May walk again: if such thing be, thy mother Appear'd to me last night; for ne'er was dream So like a waking. To me comes a creature, Sometimes her head on one side, some another; I never saw a vessel of like sorrow, So fill'd, and so becoming: in pure white robes, My cabin where I lay: thrice bow'd before me; I pr'ythee, call't; for this ungentle business, [Laying down a Bundle. Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty, 2 i. e. description. The writing afterward discovered with Perdita. And still rest thine. wretch, 59 The storm begins:-Poor That, for thy mother's fault, art thus expos'd I cannot, To loss, and what may follow!-Weep The heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour 3 !— I am gone for ever. -This is the chase; [Exit, pursued by a Bear. Enter an old Shepherd. Shep. I would, there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty; or that youth would sleep out the rest: for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting. Hark you now!Would any fighting.—Hark but these boiled brains of nineteen, and two-andtwenty, hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep; which, I fear, the wolf will sooner find, than the master: if any where I have them, 'tis by the sea-side, browzing of ivy. Good luck, an't be thy will! what have we here? [Taking up the Child.] Mercy on's, a barne; a very pretty barne! A boy, or a child 5, I wonder? A pretty 3A savage clamour.' This clamour was the cry of the dogs and hunters; then seeing the bear, he cries this is the chase, i. e. the animal pursued. This is from the novel. It is there said to be sea ivie, on which they do greatly feed.' 5 A barne. This word is still in use in the northern dialects for a child. It is supposed to be derived from born, things born seeming to answer to the Latin nati. Steevens says that he had been told that in some of our inland counties a child signified a female infant in contradistinction to a male one;' but the assertion wants confirmation, and we may rather refer this use of it to the simplicity of the shepherd. one; a very pretty one: Sure some scape: though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stairwork, some trunk-work, some behind-door work: they were warmer that got this, than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity: yet I'll tarry till my son come; he holla'd but even now. ho, hoa! Whoa, Enter Clown. Clo. Hilloa, loa! Shep. What, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ailest thou, man? Clo. I have seen two such sights, by sea, and by land; but I am not to say, it is a sea, for it is now the sky; betwixt the firmament and it, you cannot thrust a bodkin's point. it Shep. Why, boy, how is it? Clo. I would, you did but see how it chafes, how rages, how it takes up the shore! but that's not to the point: O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em: now the ship boring the moon with her main-mast; and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land service, To see how the bear tore out his shoulderbone? how he cried to me for help, and said, his name was Antigonus, a nobleman:-But to make an end of the ship:-to see how the sea flap-dragoned it:-but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them;-and how the poor gen 6 i. e. swallowed it, as our ancient topers swallowed flap-draIn Love's Labour's Lost we have, thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.' See vol. ii. page 374, note 9. gons. tleman roared, and the bear mocked him, both 61 roar Shep. 'Name of mercy, when was this, boy? Clo. Now, now; I have not winked since I saw these sights: the men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman; he's at it now. Shep. 'Would, I had been by, to have helped the old man?! Clo. I would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her; there your charity would have lacked footing. Shep. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look [Aside. thee here, boy. Now bless thyself; thou met'st with things dying, I with things new born. Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a squire's child! Look thee here; take boy; open't. So, let's see; It was told me, I up, take up, should be rich, by the fairies: this is some changeling9:-open't: What's within, boy? 8 Clo. You're a made 10 old man; if the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold! Shep. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so: up with it, keep it close; home, home, the next11 way. We are lucky, boy; and to be so still, requires nothing but secresy,-Let my sheep go:Come, good boy, the next way home. 7 Shakspeare, who knew that he himself designed Antigonus for an old man, has inadvertently given this knowledge to the shepherd, who had never seen him. A bearing is cloth, the mantle of fine cloth, in which a child was carried to be baptized. 9 room of one which they had stolen. changeling. Some child left behind by the fairies, in the 10 The old copies read mad. 11 i. e. nearest. VOL. IV. The emendation is Theobald's. G Clo. Go you the next way with your findings; I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten: they are never curst 12, but when they are hungry if there be any of him left, I'll bury it. Shep. That's a good deed; If thou may'st discern by that which is left of him, what he is, fetch me to the sight of him. Clo. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' the ground. Shep. 'Tis a lucky day, boy; and we'll do good deeds on't. [Exeunt. ACT IV. Enter Time, as Chorus. Time. I,-that please some, try all; both joy, Of good and bad; that make, and unfold error1‚— 12 Curst here signifies mischievous. The old adage says, Curst cows have short horns.' 1 Departed time renders many facts obscure, and in that sense is the cause of error. Time to come brings discoveries with it. 2 It is certain that Shakspeare was well acquainted with the laws of the drama, as they are called, but disregarded, nay wilfully departed from them, and 'snatch'd a grace beyond the reach of art.' His productions are not therefore to be tried by such laws. The German critics with Schlegel at their head have shown the essential difference between the classic and the romantic drama, and that the latter ought not, nor could not be confined to the unities. It is remarkable that George Whet |