CONST. Lo, now! now fee the iffue of

peace!

your

K. PHI. Patience, good lady! comfort, gentle

Conftance!

CONST. No, I defy' all counsel, all redress,
But that which ends all counsel, true redress,
Death, death:-O amiable lovely death!
Thou odoriferous ftench! found rottennefs!
Arife forth from the couch of lafting night,
Thou hate and terror to profperity,
And I will kifs thy détestable bones;

And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows;
And ring these fingers with thy household worms;
And ftop this gap of breath with fulfome duft,

8

And be a carrion monfter like thyself:

9

Come, grin on me; and I will think thou fmil'ft,
And bufs thee as thy wife! Mifery's love,*
O, come to me!

We have the fame image in K. Henry VI. Part III: "Now my foul's palace is become her prifon."

Again, more appofitely, in his Rape of Lucrece:

"Even here fhe fheathed in her harmless breaft

"A harmful knife, that thence her foul unfheath'd;
That blow did bail it from the deep unreft
"Of that polluted prifon where it breath'd."

MALONE.

7 No, I defy, &c.] To defy anciently fignified to refufe. So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"I do defy thy commiferation." STEEVENS.

* And flop this gap of breath—] The gap of breath is the mouth; the outlet from whence the breath iffues. MALONE.

The word

9 And buls thee as thy wife!] Thus the old copy. bufs, however, being now only used in vulgar language, our modern editors have exchanged it for kifs. The former is used by Drayton, in the third canto of his Barons' Wars, where Queen Isabel fays:

And we by figns fent many a fecret buss." Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. III. c. x: "But every fatyre firft did give a buffe "To Hellenore; fo buffes did abound."

K. PHI.

O fair affliction, peace.

CONST. No, no, I will not, having breath to

cry

O, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth!
Then with a paffion would I shake the world;
And roufe from fleep that fell anatomy,
Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice,
Which fcorns a modern invocation.4

PAND. Lady, you utter madness, and not for

row.

CONST. Thou art not holy 5 to belie me so;
I am not mad: this hair I tear, is mine;
My name is Conftance; I was Geffrey's wife;
Young Arthur is my son, and he is loft:
I am not mad; I would to heaven, I were!
For then, 'tis like I fhould forget myself:
O, if I could, what grief fhould I forget!-
Preach fome philofophy to make me mad,

Again, Stanyhurft the tranflator of Virgil, 1582, renders ofcula libavit natæ――

2

But his prittye parrat prating," &c. STEEVENS.

Mifery's love, &c.] Thou, death, who art courted by Miferý tổ come to his relief, O come to me. So before:

4

Thou hate and terror to profperity." MALONE.

modern invocation.] It is hard to fay what Shakspeare means by modern: it is not opposed to ancient. In All's well that ends well, fpeaking of a girl in contempt, he uses this word:

"her modern grace." It apparently means fomething flight and inconfiderable. JOHNSON.

Modern, is trite, ordinary, common.

So, in As you like it:

Full of wife faws, and modern inftances."

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

As we greet modern friends withal." STEEVENS:

5 Thou art not holy] The word not, which is not in the old copy, (evidently omitted by the careleffness of the tranfcriber, or compofitor,) was inferted in the fourth folio. MALONE.

And thou shalt be canoniz'd, cardinal;
For, being not mad, but fenfible of grief,
My reasonable part produces reafon
How I may be deliver'd of these woes,
And teaches me to kill or hang myself:
If I were mad, I should forget my son;
Or madly think, a babe of clouts were he:
I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
The different plague of each calamity.

6

K. PHI. Bind up thofe treffes: O, what love I

note

In the fair multitude of those her hairs!

Where but by chance a filver drop hath fallen,
Even to that drop ten thoufand wiry friends'
Do glew themselves in fociable grief;

6 Bind up thofe treffes: ] It was neceffary that Conftance fhould be interrupted, becaufe a paffion fo violent cannot be borne long. I wish the following fpeeches had been equally happy; but they only ferve to fhow, how difficult it is to maintain the pathetick long. JOHNSON.

