Mar. Shall I strike at[a 1] it with my partisan?[b 1] 140
Hor. Do, if it will not stand.
Ber. 'Tis here!
Hor. 'Tis here!
Mar. 'Tis gone! [Exit Ghost.
We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable, 145
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
Ber. It was about to speak when the cock crew.
Hor. And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet[b 2] to the morn,[a 2] 150
Doth with his lofty[b 3] and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or, air,
The extravagant[b 4] and erring spirit hies
To his confine: and of the truth herein 155
This present object made probation.[b 5]
Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say[a 3] that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The[a 4] bird of dawning singeth all night long; 160
- ↑ 140. partisan] a kind of halbert or pike.
- ↑ 150. trumpet] Malone quotes from England's Parnassus, 1600 (in a passage assigned to Drayton): "the cocke, the morning's trumpeter." "Trumpet" for "trumpeter" occurs in several passages of Shakespeare. Henry V, IV. ii. 61: "I will the banner from a trumpet take."
- ↑ 151. lofty] like "shrill," qualifies "sounding"; unless the uplifted throat of the crowing cock is meant.
- ↑ 154. extravagant] wandering out of bounds, vagrant. Othello, I. i. 137: "an extravagant and wheeling stranger." "Erring," straying.
- ↑ 166. probation] proof, as in Measure for Measure, V. 157.
