A widow, husbandless, subject to fears; And though thou now confefs, thou didst but jest, 6 SAL. As true, as, I believe, you think them falfe, That give you caufe to prove my faying true. CONST. O, if thou teach me to believe this for row, Teach thou this forrow how to make me die; 4 A widow,] This was not the fact. Conftance, was at this time married to a third husband, Guido, brother to the Viscount of Touars. She had been divorced from her fecond husband, Ranulph, Earl of Chester. MALONE. 5 Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds?] This seems to have been imitated by Marston, in his Infatiate Countess, 1603: "Then how much more in me, whofe youthful veins, MALONE. Be thefe fad figns-] The fad figns are, the shaking of his head, the laying his hand on his breaft, &c. We have again the fame words in our author's Venus and Adonis: "So fhe, at these fad figns exclaims on death." Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors read-Be these fad fighs-&c. MALONE. France friend with England! what becomes of me? Fellow, be gone; I cannot brook thy fight; SAL. What other harm have I, good lady, done, But spoke the harm that is by others done? CONST. Which harm within itself fo heinous is, As it makes harmful all that speak of it, ARTH. I do befeech you, madam, be content. CONST. If thou,' that bid'ft me be content, wert grim, 8 Ugly, and fland'rous to thy mother's womb, If thou, &c.] Maffinger appears to have copied this passage in The Unnatural Combat: If thou hadft been born "Deform'd and crooked in the features of Thy body, as the manners of thy mind; "Moor-lip'd, flat-nos'd, &c. &c. "I had been bleft." STEEVENS. Ugly, and fland'rous to thy mother's womb, Full of unpleafing blots,] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece, 1594: 9 "The blemish that will never be forgot, "Worse than a flavish wipe, or birth-hour's blot." MALONE. -fightless The poet ufes fightless for that which we now exprefs by unfightly, difagreeable to the eyes. JOHNSON. fwart,] Swart is brown, inclining to black. So, in K. Henry VI. Part I. Act I. fc. ii: 2 "And whereas I was black and wart before." Again, in The Comedy of Errors, A& III. fc. ii: "Swart like my fhoe, but her face nothing fo clean kept." STEEVENS. 3 prodigious,] That is, portentous, fo deformed as to be taken for a foretoken of evil. JOHNSON. In this fenfe it is ufed by Decker, in the first part of The Honeft Whore, 1604: I Patch'd with foul moles, and eye-offending marks, SAL. Pardon me, madam, I may not go without you to the kings. CONST. Thou may'ft, thou fhalt, I will not go with thee: I will inftruct my forrows to be proud; yon comet fhews his head again; "Twice hath he thus at crofs-turns thrown on us Again, in The Revenger's Tragedy, 1607: "Over whofe roof hangs this prodigious comet." Again, in The English Arcadia, by Jarvis Markham, 1607; "O, yes, I was prodigious to thy birth-right, and as a blazing ftar at thine unlook'd for funeral." STEEVENS. 4 ——makes his owner ftout.] The old editions have—makes its owner ftoop: the emendation is Sir T. Hanmer's. JOHNSON, So, in Daniel's Civil Wars, B. VI: "Full with ftout grief and with disdainful woe." STEEVENS, To me, and to the state of my great grief, Our author has rendered this paffage obfcure, by indulging himself in one of thofe conceits in which he too much delights, and by bounding rapidly, with his ufual licence, from one idea to another. This obfcurity induced Sir T. Hanmer for ftoop to fubftitute ftout; a reading that appears to me to have been too hastily adopted in the fubfequent editions. The confufion arifes from the poet's having perfonified grief in the first part of the paffage, and fuppofing the afflicted perfon to be bowed to the earth by that pride or haughtinefs which Grief is faid to poffefs; and by making the afflicted perfon, in the latter part of the paffage, actuated by this very pride, and exacting the fame kind of obeifance from others, that Grief has exacted from her." I will not go (fays Conftance) to these kings; I will teach my forrows to be proud; for Grief is proud, and makes the afflicted foop; therefore here I throw myself, and let them come to me." Here, had she stopped, and thrown herself on the ground, and had nothing more been added, however we might have difapproved of the conceit, we should have had no temptation to difturb the text. But the idea of throwing herself on the ground fuggefts a new image; and because her stately grief is fo great that nothing but the huge earth can fupport it, the confiders the ground as her throne; and having thus invefted herself with regal dignity, fhe as queen in mifery, as poffeffing (like Imogen) "the fupreme crown of grief," calls on the princes of the world to bow down before her, as the has herself been bowed down by affliction. Such, I think, was the procefs that paffed in the poet's mind; which appears to me fo clearly to explain the text, that I fee no reafon for departing from it. MALONE. 5 To me, and to the fate of my great grief, Let kings affemble;] In Much ado about Nothing, the father of Hero, depreffed by her difgrace, declares himself fo fubdued by grief that a thread may lead him. How is it that grief in Leonato and Lady Conftance produces effects directly oppofite, and yet both agreeable to nature? Sorrow foftens the mind while it is yet warmed by hope, but hardens it when it is congealed by despair. Diftrefs, while there remains any profpect of relief, is weak and flexible, but when no fuccour remains, is fearless and stubborn; angry alike at thofe that injure, and at thofe that do not help; careless to please where nothing can be gained, and fearless to offend when there is nothing further to be dreaded. Such was this writer's knowledge of the paffions. JOHNSON. That no fupporter but the huge firm earth 6here I and forrow fit;] The old copy has-forrows. STEEVENS. A flight corruption has here deftroyed a beautiful image. There is no poetical reader that will not join with me in reading"here I and Sorrow fit." M. MASON. Perhaps we fhould read-Here I and forrow fit. Our author might have intended to perfonify forrow, as Marlowe had done before him, in his King Edward II: "While I am lodg'd within this cave of care, "Where Sorrow at my elbow still attends.' The transcriber's ear might eafily have deceived him, the two readings, when spoken, founding exactly alike. So, we find in the quarto copy of K. Henry IV. P. I: "The mailed Mars fhall on his altars fit,-" inftead of-fhall on his altar fit. Again, in the quarto copy of the fame play we have-monftrous fcantle, inftead of-monftrous cantle. In this conjecture I had once great confidence; but, a preceding line "I will inftruct my forrows to be proud," now appears to me to render it fomewhat difputable. Perhaps our author here remembered the defcription of Elizabeth, the widow of King Edward IV. given in an old book, that, I believe, he had read: "The Queen fat alone below on the rushes, al defolate and difmaide; whom the Archbishop comforted in the best manner that he coulde," Continuation of Harding's Chronicle, 1543. So alfo, in a book already quoted, that Shakspeare appears to have read, A compendious and most marvelous hiftory of the latter times of the fewes Commonweale: "All thofe things when I Jofeph heard tydings of, I tare my head with my hand, and cast ashes upon my beard, fitting in great forrow upon the ground." MALONE. 7 bid kings come bow to it.] I muft here account for the liberty I have taken to make a change in the divifion of the fecond and third acts. In the old editions, the fecond act was made to end here; though it is evident Lady Conftance here, in her defpair, feats herself on the floor: and fhe must be supposed, as I formerly obferved, immediately to rife again, only to go off and end the act decently; or the flat fcene must shut her in from the fight of the audience, an abfurdity I cannot wish to accufe Shakspeare of. Mr. Gildon and fome other criticks fancied, that a confiderable part of the fecond act was loft; and that the chafm began here. I had joined |