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Dum. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ. Biron. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.

Dum. On a day, (alack the day!)

Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom, passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:

Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, 'gan passage find;1
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!2
But alack, my hand is sworn,

3

Ne'er to fluck thee from thy thorn:4

Vow, alack, for youth unmeet;

Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.

Do not call it sin in me,

That I am forsworn for thee:

Thou for whom even Jove would swear,5

Juno but an Ethiop were;

[Aside.

"Thus he begins, though light and life of creatures,
"Angel-ey'd king, vouchsafe at length thy favour;
"And so proceeds to incision.”

But the custom is more particularly described in Jonson's Cynthia's Revels, where Phantaste, describing the different modes of making love, says: “A fourth with stabbing himself, and drinking healths, or writing languishing letters in his blood.”—And in the Palinode, at the end of the play, Amorphus says: "From stabbing of arms, &c. Good Mercury deliver us!" M. Mason.

1 -'gan passage find;] The quarto, 1598, and the first folio, have-can. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. In the line next but one, Wish (the reading of the old copies) was corrected by the editor of the second folio. Malone.

2 Air would I might triumph so!] Perhaps we may better read: "Ah! would I might triumph so!" Johnson.

3

my hand is sworn,] A copy of this sonnet is printed in England's Helicon, 1614, and reads:

"But, alas! my hand hath sworn."

It is likewise printed as Shakspeare's, in Jaggard's Collection,

1599. Steevens.

4

-from thy thorn:] So, Mr. Pope. The original copy reads throne. Malone.

5

even Jove would swear,] The word even has been supplied; and the two preceding lines are wanting in the copy published in England's Helicon, 1614. Steevens.

And deny himself for Jove,

Turning mortal for thy love.—

This will I send; and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love's fasting pain.
O, would the King, Biron, and Longaville,
Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,

Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;
For none offend, where all alike do dote.

Long. Dumain, [advancing] thy love is far from charity, That in love's grief desir'st society:

You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
To be o'erheard, and taken napping so.

King. Come, sir, [advancing] you blush; as his your case is such;

You chide at him, offending twice as much:
You do not love Maria; Longaville
Did never sonnet for her sake compile;
Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart
His loving bosom, to keep down his heart.
I have been closely shrouded in this bush,
And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.
I heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd your fashion;
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion:
Ah me! says one; O Jove! the other cries;

One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other's eyes:

Swear is here used as a dissyllable. Mr. Pope, not attending to this, reads—ev'n Jove, which has been adopted by the subsequent editors. Malone.

I would willingly abandon the adoption, if I could read the line without it, and persuade myself that I was reading a verse. But when was swear ever used as a dissyllable, at the end of a verse? Steevens.

6 my true love's fasting pain.] Fasting is longing, hungry, wanting. Johnson.

7 One, her hairs-] The folio reads-On her hairs, &c. I some years ago conjectured that we should read-One her hairs were gold, &c. i. e. the hairs of one of the ladies were of the colour of gold, and the eyes of the other as clear as crystal. The King is speaking of the panegyricks pronounced by the two lovers on their mistresses. On examining the first quarto, 1598, I have found my conjecture confirmed; for so it reads. One and on are fre, quently confounded in the old copies of our author's plays. See Malone. a note on King John, Act III, sc. iii.

You would for paradise break faith and troth; [To LONG. And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath.

[To DUM.

What will Birón say, when that he shall hear
A faith infring'd, which such a zeal did swear? 8
How will he scorn? how will he spend his wit?
How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it?
For all the wealth that ever I did see,
I would not have him known so much by me.
Biron. Now step I forth to wh p hypocrisy.-
Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me:

9

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[Descends from the tree.
Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove
These worms for loving, that art most in love?
Your eyes do make no coaches;1 in your tears,
There is no certain princess that appears:
You'll not be perjur'd, 'tis a hateful thing;
Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.
But are you not asham'd? nay, are you not,
All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?
You found his mote; the king your mote did see;
But I a beam do find in each of three.

O, what a scene of foolery I have seen,
Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!2
O me, with what strict patience have I sat,
To see a king transformed to a gnat!3

8 A faith infring'd, which such a zeal did swear?] The repeated article A (which is wanting in the oldest copy) appears to have been judiciously restored by the editor of the folio, 1632. At least, I shall adopt his supplement, till some hardy critick arises and declares himself satisfied with the following line:

"Faith infringed, which such zeal did swear-" in which "ze-al" must be employed as a dissyllable. See Mr. Malone's note 5, p. 83. Steevens.

