and go, my sweet;' deliver this paper into the royal hand of the king; it may concern much: Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty; adieu. JAQ. Good Costard go with me.-Sir, God save your life! COST. Have with thee, my girl. [Exeunt CoST. and Jaq. NATH. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith 2 HOL. Sir, tell not me of the father, I do fear colourable colours. But, to return to the verses; Did they please you, sir Nathaniel? NATH. Marvellous well for the pen. HOL. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of mine; where if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention; I beseech your society. NATH. And thank you too: for society, (saith the text,) is the happiness of life. 1 Trip and go, my sweet;] Perhaps originally the burthen of a song. So, in Summer's Last Will and Testament, by Nashe, 1600: "Trip and go, heave and hoe, 66 MALONE. These words are certainly part of an old popular song. There is an ancient musical medley beginning, Trip and go hey! * RITSON. -colourable colours.] That is specious, or fair seeming. appearances. JOHNSON. 3 before repast,] Thus the quarto. Folio-being repast. MALONE. 4 HOL. And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.—Sir,[To DULL.] I do invite you too; you shall not say me, nay: pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation. [Exeunt. SCENE III. Another part of the same. Enter BIRON, with a paper. BIRON. The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing myself: they have pitch'd a toil; I am toiling in a pitch;5 pitch that defiles; defile! a foul word. Well, Set thee down, sorrow! for so, they say, the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool. Well proved, wit! By the lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep: Well proved again on my side! I will not love: if I do, hang me; i'faith, I will not. O, but her eye,-by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and here certes,] i. e. certainly, in truth. So, in Chaucer's Wif of Bathes Tale, v. 6790: 5 "And certes, sire, though non auctoritee "Were in no book," &c. STEEVENS. I am toiling in a pitch;] Alluding to lady Rosaline's complexion, who is through the whole play represented as a black beauty. JOHNSON. 6 this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me,] This is given as a proverb in Fuller's Gnomologia. RITSON. my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already; the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin if the other three were in: Here comes one with a paper; God give him grace to groan! [Gets up into a tree. Enter the King, with a paper. KING. Ah me! BIRON. [Aside.] Shot, by heaven!-Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd him with thy birdbolt under the left pap:-I'faith secrets.KING. [Reads.] So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not To those fresh morning drops upon the rose, As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows :" Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright 8 Through the transparent bosom of the deep, As doth thy face through tears of mine give light; Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep: 7 The night of dew, that on my cheeks down flows;] This phrase, however quaint, is the poet's own. He means, the dew that nightly flows down his cheeks. Shakspeare, in one of his other pieces, uses night of dew for dewy night, but I cannot at present recollect in which. STEEVENS. • Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright, Through the transparent bosom of the deep, As doth thy face through tears-] So, in our poet's Venus and Adonis: "But hers, which through the chrystal tears gave light, "Shone, like the moon in water, seen by night." MALONE. No drop but as a coach doth carry thee, And they thy glory through thy grief will show: Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper. What, Longaville! and reading! listen, ear. BIRON. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool, appear! LONG. Ah me! I am forsworn. [Aside. BIRON. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wear ing papers. [Aside. [Aside. KING. In love, I hope;' Sweet fellowship in shame! BIRON. One drunkard loves another of the name. [Aside. he comes in like a perjure,] The punishment of perjury is to wear on the breast a paper expressing the crime. JOHNSON. Thus, Holinshed, p. 838, speaking of Cardinal Wolsey: "-he so punished a perjurie with open punishment, and open papers wearing, that in his time it was less used." Again, in Leicester's Commonwealth:-" the gentlemen were all taken and cast into prison, and afterwards were sent down to Ludlow, there to wear papers of perjury." STEEVEns. 1 In love, I hope; &c.] In the old copy this line is given to Longaville. The present regulation was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE. LONG. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so? BIRON. [Aside.] I could put thee in comfort; not by two, that I know: Thou mak'st the triumviry, the corner-cap of society, The shape of love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity. LONG. I fear, these stubborn lines lack power to move: O sweet Maria, empress of my love! These numbers will I tear, and write in prose. BIRON. [Aside.] O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose: Disfigure not his slop.2 LONG. This same shall go.- * O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose: Disfigure not his slop.] The old copies read-shop. STEEVENS. All the editions happen to concur in this error: but what agreement in sense is there between Cupid's hose and his shop? or what relation can those two terms have to one another? or, what, indeed, can be understood by Cupid's shop? It must undoubtedly be corrected, as I have reformed the text. Slops are large and wide-knee'd breeches, the garb in fashion in our author's days, as we may observe from old family pictures; but they are now worn only by boors and sea-faring men: and we have dealers, whose sole business it is to furnish the sailors with shirts, jackets, &c. who are called slop-men, and their shops, slop-shops. THEOBALD. I suppose this alludes to the usual tawdry dress of Cupid, when he appeared on the stage. In an old translation of Casa's Galateo is this precept: "Thou must wear no garments, that be over much daubed with garding: that men may not say, thou hast Ganimedes hosen, or Cupides doublet." FARMER. |