Makes him strait doff his armour, and his fence He had prepar'd before, to break her strokes. So from the very zenith of her wheel, When she has dandled some choice favourite, Giv'n him his boons in women, honour, wealth, And all the various delicacies of earth, That the fool scorns the gods in his excess, His fetter'd arms say no; his free soul, ay. Soph. Nor glory, Martius, in this day of 'Tis behind yesterday, but before to-morrow; Who knows what fortune then will do with thee? She never yet could make the better man, The better chance she has: the man that's best She still contends with, and doth favour least. Mar. Methinks, a graver thunder than the skies Breaks from his lips: I am amaz'd to hear; And Athens' words, more than her swords do fear. Slave Sophocles- [Aside. Soph. Martius, couldst thou acquire And did thy Roman gods so love thy prayers And solemn sacrifice, to grant thy suit To gather all the valour of the Caesars Thy predecessors, and what is to come, And by their influence fling it on thee now, Thou couldst not make my mind go less, not pare With all their swords one virtue from my soul: Know, general, we two are chances on May set me upmost, and cast thee below. [Aside. Is man's true touchstone.-Listen, insolent prince, That dar'st contemn the master of thy life, Which I will force here 'fore thy city-walls [ground, Mar. And then demolish Athens to the Depopulate her, fright away her fame, And leave succession neither stone nor name. Mar. Dost thou deride me? For mercy, Sophocles, and live happy still! Soph. Kneel, and ask mercy? Roman, art a god? I never kneel'd, or begg'd, of any else. Enter Dorigen, Ladies bearing a Sword. Are foolish, like thy tongue.-My Dorigen Oh, must she see me bound? 1 Capt. There's the first sigh He breath'd since he was born, I think. 2 Capt. Forbear, All but the lady his wife! Soph. How my heart chides The manacles of my hands, that let them not Embrace my Dorigen! Val. Turn but thy face, And ask thy life of Martius thus, and thou, With thy fair wife, shalt live; Athens shall stand, And all her privileges augmented be. Soph. Twere better Athens perish'd, and my wife [man! [thee (Which, Romans, I do know a worthy one), 5 Soph. Martius, slave Sophocles, couldst thou acquire.] A transposition here has rendered this absolute darkness. Martius being struck with admiration at Sophocles's intrepidity, is resolved to put it to a farther trial by scoffs and insults; be therefore begins with calling him slave, as the answer evidently shews. There is therefore scarce a doubt of the true reading being as the text is now reformed, making the first part of the speech spoke aside, and then, Slave Sophocles. Soph. Martius, couldst thou acquire, &c. But there is, I believe, a great corruption still remaining in the word acquire, to acquire to gather, is bad English; besides as the sentence stands, the acquisition precedes the prayers. Tis therefore most probable that the true word is aspire, which seenis clear of all objections. Sercurd. Acquire is, in our opinion, preferable. Thus Thus humbly, that he may not. Listen, Roman! To every nation, and whose deeds assure it, If he be base in aught whom thou hast taken, Mar. Valerius, here is harmony would have Val. One soft word Dor. He would not beg to live: When he shall so forget, then I begin To command, Martius: and when he kneels, Dorigen stands; when he lets fall a tear, I dry mine eyes, and scorn him. Mar. Scorn him now then, Here in the face of Athens and thy friends! [fame; To eclipse this great eclipse labours thy Valerius thy brother shall for once Turn executioner: give me thy sword. Soph. Thou canst not! and, Valerius, Soph. Yes. Val. Bid thy wife farewell! Soph. No; I will take no leave!-My Do To eclipse this great eclipse labours thy fame.] This is so obscure, that many readers may think it requires an explication. The sense seems to be-Sophocles, whilst he lives, will be a great eclipse to thy fame, and thy fame is now labouring to eclipse him in thy turn, therefore thy brother shall be his executioner. Seward. The fume of living men, which great ones do ; Their studies strangle, poison makes away, The wretched hangman only ends the play.] Though false pointings have rendered this quite dark, yet if the printers have not made some mistake that I cannot discover, the poet himself was very obscure, and however proper the sentiment, 'tis certainly ill expressed. By making the first part of the sentence end at strangle, the following sense may be deduced from it. To make their fellow-creatures kneel to them, as great men frequently do, is worse than murdering them; it renders them servile and slavish, debases them below the dignity of their nature, murders therefore their fame and fetters, and strangles their studies, i, e. the free exertions of their rational faculties. Whereas poison makes away or destroys a man without injuring his fame, or diminishing the dignity of his soul; and the wretched despicable hanginan only puts an end to the part we act upon the stage of this world. This sentiment is continued and improved in Sophocles's next speech upon death. Seward. Probably we should point, -which great ones do Their studies strangle. The sense is, You will dishonour me less by killing me, than bidding me kneel to Mar• tius. Great men exert themselves to murder the fame of the living; which is greater cruelty than poison or hanging, which but concludes our misery.' The expression, however, in any sense, is certainly obscure. AE 2 Το To make me see my lord bleed!