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_ ACT III - SCENE I
SCENE I.--KING ARTHUR'S Palace.
[1] Ghost
(solus).
Hail! ye black horrors of midnight's midnoon'
Ye fairies, goblins, bats, and screech-owls, hail!
And, oh! ye mortal watchmen, whose hoarse throats
Th' immortal ghosts dread croakings counterfeit,
All hail!--Ye dancing phantoms, who, by day,
Are some condemn'd to fast, some feast in fire,
Now play in churchyards, skipping o'er the graves,
To the [2]loud music of the silent bell,
All hail!
[Footnote 1:
Of all the particulars in which the modern stage falls short of the ancient, there is none so much to be lamented as the great scarcity of ghosts Whence this proceeds I will not presume to determine Some are of opinion that the moderns are unequal to that sublime language which a ghost ought to speak One says, ludicrously, that ghosts are out of fashion, another, that they are properer for comedy, forgetting, I suppose, that Aristotle hath told us that a ghost is the soul of tragedy, for so I render the [Greek text: psychae o muythos taes tragodias], which M. Dacier, amongst others, hath mistaken, I suppose, misled by not understanding the Fabula of the Latins, which signifies a ghost as well as fable.
"Te premet nox, fabulaeque manes"---Horace
Of all the ghosts that have ever appeared on the stage, a very learned and judicious foreign critick gives the preference to this of our author. These are his words speaking of this tragedy--"Nec quidquam in illa admirabilius quam phasma quoddam horrendum, quod omnibus abis spectris quibuscum scatet Angelorum tragoedia longe (pace D--ysn V Doctiss dixerim) praetulerim."]
[Footnote 2:
We have already given instances of this figure.] _
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