PERICLES. ACT I. Enter GOWER. Before the Palace of Antioch To sing a song of old was sung,' From ashes ancient Gower is come; To glad your ear, and please your eyes If you, born in these latter times, (I tell you what mine authors say :) Who died and left a female heir, [1] I do not know that old is by any author used adverbially. We might read: To sing a song of old was sung,----- i. e. that of old, &c. But the poet is so licentious in the language which he has attributed to Gower in this piece, that I have not ventured to make any change. MALONE. [2] i. e. says Dr. Farmer, by whom this emendation was made, church-ales. MALONE. [3] This word, which is frequently used by our old poets, signifies a mate or com. panion. The old copies have---peer. MALONE. VOL. X. So buxom, blithe, and full of face,* What now ensues, to the judgment of your eye [Exit. SCENE I. Enter ANTIOCHus, Antioch. A Room in the Palace. PERICLES, and Attendants. Ant. Young prince of Tyre, you have at large receiv'd The danger of the task you undertake. Per. I have, Antiochus, and with a soul Ant. Bring in our daughter, clothed like a bride, To knit in her their best perfections. [Music. [4] Completely, exuberantly beautiful. A full fortune, in Othello, means a complete, a large one. MALONE. [5] Gower must be supposed here to point to the heads of those unfortunate wights, which were fixed on the gate of the palace at Antioch. MALONE. Enter the Daughter of ANTIOCHUS. Per. See, where she comes, apparell'd like the spring, Her face, the book of praises, where is read Ye gods that made me man, and sway in love, Per. That would be son to great Antiochus. Tell thee with speechless tongues, and semblance pale, They here stand martyrs, slain in Cupid's wars; For going on death's net, whom none resist. Per. Antiochus, I thank thee, who hath taught My frail mortality to know itself, And by those fearful objects to prepare [6] She comes (says Pericles) adorned with all the colours of the spring; the Graces are proud to enroll themselves among her subjects; and the king, (i. e. the chief) of every virtue that ennobles humanity, impregnates her mind: Graces her subjects, in her thoughts the king In short she has no superior in beauty, yet still she is herself under the dominion of [7] This is a bold expression:----testy wrath could not well be a mild companion to any one; but by her mild companion, Shakespeare means the companion of her M. MASON. mildness. [8] Thy whole heap, thy body, must suffer for the offence of a part, thine eye. The word bulk like heap in the present passage, was used for body by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. K MALONE. VOL. X. |