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But, since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,
And that thy tongue some 'say of breeding breathes,
What safe and nicely I might well delay?

6

By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn:
Back do I toss these treasons to thy head;
With the hell-hated lie o'erwhelm thy heart;
Which, (for they yet glance by, and scarcely bruise,)
This sword of mine shall give them instant way,
Where they shall rest for ever.8-Trumpets, speak.
[Alarums. They fight. EDM. falls.

Alb. O save him, save him!

Gon.

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This is mere practice, Gloster:9

By the law of arms, thou wast not bound to answer "An unknown opposite." Malone.

And that thy tongue some’say of breeding breathes,] ’Say, for essay some show or probability. Pope.

Say is sample, a taste. So, in Sidney:

"So good a say invites the eye

"A little downward to espy

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Again, in the Preface to Maurice Kyffin's translation of the Andria of Terence, 1588: "Some other like places I could recite, but these shall suffice for a say."

Again, in Revenge for Honour, by Chapman:

(6 But pray do not

"Take the first say of her yourselves.

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Again, in The Unnatural Combat, by Massinger:

or to take

"A say of venison, or stale fowl."

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Again, in Holinshed, p. 847: "He (C. Wolsey) made dukes and erles to serve him of wine, with a say taken," &c. To take the assaie was the technical term. Steevens.

7 What safe and nicely &c.] The phraseology is here very licen tious. I suppose the meaning is, That delay which by the law of knighthood I might make, I scorn to make. Nicely is, punctiliously; if I stood on minute forms. This line is not in the quartos; and furnishes one more proof of what readers are so slow to admit, that a whole line is sometimes omitted at the press. The subsequent line without this is nonsense. See Vol. XI, p. 67, n. 5. Malone.

8 Where they shall rest for ever.] To that place, where they shall rest for ever; i. e. thy heart. Malone.

9 Alb. O save him, save him!

Gon. This is mere practice, Gloster:] Thus all the copies; but I have ventured to place the two hemistichs to Goneril. 'Tis absurd that Albany, who knew Edmund's treasons, and his own wife's passion for him, should be solicitous to have his life saved. Theobald.

Albany desires that Edmund's life might be spared at present,

By the law of arms,1 thou wast not bound to answer?
An unknown opposite; thou art not vanquish'd,
But cozen'd and beguil❜d.

Alb.

Shut your mouth, dame, Or with this paper shall I stop it :-Hold, sir :— Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil:No tearing, lady; I perceive, you know it.

[Gives the Letter to EDM. Gon. Say, if I do; the laws are mine, not thine: Who shall arraign me for 't?

Alb.

Know'st thou this paper?

Most monstrous !3

Gon.
Ask me not what I know. [Exit GoN.
Alb. Go after her: she 's desperate; govern her.

[To an Officer, who goes out. Edm. What you have charg'd me with, that have I

done;

And more, much more: the time will bring it out;
'Tis past, and so am I: But what art thou,

That hast this fortune on me? If thou art noble,
I do forgive thee.

Edg.

Let's exchange charity.4

I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund;
If more, the more thou hast wrong'd me.

only to obtain his confession, and to convict him openly by his own letter. Johnson.

The words-Hold, sir, in Albany's next speech, show that the old copies are right.

Malone.

1 By the law of arms,] So the quartos.

Folio-of war.

Malone.

2 ▪thou wast not bound to answer -] One of the quartos reads— thou art not bound to offer &c. Steevens.

3 Most monstrous !] So the quarto, of which the first signature is B, and the folio. The other quarto reads-Monster, know'st thou this paper? The folio-Most monstrous, O know'st, &c. Malone.

"Knowest thou these letters?" says Leir to Ragan, in the old anonymous play, when he shows her both her own and her sister's letters, which were written to procure his death. Upon which she snatches the letters and tears them. Steevens.

4 Let's exchange charity.] Our author, by negligence, gives his Heathens the sentiments and practices of Christianity. In Hamlet there is the same solemn act of final reconciliation, but with exact propriety, for the personages are Christians:

Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet," &c.

Johnson.

My name is Edgar, and thy father's son.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to scourge us :5

The dark and vicious place where thee he got,
Cost him his eyes.

Edm. Thou hast spoken right, 'tis true; The wheel is come full circle; I am here. Alb. Methought, thy very gait did prophecy A royal nobleness:-I must embrace thee; Let sorrow split my heart, if ever I

Did hate thee, or thy father!

Edg.

I know it well.7

Worthy prince,

Alb.
Where have you hid yourself?
How have you known the miseries of your father?

