And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys, Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumain? King. Too bitter is thy jest. Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view? Biron. Not you by me, but I betray'd to you; I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin To break the vow I am engaged in; I am betray'd, by keeping company With moon-like men, of strange inconstancy.5 "As when a swarme of gnats at even-tide "Their murmuring small trompettes sounden wide," &c. Gnat is undoubtedly the true reading, and is that, it seems, of the old copy. Biron is abusing the King for his sonneting like a minstrel, and compares him to a gnat, which always sings as it flies. Besides, the word gnat preserves the rhyme, which is here to be attended to. M. Mason. 4- -critick Timon-] Critick and critical are used by our author in the same sense as cynic and cynical. Iago, speaking of the fair sex as harshly as is sometimes the practice of Dr. Warburton, declares he is nothing if not critical. Steevens. Mr. Steevens's observation is supported by our author's 112th Sonnet: 66 - my adder's sense "To critick and to flatterer stopped are." Malone. 5 With moon-like men, of strange inconstancy.] The old copy reads-"men-like men." Steevens. This is a strange senseless line, and should be read thus: With vane-like men, of strange inconstancy. Warburton. This is well imagined, but the poet perhaps may mean, with men like common men. Johnson. The following passage in King Henry VI, P. III, adds some support to Dr. Warburton's conjecture: "Look, as I blow this feather from my face, "And as the air blows it to me again, 66 Obeying with my wind when I do blow, Strange, which is not in the quarto or first folio, was added by the editor of the second folio, and consequently any other word as well as that may have been the author's; for all the additions When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme? King. Soft; Whither away so fast? A true man, or a thief, that gallops so? Biron. I post from love; good lover, let me go. Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD. Jaq. God bless the king! " What present hast thou there? Cost. Some certain treason. peasant. What makes treason here? Cost. Nay, it makes nothing, sir. in that copy were manifestly arbitrary, and are generally injudicious. Malone. Slight as the authority of the second folio is here represented to be, who will venture to displace strange, and put any other word in its place? Steevens. I agree with the editors in considering this passage as erroneous, but not in the amendment proposed. That which I would suggest is, to read moon-like, instead of men-like, which is a more poetical expression, and nearer to the old reading than vane-like. M. Mason. I have not scrupled to place this happy emendation in the text; remarking at the same time that a vane is no where styled inconstant, although our author bestows that epithet on the moon in Romeo and Juliet: the inconstant moon "That monthly changes-. Again, in Antony and Cleopatra: now from head to foot "I am marble-constant, now the fleeting moon Again, more appositely, in As you like it: "being but a moonish youth, changeable,”—inconstant, &c. Malone. 6 In pruning me?] A bird is said to prune himself when he picks and sleeks his feathers. So, in King Henry IV, P. I: "Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up 7a gait, a state,] State, I believe, in the present instance, is opposed to gait (i. e. motion) and signifies the act of standing. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: "Her motion and her station are as one." Steevens. King. If it mar nothing neither, The treason, and you, go in peace away together. Jaq. I beseech your grace, let this letter be read; Our parson misdoubts it; 'twas treason he said. King. Biron, read it over. Where hadst thou it? Jaq. Of Costard. King. Where hadst thou it? [Giving him the letter. Cost. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. King. How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it? Biron. A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace needs not fear it. Long. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it. Dum. It is Biron's writing, and here is his name. [Picks up the pieces. Biron. Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you [To COST. were born to do me shame. Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess. King. What? Biron. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up ́ the mess: He, he, and you, my liege, and I, Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die. O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more. Biron. Will these turtles be gone? King. True true; we are four: Hence, sirs; away. Cost. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. [Exeunt COST. and JAQ. Biron. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us embrace! As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face; Our parson-] Here, as in a former instance, in the authentick copies of this play, this word is spelt person; but there being no reason for adhering here to the old spelling, the modern is preferred. Malone. King. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine? Biron. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline, That, like a rude and savage man of Inde, At the first opening of the gorgeous east,9 Bows not his vassal head; and, strucken blind, Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory eagle-sighted eye Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, That is not blinded by her majesty? King. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd thee now? My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon; She, an attending star,1 scarce seen a light. Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek; Where nothing wants, that want itself doth seek. Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues,— Fye, painted rhetorick! O, she needs it not: To things of sale a seller's praise belongs; 3 9 She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. the gorgeous east,] Milton has transplanted this into the third line of the second Book of Paradise Lost: "Or where the gorgeous east —; Steevens. 1 She, an attending star,] Something like this is a stanza of Sir Henry Wotton, of which the poetical reader will forgive the in sertion: "You meaner beauties of the night, "That poorly satisfy our eyes, "More by your number than your light, "You common people of the skies, "What are you when the sun shall rise?" Johnson. Micat inter omnes Julium sidus, velut inter ignes "Luna minores." Hor. Malone. 2 My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Birón:] Here, and indeed throughout this play, the name of Birón is accented on the second syllable. In the first quarto, 1598, and the folio, 1623, he is always called Berowne. From the line before us it appears, that in our author's time the name was pronounced Biroon. Malone. shaie A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. O, who can give an oath? where is a book? No face is fair, that is not full so black.5 The hue of dungeons, and the "scowl of night;" Biron. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. 3 To things of sale a seller's praise belongs;] So, in our author's 21st Sonnet: “I will not praise, that purpose not to sell.” Malone. 4 Is ebony like her? O wood divine!] Word is the reading of all the editions that I have seen: but both Dr. Thirlby and Mr. Warburton concurr'd in reading: (as I had likewise conjectured) O wood divine! Theobald. 5 beauty doth beauty lack, If that she learn not of her eye to look: No face is fair, that is not full so black.] So, in our poet's 132d Sonnet: those two mourning eyes become thy face : "O, let it then as well beseem thy heart "To mourn for me; "Then will I swear, beauty herself is black, "And all they foul, that thy complexion lack." See also his 127th Sonnet. Malone. 6 Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons, and the scowl of night;] In former editions: - the school of night. Black being the school of night, is a piece of mystery above my comprehension. I had guessed, it should be: the stole of night: but I have preferred the conjecture of my friend Mr. Warburton, who reads: the scowl of night, as it comes nearer in pronunciation to the corrupted reading, as well as agrees better with the other images. In our author's 148th Sonnet we have Theobald. "Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. Malone. |