Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

'the earth to the like.' 'I take the earth to the like' meansI throw my gage on the earth in witness of the like, &c. It seems to have been so written in order to vary the expression, there being so many challenges. B.

From sin to sin :—

-] So the quartos. I suspect we should read: From sun to sun; i. e. from one day to another. STEEV. Surely this ingenious emendation is entitled to a place in the -text.- MAL.

[ocr errors]

from sin to sin.' The reading proposed by Mr. Steevens is poor and bald. It would appear from the context that the French word fin (end) has here been employed, from fin to fin. This if interpreted according to the letter will be from end to end. In this place it must be explained by never-ceasing. The speaker would insinuate that when there may seem to be au end to his errors Aumerle will find himself mistaken, and he will begin again, and will continue so to proscribe him during life. The expression, however quaint and affected, is equivalent to Dryden's " Never ending, still beginning," as I find in his celebrated music ode-and is certainly in the manner of Shakspeare. B.

Fitzw. As I intend to thrive in this new world, Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal :

-in this new world,] In this world where I have just begun to be an actor. Surry has, a few lines above, called him boy. JOHN. in this new world.' By 'new world' he surely means new political world. In that world, he would say, which is newly created by Bolingbroke. B.

K. Rich. My care is-loss of care, by old care
done;

Your care is gain of care, by new care won:
The cares I give, I have, though given away;
They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.

My care is-loss of care, by old care done ;] Shakspeare often obscures his meaning by playing with sounds. Richard seems to say here, that his cares are not made less by the increase of Bolingbroke's cares; for this reason, that his care is the loss of care, his grief is, that his regal cares are at an end, by the cessation of the care to which he had been accustomed. JouN.

6

[ocr errors]

My cure is,' &c.-The playing thus with Care' is certainly poor enough. But Johnson thinks worse of the matter than it really is, by supposing that the word is at all times to mean vexation, anxiety, trouble, and such as is incident to his state: whereas in saying 'by old care done,' and 'by new care won,'

[ocr errors]

Richard alludes to trouble or pains taken. "I have lost my cares of Royalty, notwithstanding all the care or trouble I have taken to keep them while you by new care or trouble have gained these kingly cares.-Such being the case I no longer hesitate they are yours." B.

Dutch. Speak, pardon, as 'tis current in our land; The chopping French we do not understand.

The chopping French] Chopping, I believe, means jabber ing, talking flippantly a language unintelligible to Englishmen. I do not remember to have met the word, in this sense, in any other place. In the universities they talk of chopping logic; and our author in Romeo and Juliet has the same phrase:

"How now! how now! chop logic?" MAL.

[ocr errors]

The chopping french.' Perhaps by Chopping' is meant Tripping-Choper fr. to Trip: to run nimbly. Chopping french' i. e. "a language that runs nimbly over the tongue;' and that is the character of the one in question. B.

K. Rich.

and love to Richard'

Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.

in this all-hating world.] I believe the meaning is, this world in which I am universally hated. JOHN.

-and love to Richard

Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.

i. e. is as strange and uncommon as a brooch, which is now no longer worn. So, in All's Well that ends Well: "Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion, richly suited, but unsuitable; just like the brooch and the toothpick, which wear not now.” MAL.

[ocr errors]

Is a strange brooch. A brooch' is a jewel. Strange brooch.' The meaning is-Love is a rare, an uncommon jewel : and not that the brooch, as an ornament, is uncommon or seldom worn. B.

K. Rich. hither,

What art thou? and how comest thou

Where no man ever comes, but that sad dog
That brings me food, to make misfortune live?

Where no man ever comes, but that sad dog,] I have ventured at a change here, against the authority of the copies, by the direction of Mr. Warburton. Indeed, sad dog savours too much of the comedian, the oratory of the late facetious Mr. Penkethman. And drudge is the word of contempt, which our author chuses to use on ether like occasions. THEOB.

Dr. Warburton says peremptorily, " read drudge ;" but I still persist in the old reading. JOHN.

[ocr errors]

- but that sad dog.' There is little doubt but that Shakspeare wrote Doeg in allusion to the herdsman of Saul who bore that name. Richard calls the keeper Doeg because he had the care of him. B.

