Awake the snorting citizens with the bell, Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you: Arise, I say. Bra. What, have lost your wits? Rod. Most reverend signior, do you know my voice? Bra. Not I; What are you? Rod. My name is-Roderigo. Bra. The worse welcome: I have charg'd thee, not to haunt about my doors: To start my quiet. Rod. Sir, sir, sir, sir, My spirit, and my place, have in them power Rod. But thou must needs be sure, Patience, good sir. Bra. What tell'st thou me of robbing? this is Venice; My house is not a grange. 2 tupping your white ewe.] In the north of England a ram is called a tup. Malone. I had made the same observation in the third Act of this play, scene iii. your white ewe.] It appears from a passage in Decker's O per se 0, 4to. 1612, that this was a term in the cant language used by vagabonds: "As the men haue nicke-names, so likewise haue the women: for some of them are called the white ewe, the lambe," &c. Steevens. 3 distempering draughts,] To be distempered with liquor, was in Shakspeare's age, the phrase for intoxication. In Hamlet, the King is said to be "marvellous distempered with wine." See Vol. IX, p. 246, n. 3. Steevens. this is Venice; Malone. My house is not a grange.] That is," you are in a populous city, not in a lone house, where a robbery might easily be committed." Grange is strictly and properly the farm of a monastery, where the religious deposited their corn. Grangia, Lat. from Granum. But in Lincolnshire, and in other northern counties, they. call every lone house, or farm which stands solitary, a grange. T. Warton. So, in T. Heywood's English Traveller, 1633: to absent himself from home,. Rod. Most grave Brabantio, In simple and pure soul I come to you. Iago. 'Zounds, sir, you are one of those, that will not serve God, if the devil bid you. Because we come to do you service, you think we are ruffians: You'll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse; you'll have your nephews neigh to you: you'll have coursers for cousins, and gennets for germans." Bra. What profane wretch art thou?" 66 Again, in Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond, 1599: Again, in Measure for Measure: ". 5— - at the moated grange resides your nephews neigh to you:] Nephew, in this instance, has the power of the Latin word nepos, and signifies a grandson, or any Ineal descendant, however remote. So, A. of Wyntown, in his Cronykil, B. VIII, ch. iii, v. 119: "Hyr swne may be cald newu: "This is of that word the wertu." Thus, also, in Spenser: "And all the sons of these five brethren reign'd 66 By the due success, and all their nephews late, "Even thrice eleven descents the crown obtain'd.” Again, in Chapman's version of the Odyssey, B. XXIV, Laertes says of Telemachus his grandson: 66 to behold my son "And nephew close in such contention." Sir W Dugdale very often employs the word in this sense; and without it, it would not be very easy to show how Brabantio could have nephews by the marriage of his daughter. Ben Jonson likewise uses it with the same meaning. The alliteration in this passage caused Shakspeare to have recourse to it. Steevens. See Vol. XI, p. 121, n. 8. Malone. 6 gennets for germans.] A jennet is a Spanish horse. So, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630: there stays within my tent "A winged jennet." Steevens. 7 What profane wretch art thou?] That is, what wretch of gross and licentious language? In that sense Shakspeare often uses the word profane. Johnson. It is so used by other writers of the same age: "How far off dwells the house-surgeon? 66 You are a profane fellow, i' faith." Again, in Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub: "By the sly justice, and his clerk profane." James Howell, in a dialogue prefixed to his edition of Cot Iago, I am one, sir, that comes to tell you, your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.8 Bra. Thou art a villain. Iago. You are a senator. Bra. This thou shalt answer; I know thee, Roderigo, Rod. Sir, I will answer any thing. But I beseech you, If't be your pleasure, and most wise consent, [As partly, I find, it is,) that your fair daughter, At this odd-even and dull watch o' the night,1 grave's Dictionary, in 1673, has the following sentence: "J'aimerois mieux estre trop ceremonieux, que trop prophane:" which he thus also anglicises-" I had rather be too ceremonious, than too prophane." Steevens. 