More than with parting from my lord the king. Bushy. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows, Which show like grief itself, but are not so: For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears, Divides one thing entire to many objects; Like perspectives, which, rightly gaz'd upon, Show nothing but confusion; ey'd awry, Distinguish form: so your sweet majesty, I suppose it is the unborn sorrow which she calls nothing, because it is not yet brought into existence. Steevens. Warburton does not appear to have understood this passage, nor Johnson either. Through the whole of this scene, till the arrival of Green, the Queen is describing to Bushy, a certain unaccountable despondency of mind, and a foreboding apprehension which she felt of some unforeseen calamity. She says, "that her inward soul trembles without any apparent cause, and grieves at something more than the King's departure, though she knows not what." He endeavours to persuade her that it is merely the consequence of her sorrow for the King's absence. She says it may be so, but her soul tells her otherwise. He then tells her it is only conceit; but she is not satisfied with that way of accounting for it, as she says that conceit is still derived from some fore-father grief, but what she feels was begot by nothing; that is, had no preceding cause. Conceit is here used in the same sense that it is in Hamlet, when the King says that Ophelia's madness was occasioned by "conceit upon her father." M. Mason. 8 Like perspectives, which, rightly gaz'd upon, Show nothing but confusion; ey'd awry, Distinguish form:] This is a fine similitude, and the thing meant is this. Amongst mathematical recreations, there is one in optics, in which a figure is drawn, wherein all the rules of perspective are inverted: so that, if held in the same position with those pictures which are drawn according to the rules of perspective, it can present nothing but confusion: and to be seen in form, and under a regular appearance, it must be looked upon from a contrary station; or, as Shakspeare says, ey'd awry. Warburton. Dr. Plot's History of Staffordshire, p. 391, explains this perspective, or odd kind of "pictures upon an indented board, which, if beheld directly, you only perceive a confused piece of work; but, if obliquely, you see the intended person's picture: which, he was told, was made thus: "The board being indented, [or furrowed with a plough-plane] the print or painting was cut into parallel pieces equal to the depth and number of the indentures on the board, and they were pasted on the flats that strike the eye holding it obliquely, so that the edges of the parallel pieces of the print or painting exactly joining on the edges of the indentures, the work was done." Tollet. Looking awry upon your lord's departure, Finds shapes of grief, more than himself, to wail; Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen, More than your lord's departure weep not; more 's not seen: Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye, Which, for things true, weeps things imaginary. The following short poem would almost persuade one that the words rightly and awry [perhaps originally written—aright and wryly] had exchanged places in the text of our author: Lines prefixed to "Melancholike Humours, in Verses of Diverse Natures, set down by Nich. Breton, Gent. 1600:" In Authorem. "Thou that wouldst finde the habit of true passion, "Wants facultie to make a censure true: "Which, being eyed directly, I divine, "His proofe their praise will meete, as in this line." Ben Jonson. Steevens. So, in Hentzner, 1598, Royal Palace, Whitehall: "Edwardi VI. Angliæ regis effigies, primo intuitu monstrosum quid repræsentans, sed si quis effigiem rectâ intueatur, tum vera depræhenditur." Farmer. The perspectives here mentioned, were not pictures, but round chrystal glasses, the convex surface of which was cut into faces, like those of the rose-diamond; the concave left uniformly smooth. These chrystals-which were sometimes mounted on tortoise-shell box-lids, and sometimes fixed into ivory cases-if placed as here represented, would exhibit the different appearances described by the poet. The word shadows is here used, in opposition to substance, for reflected images, and not as the dark forms of bodies, occasioned by their interception of the light that fails upon them. Henley. As, though, in thinking, on no thought I think, But what it is, that is not yet known;3 what 9 As,—though, in thinking, on no thought I think,] Old copy-on thinking; but we should read-As though in thinking; that is, though, musing, I have no distinct idea of calamity. The involuntary and unaccountable depression of the mind, which every one has sometime felt, is here very forcibly described. Johnson. 1'Tis nothing but conceit,] Conceit is here, as in King Henry VIII, and many other places, used for a fanciful conception. 