as in Rowe ii). [Winds are not false. The North wind remains for ever the North wind; the instant it veers, it ceases to be the North wind. But the Wind' may be as false as there are hours in the day.-ED.] 163. borne] Halliwell quotes WARTON: That is, any noted cheat, who would as readily convert my possessions to his own use and purposes as his own, and trick me of them all. In the waste and open countries, 'bourns' are the grand separations, or divisions, of one part of the country from another, and are natural limits of districts and parishes. For 'bourn' is simply nothing more than a boundary. To say this Boy were like me. Come(Sir Page) 165 167 166. may't be] Ff, Coll. i, Sta. may't be- Rowe+. may 't be? Han. Cap. et seq. (subs.). 167, 175. Affection... Browes] Erased by Coll. (MS). 167. Affection?...the] Imagination! thou dost stab to th' Rowe+. Affection, ...to the Cap. Coll. ii. Affection,...the Coll. i. Affection...the Sta. Affection! ...the Steev. et cet. (subs.). 164. to say were] For other examples of the subjunctive in subordinate clauses, see ABBOTT, § 368. 165. Welkin] JOHNSON: Blue eye; an eye of the same colour with the welkin, or sky. 166. Collop]. DYCE (Gloss.) Used metaphorically, as being a portion of his flesh. 167-175. Affection . . . Browes] CAPELL: The meaning must be this or nothing: 'Affection,' the thing apostrophised, is told—that when full bent is given it, full intentiveness, man often receives a stab in his centre, i. e. his heart; meaning, that he is in that case subject to jealousy; thou (this full-bent affection) mak'st possible, says the speaker, things which others hold not so; hast fellowship with dreams, with what's unreal, nay, even with nothing, art that nothing's co-agent in working out thy own torment; And having said this, suddenly (by a wonder-full, but natural turn in so sick a mind as this speaker's), out of these reflections, which make the passion ridiculous and are of force to have cur'd it, matter is drawn by him to give his madness sanction; by saying, that since nothings were a foundation for it, somethings might be, and were ;- Then, 'tis very credent, Thou may'st co-join with something; and thou dost;' subjoining to this assertion-' And that to the infection of my brains, And hard'ning of my brows'—for this only should follow it; [line 175] being, in the editor's judgment, a first draft of the poet's, corrected by what comes after, and meant by him for rejection.-STEEVENS: 'Affection,' I believe, signifies imagination. Thus in Mer. of Ven. IV, i, 50: ' Affection, Mistress of passion, sways it,' etc., i. e. imagination governs our passions. Intention' is, as Locke expresses it, 'when the mind with great earnestness, and of choice, fixes its view on any idea, considers it on every side, and will not be called off by the ordinary solicitations of other ideas.' This vehemence of the mind seems to be what affects Leontes so deeply, or in Shakespeare's language,—‘stabs him to the centre.'-M. MASON (p. 124): Affection,' in this place, seems to be taken in its usual acceptation and means the passion of love, which, from its possessing the powers which Leontes here describes, is often called in Shakespeare by the name of Fancy. . . . In answer to the question, may 't be?' and to show the possibility of Hermione's falsehood, he begins to descant upon the power of love, but has no sooner pronounced the word 'affection,' than, casting his eyes on Hermione, he says to her, or rather, of her in a [167-175. Affection? thy Intention... Browes] low voice, 'thy intention stabs the centre !' After that, he proceeds again in his argument for a line and a half, when we have another break- How can this be?' He then proceeds with more connection, and says 'if love can be co-active with what is unreal, and have communication with non-entities,' it is probable that it may conjoin with something real in the case of Hermione, and having proved it possible, he concludes that it certainly must be so.' . . . 'Intention' in this passage means eagerness of attention, or of desire, and is used in the same sense in The Merry Wives, I, iii, 731, where Falstaff says: She did so course o'er my exteriors, with such a greedy intention, that the appetite of the eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning glass.' -MALONE: I think, with Mr. Steevens, that 'affection' means here imagination, or perhaps more accurately: 'the disposition of the mind when strongly affected or possessed by a particular idea.' And in a kindred sense at least to this, it is used in the passage quoted from the Mer. of Ven.-COLLIER, in his first edition, having unwisely adopted the punctuation of the Ff in may 't be Affection'? was justly criticised by DYCE (Remarks, etc. p. 79), who concludes his criticism as follows:'Leontes, after saying, "Can thy dam? may 't be?"