ANT. The ground, indeed, is tawny. SEB. With an eye of green in't." ANT. He misses not much. SEB. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally. GON. But the rarity of it is (which is indeed almost beyond credit) SEB. As many vouch'd rarities are. GON. That our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold, notwithstanding, their freshness, and glosses; being rather new dy'd, than stain'd with salt water. ANT. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say, he lies? SEB. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report. GON. Methinks, our garments are now as fresh as when we put them on first in Africk, at the "What? seest thou not, how that the year, as representing plaine "The age of man, departes himself in quarters foure: first, baine "And tender in the spring it is, even like a sucking babe, "Then greene and void of strength, and lush and foggy is the blade; "And cheers the husbandman with hope." Ovid's lines (Met. XV.) are these: "Quid? non in species succedere quattuor annum "Aspicis, ætatis peragentem imitamina nostræ? "Nam tener et lactens, puerique simillimus ævo, "Vere novo est. Tunc herba recens, et roboris expers, σε Turget, et insolida est, et spe delectat agrestem.' Spenser in his Shepheard's Calender, (Feb.) applies the epithet lusty to green: With leaves engrain'd in lustie green." MALONE. With an eye of green in't.] An eye is a small shade of colour: "Red, with an eye of blue, makes a purple." Boyle. Again, in Fuller's Church History, p. 237, xvii Cent. Book XI; -some cole-black (all eye of purple being put out therein)—.” Again, in Sandys's Travels, lib. i: "-cloth of silver tissued with an eye of green-," STEEVENS. marriage of the king's fair daughter Claribel' to the king of Tunis. SEB. 'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return. ADR. Tunis was never graced before with such a paragon to their queen. GON. Not since widow Dido's time. ANT. Widow? a pox o'that! How came that widow in? Widow Dido! 3 Claribel-] Shakspeare might have found this name in the bl. 1. History of George Lord Faukonbridge, a pamphlet that he probably read when he was writing King John. CLARABEL is there the concubine of King Richard I. and the mother of Lord Falconbridge. MALONE. Widow Dido!] The name of a widow brings to their minds their own shipwreck, which they consider as having made many widows in Naples. JOHNSON. Perhaps our author remembered "An inscription for the statue of Dido," copied from Ausonius, and inserted in Davison's Poems: "O most unhappy Dido, .i. "Unhappy wife, and more unhappy widow! "And in thy lover more unfortunate!" &c. The edition from whence I have transcribed these lines was printed in 1621, but there was a former in 1608, and another some years before, as I collect from the following passage in a letter from Mr. John Chamberlain to Mr. Carleton, July 8, 1602: "It seems young Davison means to take another course, and turn poet, for he hath lately set out certain sonnets and epigrams." Chamberlain's Letters, Vol. I. among Dr. Birch's MSS. in the British Museum. MALONE. A ballad of Queen Dido is in the Pepysian collection, and is also printed in Dr. Percy's Reliques. It appears at one time to have been a great favourite with the common people. "O you aleknights," exclaims an ancient writer, "you that devoure the marrow of the mault, and drinke whole ale-tubs into consumptions; that sing QUEEN DIDO over a cupp, and tell strange newes over an ale-pot," &c. Jacke of Dover his quest of Inquirie, or his privy Search for the veriest Foole in England, 4to. 1604, sig. F. RITSON. SEB. What if he had said, widower Æneas too? good lord, how you take it! ADR. Widow Dido, said you? you make me study of that: She was of Carthage, not of Tunis. GON. This Tunis, sir, was Carthage. ADR. Carthage? GON. I assure you, Carthage. ANT. His word is more than the miraculous harp. SEB. He hath rais'd the wall, and houses too. ANT. What impossible matter will he make easy next? SEB. I think he will carry this island home in his pocket, and give it his son for an apple. ANT. And, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring forth more islands. GON. Ay? ANT. Why, in good time. GON. Sir, we were talking, that our garments seem now as fresh, as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of your daughter, who is now queen. ANT. And the rarest that e'er came there. ANT. O, widow Dido; ay, widow Dido. GON. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I wore it? I mean, in a sort. ANT. That sort was well fish'd for. GON. When I wore it at your daughter's marriage? the miraculous harp.] Alluding to the wonders of Am phion's music. STEEVENS. ALON. You cram these words into mine ears, against 6 The stomach of my sense: 'Would I had never I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir FRAN. Sir, he may live; I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs; he trod the water, The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd, ALON. No, no, he's gone. SEB. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss; That would not bless our Europe with your daughter, But rather lose her to an African; Where she, at least, is banish'd from your eye, ALON. Pr'ythee, peace. SEB. You were kneel'd to, and importun❜d other wise • The stomach of my sense:] By sense, I believe, is meant both reason and natural affection. So, in Measure for Measure: "Against all sense do you impórtune her." Mr. M. Mason, however, supposes "sense, in this place, means feeling." STEEVENS. By all of us; and the fair soul herself Weigh'd, between lothness and obedience, at Which end o' the beam she'd bow." We have lost your son, I fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have 8 More widows in them of this business' making, Than we bring men to comfort them: the fault's Your own. ALON. So is the dearest of the loss. GON. My lord Sebastian, The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness, And time to speak it in: you rub the sore, When you should bring the plaster. SEB. ANT. And most chirurgeonly. Very well. GON. It is foul weather in us all, good sir, When you are cloudy. 7 * Weigh'd, between lothness and obedience, at Which end o' the beam she'd bow.] Weigh'd means deliberated. It is used in nearly the same sense in Love's Labour's Lost, and in Hamlet. The old copy reads-should bow. Should was probably an abbreviation of she would, the mark of elision being inadvertently omitted [sh'ould]. Thus he has is frequently exhibited in the first folio-h'as. Mr. Pope corrected the passage thus: "at which end the beam should bow." But omission of any word in the old copy, without substituting another in it's place, is seldom safe, except in those instances where the repeated word appears to have been caught by the compositor's eye glancing on the line above, or below, or where a word is printed twice in the same line. MALONE. Than we bring men to comfort them:] It does not clearly appear whether the king and these lords thought the ship lost. This passage seems to imply, that they were themselves confident of returning, but imagined part of the fleet destroyed. Why, indeed, should Sebastian plot against his brother in the following scene, unless he knew how to find the kingdom which he was to inherit? JOHNSON. |