Heigh ho, fing heigh ho, vnto the greene holly, Moft frendship, is fayning; moft Louing, meere folly: This Life is mof iolly. Freize, freise, thou bitter skie that do not bight fo nigh Though thou the waters warpe, thy fling is not so sharpe, 191. The] Then Rowe et seq. 193. As two lines, Pope et seq. 193. bight] bite FF 190 195 197 196. remembred] rememb'ring Han. 6 it only means eager, vehement; a sense equally common with the former. The poet here speaks only of a keenness of appetite; he does not mention actual biting till he comes to address a more proper and powerful agent. Besides, if 'keen' here means sharp, piercing, this line hath the same meaning as [line 195] where the poet is at the last stage of his climax. And I think he would hardly be guilty of such a piece of tautology, in the space of so few lines, or address the less severe and powerful agent exactly in the same manner as he does that which is more so. STEEVENS: Compare Love's Lab. L. IV, iii, 105: ‘Through the velvet leaves the wind, All unseen, can passage find.' MALONE: Again, in Meas. for Meas. III, i, 124: To be imprison'd in the viewless winds. HARNESS: I never perceived any difficulty till it was pointed out by the commentators, but supposed the words to mean that the inclemency of the wind was not so severely felt as the ingratitude of man, because the foe is unseen, i. e. unknown, and the sense of injury is not heightened by the recollection of any former kindness. STAUNTON: If change is imperative, one less violent [than Warburton's or Farmer's] will afford a meaning quite in harmony with the sentiment of the song; we might read, Because thou art foreseen.' But the original text is, perhaps, susceptible of a different interpretation to that it has received. The poet certainly could not intend that the wintry blast was less cutting because invisible; he might mean, however, that the keenness of the wind's tooth was inherent, and not a quality developed (like the malice of a false friend) by the opportunity of inflicting a hurt unseen. REV. JOHN HUNTER: I have not met with any satisfactory explanation of this line. If the text be accurate, I would venture to interpret as follows: 'It is not because thou art invisible, and canst do hurt in secret and with impunity, that thou bitest so keenly as thou dost.' Here I do not regard the expression 'so keen' as meaning 'so keen as the tooth of ingratitude.' [It is highly probable that Harness speaks for us all, and that our first intimation of a difficulty comes from the commentators. Sufficing paraphrases are given, I think, by Dr Johnson, Heath, and Harness.-ED.] 189. Heigh ho] WHITE: The manner in which this is said and sung by intelligent people makes it worth noticing that this is 'hey ho!' and not the heigh, ho!' (pronounced high, ho!) of a sigh. It should be pronounced hay-ho. 189. holly] HALLIWELL: Songs of the holly were current long before the time of Shakespeare. It was the emblem of mirth. 195. warpe] KENRICK: The surface of such waters as is here meant, so long as they remain unfrozen, is apparently a perfect plane; whereas when they are frozen, [Though thou the waters warpe] this surface deviates from its exact flatness, or warps. This is peculiarly remarkable in small ponds, the surface of which, when frozen, forms a regular concave, the ice on the sides rising higher than that in the middle. JOHNSON: To warp is to turn, and to turn is to change: when milk is changed by curdling, we say it is turned; when water is changed or turned by frost, Shakespeare says it is curdled. To be warp'd is only to be changed from its natural state. STEEVENS: Dr Farmer supposes warp'd to mean the same as curdled, and adds that a similar idea occurs in Coriol. V, iii, 66: the icicle That's curdled by the frost.' HOLT WHITE: Among a collection of Saxon adages in Hickes's Thesaurus, vol. i, p. 221, the succeeding appears: winter sceal geweorpan weder,' winter shall warp water. [See Wright's note, post.] So that Shakespeare's expression was anciently proverbial. WHITER: 'Warp' signifies to contract, and is so used without any allusion to the precise physical process which takes place in that contraction. Cold and winter have been always described as contracting; heat and summer as dissolving or softening. The cold is said to warp the waters' when it contracts them into the solid substance of ice and suffers them no longer to continue in a liquid or flowing state. NARES: It appears that to warp' sometimes was used poetically in the sense of to weave, from the warp which is first prepared in weaving cloth. Hence [the present passage] may be explained, though thou weave the waters into a firm texture.' CALDECOTT: In III, iii, 80, Jaques says, 'then one of you will prove a shrunk pannel; and, like green timber, warp, warp;' and from the inequalities it makes in the surface of the earth the mold-warp (or mole) is so denominated. And see Golding's Ovid, II [p. 22 verso. ed. 1567]: Hir handes gan warpe and into pawes ylfauordly to grow. 