Page images
PDF
EPUB

:

And even the like precurse of fierce events,-
As harbingers preceding still the fates,

" It often rain'd drops of blood. The morning star look'd

blew, "And was bespotted here and there with specks of rustie hew. "The moone had also spots of blood." Salt teares from ivorie-images in sundry places fell ;"The dogges did howle, and every where appeared ghaftly

sprights,

"And with an earthquake shaken was the towne."Plutarch only says, that "the funne was darkened," that " diverse men were seen going up and down in fire;" there were " fires in the element; fprites were seene running up and downe in the night, and folitarie birds fitting in the great market-place."

The difagreeable recurrence of the word stars in the second line induces me to believe that As ftars in that which precedes, is a corruption. Perhaps Shakspeare wrote:

Astres with trains of fire,

and dews of blood

Disaftrous dimm'd the fun.

The word aftre is used in an old collection of poems entitled Diana, addreffed to the Earl of Oxenforde, a book of which I know not the date, but believe it was printed about 1580. In Othello we have antres, a word exactly of a fimilar formation.

MALONE.

The word-aftre (which is no where else to be found) was affectedly taken from the French by John Southern, author of the poems cited by Mr. Malone. This wretched plagiarist stands indebted both for his verbiage and his imagery to Ronsard. See the European Magazine, for June, 1788, p. 389. STEEVENS.

9 and the moist star, &c.] i. e. the moon. So, in Marlowe's Hero and Leander, 1598:

"Not that night-wand'ring, pale, and watry star," &c. MALONE.

And even - Not only such prodigies have been seen in Rome, but the elements have shown our countrymen like forerunners and foretokens of violent events. JOHNSON.

3-precurse of fierce events, Fierce, for terrible.

WARBURTON.

'I rather believe that fierce fignifies confpicuous, glaring. It is used in a fomewhat fimilar sense in Timon of Athens:

"O the fierce wretchedness that glory brings!" Again, in King Henry VIII. we have " fierce vanities."

STEEVENS.

And prologue to the omen coming on,-
Have heaven and earth together démonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.-]

Re-enter Ghost.

But, foft; behold! lo, where it comes again! I'll cross it, though it blast me. -Stay, illufion! If thou hast any found, or use of voice,

4 And prologue to the omen coming on,] But prologue and omen are merely synonymous here. The poet means, that these strange phænomena are prologues and forerunners of the events prefag'd: and such sense the flight alteration, which I have ventured to make, by changing omen to omen'd, very aptly gives. THEOBALD.

Omen, for fate. WARBURTON.

Hanmer follows Theobald.

A distich from the life of Merlin, by Heywood, however, will show that there is no occafion for correction:

" Merlin well vers'd in many a hidden spell,

"His countries omen did long fince foretell." FARMER.

Again, in The Vowbreaker :

"And much I fear the weakness of her braine

"Should draw her to fome ominous exigent."

Omen, I believe, is danger. STEEVENS.

And even the like precurse of fierce events,

As harbingers preceding still the fates,

And prologue to the omen coming on,] So, in one of our author's

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

Augur of the fever's end," &c.

The omen coming on is, the approaching dreadful and portentous

event.

[ocr errors]

So, in King Richard III :

Thy name is ominous to children."

i. e. (not boding ill fortune, but) destructive to children.

Again, ibidem:

"O Pomfret, Pomfret, O, thou bloody prifon,

"Fatal and ominous to noble peers." MALONE.

6 If thou hast any found,) The speech of Horatio to the spectre

is very elegant and noble, and congruous to the common traditions

of the causes of apparitions. JOHNSON.

Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak!

Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
[Cock crows.
Speak of it:-stay, and speak.-Stop it, Marcellus.
MAR. Shall I fstrike at it with my partizan?
HOR. Do, if it will not stand.

BER.

HOR.

8

'Tis here!

'Tis here!

Or, if thou haft uphoarded &c.] So, in Decker's Knight's Conjuring, &c. " - If any of them had bound the spirit of gold by any charmes in caves, or in iron fetters under the ground, they should for their own foules quiet (which questionlesse else would whine up and down) if not for the good of their children, release it."

8Stop it, Marcellus.

STEEVENS.

