Nor get a messenger to bring it thee, Lau. Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood, John. Brother, I'll go and bring't thee. {Exit. Enter PARIS, and his PAGE bearing Flowers and a Torch. Par. Give me thy torch, boy: Hence and Yet put it out, for I would not be seen. Par. Sweet flower, with flowers I strew thy Sweet tomb, that in thy circuit dost contain [The boy whistles. The boy gives warning, something doth approach. What cursed foot wanders this way to-night, Rom. Give me that mattock, and the wrench- Hold, take this letter; early in the morning His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt. [Retires. Rom. Thou détestable maw, thou womb of death Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth, [Breaking open the Door of the Monument. And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food! Par. This is that banish'd haughty Monta gue, That murder'd my love's cousin ;-with which grief, It is supposed the fair creature died,— Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague; hither. Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man, gone; Let them affright thee.-I beseech thee, youth, Heap not another sin upon my head, By urging me to fury:-O be gone! By heaven, I love thee better than myself: For I come hither arm'd against myself: Stay not, begoue ;-live, and hereafter sayA madman mercy bade thee run away. Par. I do defy thy conjurations, * And do attach thee as a felon here. Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy. [They fight. Page. O lord! they fight: I will go call the watch. [Exit PAGE. Par. O I am slain! [Falls.]-If thou be merciful, [Dies. Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet. Mercutio's kinsman, noble county Paris :- call A lightning before death: Oh! how may I By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint, limbs : The time and my intents are savage-wild ; More fierce, and more inexorable far, Than empty tigers, or the roaring sea. twain, To sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin!-Ah! dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe Bal. I will be gone, Sir, and not trouble That unsubstantial Death is amorous; you. And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship.-Thee here in dark to be his paramour? Will I set up my everlasting rest; Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O you Thy drugs are quick.-Thus with a kiss I die. [Dies. O much I fear some ill unlucky thing. Bal. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here, 1 dreamt my master and another fought, And that my master slew him. Fri. Romeo? [Advances. Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains too? And steep'd in blood-Ah! what an unkind Is quilty of this lamentable chance!- [Noise within. Fri. I hear some noise.-Lady, come from Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep; Stay not to question, for the watch is coming; away, What's here? a cup, clos'd in my true love's band? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end :- • Conductor. To make me die with a restorative. Thy lips are warm! [Kisses him. i Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy :-Which way? Jul. Yea, noise ?-then I'll be brief.-O happy dagger ! [Snatching ROMEO's Dagger. This is thy sheath; [Stabs herself.] there rust, and let me die. [Falls on ROMEO's Body, and dies. Enter WATCH, with the PAGE of PARIS. Page. This is the place; there, where the torch doth burn. 1 Watch. The ground is bloody; Search about Go, some of you, whoe'er you find, attach. Enter some of the WATCH, with BALTHAZAR. 1 Watch. Hold him in safety, till the prince Enter another WATCHMAN, with Friar 3 Watch. Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs, and weeps: We took this mattock and this spade from him, too. Enter the PRINCE and Attendants. Prince. What misadventure is so early up, That calls our person from our morning's rest? Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, and others. Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek La. Cap. The people in the street cry- Some-Juliet, and some-Paris; and all run, Prince. What fear is this, which startles in 1 Watch. Sovereign, here lies the county And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before, Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul 1 Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd With instruments upon them, fit to open Cap. O heavens! O wife! look how our daugh- This dagger hath mista'en,-for lo! his house ⚫ Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath: Mon. O thou untaught! what manners is in To press before thy father to a grave? Prince. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while, 'Till we can clear these ambiguities, And know their spring, their head, their true descent; And then will I be general of your woes, All this I know; and to the marriage Prince. We still have known thee for a boly man. Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in this? Bal. I brought my master news of Juliet's death; And then in post he came from Mantua, And lead you even to death: Meantime for- To this same place, to this same monument. bear, And let mischance be slave to patience.— Fri. I am the greatest, able to do least, And here I stand, both to impeach and purge Prince. Then say at once what thou dost Fri. I will be brief, for my short date breath of Is not so long as is a tedious tale. And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful I married them; and their stolen-marriageday Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd. To County Paris :-Then comes she to me; But he which bore my letter, friar John, • Seat. This letter he early bid me give his father; lady's grave; And bid me stand aloof, and so I did: Prince. This letter doth make good the Their course of love, the tidings of her death: Where be these enemies? Capulet! Monta- See what a scourge is laid upon your hate, with love! And I, for winking at your discords too, Cap. O brother Montague, give me thy This is my daughter's jointure, for no more Mon. But I can give thee more: Cap. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie; The sun for sorrow will not show his bead: Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; Some shall be pardon'd, and some pun- For never was a story of more woe, Mercutio and Paris. [Exeunt. In the original story (to which this line refers) the prince tortures and hangs the apothecary; banishes the old nurse; pardons Romeo's servant; and allons Friar Laurence to retire to a hermitage in the vicinity of Verona. AS a piece for dramatic exhibition, this tragedy has been essentially improved by the celebrated Mr. Garrick: not only in the style and language, by which the jingle and quibble of many of its passages are expunged, but also by the transposition of several scenes, and by the following essential deviation from the original plot : As amended by him, and represented at present, no mention is made of Rosaline, and the sudden and unnatural change af Romeo's affection from her to Juliet is thereby avoided : Juliet also revives from her death-like slumber before the potion has fully operated upon the frame of Romeo, and he dies in her arms, after attempting to carry her from the tomb. By this most judicious alteration, the pathos of the scene is heightened to its highest pitch; for nothing can be more melting than the incidents and expressions which so highly-wrought a catastrophe affords. In the Italian story upon which the play is founded, such was actually the development of the plot; but Shakspeare had certainly recourse to the English or French translation; in which this addition to the tale was upon semt account emitted. CYMBELINE. LITERARY AND HISTORICAL NOTICE. MALONE supposes that Shakspeare wrote Cymbeline in the year 1605. The main incidents upon which the plot terus, occur in a novel of Boccaccio's; but our poet obtained them in a different shape, from an old storybook entitled Westward for Smelts. Cymbeline, who gives name to the play, but is a cipher of royalty, began to reign over Britain in the 19th year of Augustus Caesar. He filled the throne during thirty-five years, leaving two sons, Guiderius and Arviragus. The play commences in the 16th year of the Christian era, which was the 24th year of Cymbeline's reign, and the 42nd of Augustus's. The subject of the piece is disjointed and much too diffuse: it exhibits some monstrous breaches of dramatic unity, and several very languid and make-shift scenes. Bet the part of Imogen is most delicately and delightfully drawn ; her ideas are remarkably luxuriaat, yet restrained; and the natural warmth of her affections is, in many instances, most beautifully expressed. Cloten is an incongruous animal, with some strong points about him; and a fine contrast to Posthumus, who is sketched with great judgment, feeling, and consistency. The Queen is an unfinished character, desirous of producing mischief, but possessing neither energy nor ability to accomplish her schemes; and though lachimo's cunning is portrayed with uncommon skill in his first attempt upon Imogen's virtue, yet his subsequent penitence and candour (however conducive to the moral) are not consistent with the usual hardihood of so thorough-paced a villain. Notwithstanding its fine passages and affecting incidents, this play was lost to the stage until Garrick undertook to revise it, by the abridgment of some scenes, and the transposition of others, it was reduced within the compass of a night's performance; and has since continued a periodical favourite with the public. Dr. Johnson decides the merits of this historical drama in the following summary manner t "To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the names and manners of different times, and the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation." No one can deny the elegance or point of the Doctor's critical sentences, nor their murderous efficiency when meant to despatch an adversary at a single blow; but the greatest fault of our poet consists in his having christened some characters of the first century with names which belonged to the fifteenth; and in his having seasoned their antique Roman bouesty with a smattering of modern Italian villany. CYMBELINE, King of Britain. DRAMATIS PERSONE. JA ROMAN CAPTAIN. TWO BRITISH CAPTAINS. CLOTEN, Son to the Queen by a former hus- PISANIO, Servant to Posthumus. band. CORNELIUS, a Physician. LEONATUS POSTHUMUS, a Gentleman, Hus-Two GENTLEMEN. band to Imogen. BELARIUS, a banished Lord, disguised under GUIDERIUS, Italians. PHILARIO, Friend to Posthumus, TWO JAILERS. QUEEN, Wife to Cymbeline. Lords, Ladies, Roman Senators, Tribunes, SCENE, sometimes in Britain; sometimes in Italy. ACT I. SCENE 1.-Britain.-The Garden behind Enter two GENTLEMEN. 1 Gent. His daughter, and the heir of his He purpos'd to his wife's sole son, (a widow, 1 Geat. You do not meet a man, but frowns: Is outward sorrow; though, I think, the king our bloods. No more obey the heavens, than our courtiers; Still seem, as does the king's. † 2 Gent. But what's the matter? Be touch'd at very heart. 2 Gent. None but the king? 1 Gent. He, that hath lost her, too: so is the queen, [tier, That most desir'd the match: But not a courof the king's looks, hath a heart that is not Although they wear their faces to the bent Glad at the thing they scowl at. 2 Gent. And why so? 1 Gent. He that hath miss'd the princess, is thing a Too bad for bad report: and he that hath her, In him that should compare. I do not think 2 Gent. You speak him far. * 1 Gent. I do extend him, Sir, within himself; Crush him together, rather than unfold His measure duly. 2 Gent. What's his name, and birth? 1 Gent. I cannot delve him to the root: His Was call'd Sicilius, who did join his honour So soon as I can win the offended king, I will be known your advocate: marry, yet Imo. O Dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant I something fear my father's wrath; but no- His rage can do on me: You must be gone; Post. My queen! my mistress! O lady, weep no more; lest I give cause (Then old and fond of issue,) took such sorrow, The loyal'st husband that did e'er plight troth. As we do air, fast as 'twas minister'd; and My residence in Rome at one Philario's; Re-enter QUEEN. Queen. Be brief, I pray you: him To walk this way: I never do him wrong, Post. Should we be taking leave [Erit. As long a term as yet we have to live, But, 'pray you, tell me, Were you but riding forth to air yourself, 2 Gent. I honour bim Even out of your report. Is she sole child to the king ? 1 Gent. His only child. He had two sons, (if this be worth your hearing, Mark it,) the eldest of them at three years old, I'the swathing clothes the other, from their nursery [knowledge Were stolen and, to this hour, no guess in Which way they went. 2 Gent. How long is this ago? 1 Gent. Some twenty years. 2 Gent. That a king's children should be So slackly guarded! And the search so slow, 1 Gent. Howsoe'er 'tis strange, Or that the negligence may well be laugh'd at, 2 Gent. I do well believe you. so I Gent. We must forbear: Here come the queen and princess. SCENE II.-The same. Exeunt. Such parting were too petty. Look here, love; Post. How! how! another?- As I my poor self did exchange for you, To your so infinite loss; so, in our trifles I still win of you: For my sake, wear this; It is a manacle of love: I'll place it Upon this fairest prisoner. [Putting a Bracelet on her Arm. Imo. O the gods! When shall we see again? Enter CYMBELINE and LORDS. Post. Alack, the king! Cym. Thou basest thing, avoid! hence, from my sight! If, after this command, thou fraught the court Post. The gods protect you! Imo. There cannot be a pinch in death Cym. O disloyal thing, • Close up. [Exit. |