Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious town!

Farewell! your revels I partake no more,
And Lady Teazle's occupation's o'er!
All this I told our bard; he smiled, and
said 'twas clear,

I ought to play deep tragedy next year. Meanwhile he drew wise morals from his play,

And in these solemn periods stalk'd away:"Blessed were the fair like you; her faults who stopped,

And closed her follies when the curtain dropped!

No more in vice or error to engage,

Or play the fool at large on life's great stage."

NOTES

THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA

P. 10. Mrs. Ellen Gwyn. Nell Gwyn, who so captivated Charles II by her delivery of the Epilogue to Tyrannic Love that he immediately made her his mistress. She bore him a son on May 8, 1670, shortly before she acted the part of the virtuous Almahide in The Conquest of Granada.

t'other house's. The two theatrical companies were the King's at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, where The Conquest of Granada was acted, and the Duke's at the Dorset Garden Theatre. Nokes was a comedian in the latter company, and it is said that during the visit of the Duchess of Orleans and her suite to England in May, 1670, he caricatured French dress by means of a broad-brimmed hat.

two the best comedians. Nokes and Nell Gwyn, who, as actors of such comic parts, are mere "blocks for hats.

P. 11. To like. As to like.

The flying skirmish of the darted cane. A game in which horsemen galloping from all sides throw at one another a wooden javelin about five feet long, called the jerid.

P. 12. launched. Pierced.

attend. Await, as often.

mirador. A turret or belvedere on the top of a Spanish house.

escapade. A fit of plunging and rearing.

ventanna. A window.

prevents. Anticipate, as often.

atabals. Kettle-drums.

P. 13. ought. Owed.

villain-blood. Low origin.

P. 14. Xeriff. The still reigning royal family of Morocco.

P. 15. precarious. Supplicating.

P. 16. zambra. A Moorish festival or feast, attended with dancing and music. Here it is the dance alone.

lost the tale, and took 'em by the great.

a whole.

bands.

Bonds.

P. 17. our triumphs. Triumphs over us.

Lost count and treated them as

P. 19. while. Noyes suggests "till" as an emendation to meet the sense. P. 21. upon liking. On approval or trial.

[ocr errors]

P. 24. The quotation marks in the quartos and folio before these lines [near the top of first column] are evidently meant to emphasize them, or to point them out as suitable for quotation." (Noyes.)

P. 26. Age sets to fortune. Age gives a challenge to fortune, that is, will play only when it has a fortune on which it can risk the game, while youth will risk all, no matter what it has.

expect. Await.

P. 31. out. Without, outside. Cf. Timon of Athens, IV, i, 38, "Both within and out that wall."

equal. Impartial.

P. 32. benefit. Gift, favor.

P. 33. retrenchment. An inner line of defence within a large fortification. P. 35. deludes. Eludes.

P. 36. still. Always, as often.

hardly. With difficulty.

your sight. The sight of you.

on another's hand. For another's advantage.

still. Continually.

(Saintsbury.)

P. 38. this year's delay. Elapsed since the production of Tyrannic Love, Dryden's last play. Nell Gwyn was one of the women who were away for the reason indicated in the note to the Prologue.

ALL FOR LOVE

P. 43. bate. Abate.

Tonies. Fools, simpletons.

Hectors. Ruffians, later called "Scowerers" and "Mohocks." (See New English Dictionary.)

P. 44. rivelled. Wrinkled, shrivelled.

phoca. Seals.

sea-horses. Hippopotami.

P. 45. can. "The absolute use of can is probably an affectation of archaism on Dryden's part." (Noyes.)

O, she dotes, etc. A reminiscence of Midsummer Night's Dream, I, i, 108-110.

P. 46. eagerly. Keenly, impatiently.

influence. "Flowing from stars of ethereal fluid, affecting character and destiny of man." (N. E. D.) Frequent in Shakspere.

vulgar fate. "If this be the phonetic spelling of fête, it is a far earlier example than any given in the New English Dictionary.' (Furness, Antony and Cleopatra.)

