Take up this mangled matter at the best:
Men do their broken weapons rather use,
Than their bare hands.

Bra. I pray you, hear her speak;

If the confefs, that he was half the wooer,
Deftruction on my head 2, if my bad blame
Light on the man!-Come hither, gentle miftrefs;
Do you perceive in all this noble company,
Where moft you owe obedience?

Def. My noble father,

I do perceive here a divided duty:

To you I am bound for life, and education;
My life, and education, both do learn me
How to refpect you; you are the lord of duty3,
I am hitherto your daughter: But here's my husband;
And fo much duty as my mother shew'd
To you, preferring you before her father 4,
So much I challenge that I may profefs
Due to the Moor, my lord.

Bra. God be with you!-I have done :-
Please it your grace, on to the ftate affairs;
I had rather to adopt a child, than get it.
Come hither, Moor:

I here do give thee that with all my heart,
Which, but thou haft already, with all my heart
I would keep from thee.-For your fake, jewel,
I am glad at foul I have no other child;

For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
To hang clogs on them.-I have done, my lord.

2 Deftruction, &c.] The quartos read, deftruction light on me.

3 You are the lord of duty,] The first quarto reads,

You are lord of all my duty. STEEVENS.

4 And fo much duty as my mother fhew'd

STEEVENS.

To you, preferring you before ber father, &c.] Perhaps Shakspeare had here in his thoughts the answer of the youngest daughter of Ina, king of the Weft Saxons, to her father, which he feems to have copied in King Lear. See Vol. VIII. p. 486. MALONE.

5 Which, &c.] This line is omitted in the first quarto. STEEVENS.

Duke.

Duke. Let me fpeak like yourself"; and lay a fen

tence,

Which, as a grife7, or ftep, may help these lovers
Into your favour.

When remedies are paft, the griefs are ended,
By feeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.
To mourn a mischief that is past and gone,

Is the next way to draw new mischief on '.
What cannot be preferv'd when fortune takes,
Patience her injury a mockery makes.

The robb'd, that fmiles, fteals fomething from the thief;
He robs himself, that spends a bootless grief.

Bra. So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;

We lofe it not, fo long as we can smile.

He bears the fentence well, that nothing bears
But the free comfort which from thence he hears 2:
But he bears both the fentence and the forrow,
That, to pay grief, muft of poor patience borrow.

6 Let me speak like your felf;] The duke feems to mean, when he fays he will speak like Brabantio, that he will speak fententiously. JOHNSON.

Let me fpeak like yourself ;] i. e. let me fpeak as yourself would fpeak, were you not too much heated with paffion. Sir J. REYNOLDS. 7 as a grife,] Grize from degrees. A grize is a ftep. So in Timon:

for every grize of fortune

"Is fmooth'd by that below."

Ben Jonfon, in his Sejanus, gives the original word:

Whom when he faw lie fpread on the degrees."

In the will of K. Henry VI. where the dimenfions of King's College chapel at Cambridge are fet down, the word occurs, as fpelt in fome of the old editions of Shakspeare. "From the provoft's itall, unto the greece called Gradus Chori, 90 feet." STEEVENS.

8 Into your favour.] This is wanting in the folio, but found in the quarto. JOHNSON.

9 When remedies are paft, the griefs are ended,-] This our poet has elsewhere exprefied by a common proverbial fentence, Paft cure is fill past care. See Vol. X. p. 313, n. 5. MALONE.

I

-new mifchief on.] The quartos read-more mifchief.

STEEVENS.

2 But the free comfort which from thence be bears:] But the moral precepts of confolation, which are liberally beftowed on the occafion of the fentence. JOHNSON.

These

These fentences, to fugar, or to gall,
Being strong on both fides, are equivocal:

But words are words; I never yet did hear,

That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear 3.

3 But words are words; I never yet did bear,

I humbly

That the bruis'd beart was pierced through the ear.] Thefe moral precepts, fays Brabantio, may perhaps be founded in wifdom, but they are of no avail. Words after all are but words; and I never yet heard that confolatory speeches could reach and penetrate the afflicted heart, through the medium of the ear.

Brabantio here expreffes the fame fentiment as the father of Hero in Much ado about Nothing, when he derides the attempts of thofe comforters who in vain endeavour to

"Charm acbe with air, and agony with words."

Our authour has in various places fhewn a fondnefs for this antithefis between the beart and ear. Thus, in his Venus and Adonis : "This difmal cry rings fadly in her ear,

"Through which it enters, to surprise her heart."

Again, in Much ado about Nothing: "My coufin tells him in his ear, that he is in her beart."

Again, in Cymbeline:

- I have fuch a beart as both mine ears

"Muft not in hafte abuse."

Again, in his Rape of Lucrece:

"His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth
"No penetrable entrance to her plaining."

