صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

Enter Glo'fter, brought in by Servants,

Who's there? the traitor ?

Reg. Ungrateful fox! 'tis he.

Corn. Bind faft his corky arms.

[confider.

Glo. What mean your Graces? Good my Friends, You are my Guests: Do me no foul play, friends. Corn. Bind him, I say.

Reg. Hard, hard: O filthy traitor!

[They bind him.

Glo. Unmerciful Lady as you are! I'm none.

Corn. To this chair bind him. Villain, thou fhalt find.. Glo. By the kind gods, 'tis moft ignobly done

To pluck me by the beard..

Reg. So white, and fuch a traitor ?

Glo. Naughty Lady,

Thefe hairs, which thou doft ravish from my chin,
Will quicken and accufe thee; I'm your Hoft;
With robber's hands, my hospitable favours
You should not ruffle thus. What will you do?
Corn. Come, Sir, what letters had you late from
France?

Reg. Be fimple anfwerer, for we know the truth. Corn. And what confed'racy have you with the traitors, Late footed in the kingdom?

Reg. To whofe hands

Have you fent the lunatick King? fpeak.

Glo, I have a letter gueffingly fet down,

Which came from one that's of a neutral heart,

And not from one oppos'd,

Corn, Cunning

Reg. And falfe.

Corn. Where haft thou sent the King?

Glo, To Dover.

Reg. Wherefore to Dover?

Walt thou not charg'd, at peril

Corn. Wherefore to Dover? let him first answer that. Glo. I am ty'd to th' stake, and I must stand the course, Reg. Wherefore to Dover?

Gl. Because I would not fee thy cruel nails

Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce fifter

In his anointed flesh ftick boarish phangs.
The fea, with fuch a ftorm as his bare head

In hell-black night indur'd, would have buoy'd up,
And quench'd the ftelled fires: (34)

Yet poor old heart, he help'd the heav'ns to rain.
If wolves had at thy gate howl'd that stern time,
Thou should't have faid, "good porter, turn the key;
All cruels elfe fubfcrib'd; but I fhall fee
The winged vengeance overtake fuch children.

[ocr errors]

Corn. See't fhalt thou never. Fellows, hold the chair.

Upon these eyes of thine, I'll fet my foot.

[Glo'fter is held down, while Cornwall treads out one of his eyes.

Glo. He that will think to live 'till he be old, Give me some help.

-O cruel! O you gods! Reg. One fide will mock another; th' other too, Corn. If you fee vengeance

Serv. Hold your hand, my Lord:

I've ferv'd you, ever fince I was a child;
But better fervice have I never done you,
Than now to bid you hold.

Reg. How now, you dog?

Serv. If you did wear a beard upon your chin,

I'd hate it on this quarrel.

What do you mean?

(34) And quench'd the fteeled fires.] The fagacious editors have all blunder'd in this word without the leaft variation: It is indifputable, that the author must have wrote.

And quench'd the stelled fires.

i. e. the tarry fires; an adjective coin'd from Stella. The Romans form'd both a participle active, and adjective paffive from this word.

-extemplo, cælo ftellante, ferena

Sidera refpondent in aqua radiantia mundi.

Hinc illum Corythi Tyrrhenâ ab fede profectum

Aurea nunc folio ftellantis regia cæli

Accipit;

atque illi ftellatus Jafpide fulva

Enfis erat.

Lucret. 1. 4.

Virg. Æn. 7.

Idem. Æn. 4.

I am aware, that neither ftellans, nor ftellatus are entirely adequate in fenfe, or ufage, to felled in our author. As the word, however is aptly deriv'd, I hope, Shakespeare will stand protected by Horace's precept;

ti

Dixeris egregie, notum fi callida verbum

Reddiderit junctura novum.

D 2

Corn.

Corn. My villain! Serv. Nay then come on, and take the chance of anger. [Fight; in the Scuffle Cornwall is wounded. Reg. Give me thy fword. A peasant stand up thus? [Kills him. Serv. Oh, I am flain-my Lord, you have one eye left To fee fome mifchief on him. Oh

[Dies

Corn. Left it fee more, prevent it; out, vile gelly : Where is thy luftre now? [Treads out the other eye. Glo. All dark and comfortlefs--where's my fon Edmund? Edmund, enkindle all the fparks of nature

To quit this horrid act.

Reg. Out, treacherous villain.

Thou call'ft on him, that hates thee: It was he,
That made the overture of thy treafons to us;

Who is too good to pity thee.

Glo. O my follies!

Then Edgar was abus'd. Kind gods, forgive
Me that, and profper him!

Reg. Go thrust him out

At gates, and let him fmell his way to Dover.

How is't, my lord? how look you?

