Fer. This is most strange; your father's in some passion That works him strongly. Mira. 3 And, like the baseless fabrick of this vision, &c.] The exact period at which this play was produced is unknown: it was not, however, published before 1623. In the year 1603, the Tragedy of Darius, by Lord Sterline, made its appearance, and there I find the following passage: "Let greatness of her glassy sceptres vaunt, "Not sceptres, no, but reeds, soon bruis'd, soon broken; "And let this worldly pomp our wits enchant, "All fades, and scarcely leaves behind a token. "Those golden palaces, those gorgeous halls, "Those stately courts, those sky-encount'ring walls, Lord Sterline's play must have been written before the death of Queen Elizabeth, (which happened on the 24th of March, 1603,) as it is dedicated to James VI. King of Scots. Whoever should seek for this passage (as here quoted from the 4to. 1603) in the folio edition, 1637, will be disappointed, as Lord Sterline made considerable changes in all his plays, after their first publication. Steevens. 4 all which it inherit,] i. e. all who possess, who dwell upon it. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: “This, or else nothing, will inherit her." Malone. 5 And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,] Faded means here -having vanished; from the Latin, vado. So, in Hamlet: "It faded on the crowing of the cock." To feel the justice of this comparison, and the propriety of the epithet, the nature of these exhibitions should be remembered. The ancient English pageants were shows, exhibited on the reception of a prince, or any other solemnity of a similar kind. They were presented on occasional stages, erected in the streets. Originally, they appear to have been nothing more than dumb shows; Leave not a rack behind:6 We are such stuff but, before the time of our author, they had been enlivened, by the introduction of speaking personages, who were characteristically habited. The speeches were sometimes in verse; and, as the procession moved forward, the speakers, who constantly bore some allusion to the ceremony, either conversed together in the form of a dialogue, or addressed the noble person, whose presence occasioned the celebrity. On these allegorical spectacles very costly ornaments were bestowed. See Fabian, II. 382. Warton's Hist. of Poet. II. 199, 202. The well-known lines before us may receive some illustration from Stowe's account of the pageants, exhibited in the year 1604, (not very long before this play was written,) on King James, his Queen, &c. passing triumphantly from the Tower to Westminster; on which occasion seven gates or arches were erected, in different places, through which the procession passed.-Over the first gate" was represented the true likeness of all the notable houses, TOWERS and steeples, within the citie of London.”— "The sixt arche, or gate of triumph was erected above the Conduit in Fleete-Streete, whereon the GLOBE of the world was seen to move, &c. At Temple-bar, a seaventh arche or gate was erected, the fore-front whereof was proportioned in every respect like a TEMPLE, being dedicated to Janus, &c.-The citie of Westminster, and dutchy of Lancaster, at the Strand had erected the invention of a Rainbow, the moone, sunne, and starres, advanced between two Pyramides," &c. ANNALS, p. 1429, edit. 1605. Malone. 6 Leave not a rack behind:] "The winds (says Lord Bacon) which move the clouds above, which we call the rack, and are not perceived below, pass without noise." I should explain the word rack somewhat differently, by calling it the last fleeting vestige of the highest clouds, scarce perceptible, on account of their distance and tenuity. What was anciently called the rack, is now termed by sailors-the scud. The word is common to many authors contemporary with Shakspeare. So, in the Faithful Shepherdess, by Fletcher: 66 shall I stray "In the middle air, and stay "The sailing rack." Again, in David and Bethsabe, 1599: "Beating the clouds into their swiftest rack." Again, in the prologue to the Three Ladies of London, 1584: "We list not ride the rolling rack that dims the chrystal skies." Again, in Shakspeare's 33d Sonnet: "Anon permits the basest clouds to ride "With ugly rack on his celestial face." Again, in Chapman's version of the twenty-first Iliad: the cracke "His thunder gives, when out of heaven it tears atwo his racke." As dreams are made of,” and our little life Here the translator adds, in a marginal note, "The racke or motion of the clouds, for the clouds." Again, in Dryden's version of the tenth Eneid: 66 the doubtful rack of heaven "Stands without motion, and the tide undriven.” Mr. Pennant, in his Tour in Scotland, observes, there is a fish called a rack-rider, because it appears in winter or bad weather; Rack, in the English of our author's days, signifying the driving of the clouds by tempests. Sir Thomas Hanmer instead of rack, reads track, which