Chapter CXXIV: Act V: SCENE 3. Page 607

PER. Heav'ns make a _star_ of him!

So in 1 _Henry VI._ Act I.

"A far more glorious star thy soul will make
Than Julius Cæsar----"

This notion is borrowed from the ancients, who expressed their mode of conferring divine honours and immortality on men, by placing them among the stars. Thus on a medal of Hadrian the adopted son of Trajan and Plotina, the divinity of his parents is expressed by placing a star over their heads; and in like manner the consecration medals of Faustina the elder exhibit her on an eagle, her head surrounded with stars. Other similar medals have the moon and stars; and some of Faustina the younger the inscription SIDERIBVS RECEPTA.

THE CLOWN.

Although Boult, the servant to the pandar and his wife, is not termed a _clown_ in the _dramatis personæ_, it should seem that he has an equal claim to the appellation with several other low characters that have been introduced into plays for the purpose of amusing the audience. He bears some affinity to the tapster in _Measure for measure_; but there is nothing that immediately constitutes him the jester to a brothel. See what has been said on such a character in the article relating to the clown in _Measure for measure_.

ON THE STORY OF PERICLES.

As the very great popularity of this play in former times may be supposed to have originated rather from the interest which the _story_, replete with incident, must have excited, than from any intrinsic merit as _a dramatic composition_, it may be worth while, and even interesting to many, to give the subject more ample discussion. To trace it beyond the period in which the favourite romance of _Apollonius Tyrius_ was composed, would be a vain attempt. That was the probable original; but of its author nothing decisive has been discovered. The following circumstance, however, has led to a conjecture concerning him, which shall be stated with as much brevity as possible. When Tarsia, the Marina of Pericles, has finished the song which she addresses to her unknown father Apollonius, she receives from him a hundred pieces of gold, with a command to leave him. Athenagoras, the Lysimachus of Pericles, afterwards meets her, gives her two hundred pieces, and prevails on her to make another effort to sooth the melancholy of Apollonius. She returns to him, requests permission to renew their conversation, and insists on his taking back his money, unless he can expound certain riddles which she proceeds to state. Now these riddles, three in number, are to be found in a work entitled _Symposii ænigmata_. The original editor of this book, Pierre Pithou, thought fit, without the smallest authority, to entitle the supposed author Cælius Firmianus Symposius. Heuman, a subsequent editor, placing implicit confidence in this name, maintained that this person could be no other than the celebrated father of the church Cælius Firmianus Lactantius; for having found that he had written a work, now lost, under the title of _Symposium_, he concluded that the name of _Symposius_, which occurs at the beginning of the ænigmas, was a mistake, and that he had therefore proved his point. But this futile reasoning was easily subverted by the superior critical talents of the truly learned Fabricius, who demonstrated the impossibility of such an error, and that Heuman had even misconceived the meaning of the word _Symposium_, which could not apply to a work like the ænigmas. Besides, the evidence of Saint Jerome remained to show that the symposium was not written, like the ænigmas, in hexameter verses. Lactantius is therefore out of the question; and though there is no immediate proof respecting the time in which Symposius lived, it appears that it must have been before the eighth century, as bishop Aldhelm, who died in 709, quotes the ænigmas _as composed by Symposius the poet_. This, and many other circumstances, sufficiently identify him against the ill-founded assertions of Heuman, who regarded him as a nonentity. Aldhelm himself wrote ænigmas so much in the manner of Symposius, that one might reasonably enough infer there was no great difference in their respective ages. The learned Barthius (see his _Adversaria_, lib. lviii. c. 1.), fully persuaded of the reality of Symposius, and acquainted with the occurrence of the riddles in the history of _Apollonius Tyrius_, concluded, with other learned men, that Symposius wrote the latter; and he justly terms the author _dulcis scriptor et eruditus_, as will be evident to any one who will take the trouble of reading it in Velser's edition, which is printed from a better manuscript than those used in the _Gesta Romanorum_. If, as Velser maintains, and Barthius admits, it was originally written in Greek, a difficulty arises with respect to Symposius, unless he be regarded as the translator. But, to say the truth, there does not appear to be any solid reason for supposing him the author, or even translator. It is not very probable that in either character he would have introduced his own matter from another work; and therefore, until some more fortunate discovery shall occur, the romance of Apollonius Tyrius must remain anonymous.

With respect to the language in which it was composed, Velser was of opinion, from certain Græco-Latin words which it contains, that this was Greek, and he speaks rather obscurely of a manuscript of it in that language at Constantinople. He seems to think that the translator was a Christian, living about the period of the decline of the Roman empire. Barthius conceived him to have been a monk of the sixth century. The _Saxon_ translation mentioned in Wanley's list of manuscripts, and now in Bennett College, Cambridge, is doubtless from the Latin, and is alone a sufficient testimony of the antiquity of the work. At what time it was made must be left to the decision of those who are critically skilled in the Saxon language. One Constantine is said to have translated it into modern Greek verse about the year 1500; and this is probably the manuscript mentioned in Dufresne's index of authors, and afterwards printed at Venice in 1563. Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed that Velser was not aware of its having been already published in the _Gesta Romanorum_; and it may be added that it had been printed separately at Augsburg in 1471; perhaps as early as in the _Gesta Romanorum_; a fact that cannot well be ascertained, because there are editions of the latter without date which might have been printed before. Mr. Warton has committed a slight mistake in supposing that Alamannus Rinucinus made a Latin translation corrected by Beroaldus about the year 1520.[19] Vossius, whom he had misconceived, was speaking of a translation of Philostratus's life of Apollonius _Tyaneus_. What Mr. Malone has said of the _English_ translations precludes the necessity of any further notice of them; but with respect to that gentleman's supposition, that there might have been an early prose translation from the _Gesta Romanorum, in which the name of Apollonius was changed to Pericles_, it becomes necessary to state that there are very good reasons for concluding that the story of _Apollonius Tyrius_, from the _Gesta Romanorum_, never was translated into English; and even that the _Gesta Romanorum in question_ did not appear in our language till the beginning of the eighteenth century, and then but a small portion of it.[20] The name of Pericles has been very well accounted for by Mr. Steevens.