-So! 'tis Never one object underneath the sun- And therefore not what 'tis to live. To die An old stale weary work, and to commence [part Of gods and goodness: thou thyself must At last from all thy garlands, pleasures, triumphs, And prove thy fortitude, what then 'twill do. Val. But art not griev'd nor vex'd to leave life thus ? [sent Soph. Why should I grieve or vex for being To them I ever lov'd best? Now I kneel; But with my back towards thee. "Tis the last This trunk can do the gods. [duty Mar. Strike, strike, Valerius, My hand shall cast thee quick into my urn, Val. What ails my brother? Thou now hast found a way to conquer me. Fit words to follow such a deed as this? Mar. This admirable duke, Valerius, Dor. Your blood [eyes Is sunk down to your heart, and your bright Mar. Baser fires go out When the sun shines on 'em.-I am not well; After my heats in war carelessly cool'd. Soph. And Sophocles [Exeunt. Thus girds his sword of conquest to his thigh, Nic. My worthy sutler Cornelius, it befits not Nicodemus A fellow of thy rank; th' affairs of the empire Corn. Let the affairs of The empire lie awhile unoccupied! fair means Cannot attain, force of arms shall accomplish. Nic. Put up, and live. Corn. I have put up too much already, Thou corporal of concupiscence; for I Suspect thou hast dishonour'd my flock-bed, And with thy foolish eloquence, and that Bewitching face of thine, drawn my wife, The young harlotry baggage, to prostitute Herself unto thee. Draw, therefore; for thou Shalt find thyself a mortal corporal! [will Nic. Stay thy dead-doing hand, and hear: I Rather descend from my honour, and argue These contumelies with thee, than clutch thee (Poor fly) in these eaglet claws of mine; or draw My sword of fate on a peasant, a besogniot, (Both which, I protest, are merely natural) An apoplectick fit.] Whether there is any lesser degree of the apoplexy that does not deprive a man of his senses, I am not physician enough to know; but to make a man accustomed to apoplectick fits seems improper, since the third stroke is generally held fatal. I rather believe the poets wrote epileptick, a distemper that Shakespeare from history gives to two very great soldiers, Julius Cæsar and Henry IV. Seward. 9 With this boot;] i. e. With this advantage in exchange. 10 Besognio.] See note 12 on the Martial Maid. Are Are the gifts of the gods, with which I have Neither sent bawdy sonnet, nor amorous glance, Or (as the vulgar call it) a sheep's eye Corn. Thou liest ! way. [born Nic. Oh, gods of Rome, was Nicodemus To bear these braveries from a poor provant? Yet when dogs bark, or when the asses bray, The lion laughs; not roars, but goes his Corn. A pox o'your poetical vein! this versifying [Cod's-head, My wife has hornified me. Sweet corporal No more standing on your punctilio's and punketto's [truth is, Of honour, they are not worth a louse; the Thou art the general's bigamy, that is, His fool, and his knave; thou art miscreant And recreant; not an horse-boy in the legions, But has beaten thee; thy beginning was knap-sack, And thy ending will be halter-sack!!. I am now Sophocles the wise, and thou Corn. No more of your tricks, Nic. Let us continue, friends then, For I have been even with thee a long time; And tho' I have not paid thee, I've paid thy wife. [flower'd her, Tarquin! Corn. Flow forth, my tears! thou hast deThe garden of my delight, hedged about, In which there was but one bowling-alley For mine own private procreation. [hedge, Thou hast, like a thief i'th' night, leaped the Enter'd my alley, and without my privity Play'd thine own rubbers, [snore? Nic. How long shall patience thus securely "And thy ending will be halter-sack.] The preserve a jingle of words without meaning. some little sense in it, if we read halter-sick. 12 By Cupid's god-head I do swear (no other12) She's chaster far than Lucrece, her grandmother; Pure as glass-window, ere the rider dash it13, Whiter than lady's smock, when she did wash it: [commandress) For well thou wot'st (tho' now my heart's I once was free, and she but the camp's laundress. [part Corn. Ay; she then came sweet to me; no About her but smelt of soap-suds; like adryad Out of a wash-bowl'+. Pray, or pay! Nic. Hold! [nyworths small? Corn. Was thy cheese mouldy, or thy penWas not thy ale the mightiest of the earth in malt, [bed soft, and And thy stupe fill'd like a tide? was not thy Thy bacon fatter than a dropsy? Come, sir! Nic. Mars then inspire me with the fencing skill