D. John. Come, let us to the banquet. [Exeunt Don JOHN and BORA. Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick, But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio."Tis certain so;-the prince wooes for himself. Friendship is constant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love: 5 Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues; And trust no agent: for beauty is a witch, Which I mistrusted not: Farewel therefore, Hero! Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the same. Bene. Come, will you go with me? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, count. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like an usurer's chain?7 or under 5 Therefore, &c.] Let, which is found in the next line is understood here. Malone. 6 beauty is a witch, Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.] i. e. as wax when opposed to the fire kindled by a witch, no longer preserves the figure of the person whom it was designed to represent, but flows into a shapeless lump; so fidelity, when confronted with beauty, dissolves into our ruling passion, and is lost there like a drop of water in the sea. That blood signifies (as Mr. Malone has also observed) amorous heat, will appear from the following passage in All's well that ends well, Act III, sc. vii: 7 "Now his important blood will nought deny usurer's chain?] Chains of gold, of considerable value, were in our author's time, usually worn by wealthy citizens, and others, in the same manner as they now are, on publick occasions, by the Aldermen of London. See The Puritan, or the Widow of Watling-Street, Act III, sc. iii. Albumazar, Act I, sc. vii, and other pieces. Reed. Usury seems about this time to have been a common topic of invective. I have three or four dialogues, pasquils, and discourses on the subject, printed before the year 1600. From every one of your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that 's spoken like an honest drover; so they sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would have served you thus? Claud. I pray you, leave me. Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man; 'twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. [Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! Now will he creep into sedges.- -But, that my lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The prince's fool!-Ha! it may be, I go under that title, because I am merry.-Yea; but so; I am apt to do myself wrong: I am not so reputed: it is the base, the bitter disposition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her person, and so gives me out. Well, I'll be reveng'd as I may. 8 Re-enter Don PEDRO, HERO, and LEONATO. D. Pedro. Now, signior, where 's the count? Did you see him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have play'd the part of lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren; I told him, and, I think, I told him true, that these it appears, that the merchants were the chief usurers of the age. Steevens. So, in The Choice of Change, containing the triplicitie of Divinitie, Philosophie, and Poetrie, by S. R. Gent. 4to. 1598: "Three sortes of people, in respect of use in necessitie, may be accounted good:-Merchantes, for they may play the usurers, instead of the Jewes." Again, ibid: "There is a scarcitie of Jewes, because Christians make an occupation of usurie." Malone. 8 it is the base, the bitter disposition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her person,] That is, It is the disposition of Beatrice, who takes upon her to personate the world, and therefore represents the world as saying what she only says herself. The old copies read-base, though bitter: but I do not understand how base and bitter are inconsistent, or why what is bitter should not be base. I believe, we may safely read,➡It is the base, the bitter disposition. Johnson. 9 as melancholy as a lodge in a warren;] A parallel thought occurs in the first chapter of Isaiah, where the prophet, describing the desolation of Judah, says: "The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers," your grace had got the good will of this young lady;1 and I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped. D. Pedro. To be whipped! What's his fault? Bene. The flat transgression of a school-boy; who, being overjoy'd with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it. D. Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amiss, the rod had been made, and the garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself; and the rod he might have bestow'd on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n his bird's nest. D. Pedro. I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say honestly. D. Pedro. The lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you; the gentleman, that danced with her, told her, she is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, she misused me past the endurance of a block; an oak, but with one green leaf on it, would have answer'd her; my very visor began to assume life, and scold with her: She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jester; that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest, with such impossible conveyance,2 upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark, &c. I am informed, that near Aleppo, these tonely buildings are still made use of, it being necessary, that the fields where watermelons, cucumbers, &c. are raised, should be regularly watched. I learn from Tho. Newton's Herball to the Bible, 8vo. 1587, that "so soone as the cucumbers, &c. be gathered, these lodges are abandoned of the watchmen and keepers, and no more frequented." From these forsaken buildings, it should seem, the prophet takes his comparison. Steevens. 