Hor. Do, if it will not stand.] I am unwilling to suppose that Shakspeare could appropriate these abfurd effufions to Horatio, who is a fcholar, and has fufficiently proved his good understanding by the propriety of his addresses to the phantom. Such a man therefore must have known that

"As easy might he the intrenchant air
"With his keen sword impress,"

as commit any act of violence on the royal fhadow. The wordsStop it, Marcellus, - and Do, if it will not stand better fuit the next speaker, Bernardo, who, in the true spirit of an unlettered officer, nihil non arroget armis. Perhaps the first idea that occurs to a man of this description, is to ftrike at what offends him. Nicholas Pouffin, in his celebrated picture of the Crucifixion, has introduced a similar occurrence. While lots are cafting for the facred vesture, the graves are giving up their dead. This prodigy is perceived by one of the foldiers, who instantly grafps his fword, as if preparing to defend himself, or refent fuch an invafion from the other world.

MAR. 'Tis gone!

[Exit Ghost.

We do it wrong, being fo majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.

8

BER. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
HOR. And then it started, like a guilty thing

Upon a fearful fummons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-founding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in fea or fire, in earth or air,

2

The two next speeches-'Tis here! -'Tis here! -may be allotted to Marcellus and Bernardo; and the third-'Tis gone! &c. to Horatio, whose superiority of character indeed seems to demand it.As the text now stands, Marcellus proposes to ftrike the Ghost with his partizan, and yet afterwards is made to descant on the indecorum and impotence of fuch an attempt.

The names of speakers have so often been confounded by the first publishers of our author, that I suggest this change with less hesitation than I should express concerning any conjecture that could operate to the disadvantage of his words or meaning.-Had the affignment of the old copies been such, would it have been thought liable to objection? STEEVENS.

8

- it is, as the air, invulnerable,] So, in Macbeth :
"As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air
"With thy keen sword impress."

Again, in King John:

[ocr errors]

Against the invulnerable clouds of heaven." MALONE. The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,] So, the quarto, 1604.

Folio-to the day.

In England's Parnassus, 8vo. 1600, I find the two following lines ascribed to Drayton, but know not in which of his poems they are found:

"And now the cocke, the morning's trumpeter,
Play'd huntfup for the day-ftar to appear."

[ocr errors]

Mr. Gray has imitated our poet:

"The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
"No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed."

* Whether in fea &c.]

MALONE.

According to the pneumatology of The extravagant and erring spirit hies

that time, every element was inhabited by its peculiar order of spirits, who had dispositions different, according to their various places of abode. The meaning therefore is, that all spirits extravagant, wandering out of their element, whether aërial spirits vifiting earth, or earthly spirits ranging the air, return to their station, to their proper limits in which they are confined. We might read:

[ocr errors]

And at his warning

"Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies
"To his confine, whether in fea or air,
"Or earth, or fire. And of," &c.

But this change, though it would smooth the conftruction, is not necessary, and, being unnecessary, should not be made against authority. JOHNSON.

A Chorus in Andreini's drama, called Adamo, written in 1613, confifts of spirits of fire, air, water, and hell, or fubterraneous, being the exiled angels. "Choro di Spiriti ignei, aerei, aequatici, ed infernali," &c. These are the demons to which Shakspeare alludes. These spirits were supposed to controul the elements in which they refpectively refided; and when formally invoked or commanded by a magician, to produce tempefts, conflagrations, floods, and earthquakes. For thus says The Spanish Mandevile of Miracles, &c. 1600: "Those which are in the middle region of the ayre, and those that are under them nearer the earth, are those, which fometimes out of the ordinary operation of nature doe moove the windes with greater fury than they are accustomed; and do, out of feafon, congeele the cloudes, caufing it to thunder, lighten, hayle, and to destroy the graffe, corne, &c. &c. Witches and negromancers worke many such like things by the help of those spirits," &c. Ibid. Of this schoole therefore was Shakspeare's Profpero in The Tempest. T. WARTON.

Bourne of Newcastle, in his Antiquities of the common People, informs us, " It is a received tradition among the vulgar, that at the time of cock-crowing, the midnight spirits forfake these lower regions, and, go to their proper places. - Hence it is, (fays he) that in country places, where the way of life requires more early labour, they always go chearfully to work at that time; whereas if they are called abroad fooner, they imagine every thing they fee, a wandering ghost." And he quotes on this occafion, as all his predeceffors had done, the well-known lines from the first hymn of Prudentius. I know not whose tranflation he gives us, but there is an old one by Heywood. The pious chansons, the hymns and carrols, which Shakspeare mentions presently, were usually copied from the elder Christian poets. FARMER.

« PreviousContinue »