Almost too small for sight: The murmuring surge, That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes, Cannot be heard so high :-I'll look no more; Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight Topple down headlong.5 GLO. Set me where you stand. EDG. Give me your hand: You are now within a foot Of the extreme verge: for all beneath the moon Would I not leap upright. 6 Again, in the ancient bl. 1. comedy called Common Conditions: "B. Lanche out the cocke, boies, and set the maister ashoare. "M. The cocke is lanshed, eche man to his oare.- Again, in Barclay's Ship of Fools: 66 our ship can hold no more, "Hause in the cocke.". Hence the term cockswain, a petty officer in a ship. 5 STEEVENS. * Topple down headlong.] To topple is to tumble. The word has been already used in Macbeth. So, in Nash's Lenten Stuff, &c. 1599: "fifty people toppled up their heels there." Again: "he had thought to have toppled his burning car, &c. into the sea.' "" STEEVENS. 6 -for all beneath the moon Would I not leap upright.] But what danger is in leaping upwards or downwards? He who leaps thus must needs fall again on his feet upon the place from whence he rose. should read: Would I not leap outright. We i. e. forward: and then being on the verge of a precipice, he must needs fall headlong. WARburton. I doubt whether the word-outright, was even in use at the time when this play was written. Upright, with the strict definition-" perpendicularly erect," is absurd; for such a leap is physically impossible. Upright is barely expletive: " upwards,"" from the ground." FARMER. GLO. Here, friend, is another purse; Let go my hand. in it, a jewel Well worth a poor man's taking: Fairies, and gods, GLO. O you mighty gods! One of the senses of the word upright, in Shakspeare's time, was that in which it is now used. So, in The Tempest: 66 time goes upright with his carriage.' Again, in Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essays, 1603: "I have seene a man take his full carier: standing boult upright on both his feete in the saddle.” And with this signification, I have no doubt, it was used here. Every man who leaps, in his first effort to raise himself from the ground, springs upright. Far from thinking of leaping forward, for which, being certain destruction, nothing could compensate, Edgar says, he would not for all beneath the moon run the risk of even leaping upwards. Dr. Warburton idly objects, that he who leaps upwards, must needs fall again on his feet upon the same place from whence he rose. If the commentator had tried such a leap within a foot of the edge of a precipice, before he undertook the revision of these plays, the world would, I fear, have been deprived of his labours. Upright, in our author's time, meant also supinus. See Minsheu's Dictionary, 1617: " Upright, or on the back, with the face upward. G. renversé, ventre en haut. L. supinus, resupinus:" but this sense is here inadmissible. MALONE. 7 Why I do trifle thus with his despair, Is done to cure it.] Mr. Theobald and Dr. Warburton, who read, with one of the quartos-'Tis done, place an interrogation point at the end of the first of these lines; but, in my opinion, improperly. STEEVENS. Is done-] Thus the quarto A, and the folio. The other quarto reads 'Tis done. MALONE. This world I do renounce; and, in your sights, To quarrel with your great opposeless wills, EDG. [He leaps, and falls along. Gone, sir? farewell.8And yet I know not how conceit may rob The treasury of life, when life itself Yields to the theft: Had he been where he thought, By this, had thought been past.-Alive, or dead? Ho, you sir! friend!-Hear you, sir?-speak! Thus might he pass indeed :-Yet he revives: What are you, sir? GLO. Away, and let me die. EDG. Had'st thou been aught but gossomer, feathers, air,2 Gone, sir? farewell.] Thus the quartos and folio. The modern editors have been content to read-Good sir, &c. STEEVENS. They followed the arbitrary alteration of the editor of the second folio. MALONE. 9 Perhaps, a mere typographical error. when life itself STEEVENS. Yields to the theft:] When life is willing to be destroyed. Thus might he pass indeed:] We still use the word passing bell. So, in King Henry VI. P. II: JOHNSON. Thus might he die in reality. "Disturb him not, let him pass peaceably." STEEvens. • Had'st thou been aught but gossomer, feathers, air,] Gossomore, the white and cobweb-like exhalations that fly about in hot sunny weather. Skinner says, in a book called The French Gardiner, it signifies the down of the sow-thistle, which is driven to and fro by the wind: So many fathom down precipitating, Thou had'st shiver'd like an egg: but thou dost breathe; Hast heavy substance; bleed'st not; speak'st; art sound. Ten masts at each make not the altitude," GLO. But have I fallen, or no? EDG. From the dread summit of this chalky bourn :4 "As sure some wonder on the cause of thunder, "And on all things, till that the cause is wist." GREY. The substance called Gossamer is formed of the collected webs of flying spiders, and during calm weather in Autumn sometimes falls in amazing quantities. HOLT WHITE. See Romeo and Juliet, Act II. sc. vi. MALONE. 3 Ten masts at each make not the altitude,] So Mr. Pope found it in the old editions; and seeing it corrupt, judiciously corrected it to attacht. But Mr. Theobald restores again the old nonsense, at each. WARBURTON. Mr. Pope's conjecture may stand if the word which he uses were known in our author's time, but I think it is of later introduction. We may say: Ten masts on end JOHNSON. Perhaps we should read-at reach, i. e. extent. STEEVENS. Ten masts at each make not the altitude,] i. e. each at, or near, the other. Such I suppose the meaning, if the text be right; but it is probably corrupt. The word attach'd certainly existed in Shakspeare's time, but was not used in the sense required here. In Bullokar's English Expositor, 8vo. 1616, to attach is interpreted, " To take, lay hold on." It was verbum juris. MALONE. 4 - chalky bourn:] Bourn seems here to signify a hill. Its common signification is a brook. Milton in Comus uses bosky bourn, in the same sense perhaps with Shakspeare. But in both authors it may mean only a boundary. JOHNSON. Look up a-height;—the shrill-gorg'd lark so far Is wretchedness depriv'd that benefit, To end itself by death? 'Twas yet some comfort, When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage, And frustrate his proud will. EDG. Give me your arm: Up: So;-How is't? Feel you your legs? You stand. GLO. Too well, too well. EDG. This is above all strangeness. Upon the crown o'the cliff, what thing was that Which parted from you? GLO. A poor unfortunate beggar. EDG. As I stood here below, methought, his eyes Were two full moons: he had a thousand noses, Horns whelk'd," and wav'd like the enridged sea;" Here it certainly means "this chalky boundary of England, towards France." STEEVENS. Horns whelk'd,] Whelk'd, I believe, signifies varied with protuberances. So, in King Henry V. Fluellen speaking of Bardolph: "his face is all bubukles, and whelks," &c. STEEVENS. Twisted, convolved. A welk or whilk is a small shell-fish. Drayton in his Mortimeriados, 4to. 1596, seems to use this ticiple in the sense of rolling or curled : 6 "The sunny palfreys have their traces broke, par "Now through the heaven flie gadding from the yoke." MALONE. enridged sea;] Thus the 4to. The folio enraged. STEEVENS. Enridged was certainly our author's word; for he has the same expression in his Venus and Adonis : Till the wild waves will have him seen no more, "Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend." MALONE. |