CONST. Lo, now! now see the issue of your peace! K. PHI. Patience, good lady! comfort, gentle Constance ! 6 CONST. No, I defy all counsel, all redress, And put my eye-balls in thy vaulty brows; Come, grin on me; and I will think thou smil'st, "If I, in act, consent, or sin of thought, It is evident that, in this last passage, the breath is considered as embounded in the body; but I will not venture to assert that the same inference may with equal certainty be drawn from the former. M. MASON. 6 No, I DEFY, &c.] To defy anciently signified to refuse. So, in Romeo and Juliet: "I do defy thy commiseration." STEEVENS. And stop this GAP OF BREATH] The gap of breath is the mouth; the outlet from whence the breath issues. MALONE. 8 And Buss thee as thy wife!] Thus the old copy. The word buss, however, being now only used in vulgar language, our modern editors have exchanged it for kiss. The former is used by Drayton, in the third canto of his Barons' Wars, where Queen Isabel says: "And we by signs sent many a secret buss." Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. iii. c. x. : "But every satyre first did give a busse "To Hellenore; so busses did abound." Again, Stanyhurst, the translator of Virgil, 1582, renders K. PHI. O fair affliction, peace. CONST. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry : O, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth! PAND. Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow. I am not mad ;-I would to heaven, I were! oscula libavit natæ Bust his prittye parrat prating, &c. STEEVENS. 9 Misery's LOVE, &c.] Thou, death, who art courted by misery to come to his relief, O come to me. So before: "Thou hate and terror to prosperity." MALONE. 1 MODERN invocation.] It is hard to say what Shakspeare means by modern: it is not opposed to ancient. In All's Well That Ends Well, speaking of a girl in contempt, he uses this word: “her modern grace." It apparently means something slight and inconsiderable. JOHNSON. Modern, is trite, ordinary, common. So, in As You Like It: "Full of wise saws, and modern instances." Again, in Antony and Cleopatra : "As we greet modern friends withal." STEEVENS. 2 Thou art NOT holy-] The word not, which is not in the old copy, (evidently omitted by the carelessness of the transcriber or compositor,) was inserted in the fourth folio. MALONE. Perhaps our author wrote: 66 Thou art unholy," &c. STEEVENS. And teaches me to kill or hang myself: If I were mad, I should forget my son; K. PHI. Bind up those tresses: O, what love I note In the fair multitude of those her hairs! 3 Bind up those tresses:] It was necessary that Constance should be interrupted, because a passion so violent cannot be borne long. I wish the following speeches had been equally happy; but they only serve to show how difficult it is to maintain the pathetick long. JOHNSON. 4 wiry FRIENDS -] The old copy reads-wiry fiends. Wiry is an adjective used by Heywood, in his Silver Age, 1613: My vassal furies, with their wiery strings, "Shall lash thee hence." STEEVENS. 66 Mr. Pope made the emendation. MALONE. Fiends is obviously a typographical error. As the epithet wiry is here attributed to hair; so, in another description, the hair of Apollo supplies the office of wire. In The Instructions to the Commissioners for the Choice of a Wife for Prince Arthur, it is directed to note the eye-browes" of the young Queen of Naples, (who, after the death of Arthur, was married to Henry VIII. and divorced by him for the sake of Anna Bulloygn). They answer, "Her browes are of a browne heare, very small, like a wyre of heare." Thus also, Gascoigne : "First for her head, her hairs were not of gold, "But of some other mettall farre more fine, "Whereof each crinet seemed to behold, "Like glist'ring wyars against the sunne that shine.” HENLEY. 5 To England, if you will.] Neither the French king nor Pandulph has said a word of England since the entry of Constance. Perhaps, therefore, in despair, she means to address the absent King John: "Take my son to England, if you will;" K. PHI. Bind up your hairs. CONST. Yes, that I will; And wherefore will I do it? I tore them from their bonds; and cried aloud, And will again commit them to their bonds, And, father cardinal, I have heard you say, For, since the birth of Cain, the first male child, now that he is in your power, I have no prospect of seeing him again. It is, therefore, of no consequence to me where he is. MALONE. 6 but yesterday SUSPIRE,] To suspire, in Shakspeare, I believe, only means to breathe. So, in King Henry IV. Part II. : "Did he suspire, that light and weightless down "Perforce must move." Again, in a Copy of Verses prefixed to Thomas Powell's Passionate Poet, 1601: "Beleeve it, I suspire no fresher aire, "Than are my hopes of thee, and they stand faire." STEEVENS. 66 a GRACIOUS creature born.] Gracious, i. e. graceful. So, in Albion's Triumph, a Masque, 1631: -on the which (the freeze) were festoons of several fruits in their natural colours, on which, in gracious postures, lay children sleeping." Again, in the same piece: —they stood about him, not in set ranks, but in several gracious postures." 66 Again, in Chapman's version of the eighteenth Iliad: 66 -then tumbled round, and tore, "His gracious curles." STEEVENS. 66 A passage quoted by Mr. Steevens from Marston's Malcontent, 1604, induces me to think that gracious likewise, in our author's time, included the idea of beauty: he is the most exquisite in forging of veins, spright'ning of eyes,-sleeking of skinnes, blushing of cheeks,-blanching and bleaching of teeth, that ever made an ould lady gracious by torch-light." MALONE. But now will canker sorrow eat my bud, And chase the native beauty from his cheek, As dim and meagre as an ague's fit; When I shall meet him in the court of heaven PAND. You hold too heinous a respect of grief. child. CONST. Grief fills the room up of my absent child", Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me; [Tearing off her head-dress. He talks to me, that never had a son.] To the same purpose Macduff observes "He has no children." This thought occurs also in King Henry VI. Part III. STEEVENS. 9 Grief fills the room up of my absent child,] Maynard, a French poet, has the same thought: Et le repos est un bien que je crains : Lucan, lib. ix. Mon deuil me plaît, et me doit toujours plaire, Il me tient lieu de celle que je plains. MALONE. - had you such a loss as I, I could give better comfort-] This is a sentiment which great sorrow always dictates. Whoever cannot help himself casts his eyes on others for assistance, and often mistakes their inability for coldness. JOHNSON. |