A doubt has been entertained concerning the word pierced, which Dr. Warburton fuppofed to mean wounded, and therefore fubftituted pieced in its room. But pierced is merely a figurative expreffion, and means not wounded, but penetrated, in a metaphorical fenfe; thoroughly affected; as in the following paffage in Shakspeare's 46th fonnet :

"My beart doth plead, that thou in him doft lie;
"A clofet never pierc'd with crystal eyes."

So alfo, in Love's Labour's Loft:

"Honeft plain words best pierce the ear of grief.” Again, in The Merchant of Venice:

"With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear."

In a word, a beart pierced through the ear, is a heart which (to ufe our poet's words elsewhere,) has granted a penetrable entrance to the language of confolation. So, in The Mirrour for Magiftrates, 1575: "My piteous plaint-the hardest beart may pierce." Spenfer has ufed the word exactly in the fame figurative sense in which it is here employed; Faery Queene, B. VI. c. ix :

"Whyleft

I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.

Duke. The Turk with a moft mighty preparation makes for Cyprus :-Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you: And though we have there a subftitute of moft allow'd fufficiency, yet opinion, a fovereign mistress of effects, throws a more fafer voice on you: you must therefore be content to flubber the glofs of your new fortunes with this more ftubborn and boisterous expedition.

Oth. The tyrant custom, moft grave senators,

"Whyleft thus he talkt, the knight with greedy eare
"Hong ftill upon his melting mouth attent;
"Whose fenfefull words empierft his bart fo neare,

"That he was rapt with double ravishment."

And in his Fourth Book, c. vili. we have the very words of the

text:

Her words,

"Which, paffing through the eares, would pierce the bart."

Some perfons have supposed that pierced when applied metaphorically to the heart, can only be used to exprefs pain; that the poet might have faid, pierced with grief, or pierced with plaints, &c. but that to talk of piercing a heart with confolatory Speeches, is a catachrefis : but the paffage above quoted from Spenfer's fixth book fhews that there is no ground for the objection. So alfo, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 1590, we find

"Nor thee nor them, thrice noble Tamburlaine,

"Shall want my heart to be with gladness pierc'd.” MALONE. That the bruis'd beart was pierced through the ear.] Shakspeare was continually changing his first expreffion for another, either ftronger or more uncommon; fo that very often the reader, who has not the fame continuity or fucceffion of ideas, is at a lofs for its meaning. Many of Shakspeare's uncouth ftrained epithets may be explained, by going back to the obvious and fimple expreflion, which is most likely to occur to the mind in that state. I can imagine the first mode of expreffion that occurred to the poet was this:

The troubled heart was never cured by words. To give it poetical force, he altered the phrase:

The wounded heart was never reached through the ear. Wounded heart he changed to broken, and that to bruised, as a more uncommon expreffion. Reached he altered to touched, and the tranfition is then eafy to pierced, i. e. thoroughly touched. When the fentiment is brought to this ftate, the commentator, without this unravelling clue, expounds piercing the beart in its common acceptation, wounding the beart, which making in this place nonfenfe, is corrected to pierced the heart, which is very stiff, and, as Polonius fays, is a vile phrase. Sir J. REYNOLDS.

Hath

Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down+: I do agnize
A natural and prompt alacrity,

I find in hardnefs; and do undertake
These present wars against the Ottomites.
Moft humbly therefore bending to your state,
I crave fit difpofition for my wife;
Due reference of place, and exhibition;
With fuch accommodation, and befort,
As levels with her breeding.

Duke. If you please,

Be't at her father's.

Bra. I will not have it fo.
Oth. Nor I.

Def. Nor I; I would not there refide,
To put my father in impatient thoughts,
By being in his eye. Moft gracious duke,
To my unfolding lend a gracious ear7;
And let me find a charter in your voice,

4 thrice-driven bed of down:-] A driven bed, is a bed for which the feathers are selected, by driving with a fan, which separates the light from the heavy. JOHNSON.

5- I do agnize] i. e. acknowledge, confefs, avow. STEEVENS. It is fo defined in Bullokar's English Expofitor, 8vo. 1616.

MALONE.

Thefe prefent wars— -] The quarto 1622, and the folio, by an error of the prefs, have-tbis prefent wars. For the emendation I am refponfible. MALONE.

6 I crave fit difpofition for my wife;

Due reference of place, and exbibition, &c.] I defire, that proper difpofition be made for my wife; that the may have predecency, and revenue, accommodation, and company, fuitable to her rank.

For reference of place, the old quartos have reverence, which Hanmer has received. I should read, due preference of place,-. JOHNSON. Exbibition is allowance. The word is at prefent ufed only at the univerfities. STEEVENS.

See Vol. VIII. p. 507, n. 3. MALONE.

7

- Moft gracious duke,

To my unfolding lend a gracious ear;] Thus the quarto 1622. The folio, to avoid the repetition of the fame epithet, reads:-your prof perous ear. i. e. your propitious ear. STEEVENS.

8 a charter in your voice,] Let your favour privilege me.

JOHNSON.

To