Explanatory Notes. The Explanatory Notes in this edition have been specially selected and adapted, with emendations after the latest and best authorities, from the most eminent Shakespearian scholars and commentators, including Johnson, Malone, Steevens, Singer, Dyce, Hudson, White, Furness, Dowden, and others. This method, here introduced for the first time, provides the best annotation of Shakespeare ever embraced in a single edition. ACT FIRST. 25-27. I do extend, etc. :-The meaning is, my praise, however extreme it may appear, is less than the truth warrants: I rather stop short of his merits than go the full length of them. 31. Tenantius was the father of Cymbeline, and the son of Lud. On the death of Lud, his younger brother, Cassibelan, took the throne, to the exclusion of the lineal heir. Cassibelan repulsed the Romans on their first invasion, but was vanquished on their second, and agreed to pay an annual tribute to Rome. After his death, his nephew Tenantius was established on the throne. Some authorities tell us that he quietly paid the tribute stipulated by his usurping uncle; others, that he refused it, and warred with the Romans; which latter account is the one taken for true by the Poet. Scene II. 30, 31. she's a good sign, etc.:—To understand the force of this, it should be remembered that anciently almost every sign had a motto, or some attempt at a witticism underneath. Scene IV. a Dutchman, and [Enter Spaniard.] "It has been observed," says Verplanck, "that the behaviour of the Spaniard and the Dutchman, who are stated to be present during this animated scene, is in humorous accordance with the apathy and taciturnity usually attributed to their countrymen. Neither the Don nor Mynheer utters a syllable. 'What was Imogen to them, or they to Imogen,' that they should speak of her? White says their 66 mere presence has a dramatic value, as indicating the mixed company of travellers in which this scene takes place." 16, 17. a great deal from the matter:-That is, makes the description of him very distant from the truth. 141. afraid, . . . wiser :-That is, you are the wiser in fearing to have your wife put to the proof. To screw Posthumus up to the sticking-point, the villain here imputes his backwardness to a distrust of his wife, and so brings his confidence in her over to the side of the wager and trial. The original reads, a friend instead of afraid. The latter word was suggested by Warburton, and adopted by Theobald. It is not altogether easy to get at the meaning of a friend in such a connection: besides, Posthumus has just professed himself "her adorer, not her friend." And the change is further approved by what Iachimo says just after: But, I see, you have some religion in you, that you fear"; that is, evidently, fear to have your wife's honour attempted, lest it should give way. It need scarce be said, that to such a man as Iachimo religion and superstition are synonymous terms. 66 66 Scene V. 33, 34. I do not like her, etc.:-This soliloquy is pronounced by Johnson to be " very inartificial," and he declares that Cornelius makes a long speech to tell himself what himself knows.” The speech might deserve such censure, were it not intended for the audience, to relieve their anxiety at mischievous ingredients being left in the hands of the Queen. It is no less useful to prepare us for the seeming return of Imogen from death to life. 84. The violets, cowslips, my closet:-Upon this passage Clarke has the following: 'The art with which the Poet and dramatist has placed these words in the mouth of this queen miscreant is worthy of remark. He makes her use these beauteous and innocent products of earth as mere cloaks to her wickedness; she concocts' perfumes' and 'confections' from them as a veil to the 'drugs' and 'poisonous compounds' which she collects for the fellest purposes. It enhances the effect of her guilt, her thus forcing these sweet blossoms to become accomplices in her vile schemes; and we loathe her the more for her surrounding her unhallowed self with their loveliness. Observe, too, how skilfully Shakespeare has made this evil woman order her ladies to 'gather these flowers'-how she desires that they shall be borne to her closet-her laboratory; not gathering or caring for them herself; not caring for the touch, and scent, and sight of these gentle things-that all good people instinctively love, and cherish, and caress. How different is the Poet's treatment of the subject, where he makes the virtuous Friar Laurence rise with the dawn, himself to gather the 'precious-juiced flowers,' 'ere the sun advance his burning eye'; and dilating with fond enthusiasm on their ́ many virtues excellent,' and philosophizing on their varied qualities and purposes!" Scene VI. 99. What both you spur and stop:-The information which you seem to press forward and yet withhold. The allusion is to horsemanship. So in Sidney's Arcadia: "She was like a horse desirous to runne, and miserably spurred, but so short-reined, as he cannot stirre forward." 