Of our tragedian actors! Honour pricks; And, sutler, now I come with thwacks and thwicks. [lavalto fall; Grant us one crush, one pass, and now a high Then up again, now down again, yet do no harm at all! Enter Florence. Flor. Oh, that ever I was born! why, gent! Away, disloyal concubine! I will Be deafer to thee than thou art to others: I will have [rant whore My hundred drachma's he owes me, thou arFlor. I know he is an hundred drams o'th' score'; [nelius! But what o' that? no bloodshed, sweet CorOh, my heart! o'my conscience, 'tis fall'n thorow [Didymus, The bottom of my belly! Oh, my sweet If either of ye miskill one another, What 'will become of poor Florence? Pacify Yourselves, I pray! Corn. Go to! my heart's not stone; I am not marble: dry your eyes, Florence!— The scurvy ape's face knows my blind side well enough. junction of sack and halter here, is only to We may, perhaps, restore a quibble with Seward. By Cupid's I do swear (no other).] With this hiatus the line has been hitherto printed; bow or arrow were probably the original, but what is (no other), and why in a parenthesis? The parenthesis, I believe, belongs to I do swear; and the insertion of the preposition by makes out a comic hobbling verse. By Cupid's bow (I swear by no other). Seward. A hiatus is not likely to have been put for bow or arrow, but very likely for the word we have inserted, which equally suits sense, measure, and parenthesis. 13 Ere the rider dash it.] Unless dush is here used in the sense of splash with dirt, this passage seems unintelligible. R. 14 Like a dryad out of a wash-bowl.] This was probably a designed mistake of dryad for naiad, and therefore Mr. Sympson, who quarrels with the printer for making the author talk so improperly, seems to be angry without reason. It is not the author but Cornelius talks nonsense. Sewurd. 15 Drachma's o' th' score.] So former copies. Leave your puling: will this content you ? let him taste [take off again. Thy nether lip; which, in sign of amity, I thus Go thy ways, and provide the cow's udder16. Nic. Lily of concord!-And now, honest sutler, [ture, Since I've had proof as well of thy good naAs of thy wife's before, I will acquaint thee With a project shall fully satisfy thee For thy debt. Thou shalt understand, I'm shortly to be knighted. Corn. The devil thou art! Nic. Renounce me else! for the sustenance of which worship [nance) (Which worship many times wants susteI have here the general's grant to have the Two hundred men. [leading of Corn. You jest, you jest! Nic. Refuse me else to the pit. [self? Corn. Mercy on us! haʼyou not forgot your By your swearing you should be knighted already. Nic. Damn me, sir, here's his hand ! Read it. Corn. Alas, I cannot. Nic. I know that. Have lost my fame and nature. [Exe. Capt.] -Athens, Athens, This Dorigen is thy Paladium! He that will sack thee, must betray her first, Whose words wound deeper than her husband's sword; Her eyes make captive still the conqueror, And here they keep her only to that end. Oh, subtle devil, what a golden ball Did tempt, when thou didst cast her in my way! [to field Why, foolish Sophocles, brought'st thou not Thy lady, that thou might'st have overcome? Martius had kneel'd, and yielded all his wreaths men, That hang like jewels on the seven-fold hill, He conquers best, conquers his lewd desires. Enter Dorigen, with Ladies. Dor. Great sir, my lord commands me visit you; And thinks your retir'd melancholy proceeds From some distaste of worthless entertain[d'ye do, sir? ment. Will't please you take your chamber? How Mar. Lost, lost again! the wild rage of my blood Doth ocean-like o'erflow the shallow shore, Of my weak virtue: my desire's a vane, That the least breath from her turus every way. Dor. What says my lord? Mar. Dismiss Your women, pray, and I'll reveal my grief. Dor. Leave me! [Exeunt Ladies. 16 Go thy ways, and provide the cow's udder.] As all the rest of the speech is a burlesque sublimity of stile, and the whole was easily restored to its droll measure, there is reason to suspect this sudden fall of stile and loss of metre to arise from some omissions, which, I hope, will be restored. There is no particular propriety in her providing a cow's udder rather than any other dish; but as milk is the emblem of peace, and she is immediately after called Lily of concord, there is great humour in celebrating their treaty of friendship by a libation of milk to the goddess of Peace, I read therefore, which in sign of amity I thus take off again, go thy ways, and Seward. This is an unwarrantable alteration; and the measure may be preserved without it. Juice of the UDDER is too bad. 17 I cry your wishes mercy.] If this be genuine, the meaning is, I beg pardon of your expectations, in which you are already a knight. But it will be more intelligible to read worship's mercy. He calls him afterwards before Martius, His worship Sir Nicodemus. Seward. 18 There seems in this scene to be some indifferent imitation of Shakespeare's Pistol, &c. Mar. |