9 These worms for loving,] So, in The Tempest, Prospero addressing Miranda, says

"Poor worm, thou art infected."

Steevens.

1 Your eyes do make no coaches;] Alluding to a passage in the king's sonnet:

"No drop but as a coach doth carry thee." Steevens. The old copy has-couches. Mr. Pope corrected it. Malone. 2 teen!] i. e grief. So, in The Tempest:

"To think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to." Steevens.

To see great Hercules whipping a gigg,
And profound Solomon to tune a jigg,

3 To see a king transformed to a gnat!] Mr. Theobald and the succeeding editors read-to a knot. Malone.

sot.

Knot has no sense that can suit this place. We may readThe rhymes in this play are such as that sat and sot may be well enough admitted. Johnson.

A knot is, I believe, a true lover's knot, meaning that the king laid

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his wreathed arms athwart

"His loving bosom -"

so long: i. e. remained so long in the lover's posture, that he seemed actually transformed into a knot. The word sat is in some counties pronounced sot. This may account for the seeming want of exact rhyme.

In the old comedy of Albumazar, the same thought occurs: "Why should I twine my arms to cables?" So, in The Tempest:

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sitting,

"His arms in this sad knot."

Again, in Titus Andronicus:

66 Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot:

"Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands,
"And cannot passionate our ten-fold grief

"With folded arms."

Again, in The Raging Turk, 1631:

"as he walk'd,

66

Folding his arms up in a pensive knot.”

The old copy, however, reads-a gnat, and Mr. Tollet seems to think it contains an allusion to St. Matthew, xxiii, 24, where the metaphorical term of a gnat means a thing of least importance, or what is proverbially small. The smallness of a gnat is likewise mentioned in Cymbeline. Steevens.

A knott is likewise a Lincolnshire bird of the snipe kind. It is foolish even to a proverb, and it is said to be easily ensnared. Ray, in his Ornithology, observes, that it took its name from Canute, who was particularly fond of it. Collins.

So, in The Alchemist:

"My foot-boy shall eat pheasants, &c.
"Knotts, godwits," &c.

Again, in the 25th song of Drayton's Polyolbion:

"The knot that called was Canutus' bird of old,

"Of that great king of Danes his name that still doth hold, "His appetite to please that far and near were sought.” Steevens.

To see a king transformed to a gnat!] Alluding to the singing of that insect, suggested by the poetry the king had been detected in.

Heath.

The original reading, and Mr. Heath's explanation of it, are confirmed by a passage in Spenser's Fairy Queene, B. II, c. ix :

And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
And critick Timon laugh at idle toys!
Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumain?
And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
And where my liege's? all about the breast ;-
A caudle, ho!

King.

Too bitter is thy jest.
Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view?

Biron. Not you by me, but I betray'd to you;
I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin
To break the vow I am engaged in;
I am betray'd, by keeping company

With moon-like men, of strange inconstancy.5

"As when a swarme of gnats at even-tide
"Out of the fennes of Allan doe arise,

"Their murmuring small trompettes sounden wide," &c.
Malone.

Gnat is undoubtedly the true reading, and is that, it seems, of the old copy. Biron is abusing the King for his sonneting like a minstrel, and compares him to a gnat, which always sings as it flies. Besides, the word gnat preserves the rhyme, which is here to be attended to. M. Mason.

4 — critick Timon] Critick and critical are used by our author in the same sense as cynic and cynical. Iago, speaking of the fair sex as harshly as is sometimes the practice of Dr. Warburton, declares he is nothing if not critical. Steevens.

Mr. Steevens's observation is supported by our author's 112th Sonnet:

66 - my adder's sense

"To critick and to flatterer stopped are." Malone.

5 With moon-like men, of strange inconstancy.] The old copy reads-"men-like men.' Steevens.

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This is a strange senseless line, and should be read thus: With vane-like men, of strange inconstancy. Warburton. This is well imagined, but the poet perhaps may mean, with men like common men. Johnson.

The following passage in King Henry VI, P. III, adds some support to Dr. Warburton's conjecture:

"Look, as I blow this feather from my face,
"And as the air blows it to me again,
"Obeying with my wind when I do blow,
"And yielding to another when it blows,
"Commanded always by the greater gust;
"Such is the lightness of your common men."

Strange, which is not in the quarto or first folio, was added by the editor of the second folio, and consequently any other word as well as that may have been the author's; for all the additions

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