"Enter a second Gentleman of M. Antony." Noyes' reading for "Reenter the Gentleman of M. Antony." It is justified "by the following speech headings and by the fact that the Gentleman mentioned [a hundred lines above] has never left the stage."

P. 47. I'm now turned wild, etc. This passage is suggested by As You Like It, II, i, 29-57. (See Introduction.)

Art thou Ventidius? The distinction between "thou" and "you" seems to be preserved here as in Shakspere. See elsewhere in the play.

P. 48. marches. Boundaries, frontiers.

used. Accustomed.

P. 49. O that thou wert my equal! Antony's standard of honor, like that prevailing in the "heroic" plays, is made to accord with the sentiment of Dryden's own time.

P. 50. May taste fate to them. "May act as their tasters in fortune." A reference to the officer who guarded the great from poison by tasting all dishes at a feast.

The riming close of the act recalls the tags of scenes in Shakspere's plays. P. 51. fearful. "Timid," as often in Shakspere. close. Secret.

The fable of the wren, who mounted to heaven concealed in the eagle's feathers and thus outstripped the king of birds in his flight, had already been used by Dryden in 2 Conquest of Granada, V, ii, 126. The story is

told by Alexander Neckham, De Naturis Rerum (122), at the end of the twelfth century, a century before Rabbi Baradji Nikdani's version of The Tale, cited by Noyes. Grimm includes the fable in his collection.

P. 55. I have refused a kingdom. Noyes contrasts Cleopatra's loyalty to Antony here with the faithlessness of Shakspere's Queen (Antony and Cleopatra, III, xiii, 73-78.)

P. 56. Phlegræan plains. The place that was fabled to have witnessed the conflict between the gods and the earth-born Titans.

like Vulcan. A reference to the snaring of Venus and Mars by Vulcan. (Odyssey, VIII, 266-366.)

There's no satiety, etc. This is obviously suggested by Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii, 240.

my father Hercules. This allusion to the supposed ancestor of the Antonies is drawn not from Shakspere, but directly from Plutarch.

P. 57. so one. So in accord.

Her galley down the silver Cydnos, etc. Scott's preference for Dryden's description of Cleopatra's barge over Shakspere's more famous picture (Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii, 196-223) is "founded upon the easy flow of the and the beauty of the language and imagery, which is flowing without diffusiveness and rapturous without hyperbole." This opinion is not shared by recent editors.

verse

P. 59. confess a man. Admit yourself a man.

mistakes. Misjudgments.

P. 61. want. Lack.

P. 62. Porc'pisce. Porpoise. Editors suggest that Alexis, like the porpoise, messenger of tempests, is fat and probably black.

P. 63. puts out. Brings to surface.

Gallus. This great general was pitted by Octavius against Antony in Egypt. His passion for Lycoris (Cytheris) which inspired his elegies, now lost, is the subject of Vergil's tenth eclogue. Ovid speaks of Delia's poet, the far greater Tibullus, as the successor of Gallus and his companion in the Elysian fields.

P. 64. Commerce. Stressed as in Shakspere on the second syllable until early in the eighteenth century.

P. 65. prove. Test. So p. 70.

every man's Cleopatra. An obvious reminiscence of Much Ado, III, ii, 108, "Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero." See Fielding's Tom Thumb, II, x, 13-15, p. 310.

P. 68. secure of injured faith. "Safe from any breach of confidence." (Noyes.)

P. 70. Egypt has been. Cf. Æneid, II, 325, "Fuit Ilium."

in few. In brief.

This needed not. "This was not necessary."

P. 74. I played booty with my life. "To play booty is 'to allow one's adversary to win at cards at first, in order to induce him to continue playing and victimize him afterwards' (Webster's International Dictionary). Antony's meaning is that Cæsar will suspect him of a sham attempt at suicide, in order to win compassion from the conqueror." (Noyes.)

P. 76. Mr. Bayes. Here Dryden refers to the name given him by Buckingham in The Rehearsal. See the use of the name in the Epilogues of She Stoops to Conquer and The School for Scandal.

writ of ease.

A certificate of discharge from employment.

(N. E. D.)

« EelmineJätka »