P. 143. I never saw the chain. So help me Heaven, As this is false you burden me withal. The original reads "the Chaine, so helpe me heaven: And this is false," &c. The correction is Dyce's, who still thinks it "absolutely necessary, though Mr. Grant White has pronounced it 'quite needless.'" And he justly quotes from a preceding speech of Adriana's: "So befall my soul, as this is false he burdens me withal." P. 145. Æge. If I dream not, thou art Æmilia. - The original misplaces this speech of Ægeon and Æmilia's reply to it, inserting them between the last two lines of the Duke's following speech. The transposition was made by Capell, and is generally accepted. P. 146. Besides her urging of the wreck at sea.- -The old copies read "urging of her wreck." Some have supposed her to be a misprint for his. Probably the word got repeated by mistake. The correction is Walker's. P. 147. And thereupon these errors all arose. 66 have errors are arose." "these Errors rare arose.' Corrected by Rowe. -The old copies Staunton prints P. 147. Twenty-five years have I but gone in travail Of you, my sons; and, till this present hour, My heavy burden ne'er delivered. - Here, in the first line, the original has "Thirtie three yeares." Twenty-five is known to be right, because Ægeon has said that he had parted from his son seven years before, the latter being then eighteen. The correction was made by Theobald. In the third line, also, the original reads "burthen are delivered." We owe the happy emendation to Dyce. P. 147. And you the calendars of their nativity, Go to a gossips' feast, and joy with me; - After so long grief, such felicity! Here the original has, in the second line," and go with me." The apt correction, joy, was proposed by Heath, and is adopted by Singer, White, and Dyce. — In the third line, again, the original has "such nativity," thus repeating the word from the end of the first. The correction is Hanmer's. Walker notes upon the passage thus: "For the second nativity, read, not as is suggested in the Variorum edition, festivity, but felicity." P. 148. Master, shall I go fetch your stuff from ship-board? — So Walker. The old copies lack go. THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. IRST printed in the folio of 1623. Also mentioned by FIRS Meres, in his Palladis Tamia, 1598. Beyond this, we have no external indication as to the date of composition; though the internal evidence, of style, diction, dramatic structure, and delineation of character, is conclusive of its having been among the earliest-written of Shakespeare's comedies. No note has been discovered of the performance of this play during the author's life. Doubtless it was put upon the stage, for Shakespeare had no thought of writing dramas merely for the closet; but, if it had been acted as often as his other plays, we should most likely have some record of the performance, as we have in the case of so many others. Notwithstanding its superiority to most of the plays then in use from other hands, its comparative excess of the rhetorical over the dramatic elements may have made it less popular in that most action-loving age than many far below it in all other respects. No novel or romance has been found, to which the Poet could have been much indebted for the plot or matter of this play. In the part of Julia and her maid Lucetta there are indeed some points of resemblance to the Diana of George Montemayor, a Spanish romance at that time very popular in England, and of which an English translation by Bartholomew Yonge was published in 1598. The Diana is one of the books spared from the bonfire of Don Quixote's library, because, in the words of the Priest who superintends the burning, "They do not deserve to be burnt like the rest, for they cannot do the mischief that those of chivalry have done: they are works of genius and fancy, and do nobody any hurt." The part from which Shakespeare is thought to have borrowed is the story of Felismena, the heroine : 66 'My father having early followed my mother to the tomb, I was left an orphan. Henceforth I resided with a distant relative; and, at the age of seventeen, fell in love with Don Felix, a young nobleman of the province where I lived. The object of my affections felt a reciprocal passion; but his father, having learned the attachment between us, sent his son to Court with a view to prevent our union. Soon after his departure, I followed him in the disguise of a page, and on the night of my arrival discovered, by a serenade I heard him give, that he had disposed of his affections. Not being recognized, I was taken into his service, and engaged to conduct the correspondence with the mistress who had supplanted me." Though Yonge's version of the Diana was not published till 1598, the story was generally well known before that time; parts of it were translated in Sidney's Arcadia, which came out in 1590; and there is reason to think that the History of Felix and Philiomena, which was acted at Court as far back as 1582, was a play partly founded on the story of Felix and Felismena. So that, Shakespeare being admitted to have followed the tale in question, he might well enough have been familiar with it long before Yonge's translation appeared. But, indeed, such and similar incidents were the common staple of romances in that age. And the same may be said touching the matter of Valentine's becoming captain of the outlaws; for which the Poet has been written down as indebted to Sidney's Arcadia. SCENE.-In Verona; in Milan; and in a forest near Milan. ACT I. SCENE I. Verona. An open Place in the City. Enter VALENTINE and PROTEUS. Val. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus : To see the wonders of the world abroad, Than, living dully sluggardized at home, 1 Milton has a similar play upon words in his Comus: "It is for homely features to keep home; they had their name thence." Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.2 But, since thou lovest, love still, and thrive therein, Pro. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu ! Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel: When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger, Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers, Val. And on a love-book pray for my success? Pro. That's a deep story of a deeper love; For he was more than over shoes in love. Val. 'Tis true; and you are over boots in love, And yet you never swam the Hellespont. Pro. Over the boots! nay, give me not the boots.4 I will not, for it boots not. 2 Shapeless in the active sense of unshaping; as idleness does nothing towards shaping the mind and character. So the Poet has helpless repeatedly for unhelping or affording no help. 8 A beadsman is one bound or pledged to pray for another's welfare. Bead, in fact, is Anglo-Saxon for prayer, and so for the small wooden balls which are strung together in what is called a rosary, and one of which dropped down the string as often as a prayer is said. Hence the name, if not the thing, "a string of beads." Not the only instance of piety turned to account as an ornament or a beautifier. 4 An old proverbial phrase, meaning "Don't make me a laughing-stock." The French have a phrase, Bailler foin en corne; which Cotgrave interprets, "To give one the boots; to sell him a bargain"; or, as we say, "to sell him." |