For confirmation that I am much more That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm! Gent. Give me your hand, have you no more to say? [Exeunt feverally. Storm still. Enter Lear and Fool. Lear. Blow winds, and crack your cheeks; rage, blow! You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout 'Till you have drencht our steeples, drown'd the cocks! Fool. (26) Crack nature's mould, all germains spill at once.] Thus all the editions have given us this passage, and Mr. Pope has explain'd germains, to mean, relations, or kindred elements. Then it must have been germanes (from the Latin adjective, germanus;) a word more than once used by our author, tho' always false spelt by his editors. So, in Hamlet; The phrase would be more germane to the matter, if we could carry cannon by our fides: And fo in Otbello; You'll have your nephews neigh to you; You'll have coursers for coufins, and gennets for germanes. But the poet means here, " Crack nature's mould, and spill all "the feeds of matter, that are hoarded within it." To retrieve which sense, we must write germins; (a substantive deriv'd from germen, σπορά: as the old glossaries expound it;) and so we must again in Macbeth; Tho' the treasure Of nature's germins tumble all together, CS And Fool. O nuncle, court-holy-water in a dry house is better than the rain-waters out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters blessing: here's a night, that pities neither wife men nor fools. Lear. Rumble thy belly full, spit fire, spout rain; Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters; I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness; I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children; You owe me no subscription. Then let fall Your horrible pleasure; -here I stand, your slave; A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man ! But yet I call you servile ministers, That have with two pernicious daughters join'd Your high-engender'd battles, 'gainst a head So old and white as this. Oh! oh! 'tis foul. Fool. He that has a house to put's head in, has a good head-piece : The cod-piece that will house, before the head has any: The head and he shall lowse, so beggars marry many. That man that makes his toe, what he his heart should make, Shall of a corn cry woe, and turn his sleep to wake. For there was never yet fair woman, but she made mouths in a glass. To them, Enter Kent. Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience, I will fay nothing. Kent. Who's there? Fool. Marry here's grace, and a cod-piece, that's a wife man and a fool. Kent. Alas, Sir, are you here? things that love night, Love not fuch nights as these the wrathful skies Gallow the very wand'rers of the dark, And make them keep their caves: since I was man, And to put this emendation beyond all doubt, I'll produce one more paffage, where our author not only uses the fame thought again, but the word that ascertains my explication. In Winter's Tale; Let nature crush the fides o' th' earth together, こ Such Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Lear. Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads, Kent. Alack, bare-headed? Gracious my Lord, hard by here is a hovel; Lear. My wits begin to turn. Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? art cold? I'm cold myself. Where is the straw, my fellow? The art of our necessities is strange, That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel; (27) Tremble, thou wretch,] Thus Juvenal in his 13th fatire; Hi funt qui trepidant, & ad omnia fulgura pallent, Cum tonat; &c. (28) Thou perjur'd, and thou fimular man of virtue,] The first Folio leaves out man in this verse; and, I believe, rightly to the poet's mind. He would use a fimular of virtue to fignify, a false pretender to it; a dissembler, that would make an outward shew of it: as he elfewhere employs perjure substantively, for a perjur'd creature. So in Love's Labour loft; Why, he comes like a Perjure, wearing papers. Poor Poor fool and knave, I've one part in my heart, Fool. He that has an a little tyny wit, With heigh ho, the wind and the rain; Lear. True, my good boy: come, bring us to this hovel. [Exit. Fool. 'Tis a brave night to cool a curtezan. Come to great confufion : Then comes the time, who lives to see't, That going shall be us'd with feet. This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I do live before his time. [Exit. SCENE, An apartment in Glo'ster's castle. Glo. A Enter Glo'ster, and Edmund. Lack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing; when I defired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house; charg'd me, on pain of perpetual difpleasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, or any way sustain him. Edm. Most savage and unnatural! Gle. Go to; fay you nothing. There is division be tween tween the Dukes, and a worse matter than that: I have receiv'd a letter this night, 'tis dangerous to be spoken; (I have lock'd the letter in my closet:) these injuries, the King now bears, will be revenged home; there is part of a power already footed; (f) we must incline to the King; I will look for him, and privily relieve him; go you, and maintain talk with the Duke, that my charity be not of him perceiv'd; if he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed; if I die for it, as no less is threaten'd me, the King my old master must be relieved. There are strange things toward, Edmund; pray you, be careful. [Exit. Edm. This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the Duke Instantly know, and of that letter too. [Exit. SCENE changes to a part of the Heath, with a hovel. Enter Lear, Kent, and Fool. the place, my Lord; good my Lord, Ere is enter; The tyranny o' th' open night's too rough For nature to endure. Lear. Let me alone. Kent. Good my Lord, enter here. [Storm still. (+) There is part of a porver already landed.] This reading, notwithstanding Mr. Pope's declaration in his preface, is not ex fide Codi cum. All the authentick copies read, footed, i. e. on foot, on their march. If this gentleman's nice ear was offended at the word in this place, how came he to let it pass undisturb'd in some others? As, for inftance, afterwards in this play; And what confed'racy have you with the traitors, And again, in Henry Vth. Dispatch us with all speed, left that our King Lear. |