That sometime savours nobly?-But hear me this: And that I partly know the instrument That screws me from my true place in your favour, Where he sits crowned in his master's spite.— Come boy, with me; my thoughts are ripe in mischief: I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love, To spite a raven's heart within a dove. Vio. And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly, To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die. Oli. Where goes Cesario? Vio. [Going. [Following. After him I love, More than I love these eyes, more than my life, Punish my life, for tainting of my love! Oli. Ah me, detested! how am I beguil'd? Vio. Who does beguile you? who does do you wrong? Oli. Hast thou forgot thyself? Is it so long? Call forth the holy father. Duke. Oli. Whither my lord?-Cesario, husband, stay. Oli. [Exit an Attendant. Come away. [TO VIO. Ay, husband; Can he that deny? No, my lord, not I. Duke. Her husband, sirrah? Vio. Oli. Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear, That makes thee strangle thy propriety: 1 person by the direction of her voice, he caught her by the hair with his left hand, and (supposing her to be Chariclea) with his right hand plunged his sword into her breast. Theobald. 9 That screws me from my true place-] So, in Macbeth: "But screw your courage to the sticking-place." 1 - Steevens. strangle thy propriety:] __ Suppress, or disown thy property. Malone. Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up; Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence, Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings;3 Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave, I have travelled but two hours. Duke. O, thou dissembling cub! what wilt thou be, When time hath sow'd a grizzle on thy case?4 So, in Macbeth: "And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp." Steevens. 2 A contract of eternal bond of love,] So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "The sealing day between my love and me, 3 interchangement of your rings;] In our ancient marriage ceremony, the man received as well as gave a ring. This custom is exemplified by the following circumstance in Thomas Lupton's First Booke of Notable Things, 4°. bl. 1: "If a marryed man bee let or hyndered through inchauntment, sorcery, or witchcraft, from the acte of generation, let him make water through his maryage ring, and he shall be loosed from the same, and their doinges shall have no further power in him.” Steevens. 4 case?] Case is a word used contemptuously for skin. We yet talk of a fox-case, meaning the stuffed skin of a fox. Johnson. So, in Cary's Present State of England, 1626: "Queen Elizabeth asked a kight named Young, how he liked a company of brave ladies? He answered, as I like my silver-haired conies at home: the cases are far better than the bodies." Malone. The same story perhaps was not unknown to Burton, who, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 480, has the following passage: "For generally, as with rich furred conies, their cases are farre better than their bodies," &c. Steevens. Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow, Oli. Enter Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK, with his head broke. Sir And. For the love of God, a surgeon; send one presently to sir Toby. Oli. What's the matter? Sir And. He has broke my head across, and has given sir Toby a bloody coxcomb too: for the love of God, your help: I had rather than forty pound, I were at home. Oli. Who has done this, sir Andrew? Sir And. The count 's gentleman, one Cesario: we took him for a coward, but he 's the very devil incardinate. Duke. My gentleman, Cesario? Sir And. Od's lifelings, here he is:-You broke my head for nothing; and that that I did, I was set on to do 't by sir Toby. Vio. Why do you speak to me? I never hurt you: You drew your sword upon me, without cause; But I bespake you fair, and hurt you not. Sir And. If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me; I think, you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb. Enter Sir TOBY BELCH, drunk, led by the Clown. Here comes sir Toby halting, you shall hear more: but if he had not been in drink, he would have tickled you othergates than he did. Duke. How now, gentleman? how is 't with you? Sir To. That's all one; he has hurt me, and there 's the end on 't.-Sot, did'st see Dick surgeon, sot? Clo. O he 's drunk, sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at eight i' the morning. Sir To. Then he's a rogue. After a passy-measure, or a pavin, I hate a drunken rogue. 