K. Rich.

I was not made a horse;
And yet I bear a burden like an ass,
Spur-gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing Bolingbroke.

by jauncing Bolingbroke.] Jaunce and jaunt were synony

mous words. STEEV.

[ocr errors]

by jauncing Bolingbroke.' Jaunce and Jaunt are totally different. Shakspeare has here taken Spenser's Joyance, which comes from the french word Jouissance. Jauncing is the same as though he had written Joyancing, i. e. enjoyinghaving one's wishes. Jauncing Bolingbroke' will therefore mean-Bolingbroke at the top of his wishes; and not Bolingbroke taking a jaunt or ride, as Mr. Steevens seems to imagine.

[ocr errors]

FIRST PART OF

King Henry IV.

ACT I. SCENE I.

K. Henry. No more the thirsty entrance of this soil

Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;

No more the thirsty entrance of this soil

Shall damp her lips with her own children's blood ;]

This nonsense should be read: Shall trempe, i. e. moisten, and refers to thirsty in the preceding line: trempe, from the French, tremper, properly signifies the moistness made by rain. WARB.

That these lines are absurd is soon discovered, but how this nonsense will be made sense is not so easily told; surely not by reading trempe, for what means he, that says, the thirsty entrance of this soil shall no more trempe her lips with her children's blood, more than he that says it shall not damp her lips? To suppose the entrance of the soil to mean the entrance of a king upon dominion, and king Henry to predict that kings shall enter hereafter without bloodshed, is to give words such a latitude of meaning, that no nonsense can want a congruous interpretation.

The ancient copies neither have trempe nor damp: the first quarto of 1599, that of 1622, the folio of 1623, and the quarto of 1639, all read:

No more the thirsty entrance of this soil

Shall daube her lips with her own children's blood.

The folios of 1632 and 1664 read, by an apparent error of the press, shall damb her lips, from which the latter editors have idly adopted damp. The old reading helps the editor no better than the new, nor can I satisfactorily reform the passage. I think that thirsty entrance must be wrong, yet know not what to offer. We may read, but not very elegantly:

No more the thirsty entrails of this soil

Shall daubed be with her own childrens' blood.

The relative her is inaccurately used in both readings; but to regard sense more than grammar, is familiar to our author.

We may suppose a verse or two lost between these two lines. This is a cheap way of palliating an editor's inability; but I believe such omissions are more frequent in Shakspeare than is commonly imagined. JOHN.

Perhaps the following conjecture may be thought very far fetch'd, and yet I am willing to venture it, because it often happens that a wrong reading has affinity to the right. I would read:

-the thirsty entrants of this soil;

i. e. those who set foot on this kingdom through the thirst of power or conquest.

Whoever is accustomed to the old copies of this author, will generally find the words consequents, occurrents, ingredients, spelt consequence, occurrence, ingredience; and thus perhaps, the French word entrants, anglicized by Shakspeare, might have been corrupted into entrance, which affords no very apparent meaning.

By her lips Shakspeare may mean the lips of peace, who is mentioned in the second line; or may use the thirsty entrance of the soil, for the porous surface of the earth, through, which all moisture enters, and is thirstily drank, or soaked up. STEEV.

и

"Thirsty entrance," as Johnson has said, "must be wrong:" for though entrance may very well stand for mouth, yet the thirsty entrance of a soil daubing her lips, is neither sense nor grammar, and it can scarcely be supposed that Shakspeare would fail in both. With respect to Mr. Steevens's entrants for entrance there would certainly be nothing to object, were it not that the word he proposes can only be expressive of those who come in force and as the invaders of a country. It is `not of such, however, that the king is speaking, as we learn by "daub her lips with her own childrens' blood," "intestine shocks," &c. In elucidating a difficult passage, therefore, we must attend not only to the resemblance which the word we may wish to substitute may bear to that we suppose corrupt, but also to the general reasoning throughout the whole. Henry, .as I have observed already, is discoursing of civil commotions. I am then of opinion that the poet has anglicised the word enfreints (infractions) which he has here used personally, i. e. violators of order, infringers of the peace. "Thirsty enfreints," the intemperately ambitious rebels. If in enfreints t were originally printed instead of f, (enfraints) it will be found nearly to resemble entrance both in sound and appearance, so that the transcriber might easily mistake the word. B.

K. Henry. Those opposed eyes,

SHAK.

II.

C

« AnteriorContinua »