and Dumain, jun., to his brother; the latter's Christian name not being mentioned. The First Soldier, who plays the part of the Interpreter, is generally known by that title, as appears from the notices of the performance of this play. We have therefore given a somewhat fuller description of the Dramatis Personæ than that usually given; and though we have not ventured to go so far as to adapt into the list of Dramatis Personæ the names to be found in Kemble's acting edition, yet it would be a very great convenience if, as far as concerns the First and Second Lord, editors were to agree to adopt the names of Dumain and Lewis, for the first of which, as we have already said, there is a justification in the text.-F. A. M. ACT I. SCENE 1. 2. Line 5: to whom I am now in ward.-Wardship was one of the feudal incidents. In virtue of it the lord had the care of his tenant's person during his minority, and enjoyed the profits of his estate. By another "incident," that of marriage, the lord had the right of tendering a husband to his female wards, or a wife to his male wards; a refusal involving the forfeit of the value of the marriage, that is, the sum that any one would give the lord for such an alliance. These customs prevailed in England and in some parts of Germany, but in no province of France with the exception of Normandy. Shakespeare, however, is not responsible for whatever error there may be in making the French king impose a wife upon Bertram, as he only followed the original story. See Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 177, ed. 1853. 3. Lines 10-12: whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted, rather than LACK it where there is such abundance. --So worthy a gentleman as Bertram would be more likely to arouse kindly feelings in a man of defective sympathies, than fail to win them from so generous a heart as that of the King of France. Warburton altered lack to slack, which, says Capell, is the very term the place calls for; and so natural a correction, that he who does not embrace it, must be under the influence of some great prepossession." 4. Lines 47-49: where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity,-they are virtues and traitors too.-While we commend his virtues we naturally feel pity for the man in whom they are but bright spots in a nature otherwise vicious; but why are these virtues called traitors? Surely not, as Johnson thought, because they betray his too confiding friends into evil courses, but because they are false to, inconsistent with, the rest of his character. 5. Line 58: livelihood.-Liveliness; not used by Shakespeare in its modern sense. Compare: With this she seizeth on his sweating palm, -Venus and Ad. 25, 26. 6. Line 61: than to have it.-F. 1 reads "then to haue-." The reading in the text is due to Dyce. For the insertion of to in the second member of the comparison Abbott (Shakespearian Grammar, § 416) quotes Bacon (Essays,103): "In a word, a man were better relate himself to a Statue or Picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother." Capell printed: "than have it." 7. Lines 65, 66: If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.—If grief in any shape is the enemy of the living, excessive indulgence in it must soon make of it a fatal or deadly enemy. It is to this sentiment that Lafeu refers (1. 68): "How understand we that?" 8. Line 85: The best wishes, &c.-Since Rowe the whole of this speech has been given as spoken to Helena. On the suggestion of Dr. Brinsley Nicholson (Shakespeariana, vol. i. p. 54) I have assumed the first part of it: "The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts be servants to you"-to be addressed to the countess. 9. Lines 91, 92: these great tears grace his remembrance more Than those I shed for him. Not, as Johnson supposed, the tears shed by great people, the King and Countess, but, as Monck Mason says, "the big and copious tears she then shed herself, which were caused in reality by Bertram's departure, though attributed by Lafeu and the Countess to the loss of her father; and from this misapprehension of theirs graced his remembrance more than those she actually shed for him." 10. Line 100: sphere.-The sphere of a star is the orbit in which it moves; and this is generally the sense in which Shakespeare uses the word; he rarely applies it to the star itself, as in the following: all kind of natures That labour on the bosom of this sphere.-Timon, i. 1. 65, 66. 11. Line 106: In our heart's TABLE.-The table is the material on which the picture is drawn; compare: Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd Thy beauty's form in table of my heart.-Sonn. xxiv. 12. Lines 114-116:} That they take place, when virtue's steely bones The vices of Parolles suit him so well that they enable him to take precedence over men of unattractive, unyielding virtue; he is received into good society when they are left out in the cold, and wisdom starves while folly has more than enough. For this use of "superfluous" compare: Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man, 13. Line 150: He that hangs himself, &c.