5 5 Then be's a rogue. After a passy-measure, or a pavin, &c.] The old copy reads-" and a passy measures panyn." As the a Oli. Away with him: Who hath made this havock with them? in this word is reversed, the modern editors have been contented to read" past-measure painim." A passy-measure pavin may, however, mean a pavin danced out of time. Sir Toby might call the surgeon by this title, because he was drunk at a time when he should have been sober, and in a condition to attend on the wounded knight. This dance, called the pavyn, is mentioned by Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Mad Lover: "I'll pipe him such a pavan." And, in Stephen Gosson's School of Abuse, containing a pleasant invective against poets, pipers, &c. 1579, it is enumerated as follows, among other dances: “Dumps, pavins, galliards, measures, fancyes, or newe streynes." I do not, at last, see how the sense will completely quadrate on the present occasion. Sir W. D'Avenant, in one of his interludes, mentions "a doleful pavin." In The Cardinal, by Shirley, 1652: "Who then shall dance the pavin with Osorio?" Again, in 'Tis Pity she's a Whore, by Ford, 1633: "I have seen an ass and a mule trot the Spanish pavin with a better grace." Lastly, in Shadwell's Virtuoso, 1676: "A grave pavin or almain, at which the black Tarantula only moved; it danced to it with a kind of grave motion much like the benchers at the revels." Steevens. Bailey's Dictionary says, pavan is the lowest sort of instrumental music; and when this play was written, the pavin and the passamezzo might be in vogue only with the vulgar, as with Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet: and hence Sir Toby may meanhe is a rogue, and a mean low fellow. Tollet. Ben Jonson also mentions the pavin, and calls it a Spanish dance, Alchemist, p. 97, [Whalley's edition]; but it seems to come originally from Padua, and should rather be written pavane, as a corruption of paduana. A dance of that name (saltatio paduana) occurs in an old writer, quoted by the annotator on Rabelais, B. V, c. 30. Passy measures is undoubtedly a corruption, but I know not how it should be rectified. Tyrwhitt. The pavan, from pavo a peacock, is a grave and majectic dance. The method of dancing it was anciently by gentlemen dressed with a cap and sword, by those of the long robe in their gowns, by princes in their mantles, and by ladies in gowns with long trains, the motion whereof in the dance resembled that of a peacock's tail. This dance is supposed to have been invented by the Spaniards, and its figure is given with the characters for the step, in the Orchesographia of Thoinet Arbeau. Every pavin has its galliard, a lighter kind of air, made out of the former. The courant, the jig, and the hornpipe, are sufficiently known at this day. Sir And. I'll help you, sir Toby, because we 'll be dressed together. Sir To. Will you help an ass-head, and a coxcomb, and a knave? a thin-faced knave, a gull?" Of the passamezzo little is to be said, except that it was a favourite air in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Ligon, in his History of Barbadoes, mentions a passamezzo galliard, which in the year 1647, a Padre in that island played to him on the lute; the very same, he says, with an air of that kind which in Shakspeare's play of Henry IV, was originally played to Sir John Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet, by Sneak, the musician, there named. This little anecdote Ligon might have by tradition; but his conclusion, that because it was played in a dramatic representation of the history of Henry IV, it must be so ancient as his time, is very idle and injudicious. Passy-measure is therefore undoubtedly a corruption from passamezzo. Sir. J. Hawkins. With the help of Sir John Hawkins's explanation of passymeasure, I think I now see the meaning of this passage. The second folio reads after a passy measures pavin. So that I should imagine the following regulation of the whole speech would not be far from the truth: Then he's a rogue. After a passy-measure or a pavin, I hate a drunken rogue, i. e. next to a passy measure or a pavin, &c. It is in character, that sir Toby should express a strong dislike of serious dances, such as the passamezzo and the pavan are described to be. Tyrwhitt. From what has been stated, I think, it is manifest that sir Toby means only by this quaint expression, that the surgeon is a rogue, and a grave solemn coxcomb. It is one of Shakspeare's unrivalled excellencies, that his characters are always consistent. Even in drunkenness they preserve the traits which distinguished them when sober. Sir Toby, in the first Act of this play, shewed himself well acquainted with the various kinds of the dance. The editor of the second folio, who, when he does not understand any passage, generally cuts the knot, instead of untying it, arbitrarily reads " after a passy-measures pavyn I hate a drunken rogue." In the same manner, in the preceding speech, not thinking an hour agone" good English, he reads "O he 's drunk, Sir Toby, above an hour agone." There is scarcely a page of that copy in which similar interpolations may not be found. Malone. 66 I have followed Mr. Tyrwhitt's regulation, which appears to be well founded on one of the many judicious corrections that stamp a value on the second folio. Steevens. 6 - an ass-head, and a coxcomb, &c.] I believe, Sir Toby means to apply all these epithets either to the surgeon or Sebastian; and have pointed the passage accordingly. It has been hitherto printed, "Will you help an ass-head," &c. but why should sir Toby thus unmercifully abuse himself? Malone. |