Circe's
“cup—I think you all have drunk of,”
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, v. 1.
270.
“The Duke means to say, I think you all are out of your
senses; so below,
‘I think you are all mated or stark mad.’ Circe's potion, however, though it transformed the companions of Ulysses into swine, and deprived them of speech, did not, it should seem, deprive them of their reason; for Homer tells us that they lamented their trans formation. However, the Duke's words are sufficiently intelligible, if we consider them as meaning—Methinks you all are become as irrational as beasts” (MALONE) . But Malone forgets Virgil, who evidently meant us to understand that those whom Circe had transformed were“deprived of reason:”
“Hinc exaudiri gemitus iræque leonum,
Vincla recusantum, et sera sub nocte rudentum;
Setigerique sues, atque in præsepibus ursi
Sævire, ac formæ magnorum ululare luporum.”
Æn. vii. 15. Compare also Greene's Neuer too late: “Resembling those Grecians, that, with Vlysses, drinking of Circes drugges, lost both forme and memorie.” Sig. G 4 verso, ed. 1611.
‘I think you are all mated or stark mad.’ Circe's potion, however, though it transformed the companions of Ulysses into swine, and deprived them of speech, did not, it should seem, deprive them of their reason; for Homer tells us that they lamented their trans formation. However, the Duke's words are sufficiently intelligible, if we consider them as meaning—Methinks you all are become as irrational as beasts” (MALONE) . But Malone forgets Virgil, who evidently meant us to understand that those whom Circe had transformed were“deprived of reason:”
“Hinc exaudiri gemitus iræque leonum,
Vincla recusantum, et sera sub nocte rudentum;
Setigerique sues, atque in præsepibus ursi
Sævire, ac formæ magnorum ululare luporum.”
Æn. vii. 15. Compare also Greene's Neuer too late: “Resembling those Grecians, that, with Vlysses, drinking of Circes drugges, lost both forme and memorie.” Sig. G 4 verso, ed. 1611.