'Curvarique manus et aduncos crescere in ungues Coeperunt.' [It is proper to repeat the foregoing notes here, erroneous in the main though they be, because some of them, in whole or in part, are found in modern editions. But the note which supersedes all others, and which conclusively determines the meaning, is as follows:] WRIGHT: In the Anglosaxon weorpan, or wyrpan, from which warp' is derived, there are the two ideas of throwing and turning. By the former of these it is connected with the German werfen, and by the latter with Anglosaxon hweorfan and Gothic hvairban. The prominent idea of the English warp' is that of turning or changing, from which that of shrinking or contracting, as wood does, is derivative. So in Meas. for Meas. I, i, 15, Shakespeare uses it as equivalent to 'swerve,' to which it may be etymologically akin: There is our commission From which we would not have you warp.' Hence warped,' equivalent to distorted, in Lear, III, vi, 56: ́And here's another, whose warp'd looks proclaim What store her heart is made on.' With which compare Wint. Tale, I, ii, 365: This is strange: methinks My favour here begins to warp.' And All's Well, V, iii, 49: Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me Which warp'd the line of every other favour.' In the present passage Shakespeare seems to have had the same idea in his mind. The effect of the freezing wind is to change the aspect of the water, and we need not go so far as Whiter, who insists that 'warp' here means to contract, and so accurately describes the action of frost upon water. A fragment from a collection of gnomic sayings, preserved in Anglosaxon in the Exeter (MS), has been quoted by Holt White and repeated by subsequent commentators under the impression that it illustrates this passage. This impression is founded on a mistake. [White renders the fragment winter shall warp water.'] But, unfortunately, 'water' is not mentioned, and the word so rendered is 'weather,' that is, 'fair weather,' and is moreover the subject of the following and not the object 6 6 Duke Sen. If that you were the good Sir Rowlands son, As you haue whisper'd faithfully you were, And as mine eye doth his effigies witnesse, 198 200 Moft truly limn'd, and liuing in your face, Be truly welcome hither : I am the Duke That lou'd your Father, the refidue of your fortune, 198, 199. were] are Dyce conj. 205 Exeunt. 207 205. masters] F ̧. of the preceding verb. [In Caldecott's quotation from Golding's Ovid] the idea of bending or turning, and so distorting, is again the prominent one. We may, therefore, understand by the warping of the waters either the change produced in them by the action of the frost or the bending and ruffling of their surface caused by the wintry wind. 196. remembred not] CAPELL (p. 61): This is subject to great ambiguity in this place; as signifying who is not remember'd by his friend, as well as who has no remembrance of his friend; which was sometimes its signification of old, and is so here. MALONE: 'Remember'd' for remembering. So afterwards, III, v, 136: ‘And now I am remembred,' i. e. and now that I bethink me.' WHITER replies to Malone: Certainly not. If ingratitude consists in one friend not remembering another, it surely must consist likewise in one friend not being remember'd by another. So in the former line, 'benefits forgot' by our friend, or our friend forgetting benefits, will prove him equally ungrateful. MOBERLY: As what an unremembered friend feelscompendiary comparison. 199. whisper'd] By the use of this word we are artfully told that the Duke and Orlando had carried on a subdued conversation during the music. How old this practice is, and what vitality it has!-ED. 200. effigies] A trisyllable, with the accent on the second syllable. 203. residue] By considering the unaccented i in the middle of this word as dropped, Abbott, § 467, thus scans: 'That lóv'd | your fáther: | the rési | due óf | your fortune.' [Again, I doubt.—ED.] 205. Thou] Note the change of address to a servant.-ED. Actus Tertius. Scena Prima. Enter Duke, Lords, & Oliuer. Du. Not see him since ? Sir, fir, that cannot be : But were I not the better part made mercie, I should not feeke an absent argument Of my reuenge, thou present : but looke to it, Seeke him with Candle: bring him dead, or liuing Thy Lands and all things that thou doft call thine, Till thou canft quit thee by thy brothers mouth, Ol. Oh that your Highneffe knew my heart in this: I neuer lou'd my brother in my life. Duke. More villaine thou. Well push him out of dores I. The Palace. Rowe. Duke] Duke junior. Cap. Duke Frederick Mal. 2. fee] seen Coll. (MS) ii, iii, Sing. Ktly, Huds. 4. Seeke] fee Ff. 15 7. with Candle] instantly Cartwright 8. tweluemonth] tweluemoneth FF2. 