 | Madrigal And Trulletta |  |
SCENE III.
West-Smithfield.(a flourish.
Madrigal, Lyric, Acrostic, Fustiano, Epigram, and their party.
Mad.
The storm subsides: the full-orb'd moon illumes,
With silver beams, yon cloudless canopy,
And seems, my friends! to smile upon our cause —
My fellow-warriors! brethren of the muse!
Remember this is the Pharsalian field,
That must immortalize the name of Bard,
Or blast it with eternal infamy—
But hark! yon trumpet speaks th'approaching foe—
Charge you their right, Acrostic—I and Lyric
The center—Fustiano, you the left—
You, Epigram, must wheel your phalanx round,
And, as your rhyming custom always is,
Gall, sting them in the rear—now draw your inkhorns,
And on them make this great, this solemn vow,
(Or else my penknife, with unbatter'd edge,
Who 'scapes the battle's rage, in pompous lays
Will paint the glories of a brother slain;
That every son of verse, who falls this night,
May live immortal in a brother's song—
Your inkhorns to your lips —this do you swear;
As rhyme and numbers at your most need help you.
All.
We swear.
Mad.
Then let us all embrace.
Ac.
Now on.
Fus.
The tecbir?
Mad.
Clio, and Trulletta's eyes.
As the sun, by a variety of tragic writers, is describ'd capable of laughing, I hope it will not be denied our author to paint the moon capable of smiling.
I'll sheath again undeeded.
Macbeth.
As I intend in a few months to give the world a compleat edition of Shakespear's works, in twenty volumes in folio, it may not, in this place, be amiss to give a specimen of my critical abilities. My 475th note on the tragedy of Macbeth runs thus:
“Though all the stream of editions concur in reading,
“Or else my sword with an unbatter'd edge,“I'll sheath again undeeded.—
yet I am persuaded our immortal poet, who never wrote a line of fustian in his life, could not be guilty of such a turgid expression. I shall therefore propose three several readings, one of which our poet certainly wrote:
1.“Or else my sword with an unspatter'd edge,
“I'll sheath again unspeeded.—
as if he had said, or else my sword, with edge unsprinkled, or unsmear'd, with human gore, I'll sheath again unspeeded, i. e. unsuccessful .
2.“Or else my sword, with an unbattled edge,
“I'll sheath again unbleeded—that is, unbloody.
3.
“Or else my sword, with man-unbatten'd edge,
“I'll sheath again in dead hide.—
q. d. or else my sword, with edge unbatten'd, or unfatten'd with man, or the blood of man, I'll sheath again in dead hide ; that is, in the scabbard. To illustrate this image more fully, it may not be amiss to add, that scabbards are generally made of dead hides, or leather. I am apt to think, from the analogy of sound between in dead hide, and undeeded, that such corruption hath crept into the text.
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