Page images
PDF
EPUB

And the free maids, that weave their thread with

bones,

Do use to chaunt it; it is filly footh,

And dallies with the innocence of love,3

Like the old age.4

I

CLO. Are you ready, fir?

DUKE. Ay; pr'ythee, fing.

[Musick,

free] Is, perhaps, vacant, unengaged, easy in mind. JOHNSON.

I rather think, that free means here not having yet furrendered their liberty to man;--unmarried. MALONE.

Is not free, unreserved, uncontrolled by the restraints of female delicacy, forward, and such as fing plain songs? HENLEY.

The precise meaning of this epithet cannot very easily be pointed out. As Mr. Warton observes, on another occafion, "fair and free" are words often paired together in metrical romances. Chaucer, Drayton, Ben Jonson, and many other poets, employ the epithet free, with little certainty of meaning. Free, in the instance before us, may commodiously fignify, artless, free from art, uninfluenced by artificial manners, undirected by false refinement in their choice of ditties. STEEVENS.

filly footh,] It is plain, simple truth. JOHNSON.

3 And dallies with the innocence of love,] To dally is to play, to trifle. So, Act III: "They that dally nicely with words." Again, in Swetnam Arraign'd, 1620:

- he void of fear

" Dallied with danger-."

Again, in Sir W. D'Avenant's Albovine, 1629:

"Why dost thou dally thus with feeble motion?"

STEEVENS.

the old age.) The old age is the ages past, the times

of fimplicity. JOHNSON.

SONG.

CLO. Come away, come away, death,
And in fad cypress let me be laid; 5
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am flain by a fair cruel maid.
My Shroud of white, stuck all with yew,

O, prepare it;

My part of death no one so true
Did share it."

Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet

My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:

A thousand thousand fighs to fave,

Lay me, O, where

Sad true lover & ne'er find my grave,

To weep there.

5 And in fad cypress let me be laid;] i. e. in a shroud of

cypress or cyprus. Thus Autolycus, in The Winter's Tale :

"Lawn as white as driven snow,

[ocr errors]

Cyprus black as e'er was crow."

There was both black and white cyprus, as there is still black and white crape; and ancient shrouds were always made of the latter. STÉEVENS.

6 Fly away, fly away,] The old copy reads-Fie away. The emendation is Mr. Rowe's. MALONE.

7 My part of death no one so true

Did share it.] Though death is a part in which every one acts his Share, yet of all these actors no one is so true as I.

JOHNSON.

8 Sad true lover-) Mr. Pope rejected the word fad, and other modern editors have unnecessarily changed true lover to true love. By making never one fyllable the metre is preserved. Since this note was written, I have observed that lover is elfewhere used by our poet as a word of one fyllable. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream :

"Tie up my lover's tongue; bring him in filently."

DUKE. There's for thy pains.

CLO. No pains, fir; I take pleasure in finging, fir.

DUKE. I'll pay thy pleasure then.

CLO. Truly, fir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another.

DUKE. Give me now leave to leave thee.

CLO. Now, the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffata, for thy mind is a very opal! - I would have men of fuch constancy put to sea, that their business might be every thing, and their intent every where; for that's it, that always makes a good voyage of nothing.-Farewell. [Exit Clown.

I

Again, in King Henry VIII:

" Is held no great good lover of th' archbishop's." There is perhaps, therefore, no need of abbreviating the word never in this line. MALONE.

In the instance produced from A Midsummer Night's Dream, I suppose lover to be a mifprint for love; and in K. Henry VIII. I know not why it should be confidered as a monofyllable.

9

STEEVENS.

- a very opal!) A precious stone of almost all colours.

So, Milton, defcribing the walls of heaven:

POPE.

"With opal tow'rs, and battlements adorn'd." The opal is a gem which varies its appearance as it is viewed in different lights. Thus, in The Muses' Elizium, by Drayton :

"With opals more than any one
"We'll deck thine altar fuller,

"For that of every precious ftone
"It doth retain some colour."

"In the opal, (fays P. Holland's tranflation of Pliny's Natural History, B. XXXVII. c. 6,) you shall fee the burning fire of the carbuncle or rubie, the glorious purple of the amethyst, the green sea of the emeraud, and all glittering together mixed after an incredible manner." STEEVENS.

I

that their business might be every thing, and their intent every where;) Both the preservation of the antithefis,

DUKE. Let all the reft give place.

[Exeunt CURIO and Attendants.
Once more, Cefario,

Get thee to yon' fame fovereign cruelty:
Tell her, my love, more noble than the world,
Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;
The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her,
Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune;
But 'tis that miracle, and queen of gems,
That nature pranks her in, attracts my foul.

and the recovery of the sense, require we should read, and their intent no where. Because a man who suffers himself to run with every wind, and so makes his business every where, cannot be faid to have any intent; for that word fignifies a determination of the mind to something. Besides, the conclufion of making a good voyage of nothing, directs to this emendation. WARBURTON.

An intent every where, is much the fame as an intent no where, as it hath no one particular place more in view than another. HEATH.

The present reading is preferable to Warburton's amendment. We cannot accufe a man of inconftancy who has no intents at all, though we may the man whose intents are every where; that is, are continually varying. M. MASON.

2 But 'tis that miracle, and queen of gems,

That nature pranks her in,] What is that miracle, and queen of gems? we are not told in this reading. Besides, what is meant by nature pranking her in a miracle?-We should read:

But 'tis that miracle, and queen of gems,
That nature pranks, her mind,

i. e. what attracts my soul, is not her fortune, but her mind, that miracle and queen of gems that nature pranks, i. e. fets out, adorns. WARBURTON:

The miracle and queen of gems is her beauty, which the commentator might have found without so emphatical an enquiry. As to her mind, he that should be captious would say, that though it may be formed by nature, it must be pranked by education.

Shakspeare does not say that nature pranks her in a miracle,

VIo. But, if she cannot love you, fir?

DUKE. I cannot be so anfwer'd.3

V10.

'Sooth, but you must.

Say, that some lady, as, perhaps, there is,
Hath for your love as great a pang of heart
As you have for Olivia: you cannot love her;
You tell her fo; Must she not then be answer'd ?

DUKE. There is no woman's fides,
Can bide the beating of so strong a paffion
As love doth give my heart: no woman's heart
So big, to hold so much; they lack retention.
Alas, their love may be call'd appetite,-
No motion of the liver, but the palate, -
That fuffer furfeit, cloyment, and revolt ; 4
But mine is all as hungry as the fea,5
And can digeft as much: make no compare

but in the miracle of gems, that is, in a gem miraculously beautiful. JOHNSON.

To prank is to deck out, to adorn. See Lye's Etymologicon.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

"Moft goddefs-like, prank'd up-." STEEVENS. 3 I cannot be fo answer'd.] The folio reads-It cannot be, &c. The correction by Sir Thomas Hanmer. STEEVENS. 4 Alas, their love may be call'd appetite, &c.

That fuffer furfeit, cloyment, and revolt;] The duke has changed his opinion of women very fuddenly. It was but a few minutes before that he said they had more constancy in love than men. M. MASON.

Mr. Mason would read-suffers; but there is no need of change. Suffer is governed by women, implied under the words, "their love." The love of women, &c. who fuffer.

5

as hungry as the fea,] So, in Coriolanus: "Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach "Fillip the stars-." STEEVENS.

MALONE.

« PreviousContinue »