To render this article as complete as possible, and to facilitate the reference to a story once so celebrated, a list of the various manuscripts and printed copies is subjoined.

MANUSCRIPTS.

Those in _Latin_ are, two in Bennett Coll. Cambridge; see Nasmith's _Catal._ Nos. cccxviii. ccccli.--Two in the Bodleian libr. Nos. 2435, 2540; see _Catal. MSS. Angliæ_, pp. 125, 134. Mr. Warton mentions a third, in _H. E. Poetry_, vol. i. p. 350, note h. A fourth is in the same library among Archb. Laud's MSS. No. 1302, _Catal. MSS. Angliæ_, p. 70; on what authority this is said to have been translated from the Greek, remains to be examined.

In Magdal. Coll. Ox. No. 2191, _Catal. MSS. Angliæ_, p. 72.--In Vossius's collection, No. 2409, _Catal. MSS. Angliæ_, p. 64.--In the Norfolk collection, now in the library of the Royal Society, No. 3181, _Catal. MSS. Angliæ_, p. 80.--Two in the Sloanian library; see Ascough's _Catal._ p. 854.--Two in the Vatican. See Montfaucon _Bibl. bibliothecarum_, i. 20, Nos. 275, 284.--In the Medicean library, Montfaucon _Bibl. bibl._ i. 372, No. xl.--In the royal library at Paris; Montfaucon _Bibl. bibl._ ii. 756, No. 5251.

A _Saxon_ translation. Bennett Coll. Camb. See Nasmith's _Catal._ No. cci. and Wanley, Libror. vett. septentrional. catal. apud Hickesij _Thesaur._ p. 146.

A _French_ translation is among the royal MSS. in the British museum, 20 c. ii. evidently made from the Latin about the 15th century.

A fragment in old _English_ verse, probably by Thomas Vicary of Wimborn minster in Dorsetshire, on the story of _Apollonius Tyrius_, was in the possession of the late reverend and learned Dr. Farmer of Cambridge. See it noticed in the present vol. of Mr. Steevens's Shakspeare, pp. 381, 609.

PRINTED COPIES.

_Apollonii Tyrii_ historia, no date, but before 1500, 8vo.

The same published by Velser, 1595, 4to.

In modern Greek verse. Venice, 1563, 1601, 1696, 8vo.

In Italian rime. Venice, 1486, and without place, 1489, 4to.

In Italian prose, _reformed_; and published for the benefit of the common people, _per piacer del popolo_, Milan, 1492, 4to.

In Spanish, in the _Patrañas_ of Juan Timoneda, Alcala, 1576, and Bilbao, 1580, 8vo. This translation may be presumed to have been made from the _Gesta Romanorum_, as other stories from it are in the same work.

In German, Augsburg, 1471, folio, and 1476, 4to.

In Dutch, Delft, 1493, 4to.

In French, b. l. Geneva, 4to, n. d. Again, transl. by Gilles Corrozet, Paris, 1530, 8vo. Again, Amst. 1710, _Paris_, 1711, 12mo, modernized by M. Le Brun. It is abridged in _Melanges tirées d'une grande bibliotheque_, vol. lxiv. p. 265. It is also among the _Hist. tragiques_ de Belleforest, tom. vii. 1604, 12mo.

In Engl. transl. by Rob. Copland from the French, and printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 1510.

_The patterne of painful adventures &c. that befell unto Prince_ APPOLONIUS, &c. translated by T. Twine, 1607, Originally published by W. Howe, 1576.

In Gower's _Confessio amantis_, 1483, 1532, and 1554, folio, from Godfrey of Viterbo.

In the _Pantheon_ or _universal chronicle_ of Godfrey of Viterbo, compiled in Latin in the 12th century. First printed at Basil, 1569, folio, and afterwards in Pistorius's collection of German historians.

And lastly, in _most_ of the editions of the _Gesta Romanorum_, in which it makes the 153rd chapter. In comparing this with Velser's work, it will be perceived that it is the same, making allowance for the usual difference of manuscripts. In short, there is but one story.

A few years after the publication of this play, there appeared on the French stage a tragi-comedy on the same story, entitled _Les heureuses infortunes_. It is in two parts, each of five acts, and composed by Francois Bernier de la Brousse. It might be worth while to examine whether he had made any use of the English Pericles.

However unworthy of Shakspeare's pen this drama, as an _entire_ composition, may be considered, many will be of opinion that it contains more that _he might have written_ than either _Love's labour's lost_, or _All's well that ends well_.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] It is necessary that the reader should review Mr. Malone's preceding and satisfactory note.

[19] Hist. of Engl. poetry, III. lxiv.

[20] See the subsequent Dissertation on the Gesta Romanorum.

KING LEAR.