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The senate-house of planets all did sit,
To knit in her their best perfections *.

observed that they are both expressed in Latin by the same word, donec.

The meaning of the passage, according to my apprehension, is this" At whose birth, during the time of her mother's labour, over which Lucina was supposed to preside, the planets all sat in council in order to endow her with the rarest perfections." And this agrees with the principles of judicial astrology, a folly prevalent in Shakspeare's time; according to which the beauty, the disposition, as well as the fortune of all human beings was supposed to depend upon the aspect of the stars at the time they were born, not at the time in which they were conceived.

M. MASON.

Perhaps the error lies in the word conception, and instead of it we ought to read concession. The meaning will then be obvious, and especially if we adopt Mr. M. Mason's sense of the preposition till." Bring in (says Antiochus) my daughter habited like a bride for Jove himself, at whose concession (i. e. by whose grant or leave,) nature bestowed this dowry upon her-While she was struggling into the world, the planets held a consultation how they should unite in her the utmost perfection their blended influence could bestow."-It should be observed, that the preposition at sometimes signifies in consequence of. Thus, in The Comedy of Errors:

"Whom I made lord of me, and all I had,

"At your important letters."

This change of a word allows the sense for which Mr. M. Mason contends, and without his strange supposal, that by her conception was meant her birth.

The thought is expressed with less obscurity in King Appolyn of Tyre, 1510:" - For nature had put nothynge in oblyvyon at the fourminge of her, but as a chef operacyon had set her in the syght of the worlde." STEEVENS.

In the speech now before us, the words whose and her may, I think, refer to the daughter of Antiochus, without greater licence than is taken by Shakspeare in many of his plays. So, in Othello: "Our general cast us thus early for the love of his Desdemona : whom [i. e. our general] let us not therefore blame, he hath not yet made wanton the night with her." I think the construction is, "at whose conception the senate-house of planets all did sit," &c. and that the words, " till Lucina reign'd, Nature," &c. are parenthetical. MALONE.

4 The senate-house of planets all did sit,

To knit in her their best perfections.] I suspect that a rhyme

Enter the Daughter of ANTIOCHUS.

PER. See, where she comes, apparell'd like the

spring,

Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king
Of every virtue gives renown to men 5!

was here intended, and that we ought to transpose the words in the second line, as follows:

"The senate-house of planets all did sit,

"Their best perfections in her to knit."

To the contagion of this couplet perhaps we owe the subsequent fit of rhyming in which Pericles indulges himself, at the expence of readers and commentators.

The leading thought, indeed, appears to have been adopted from Sidney's Arcadia, book ii: "The senate-house of the planets was at no time so set for the decreeing of perfection in a man," &c. Thus also, Milton, Paradise Lost, viii. 511:

all heaven,

"And happy constellations, on that hour
"Shed their selectest influence."

The sentiment of Antiochus, however, is expressed with less affectation in Julius Cæsar:

"the elements

"So mix'd in him, that nature might stand up,

"And say to all the world, This was a man." STEEVENS. 5 See, where she comes, &c.] In this speech of Pericles, a transposition perhaps is necessary. We might therefore read: "See where she comes apparell'd like the king,

"Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the spring

"Of every virtue," &c.

Antiochus had commanded that his daughter should be clothed in a manner suitable to the bride of Jove; and thus dressed in royal robes, she may be said to be apparell'd like the king.

After all, I am dissatisfied with my own conjecture, and cannot help suspecting some deep corruption in the words of Pericles. With what propriety can a lady's thoughts be styled—“ the king of every virtue?" &c. Let the reader exert his sagacity on this occasion. In a subsequent scene, Jupiter is called the "king of thoughts;" and in King Henry IV. Part I. Douglas tells Hotspur that he is the "king of honour;" but neither of these passages will solve our present difficulty. We might read:

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and her thoughts the wing

"Of every virtue," &c.

For in All's Well That Ends Well, we have "a virtue of a good wing."

Her face, the book of praises, where is read
Nothing but curious pleasures, as from thence

That every virtue may borrow wings (i. e. derive alacrity) from the sentiments of a young, beautiful, and virtuous woman, is a truth that cannot be denied. Pericles, at this instant, supposes the daughter of Antiochus to be as good as she is fair. The passage, indeed, with another change as slight, may convey as obvious a meaning.

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

"Of every virtue," &c.

In short, she has no superior in beauty, yet still she is herself under the dominion of virtue.

But having already stated my belief that this passage is incurably depraved, I must now add, that my present attempts to restore it are, even in my own judgment, as decidedly abortive.

STEEVENS.

