Sir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in't, Whiles other men have gates; and those gates open'd, As mine, against their will: Should all despair, That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind Would hang themselves. Physick for❜t there is none; It is a bawdy planet, that will strike Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis powerful, thinkit, From east, west, north, and south: Be it concluded, No barricado for a belly; know it; It will let in and out the enemy, With bag and baggage: many a thousand of us Have the disease, and feel't not.-How now, boy? MAM. I am like you, they say.' LEON. What! Camillo there? Why, that's some comfort. CAM. Ay, my good lord. LEON. Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man. [Exit MAMILLius. Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer. CAM. You had much ado to make his anchor hold: When you cast out, it still came home.3 LEON. Didst note it? CAM. He would not stay at your petitions; made His business more material.4 2 they say.] They, which was omitted in the original copy by the carelessness of the transcriber or printer, was added by the editor of the second folio. MALONE. 3 • — it still came home.] This is a sea-faring expression, meaning, the anchor would not take hold. STEEVENS. made His business more material.] i. e. the more you requested LEON. Didst perceive it? They're here with me already;" whispering, round ing, 6 Sicilia is a so-forth: 'Tis far gone, him to stay, the more urgent he represented that business to be which summoned him away. STEEVENS. 5 They're here with me already;] Not Polixenes and Hermione, but casual observers, people accidentally present. 6 THIRLBY. • whispering, rounding,] To round in the ear, is to whisper, or to tell secretly. The expression is very copiously explained by M. Casaubon, in his book de Ling. Sax. JOHNSON. The word is frequently used by Chaucer, as well as later writers. So, in Lingua, 1607: "I helped Herodotus to pen some part of his Muses; lent Pliny ink to write his history; and rounded Rabelais in the ear, when he historified Pantagruel." Again, in The Spanish Tragedy: "Forthwith revenge she rounded me i' th' ear.” STEEVENS. 7 Sicilia is a so-forth:] This was a phrase employed when the speaker, through caution or disgust, wished to escape the utterance of an obnoxious term. A commentator on Shakspeare will often derive more advantage from listening to vulgar than to polite conversation. At the corner of Fleet Market, I lately heard one woman, describing another, say-" Every body knows that her husband is a so-forth." As she spoke the last word, her fingers expressed the emblem of cuckoldom. Mr. Malone reads-Sicilia is a-so-forth. STEEVENS. In regulating this line, I have adopted a hint suggested by Mr. M. Mason. I have more than once observed, that almost every abrupt sentence in these plays is corrupted. These words, without the break now introduced, are to me unintelligible. Leontes means-I think I already hear my courtiers whispering to each other, "Sicilia is a cuckold, a tame cuckold, to which (says he) they will add every other opprobrious name and epithet they can think of;" for such, I suppose, the meaning of the words so forth. He avoids naming the word cuckold, from a horror of the very sound. I suspect, however, that our author wrote-Sicilia is-and so forth. So, in The Merchant of Venice: "I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following." Again, in Hamlet: When I shall gust it last.-How came't, Camillo, That he did stay? CAM. At the good queen's entreaty. LEON. At the queen's, be't: good, should be pertinent; But so it is, it is not. Was this taken "I saw him enter such a house of sale, Again, more appositely, in King Henry IV. P. II: with a dish of carraways, AND so forth." Again, in Troilus and Cressida: Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, AND so forth, the spice and salt that season a man?" MALOne. 8 - gust it ] i. e. taste it. STEevens. 9 "Dedecus ille domus sciet ultimus." Juv. Sat. X. MALONE. is soaking,] Dr. Grey would read-in soaking; but I think without necessity. Thy conceit is of an absorbent nature, will draw in more, &c. seems to be the meaning. 1 STEEVENS. lower messes,] I believe, lower messes is only used as an expression to signify the lowest degree about the court. See Anstis, Ord. Gart. I. App. p. 15: "The earl of Surry began the borde in presence: the earl of Arundel washed with him, and sat both at the first messe." Formerly not only at every great man's table the visitants were placed according to their consequence or dignity, but with additional marks of inferiority, viz. of sitting below the great saltseller placed in the center of the table, and of having coarser provisions set before them. The former custom is mentioned in The Honest Whore, by Decker, 1604: Plague him; set him beneath the salt, and let him not touch a bit till every one has had his full cut." The latter was as much a subject of complaint in the time of Beaumont and Fletcher, as in that of Juvenal, as the following instance may prove : 66 CAM. Business, my lord? I think, most understand Bohemia stays here longer. LEON. Ha? CAM. Stays here longer. LEON. Ay, but why?. CAM. To satisfy your highness, and the entreaties Of our most gracious mistress. LEON. Satisfy The entreaties of your mistress?-satisfy?Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo, With all the nearest things to my heart, as well My chamber-councils: wherein, priest-like, thou Hast cleans'd my bosom; I from thee departed Thy penitent reform'd: but we have been Deceiv'd in thy integrity, deceiv'd In that which seems so. CAM. Be it forbid, my lord! LEON.To bide upon't;-Thou art not honest: or, If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward; "Uncut up pies at the nether end, filled with moss and stones, "Partly to make a shew with, "And partly to keep the lower mess from eating." Woman Hater, Act I. sc. ii. This passage may be yet somewhat differently explained. It appears from a passage in The merye Jest of a Man called Howleglas, bl. 1. no date, that it was anciently the custom in publick houses to keep ordinaries of different prices: "What table will you be at? for at the lordes table thei give me no less than to shylinges, and at the merchaunts table xvi pence, and my houshold servantes geve me twelve pence."-Leontes comprehends inferiority of understanding in the idea of inferiority of rank. STEEVENS. at Concerning the different messes in the great families of our ancient nobility, see The Houshold Book of the 5th Earl of Northumberland, 8vo. 1770. PERCY. Which hoxes honesty behind,2 restraining And therein negligent; or else a fool, That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn, And tak'st it all for jest. I CAM. My gracious lord, But that his negligence, his folly, fear, It was my folly; if industriously I play'd the fool, it was my negligence, 3 hoxes honesty behind,] To hox is to ham-string. So, in Knolles' History of the Turks: alighted, and with his sword hoxed his horse." King James VI. in his 11th Parliament, had an act to punish "hochares," or slayers of horse, oxen, &c. STEevens. The proper word is, to hough, i. e. to cut the hough, or hamstring. MALone. 3 Whereof the execution did cry out Against the non-performance,] This is one of the expressions by which Shakspeare too frequently clouds his meaning. This sounding phrase means, I think, no more than a thing necessary to be done. JOHNSON. I think we ought to read-" the now-performance," which gives us this very reasonable meaning:-At the execution whereof, such circumstances discovered themselves, as made it prudent to suspend all further proceeding in it. HEATH. I do not see that this attempt does any thing more, than produce a harsher word without an easier sense. JOHNSON. I have preserved this note, [Mr. Heath's] because I think it |