7

wiry friends -] The old copy reads wiry fiends. Wiry is an adjective used by Heywood, in his Silver Age, 1613: My vaffal furies, with their wiery ftrings, "Shall lafh thee hence." STEEVENS.

Mr. Pope made the emendation. MALONE.

Fiends is obviously a typographical error. As the epithet wiry is here attributed to hair; fo, in another defcription the hair of Apollo fupplies the office of wire. In the Inflructions to the commiffioners for the choice of a wife for Prince Arthur, it is directed

to note the eye-browes" of the young Queen of Naples (who, after the death of Arthur, was married to Henry VIII. and divorced by him for the fake of Anna Bulloygn). They answer, Her browes are of a browne heare, very fmall, like a wyre of heare." Thus alfo, Gafcoigne :

"Firft for her head, the hairs were not of gold,
But of fome other mettall farre more fiue,

"Wherof each crinet feemed to behold.

Like gliftring wars against the funne that fhine."

HENLEY.

I tore them from their bonds; and cried aloud,
O that thefe hands could fo redeem my fon,
As they have given thefe hairs their liberty!
But now I envy at their liberty,

And will again commit them to their bonds,
Because my poor child is a prifoner.-

And, father cardinal, I have heard you say,

That we fhall fee and know our friends in heaven:

If that be true, I fhall fee my boy again;

For, fince the birth of Cain, the firft male child,
To him that did but yesterday fufpire,9
There was not such a gracious creature born. 2

* To England if you will.] Neither the French king nor Pandulph, has said a word of England, fince the entry of Conftance. Perhaps therefore, in despair, she means to address the absent King John: "Take my son to England, if you will; "-now that he is in your power, I have no profpect of feeing him again. It is therefore of no confequence to me where he is.

9 11

MALONE.

but yesterday fufpire, ] To suspire in Shakspeare, I believe, only means to breathe. So, in K. Henry IV. Part II:

Again, in a Copy of Verfes prefixed to Thomas Powell's Paffionate Poet, 1601:

2

"Beleeve it, I fufpire no fresher aire,

66

Than are my hopes of thee, and they ftand faire."

a gracious creature born. ]

in Albion's Triumph, a Masque, 1631:

STEEVENS.

Gracious, i. e. graceful. So,

on the which (the freeze) were feftoons of feveral fruits

in their natural colours, on which, in gracious poftures, lay children fleeping."

But now will canker forrow eat my bud,
And chafe the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghoft;
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;
And fo he'll die; and, rifing fo again,
When I fhall meet him in the court of heaven
I fhall not know him: therefore never, never
Muft I behold my pretty Arthur more.

PAND. You hold too heinous a refpect of grief. CONST. He talks to me, that never had a fon.3 K. PHI. You are as fond of grief, as of

child.

your

CONST. Grief fills the room up of my absent

child, 4

Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;

Again, in the fame piece:

they ftood about him, not

in fet ranks, but in several gracious postures." STEEVENS.

66

A paffage quoted by Mr. Steevens from Marton's Malcontent 1604, induces me to think that gracious likewife in our author's time included the idea of beauty: he is the moft exquifite in forging of veins, fpright'ning of eyes, fleeking of fkinnes, blufhing of cheeks, blanching and bleaching of teeth, that ever made an ould lady gracious by torch-light. MALONE.

3 He talks to me, that never had a fon.] Macduff observes

He has no children."

To the fame purpose

This thought occurs also in King Henry VI. Part III.

4

STELVENS

Grief fills the room up of my abfent child,]
"Perfruitur lachrymis, & amat pro conjuge luctum. '

Lucan, Lib. IX.

Maynard, a French poet, has the fame thought:
Qui me confole, excite ma colere,
Et le repos eft un bien que je crains:
"Mon deuil me plaît, & me doit toujours plaire,
« Il mé tient lieu de celle que je plains.'

VOL. XI.

MALONE.

Dd