-He that hangs himself and a virgin are, in this circumstance, alike; they are both self-destroyers.- Malone. 14. Line 160: within TEN year it will make itself TEN.F. 1 reads "within ten yeare it will make it selfe two;" which is clearly wrong. The correction is due to Sir Thomas Hanmer. 15. Line 171: which WEAR not now.-F. 1 reads "which were not now." The correction is Rowe's. 16. Line 179: Not my virginity yet.-This speech has caused much perplexity to the commentators. Johnson says: "The whole speech is abrupt, unconnected and obscure;" and Warburton is persuaded that "the eight lines following friend (1. 181) is the nonsense of some foolish conceited player," who, finding a thousand loves mentioned and only three enumerated, added a few more of his own. The obscurity, however, is not so great as appears at first sight. The chief difficulty is the occurrence of the word there, without anything being mentioned to which it could refer: 'THERE shall your master have a thousand loves' (1. 180). From 1. 191: The court's a learning-place,' it is clear that, with possibly a secret undercurrent of reference to herself (Rolfe), the place in Helena's mind is the court, where Bertram would be entangled in all these thousand love affairs. Nevertheless the transition from the short line 'not my virginity yet' is abrupt, and perhaps intentionally so. Sir Philip Perring (Hard Knots in Shakespeare, 1886, p. 151) says: “A short line here is surely not out of place, where the subject is cut shortwhere there is a break, a pause-perhaps a silent wish, a secret sigh; where at any rate there is a marked crisis in the conversation, and Helena has to extemporize another more appropriate but not less engaging topic." If this explanation does not satisfy us, we must take refuge in the supposition that some words have been lost, the recovery of which will complete the sense; and accordingly Hanmer reads: Not my virginity yet. -You're for the court: There shall your master, &c. This reading was adopted by Capell, while Malone suggested that the omission is in Parolles's speech, and that after the words "'t is a withered pear" we should read, "I am now bound for the court; will you anything with it? (ie. the court]." It may be noticed that the Folio has only a colon at yet, a fact which, so far as it is of any value at all, tends to show that the line is incomplete. As they stand the words "Not my virginity yet" are a reply to Parolles's question, "Will you anything with it?" and mean "I will nothing with my virginity yet." 17. Line 181: A mother, and a mistress, &c.-These are the names Helena applies to the various mistresses who will captivate Bertram at court; for instance, a rare and matchless dame would be a phoenix, and one who commands him and his affections, a captain. 18. Line 188: christendoms.-Christian names-the only time Shakespeare uses the word in this sense. Malone quotes Nash, Four Letters Confuted (1593): "But for an author to renounce his Christendome to write in his owne commendation, to refuse the name which his Godfathers and Godmothers gave him in his baptisme," &c. 19. Line 218: a virtue of a good wing.-The meaning of this passage appears to be this: "If your valour will suffer you to go backward for advantage, and your fear for the same reason will make you run away, the composition that your valour and fear make in you, must be a virtue that will fly far and swiftly." A bird of a good wing is a bird of swift and strong flight.-Monck Mason. 20. Line 227: when thou hast NONE, remember thy friends.-Dyce quotes W. W. Williams (The Parthenon, Nov. 1, 1862, p. 848), who proposed to read: "when thou hast money, remember thy friends." 21. Lines 237, 238: The mightiest SPACE in fortune nature brings To join like likes, and kiss like NATIVE things. Malone correctly gives the meaning: "The affections given us by nature often unite persons between whom fortune or accident has placed the greatest distance or disparity; and cause them to join like likes (instar parium), like persons in the same situation or rank of life." Space will then be put for spaces, according to the metrical usage, by which "the plural and possessive cases of nouns in which the singular ends in s, se, ss, ce and ge are frequently written. . . without the additional syllable" (Abbott, Sh. Gram. § 471). See also W. S. Walker, Shakespeare's Versification, art. li. p. 243, where a large number of examples are quoted. For "native" in the sense of congenial, kindred compare: and 'tis often seen Adoption strives with nature; and choice breeds A native slip to us from foreign seeds.-Act i. 3. 150-152. The head is not more native to the heart.-Hamlet, i. 2. 47. 