1 of this young lady;] Benedick speaks of Hero as if she were on the stage. Perhaps, both she and Leonato were meant to make their entrance with Don Pedro. When Beatrice enters, she is spoken of as coming in with only Claudio. Steevens. I have regulated the entries accordingly. Malone. 2 such impossible conveyance,] Dr. Warburton reads impassable: Sir Tho. Hanmer impetuous, and Dr. Johnson importa VOL. IV. T with a whole army shooting at me: She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgress'd: she would have made Hercules have turn'd spit: yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find her the infernal Até in good apparel. I would to God, some scholar would conjure her;5 for, certainly, 4 ble, which, says he, is used by Spenser, in a sense very congruous to this passage, for insupportable, or not to be sustained. Also by the last translators of the Apocrypha; and therefore such a word as Shakspeare may be supposed to have written. Reed. Importable is very often used by Lidgate in his Prologue to the translation of The Tragedies gathered by Iohn Bochas, &c. as well as by Holinshed. Impossible may be licentiously used for unaccountable. Beatrice has already said, that Benedick invents impossible slanders. So, in The Fair Maid of the Inn, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "You would look for some most impossible antick." Again, in The Roman Actor, by Massinger: to lose "Ourselves, by building on impossible hopes." Steevens. Impossible may have been what Shakspeare wrote, and be used in the sense of incredible or inconceivable, both here and in the beginning of the scene, where Beatrice speaks of impossible slanders. M. Mason. I believe the meaning is-with a rapidity equal to that of jug. glers, who appear to perform impossibilities. We have the same epithet again in Twelfth Night: "There is no Christian can ever believe such impossible passages of grossness." So Ford says in The Merry Wives of Windsor," I will examine impossible places." Again, in Julius Cæsar: Now bid me run, " And I will strive with things impossible, Conveyance was the common term in our author's time for sleight of hand. Malone. 3 4 She speaks poniards, So, in Hamlet: وو Steevens. -the infernal Até in good apparel.] This is a pleasant allusion to the custom of ancient poets and painters, who represent the Furies in rags. Warburton. Até is not one of the Furies, but the Goddess of Revenge, or Discord. Steevens. 5 some scholar would conjure her;] As Shakspeare always while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell, as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither: so, indeed, all disquiet, horror, and perturbation follows her. Re-enter CLAUDIO, and BEATRICE. D. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your grace command me any service to the world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes, that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the farthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pigmies, rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy: You have no employment for me? D. Pedro. None, but to desire your good company. Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not; I cannot endure my lady Tongue." [Exit. D. Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of signior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: attributes to his exorcists the power of raising spirits, he gives his conjurer, in this place, the power of laying them. M. Mason. bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard;] i. e. I will undertake the hardest task, rather than have any conversation with lady Beatrice. Alluding to the difficulty of access to either of those monarchs, but more particularly to the former. So Cartwright, in his comedy called The Siege, or Love's Convert, 1651: ". bid me take the Parthian king by the beard: or draw an eye-tooth from the jaw royal of the Persian monarch." Such an achievement, however, Huon of Bourdeaux was sent to perform, and performed it. See chap. 46, edit. 1601: "he opened his mouth, and tooke out his foure great teeth, and then cut off his beard, and tooke thereof as much as pleased him." Steevens. "Thou must goe to the citie of Babylon to the Admiral Gaudisse, to bring me thy hand full of the heare of his beard, and foure of his greatest teeth. Alas, my lord, (quoth the Barrons) we see well you desire greatly his death, when you charge him with such a message." Huon of Bourdeaux, ch. 17. Bowle. 7 my lady Tongue.] Thus the quarto, 1600. The folio reads -this lady Tongue. Steevens. 8 I gave him use for it,] Use, in our author's time, meant interest of money. Malone. |