And prologue to the omen coming on,'- I rather believe that fierce fignifies confpicuous, glaring. It is used in a fomewhat fimilar fenfe in Timon of Athens: "O the fierce wretchedness that glory brings!" Again, in King Henry VIII. we have "fierce vanities." STEEVENS. And prologue to the omen coming on,] But prologue and omen are merely fynonymous here. The poet means, that these ftrange phænomena are prologues and forerunners of the events prefag'd: and fuch fenfe the flight alteration which I have ven tured to make, by changing omen to omen'd, very aptly gives. THEOBALD. A diftich from the life of Merlin, by Heywood, however, will fhow that there is no occafion for correction : "Merlin well vers'd in many a hidden spell, "His countries omen did long fince foretell." FARMER, Again, in The Vowbreaker: "And much I fear the weakness of her braine "Should draw her to fome ominous exigent." Omen, I believe, is danger. STEEVENS. And even the like precurfe of fierce events, As harbingers preceding ftill the fates, And prologue to the omen coming on,] So, in one of our author's poems: "But thou fhrieking harbinger "Foul precurrer of the fiend, "Augur of the feyer's end," &c. The omen coming on is, the approaching dreadful and portentous event. So, in King Richard III: Thy name is ominous to children." i. e. (not boding ill fortune, but) deftructive to children. "O Pomfret, Pomfret, O, thou bloody prifon, Re-enter Ghoft. But, foft; behold! lo, where it comes again! Speak to me: If there be any good thing to be done; If thou art privy to thy country's fate, Or, if thou haft uphoarded 3 in thy life [Cock crows. Speak of it :-stay, and speak.-Stop it, Marcellus. MAR. Shall I ftrike at it with my partizan ? HOR. Do, if it will not ftand.4 BER. HOR. 'Tis here! 'Tis here! If thou hast any found,] The fpeech of Horatio to the spectre is very elegant and noble, and congruous to the common traditions of the caufes of apparitions. JOHNSON. 3 Or, if thou haft uphoarded &c.] So, in Decker's Knight's Conjuring, &c. "If any of them had bound the spirit of gold by any charmes in caves, or in iron fetters under the ground, they should for their own foules quiet (which questionleffe elfe would whine up and down) if not for the good of their children, release it." STEEVENS. Stop it, Marcellus. Hor. Do, if it will not ftand.] I am unwilling to suppose that Shakspeare could appropriate thefe abfurd effufions to Ho ratio, who is a scholar, and has fufficiently proved his good un MAR. 'Tis gone! We do it wrong, being fo majestical, [Exit Ghoft. BER. It was about to speak, when the cock crew. HOR. And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful fummons. I have heard, derstanding by the propriety of his addreffes to the phantom. Such a man therefore must have known that→→→ "As eafy might he the intrenchant air as commit any act of violence on the royal fhadow. The words -Stop it, Marcellus.-and Do, if it will not ftand-better fuit the next fpeaker, Bernardo, who, in the true fpirit of an unlettered officer, nihil non arroget armis. Perhaps the first idea that occurs to a man of this description, is to strike at what offends him. Nicholas Pouffin, in his celebrated picture of the Crucifixion, has introduced a fimilar occurrence. While lots are cafting for the facred vefture, the graves are giving up their dead. This prodigy is perceived by one of the foldiers, who inftantly grafps his fword, as if preparing to defend himself, or refent fuch an invafion from the other world. The two next fpeeches-'Tis here!-'Tis here!—may be allotted to Marcellus and Bernardo; and the third-Tis gone! &c. to Horatio, whofe fuperiority of character indeed feems to demand it. As the text now ftands, Marcellus proposes to strike the Ghoft with his partizan, and yet afterwards is made to defcant on the indecorum and impotence of fuch an attempt. The names of speakers have so often been confounded by the first publishers of our author, that I fuggeft this change with lefs hesitation than I fhould exprefs concerning any conjecture that could operate to the difadvantage of his words or meaning.