To hide the truth of this false night's abuses: By this, lamenting Philomel had ended Revealing day through every cranny spies, Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping: Thus cavils she with every thing she sees: Like an unpractis'd swimmer plunging still, So she, deep-drenched in a sea of care, 2 True grief is FOND and testy as a child,] Fond, in old lan guage, is foolish. MALONE. Sometime her grief is dumb, and hath no words; Sometime 'tis mad, and too much talk affords ". The little birds that tune their morning's joy, "Tis double death to drown in ken of shore; Who, being stopp'd, the bounding banks o'erflows; Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows. 3 Sometime HER GRIEF IS DUMB, AND HATH NO WORDS; Sometime 'tis MAD, and TOO MUCH TALK AFFORDS.] Thus, Lothario speaking of Calista: "At first her rage was dumb, and wanted words "But when the storm found way, 'twas wild and loud, The little birds that tune their morning's joy, Make her moans MAD with their sweet MELODY:] So the unhappy king Richard II. in his confinement exclaims: "This musick mads me, let it sound no more; "For though it have holpe madmen to their wits, Shakspeare has here (as in all his writings) shown an intimate acquaintance with the human heart. Every one that has felt the pressure of grief will readily acknowledge that “mirth doth search the bottom of annoy." MALONE. 5 Sad souls are SLAIN in MERRY COMPANY;] So, in Love's Labour's Lost: “Oh, I am stabb'd with laughter." STEEVENS. You mocking birds, quoth she, your tunes entomb Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears; tears. 5 And in my hearing be you MUTE AND DUMB!] The same pleonasm is found in Hamlet": "Or given my heart a working mute and dumb." The editor of the octavo in 1616, to avoid the tautology, reads without authority: "And in my hearing be you ever dumb." MALONb. "You mocking birds, quoth she, your tunes entomb "Within your hollow swelling feather'd breasts, "And in my hearing be you mute and dumb! 66 (My restless discord loves no stops nor rests; "A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests." Thus, Calista: "Be dumb for ever, silent as the 6 grave, "Nor let thy fond officious love disturb 66 My solemn sadness with the sound of joy." STEEVENS. no STOPS,] This word is used here in a musical sense. So, in the Prologue to King Henry IV. Part II. : "Rumour is a pipe "And of so easy and so plain a stop-." MALONE. 7 A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests:] So, in Troilus and Cressida : "A woeful Cressid 'mongst the merry Greeks." STEEVENS. 8 RELISH your nimble notes to pleasing ears;] The quarto and all the other editions till that of 1616, read ralish, which was either used in the same sense as relish, or was a different mode of spelling the same word. Relish is used by Daniel in his 52d Sonnet in the same manner as here: "If any pleasing relish here I use, "Then judge the world, her beauty gives the same. If cars be right, pleasing, I think, was used by the poet for pleased. In Othello we find delighted for delighting: "If virtue no delighted beauty lack-." MALONE. Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment, And whiles against a thorn thou bear'st thy part, 9 Distress likes DUMPS-] A dump is a melancholy song. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona : 66 to their instruments "Tune a deploring dump." MALONE. I While thou on Tereus descant'st, BETTER SKILL.] Philomel, the daughter of Pandion king of Athens, was ravish'd by Tereus, the husband of her sister Progne.-According to the fable, she was turned into a nightingale, Tereus into a lapwing, and Progne into a swallow. There seems to be something wanting to complete the sense: -with better skill,-but this will not suit the metre. In a preceding line, however, the preposition with, though equally wanting to complete the sense, is omitted, as here: "For day hath nought to do what's done by night." All the copies have: "While thou on Tereus descants better skill." This kind of error (descants for descant'st) occurs in almost every page of our author's plays. MALONE. Perhaps the author wrote, (I say perhaps, for in Shakspeare's licentious grammar nothing is very certain): 66 I'll hum on Tarquin's ill, "While thou on Tereus' descant'st better still." STEEVENS. 2 WHO, if IT wink,-] Shakspeare seldom attends to the last antecedent. The construction is—'Which heart, if the eye wink, shall fall,' &c. MALONE. And for, poor bird, thou sing'st not in the day3, Some dark deep desert, seated from the way, To creatures stern sad tunes, to change their kinds; Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds. As the poor frighted deer, that stands at gaze, To live or die which of the twain were better 5, 3 Venice: thou SING'ST NOT IN THE DAY,] So, in The Merchant of "The nightingale, if she should sing by day, "When every goose is cackling, would be thought "No better a musician than the wren." MALONE. • Some dark deep desert, SEATED FROM THE WAY, &c. WILL WE FIND OUT-] Thus, Calista: 66 my sad soul "Has form'd a dismal melancholy scene, 5 To live or die which of the twain were better,] So, Hamlet: "To be, or not to be, that is the question." STEEVENS. • When life is sham'd, and death REPROACHES debtor.] Reproaches is here, I think, the Saxon genitive case:-When death is the debtor of reproach. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "I do wander every where "Swifter than the moones sphere." She debates whether she should not rather destroy herself than live; life being disgraceful in consequence of her violation, and her death being a debt which she owes to the reproach of her conscience. MALONE. We need not look for a Saxon genitive here: the genitive of reproach cannot be pronounced without an additional syllable. BOSWELL. |