no queen of virgins, that would fuffer her poor knight to be surprised, without rescue, in the first affault, or ranfom afterward: This the deliver'd in the most bitter touch of forrow, that e'er I heard virgin exclaim in: which I held my duty, fpeedily to acquaint you withal; fithence, in the lofs that may happen, it concerns you fomething to know it. COUNT. You have discharged this honestly; keep it to yourself: many likelihoods inform'd me of this before, which hung fo tottering in the balance, that I could neither believe, nor misdoubt: Pray you, leave me: ftall this in your bofom, and I thank you for your honeft care: I will fpeak with you further anon. [Exit Steward. Enter HELENA. COUNT. Even fo it was with me, when I was young: If we are nature's,' these are ours; this thorn Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong; Our blood to us, this to our blood is born; Love, no god, &c. Diana, no queen of virgins, &c.] This paffage ftands thus in the old copies: Love, no god, that would not extend his might only where qualities were level; queen of virgins, that would fuffer her poor knight, &c. 'Tis evident to every fenfible reader that fomething must have flipt out here, by which the meaning of the context is rendered defective. The fteward is fpeaking in the very words he overheard of the young lady; fortune was no goddess, she said, for one reafon; love, no god, for another;-what could she then more naturally fubjoin, than as I have amended in the text. Diana, no queen of virgins, that would fuffer her poor knight to be furprised without rescue, &c. For in poetical history Diana was as well known to prefide over chaftity, as Cupid over love, or Fortune over the change or regulation of our circumftances. THEOBALD. fuhence,] i. e. fince. So, in Spenfer's State of Ireland: the beginning of all other evils which futhence have af It is the fhow and feal of nature's truth, Where love's strong paffion is imprefs'd in youth: By our remembrances of days foregone, 4 Such were our faults;-or then we thought them none." Her eye is fick on't; I obferve her now. HEL. What is your pleasure, madam? I am a mother to you. You know, Helen, HEL. Mine honourable mistress. COUNT. Nay, a mother; Why not a mother? When I faid, a mother, Methought you faw a ferpent: What's in mother, That you start at it? I fay, I am your mother; And put you in the catalogue of those That were enwombed mine: 'Tis often feen, Adoption ftrives with nature; and choice breeds A native flip to us from foreign feeds: " flicted that land." Chaucer frequently ufes fith, and fithen, in the fame fenfe. STEEVENS. 3 If we are nature's,] The old copy reads-If ever we are nature's. STEEVENS. The emendation was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 4 By our remembrances-] That is, according to our recollection, So we fay, he is old by my reckoning. JOHNSON. 5 Such were our faults;-or then we thought them none.] We fhould read: O! then we thought them none. A motive for pity and pardon, agreeable to fact, and the indulgent character of the fpeaker. This was fent to the Oxford editor, and he altered O, to though. WARBURTON. Such were the faulty weaknesses of which I was guilty in my youth, or fuch at leaft were then my feelings, though perhaps at that period of my life I did not think they deferved the name of faults. Dr. Warburton, without neceffity, as it seems to me, reads "O! then we thought them none;"—and the fubfequent editors adopted the alteration. MALONE. and choice breeds A native flip to us from foreign feeds :] And our choice furnishes You ne'er opprefs'd me with a mother's groan, HEL. COUNT. I fay, I am your mother. That I am not. HEL. Pardon, madam; The count Roufillon cannot be my brother: I am from humble, he from honour'd name; No note upon my parents, his all noble: My master, my dear lord he is; and I His fervant live, and will his vaffal die: He must not be my brother. COUNT. Nor I your mother? HEL. You are my mother, madam; 'Would you were (So that my lord, your fon, were not my brother,) Indeed, my mother!—or were you both our mothers, I care no more for, than I do for heaven, us with a flip propagated to us from foreign feeds, which we educate and treat, as if it were native to us, and fprung from ourselves. What's the matter, That this diffemper'd meffenger of wet, НЕАТИ, The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye?] There is fomething exquifitely beautiful in this reprefentation of that fuffufion of colours which glimmers around the fight when the eye-lashes are wet with tears. The poet hath defcribed the fame appearance in his Rape of Lucrece : "And round about her tear-diftained eye HENLEY. 8 So I were not his fifter: Can't no other, God fhield, you mean it not! daughter, and mother, or were you both our mothers, I care no more for, than I do for heaven, So I were not his fifter:] There is a defigned ambiguity: 1 care no more for, is, I care as much for.-I wish it equally. FARMER. In Troilus and Creffida we find- "I care not to be the loufe of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus." There the words certainly mean, I fhould not be forry or unwilling to be, &c. According to this, then, the meaning of the paffage before us fhould be, "If you were mother to us both, it would not give me more folicitude than heaven gives me,-fo I were not his fifter." But Helena certainly would not confess an indifference about her future ftate, However, the may mean, as Dr. Farmer has fuggefted, " I should not care more than, but equally as, I care for future happiness; I should be as content, and folicit it as much, as I pray for the blifs of heaven." MALONE. 9—Can't no other, But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?] The meaning is obfcured by the elliptical diction. Can it be no other way, but if I be your daughter, he must be my brother? JOHNSON. -frive-] To ftrive is to contend. So, in Cymbeline: "That it did strive in workmanship and value.' Now I fee The mystery of your lonelinefs, and find " STEEVENS. Your falt tears' head.] The old copy reads-loveliness. STEEVENS. The mystery of her loveliness is beyond my comprehenfion: the old Countess is faying nothing ironical, nothing taunting, or in reproach, that this word fhould find a place here; which it could not, unless farcaftically employed, and with fome fpleen. I dare VOL. VI. You love my fon; invention is afham'd, 4 That truth fhould be fufpected: Speak, is't fo? HEL. Do not you love him, madam? COUNT. Go not about; my love hath in't a bond, Whereof the world takes note: come, come, difclofe warrant the poet meant his old lady fhould fay no more than this: "I now find the mystery of your creeping into corners, and weeping, and pining in fecret." For this reafon I have amended the text, loneliness. The Steward, in the foregoing fcene, where he gives the Countess intelligence of Helena's behaviour, fays "Alone he was, and did communicate to herself, her own words to her own ears. THEOBALD. The late Mr. Hall had corrected this, I believe, rightly,-your lowlinefs. TYRWHITT. I think Theobald's correction as plaufible. To choose folitude is a mark of love. STEEVENS, Your falt tears' head.] The fource, the fountain of your tears, the caufe of your grief. JOHNSON. 4 nature. in their kind-] i. e, in their language, according to their STEEVENS. |