sc. iv. CYMBELINE. 199
ting upon an Eagle: he throws a Thunder-bolt. The Ghosts fall on their Knees.
JUP* No more, you petty spirits of region low,
Offend our hearing ; hush!—How dare you
ghosts, Accuse the thunderer, whose bolt you know,
Sky-planted, batters all rebelling coasts ? Poor shadows of Elysium, hence ; and rest
Upon your never-withering banks of flowers: Be not with mortal accidents opprest;
No care of yours it is; you know, 'tis ours. Whom best I love, I cross; to make my gift,
The more delay'd., delighted9. Be content; Your low-laid son our godhead will uplift:
His comforts thrive, his trials well are spent. Our Jovial star reign'd at his birth, and in
Our temple was he married.—Rise, and fade!— He shall be lord of lady Imogen,
And happier much by his affliction made.
the descent of deities was common to our stage in its earliest state: " Of whyche the lyke thyng is used to be shewed now a days in stage-plaies, when some God or some Saynt is made to appere forth of a cloude, and succoureth the parties which seemed to be towardes some great danger, through the Soudan's crueltie." The author, for fear this description should not be supposed to extend itself to our theatres, adds in a marginal note, " the lyke maner usednowe at our days in stage playes." STEEVENS.
9 The more delay'd, DELIGHTED.] That is, the more delightful for being delayed.—It is scarcely necessary to observe, in the thirteenth volume, that Shakspeare uses indiscriminately the active and passive participles. M. MASON.
Delighted is here either used for delighted in* or for delighting. So, in Othello:
" If virtue no delighted beauty lack------." MALONE.
Though it be hardly worth while to waste a conjecture on the wretched stuff before us, perhaps the author of it, instead of delighted, wrote dilated, i. e. expanded, rendered more copious. This participle occurs in King Henry V. and the verb in Othello.
STEEVENS',