Part 86

FOOTNOTES:

Milton.

"That the treachery of King John, the death of Arthur, and the grief of Constance, had a real truth in history, sharpens the sense of pain, while it hangs a leaden weight on the heart and the imagination. Something whispers us that we have no right to make a mock of calamities like these, or to turn the truth of things into the puppet and plaything of our fancies."--See Characters of Shakspeare's Plays.--To consider thus is not to consider too deeply, but not deeply enough.

Grave, in the sense of mighty or potent.

Fulvia, the first wife of Antony.

The well-known violence and coarseness of Queen Elizabeth's manners, in which she was imitated by the women about her, may in Shakspeare's time have rendered the image of a royal virago less offensive and less extraordinary.

She was as good as her word. See the life of Antony in Plutarch.

i. e. retinue.

i. e. silver coins, from the Spanish plata.

Cleopatra replies to the first word she hears on recovering her sense, "No more an empress, but a mere woman!"

i. e. sedate determination.--JOHNSON

The Cleopatra of Jodelle was the first regular French tragedy: the last French tragedy on the same subject was the Cléopatre of Marmontel. For the representation of this tragedy Vaucanson, the celebrated French mechanist, invented an automaton asp, which crawled and hissed to the life,--to the great delight of the Parisians. But it appears that neither Vaucanson's asp, nor Clairon, could save Cléopatre from a deserved fate. Of the English tragedies, one was written by the Countess of Pembroke, the sister of Sir Philip Sydney; and is, I believe, the first instance in our language, of original dramatic writing, by female.

"The sober eye of dull Octavia."--Act v. scene 2.

Octavia was never in Egypt.

"The Octavia of Dryden is a much more important personage than in the Antony and Cleopatra of Shakspeare. She is, however, more cold and unamiable, for in the very short scenes in which the Octavia of Shakspeare is introduced, she is placed in rather an interesting point of view. But Dryden has himself informed us that he was apprehensive that the justice of a wife's claim would draw the audience to her side, and lessen their interest in the lover and the mistress. He seems accordingly to have studiously lowered the character of the injured Octavia who, in her conduct to her husband, shows much duty and little love." Sir W. Scott (in the same fine piece of criticism prefixed to Dryden's All for Love) gives the preference to Shakspeare's Cleopatra.

In all, about two thousand pounds.

The corresponding passage in the old English Plutarch runs thus: "My son, why dost thou not answer me? Dost thou think it good altogether to give place unto thy choler and revenge, and thinkest thou it not honesty for thee to grant thy mother's request in so weighty a cause? Dost thou take it honorable for a nobleman to remember the wrongs and injuries done him, and dost not in like case think it an honest nobleman's part to be thankful for the goodness that parents do show to their children, acknowledging the duty and reverence they ought to bear unto them? No man living is more bound to show himself thankful in all parts and respects than thyself, who so universally showest all ingratitude. Moreover, my son, thou hast sorely taken of thy country, exacting grievous payments upon them in revenge of the injuries offered thee; besides, thou hast not hitherto showed thy poor mother any courtesy. And, therefore, it is not only honest, but due unto me, that without compulsion I should obtain my so just and reasonable request of thee. But since by reason I cannot persuade ye to it, to what purpose do I defer my last hope?" And with these words, herself, his wife, and children, fell down upon their knees before him.

Vide Daru, Histoire de Bretagne.

Vide Sir Peter Leycester's Antiquities of Chester.

By the treaty of Messina, 1190

Malone says, that "In expanding the character of the bastard, Shakspeare seems to have proceeded on the following slight hint in an old play on the story of King John:--

Next them a bastard of the king's deceased-- A hardy wild-head, rough and venturous."

It is easy to say this; yet who but Shakspeare could have expanded the last line into a Falconbridge?

The Greek Merope, which was esteemed one of the finest of the tragedies of Euripides, is unhappily lost; those of Maffei, Alfieri, and Voltaire, are well known. There is another Merope in Italian, which I have not seen: the English Merope is merely a bad translation from Voltaire.

"Queen Elinor saw that if he were king, how his mother Constance would look to bear the most rule in the realm of England, till her son should come of a lawful age to govern of himself."--HOLINSHED.

King John, Act iii, Scene 1.

Louis VII. of France, whom she was accustomed to call, in contempt, the monk. Elinor's adventures in Syria, whither she accompanied Louis on the second Crusade, would form a romance.

Henry II. of England. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the story of Fair Rosamond, as far as Elinor is concerned, is a mere invention of some ballad-maker of later times.