HOST. Marry, at my house: Trust me, I think, 't is almost day. EGL. This is the hour that madam Silvia Entreated me to call, and know her mind; There's some great matter she 'd employ me in.- SIL. Who calls? SILVIA appears above, at her window EGL. Your servant, and your friend; One that attends your ladyship's command. According to your ladyship's impose a, I am thus early come, to know what service (Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not,) To Mantua, where, I hear, he makes abode; Which Heaven and fortune still reward with plagues. a Impose-command. The word, as a noun, does not occur again in Shakspere. • Remorseful-compassionate. [Exeunt. I do desire thee, even from a heart SIL. This evening coming. EGL. Where shall I meet you? SIL. At friar Patrick's cell, Where I intend holy confession. EGL. I will not fail your ladyship: Good morrow, gentle lady. SIL. Good morrow, kind sir Eglamour. SCENE IV.-The same. [Exeunt. Enter LAUNCE, with his dog. When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look you, it goes hard: one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I saved from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it! I have taught himeven as one would say precisely, Thus I would teach a dog. I was sent to deliver him, as a present to mistress Silvia, from my master; and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber, but he steps me to her trencher 27; and steals her capon's leg. O, 't is a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself in all companies! I would have, as one should say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been hanged for 't; sure as I live he had suffered for 't: you shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or four gentlemanlike dogs, under the duke's table: he had not been there (bless the mark) a pissing while, but all the chamber smelt him. "Out with the dog," says one; "What cur is that?" says another; "Whip him out," says the third; Hang him up," says the duke. I, having been acquainted. with the smell before, knew it was Crab; and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs: "Friend," quoth I, "you mean to whip the dog?" "Ay, marry, do I," quoth he. "You do him the more wrong," quoth I; "'t was I did the thing you wot of." He makes me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How many masters would do this for their servant? Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks 28 for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had been executed: I have stood on the pillory" for geese he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for 't: thou think'st not of this now! -Nay, I remember the trick you served me when I took my leave of madam Silvia; did not I bid thee still mark me, and do as I do? When didst thou see me heave up my leg, and make water against a gentlewoman's farthingale? didst thou ever see me do such a trick? Enter PROTEUS and JULIA. PRO. Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well, And will employ thee in some service presently. JUL. In what you please.-I'll do what I can. PRO. I hope thou wilt.-How now, you whoreson peasant; LAUN. Marry, sir, I carried mistress Silvia the dog you bade me. [TO LAUNCE. LAUN. Marry, she says, your dog was a cur; and tells you, currish thanks is good enough for such a present. PRO. But she received my dog? LAUN. No, indeed, did she not: here have I brought him back again. PRO. What, didst thou offer her this from me? LAUN. Ay, sir; the other squirrel was stolen from me by the hangman's boys in the market-place: and then I offered her mine own; who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift the greater. PRO. Go, get thee hence, and find my dog again, Or, ne'er return again into my sight. She lov'd me well deliver'd it to me. JUL. It seems you lov'd her not to leave her token: She is dead, belike? [Exit LAUNCE. ⚫ Still an end—almost perpetually. A common form of expression in our old writers. Gifford has given several examples in a note to Massinger's 'A Very Woman.'—Act III., Scene 1. She lov'd me well, who deliver'd it to me. To leave-to part with. PRO. Not so; I think she lives. JUL. Alas! PRO. Why dost thou cry, alas! JUL. I cannot choose but pity her. PRO. Wherefore shouldst thou pity her? JUL. Because, methinks, that she lov'd you as well As you do love your lady Silvia: She dreams on him that has forgot her love; This ring I gave him, when he parted from me, And now am I (unhappy messenger) To plead for that, which I would not obtain ; To carry that, which I would have refus'd; To praise his faith, which I would have disprais'd. I am my master's true confirmed love; But cannot be true servant to my master, Unless I prove false traitor to myself. Yet I will woo for him; but yet so coldly, As, Heaven it knows, I would not have him speed. Enter SILVIA, attended. Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you, be my mean To hear me speak the message I am sent on. JUL. From my master, sir Proteus, madam. [Exit PROTEUS. SIL. Ursula, bring my picture there. Go, give your master this: tell him, from me, SIL. I pray thee, let me look on that again. I will not look upon your master's lines: I know they are stuff'd with protestations, And full of new-found oaths; which he will break, JUL. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring. JUL. She thanks you. SIL. What say'st thou ? JUL. I thank you, madam, that you tender her: Poor gentlewoman! my master wrongs her much. SIL. Dost thou know her? JUL. Almost as well as I do know myself: To think upon her woes I do protest That I have wept an hundred several times. SIL. Belike, she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her. JUL. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is: When she did think my master lov'd her well, [Picture brought. In this passage pinch'd means painted, and not, as Johnson has it, pinched with cold. Black signifies dark, tanned. In the next act Thurio says, my face is black," as opposed to "fair." It is curious that black, bleak, blight, are words having a strong affinity; and that, therefore, "the air," which "starv'd the roses," and " pinch'd the lily-tincture," so as to make “black," is the same as the withering and blighting agency, the bleak wind, which covers vegetation with a sterile blackness. (See Richardson's Dictionary.) |