Whereon Hyperion's quickening fire doth fhine; Go great with tigers, dragons, wolves, and bears; Never prefented! O, a root,Dear thanks; Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn leas; 8 Perhaps Shakspeare means curl'd, from the appearance of the clouds. In The Tempest, Ariel talks of riding "On the curl'd clouds," Chaucer, in his Houfe of Fame, fays, "Her bere that was oundie and crips." i. e. wavy and curled. Again, in The Philofopher's Satires, by Robert Anton: 4 ·་ "Her face as beauteous as the crifped morn. STEEVENS. who all thy human fons doth hate,] Old copy the human fons do hate. The former word was corrected by Mr. Pope; the latter by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. Enfear thy fertile and conceptious womb, ] So, in King Lear: ་་ 6 Let it no more bring out ingrateful man!] out is bring forth. STEEVENS. STEEVENS. It is plain that bring Neither Warburton nor Dr. Johnson feem to have been aware of the import of this paffage. It was the great boaft of the Athenians that they were dulox boves; Sprung from the foil on which they lived; and it is in allufion to this, that the terms mother and bring out, are applied to the ground. HENLEY. common Though Mr. Henley, as a fcholar, could not be unacquainted with this Athenian boaft, I fear that Shakspeare knew no more of it than of the many-breafted Diana of Ephefus, brought forward by Dr. Warburton in a preceding note. STEEVFNS. the marbled manfion] So, Milton, Book III. 1. 564 Through the pure marble air Virgil beftows the fame epithet on the fea. STEEVENS. "Now by yon marble heaven, Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn leas; ] The sense is Whereof ingrateful man, with liquorifh draughts, And morfels unctuous, greases his pure mind, That from it all confideration flips! 1 Enter APEMANTUS. More man? Plague! plague! APEM. I was directed hither: Men report, Thou doft affect my manners, and dost use them. TIM. 'Tis then, becaufe thou doft not keep a dog Whom I would imitate: Confumption catch thee! place? 9 This flave-like habit? and thefe looks of care? Thy flatterers yet wear filk, drink wine, lie foft; Hug their difeas'd perfumes, and have forgot That ever Timon was. Shame not thefe woods, 2 this: nature! ceafe to produce men, enfear thy womb; but if thou wilt continue to produce them, at leaft ceafe to pamper them; dry up thy marrows, on which they fatten with unctuous morfels, thy vines, which give them liquorish draughts, and thy plough-torn leas. Here are affects correfponding with caufes, liquorish draughts, with vines, and unctuous morfels with marrows, and the old reading literally preferved. JOHNSON. This is in thee a nature but affected; A poor unmanly melancholy, Sprung From change of fortune. ] The old copy reads infected, and shange of future. Mr. Rowe made the emendation. 2 MALONE. Hug their difeas'd perfumes, ] i. e. their difeas'd perfumed miftreffes. MALONE. So, in Othello: • "Tis fuch another fitchew; marry, a perfum"d one. STEEVENS By putting on the cunning of a carper. 3 Be thou a flatterer now, and feek to thrive To knaves, and all approachers: 'Tis moft juft, That thou turn rascal; haď'ft thou wealth again, Rafcals fhould have't. Do not affume my likeness. TIM. Were I like thee, I'd throw away myfelf. APEM. Thou haft caft away thyself,' being like thyfelf; A madman fo long, now a fool: What, think'st That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain, For the philofophy of a Cynic, therefore he concludes: " Do not affume my likeness. WARBURTON. Cunning here feems to fignify counterfeit appearance. JOHNSON. The cunning of a carper, is the infidious art of a critick. Shame not these woods, fays Apemantus, by coming here to find fault. Maurice Kyffin in the preface to his Tranflation of Terence's Andria, 1588, fays: Of the curious carper I look not to be favoured. Again, Uifula speaking of the farcalm of Beatrice, observes, Why fure, fuch carping is not commendable."' There is no apparent reason why Apemantus (according to Dr. Warburton's explanation ) fhould ridicule his own feat. 19 STEEVENS. hinge thy knee, Thus, in Hamlet: STEEVENS. like tapfers, that bid welcome,] So, in our author's Venus and Adonis: "Like fhrill-tongu'd tapfters anfwering every call, " Corre&ed in the fecond folio. MALONE. Will put thy fhirt on warm? Will these mofs'd trees, 6 And skip when thou point'ft out? will the cold brook, Candied with ice, caudle thy morning tafte, To cure thy o'er-night's furfeit? call the crea tures, Whose naked natures live in all the spite Of wreak ful heaven; whofe bare unhoused trunks, Anfwer mere nature, 7 bid them flatter thee; TIM. A fool of thee: Depart. APEM. I love thee better now than e'er I did. 5 mofs'd trees, ] [ Old copy moift trees,] Sir T. Hanmer reads very elegantly, mofs'd trees. JOHNSON. Shakspeare uses the fame epithet in As you like it, A& IV: 6. So alfo Drayton, in his Mortimeriados, no date: "Even as a bustling tempeft rousing blafts Upon a foreft of old branching oakes, "And with his furie teyrs their moffy loaks. " Mofs'd is, I believe, the true reading. MALONE. STEEVENS. I have inferted this reading in the text, because there is less propriety in the epithet moift; it being a known truth that trees become more and more dry, as they encre fe in age. Thus, our author, in his Rape of Lucrece, obferves, that it is one of the properties of time 6 bird has STEEVENS. To dry the old oak's fap outliv'd the eagle, Aquila Senectus is a proverb. I learn from Turberville's Book of Falconry, 1575, that the great age of this been ascertained from the circumftance of its always building its eyrie, or ueft, in the fame place. STEEVENS. 7 Answer mere nature,] So, in King Lear, A& II, sc. iii: And with prefented nakednel's outface The winds," &c. STEEVENS, པོ APEM. TIM. Why? Thou flatter'ft misery. APEM. I flatter not; but fay, thou art a caitiff. TIM. Why doft thou seek me out? APEM. To vex thee. Z TIM. Always a villain's office, or a fool's. Doft please thyfelf in't? APEM. Ay. What a knave too?" APEM. If thou didst put this four-cold habit on To caftigate thy pride, 'twere well: but thou Doft it enforcedly; thou'dft courtier be again, Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery Outlives incertain pomp, is crown'd before:" The one is filling ftill, never complete; The other, at high with; Beft ftate, contentless, 7 To vex thee. As the measure it here imperfe&, we may fuppofe, with Sir Thomas Hanmer, our author to have written, Only to vex thee. STEEVENS. • What! a knave too?] Timon had juft called Apemantus fool, in confequence of what he had known of him by former acquaintance; but when Apemantus tells him, that he comes to vex him, Timon determines that to vex is either the office of a villain or a fool; that to vex by defign is villainy, to vex without defign is folly. He then properly afks Apemantus whether he takes delight in vexing, and when he answers, yes, Timon replies, — What! a knavè too? I before only knew thee to be a fool, but now I find thee likewife a knave. JOHNSON. 9 is crown'd before: ] Arrives fooner at high wish; that is, at the completion of its wishes. JOHNSON. So, in a former scene of this play: And in fome fort thefe wants of mine are crown'd, "That I account them bleffings. Again, more appofitely, in Cymbeline: 66 my fupreme crown of grief." MALONI. |
