North. Why should the gentleman, that rode by Travers, Give then such instances of loss? Bard. Who, he? He was some hilding fellow, that had stol'n The horse he rode on; and, upon my life, Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news. Enter MORton. North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf, Foretells the nature of a tragick volume: So looks the strond, whereon the imperious flood Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury? North. How doth my son, and brother? Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand. Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone, Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night, And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd: But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue, And I my Percy's death, ere thou report'st it. This thou would'st say,-Your son did thus, and thus; Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Douglas; Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds: 6 i. e. Hilderling, base, low fellow. 7 An attestation of its ravage. 8 Dr. Bentley is said to have thought this passage corrupt; and therefore (with a greater degree of gravity than the reader will probably express) proposed the following emendation :So dead, so dull in look Ucalegon, Drew Priam's curtain,' &c. The name of Ucalegon occurs in the third Iliad, and in the Eneid. But in the end, to stop mine ear indeed, North. Why, he is dead. See, what a ready tongue suspicion hath! He, that but fears the thing he would not know, Hath, by instinct, knowledge from others' eyes, That what he fear'd is chanc'd. Yet speak, Morton; Tell thou thy earl, his divination lies; And I will take it as a sweet disgrace, And make thee rich for doing me such wrong. Mor. You are too great to be by me gainsaid: Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain. North. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead. 9 So in Shakspeare's seventy-first Sonnet:- 6 Give warning to the world that I am fled.' Milton has adopted this expressive epithet : I hear the far-off curfew sound Over some wide-watered shore, The bell anciently was rung before the dying person had expired, and thence was called the passing bell. Mr. Douce thinks it probable that this bell might have been originally used to drive away demons, who were supposed to watch for the parting soul. Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead. From whence with life he never more sprung up. 10 By faint quittance a faint return of blows is meant. King Henry V : 'We shall forget the office of our hand So in 11 i. e. reported, noised abroad. Vide Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 7. 12 i. e. began to fall his courage, to let his spirits sink under his fortune. To vail is to lower, to cast down. So in The Taming of the Shrew, Act v: Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot, And place your hands below your husband's foot.' Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all And Westmoreland: this is the news at full. North. For this I shall have time enough to mourn. In poison there is physick; and these news, Having been well, that would have made me sick, Being sick, have in some measure made me well: And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints, Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life, Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs, A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel, 13 Grief, in the latter part of this line, is used, in its present sense, for sorrow; in the former part for bodily pain. 14 Steevens explains nice here by trifling; but Shakspeare, like his cotemporaries, uses it in the sense of effeminate, delicate, tender. Vide note on As You Like It, Act iv. Sc. 1. p. 182. 15 The conclusion of this noble speech (says Johnson) is extremely striking. There is no need to suppose it exactly philo Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord 16. Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour. Mor. The lives of all your loving complices Let us make head. It was your presurmise, Of wounds, and scars; and that his forward spirit sophical; darkness, in poetry, may be absence of eyes, as well as privation of light. Yet we may remark that, by an ancient opinion, it has been held that if the human race, for whom the world was made, were extirpated, the whole system of sublunary nature would cease at once.' Mr. Boswell remarks that a passage resembling this, but feeble in comparison, is found in The Double Marriage of Beaumont and Fletcher : That we might fall, And in our ruins swallow up this kingdom, Nay, the whole world, and make a second chaos.' 16 This line in the quarto is by mistake given to Umfreville, who is spoken of in this very scene as absent. It is given to Travers at Steevens's suggestion. 17 The fourteen following lines, and a number of others in this play, were not in the quarto edition. 18 Dealing, or distribution. 19 So in King Henry IV. Part I: 'As full of peril and adventurous spirit, 20 That is, you were warned or aware. |