Pentapolis.]
"This," says Mr. Steevens, "is an imaginary city, and its name might have been borrowed from some romance. We meet, indeed, in history with Pentapolitana regio, a country in Africa, and from thence perhaps some novelist furnished the sounding title of Pentapolis," &c. But there was no absolute reason for supposing it a city in this play, as Gower in the Confessio amantis had done, a circumstance which had probably misled Mr. Steevens. In the original Latin romance of Apollonius Tyrius, it is most accurately called Pentapolis Cyrenorum, and was, as both Strabo and Ptolemy inform us, a district of Cyrenaica in Africa, comprising five cities, of which Cyrene was one.
ACT I.
Gower. To sing a song of old was sung.
The editor, having very properly adopted Mr. Malone's amendment in the text, has forgotten to mention that the former reading was that old, and the note is consequently rendered obscure.
Scene 1. Page 397.
Per. See where she comes, apparell'd like the spring,
Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king
Of every virtue——
A transposition of spring and king has been suggested, but on no solid foundation; nor, it is presumed, is the passage incurably depraved, or even any change necessary. Mr. Steevens asks, "With what propriety can a lady's thoughts be styled the king of every virtue?" For this the poet must answer, who evidently designed an antithesis in king and subjects.
Scene 1. Page 402.
Ant. Read the conclusion then;
Which read and not expounded, 'tis decreed,
As these before thee, thou thyself shalt bleed.