-(so again, three lines after, "how can this be?") breaks off in an apostrophe to " affection," which is continued to the end of the speech,-" Affection, thy intention stabs the centre," ' etc. Dyce here quotes with approval Malone's note just given above.—SINGER (ed. ii): ' Affection' here means sympathy. 'Intention' is intenseness. The 'centre' is the solid globe conceived as the centre of the universe. (See II, i, 126.) The allusion is to the powers ascribed to sympathy between the human system and all nature, however remote or occult. Hence Leontes, like Othello, finds in his very agitation a proof that it corresponds not with a fancy but a reality. [Which is obscurely expressed.— ED.]—R. G. WHITE (ed. i): That is, the mind, when it is powerfully excited or affected, intuitively pierces the very heart, hits the white, touches the root of the matter. For a similar use of 'affection,' see Mer. of Ven. [above quoted].-COLLIER, in his second edition, returned substantially to the punctuation of Capell, and has the following sensible note: In all likelihood "affection" is to be taken for imagination, and “intention,” not for design or purpose, but for intentness, or vehemence of passion. Not one of the commentators, ancient or modern, has concurred with another on the poet's meaning, and there can be little hesitation in coming to the conclusion that mishearing, misrecitation, and misprinting have contributed to the obscuration of what, possibly, was never very intelligible to common readers or auditors. All that is clear is that Leontes, watching the conduct of Polixenes and Hermione, misinterprets their action, and feeds his own jealousy, concluding that their object was criminal and that he was to be the sufferer. This notion he gives vent to in various abrupt sentences, the connexion of which is entirely mental, but their general import is sufficiently clear.'-STAUNTON: Affection' here means imagination; intention' signifies intencion or intensity; and the allusion, though the commentators have all missed it, is plainly to that mysterious principle of nature by which a parent's features are transmitted to the offspring. Pursuing the train of thought induced by the acknowledged likeness between the boy and himself, Leontes asks, 'Can it be possible a mother's vehement imagination should penetrate even to the womb, and there imprint upon the embryo what stamp she chooses? Such apprehensive fantasy, then,' he goes on to say, 'we may believe will readily co-join with something tangible, and it does,' etc. etc. [Are we to believe that the betossed soul of Leontes is here interested in a [167-175. Affection? thy Intention... Browes] recondite physiological speculation? Staunton's punctuation of the passage is, I think, better than that of any other editor. Every clause is a question until the answer begins: Then, 'tis very credent,' etc.-ED.]—KEIGHTLEY (Expositor, p. 198) thinks the whole passage 'rather obscure,' and that the meaning seems to be that "affection,” which is imagination, fancy, stretches to (expressed by "intention”), and stabs, or pierces, even the centre of the earth.'-JOSEPH CROSBY (Am. Bibliopolist, Dec. 1876, p. 121) interprets affection' by lust, and thus paraphrases the first line: "O lust! thy intensity,-the lengths thou wilt go to satiate thyself,-stabs the centre,— penetrates to, and permeates, every foot of the habitable globe.' The rest of Crosby's paraphrase may be here omitted; the difficulty lies in line 167; with the exception of 'beyond commission' in line 173, there is no diversity of opinion as regards the meaning of the remainder of the speech.-HUDSON has little doubt that amidst so many ands, that word got repeated out of place [in line 173], and that in [line 174] "And that" crept in, for the same cause from the line above.' Accordingly he changed the former into as I find it,' and the latter into 'Ay, even to the infection,' etc. He doubts, moreover, whether" affection" ever bears the sense of imagination in Shakespeare; though he certainly uses it with considerable latitude, not to say looseness, of meaning.' He then gives the foregoing notes from M. Mason and from Singer. As to the word: 'centre,' Hudson does not see how it can bear any other sense than that which it has in the next scene. Before quoting a paraphrase of the whole passage by Joseph Crosby, Hudson concludes:- Perhaps, after all, the passage in hand was not meant to be very intelligible; and so it may be an apt instance of a man losing his wits in a rapture of jealousy. For how can a man be expected to discourse in orderly sort when his mind is thus all in a spasm ?' A critic of GRANT WHITE's second edition having taken that editor to task for not having in his notes explained the passage in hand, GRANT WHITE defended himself (Atlantic Monthly, June, 