If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink, Your own handwriting would tell you what I think. ANT. E. I think thou art an ass. DRO. E. Marry, so it doth appear, By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear. I should kick, being kick'd; and, being at that pass, You would keep from my heels and beware of an ass. ANT. E. You are sad, Signior Balthazar; pray God our cheer May answer my good will, and your good welcome here. BAL. I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome dear. ANT. E. O, Signior Balthazar, either at flesh or fish, A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish. BAL. Good meat, sir, is common ; that every churl affords. ANT. E. And welcome more common; for that's nothing but words. BAL. Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast. ANT E. Ay, to a niggardly host, and more sparing guest. But, though my cates be mean, take them in good part; Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart. But, soft; my door is lock'd: go bid them let Mome.-] Sir J. Hawkins derives this word from the French momon, which signifies the gaming at dice in masquerade, the custom and rule of which is, that a strict silence is to be observed: whatever sum one stakes, another covers, but not a word is to be spoken; from hence also, he says, comes our word Mum! for silence. Douce thinks we have mome from one of those similar words found in many languages to imply something foolish. In this place it clearly means blockhead, dolt, fool. Mr. Patch!] This in Shakespeare's time, and long before, appears to have been the generic term for a fool or jester, derived, it is thought by some, from his pied or patch'd vestments. Tyrwhitt supposed patch, however, to be nothing more than a corruption of the Italian pazzo, which signifies, properly, a fool. Shakespeare uses it again in the present Scene, and elsewhere:what soldiers patch ?" Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 3. "What a pied ninny's this? Thou scurvy patch!" Tempest, Act III. Sc. 2. 127 "The patch is kind enough." Merchant of Venice, Act II. Sc. 5. DRO. E. What patch is made our porter? my master stays in the street. DRO. S. Let him walk from whence he came, lest he catch cold on 's feet. ANT. E. Who talks within there? Ho!open the door. DRO. S. Right, sir; I'll tell you when, an you'll tell me wherefore. ANT. E. Wherefore?-for my dinner; I have not din'd to-day. DRO. S. Nor, to-day, here you must not; come again when you may. ANT. E. What art thou, that keep'st me out from the house I owe?" DRO. S. The porter for this time, sir, and my name is Dromio. DRO. E. O villain! thou hast stolen both mine office and my name ;— The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle Have at you with another: that's- DRO. S. If thy name be called Luce,-Luce, thou hast answer'd him well. c I owe?] I own. Can you tell for whose sake? SCENE II.-A Public Place. Enter ANTIPHOLUS and DROMIO of Syracuse, and a Merchant. MER. Therefore, give out you are of Epidamnum, Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate. This very day a Syracusian merchant Is apprehended for arrival here; And, not being able to buy out his life, According to the statute of the town, Dies ere the weary sun set in the west. There is your money that I had to keep. ANT. S. Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host, And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee. Within this hour it will be dinner-time; Till that, I'll view the manners of the town, Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings, And then return, and sleep within mine inn; For with long travel I am stiff and weary. Get thee away. DRO. S. Many a man would take you at your word, And go indeed, having so good a mean. [Exit DRO. S. & ANTIPHOLUs-] The folio, 1623, has, "Enter Antipholis Erotes, a Marchant, and Dromio." b A trusty villain,-] A fatthful bondman, or slave. By these appellations each Antipholus, throughout this Comedy, denominates the Dromio attached to him. So in our author's "Rape of Lucrece," where a Roman slave is mentioned : "The homely villain curt'sies to her low."-MALONE ANT. S. A trusty villain, sir; that very When I am dull with care and melancholy, Lightens my humour with his merry jests. What, will you walk with me about the town, And then go to my inn, and dine with me? с MER. I am invited, sir, to certain merchants, Of whom I hope to make much benefit; I crave your pardon. Soon, at five o'clock, Please you, I'll meet with you upon the mart, And afterward consort you till bed-time: My present business calls me from you now. ANT. S. Farewell till then; I will go lose myself, And wander up and down to view the city. MER. Sir, I commend you to your own content. [Exit Merchant. ANT. S. He that commends me to mine own content, Commends me to the thing I cannot get. I to the world am like a drop of water, That in the ocean seeks another drop; Who, falling there to find his fellow forth, Unseen inquisitive! confounds himself: So I, to find a mother and a brother, In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself. Soon, at five o'clock,-] That is, about five o'clock. d And afterward consort you-] Malone proposed to read, "consort with you;" but the original is probably right-consort you meaning companion you, accompany you. Unseen inquisitive!] This is invariably printed, "Unseen, inquisitive," &c.; but inquisitive, I believe, is used here for inquisitor. Enter DROMIO of Ephesus. Here comes the almanack of my true date."