The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Ii Part 10

Grace to stand, virtue to go.

CYMBELINE.

Act I. sc. 1.

You do not meet a man, but frowns: our bloods No more obey the heavens, than our courtiers'

Still seem, as does the king's.

There can be little doubt of Mr. Tyrwhitt's emendations of 'courtiers'

and 'king,' as to the sense;--only it is not impossible that Shakspeare's dramatic language may allow of the word, 'brows' or 'faces'

being understood after the word 'courtiers',' which might then remain in the genitive case plural. But the nominative plural makes excellent sense, and is sufficiently elegant, and sounds to my ear Shakspearian.

What, however, is meant by 'our bloods no more obey the heavens?'--Dr.

Johnson's a.s.sertion that 'bloods' signify 'countenances,' is, I think, mistaken both in the thought conveyed--(for it was never a popular belief that the stars governed men's countenances,) and in the usage, which requires an ant.i.thesis of the blood,--or the temperament of the four humours, choler, melancholy, phlegm, and the red globules, or the sanguine portion, which was supposed not to be in our own power, but, to be dependent on the influences of the heavenly bodies,--and the countenances which are in our power really, though from flattery we bring them into a no less apparent dependence on the sovereign, than the former are in actual dependence on the constellations.

I have sometimes thought that the word 'courtiers' was a misprint for 'countenances,' arising from an antic.i.p.ation, by foreglance of the compositor's eye, of the word 'courtier' a few lines below. The written 'r' is easily and often confounded with the written 'n'. The compositor read the first syllable 'court', and--his eye at the same time catching the word 'courtier' lower down--he completed the word without reconsulting the copy. It is not unlikely that Shakspeare intended first to express, generally the same thought, which a little afterwards he repeats with a particular application to the persons meant;--a common usage of the p.r.o.nominal 'our,' where the speaker does not really mean to include himself; and the word 'you' is an additional confirmation of the 'our' being used in this place, for men generally and indefinitely, just as 'you do not meet,' is the same as, 'one does not meet.'

Act i. sc. 2. Imogen's speech:--

--My dearest husband, I something fear my father's wrath; but nothing (Always reserv'd my holy duty) what His rage can do on me.

Place the emphasis on 'me;' for 'rage' is a mere repet.i.tion of 'wrath.'

'Cym'. O disloyal thing, That should'st repair my youth, thou heapest A year's age on me.

How is it that the commentators take no notice of the un-Shakspearian defect in the metre of the second line, and what in Shakspeare is the same, in the harmony with the sense and feeling? Some word or words must have slipped out after 'youth,'--possibly 'and see':--

That should'st repair my youth!--and see, thou heap'st, &c.

'Ib.' sc. 4. Pisanio's speech:--

--For so long As he could make me with _this_ eye or ear Distinguish him from others, &c.

But '_this_ eye,' in spite of the supposition of its being used [Greek (transliterated): deiktik_os], is very awkward. I should think that either 'or'--or 'the' was Shakspeare's word;--

As he could make me or with eye or ear.

'Ib.' sc. 7. Iachimo's speech:--

Hath nature given them eyes To see this vaulted arch, and the rich crop Of sea and land, which can distinguish 'twixt The fiery orbs above, and the twinn'd stones Upon the number'd beach.

I would suggest 'cope' for 'crop.' As to 'twinn'd stones'--may it not be a bold _catachresis_ for muscles, c.o.c.kles, and other empty sh.e.l.ls with hinges, which are truly twinned? I would take Dr. Farmer's 'umber'd,'

which I had proposed before I ever heard of its having been already offered by him: but I do not adopt his interpretation of the word, which I think is not derived from _umbra_, a shade, but from _umber_, a dingy yellow-brown soil, which most commonly forms the ma.s.s of the sludge on the sea sh.o.r.e, and on the banks of tide-rivers at low water. One other possible interpretation of this sentence has occurred to me, just barely worth mentioning;--that the 'twinn'd stones' are the _augrim_ stones upon the number'd beech, that is, the astronomical tables of beech-wood.

Act v. sc. 5.

'Sooth'. When as a lion's whelp, &c.

It is not easy to conjecture why Shakspeare should have introduced this ludicrous scroll, which answers no one purpose, either propulsive, or explicatory, unless as a joke on etymology.

t.i.tUS ANDRONICUS.

Act I. sc. 1. Theobald's note:

I never heard it so much as intimated, that he (Shakspeare) had turned his genius to stage-writing, before he a.s.sociated with the players, and became one of their body.

That Shakspeare never 'turned his genius to stage writing,' as Theobald most 'Theobaldice' phrases it, before he became an actor, is an a.s.sertion of about as much authority, as the precious story that he left Stratford for deerstealing, and that he lived by holding gentlemen's horses at the doors of the theatre, and other trash of that arch-gossip, old Aubrey. The metre is an argument against t.i.tus Andronicus being Shakspeare's, worth a score such chronological surmises. Yet I incline to think that both in this play and in Jeronymo, Shakspeare wrote some pa.s.sages, and that they are the earliest of his compositions.

Act v. sc. 2.

I think it not improbable that the lines from--

I am not mad; I know thee well enough;-- ...

So thou destroy Rapine, and Murder there.

were written by Shakspeare in his earliest period. But instead of the text--

Revenge, _which makes the foul offender quake.

't.i.t.' Art thou_ Revenge? and art thou sent to me?--

the words in italics [between underscores] ought to be omitted.