What time we will our celebration keep
According to my birth.-What do you say?
Seb. I'll follow this good man, and go with you;
And, having sworn truth,9 ever will be true.
Oli. Then lead the way, good father;-

vens so shine,1

-And hea

That they may fairly note this act of mine! [Exeunt,

ACT V..... SCENE I.

The Street before Olivia's House.

Enter Clown and FABIAN.

Fab. Now, as thou lovest me, let me see his letter. Clo. Good master Fabian, grant me another request. Fab. Any thing.

Clo. Do not desire to see this letter.

Fab. That is, to give a dog, and, in recompense, desire my dog again.

Enter DUKE, VIOLA, and Attendants.

Duke. Belong you to the lady Olivia, friends? Clo. Ay, sir; we are some of her trappings. Duke. I know thee well; How dost thou, my good fellow?

Clo. Truly, sir, the better for my foes, and the worse for my friends.

Duke. Just the contrary; the better for thy friends. Clo. No, sir, the worse.

Duke. How can that be?

Clo. Marry, sir, they praise me, and make an ass of me; now my foes tell me plainly I am an ass: so that by my foes, sir, I profit in the knowledge of myself;

It is used in this sense in Tarleton's Newes out of Purgatorie. Malone.

truth,] Truth is fidelity. Johnson.

1 heavens so shine, &c.] Alluding perhaps to a superstitious supposition, the memory of which is still preserved in proverbial saying: Happy is the bride upon whom the s

and blessed the corpse upon which the rain falls." Sti

and by my friends I am abused: so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives, why, then the worse for my friends, and the better for my foes.

Duke. Why, this is excellent.

Clo. By my troth, sir, no; though it please you to be one of my friends.

Duke. Thou shalt not be the worse for me; there's gold.

Clo. But that it would be double dealing, sir, I would you could make it another.

Duke. O, you give me ill counsel.

Clo. Put your grace in your pocket, sir, for this once, and let your flesh and blood obey it.

Duke. Well, I will be so much a sinner to be a double dealer; there 's another.

Clo. Primo, secundo, tertio, is a good play; and the old saying is, the third pays for all: the triplex, sir, is a good tripping measure; or the bells of St. Bennet, sir, may put you in mind;3 One, two, three.

2 conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives,] One cannot but wonder, that this passage should have perplexed the commentators. In Marlowe's Lust's Dominion, the Queen says to the Moor:

"Come, let's kisse."

Moor. "Away, away."

Queen." No, no, sayes, I; and twice away, sayes stay." Sir Philip Sidney has enlarged upon this thought in the sixtythird stanza of his Astrophel and Stella. Farmer.

3 or the bells of St. Bennet, sir, may put you in mind;] That is, if the other arguments I have used are not sufficient, the bells of St. Bennet, &c. Malone.

We should read-" as the bells of St. Bennet," &c. instead of or. M. Mason.

When in this play Shakspeare mentioned the bed of Ware, he recollected that the scene was in Illyria, and added, in England; but his sense of the same impropriety could not restrain him from the bells of St. Bennet. Johnson.

Shakspeare's improprieties and anachronisms are surely venial in comparison with those of contemporary writers. Lodge, in his True Tragedies of Marius and Sylla, 1594, has mentioned the razors of Palermo and St. Paul's steeple, and has introduced a Frenchman, named Don Pedro, who, in consideration of receiving forty crowns, undertakes to poison Marius. Stanyhurst, the translator of four books of Virgil, in 1582, compares Cho

Duke. You can fool no more money out of me at this throw: if you will let your lady know, I am here to speak with her, and bring her along with you, it may awake my bounty further.

Clo. Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty, till I come again. I go, sir; but I would not have you to think, that my desire of having is the sin of covetousness: but, as you say, sir, let your bounty take a nap, I will awake it anon. [Exit Clo.

Enter ANTONIO and Officers.

Vio. Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me Duke. That face of his I do remember well;

Yet, when I saw it last, it was besmear'd

As black as Vulcan, in the smoke of war:

A bawbling vessel was he captain of,

4

For shallow draught, and bulk, unprizable;
With which such scathful grapple did he make
With the most noble bottom of our fleet,

That very envy, and the tongue of loss,

Cry'd fame and honour on him.-What's the matter? 1 Off. Orsino, this is that Antonio,

That took the Phoenix, and her fraught, from Candy;
And this is he, that did the Tiger board,
When your young nephew Titus lost his leg:
Here in the streets, desperate of shame, and state,5
In private brabble did we apprehend him.

robus to a bedlamite, says, that old Priam girded on his sword Morglay; and makes Dido tell Eneas, that she should have been contented had she been brought to bed even of a cockney: "Saltem si qua mihi de te suscepta fuisset "Ante fugam soboles —."

