Gui. O sweetest, fairest lily!

My brother wears thee not the one half so well,
As when thou grew'st thyself.

Bel. O, melancholy !

Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find
The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare
Might easiliest harbour in ?-Thou blessed thing!

Jove knows what man thou might'st have made; but I,
Thou died'st, a most rare boy, of melancholy !-
How found you him?

Arv. Stark, as you see :*

Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,

Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at : his right cheek
Reposing on a cushion.

Gui. Where?

Arv. O' the floor;

His arms thus leagu'd I thought, he slept; and put
My clouted brogues3 from off my feet, whose rudeness
Answer'd my steps too loud.

Gui. Why, he but sleeps:

If he be gone, he'll make his grave a bed;
With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,
And worms will not come to thee.

Arv. With fairest flowers,

Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave: Thou shalt not lack
The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the ruddock would,
With charitable bill (O bill, sore-shaming

Those rich-left heirs, that let their fathers lie
Without a monument!) bring thee all this;

Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.*

[1] A crare, says the author of The Revisal, is a small trading vessel, called in the Latin of the middle ages, cravera. STEEVENS.

[2] Stark---i. e. stiff.

STEEVENS.

[3] Clouted brogues are shoes strengthened with clout or hob-nails. In some parts of England, thin plates of iron called clouts, are likewise fixed to the shoes of ploughmen and other rustics. Brog is the Irish word for a kind of shoe peculiar to that kingdom.

STEEVENS.

[4] To winter-ground a plant, is to protect it from the inclemency of the winter season, by straw, dung, &c. laid over it. This precaution is commonly taken in respect of tender trees or flowers, such as Aviragus, who loved Fidele, represents

Gui. Pr'ythee, have done;

And do not play in wench-like words with that
Which is so serious. Let us bury him,

And not protract with admiration what

Is now due debt. To the grave.

Arv. Say, where shall's lay him?
Gui. By good Euriphile, our mother.
Arv. Be't so :

And let us, Polydore, though now our voices

Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground,
As once our mother; use like note, and words,
Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.

Gui. Cadwal,

I cannot sing: I'll weep, and word it with thee:
For notes of sorrow, out of tune, are worse
Than priests and fanes that lie.

Arv. We'll speak it then.

Bel. Great griefs, I see, medicine the less for Cloten Is quite forgot. He was a queen's son, boys :.

And, though he came our enemy, remember,

He was paid for that: though mean and mighty, rotting Together, have one dust; yet reverence,

(That angel of the world) doth make distinction

Of place 'tween high and low.

Our foe was princely ;

And though you took his life, as being our foe,
Yet bury him as a prince.

Gui. Pray you, fetch him hither.
Thersites' body is as good as Ajax,
When neither are alive.

Arv. If you'll go fetch him,^.

We'll say our song the whilst.--Brother, begin.

[Exit BELARIUS.

Gui. Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east ;

My father hath a reason for't.

Arv. 'Tis true.

her to be. The ruddock is the red-breast, and is so called by Chaucer and Spenser. STEEVENS.------In Cornucopia, or divers Secrets, &c. 4to 1596, it is said, "The robin redbreast if he find a man or woman dead, will cover all the face with mosse, and some thinke that if the body should remaine unburied that he would cover the whole body also."

REED.

[4] Reverence, or due regard to subordination, is the power that keeps peace and order in he world. JOHNSON.

SONG.

Gui. Fear no more the heat o'the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Arv. Fear no more the frown o'the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe, and eat;

To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Gui. Fear no more the lightning-flash,

Arv. Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone ;
Gui. Fear not slander, censure rash;

Arv. Thou hast finish'd joy and moan.
Both. All lovers young, all lovers must

Consign to thee, and come to dust.

Gui. No exorciser harm thee!
Arv. Nor no withcraft charm thee!
Gui. Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Arv. Nothing ill come near thee!
Both. Quiet consummation have;

And renowned be thy grave!?

Re-enter BELARIUS, with the body of CLOTEN.

Gui. We have done our obsequies: Come, lay him down.

Bel. Here's a few flowers; but about midnight, more: The herbs, that have on them cold dew o'the night, Are strewings fitt'st for graves.-Upon their faces You were as flowers, now wither'd: even so

[5] This 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. WARBURTON. [6] The poet's sentiment seems to have been this. All human excellence is equally subject to the stroke of death: neither the power of kings, nor the science of scholars, nor the arts of those whose immediate study is the prolongation of life, can protect them from the final destiny of man. JOHNSON.

