Ant. S. What claim lays she to thee? Dro. S. Marry, sir, such claim as you would lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast: not that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me. Ant. S. What is she? Dro. S. A very reverend body; ay, such a one as a man may not speak of, without he say, sirreverence I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a wondrous fat marriage? 13. Ant. S. How dost thou mean, a fat marriage? Dro. S. Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench, and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to, but to make a lamp of her, and run from her by her own light. I warrant, her rags, and the tallow in them, will burn a Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday, she'll burn a week longer than the whole world. Ant. S. What complexion is she of? Dro. S. Swart 14, like my shoe, but her face nothing like so clean kept: For why? she sweats, a man may go over shoes in the grime of it. Ant. S. That's a fault that water will mend. 13 This is a very old corruption of save reverence, salva reverentia. See Blount's Glossography, 1682. 'To speake words of reverence before, as when we say, saving your worship, saving your reverence, and such like.' BARET.-Shakspeare has very properly put this corruption into the mouth of Dromio. 6 14 Swart, or swarth, i. e. dark, dusky, infuscus. Steevens says, black, or rather of a dark brown :' but hear Shakspeare, King Henry VI. Part I. : It 'And whereas I was black and swart before.' Malone says, Mr. Steevens's first definition is right. Swart is a Dutch word; and the Dutch call a blackamoor a swart!' is certainly a Dutch word; but it is an English word also, and unquestionably not derived from the Dutch. It runs through all the northern dialects; we have it from the Saxon sweart, or the Gothic swarts. Dro. S. No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it. Ant. S. What's her name? Dro. S. Nell, sir;—but her name and three quarters, that is, an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from hip to hip 15. Ant. S. Then she bears some breadth? Dro. S. No longer from head to foot, than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her. Ant. S. In what part of her body stands Ireland? Dro. S. Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by the bogs. Ant. S. Where Scotland? Dro. S. I found it by the barrenness; hard, in the palm of the hand 16. * Ant. S. Where France? Dro. S. In her forehead; arm'd and reverted, making war against her heir 17. Ant. S. Where England? Dro. S. I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them: but I guess, it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it. 15 This poor conundrum is borrowed by Massinger in The Old Law. 16 Had this play been revived after the accession of James, it is probable that this passage would have been struck out; as was that relative to the Scotch lord in The Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 1. 17 An equivoque,' says Theobald, is intended. In 1589, Henry III. of France, being stabbed, was succeeded by Henry IV. of Navarre, whom he had appointed his successor; but whose claim the states of France resisted on account of his being a protestant. This I take to be what is meant by France making war against her heir. Elizabeth had sent over the Earl of Essex with four thousand men to the assistance of Henry of Navarre, in 1591. This oblique sneer at France was therefore a compliment to the poet's royal mistress.' The other allusion is not of a nature to admit of explanation. Ant. S. Where Spain? Dro. S. 'Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath. Ant. S. Where America, the Indies? Dro. S. O, sir, upon her nose, all o'er embellish'd with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadas of carracks 18 to be ballast at her nose. Ant. S. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands? Dro. S. O, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me; call'd me Dromio; swore, I was assur'd19 to her; told me what privy marks I had about me, as the mark of my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I, amazed, ran from her as a witch: and, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith 20, and my heart of steel, she had transform'd me to a curtail-dog, and made me turn i' the wheel 21. Ant. S. Go, hie thee presently, post to the road; If Dro. S. As from a bear a man would run for life, So fly I from her that would be my wife. [Exit. Ant. S. There's none but witches do inhabit here; And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence. 18 Carracks, large ships of burthen; caraca, Span. Ballast is merely a contraction of balassed; to balase being the old orthography: as we write drest for dressed, embost for embossed, &c. 19 i. e. affianced. 20 Alluding to the popular belief that a great share of faith was a protection from witchcraft. 21 A turnspit. She that doth call me husband, even my soul Ang. Master Antipholus ? Ant. S. Ay, that's my name. 23: Ang. I know it well, sir: Lo, here is the chain; I thought to have ta'en you at the Porcupine 23 The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long. Ant. S. What is your will, that I shall do with this? Ang. What, please yourself, sir; I have made it for you. Ant. S. Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not. Ang. Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have: Go home with it, and please your wife withal; And then receive my money for the chain. Ant. S. I pray you, sir, receive the money now, For fear you ne'er see chain, nor money, more. 22 Pope, not understanding sufficiently the phraseology of Shakspeare, altered this to guilty of self-wrong. But guilty to was the construction of that age. So in the Winter's Tale :'But as the unthought of accident is guilty To what we wildly do.' 23 Porcupine throughout the old editions of these plays is written porpentine. I find it written porpyn in an old phrase book, called Hormanni Vulgaria, 1519, thus: Porpyns have longer prickels than Yrchins.' But it is also spelt thus in Huloet's Dictionary, 1552. Of the later dictionaries, BARET has it porcupine, and COOPER porkepyne. As porpyn, from the abbreviated sound of porc-espine, was the old name, it is probable that in the popular language of the time, porpentine was used for porcupine. Ang. You are a merry man, sir; fare Ant. S. What I should think of this, I cannot tell; But this I think, there's no man is so vain, That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain. I see, a man here needs not live by shifts, When in the streets he meets such golden gifts. I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay; If any ship put out, then straight away. [Exit. ACT IV. SCENE I. The same. Enter a Merchant, ANGELO, and an Officer. Mer. You know, since pentecost the sum is due, And since I have not much impórtun'd you; Nor now I had not, but that I am bound To Persia, and want gilders for my voyage: Therefore make present satisfaction, Or I'll attach you by this officer. Ang. Even just the sum, that I do owe to you, Is growing1 to me by Antipholus: And, in the instant that I met with you, Enter ANTIPHOLUS of Ephesus, and DROMIO of Off. That labour may you save; see where he comes. Ant. E. While I go to the goldsmith's house, go thou 1 i. e. accruing. |