If he be gone, he'll make his grave a bed;
With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,
And worms will not come to thee 25.

Arv. With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave: Thou shalt not lack The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor The azur'd harebell, like thy veins; no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the ruddock 26 would, With charitable bill (O bill, sore-shaming Those rich-left heirs, that let their fathers lie Without a monument!) bring thee all this;

Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none, To winter-ground 27 thy corse.

Gui. Pr'ythee, have done; And do not play in wench-like words with that Which is so serious. Let us bury him, And not protract with admiration what

Is now due debt.-To the grave.

25 Steevens imputes great violence to this change of person, and would read, come to him;' but there is no impropriety in Guiderius's sudden address to the body itself. It might, indeed, be ascribed to our author's careless manner, of which an instance like the present occurs at the beginning of the next act, where Posthumus says,

you married ones,

If each of you would take this course, how many
Must murder wives much better than themselves.'

See Act iii. Sc. 3, note 12, p. 70, ante. 26 The ruddock is the red-breast.

Douce.

To winter-ground appears to mean to dress or decorate thy corse with furred moss,' for a winter covering, when there are no flowers to strew it with. In Cornucopia, or Divers Secrets, &c. by Thomas Johnson, 4to. 1596, sig. E. it said, 'The robin red-breast, if he finds a man or woman dead, will cover all his face with mosse; and some thinke that if the body should remain unburied that he would cover the whole body also.' The reader will remember the pathetic old ballad of the Children in the Wood.

Arv.

Say, where shall's lay him?

Gui. By good Euriphile, our mother.
Arv.

Be't so:

And let us, Polydore, though now our voices

Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground, As once our mother; use like note, and words, Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.

Gui. Cadwal,

I cannot sing: I'll weep, and word it with thee:
For notes of sorrow, out of tune, are worse

Than priests and fanes that lie.

Arv.

We'll speak it then.

Bel. Great griefs, I see, medicine the less 28: for

Cloten

Is quite forgot. He was a queen's son, boys:

And, though he came our enemy, remember,

He was paid 29 for that: Though mean and mighty,

rotting

Together, have one dust; yet reverence

30

(That angel of the world), doth make distinction
Of place' tween high and low. Our foe was princely;
And though you took his life, as being our foe,
Yet bury him as a prince.

Gui.
Pray you, fetch him hither.
Thersites' body is as good as Ajax,
When neither are alive.

29 i. e. punished. Falstaff, after having been beaten, when in the dress of an old woman, says, 'I pay'd nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning.'

30 Reverence, or due regard to subordination, is the power that keeps peace and order in the world.

Arv.

We'll say our song

If you'll go fetch him, the whilst.-Brother, begin.

[Exit BELARIUS.

Gui. Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the

Gui. Come on then, and remove him.

Arv.

SONG.

So,--begin.

Gui. Fear no more the heat o' the sun 31,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Arv. Fear no more the frown o' the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;

Care no more to clothe, and eat ;

To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physick, must
All follow this, and come to dust 32.

Gui. Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Arv. Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Gui. Fear not slander, censure rash;

Arv. Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:

31 This is the topick of consolation that nature dictates to all men on these occasions. The same farewell we have over the dead body in Lucian:— Τέκνον αθλιον εκετι διψήσεις, SKETI TELVýσElg,' &c.-Warburton.

32 The poet's sentiment seems to have been this:-All húman excellence is equally subject to the stroke of death: neither the power of kings, nor the science of scholars, nor the art of those whose immediate study is the prolongation of life, can protect them from the final destiny of man.'-Johnson.

Both. All lovers young, all lovers must

Consign 33 to thee, and come to dust.

Gui. No exorciser 34 harm thee!
Arv. Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Gui. Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Arv. Nothing ill come near thee!
Both. Quiet consummation 35 have;
And renowned be thy grave 36 !

Re-enter BELARIUS, with the Body of CLOTEN.
Gui. We have done our obsequies: Come lay

him down.

Bel. Here's a few flowers, but about midnight,

more:

The herbs, that, have on them cold dew o'the night, Are strewings fitt'st for graves.-Upon their faces 37:

33 To consign to thee' is to seal the same contract with thee;' i. e. add their names to thine upon the register of death. So in Romeo and Juliet:

A dateless bargain to engrossing death.'

34 It has already been observed that exorciser anciently signified a person who could raise spirits, not one who lays them. See vol. iii. p. 335, note 31.

35 Consummation is used in the same sense in King Edward III. 1596:

'My soul will yield this castle of my flesh,

This mingled tribute, with all willingness,

To darkness, consummation, dust, and worms.'

Milton, in his Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester, is indebted to the passage before us:

'Gentle lady, may thy grave

Peace and quiet ever have.'

36 For the obsequies of Fidele (says Dr. Johnson) a song was written by my unhappy friend, Mr. William Collins of Chichester, a man of uncommon learning and abilities. I shall give it a place at the end, in honour of his memory.'

37 Malone observes, that Shakspeare did not recollect when he wrote these words; that there was but one face on which the

You were as flowers, now wither'd even so

:

These herb'lets shall, which we upon you strow.— Come on, away: apart upon our knees.

The ground, that gave them first, has them again; Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain.

[Exeunt BEL. GUI. and ARV. Imo. [Awaking.] Yes, sir, to Milford Haven; Which is the way?—

I thank you. By yon bush?-Pray, how far thither? 'Ods pittikins 38!—can it be six miles yet?

I have gone all night:-'Faith, I'll lay down and

sleep.

But, soft! no bedfellow:-O, gods and goddesses! [Seeing the Body.

These flowers are like the pleasures of the world; This bloody man, the care on't. I hope, I dream; For, so, I thought I was a cave-keeper,

And cook to honest creatures: But 'tis not so;
'Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing,
Which the brain makes of fumes. Our very eyes
Are sometimes like our judgments, blind. Good
faith,

I tremble still with fear: But if there be
Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity
As a wren's eye, fear'd gods, a part of it!
The dream's here still; even when I wake, it is
Without me, as within me; not imagin'd, felt.
A headless man!—The garments of Posthumus!
I know the shape of his leg; this is his hand;
His foot Mercurial; his Martial thigh;

The brawns of Hercules: but his Jovial 39 face

flowers could be strewed.' It is one of the poet's lapses of thought, and will countenance the passage remarked upon in Act iv. Sc. 1, note 3, p. 92, ante.

38 This diminutive adjuration is derived from God's pity, by the addition of kin. In this manner we have also 'Od's bodikins. 39 Jovial face' here signifies such a face as belongs to