-Had the affignment of the old copies been fuch, would it have been thought liable to objection? STEEVENS. S - it is, as the air, invulnerable,] So, in Macbeth: Again, in King John: Against the invulnerable clouds of heaven." MALONE. The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, • The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,] So, the quarto, 1604. Folio-to the day. In England's Parnaffus, 8vo. 1600, I find the two following lines afcribed to Drayton, but know not in which of his poems. they are found: "And now the cocke, the morning's trumpeter, Mr. Gray has imitated our poet : "The cock's fhrill clarion, or the echoing horn, Our Cambridge poet was more immediately indebted to Philips's Cider, B. I. 753: "When Chanticleer, with clarion fhrill, recalls Thus alfo, Spenfer, in his Fairy Queen, B. I. c. ii. f. 1: "And cheerful Chanticleer with his note fhrill. STEEVENS. 7 Whether in fea, &c.] According to the pneumatology of that" time, every element was inhabited by its peculiar order of fpirits, who had difpofitions different, according to their various places of abode. The meaning therefore is, that all Spirits extravagant, wandering out of their element, whether aerial fpirits vifiting earth, or earthly spirits ranging the air, return to their station, to their proper limits in which they are confined. We might read: And at his warning "Th' extravagant and erring fpirit hies But this change, though it would fmooth the conftruction, is not neceffary, and, being unneceffary, fhould not be made against authority. JOHNSON. A Chorus in Andreini's drama, called Adamo, written in 1613, confifts of fpirits of fire, air, water, and hell, or fubterraneous, being the exiled angels. "Choro di Spiriti ignei, aerei, acquatici, ed infernali," &c. Thefe are the demons to which Shakfpeare alludes. These spirits were fuppofed to control the elements in which they refpectively refided; and when formally invoked or commanded by a magician, to produce tempefts, con The extravagant and erring spirit 9 hies flagrations, floods, and earthquakes. For thus fays The Spani Mandeville of Miracles, &c. 1600: “ Those which are in the middle region of the ayre, and those that are under them nearer the earth, are thofe, which fometimes out of the ordinary operation of nature doe moove the windes with greater fury than they are accustomed; and do, out of feafon, congeele the cloudes, caufing it to thunder, lighten, hayle, and to deftroy the graffe, corne, &c. &c.- -Witches and negromancers worke many fuch like things by the help of thofe fpirits," &c. Ibid. Of this school therefore was Shakspeare's Profpero in The Tempest. T. WARTON. Bourne of Newcastle, in his Antiquities of the common People, informs us, "It is a received tradition among the vulgar, that at the time of cock-crowing, the midnight fpirits forfake these lower regions, and go to their proper places.-Hence it is, (fays he) that in country places, where the way of life requires more early labour, they always go chearfully to work at that time; whereas if they are called abroad fooner, they imagine every thing they fee a wandering ghoft." And he quotes on this occafion, as all his predeceffors had done, the well-known lines from the firft hymn of Prudentius. I know not whose translation he gives us, but there is an old one by Heywood. The pious chanfons, the hymns and carrols, which Shakspeare mentions prefently, were ufually copied from the elder Chriftian poets. • The extravagant-] i. e. got out of his bounds. So, in Nobody and Somebody, 1598: “— for a 'ftravagant." FARMER. WARBURTON. they took me up Shakspeare imputes the fame effect to Aurora's harbinger in the laft fcene of the third Act of the Midfummer Night's Dream. See Vol. IV. p. 432, n. 9. STEEVENS. 9 erring fpirit,] Erring is here used in the fenfe of wandering. Thus, in Chapman's verfion of the fourth Book of Homer's Odyffey, Telemachus calls Ulyffes My erring father:-" And in the ninth Book, Ulyffes describing himself and his companions to the Cyclop, fays Erring Grecians we, "From Troy were turning homewards-" Erring, in fhort, is erraticus. STEEVENS. |