1884, p. 817) as follows:-'If I know anything of the syntactical construction of the English language, this passage is as simple and clear in its arrangement as the simplest and clearest in the writings of Oliver Goldsmith, or of Arthur Helps. . . . There is in it not even an involution or an inversion; unless the very simple "thou coactive art" for thou art coactive, is to be so regarded. The thoughts follow each other in the natural, logical order. Nor is there a single strained or perverted word in all the seven lines. Every word is used in its plain, and it might almost be safely said its primary, sense. I say this advisedly, after careful consideration. What, then, is the reason of that sense of incomprehensibleness which led to its selection as an example of Shakespeare's characteristic overstraining of language, sense, and syntax? Good reader and good critic, it is simply the thought. Master that, and you will see that the expression is as clear as the empyrean atmosphere.' [Doubtless Grant White was honest in the belief that he spoke advisedly, after careful consideration,' but his words smack a little of an exaggeration due to the defense of a weak point. Assuredly, if explanatory notes be ever needed, here is the occasion. It is easy to say, 'master the thought,' but it will hardly do to impute to every editor of Shakespeare a failure therein. And what is to be thought of Grant White's own mastery of it, when in transferring the passage from his Riverside Edition to the pages of The Atlantic, which he presumably read with extremest care before pronouncing judgement, he transferred a misprint, and substituted in the text a word which Shakespeare did not here use? Instead of Affection! thy intention stabs the Thou do'st make poffible things not so held, 168 170 And fellow'ft nothing. Then 'tis very credent, 173 168. not fo] not be fo Ff, Rowe+. not to be so Han. 168, 169. held,... Dreames (how] held? ...Dreams? How! Sta. 169, 170. Dreames...vnreall:] F, Cap. Var. '73, '78, '85 (subs.). Dreams ...unreall, FF Rowe. dreams-how ...be With what's unreal? Pope. dreams -(how... be?) With what's unreal, Theob. + dreams,-How...be? With what's unreal Rann et seq. (subs.). 170. coactiue] co-active Theob. ii+, Cap. (errata). 171. fellow'ft] follow'st Rowe ii. nothing] nothings Han. noth ing? Sta. 173 in brackets. Cap. it,] it; Theob. +. centre,' the Riverside Edition and The Atlantic Monthly both read: 'Affection! thy invention stabs the centre,''-a typographical error, which Grant White afterwards acknowledged (see Notes and Qu. VII, i, 235). Possibly had he had the true text before him, he would not have been so tickle o' the sere in pronouncing the passage as 'clear as the empyrean atmosphere'; something found is very different from something intended. The difficulty, to me, lies not in affection' but in 'intention.' It is possible to take 'affection' as meaning lust, but it is not necessary here; Shakespeare in many places draws the distinction between 'affections' and 'passions.' Leontes begins with the thought merely of affection or love, and then reflects that this love carried to an extreme, or becoming to the last degree intense, pierces to the very soul. The only other instance where Shakespeare uses the word 'intention' is in the passage from The Merry Wives, quoted by M. Mason; both there and here it means, I think, intenseness, or, as Staunton spells it, intencion. In the rather puzzling phrase: 'fellow'st nothing' and in what follows, I think the reasoning of Leontes is: if this intensest love can live in dreams and go hand in hand with what is actually nothing, à fortiori, it can mate with what is actually real. If, however, all explanations prove unsatisfactory, then the student must seek covert under Collier's sensible, prosaic note.-ED.] 168. possible things] JOHNSON: That is, thou dost make those things possible, which are conceived to be impossible.-MALONE: To express the speaker's meaning, it is necessary to make a short pause after the word 'possible.' I have therefore put a comma there, though perhaps, in strictness, it is improper. 170. vnreall: thou] All modern editors, without exception I believe, since Rann in 1787, have printed this line without any punctuation between 'unreal' and 'thou.' Theobald, in his correspondence with Warburton, proposed this erasure of all punctuation, but in his edition he inserted a comma. 173. beyond Commission] M. MASON (p. 125): This alludes to the commission he had given Hermione to prevail on Polixenes to defer his departure.-Singer: That is, it is very credent that sympathy shall betray a crime to the injured person, not only at the time of commission, but even after-beyond the time of commission.— STAUNTON: It means here, as in line 50, warrant, permission, authority. [This seems to be conclusive.-ED.] |