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Thou art resolv'd?

LEON.

I am resolv'd.

Enter MARINA, with a Basket of Flowers.

MAR. No, no, I will rob Tellus of her weed, To strew thy green with flowers: the yellows, blues,

As Marina had been trained in musick, letters, &c. and had gained all the graces of education, Lychorida could not have been her only mistress. I would therefore read:

Here comes she weeping for her old nurse's death.

PERCY.

I have no doubt but we should adopt the ingenious amendment suggested by Percy, with this difference only, the leaving out the word for, which is unnecessary, and hurts the metre. I

should therefore read:

Here she comes, weeping her old nurse's death.

M. MASON.

I have adopted Dr. Percy's amendment, but without Mr. M. Mason's attempt to improve it. The word for is necessary to the metre, as above in the preceding line was a modern interpolation. STEevens.

I think mistress right. Her nurse was in one sense her mistress; Marina, from her infancy to the age of fourteen, having been under the care of Lychorida.

Her only (or her old) mistress' death, (not "mistresses death,") was the language of Shakspeare's time. So, in The Merchant of Venice:

"With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear," &c. MALONE.

No, [no,] I will rob Tellus of her weed,

To strew thy green with flowers:] Thus the quartos. In the folio grave was substituted for green. By the green, as Lord Charlemont suggests to me, was meant "the green turf with which the grave of Lychorida was covered." So, in Tasso's Godfrey of Bulloigne, translated by Fairfax, 1600:

"My ashes cold shall, buried on this green, "Enjoy that good this body ne'er possest." Weed in old language meant garment. MALONE.

The purple violets, and marigolds,
Shall, as a chaplet, hang upon thy grave,
While summer days do last.

Ah me! poor maid,

Before we determine which is the proper reading, let us reflect a moment on the business in which Marina is employed. She is about to strew the grave of her nurse Lychorida with flowers, and therefore makes her entry with propriety, saying

No, no, I will rob Tellus &c.

i. e. No, no, it shall never be said that I left the tomb of one to whom I owe so much, without some ornament. Rather than it shall remain undecorated, I will strip the earth of its robe, &c. The prose romance, already quoted, says " that always as she came homeward, she went and washed the tombe of her and kept it contynually fayre and clene."

nouryce,

Though I do not recollect that the green hillock under which a person is buried, is any where called their green, my respect for Lord Charlemont's opinion has in this present instance withheld me from deserting the most ancient text, however dubious its authority. STEEVENS.

Shall, as a chaplet, [Old copy-carpet,] hang upon thy

grave,

While summer days do last.] So, in Cymbeline:

66

with fairest flowers,

"While summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,

"I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack
"The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor
"The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins, no nor
"The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander
"Out-sweeten'd not thy breath."

The word

Mr. Steevens would read-Shall as a chaplet, &c. hang, it must be owned, favours this correction, but the flowers strew'd on the green-sward, may with more propriety be compared to a carpet than a wreath. MALONE.

Malone informs us that all the former copies read-as a carpet, which was probably the right reading: nor would Steevens have changed it for chaplet had he attended to the beginning of Marina's speech:

"I will rob Tellus of her weed,
"To strew thy grave with flowers:"

which corresponds with the old reading, not with his amendment. M. MASON.

Perhaps Mr. M. Mason's remark also might have been spared,

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