(Servile to all the skiey influences,) That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st", "Of what is't fools make such vain keeping? "Their death a hideous storm of terror." See also, the Glossary to Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. of The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, v. kepe. MALONE. 6 That DOST this habitation, where thou keep'st,] Sir T. Hanmer changed dost to do, without necessity or authority. The construction is not, "the skiey influences that do," but, "a breath thou art, that dost," &c. If "Servile to all the skiey influences," be inclosed in a parenthesis, all the difficulty will vanish. PORSON. 7 - merely, thou art DEATH'S FOOL; For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun, And yet run'st toward him still:] In those old farces called Moralities, the fool of the piece, in order to show the inevitable approaches of death, is made to employ all his stratagems to avoid him; which, as the matter is ordered, bring the fool, at every turn, into his very jaws. So that the representations of these scenes would afford a great deal of good mirth and morals mixed together. And from such circumstances, in the genius of our ancestors' publick diversions, I suppose it was, that the old proverb arose of being merry and wise. WARBURTON. Such another expression as death's fool, occurs in The Honest Lawyer, a comedy, by S. S. 1616: Wilt thou be a fool of fate? who can "Prevent the destiny decreed for man?" STEEvens. It is observed by the editor of The Sad Shepherd, 8vo. 1783, p. 154, that the initial letter of Stow's Survey contains a representation of a struggle between Death and the Fool: the figures of which were most probably copied from those characters as formerly exhibited on the stage. REED. There are no such characters as Death and the Fool, in any old Morality now extant. They seem to have existed only in the dumb Shows. The two figures in the initial letter of Stow's Survey, 1603, which have been mistaken for these two personages, have no allusion whatever to the stage, being merely one of the set known by the name of Death's Dance, and actually copied from the margin of an old Missal. The scene in the For all the accommodations that thou bear'st, Are nurs'd by baseness: Thou art by no means valiant ; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm 9: Thy best of rest is sleep, modern pantomime of Harlequin Skeleton, seems to have been suggested by some playhouse tradition of Death and the Fool. See Pericles, Act III. Sc. II. STEEVENS. RITSON. 8 Are nurs'd by BASENESS:] Dr. Warburton is undoubtedly mistaken in supposing that by baseness is meant self-love, here assigned as the motive of all human actions. Shakspeare only meant to observe, that a minute analysis of life at once destroys that splendour which dazzles the imagination. Whatever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by baseness, by offices of which the mind shrinks from the contemplation. All the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles and the dunghill, all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry, and all the pomp of ornament dug from among the damps and darkness of the mine. JOHNSON. This is a thought which Shakspeare delights to express. our dungy earth alike "Feeds man as beast." Again : 9 "Which sleeps, and never palates more the dung, the soft and tender FORK Of a poor wORM:] Worm is put for any creeping thing or serpent. Shakspeare supposes falsely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a serpent wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is forked. He confounds reality and fiction; a serpent's tongue is soft, but not forked nor hurtful. If it could hurt, it could not be soft. In A Midsummer-Night's Dream he has the same notion: "With doubler tongue "Than thine, O serpent, never adder stung." JOHNSON. Shakspeare mentions the "adder's fork" in Macbeth; and might have caught this idea from old tapestries or paintings, in which the tongues of serpents and dragons always appear barbed like the point of an arrow. STEEVENS. For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains tain; For thy complexion shifts to strange effects", After the moon: If thou art rich, thou art poor; For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows* Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more.] Evidently from the following passage of Cicero: "Habes somnum imaginem mortis, eamque quotidie induis, et dubitas quin sensus in morte nullus sit, cùm in ejus simulacro videas esse nullum sensum." But the Epicurean insinuation is, with great judgment, omitted in the imitation. WARBURTON. Here Dr. Warburton might have found a sentiment worthy of his animadversion. I cannot without indignation find Shakspeare saying, that death is only sleep, lengthening out his exhortation by a sentence which in the Friar is impious, in the reasoner is foolish, and in the poet trite and vulgar. JOHNSON. This was an oversight in Shakspeare; for in the second scene of the fourth Act, the Provost speaks of the desperate Barnardine, as one who regards death only as a drunken sleep. STEEVENS. I apprehend Shakspeare means to say no more, than that the passage from this life to another is as easy as sleep; a position in which there is surely neither folly nor impiety. MALONE, 2-Thou art not thyself;] Thou art perpetually repaired and renovated by external assistance, thou subsistest upon foreign matter, and hast no power of producing or continuing thy own being. JOHNSON. 