Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

CAM.
So please your highnefs,
The queen being absent, 'tis a needful fitness
That we adjourn this court till further day:
Mean while must be an earnest motion

Made to the queen, to call back her appeal
She intends unto his holinefs. [They rife to depart.*
I may perceive, [Afide.
Thefe cardinals trifle with me: I abhor

K. HEN.

This dilatory floth, and tricks of Rome.
My learn'd and well-beloved fervant, Cranmer,
Pr'ythee return! with thy approach, I know,
My comfort comes along. Break up the court:
I fay, fet on. [Exeunt, in manner as they enter'd.

So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:

"No: but he is an earthly paragon.

Again, in Cymbeline :

an angel! or, if not,

"An earthly paragon."

To paragon, however, is a verb ufed by Shakspeare both in Antony and Cleopatra, and Othello:

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

If thou with Cæfar paragon again

My man of men.

a maid

"That paragons defcription and wild fame."

STEEVENS.

4 They rife to depart.] Here the modern editors add: [The King Speaks to Cranmer.] This marginal direction is not found in the old folio, and was wrongly introduced by some subsequent editor. Cranmer was now abfent from court on an embaffy, as appears from the last scene of this act, where Cromwell informs Wolfey that he is returned and inftall'd archbishop of Canterbury:

66

My learn'd and well-beloved fervant, Cranmer, "Pr'ythee, return!—

is no more than an apoftrophe to the absent bishop of that name.

RIDLEY.

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

A Room in the Queen's Apartment.

The Queen, and Jome of her Women, at work."

2. KATH. Take thy lute, wench: my foul grows fad with troubles;

Sing, and disperse them, if thou canft: leave work

ing.

SON G.

Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain-tops, that freeze,
Bow themfelves, when he did fing:
To his mufick, plants, and flowers,
Ever Sprung; as fun, and showers,

There had made a lafting Spring.

Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the fea,

Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In fweet mufick is such art ;
Killing care, and grief of heart,
Fall asleep, or, hearing, die.

5 at work.] Her majefty (fays Cavendish,) on being informed that the cardinals were coming to vifit her, "rofe up, having a skein of red filke about her neck, being at work with her maidens." Cavendish attended Wolfey in this vifit; and the Queen's anfwer in p. 103, is exactly conformable to that which he has recorded, and which he appears to have heard her pronounce.

MALONE.

Enter a Gentleman.

2. KATH. How now?

GENT. An't please your grace, the two great car

dinals

Wait in the presence."

2. ΚΑΤΗ.

Would they speak with me?

GENT. They will'd me fay fo, madam.

2. ΚΑΤΗ.

Pray their graces To come near. [Exit Gent.] What can be their

bufinefs

With me, a poor weak woman, fallen from favour? I do not like their coming, now I think on't. They should be good men; their affairs as righteous:" But all hoods make not monks.

8

6 Wait in the prefence.] i. e. in the prefence-chamber. So, in Peacham's Compleat Gentleman: "The lady Anne of Bretaigne, paffing thorow the prefence in the court of France" &c. STEEVENS.

They should be good men; their affairs as righteous:] Affairs for profeffions; and then the fenfe is clear and pertinent. The propofition is they are priefts. The illation, they are good men; for being understood: but if affairs be interpreted in its common fignification, the fentence is abfurd. WARBURTON.

The fentence has no great difficulty: Affairs means not their prefent errand, but the business of their calling. JOHNSON.

Being churchmen they should be virtuous, and every business they undertake as righteous as their facred office: but all hoods, &c.The ignorant editor of the fecond folio, not understanding the line, fubftituted are for as; and this capricious alteration (with many others introduced by the fame hand, has been adopted by all the modern editors. MALONE.

· all hoods make not monks.] Cucullus non facit monachum. STEEVENS.

To this proverbial faying Chaucer alludes in his Romaunt of the Rofe, 6190:

This argument is all roignous,

"It is not worth a crooked brere;
"Habite ne makith Monke ne Frere;
"But a clene life and devotion,

"Makith gode men of religion." GREY,

WOL.

Enter WOLSEY and CAMPEIUS.

Peace to your highnefs!

2. KATH. Your graces find me here

housewife;

part of I would be all, against the worst may happen. What are your pleasures with me, reverend lords? WOL. May it please you, noble madam, to withdraw

Into your private chamber, we shall give you
The full caufe of our coming.

2. ΚΑΤΗ.

Speak it here;
There's nothing I have done yet, o' my confcience,
Deferves a corner: 'Would, all other women
Could speak this with as free a foul as I do!
My lords, I care not, (fo much I am happy
Above a number,) if my actions

Were tried by every tongue, every eye saw them,
Envy and bafe opinion fet against them,"
I know my life fo even: If your business
Seek me out, and that way I am wife in,3

• Envy and bafe opinion fet against them,] I would be glad that my conduct were in fome publick trial confronted with mine enemies, that envy and corrupt judgement might try their utmost power against me. JOHNSON.

Envy, in Shakspeare's age, often fignified, malice. So, after

wards:

"Ye turn the good we offer into envy." MALONE.

2 Seck me out, &c.] I believe that a word has dropt out here, and that we should read,

If your business

Seek me, fpeak out, and that way I am wife in;

i. e. in the way that I can understand it. TYRWHITT.
The metre shows here is a fyllable dropt. I would read;
I know my life fo even. If 'tis your business

To feek me out, &c. BLACKSTONE,

Out with it boldly; Truth loves open dealing.

Wois Tanta eft ergà te mentis integritas, regina fereniffima,

2. KATH. O, good my lord, no Latin; 4 Fam not fuch a truant fince my coming, As not to know the language I have liv'd in: A ftrange tongue makes my cause more ftrange, fufpicious;

Pray, fpeak in English: here are fome will thank

you,

If you speak truth, for their poor mistress' fake; Believe me, fhe has had much wrong: Lord cardinal,

The willing'ft fin I ever yet committed,

May be abfolv'd in English.

WOL.

Noble lady,

I am sorry, my integrity should breed,

The alteration propofed by Sir W. Blackftone injures one line as much as it improves the other. We might read:

Doth feek me out,

RITSON.

3 and that way I am wife in,] That is, if you come to examine the title by which I am the king's wife; or, if you come to know how I have behaved as a wife. The meaning, whatever it be, is fo coarfely and unfkilfully expreffed, that the latter editors have liked nonfenfe better, and contrarily to the ancient and only copy, have published:

And that way I am wife in. JOHNSON.

This paffage is unfkilfully expreffed indeed; fo much fo, that I don't fee how it can import either of the meanings that Johnson contends for, or indeed any other. I therefore think that the modern editors have acted rightly in reading wife inftead of wife, for which that word might eafily have been mistaken; nor can I think the paffage, fo amended, nonfenfe, the meaning of it being this: If your bufinefs relates to me, or to any thing of which I have any knowledge." M. MASON.

4 O, good my lord, no Latin;] So, Holinfhed, p. 908: "Then began the cardinall to fpeake to her in Latine. Naie good my lord (quoth fhe) fpeake to me in English."

STEEVENS.

« AnteriorContinuar »