* And princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach. * This get I by his death: Ah me, unhappy! *To be a queen, and crown'd with infamy!

K. HEN. Ah, woe is me for Glofter, wretched man!

3

Q. MAR. Be woe for me, more wretched than

he is.

What, doft thou turn away, and hide thy face? I am no loathfome leper, look on me. * What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf? 4 * Be poisonous too, and kill thy forlorn queen. Is all thy comfort fhut in Glofter's tomb?

3 Be woe for me, ] That is, Let no woe be to thee for Glofter, but for me. JOHNSON.

4 What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?] This allufion, which has been borrowed by many writers from the Proverbs of Solomon, and Pfalm lviii. may receive an odd illuftration from the following paffage in Gower de Confeffione Amantis, B. I. fol. x: "A ferpent, whiche that afpidis " Is cleped, of his kinde hath this, "That he the ftone nobleft of all "The whiche that men carbuncle call, "Bereth in his heed above on hight;

For whiche whan that a man by flight
"(The ftone to wynne, and him to dante)
"With his carede him wolde enchante,
"Anone as he perceiveth that,

"He leyeth downe his one eare all plat
"Unto the grounde, and halt it faft:
"And eke that other eare als fafte
"He oppeth with his taille fo fore
"That he the wordes, laffe nor more,

Of his enchantement ne hereth:

"And in this wife him felfe he skiereth,

"So that he hath the wordes wayved,
"And thus his eare is enought deceived."

Shakspeare has the fame allufion in Troilus aud Creffida:
"Have ears more deaf than adders, to the voice
"Of any true decifion." STEEVENS.

1

*

Why, then dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy: *Erect his ftatue then, and worship it,

* And make my image but an alehouse fign. Was I, for this, nigh wreck'd upon the fea; And twice by aukward wind from England's

bank

• Drove back again unto my native clime? What boded this, but well-fore-warning wind Did seem to fay,-Seek not a scorpion's neft, *Nor fet no footing on this unkind fhore? *What did I then, but curs'd the gentle gufts, And he that loos'd them from their brazen caves; * And bid them blow towards England's bleffed fhore,

*Or turn our ftern upon a dreadful rock?

*Yet Eolus would not be a murderer,

*But left that hateful office unto thee:

6

* The pretty vaulting sea refus'd to drown me; * Knowing, that thou wouldst have me drown'd on fhore

* With tears as falt as fea through thy unkindness *The splitting rocks cow'rd in the finking fands,' *And would not dash me with their ragged fides;

aukward wind -]

Thus the old copy. editors read adverfe winds. STEEVENS.

The modern

The fame uncommon epithet is applied to the fame subject by

Marlowe in his K. Edward II:

"With aukward Winds, and with fore tempeft driven
"To fall on fhore-." MALONE.

What did I then, but curs'd the gentle gufts, ] I believe we fhould read but curfe the gentle gufts.

7 The Splitting rocks &c.]

M. MASON.

The fenfe feems to be this.-The rocks hid themselves in the fands, which funk to receive them into their bofom. STEEVENS.

That is, the rocks whofe property it is to split, fhrunk into the fands, and would not dash me, &c. M. MASON.

8

* Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they, *Might in thy palace perifh Margaret. * *As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs, *When from the fhore the tempeft beat us back, * I ftood upon the hatches in the storm: * And when the dusky sky began to rob * My earnest-gaping fight of thy land's view, * I took a coftly jewel from my neck,

* A heart it was, bound in with diamonds,* And threw it towards thy land; the fea receiv'd it;

* And fo, I wifh'd, thy body might my heart: *And even with this, I loft fair England's view, *And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart; * And call'd them blind and dufky fpectacles, * For lofing ken of Albion's wished coaft.

How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue *(The agent of thy foul inconftancy,) To fit and witch me, as Afcanius did,

* When he to madding Dido, would unfold * His father's acts, commenc'd in burning Troy?,

8 Might in thy palace perish Margaret.] The verb perish is here afed adively. So, in The Maid's Tragedy, by Beaumont and

"Perish your noble youth." STEEVENS.

To fit and witch me, as Afcanius did,

When he to madding Dido, would umfold

His father's acts, commenc'd in burning Troy?] Old copy- To fit and watch me, &c. STEEVENS.

The poet here is unquestionably alluding to Virgil (Æneid I.) but he ftrangely blends fa& with fiction. In the first place, it was Cupid in the femblance of Afcanius, who fat in Dido's lap, and was fondled by her. But then it was not Cupid who related to her the procefs of Troy's deftruction; but it was Eneas himself who related this hiftory. Again, how did the fuppofed Alcanius fit and watch her? Cupid was ordered, while Dido miftakenly care fled him, to bewitch and infe& her with love. To this circum

* Am I not witch'd like her? or thou not falfe like

him? 2

Ah me, I can no more! Die, Margaret!

* For Henry weeps, that thou doft live fo long.

Noife within.

Enter WARWICK and SALISBURY. The Commons prefs to the door.

WAR. It is reported, mighty sovereign,

That good duke Humphrey traitoroufly is mur

der'd

By Suffolk and the cardinal Beaufort's means.

The commons, like an angry hive of bees. That want their leader, fcatter up and down, And care not who they fting in his revenge. Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny,

Until they hear the order of his death.

K. HEN. That he is dead, good Warwick. 'tis

too true;

ftance the poet certainly alludes; and, unless he had wrote, as I have reftored to the text,

To fit and witch me,

why fhould the queen immediately draw this inference,

Am I not witch'd like her?

THEOBALD.

Mr. Theobald's emendation is fupported by a line in K. Henry IV. P. I. where the fame verb is used

"To witch the world with noble horsemanship."

It may be remarked, that this miftake was certainly the miftake of Shakspeare, whoever may have been the original author of the firit sketch of this play; For this long fpeech of Margaret's is founded on one in the quarto, confifting only of seven lines, in which there is no allufion to Virgil. MALONE.

-

2 Am I not witch'd like her? or thou not falfe like him?] This line, as it ftands, is nonfense. We should furely read it thus ; "Am I not witch'd like her? Art thou not falfe like him? M. MASON.

The fuperfluity of fyllables in this line induces me to fuppose it flood originally thus:

"Am I not witch'd like her? thou falfe like him?

STEEVENS.

3

But how he died, God knows, not Henry:
Enter his chamber, view his breathlefs corpfe,
And comment then upon his sudden death.
WAR. That I fhall do, my liege:Stay, Salif-
bury,

With the rude multitude, till I return.

[Warwick goes into an inner room, and Salisbury retires.

*K. HEN. O thou that judgeft all things, ftay my thoughts;

My thoughts, that labour to perfuade my foul, *Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey's

life!

*If my fufpect be falfe, forgive me, God;
* For judgement only doth belong to thee!
*Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips
* With twenty thousand kiffes, and to drain*
* Upon his face an ocean of salt tears;

To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk, * And with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling: *But all in vain are these mean obfequies;

*

And, to survey his dead and earthy image, * What were it but to make my forrow greater?

3

not Henry: The poet commonly ufes Henry as a word

of three fyllables. JOHNSON.

Upon This is one of our poet's harsh expreffions. As when a thing is drain'd, drops of water iffue from it, he licentiously ufes the word here in the sense of dropping, or diftilling.

MALONE.

Surely our author wrote rain, not drain. The discharge of a single letter furnishes what feems to me a neceffary emendation, confirmed

by two paffages, one in The Taming of the

Shrew:

"To rain a fhower of commanded tears.'

And another, in King Henry IV. P. II:

To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes." STEEVENS