Dumb how. Enter PERICLES and SIMONIDES at one door, with Attendants; a Messenger meets them, kneels, and gives PERICLES a letter. PERICLES shows it to SIMONIDES; the Lords kneel to the former. Then enter THAISA with child, and LYCHORIDA. MONIDES shows his daughter the letter; the rejoices: she and PERICLES take leave of her father, and depart. Then SIMONIDES, &c. retire. SI Gow. By many a dearn and painful perch," 6 - the Lords kneel to the former.] The lords kneel to Pericles, because they are now, for the first time informed by this letter, that he is king of Tyre. "No man," says Gower, in his Confeffio Amantis, "knew the soth cas, "But he hym selfe; what man he was." By the death of Antiochus and his daughter, Pericles has also tucceeded to the throne of Antioch, in consequence of having rightly interpreted the riddle proposed to him. MALONE. 7 By many a dearn and painful porch, &c.] Dearn is direful, dismal. See Skinner's Etymol. in v Dere The word is used by Spenfer, BH. c. i. ft. 55. B. NI. c. i. ft. 14. The conftru&ion is some. what involved. The careful fearch of Pericles is made by many a dearn and painful perch. by the four opposing coignes, which join the world together; with all due diligence, &c. MALONE. Dearn fignifies lonely, folitary. See note on King Lear, A& III. fc. vii. A perch is a measure of five yards and a half. STEEVENS. • By the fout opposing coignes,] By the four opposite corner-tones that unive and bind together the great fabrick of the world. The word is again used by Shakspeare in Macbeth: -No jutty, frieze, "Buttress, or coigne of vantage, but this bird "Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle." Is made, with all due diligence, The crown of Tyre, but he will none: In the passage before us, the author seems to have confidered the world as a stupendous edifice, artificially conftructed. - To seck & man in every corner of the globe, is ftill common language. All the ancient copies read: By the four oppofing crignes, but there is no fuch English word. For the ingenious emendation inferted in the text, which is produced by the change of a fingle letter, the reader is indebted to Mr. Tyrwhitt. MALONE. The word-coign, occurs also in Coriolanus : " See you yond' coign o'the Capitol?" STEEVENS. • Can stead the quest.] i. e. help, befriend, or affift the search, So, in Measure for Measure: can you to lead me, "To bring me to the fight of Isabella?" STEEVENS. The old copy 2 (Fame answering the most strong inquire,)] reads the most Arange inquire; but it furely was not strange, that Pericles fubje&s should be folicitous to know what was become of him. We thould certainly read the most trong inquire; this earnest, anxious inquiry. The fame mistake has happened in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, folio, 1623: "Whole weakness married to thy stranger ftate -" inftead of stronger. The fame mistake has also happened in othe places. MALONE. • 3 The mutiny &c.] Old copy: The muting he there haftes t'opprefe; Says to them, if king Pericles--: Surely both sense and rhyme direct us to read, STEEVENS. Come not, in twice fix moons, home, Will take the crown. 'The sum of this, Y ravished the regions round,4 And every one with claps 'gan found, Our heir apparent is a king : Who dream'd, who thought of fuch a thing? And fo to fea. Their veffel shakes Come not, &c] Old copy: Come not home in twice fix moons, He obedient to their dooms, - -. Moons and dooms are very miferable rhymes; nor do I recolle& that a plural of the substantive doom is ever used. - A flight transpo. fition will remedy the present defect Come not, in twice fix moons, home, He obedient to their doom, &c. STEEVENS. From the false print of the firft * Y-ravished the regions round. edition, Iranished, the subsequent editors formed aftill more absurd reading: Irony shed the regions round, Mr. Steevens ingenious emendation, to which I have paid due attention by inferting it in the text, is ftrongly confirmed by the following paffage in Gower De Confeffione Amantis: " This tale after the kynge it had "There was no joye for to feche, Thus goth the tydinge over all." MALONE, On Neptune's billow; half the flood 1. That, as a duck for life that dives, The lady shrieks, and, well-a-near!" half the flood Hath their keel cut;) They have made half their voyage with a favourable wind. So, Gower: mov'd. "When thei were in the sea mid, "Out of the morth thei see a cloude; "The ftorme arose, the wyndes loude "Thei blewen many a dredeful blafte, "The welkin was all over-cafte." MALONE. but fortune's mood - ) The old copy reads-but fortune MALONE. * Mou'd could never be designed as a rhyme to flood. I suppose we should read_but fortune's mood, i. c. disposition. So, in The Comedy of Errors; " My wife is in a wayward mood to-day." Again, in All's well that ends well : 7 66 muddied in fortune's mood." STEEVENS. - well-a-near! This exclamation is equivalent to well-a day, and is ftill used in Yorkshire, where I have often heard it. The glossary to the Praise of Yorkshire Ale, 1697, fays,-wellanee in is lack-a-day, or alas, alas! REED. Doth fall in travail with her fear:) So, in Twine's translation: "Lucina, what with fea-ficknesse, and fear of danger, fell in labour of a child," &c. STEEVENS. 9 t - in this fell form.] This is the reading of the earlieft quarto. The folios and the modern editions have felf storm. MALONE. I nill relate;] The further confequences of this storm I shall not defcribe. MALONE. 1 Which might not what by me is told. This flage, the ship, upon whose deck 오 3 The fea-toft prince appears to fpeak. [Exit. SCENE I. Enter PERICLES, on a ship at fea. PER. Thou God of this great vast, rebuke these furges. Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou, that haft • Which might not what by me is told,] i. e. which might not conveniently convey what by me is told, ८. conveniently be exhibited in a&ion; but action displayed all the events that I have now related. *In your imagination hold This flage, the ship, upon whose deck What ensues may could not well have MALONE, The sea-toft &c.) It is clear from these lines, that when the play was originally performed, no attempt was made to exhibit either a sca er a ship. The ensuing scene and some others must have suffered confiderably in the reprensentation, from the poverty of the ftage-apparatus in the time of our author. The old copy hasSeas toft. Mr. Rowe made the correction. MALONE. 3 The Sea-toft prince - ) The old copy reads-the sea-toft * Thou God of this great vast, rebuke these furges,] The expreffion is borrowed from the sacred writings: "The waters ftood above the mountains: -at thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hafted away." It should be remembered, that Pericles is here supposed to speak from the deck of his ship. Lychorida, on whom he calls, in order to obtain some intelligence of his queen, is supposed to be beneath, in the cabin. - This great vast, is this wide expanse. See Vol. X p. 8, n. 4. This speech is exhibited in so strange a form in the original, and all the subsequent editions, that I shall lay it before the reader, |