22. Line 241: What HATH BEEN CANNOT be.-Hanmer suggested: "What hath not been can't be;" and so Dyce; but I agree with Sir Philip Perring (Hard Knots, p. 153) in thinking the change unnecessary. These timid venturers regard as impossible what, in spite of their obstinate refusal to believe it, has actually taken place. ACT I. SCENE 2. 23. Line 1: Senoys.-The Sanesi, as they are termed by Boccace. Painter, who translates him, calls them Senois. They were the people of a small republic, of which the capital was Sienna. The Florentines were at perpetual variance with them.-Steevens. 24. Line 11: He hath arm'd our answer.-He hath furnished us with a ready and fit answer. 25. Line 18: Count ROUSILLON.-The Folio, which here has Count Rosignoll, usually spells the word Rossillion. Painter has Rossiglione. 26. Lines 33-36: but they may jest, Till their own scorn return to them unnoted The punctuation is that of the Folio. Sir William Blackstone (approved by Capell, Steevens, and Dyce) proposed to punctuate: Ere they can hide their levity in honour, So like a courtier. But the original punctuation gives the better sense: "The young lords of the present day," says the king, " may go on with their mockeries till no one pays any attention to them, and without that power of keeping their folly within the bounds required by self-respect which Bertram's father had. He was so much all that a courteous gentleman ought to be that his pride was without contempt, and his sharpness without bitterness, unless in deed it was his equal who had roused him: his sense of honour was a perfectly regulated clock, of which his tongue was the hammer, and ever struck the note of disapprobation when the hand pointed to the right moment, and then only." The Globe editors mark line 36 as corrupt. Sir 27. Line 45: In their poor praise he humbled. Philip Perring seems to me very happy in his interpretation of these words: "in the sentence 'he humbled' I catch the ipsissima verba of the humble poor-their own poor way of expressing their appreciation of the great man's condescension" (Hard Knots, p. 155). He humbled, then, is in the phrase of "creatures of another place," "he made himself humble." Malone explains it, "he being humbled in their poor praise," i.e. humbling himself by accepting their praises. The Globe editors mark the line as corrupt. 31. Steevens calls attention to some verses by William Cartwright prefixed to the folio Beaumont & Fletcher, 1647, which may have reference to this dialogue between the Countess and the Clown, or to that between Olivia and the Clown in Twelfth Night, act i. sc. 5.: Shakespeare to thee was dull, whose best jest lyes -Ed. 1647, sig. d 2 b. 32. Line 3: Madam, the care I have had to EVEN your content, &c.-"It ill becomes me to publish my deserts myself; I would have you look in the record of my deeds, to discover the trouble I have taken to act up to your satisfaction." For the verb even in this sense compare: There's more to be considered; but we'll even All that good time will give us [and so make the most of it]. Com 33. Line 20: to go to the world.-To be married. pare: "Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt; I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!" (Much Ado, ii. 1. 331). And "a woman of the world" is a married woman. "I hope it is no dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the world". (As You Like It, v. 3. 3). 34. Line 20: ISBEL the woman and I.-F. 1 has "Isbell the woman and w"; the correction was made in F. 2. 35. Line 25: Service is no heritage.-According to Ritson a proverbial expression. The connection seems to be, "if service is no blessing, children are." The Rev. John Hunter (ed. 1873) quotes Psalm cxxvii. 3, "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord." 36. Line 46: You're shallow, madam, in great friends. -"You don't understand fully what a great friend is." Hanmer altered to "you'r shallow, madam; e'en great friends;" and the change was adopted by Capell, Malone, and Dyce. 37. Line 49: to in the crop, spelt Inne in the Folio, is to get it in, harvest it. 38. Lines 55, 56: young Charbon the puritan and old Poysam the papist.-Malone suggested that Poysam was a misprint for Poisson, alluding to the custom of eating fish on fast-days; and that Charbon, "Firebrand," was an allusion to the fiery zeal of the Puritans. Dyce quotes a writer in Notes and Queries, Aug. 8, 1863, p. 106. After dismissing the latter part of Malone's conjectures as unsatisfactory this writer continues: "As however Poisson is significant of the fasting and self-denying Papist, so I think Charbon, Chairbon, or Chairbounne was given authentically to the fast-denying or sleek Puritan as derivable from chair bonne, or bonne chair. The antithesis and the appropriateness of the allusions prove the truth of these emendations and interpretations; and if other proof were wanting, it is to be found in this, that Shakespeare has clearly appropriated to his own purposes the old French proverb, 'Jeune chair, et viel poisson-young flesh and old fish (are the daintiest). Hence also, the full meaning intended to be conveyed is not that some, but that the best men, whatever their age or whatever may be their own or their wives' religious opinions, all share, the common fate." 39. Line 58: they may JOUL horns together.