2 For nothing hath begot my something grief; Malone. Or something hath the nothing that I grieve:] With these lines I know not well what can be done. The Queen's reasoning as it now stands, is this: my trouble is not conceit, for conceit is still derived from some antecedent cause, some fore-father grief; but with me the case is, that either my real grief hath no real cause, or some real cause has produced a fancied grief. That is, my grief is not conceit, because it either has not a cause like conceit, or it has a cause like conceit. This can hardly stand. Let us try again, and read thus: For nothing hath begot my something grief; Not something hath the nothing that I grieve: That is, my grief is not conceit; conceit is an imaginary uneasiness from some past occurrence. But, on the contrary, here is real grief without a real cause; not a real cause with a fanciful sorrow. This, I thing, must be the meaning; harsh at the best, yet better than contradiction or absurdity. Johnson. 3'Tis in reversion that I do possess ; But what it is, that is not yet known; &c.] I am about to propose an interpretation which many will think harsh, and which I do not offer for certain. To possess a man, in Shakspeare, is to inform him fully, to make him comprehend. To be possessed, is to be fully informed. Of this sense the examples are numerous: "I have possess'd him my most stay can be but short." Measure for Measure. Is he yet possess'd "What sum you would?" Merchant of Venice. I therefore imagine the Queen says thus: 'Tis in reversion- -that I do possess ;· The event is yet in futurity- -that I know with full convictionbut what it is, that is not yet known. In any other interpretation I cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot. Enter GREEN. Green. God save your majesty!—and well met, gentlemen:: I hope, the king is not yet shipp'd for Ireland. Queen. Why hop'st thou so? 'tis better hope, he is; For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope; Then wherefore dost thou hope, he is not shipp'd? Green. That he, our hope, might have retir'd his power, 4 And driven into despair an enemy's hope, Now God in heaven forbid! Green. O, madam, 'tis too true: and that is worse,The lord Northumberland, his young son Henry Percy, The lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby, With all their powerful friends, are fled to him. Bushy. Why have you not proclaim'd Northumberland, And all the rest of the revolting faction Traitors? Green. We have: whereon the earl of Worcester Hath broke his staff, resign'd his stewardship, And all the household servants fled with him To Bolingbroke. Queen. So, Green, thou art the widwife to my woe, And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir:5 she must say that she possesses what is not yet come, which, though it may be allowed to be poetical and figurative language, is yet, I think, less natural than my explanation. Johnson. As the grief the Queen felt, was for some event which had not yet come to pass, or at least not yet come to her knowledge, she expresses this by saying that the grief which she then actually possessed, was still in reversion, as she had no right to feel the grief until the event should happen which was to occasion it. 4 M. Mason. - might have retir'd his power,] Might have drawn it back. A French sense. Johnson. So, in The Rape of Lucrece: "Each one, by him enforc'd, retires his ward." Malone. Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy; Queen. I will despair, and be at enmity Who shall hinder me? With cozening hope; he is a flatterer, Who gently would dissolve the bands of life, Enter YORK. Green. Here comes the duke of York. Uncle, For heaven's sake, speak comfortable words. York. Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts;7 Comfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth, Where nothing lives but crosses, care, and grief. Your husband he is gone to save far off, Whilst others come to make him lose at home: 5 my sorrow's dismal heir:] The author seems to have used heir in an improper sense, an heir being one that inherits by succession, is here put for one that succeeds, though be succeeds but in order of time, not in order of descent. Johnson. Johnson has mistaken the meaning of this passage also. The Queen does not in any way allude to Bolingbroke's succession to the crown, an event, of which she could at that time have had no idea. She had said before, that "some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb, was coming towards her." She talks afterwards of her unknown griefs "being begotten;" she calls Green "the midwife of her woe;" and then means to say, in the same metaphorical jargon, that the arrival of Bolingbroke was the dismal offspring that her foreboding sorrow was big of; which she expresses by calling him her "sorrow's dismal heir," and explains more fully and intelligibly in the following line: Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy. M. Mason. 6 - thou art the midwife to my woe, Malone. 7 Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts:] This line is found in the three eldest quartos, but is wanting in the folio. Steevens. |