Edg. By nursing them, niy lord.-List a brief tale ;And, when 'tis told, O, that my heart would burst!-The bloody proclamation to escape,

That follow'd me so near, (O our lives' sweetness!
That with the pain of death we'd hourly die,s
Rather than die at once!) taught me to shift
Into a mad-man's rags; to assume a semblance
That very dogs disdain'd: and in this habit
Met I my father with his bleeding rings,
Their precious stones new lost;1 became his guide,

6

5 to scourge us:] Thus the quartos. The folio reads:

-to plague us. Steevens.

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7 I know it well.] The adverb-well, was supplied by Sir Thomas Hanmer for the sake of metre. Steevens.

8 That with the pain of death &c.] Thus both the quartos. The folio reads unintelligibly, That we the pain, &c. The original copies have would; but this was, I apprehend, a misprint in those copies for would, i. e. we would, or, as we should now write, we'd. In The Tempest we have should for she would. See Vol. II, p. 52, n. 1. Malone.

9 The bloody proclamation to escape,

taught me to shift -] A wish to escape the bloody procla mation, taught me, &c. Malone.

1 -

his bleeding rings,

Their precious stones new lost;] So, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre,

1609:

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Led him, begg'd for him, sav'd him from despair;
Never (O fault!) reveal'd myself unto him,
Until some half hour past, when I was arm'd,
Not sure, though hoping, of this good success,
I ask'd his blessing, and from first to last
Told him my pilgrimage: But his flaw'd heart,
(Alack, too weak the conflict to support!)
'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
Burst smilingly.

Edm.

This speech of yours hath mov'd me, And shall, perchance, do good: but speak you on; You look as you had something more to say.

Alb. If there be more, more woful, hold it in; For I am almost ready to dissolve,

Hearing of this.

[Edge

This would have seem'd a period

To such as love not sorrow; but another,

To amplify too-much, would make much more,
And top extremity.3

2 [Edg.] The lines between crotchets are not in the folio. Johnson. This would have seem'd a period

3

To such as love not sorrow; but another,

To amplify too-much, would make much more,

And top extremity.] The reader easily sees that this reflection refers to the Bastard's desiring to hear more; and to Albany's thinking he had said enough. But it is corrupted into miserable nonsense. We should read it thus:

"This would have seem'd a period. But such

As love to amplify another's sorrow

To much, would make much more, and top extremity.

i. e. This to a common humanity would have been thought the utmost of my sufferings; but such as love cruelty are always for adding more to much, till they reach the extremity of misery.

Warburton.

The sense may probably be this: This would have seemed a period to such as love not sorrow; but-another, i. e. but I must add another, i. e. another period, another kind of conclusion to my story, such as will increase the horrors of what has been already told. So, in King Richard II:

66

I play the torturer, by small and small, "To lengthen out the worst."—

This would have seem'd a period

To such as love not sorrow; but another,

Steevens.

To amplify too-much, would make much more,
And top extremity.] So, in Venus and Adonis:
Devise extremes beyond extremity."

Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man,
Who having seen me in my worst estate,

Shunn'd my abhorr'd society; but then, finding
Who 'twas that so endur'd, with his strong arms
He fasten'd on my neck, and bellow'd out

As he'd burst heaven; threw him on my father:4

Too-much is here used as a substantive. A period is an end or conclusion. So, in King Richard III:

"O, let me make the period to my curse."

This reflection perhaps refers, as Dr. Warburton has observed, to the Bastard's desiring to hear more, and to Albany's thinking that enough had been said. This, says Edgar, would have seemed the utmost completion of woe, to such as do not delight in sorrow; but another, of a different disposition, to amplify misery, would "give more strength to that which hath too much."

Edgar's words, however, may have no reference to what Edmund has said; and he may only allude to the relation he is about to give of Kent's adding a new sorrow to what Edgar already suffered, by recounting the miseries which the old king and his faithful follower had endured.

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To amplify too much, would make much more,
And top extremity:

But if such a punctuation be adopted, what shall we do with the word would, which is thus left without a nominative case? A preceding editor, who introduced the above punctuation, to obtain some sense, reads and points:

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and indeed without that alteration, the words thus pointed afford, in my apprehension, no sense.

Malone.

Mr. Malone's explanation may be just; and yet it is probable that we are struggling with a passage, the obscurity of which is derived from its corruption. Steevens.

4

threw him on my father;] The quartos read:

threw me on my father.

The modern editors have corrected the passage, as it is now printed, and as I suppose it to have been originally written. There is tragick propriety in Kent's throwing himself on the body of a deceased friend; but this propriety is lost in the act of clumsily tumbling a son over the lifeless remains of his father. Steevens.

threw me on my father;] Thus both the quartos, where alone this speech is found. Mr. Theobald, and the subsequent editors, read -threw him on my father. This is a new and distinct idea; but I do not think myself warranted to adopt it; the text being intelligible, and it being very improbable that the word me should have been printed

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