[7] For the obsequies of Fidele, a song was written by my unhappy friend, Mr. William Collins, of Chichester, a man of uncommon learning and abilities. I shall give it a place at the end, in honour of his memory. JOHNSON.

These herb'lets shall, which we upon you strow.-
Come on, away: apart upon our knees.

The ground, that gave them first, has them again :
Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain.

[Exeunt BEL. GUI. and ARV. Imo. [Awaking.] Yes, sir, to Milford-Haven; Which is the way?

I thank you. By yon bush ?-Pray, how far thither? 'Ods pittikins!-can it be six mile yet ?—

I have gone all night :-'Faith, I'll lie down and sleep.
But, soft! no bedfellow :--O, gods and goddesses!
[Seeing the body.
These flowers are like the pleasures of the world ;
This bloody man, the care on't.—I hope, I dream ;
For, so, I thought I was a cave-keeper,

:

And cook to honest creatures: But 'tis not so;
'Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing,
Which the brain makes of fumes: Our very eyes
Are sometimes like our judgments, blind. Good faith,
I tremble still with fear: But if there be
Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity
As a wren's eye, fear'd gods, a part of it!
The dream's here still even when I wake, it is
Without me, as within me; not imagin'd, felt.
A headless man!-The garments of Posthumus!
I know the shape of his leg: this is his hand;
His foot Mercurial; his Martial thigh;
The brawns of Hercules; but his Jovial face3---
Murder in heaven ?-how ?-'Tis gone.-Pisanio,
All curses madded Hecuba gave the Greeks,
And mine to boot, be darted on thee! Thou,
Conspir'd with that irregulous devil, Cloten,
Hast here cut off my lord.--To write, and read,
Be henceforth treacherous !-Damn'd Pisanio
Hath with his forged letters,-damn'd Pisanio-
From this most bravest vessel of the world
Struck the main-top!-O, Posthumus! alas,

Where is thy head? where's that? Ah me! where's that?
Pisanio might have kill'd thee at the heart,

And left this head on.-How should this be? Pisanio?
'Tis he, and Cloten: Malice and lucre in them
Have laid this woe here. O, 'tis pregnant, pregnant!
The drug he gave me, which, he said, was precious

[8] Jovial face, signifies in this place, such a face as belongs to Jove. It is frequently used in the same sense by other old dramatic writers. STEEVENS.

And cordial to me, have I not found it

Murd'rous to the senses? That confirms it home;
This is Pisanio's deed, and Cloten's: O!

Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood,

That we the horrider may seem to those

Which chance to find us: 0, my lord, my lord!

Enter LUCIUS, a Captain, and other Officers and a Soothsayer.
Cap. To them the legions garrison'd in Gallia,
After your will, have cross'd the sea; attending
You here at Milford-Haven, with your ships:
They are here in readiness.

Luc. But what from Rome ?

Cap. The senate hath stirr'd up the confiners,
And gentlemen of Italy; most willing spirits,
That promise noble service and they come
Under the conduct of bold lachimo,
Sienna's brother.

Luc. When expect you them?

Cap. With the next benefit o'the wind.

Luc. This forwardness

Makes our hopes fair. Command, our present numbers
Be muster'd; bid the captains look to't.-Now, sir,
What have you dream'd, of late, of this war's purpose?
Sooth. Last night the very gods show'd me a vision :
(I fast, and pray'd, for their intelligence,) Thus :---
I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, wing'd
From the spongy south to this part of the west,
There vanish'd in the sun-beams which portends,
(Unless my sins abuse my divination,)

Success to the Roman host.

Luc. Dream often so,

And never false.-Soft, ho! what trunk is here,
Without his top? The ruin speaks, that sometime
It was a worthy building.-How! a page!-
Or dead, or sleeping on him? But dead, rather:

For nature doth abhor to make his bed

With the defunct, or sleep upon the dead.

Let's see the boy's face.

Cap. He is alive, my lord.

Luc. He'll then instruct us of this body.-Young one,

Inform us of thy fortunes; for, it seems,

They crave to be demanded: Who is this,

Thou mak'st thy bloody pillow? Or who was he,

That, otherwise than noble nature did,