may be countenanced by the following passage, in the first scene of Timon of Athens: "But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on, 66 Again, in the Captain, by Beaumont and Fletcher, Act II. sc. i: 66 run quietly, "Leaving no trace of what they were, behind them." Steevens. Rack is generally used for a body of clouds, or rather for the course of clouds in motion; so, in Antony and Cleopatra: "That, which is now a horse, even with a thought, But no instance has yet been produced, where it is used to signify a single small fleeting cloud, in which sense only it can be figuratively applied here. I incline, therefore, to Sir Thomas Hanmer's emendation. I am now inclined to think that rack is a mis-spelling for wrack, i. e. wreck, which Fletcher likewise has used for a minute broken fragment. See his Wife for a Month, where we find the word mis-spelt, as it is in The Tempest: "He will bulge so subtilly and suddenly, "You may snatch him up by parcels, like a sea-rack.” It has been urged, that "objects, which have only a visionary and insubstantial existence, can, when the vision is faded, leave nothing real, and consequently no wreck behind them." But the objection is founded on misapprehension. The words" Leave not a rack (or wreck) behind," relate not to "the baseless fabrick of this vision," but to the final destruction of the world, of which the towers, temples, and palaces, shall (like a vision, or a pageant,) be dissolved, and leave no vestige behind. Malone. 7 As dreams are made of,] The old copy reads-on. But this is a mere colloquial vitiation; of, among the vulgar, being still pronounced-on. Steevens. The stanza, which immediately precedes the lines, quoted by Mr. Steevens from Lord Sterline's Darius, may serve still further to confirm the conjecture, that one of these poets imitated the other. Our author was, I believe the imitator: Is rounded with a sleep.-Sir, I am vex'd; Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled. If you be pleas'd, retire into my cell, And there repose; a turn or two I'll walk, To still my beating mind. Fer. Mira. We wish your peace. [Exeunt. Pro. Come, with a thought:-I thank you:-Ariel, come.8 Enter ARIEL. Ari. Thy thoughts I cleave to: What's thy pleasure? Pro. Spirit, We must prepare to meet with Caliban.1 Ari. Ay, my commander: when I presented Ceres, I thought to have told thee of it; But I fear'd, Lest I might anger thee. Pro. Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets? Ari. I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking; So full of valour, that they smote the air For breathing in their faces; beat the ground old "And when the eclipse comes of our glory's light, "A meer illusion made to mock the sight, "Whose best was but the shadow of a dream." Malone. Fer. Mira. We wish your peace. Pro. Come with a thought:-I thank you:-Ariel, come.] The copy reads "I thank thee." But these thanks being in reply to the joint wish of Ferdinand and Miranda, I have substituted you for thee, by the advice of Mr. Ritson. Steevens. 9 Thy thoughts I cleave to:] To cleave to, is to unite with closely. So, in Macbeth: "Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould.” Again: "If you shall cleave to my consent." Steevens. 1 — to meet with Caliban.] To meet with, is to counteract; to play stratagem against stratagem.-The parson knows the temper of every one in his house, and accordingly either meets with their vices, or advances their virtues. HERBERT'S Country Parson. "With her abusive malice, and exempt Johnson. "Yourself from the suspicion of revenge." Steevens. For kissing of their feet: yet always bending 4 I' the filthy mantled pool, beyond your cell, There dancing up to the chins, that the foul lake Pro. This was well done, my bird: Thy shape invisible retain thou still: The trumpery in my house, go, bring it hither, 2 Advanc'd their eye-lids, &c.] Thus Drayton, in his Nymphidia, or Court of Fairie: 3 "But once the circle got within, "The charms to work do straight begin, "For as he thus was busy, "A pain he in his head-piece feels, "And through the bushes scrambles, "A stump doth hit him in his pace, "Among the briers and brambles." Johnson. pricking goss,] I know not how Shakspeare distinguished goss from furze; for what he calls furze is called goss or gorse, in the midland counties. This word is used in the first chorus to Kyd's Cornelia, 1594: "With worthless gorse that, yearly, fruitless dies." Steevens. By the latter, Shakspeare means the low sort of gorse, that only grows upon wet ground, and which is well described by the name of whins in Markham's Farewell to Husbandry. It has prickles like those of a rose-tree or a gooseberry. Furze and whins occur together in Dr. Farmer's quotation from Holinshed. Tollet. 4 I' the filthy mantled pool, -] Perhaps we should read-filthymantled. A similar idea occurs in K. Lear: "Drinks the green mantle of the standing pool." Steevens. |