-For jou (i.e. dash, thrust), compare: "That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jawbone" (Hamlet, v. 1. 83). 40. Line 64: the ballad.-Steevens quotes John Grange, The Golden Aphroditis, whereunto be annexed his Garden, 1577: Content yourself as well as I, let reason rule your mind, 41. Line 90: but ONE every blazing star.-F. 1 has "ore every;" the emendation is due to the Collier MS. Staunton printed "'fore." 42. Line 96: That man should be at woman's command, &c.-"Tis a wonder if a man should execute a woman's commands, and yet no mischief be done! But then honesty like mine, though not very precise or puritanical, will do no mischief; it will bear itself humbly, and do my lady's bidding, though all the while secretly priding itself on its own excellence." The Puritans, as everybody knows, took violent offence at the surplice, and their "big hearts" would brook nothing more ornamental than the black gown. The surplice might be styled a surplice of humility when worn in humble submission to the orders of the church. Steevens quotes A Match at Midnight, 1633 (Dodsley, ed. Hazlitt, vol. xiii. p. 14): “H' has turned his stomach for all the world like a Puritan's at the sight of a surplice;" and The Hollander, 1640: “A puritan who, because he saw a surplice in the church would needs hang himself in the bell-ropes." For "no puritan" Tyrwhitt proposed a puritan; "though honesty be a puritan, i.e. strictly moral, it will not stand out obstinately against the injunctions of the church, but will humbly submit itself to them." This conjecture had the approval of Malone, but the original reading gives sufficiently good sense. 43 Line 118: Love no god that would not extend his might, ONLY where qualities were level.-Only, as Schmidt points out, is used as if the sentence were not negative, but affirmative="that would extend it only where, &c." 44 Line 119: DIAN NO queen of virgins.-The words Dian no were inserted by Theobald. The Folio has "leuell, Queene of Virgins, that," &c. For the word knight, applied to a female, compare: Pardon, goddess of the night, -Much Ado, v. 3. 12, 13. Thy virgin knight is Hero, who, like Helena, belonged to Diana's order of chastity. See Much Ado, note 386. 45 Line 120: that would suffer her poor knight surprised.-Rowe unnecessarily inserted "to be" before "surprised." Dyce quotes: And suffer not their mouthes shut up, oh Lord, -Drayton's Harmonie of the Church, 1591, sig. F 2. 46. Lines 157, 158: That this distemper'd messenger of wet, The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye? Referring, says Henley, to "that suffusion of colours which glimmers around the sight when the eye-lashes are wet with tears," he compares: And round about her tear-distained eye Blue circles stream'd like rainbows in the sky. 47 Line 177: The mystery of your LONELINESS.-Theobald's correction for the louelinesse of the Folios. 48. Line 183: th' one to th' other. F. 1 has "ton tooth to th' other," a manifest printer's error. 49. Line 184.-The plural behaviours is here, as often elsewhere, used in the sense of "gestures," "manners;" e.g. "one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love" (Much Ado, ii. 3. 7). 50. Line 194: bond. For this word in the sense of obligation, compare "you make my bonds still greater," 52. Line 208: this CAPTIOUS and INTENIBLE sieve.Farmer supposed captious to be a contraction of capacious; Malone thought it only signified capable of receiving what was put into it." No other instance of the word is known. Intenible is the reading of F. 2; F. 1 has intemible. 53. Line 210: And lack not to lose still.-If, like the daughters of Danaus, she still kept on pouring water into a sieve, though the supply never failed, she lost it all. Her love failed not, but since it never was rewarded it was thrown away. 54. Lines 218, 219: Wish chastely, and love dearly, that your Dian Malone proposed to read: Love dearly, and wish chastely, that, &c., but the separation of the dependent clause from "wish" by another verb is but the result of rapid composition. The words of course mean: "If you ever entertained an honest passion which implies the union of chastity and desire, of Diana and Venus, then pity me." 55. Line 226: I will tell truth.-So F. 1; F. 2 has "I will tell true." 56. Line 229: manifest experience experience manifested to the world. W. S. Walker (Critical Examination of the Text of Shakespeare, 1860, vol. ii. p. 245) proposed manifold, and so Dyce. Farewell, young lords; these warlike principles Do not throw from you:—and you, my lords, farewell. It appears from act i. 2. 