[Ex. with Glo'fter,

Corn, I have receiv'd a hurt; follow me, Lady.-pt Turn out that eyelefs villain; throw this flave Upon the dunghil.-Regan, I bleed apace. Untimely comes this hurt. Give me your arm.

[Exit Corn, led by Regan. 1. Serv. I'll never care what wickedness I do, (35) If this man come to good,

2d. Serv. If the live long,

And, in the end, meet the old course of death,
Women will all turn monsters.

f. Serv. Let's follow the old Earl, and get the bedlam

(35) I'll never care what wickedness I do,] This short dialogue I have inferted from the old quarto, becaufe I think it full of nature. Servants, in any houfe, could hardly fee fuch a barbarity committed on their mafter, without reflections of pity; and the vengeance that they prefame muft overtake the actors of it, is a fentiment and doctrine well worthy of the stage.

To

To lead him where he would; his roguish madness
Allows itself to any thing.

zd Serv. Gothou; I'll fetch fome flax and whites of eggs T'apply to's bleeding face. Now, heaven help him! [Exeunt feverally..

[blocks in formation]

Y

SCENE, An open Country.

Enter Edgar.

ET better thus, and known to be contemn'd,
Than ftill contemn'd and flatter'd. To be worst (36)

The lowest, moft dejected thing of fortune,

Stands ftill in efperance; lives not in fear.
The lamentable change is from the beft;

The worst returns to laughter. Welcome then,
Thou unsubstantial air, that I embrace!

The wretch, that thou haft blown unto the worst,
Owes nothing to thy blafts.

Enter Glo'fter, led by an old man.

But who comes here?

My father poorly led? World, world, O world! (37)

(36)

-To be worst,

But

The lowest, most dejected thing of fortune,] This fentiment is fo much a-kin to a paffage in Ovid, that it feems to be copied directly from it. -Fortuna miferrima tuta eft;

Nam timor eventûs deterioris abeft.

-World, world, O world!

Epift. 2. lib. 2. ex Ponto.

(37) But that thy frange mutations make us hate thee,] The reading of this paffage, as it has thus food in all the editions, has been endeavour'd to be explain'd feverally into a meaning; but not fatisfactorily. Mr. Pope's mock-reafoning upon it has already been rallied in print, so I forbear to revive it: and the gentleman, who then advanced a com ment of his own upon the paffage, has fince come over to my emen

D 3

dation.

[ocr errors]

But that thy ftrange Matations make us wait thee,
Life would not yield to age.

Old Man. O my good Lord, I have been your tenant, And your father's tenant, thefe fourfcore years.

G. Away, get thee away: good friend, be gone; Thy comforts can do me no good at all,

Thee they may hurt.

Old Man. You cannot fee your way.

Glo. I have no way, and therefore want no eyes:
I ftumbled when I faw. Full oft 'tis feen,

Our mean fecures us; and our mere defects
Prove our commodities.O dear fon Edgar,"
The food of thy abufed father's wrath;

Might I but live to fee thee in my touch, (38)
I'd fay, I had eyes again!

[ocr errors]

Old

dation. My explanation of the poet's fentiment was, "If the num"ber of changes and viciffitudes, which happen in life, did not make us wait, and hope for fome turn of fortune for the better, we could never fupport the thought of living to be old, on any other "terms." And our duty, as human creatures, is pioufly inculcated in this reflection of the author. Apollodorus, the comic poet, has Jeft us a moral precept, upon which Shakespeare's reflection might have very well been grounded.

Ουδέπο ̓ ἀθυμεῖν τὸν κακῶς πράττοντα δεῖ,
*Ανδρες, τὰ βελτίω δὲ προσδοκῶν ἀεί.

No body, good people, ought to defpond under misfortunes, but always wait for a better turn.

१ (38) Might I but live to fee thee in my touch,] I cannot but take notice, that thefe fine boldnesses of expreffion are very infrequent in our English poetry, tho' familiar with the Greeks and Latins. We have pafs'd another fignal one in this very play.

Such fheets of fire, fuch bursts of horrid thunder,

Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
Remember to have heard,

For tho' the verb bear properly anfwers to the thunder, the wind, and ain; yet it does not fo, but figuratively, to the feets of fire. I have obferv'd an inftance of this implex fort, exactly parallel, in the Hero and Leander of Mufæus the grammarian.

Νηχόμενὶν τε Λέανδρον, ὁμᾶ καὶ λύχνον οἰκέω.

I bear Leander fwim, the candle burn..

The elder fcholiaft upon #fcbylus tells us very judiciously, [merhyayė τις αισθήσεις πρὸς τὸ ἐνεργέςερον] that the transferring the properties of one fenfe to another, was used to add the greater force and energy.

« السابقةمتابعة »