66 210. Concerning the art with which the character of Imogen is worked out, especially in her interview with Iachimo, White, in his Shakespeare's Scholar, has these just and well-put thoughts: The firm, undallying chastity of Imogen is indicated with unsurpassable tact and skill in this Scene. She is slow to understand Iachimo; but the moment he makes his proposition plainly, before a word of anger or surprise passes her lips, she calls for the faithful servant of her lord, to remove him who has insulted her and his friend's honour. Then her indignation bursts from her; but again and again she interrupts its flow with What, ho, Pisanio! She holds no question with him who made such a proposition to her; enters into no dispute of why or wherefore: she seeks nothing but the instantaneous removal of the man who has dared to attempt her chastity. Not only does she refuse all consideration of the right or wrong of the proposition, but the mere proposal changes, on the moment, all previous relations between her and the proposer, although they were established by her husband himself. It is not until her pure soul, as quick to believe good as it was slow to imagine evil, is quieted by the entire withdrawal of Iachimo's advances, and the assignment of a comprehensible though not excusable reason for them, that she ceases to call for him who is in some sort the representative of her husband. An exquisite touch of the master's hand occurs in a single pronoun in the succeeding speech of Imogen. Born a princess, she has given herself to Posthumus, a nameless man, as freely as if she were a peasant's daughter; and she is remarkable, with all her dignity, for her unassuming deportment: but the insult of Iachimo stings her into pride, and, for the first and only time, she takes her state, and speaks of herself in the plural number. She says, to expound his beastly mind to us." ACT SECOND. Scene I. [Cloten.] The character of Cloten was for a long time thought to be out of nature and monstrous. But Miss Seward declared him the exact prototype of a man she once knew: “The unmeaning frown of the countenance; the shuffling gait; the burst of speaking; the bustling insignificance; the fever-and-ague fits of valour; the froward techiness; the unprincipled malice; and, what is most curious, the occasional gleams of good sense amid the floating clouds of folly which generally darkened and confused the man's brain, and which, in Cloten, we are apt to impute to a violation of unity of character;-but in the sometime Captain C―n I saw the portrait of Cloten was not out of nature." Scene II. 13. rushes:-It was customary in Shakespeare's time to strew floors with rushes; and the Poet, with the license of his art, speaks as though the same custom had obtained in Rome. 66 22, 23. windows tinct: The eyelids are the windows of the eyes. So in Romeo and Juliet, IV. i. 100, 101: Thy eyes' windows fall, like death, when he shuts up the day of life." And in Venus and Adonis: "The night of sorrow now is turn'd to day: Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth." This passage is an exact description of the eyelid of a fair beauty, which is white, laced with veins of blue. By azure is understood not a dark blue, but a tinct or effusion of a blue colour-the blue of heaven's own tinct. Drayton seems to have had this passage in his mind: 66 And these sweet veins by nature rightly plac'd, 45. The tale of Tereus:-Tereus and Progne is the second tale in A Petite Palace of Pettie his Pleasure, 1576. The story is related in Ovid, Metamorphes, 1. vi.; and by Gower in his Confessio Amantis. 48. dragons of the night:-The task of drawing the chariot of Night was assigned to dragons, on account of their supposed watchfulness. So in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, III. ii. 379: Night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast.” 66 51. The inexpressible purity and delicacy of this Scene have been often commended and cannot be overpraised. The imagery all shows" of heaven's own tinct," as though by some secret sympathy it had caught the very life and quality of the subject. Its richness and rareness enchant the senses; but the enchantment is wrought so entirely through the imagination, that the senses are at the same time purified and, as it were, turned into soul in the contemplation. The description of Imogen would almost engage our respect upon the describer, but that we already know Iachimo to be one of those passionless minds in which gross thoughts are most apt to lodge; and that the unaccustomed awe of virtue, which Imogen struck into him at their first interview, only chastises down his tendencies to gross-thoughtedness while in her presence. Thus his delicacy of speech only goes to heighten our impression of Imogen's character inasmuch as it seems to come, not from him, but from her through him; and as something that must be divine indeed, not to be strangled in passing through such a medium. Scene III. 20. A similar figure occurs in Paradise Lost, v. 197: "Ye birds, that singing up to heaven-gate ascend, bear on your wings and in your notes His praise." And Shakespeare, in Sonnet XXIX: 66 Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate." Divers other poets, from Chaucer downwards, have the same figure. The whole song may have been suggested by a passage in Lyly's Alexander and Campaspe : "Who is 't now we hear? None but the lark so shrill and clear: |