8 your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.] This is an ancient proverbial expression in the French language, whence Shakspeare probably borrowed it; for in the Dictionaire des Proverbes Françoises, par G. D. B. Brusselles, 1710, 12mo. I find the following article: "Faire la bête a deux dos, pour dire, faire l'amour." Percy. In the Dictionaire Comique, par le Roux, 1750, this phrase is more particularly explained under the article Bete: " Faire la bete a deux dos-Maniere de parler qui signifie etre couché avec une femme; faire le deduit."-" Et faisoient tous deux souvent ensemble la bete a deux dos joyeusement." Rabelais, Liv. I. There was a translation of Rabelais published in the time of Shakspeare. Malone. 9 [If't be your pleasure, &c.] The lines printed in crotchets are not in the first edition, but in the folio of 1623. Johnson. 1 At this odd-even and dull watch o' the night,] The even of night is midnight, the time when night is divided into even parts. Johnson. Odd is here ambiguously used, as it signifies strange, uncouth, or unwonted; and as it is opposed to even. But this expression, however explained, is very harsh. Steevens. This ODD EVEN is simply the interval between twelve at night and one in the morning. Henley. By this singular expression,-" this odd-even of the night," our poet appears to have meant, that it was just approaching to, or just past, midnight; that it was doubtful whether at that moment it stood at the point of midnight, or at some other less equal division of the twenty-four hours; which a few minutes either before or after midnight would be. What is the night? "Lady M. Almost at odds with morning, which is which." Shakspeare was probably thinking of his boyi school-play, odd or even. Malone. Transported-with no worse nor better guard, I thus would play and trifle with your reverence: Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes, Of here and every where: Straight satisfy yourself:] Surely, "almost at odds with morning" signifies, almost entering into conflict with it. Thus, in Timon of Athens: ""Tis honour, with most lands to be at odds, —." In King Henry VI, P. III, we find an idea similar to that in Macbeth: 2 66 like the morning's war, "When dying clouds contend with growing light." Steevens. and your allowance,] i. e. done with your approbation. See Troilus and Cressida, Act II, sc. iii, Vol. XII. Malone. 3 That, from the sense of all civility,] That is, in opposition to, or departing from, the sense of all civility. So, in Twelfth Night: "But this is from my commission Again, in The Mayor of Quinborough, by Middleton, 1661: "But this is from my business." Malone. In an extravagant -] Extravagant is here used in its Latin signification, for wandering. Thus, in Hamlet: " The extravagant,. and erring spirit,-." Steevens. 5 Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes, In an extravagant and wheeling stranger,] Thus the old copies for which the modern editors, following Mr. Pope, have substituted-To an extravagant &c. In King Lear, we find—“ And hold our lives in mercy;" (not at mercy;) in The_Winter's Tale -"he was torn to pieces with a bear," not "by a bear;" and in Hamlet: "To let this canker of our nature come "In further evil." So, in the next scene, we have ". in your part," not " on your part." We might substitute modern for ancient phraseology in all these passages with as much propriety as in the present. We yet say, "she is wrapp'd'up in him." Malone.. For thus deluding you." Bra. Strike on the tinder, ho! Light, I say! light! To lead their business: in which regard, I must show out a flag and sign of love, Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely find him, Lead to the Sagittary1 the rais'd search; And there will I be with him. So, farewel. [Exit. Enter, below, BRABANTIO, and Servants with Torches. Bra. It is too true an evil: gone she is; And what's to come of my despised time, 2 For thus deluding you.] The first quarto reads,-For this delusion. Steevens. 7 To be produc'd —] The folio reads,—producted. Steevens. 8 — some check, ] Some rebuke. Johnson. 9 — cast him;] That is, dismiss him; reject him. We still say, a cast coat, and a cast serving-man. Johnson. 1 the Sagittary] Thus the folio. The quarto, 1622, reads, the Sagittar. I have chosen the unclipped reading. Steevens. 2 And what's to come of my despised time,] Despised time is time of no value; time in which "There's nothing serious in mortality, "The wine of life is drawn, and the mere dregs Again, in Romeo and Juliet: "Of a despised life clos'd in my breast." As the quotation in the preceding note belongs to our steady moralist, Dr. Johnson, it could not have been more uncharacteris. |