It would be a tame, and almost a ludicrous expression to say of a young princess, that she was "apparell'd like the king." That her thoughts were the king of every virtue, that is, that she was in full possession of every virtue, does not seem to me peculiarly harsh. Boswell.

6 Her face, the book of PRAISES, where is read

Nothing but curious pleasures,] In what sense a lady's face can be styled a book of praises (unless by a very forced construction it be understood to mean an aggregate of what is praiseworthy,) I profess my inability to understand.

A seemingly kindred thought occurs in a MS. play, entitled The Second Maiden's Tragedy:

"Tyrant. Thy honours with thy daughter's love shall rise, "I shall read thy deservings in her eyes.

"Helvetius. O may they be eternal books of pleasure "To show you all delight." STEEVENS.

So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
"And find delight writ there with beauty's pen."

Again, in Macbeth:

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66

Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men
May read strange matters."

Again, in Love's Labour's Lost:

66

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes, "Where all those pleasures live, that art could comprehend."

Sorrow were ever ras'd', and testy wrath
Could never be her mild companion®.

Ye gods that made me man, and sway in love,
That have inflam'd desire in my breast 9.
To taste the fruit of yon celestial tree,
Or die in the adventure, be my helps,
As I am son and servant to your will,
To compass such a boundless happiness!1
ANT. Prince Pericles,

PER. That would be son to great Antiochus.
ANT. Before thee stands this fair Hesperides?,

The same image is also found in his Rape of Lucrece, and in Coriolanus. Praises is here used for beauties, the cause of admiration and praise. MALONE.

So, in The Elder Brother, Charles says to Angelina,—

"She has a face looks like a story;

"The story of the heavens looks very like her."

M. MASON. 7 Sorrow were ever ras'd,] Our author has again this expression in Macbeth :

"Rase out the written troubles of the brain."

The second quarto, 1619, and all the subsequent copies, read -rackt. The first quarto-racte, which is only the old spelling of ras'd; the verb being formerly written race. Thus, in Dido, Queen of Carthage, by Marlowe and Nashe, 1594 :

"But I will take another order now,

"And race the eternal register of time."

The metaphor in the preceding line

"Her face, the book of praises,"

shows clearly that this was the author's word. MALONE. 8- and TESTY WRATH

Could never be her mild companion.] This is a bold expression :-testy wrath could not well be a mild companion to any one; but by her mild companion, Shakspeare means the companion of her mildness. M. MASON.

9 That have inflam'd DESIRE in my breast,] It should be remembered, that desire was sometimes used as a trisyllable.

MALONE.

To compass such a BOUNDLESS happiness!] All the old copies have bondless. The reading of the text was furnished by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

Before thee stands this fair HESPERIDES,] In the enumeration of the persons prefixed to this drama, which was first made

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With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touch'd;
For death-like dragons here affright thee hard:
Her face, like heaven, enticeth thee to view
Her countless glory 3, which desert must gain:
And which, without desert, because thine eye
Presumes to reach, all thy whole heap must die .
Yon sometime famous princes", like thyself,

by the editor of Shakspeare's plays in 1664, and copied without alteration by Mr. Rowe, the daughter of Antiochus is, by a ridiculous mistake, called Hesperides, an error to which this line seems to have given rise. Shakspeare was not quite accurate in his notion of the Hesperides, but he certainly never intended to give this appellation to the princess of Antioch: for it appears from Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV. Scene the last, that he thought Hesperides was the name of the garden in which the golden apples were kept; in which sense the word is certainly used in the passage now before us :

"For valour, is not love a Hercules,

"Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?"

In the first quarto edition of this play, this lady is only called Antiochus' daughter. If Shakspeare had wished to have introduced a female name derived from the Hesperides, he has elsewhere shown that he knew how such a name ought to be formed; for in As You Like It, mention is made of "Hesperia, the princess' gentlewoman." MALONE.

3 Her COUNTLESS glory,] The countless glory of a face seems a harsh expression; but the poet, probably, was thinking of the stars, the countless eyes of heaven, as he calls them in p. 26. MALONE.

I read-A countless glory,-i. e. her face, like the firmament, invites you to a blaze of beauties too numerous to be counted. In the first book of the Corinthians, ch. 6" XV.: - there is another glory of the stars." STEEVENS.

4

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all thy whole HEAP must die,] i. e. thy whole mass must be destroyed. There seems to have been an opposition intended. "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 Shakspeare and his contemporaries. See vol. vii. p. 261, n. 1.

The old copies read—“ all the whole heap." I am answerable

for this correction. MALOne.

5 Yon sometime famous princes, &c.] See before p. 15, n. 7. MALONE.

So, in Twine's translation: " - and his head was set up at

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