A similar dislocation occurs in Dryden's Cimon and Iphigenia: "Her bosom to the view was only bare," instead of 22. "Her bosom only, to the view was bare." For the sake of the measure, we might read: 23. "Your valour puts well forth: pray, follow." This is defective. We might read: "The present wars devour him.”. I believe this alludes to the eagerness and ardour with which Marcius is caressed by those who regard him as Rome's great champion. The wars furnish occasion for devouring him with caresses. If this will not be admitted, I must, with Dr. Warburton, consider the words as an imprecation. "Too proud to be so valiant," means, I suppose, no more than, too proud of being so valiant as he is. 25. In what fashion, "More than in singularity, he goes." This is very obscure, and I do not think the commentators have succeeded in explaining it.— All the sense I can extract from it is this-Let us go and hear what circumstances, beside his peculiar pride, accompany him on this occasion. 28. "Farewell." SCENE II. This third" farewell" should be dismissed, as a useless burthen to the line." 29. "I SCENE III. —was pleased to let him seek danger where he was like to find fame.' Here is a striking difference between the language of poetry and that of prose: in plain construction, it would have been, to let him seek fame where he was likely to find danger. 30. "Had I a dozen sons, &c. I had rather had eleven die," &c. This wants correction. It should be: “Had I a dozen sons, &c. I would rather have eleven die," &c. "Methinks, I hear hither your husband's drum." "To hear hither" is a strange expression, and, I suspect, corruption. Perhaps we should read: "Methinks, e'en now, I hear your husband's drum." "See him pluck Aufidius down by the hair." Here, too, a transposition of words is necessary. "See him pluck down Aufidius by the hair." "As children from a bear, the Volces shunning him." As we cannot admit the expression "shunning from," I would read: "As children shun a bear, the Volces flying him." Or else: "As children fly a bear, the Volces shunning him." Methinks, I see him stamp thus, and call thus." Should it not be, rather: "Methinks, I see him stamp thus, and thus call." Gilt his trophy." 31. Gilt is merely gilding. Hector's forehead, when it spit forth blood “At Grecian swords' contending.". "Contending at" is not a just expression, and I think it is plain a word has, by mistake, been altered. I read, instead of contending, contemning, in the neuter sense, which agrees perfectly with the spirit of what went before: Spit forth blood "At Grecian swords, contemning." i. e. Contemptuously." "We are fit to bid her welcome.” Some words, I suppose, are lost: perhaps it was "That we are waiting here, to bid her welcome." Again there follows an awkward hemistic "And tread upon his neck—” which might be thus supplied. Val. " My ladies both," I take to be interpolated. A syllable is wanting here to the measure, which may be easily supplied: 66 My horse to yours, not so." - Within this mile and half." The hypermeter should be removed, by making the answer correspondent to what is afterwards said, p. 43, concerning the distance between the I am not sure whether this means your army that is divided by policy, or your army, which Marcius has cleft or cut asunder. They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts." Beyond what we had any conception of. 37. "You shames of Rome! you herd ofBoils and plagues." This abruption is highly dramatic, and a figure that Lee is often happy in the use of; as in The Massacre of Paris: "That set him on, with the rewards of heaven, "To act so black, so deep, so damn'd a murder. O why will Charles thus sheath the sword of justice," &c. 38. Have shut him in." To the pot, I warrant him." The phrase, I believe, is not " to the pot," but only "to pot," which here preserves the metre. 40. -As if the world "Were feverous, and did tremble." We find, in K. Henry IV. First Part, a similar expression: "The frame and the foundation of the earth "Shak'd like a coward.” And again : "The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble." And, in Julius Cæsar: The sway of earth "Shakes like a thing infirm." SCENE V. 42. "The blood I drop is rather physical." Physical" for "medicinal," as in Julius Cæsar: "Is Brutus sick! and is it physical, SCENE VI. 45. "Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash, "To let him slip at will." We find the same image in K. Henry V. "Methinks ye stand like greyhounds in the slips, "Straining upon the start." 47. "We prove this very hour." Disclose the event of it. |