66

yf yeet soom progenye from me

"Had crawl'd, by thee father'd, yf a cockney dandiprat hopthumb." Steevens.

scathful-] i. e. mischievous, destructive. So, in Decker's If this be not a good Play, the Devil is in it, 1612: "He mickle scath hath done me."

Again, in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599:

"That offereth scath unto the town of Wakefield "

Steevens

5 desperate of shame, and state,] Unattentive to his character or his condition, like a desperate man. Johnson.

VOL. III.

B b

Vio. He did me kindness, sir; drew on my side;
But, in conclusion, put strange speech upon me,
I know not what 'twas, but distraction.

Duke. Notable pirate! thou salt-water thief!
What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies,
Whom thou, in terms so bloody, and so dear,"
Hast made thine enemies?

Ant.

Orsino, noble sir,

Be pleas'd that I shake off these names you give me;
Antonio never yet was thief, or pirate,

Though, I confess, on base and ground enough,
Orsino's enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither:
That most ingrateful boy there, by your side,
From the rude sea's enrag'd and foamy mouth
Did I redeem; a wreck past hope he was:
His life I gave him, and did thereto add
My love, without retention, or restraint,
All his in dedication: for his sake,
Did I expose myself, pure for his love,
Into the danger of this adverse town;
Drew to defend him, when he was beset:
Where being apprehended, his false cunning,
(Not meaning to partake with me in danger)
Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance,
And grew a twenty-years-removed thing,

While one would wink; denied me mine own purse,
Which I had recommended to his use

Not half an hour before.

Vio.

How can this be?

Duke. When came he to this town?

1

Ant. To-day, my lord; and for three months before,

(No interim, not a minute's vacancy)

Both day and night did we keep company.

Enter OLIVIA and Attendants.

Duke. Here comes the countess; now heaven walks on earth.

But for thee, fellow, fellow, thy words are madness:

6

and so dear,] Dear is immediate, consequential. So,

in Hamlet:

"Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven," &c.

Steevens.

Three months this youth hath tended upon me;
But more of that anon.-—————— -Take him aside.

Oli. What would my lord, but that he may not have, Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable?—

Cesario, you do not keep promise with me.
Vio. Madam?

Duke. Gracious Olivia,

Oli. What do you say, Cesario?-Good my lord,
Vio. My lord would speak, my duty hushes me.
Oli. If it be aught to the old tune, my lord,
It is as fat and fulsome" to mine ear,

As howling after musick.

Duke.

Oli. Still so constant, lord.

Still so cruel?

Duke. What! to perverseness? you uncivil lady,
To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars

My soul the faithfull'st offerings hath breath'd out,
That e'er devotion tender'd! What shall I do?

Oli. Even what it please my lord, that shall become him.

Duke. Why should I not, had I the heart to do it, Like to the Egyptian thief, at point of death, Kill what I love; a savage jealousy,

7

as fat and fulsome-] Fat means dull; so we say a fat-beaded fellow; fat likewise means gross, and is sometimes used for obscene. Johnson.

Why should I not, bad I the heart to do it,

Like to the Egyptian thief, at point of death,

Kill what I love;] In this simile, a particular story is presupposed, which ought to be known to show the justness and propriety of the comparison. It is taken from Heliodorus's Ethiopics, to which our author was indebted for the allusion. This Egyptian thief was Thyamis, who was a native of Memphis, and at the head of a band of robbers. Theagenes and Chariclea falling into their hands, Thyamis fell desperately in love with the lady, and would have married her. Soon after, a stronger body of robbers coming down upon Thyamis's party, he was in such fears for his mistress, that he had her shut into a cave with his treasure. It was customary with those barbarians, when they despaired of their own safety, first to make away with those whom they held dear, and desired for companions in the next life. Thyamis, therefore, benetted round with his enemies, raging with love, jealousy, and anger, went to his cave; and calling aloud in the Egyptian tongue, so soon as he heard himself answered toward the cave's mouth by a Grecian, making to the