3 - strange EFFECTS,] For effects read affects; that is, affections, passions of mind, or disorders of body variously affected. So, in Othello : "The young affects." JOHNSON. When I consider the influence of the moon on the human mind, I am inclined to read with Johnson-affects instead of― effects. We cannot properly say that the mind "shifts to strange effects." M. MASON. like an ass, whose back with INGOTS bows,] This simile is far more ancient than Shakspeare's play. It occurs in T. Churchyard's Discourse of Rebellion, &c. 1570: Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Of palsied eld: and when thou art old, and rich, "Rebellion thus, with paynted vizage brave, "Leads out poore soules (that knowes not gold from glas) "Who beares the packe and burthen like the asse." STEEVENS. We meet with a similar comparison in Whitney's Emblems In Avaros : "This caitiffe wretche with pined corpes lo heare, 66 Compared right unto the foolishe asse, "Whose backe is fraighte with cates and daintie cheare, "Yet beares he that which settes his teeth on edge, Whitney's description of an ass bearing cates, it may be observed, corresponds with English customs; but an ass bearing ingots is an Eastern image, and was probably derived from the Scriptures. See Isaiah, xxx. 6. MALONE. 5-serpigo,] The serpigo is a kind of fetter. STEEVENS. 6 Thou hast nor youth, nor age; But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Dreaming on both :] This is exquisitely imagined. When we are young, we busy ourselves in forming schemes for succeeding time, and miss the gratifications that are before us; when we are old, we amuse the languor of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; so that our life, of which no part is filled with the business of the present time, resembles our dreams after dinner, when the events of the morning are mingled with the designs of the evening. JOHNSON. 7-palsied ELD;] Eld is generally used for old age, decrepiIt is here put for old people, persons worn with years. tude. So, in Marston's Dutch Courtesan, 1604 : "Let colder eld their strong objections move." Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty9, To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this, Again, in our author's Merry Wives of Windsor: "The superstitious idle-headed eld." Gower uses it for age as opposed to youth: 8 "His elde had turned into youth." De Confessione Amantis, lib. v. fol. 106. STEEVENS. for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld; and when thou art old, and rich, Thou hast neither heat, &c.] The drift of this period is to prove, that neither youth nor age can be said to be really enjoyed, which, in poetical language, is-"We have neither youth nor age." But how is this made out? That age is not enjoyed, he proves by recapitulating the infirmities of it, which deprive that period of life of all sense of pleasure. To prove that youth is not enjoyed, he uses these words: 66 for all thy blessed youth "Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Out of which, he that can deduce the conclusion, has a better knack at logick than I have. I suppose the poet wrote 66 For pall'd, thy blazed youth "Becomes assuaged; and doth beg the alms i. e. when thy youthful appetite becomes palled, as it will be in the very enjoyment, the blaze of youth is at once assuaged, and thou immediately contractest the infirmities of old age; as particularly the palsy and other nervous disorders, consequent on the inordinate use of sensual pleasures. This is to the purpose, and proves youth is not enjoyed, by shewing the short duration of it. WARBURTON. Here again I think Dr. Warburton totally mistaken. Shakspeare declares that man has neither youth nor age; for in youth, which is the happiest time, or which might be the happiest, he commonly wants means to obtain what he could enjoy; he is dependent on palsied eld; must beg alms from the coffers of hoary avarice; and being very niggardly supplied, becomes as aged, looks, like an old man, on happiness which is beyond his reach. And, when he is old and rich, when he has wealth enough for the purchase of all that formerly excited his desires, he has no longer the powers of enjoyment: "has neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, I have explained this passage according to the present reading, |