16. Well push] Well-Push Johns. 3. the better part] See, for similar omissions of prepositions, Abbott, § 202. Cf. all points,' I, iii, 123. 4. argument] JOHNSON: An argument is used for the contents of a book; thence Shakespeare considered it as meaning the subject, and then used it for subject in yet another sense. [Cf. I, ii, 278.] 5. thou present] ABBOTT, § 381: The participle is sometimes implied in the case of a simple word, such as 'being.' 7. Candle] STEEVENS: Probably alluding to St Luke, xv, 8. II. seize] The usual legal term for taking possession. It is doubtful, however, whether 'seizure' be used in a legal sense, although I am not sure that a nice legal point might not be herein detected by a wild enthusiast for the still wilder theory that Shakespeare was not the author of these plays. As there can be in strict law no 'seizure' until after 'forfeiture,' the forfeiture in the case before us is made alternative upon Oliver's producing the body of Orlando, in which case a verbal seizure' will hold. Clearly, therefore, it is this seizure in posse which is here intended, and not a seizure which can follow only conviction and forfeiture; the term is thus used in its strictest, choicest, legal sense, and approves the consummate legal knowledge of BaI should say, Shakespeare.-ED. And let my officers of such a nature 18. extent] LORd Campbell (p. 49): A deep technical knowledge of law is here displayed, howsoever it may have been acquired. The usurping Duke wishing all the real property of Oliver to be seized, awards a writ of extent against him, in the language which would be used by the Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer, an extendi facias applying to house and lands, as a fieri facias would apply to goods and chattels, or a capias ad satisfaciendum to the person. [I cannot but think that the present is a passage which so far from showing any deep technical knowledge of law,' shows not much more than the ordinary knowledge (perhaps even a little vague at that), which must have been almost universal in Shakespeare's day, when statutes merchant and statutes staple were in common use and wont. It may be even possible that there is here an instance of that confusion which follows like a fate dramatists and novelists who invoke the law as a Deus ex machinâ. That Shakespeare is wonderfully correct in general is continually manifest. But I doubt if the present be one of the happiest examples. Lord Campbell, when he says that the Duke aims at Oliver's realty by this writ of extent, overlooked the fact that the Duke had already 'seized' not only all Oliver's realty, but even all his personalty, by an act of arbitrary power. After this display on the part of the Duke that he should invoke the aid of the sheriff and proceed according to due process of law and apply for a writ of extendi facias, which could only issue on due forfeiture of a recognizance or acknowledged debt (under circumstances which had not here occurred), is inconsequential, to say the least, and betokens either a confused knowledge of law (which could be only doubtfully imputed to Shakespeare), or an entire indifference to such trivial details or sharp quillets which only load without helping the progress of the plot. It was dramatically necessary that Oliver should be set adrift, houseless and landless, in order that he and Orlando should hereafter meet; how he was to be rendered houseless and landless was of little moment, the use of a legal term or so would be all-sufficient to create the required impression; officers of the law are ordered to make an extent upon his house and lands, and the end is gained. A 'deep technical knowledge' of the writ of extendi facias in Shakespeare's day would know that with the lands and goods of the debtor in cases where the Crown was concerned, as here, the sheriff was con.. manded to take the body also; but this would never do in the present case; Oliver must not himself be detained; he has to be sent forth, somewhere to meet with Orlando; either the sheriff will have to apply to the Court for instructions or the writ must be radically modified. In short, is it not clear that the law here, as it is in The Merchant of Venice, is invoked merely for dramatic purposes, and was neither intended to be shrilly sounded nor technically exact ?-ED.] 19. expediently] JOHNSON: That is, expeditiously. [For other instances of expedient,' in the sense of expeditious, see Schmidt, s. v.] |