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Born in a tempest, when my mother died,
This world to me is like a lasting storm,
Whirring me from my friends.

2

DION. How now, Marina! why do you keep

alone?

How chance my daughter is not with you? Do

not

had he considered that no one ever talked of hanging carpets out in honour of the dead. STEEVENS.

• Whirring me from my friends.] Thus the earliest copy; I think rightly. The second quarto, and all the subsequent impressions, read

Hurrying me from my friends.

Whirring or whirrying, had formerly the same meaning. A bird that flies with a quick motion, accompanied with noise, is still said to whirr away. Thus, Pope:

:

" Now from the brake the whirring pheasant springs." The verb to whirry is used in the ancient ballad entitled Robin Goodfellow. Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Vol. II. 203:

" More swift than wind away I go,
"O'er hedge and lands,

"Thro' pools and ponds,

" I whirry, laughing ho ho ho." MALONE.

The verb-to whirr, is often used by Chapman in his version

of the Iliad. So, Book XIV:

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gathering dust with whirring fiercely round."

Again, Book XVII:

66

- through the Greeks and Ilians they rapt

"The whirring chariot."

The two last lines uttered by Marina, very strongly resemble

a passage in Homer's Iliad, Book XIX. 1. 377:

66

· τοὺς δ ̓ οὐκ ἐθέλοντας ̓́αελλαι

“ Πόντον ἐπ ̓ ἰχθυόεντα ΦΙΛΩΝ ΑΠΑΝΕΥΘΕ ΦΕΡΟΥΣΙΝ.”

STEEVENS.

3 How now, Marina! why do you keep alone?] Thus the earliest copy. So, in Macbeth: "How now, my lord! why do you keep alone?",

The second quarto reads-why do you weep alone?

MALONE.

* How chance my daughter is not with you?] So, in King Henry IV. Part II:

"How chance thou art not with the prince, thy brother?" MALONE.

Consume your blood with sorrowing: you have
A nurse of me. Lord! how your favour's chang'd"
With this unprofitable woe! Come, come;
Give me your wreath of flowers, ere the sea mar it.
Walk forth with Leonine; the air is quick there,
Piercing, and sharpens well the stomach. Come;-
Leonine, take her by the arm, walk with her.

Milton, as Mr. Todd observes, employs a similar form of words in Comus, v. 508:

"How chance she is not in your company?"

STEEVENS.

* Consume your blood with sorrowing:] So, in K. Henry VI. blood-consuming sighs." See also note on Hamlet,

P. II: "
Act IV. sc. vii. MALONE.

6

-you have

A nurse of me.] Thus the quarto, 1619. The first copy reads:

"Have you a nurse of me?" The poet probably wrote:

7

Have you not

A nurse of me? MALONE.

- your favour's chang'd-] i. e. countenance, look. So,

in Macbeth:

"To alter favour ever is to fear." STEEVENS.

8 ere the sea mar it.

Walk forth with Leonine; the air is quick there,] Some words must, I think, have been omitted. Probably the author

wrote:

36

ere the sea mar it,

Walk on the shore with Leonine, the air

Is quick there. MALONE.

- ere the sea mar it, &c.] i. e. ere the sea mar your walk upon the shore by the coming in of the tide, walk there with Leonine. We see plainly by the circumstance of the pirates, that Marina, when seized upon, was walking on the sea-shore; and Shakspeare was not likely to reflect that there is little or no tide in the Mediterranean. CHARLEMONT.

The words wreath of were formerly inserted in the text by Mr. Malone. Though he has since discarded, I have ventured to retain them. STEEVENS.

9 Piercing, and sharpens well the stomach. Come;] Here the old copy furnishes the following line, which those who think

MAR. No, I pray you;...

I'll not bereave you of your servant.

DION.

Come, come;

I love the king your father, and yourself,
With more than foreign heart. We every day
Expect him here: when he shall come, and find
Our paragon to all reports, thus blasted,

3

He will repent the breadth of his great voyage;
Blame both my lord and me, that we have ta'en
No care to your best courses. Go, I pray you,
Walk, and be cheerful once again; reserve
That excellent complexion, which did steal
The eyes of young and old.4 Care not for me;
I can go home alone.

it verse, may replace, in the room of that supplied by the present And it pierces and sharpens the stomach. Come-.

text:

STEEVENS.