— The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit; b pray, Where have you left the money that I gave you? DRO. E. Ŏ! sixpence, that I had o' Wednesday last, с I from my mistress come to you in post; And strike you home without a messenger. Reserve them till a merrier hour than this. nor the purpose of the person to whom the information is to be given, but manifestly betraying the author himself,- not by way of continuous under-song, but-palpably, and so as to show themselves addressed to the general reader. However, it is not unimportant to notice how strong a presumption the diction and allusions of this play afford, that, though Shakspeare's acquirements in the dead languages might not be such as we suppose in a learned education, his habits had, nevertheless, been scholastic, and those of a student. For a young author's first work almost always bespeaks his recent pursuits, and his first observations of life are either drawn from the immediate employments of his youth, and from the characters and images most deeply impressed on his mind in the situations in which those employments had placed him ;--or else they are fixed on such objects and occurrences in the world, as are easily connected with, and seem to bear upon, his studies and the hitherto exclusive subjects of his meditation. Just as Ben Jonson, who applied himself to the drama after having served in Flanders, fills his earliest plays with true or pretended soldiers, the wrongs and neglects of the former, and the absurd boasts and knavery of their counterfeits. So Lessing's first comedies are placed in the universities, and consist of events and characters conceivable in an academic life."-COLERIDGE. "LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST is numbered among the pieces of Shakspeare's youth. It is a humorsome display of frolic; a whole cornucopia of the most vivacious jokes is emptied into it. Youth is certainly perceivable in the lavish superfluity of labour in the execution; the unbroken succession of plays on words, and sallies of every description, hardly leave the spectator time to breathe; the sparkles of wit fly about in such profusion, that they resemble a blaze of fireworks; while the dialogue, for the most part, is in the same hurried style in which the passing masks at a carnival attempt to banter each other. The young king of Navarre, with three of his courtiers, has made a vow to pass three years in rigid retirement, and devote them to the study of wisdom; for that purpose he has banished all female society from his court, and imposed a penalty on the intercourse with women. But scarcely has he, in a pompous harangue, worthy of the most heroic achievements, announced this determination, when the daughter of the king of France appears at his court, in the name of her old and bed-ridden father, to demand the restitution of a province which he held in pledge. Compelled to give her audience, he falls immediately in love with her. Matters fare no better with his companions, who on their parts renew an old acquaintance with the princess's attendants. Each, in heart, is already false to his vow, without knowing that the wish is shared by his associates; they overhear one another, as they in turn confide their sorrows in a love-ditty to the solitary forest; every one jeers and confounds the one who follows him. Biron, who from the beginning was the most satirical among them, at last steps forth, and rallies the king and the two others, till the discovery of a love-letter forces him also to hang down his head. He extricates himself and his companions from their dilemma by ridiculing the folly of the broken vow, and after a noble eulogy on women, invites them to swear new allegiance to the colours of love. This scene is inimitable, and the crowning beauty of the whole. The manner in which they afterwards prosecute their love-suits in masks and disguise, and in which they are tricked and laughed at by the ladies, who are also masked and disguised, is, perhaps, spun out too long. It may be thought, too, that the poet, when he suddenly announces the death of the king of France, and makes the princess postpone her answer to the young prince's serious advances till the expiration of the period of her mourning, and impose, besides, a heavy penance on him for his levity, drops the proper comic tone. But the tone of raillery which prevails throughout the piece, made it hardly possible to bring about a more satisfactory conclusion: after such extravagance, the characters could not return to sobriety, except under the presence of some foreign influence. The grotesque figures of Don Armado, a pompous fantastic Spaniard, a couple of pedants, and a clown, who between whiles contribute to the entertainment, are the creation of a whimsical imagination, and well adapted as foils for the wit of so vivacious a society." --SCHLEGEL. |