SEB. 'Twas a fweet marriage, and we profper well in our return. ADR. Tunis was never grac'd before with such a paragon to their queen. GON. Not fince widow Dido's time. ANT. Widow? a pox o' that! How came that widow in? Widow Dido!" SEB. What if he had faid, widower Eneas too? good lord, how you take it! ADR. Widow Dido, faid you? you make me study of that: She was of Carthage, not of Tunis. bl. 1. Hiftory of George Lord Faukonbridge, a pamphlet that he probably read when he was writing King John. CLARABEL is there the concubine of King Richard I. and the mother of Lord Falconbridge. MALONE. 6-Widow Dido!] The name of a widow brings to their minds their own fhipwreck, which they confider as having made many widows in Naples. JOHNSON. Perhaps our author remembered "An infcription for the ftatue of Dido," copied from Aufonius, and inserted in Davifon's Poems: "O moft unhappy Dido, "Unhappy wife, and more unhappy widow! "And in thy lover more unfortunate!" &c. The edition from whence I have tranfcribed these lines was prinzed in 1621, but there was a former in 1608, and another fome years before, as I collect from the following paffage in a letter from Mr. John Chamberlain to Mr. Carleton, July 8, 1602: "It feems young Davifon means to take another courfe, and turn poet, for he hath lately fet out certain fonnets and epigrams." Chamberlain's Letters, Vol. I. among Dr. Birch's Mfs. in the British Museum. MALONE. A ballad of Queen Dido is in the Pepyfian collection, and is also printed in Percy's Reliques. It appears at one time to have been a great favourite with the common people. "O you ale-knights," exclaims an ancient writer, " you that devoure the marrow of the mault, and drinke whole ale-tubs into confumptions; that fing QUEEN DIDO over a cupp, and tell ftrange newes over an alepot," &c. Jacke of Dover his quest of Inquirie, or his privy fearch for the vericft Foole in England, 4to. 1604, fig. F. RITSON. GON. This Tunis, fir, was Carthage. ADR. Carthage? GON. I affure you, Carthage. ANT. His word is more than the miraculous harp.' SEB. He hath rais'd the wall, and houses too. ANT. What impoffible matter will he make easy next? SEB. I think, he will carry this island home in his pocket, and give it his son for an apple. ANT. And, fowing the kernels of it in the fea, bring forth more islands. GON. Ay? ANT. Why, in good time. GON. Sir, we were talking, that our garments feem now as fresh, as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of your daughter, who is now queen. ANT. And the rareft that e'er came there. SEB. 'Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido. ANT. O, widow Dido; ay, widow Dido. GON. Is not, fir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I wore it? I mean, in a fort. ANT. That fort was well fish'd for. GON. When I wore it at your daughter's mar riage? ALON. You cram these words into mine ears, against The ftomach of my fenfe: 'Would I had never 7-the miraculous harp.] Alluding to the wonders of Amphion's mufic. STEEVENS. The ftomach of my fenfe:] By fenfe, I believe, is meant both reafon and natural affection. So, in Meafure for Meafure: Marry'd my daughter there! for, coming thence, I ne'er again fhall fee her. O thou mine heir FRAN. Sir, he may live; I faw him beat the furges under him, And ride upon their backs; he trod the water, The furge moft fwoln that met him: his bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd Himself with his good arms in lufty ftroke To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn bafis bow'd, As stooping to relieve him: I not doubt, He came alive to land. ALON. No, no, he's gone. SEB. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss; That would not blefs our Europe with your daughter, But rather lofe her to an African; Where the, at least, is banish'd from your eye, ALON. Pr'ythee, peace. SEB. You were kneel'd to, and impórtun❜d otherwife By all of us; and the fair foul herself Weigh'd, between lothnefs and obedience, at Which end o' the beam fhe'd bow. We have loft your fon, 66 Against all fenfe do you impórtune her." Mr. M. Mafon, however, fuppofes fenfe, in this place, means feeling." STEEVENS. 9 Weigh'd, between lothness and obedience, at Which end of the beam the'd bow.] Weigh'd means deliberated. I fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have More widows in them of this business' making, Than we bring men to comfort them: the fault's Your own. ALON. So is the deareft of the lofs. GON. My lord Sebastian, The truth you speak doth lack fome gentleness, And time to speak it in: you rub the fore, When you fhould bring the plafter. SEB. ANT. And moft chirurgeonly. Very well. GON. It is foul weather in us all, good fir, When you are cloudy. SEB. ANT. Foul weather? Very foul. GON. Had I plantation of this ifle, my lord,- Or docks, or mallows. It is used in nearly the same sense in Love's Labour's Loft, and in Hamlet. The old copy reads-bould bow. Should was probably an abbreviation of he would, the mark of elifion being inadvertently omitted [fh'ould]. Thus he has is frequently exhibited in the firft folio-bas. Mr. Pope corrected the paffage thus: " at which end the beam fhould bow." But omiffion of any word in the old copy, without fubftituting another in it's place, is feldom fafe, except in those inftances where the repeated word appears to have been caught by the compofitor's eye glancing on the line above, or below, or where a word is printed twice in the fame line. MALONE. Than we bring men to comfort them:] It does not clearly appear whether the king and these lords thought the fhip loft. This paffage feems to imply, that they were themfelves confident of returning, but imagined part of the fleet deftroyed. Why, indeed, fhould Sebaftian plot against his brother in the following fcene, unless he knew how to find the kingdom which he was to inherit ? JOHNSON. GON. And were the king of it, What would I do? Execute all things: for no kind of traffick - for no kind of traffick Would I admit; no name of magiftrate, &c.] Our author has here clofely followed a paffage in Montaigne's ESSAIES, tranflated by John Florio, folio, 1603: " It is a nation (would I answer Plato) that hath no kind of trafficke, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magiftrate, nor of politick fuperioritie; no ufe of fervice, of riches, or of povertie, no contracts, no fucceffions, no partitions, no occupation, but idle; no refpect of kindred but common; no apparel but natural; no use of wine, corne, or metal. The very words that import lying, falfhood, treafon, diffimulations, covetoufnefs, envie, detraction and pardon, were never heard amongst them."-This paffage was pointed out by Mr. Capell, who knew fo little of his author as to fuppofe that Shakspeare had the original French before him, though he has almost literally followed Florio's translation. Montaigne is here speaking of a newly discovered country, which he calls "Antartick France." In the page preceding that already quoted, are these words: "The other teftimonie of antiquitie to which fome will refer the difcoverie is in Ariftotle (if at least that little book of unheard-of wonders be his) where he reporteth that certain Carthaginians having failed athwart the Atlanticke fea, without the ftrait of Gibraltar, difcovered a great fertil ISLAND, all replenished with goodly woods, and deepe rivers, farre diftant from any land." "Of Whoever fhall take the trouble to turn to the old tranflation here quoted, will, I think, be of opinion, that in whatsoever novel our author might have found the fable of The Tempest, he was led by the perufal of this book to make the fcene of it an unfrequented ifland. The title of the chapter, which isthe Canniballes,"-evidently furnished him with the name of one of his characters. In his time almoft every proper name was twisted into an anagram. Thus, "I moyl in law," was the anagram of the laborious William Noy, Attorney General to Charles I. By inverting this procefs, and tranfpofing the letters of the word Canibal, Shakspeare (as Dr. Farmer long fince obferved) formed the name of Caliban. MALONE. |
