VAL. No, madam; so it stead you, I will write, Please you command, a thousand times as much: And yet, SIL. A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel; And yet I will not name it;—and yet I care not ; And yet take this again;-and yet I thank you; Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more. SPEED. And yet-you will; and yet another yet. [Aside. VAL. What means your ladyship? do you not like it? SIL. Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ:" But since unwillingly, take them again; Nay, take them. VAL. Madam, they are for you. SIL. Ay, ay, you writ them, sir, at my request; But I will none of them; they are for you: I would have had them writ more movingly. VAL. Please you, I'll write your ladyship another. Very quaintly writ:] Quaint formerly meant clever, adroit, skilful, not as now, pleasant, odd, fanciful. b All this I speak in print.] In print, meant precisely, exactly, to the letter. Old Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," says"He must speak in print, walke in print, eat and drink in print, and that which is all in all, he must be mad in print." SPEED. No believing you, indeed, sir: but did you perceive her earnest ? VAL. She gave me none, except an angry word. SPEED. Why, she hath given you a letter. VAL. That's the letter I writ to her friend. SPEED. And that letter hath she delivered, and there an end. VAL. I would it were no worse. SPEED. I'll warrant you 't is as well. For often have you writ to her, and she, in modesty, Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply; Or fearing else some messenger, that might her mind discover, Herself hath taught her love himself, to write unto her lover. All this I speak in print," for in print I found it.- VAL. I have dined. JUL. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.(3) PRO. Here is my hand for my true constancy; And when that hour o'erslips me in the day, Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake, The next ensuing hour some foul mischance Torment me for my love's forgetfulness! My father stays my coming; answer not; The tide is now: nay, not thy tide of tears; That tide will stay me longer than I should: [Exit JULIA. Julia, farewell.-What! gone without a word? The cameleon Love can feed on the air.] "Oh Palmerin, Palmerin, how cheaply dost thou furnish out thy table of love! Canst feed upon a thought! live upon hopes! feast upon a look! fatten upon a smile! and surfeit and die upon a kiss! What a Cameleon lover is a Platonick!"-The World in the Moon, 1697. d If you turn not,-] If you remain constant to your love. Enter LAUNCE, leading a Dog. LAUN. Nay, 't will be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind of the Launces have this very fault: I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with sir Proteus to the imperial's court. I think Crab my dog be the sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear: he is a stone, a very pebble-stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog: a Jew would have wept to have seen our parting; why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show you the manner of it: This shoe is my father;-no, this left shoe is my father; no, no, this left shoe is my mother ;-nay, that cannot be so neither :—yes, it is so, it is so; it hath the worser sole. This shoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father. A vengeance on 't! there 't is now, sir, this staff is my sister; for, look you, she is as white as a lily, and as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid; I am the dog-no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog,-O, the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so, so. Now come I to my father; Father, your blessing; now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping; now should I kiss my father well, he weeps on:-now come I to my mother, (0, that shoe could speak now, like a wood woman ;*)—well, I kiss her ;-why, there 't is ; here's my mother's breath up and down ; now come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes: now the dog all this while sheds not a tear, nor speaks a word; but see how I lay the dust with my tears. Like a wood woman;] The folio, 1623, reads "like a would woman." Theobald suggested the reading in the text. Wood means mad, crazed, wild. The alteration of she to shoe in the same line was proposed by Blackstone, and after "now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping," seems a legitimate correction. Up and down;] An expression of the time, implying exactly, as we say "for all the worl 1," or "all the world over." It occurs Enter PANTHINO. PAN. Launce, away, away, aboard; thy master is shipped, and thou art to post after with oare. What's the matter? why weep'st thou, man? Away, ass; you'll lose the tide if you tarry any longer. LAUN. It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the unkindest tied that ever man tied. PAN. What's the unkindest tide? LAUN. Why, he that's tied here; Crab, my dog. PAN. Tut, man, I mean thou 'It lose the flood; and, in losing the flood, lose thy voyage; and, in losing thy voyage, lose thy master; and, in losing thy master, lose thy service; and, in losing thy service,-Why dost thou stop my mouth? LAUN. For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue. PAN. In thy tail? THU. Ay, sir, and done too, for this time. VAL. I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin. SIL. A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off. VAL. "T is indeed, madam; we thank the giver. SIL. Who is that, servant? VAL. Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire: Sir Thurio borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks, and spends what he borrows, kindly, in your company. THU. Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt. VAL. I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words, and, I think, no other treasure to give your followers; for it appears, by their bare liveries, that they live by your bare words. SIL. No more, gentlemen, no more; here comes my father. Enter DUKE. DUKE. Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset. Sir Valentine, your father's in good health: VAL. DUKE. Know you don Antonio, your countryman ? VAL. Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman To be of worth, and worthy estimation, And not without desert so well reputed. DUKE. Hath he not a son? VAL. Ay, my good lord; a son that well de serves The honour and regard of such a father. DUKE. You know him well? a I quote it in your jerkin.] A quibble springing from quote and coat; the former being pronounced and often spelt cote, in the time of our author. b He is complete in feature and in mind, With all good grace, to grace a gentleman.] Feature of old expressed both beauty of countenance and comeliness of person. Thus Spenser: "Which the fair feature of her limbs did hide." We have convers'd and spent our hours together: b He is as worthy for an empress' love, DUKE. Welcome him then according to his worth ; Silvia, I speak to you and you, sir Thurio:— [Exit DUKE. VAL. This is the gentleman I told your ladyship, Had come along with me, but that his mistress Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks. SIL. Belike, that now she hath enfranchis'd them, Upon some other pawn for fealty. VAL. Nay, sure I think she holds them prisoners still. SIL. Nay, then he should be blind; and, being blind, How could he see his way to seek out you? VAL. Why, lady, love hath twenty pair of eyes. THU. They say that love hath not an eye at allVAL. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself; Upon a homely object love can wink. Enter PROTEUS. SIL. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman. VAL. Welcome, dear Proteus !-Mistress, I beseech you, Confirm his welcome with some special favour. (*) First folio, knew. The punctuation I have adopted in this passage, though at variance with that of all the Editors, is fully authorized by the following one in "Henry VIII.," Act III. Sc. 2: "She is a gallant creature, and complete SER. Madam, my lord your father would speak with you." SIL. I wait upon his pleasure. [Exit SERVANT. Come, sir Thurio, Go with me :-once more, new servant, welcome: I'll leave you to confer of home affairs; When you have done, we look to hear from you. PRO. We'll both attend upon your ladyship. [Exeunt SILVIA, THURIO, and SPEED. VAL. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came? PRO. Your friends are well, and have them much commended. VAL. And how do yours? PRO. My tales of love were wont to weary you; I know you joy not in a love-discourse. b VAL. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now: I have done penance for contemning love; Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me With bitter fasts, with penitential groans, With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs; For, in revenge of my contempt of love, Love hath chas'd sleep from my enthrall'd eyes, And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow. O, gentle Proteus, Love 's a mighty lord; * The first folio assigns this to Thurio. Whose high imperious thoughts-] Dr. Johnson proposed to read Those high imperious thoughts; " conceiving the sense to be, "I have contemned love, and am punished." The misprint, if there is any, I rather take to be in the word thoughts, which our author has never elsewhere adopted to express behests, dictates, mands. &c. There is no woe to his correction,-] No sorrow equal to the punishment he indicts. A very common idiom of the time. "There is no comfort in the world, To women that are kind."—Cupid's Whirligig. An analogous ellipsis occurs in the very next line PRO. I will not flatter her. VAL. O, flatter me, for love delights in praises. PRO. When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills; And I must minister the like to you. VAL. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine, Yet let her be a principality, Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth. PRO. Except my mistress. VAL. Sweet, except not any; Except thou wilt except against my love. PRO. Have I not reason to prefer mine own? VAL. And I will help thee to prefer her too: She shall be dignified with this high honour: To bear my lady's train; lest the base earth Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss, And, of so great a favour growing proud, Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower, And make rough winter everlastingly. PRO. Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this? VAL. Pardon me, Proteus: all I can is nothing To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing; She is alone. "Nor to his service no such joy on earth," i. e. "Nor, compared to his service," &c. d Yet let her be a principality,-] If not a divinity, admit she is celestial. "The first he calleth Seraphim, the second, Cherubim, the third, thrones, the fourth, denominations, the fifth, virtues, the sixth, powers, the seventh, principalities, the eighth, archangels, the ninth and inferior sort, he calleth angels."-SCOT's Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, p. 500. e The summer-swelling flower,-] Mr. Collier's old corrector changes this fine epithet to summer-smelling. Steevens also says, "I once thought that our poet had written summer-smelling; but the epithet which stands in the text, I have since met with in the translation of Lucan by Sir Arthur Gorges, 1614, b. viii. p. 354." With all the cunning manner of our flight, PRO. Go on before; I shall inquire you forth: Even as one heat another heat expels, [Exit VAL. Or as one nail by strength drives out another, If I can check my erring love, I will; house with you presently; where, for one shot of fivepence, thou shalt have five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how did thy master part with madam Julia? LAUN. Marry, after they closed in earnest, they parted very fairly in jest. SPEED. But shall she marry him? LAUN. NO. SPEED. How then? shall he marry her? LAUN. No, neither. SPEED. What, are they broken? LAUN. No, they are both as whole as a fish. SPEED. Why then, how stands the matter with them? LAUN. Marry, thus; when it stands well with him, it stands well with her. SPEED. What an ass art thou! I understand thee not. LAUN. What a block art thou, that thou canst not! My staff understands me. SPEED. What thou say'st? LAUN. Ay, and what I do, too: look thee, I'll but lean, and my staff understands me. SPEED. It stands under thee, indeed. LAUN. Why, stand under and understand is all If not, to compass her I'll use my skill. [Exit. Launce, how say'st thou, that my master has genuine compound Archaism, used both as an adjective and an adverb, meaning excessive or excessively." d'Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,-] He has seen but her exterior yet, and that has dazzled his "reason's light;" when he looks upon her intellectual endowments, they will blind him quite. So in "Cymbeline," Act I. Sc. 7: "All of her that is out of door, most rich! • Dazzled-] This word must be read here as a trisyllable dazzeled; so in the quotation Malone adduces from Drayton:"A diadem once dazzling the eye, The day too darke to see affinitie." |