me to wash your liver 52 as clean as a sound sheep's heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't. Orl. I would not be cured, youth. Ros. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cote and woo me. Orl. Now, by the faith of my love, I will: tell me where it is. Ros. Go with me to it, and I'll show it you; and, by the way, you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go? Orl. With all my heart, good youth. Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you go? [Exeunt. Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES behind. Touch. Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? doth my simple feature content you? 2 52 The liver was supposed to be the seat of the passions and affections, especially of love and courage. Shakespeare very often speaks of it so. 1 Apace is quickly or fast.— Audrey is a corruption of Etheldreda; the saint of that name being so styled in ancient calendars. 2 In explanation of this passage, Mr. Joseph Crosby writes me as follows: "Mr. W. Wilkins, of Trinity College, Dublin, has recently pointed out that feature formerly meant a literary work, a poem, a drama, &c., just as we now call such a work a composition; being from the Latin verb facere, to make. Ben Jonson uses the word in this sense when he says of his creation, the play of Volpone, that two months before it was no feature: To this there needs no lie, but this his creature, Which was two months since no feature; And, though he dares give them five lives to mend it, Various other examples of the use of this word in the sense of a literary production have been discovered, even as far back as the time of Pliny, who, in the Preface to his Natural History, speaks of his work as 'libri nati apud me Aud. Your features! Lord warrant us! what features? Touch. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.3 Jaq. [Aside.] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatch'd house !4 Touch. When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.5-Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical. ་ proxima fetura.'" Then, referring to the passage in the text, Mr. Crosby continues: "From the context we find that Touchstone calls himself' a poet,' and is nettled because his verses 'cannot be understood,' and laments that the gods had not made his rustic adorer 'poetical.' Here, instead of asking, as the question is commonly supposed to signify, 'How does my intelligent countenance strike you now?' it is evident that, being a clown of brains and observation, he had been making love, as he had seen it done ' at Court,' by sending 'good Audrey' a poetical billet-doux; and his question means, How are you pleased with my love-ditty?' He tells us elsewhere that he could rhyme you eight years together, dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted'; and no wonder he felt chagrined that his 'simple feature,' as he modestly terms his love-rhymes, was unregarded, and his 'good wit' thrown away, 'not being seconded with the forward child, understanding.' It was not his good looks that the clever and sharp-witted fellow was sensitive about: Audrey could have had no trouble to understand them: it was the non-appreciation of his gallant poetical 'feature' that disgusted him, and struck him 'more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.'" 8 Shakespeare remembered that caper was Latin for goat, and thence chose this epithet. There is also a quibble between goats and Goths, 4 We have already had disputable for disputatious, and unexpressive for inexpressible. So here we have ill-inhabited for ill-inhabiting; that is, illlodged. An old classical fable represents that Jupiter and Mercury were once overtaken by night in Phrygia, and were inhospitably excluded by all the people, till at last an old poor couple, named Philemon and Baucis, who lived in a thatched house, took them in, and gave them the best entertainment the house would afford. See page 54, note 6. 5 Rabelais has a saying, that "there is only one quarter of an hour in human life passed ill, and that is between the calling for a reckoning and the paying it." A heavy bill for narrow quarters is apt to dash the spirits of Aud. I do not know what poetical is: is it honest in deed and word? is it a true thing? Touch. No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning; and lovers are given to poetry; and what they swear in poetry, it may be said, as lovers, they do feign. Aud. Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical? Touch. I do, truly; for thou swear'st to me thou art honest: now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign. Aud. Would you not have me honest? Touch. No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favour'd; for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar. Jaq. [Aside.] A material Fool !6 Aud. Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest. Touch. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut, were to put good meat into an unclean dish. Aud. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.7 Touch. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come hereafter. But, be it as it may be, I will marry thee and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver : tavern mirth. There is, as Singer remarks, "much humour in comparing the blank countenance of a disappointed poet or wit, whose effusions have not been comprehended, to that of the reveller who has to pay largely for his carousing." 6 A material Fool is a Fool with matter in him. - Honest and honesty are here used for chaste and chastity. So in i. 2, of this play: "Those that she makes fair, she scarce makes honest; and those that she makes honest, she makes very ill-favoured." 7 Audrey uses foul as opposed to fair; that is, for plain, homely. She has good authority for doing so. Thus in Thomas's History of Italy: "If the maiden be fair, she is soon had, and little money given with her; if she be foul, they advance her with a better portion." 8 Sir was in common use as a clerical title in Shakespeare's time, and long before. He has several instances of it; as, Sir Hugh, the Welsh parson. Martext, the vicar of the next village; who hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest, and to couple us. Jaq. [Aside.] I would fain see this meeting. Aud. Well, the gods give us joy! ! Touch. Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but horn'd beasts. But what though? Courage As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is said, Many a man knows no end of his goods: right! many a man has good horns, and knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; 'tis none of his own getting. Horns given to poor men alone? No, no; the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal.9 Is the single man therefore blessed? No: as a wall'd town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to want.10 Here comes Sir Oliver. Enter Sir OLIVER MARTEXT. Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met: will you dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel? Sir Oli. Is there none here to give the woman? Touch. I will not take her on gift of any man. Sir Oli. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful. Jaq. [Coming forward.] Proceed, proceed: I'll give her. Touch. Good even, good Master What-ye-call't: how do you, sir? You are very well met: God 'ild11 you for your 9 Rascal, as an epithet of deer, means lean and out of season. 10 A quibble between horn as meaning the ornament which bachelors never have, and the same word as meaning the "horn of plenty." See vol. ii., page 47, note II. 11 That is, "God yield you"; an old phrase for "God reward you." last company: I am very glad to see you: hand here, sir :- nay, pray be cover'd.12 Jaq. Will you be married, Motley? even a toy in Touch. As the ox hath his bow, 13 sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling. Jaq. And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush, like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is this fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel, and like green timber warp, warp. Touch. [Aside.] I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of another: for he is not like to marry me well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife. Jaq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.— but, not, O sweet Oliver, O brave Oliver, Wend away; be gone, I say, I will not to wedding with thee.14 [Exeunt JAQUES, TOUCHSTONE, and AUDREY. 12 Jaques is supposed to be standing with his hat off, out of deference to the present company. See vol. ii., page 74, note 9. 18 His yoke, which, in ancient time, resembled a bow or branching horns. 14 The ballad of "O sweet Oliver, leave me not behind thee," and the answer to it, are entered on the Stationers' books in 1584 and 1586. Touchstone says, I will sing, not that part of the ballad which says, "Leave me not behind thee"; but that which says, "Be gone, I say," probably part of the answer. |