13-15 Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see The Tuscan service, freely have they leave that the young lords had leave from the king to espouse either side in the Tuscan quarrel. Hence we may conclude, with the Cambridge editors, that there are two parties of lords taking leave of the king here,—the party who were going to join the Florentines, and the party who were going to join the Senoys, and the king turns first to the one and then to the other. 61. Lines 3-5: Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain, all If both parties of young lords endeavour to profit by it, and make it their own, the good advice the king has given them will be a gift ample enough for both. 62. Line 6: After well enter'd soldiers.—The meaning of this passage is: "After our being well entered, initiated, as soldiers"-a Latinism; compare such a phrase as post urbem conditam. Latinisms in construction, though common in learned writers such as Bacon and Ben Jonson, are very rare in Shakespeare. Milton uses the one in question:Nor delay'd Those BATED that inherit but the fall Of the last monarchy-see that you come, &c. The Folios read higher Italy. I have ventured to print Schmidt's conjecture high (i.e. "great," ." "exalted") Italy; the passage then becomes fairly intelligible. If we take bated to mean "beaten down," "subdued," as in These griefs and losses have so bated me, -Merch. of Ven. iii. 3. 32-34. The sense will be, "Let great Italy witness your valour, exhibited, as it will be, in subduing those upstart states which have been formed out of the ruins of the Roman empire, the last of the four great monarchies of the world." One of these states would be Sienna, with whom the Florentines were now "by the ears." It is very improbable that Shakespeare was thinking of any particular quarrel between these two states-such as that of 1495 mentioned by Staunton. For the framework of the play he was simply following Painter's story, without any historical specifications whatever. Thus the King of France is simply King of France, and not Charles VIII., who invaded Italy in 1494 and made an alliance with the Florentine, or any other individual king. Of those who retain the original reading, "higher Italy," some give it a geographical signification: "the side next to the Adriatic," says Hanmer, "was denominated the higher Italy, and the other side the lower;" but both Florence and Sienna are on the lower side, and Capell accordingly says that "the poet has made a little mistake, using ‘higher' where he should have said 'lower;' but this is of no moment:" while Johnson explains it to mean merely upper Italy. Warburton, on the other hand, thought it had a moral sense and meant higher in rank and dignity than Francea most forced interpretation. For bated Hanmer printed bastards, the bastards of Italy being opposed to the sons of France. The Globe marks the line as corrupt. 64. Line 30: I shall stay here the FOREHORSE to a smock. -The forehorse of a team was gaily ornamented with tufts, and ribbons, and bells. Bertram complains that, bedizened like one of these animals, he will have to squire ladies at the court instead of achieving honour in the wars.-Staunton. 65. Lines 32, 33: and no sword worn But one to dance with. Light swords were worn for dancing. Douce (Illustrations, ed. 1839, p. 194) quotes: "I thinke wee were as much dread or more of our enemies, when our Gentlemen went simply, and our Seruingmen plainely, without Cuts or gards, bearing their heauy Swordes and Buckelers on their thighes, in sted of cuts and Gardes and light daunsing Swordes; and when they rode carying good Speares in theyr hands, in stede of white rods, which they cary now, more like ladies or gentlewemen then men; all which delicacyes maketh our men cleane effeminate and without strength" (W. Stafford. A Compendious or briefe examination of certayne ordinary complaints, 1581, p. 65, of the New Shakspere Society's reprint). Compare also he [Octavius] at Philippi kept His sword e'en like a dancer; while I struck The lean and wrinkled Cassius. -Ant. and Cleop. iii. 11. 35 i.e. Octavius did not draw his sword. 66. Line 37: 1 grow to you, and our parting is a tortured body. As they grow together, the tearing them asunder was torturing a body.-Monck Mason. 67. Line 43: one Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice.Theobald's correction for "one Captaine Spurio his sicatrice, with" of the Folios. 68. Line 54: they wear themselves in the cap of the time, &c. The language of Parolles is affected and sententious throughout, like that of Don Armado in Love's Labour's Lost. Hence its occasional obscurity. "These young men," he says, "are the ornaments in the cap of fashion, and there they muster, or arrange, the correct modes of |