With more than foreign heart. With the same warmth of affection as if I was his countrywoman. MALONE.

* Our paragon to all reports,] Our fair charge, whose beauty was once equal to all that fame said of it. So, in Othello:

3

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- He hath achiev'd a maid,

" That paragons description and wild fame." MALONE..

- that we have ta'en

No care to your best courses. Either we should read-" of our best courses," or the word to has in this place the force

that of would have. M. MASON.

The plain meaning is that we have paid no attention to what was best for you. STEEVENS.

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That excellent complexion, which did steal

The eyes of young and old.] So, in Shakspeare's 20th

Sonnet:

"A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
" Which steals men's eyes, and women's souls amazeth."

Again, in his Lover's Complaint:

MAR.

Well, I will go;

But yet I have no desire to it.5

DION. Come, come, I know 'tis good for you.

Walk half an hour, Leonine, at the least;

Remember what I have said.

LEON.

I warrant you, madam.

DION. I'll leave you, my sweet lady, for a while; Pray you walk softly, do not heat your blood: What! I must have a care of you.

MAR.

Thanks, sweet madam.

Is this wind westerly that blows?
LEON.

[Exit DIONYZA.

South-west.

MAR. When I was born, the wind was north. LEON.

Was't so?

MAR. My father, as nurse said, did never fear,

But cry'd, good seamen! to the sailors, galling
His kingly hands with hauling of the ropes;

" Thus did he in the general bosom reign
" Of young and old."

To reserve is here, to guard; to preserve carefully. So, in Shakspeare's 32d Sonnet:

" Reserve them, for my love, not for their rhymes."

* Well, I will go;

MALONE.

But yet I have no desire to it.] So, in The Merchant of

Venice:

" I have no mind of feasting forth to-night,
"But I will go." STEEVENS.

For the inser

* His kingly hands with hauling of the ropes; tion of the words with and of I am answerable. MALONE.

So, in Sidney's Arcadia, Book II: "- the princes did in their countenances accuse no point of feare, but encouraging the sailors to doe what might be done (putting their hands to every most paineful office) taught them to promise themselves the best," &c. STEEVENS.

And, clasping to the mast, endur'd a sea
That almost burst the deck, and from the ladder-

tackle

Wash'd off a canvas-climber: Ha! says one,
Wilt out? and, with a dropping industry,

They skip from stem to stern: the boatswain

whistles,

That almost burst the deck,]

Burst is frequently used by

See Vol. XII. p. 152, n. 5.
MALONE.

our author in an active sense.

from the ladder-tackle

Wash'd off a canvas-climber:] A ship-boy. So, in King Henry V:

"and in them behold

"Upon the hempen-tackle ship-boys climbing."

I suspect that a line preceding these two, has been lost, which

perhaps might have been of this import:

O'er the good ship the foaming billow breaks,
And from the ladder-tackle &c. MALONE.

A canvas-climber is one who climbs the mast, to furl, or unfurl, the canvas or sails. STEEVENS.

Malone suspects that some line preceding these has been lost, but that I believe is not the case, this being merely a continuation of Marina's description of the storm, which was interrupted by Leonine's asking her, When was that? and by her answer, When I was born: never were waves nor wind more violent.

Put this question and the answer in a parenthesis, and the description goes on without difficulty:

endur'da sea

That almost burst the deck,

And from the ladder-tackle washes off &c.

M. MASON.

In consequence of Mr. M. Mason's remark, I have regulated the text anew, and with only the change of a single tense, (wash'd for washes,) and the omission of the useless copulative and. The question of Leonine, and the reply of Marina, which were introduced after the words,

That almost burst the deck,

are just as proper in their present as in their former situation; but do not, as now arranged, interrupt the narrative of Marina.

STEEVENS?

from stem to stern:] The old copies read-From stern

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