Hel. Then shalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand, What husband in thy power I will command: Exempted be from me the arrogance To choose from forth the royal blood of France; King. Here is my hand; the premises observ❜d, More should I question thee, and more I must; my hopes of help. Steevens. The King could have but a very slight hope of help from her, scarce enough to swear by: and therefore Helen might suspect he meant to equivocate with her. Besides, observe, the greatest part of the scene is strictly in rhyme: and there is no shadow of reason why it should be interrupted here. I rather imagine the poet wrote: Ay, by my sceptre, and my hopes of heaven. Thirlby. 1 With any branch or image of thy state:] Shakspeare unquestionably wrote impage, grafting. Impe, a graff, or slip, or sucker: by which she means one of the sons of France. Caxton calls our Prince Arthur, that noble impe of fame. Warburton. Image is surely the true reading, and may mean any representative of thine; i. e. any one who resembles you as being related to your family, or as a prince reflects any part of your state and majesty. There is no such word as impage; and, as Mr. M. Mason observes, were such a one coined, it would mean nothing but the art of grafting. Mr. Henley adds, that branch refers to the collateral descendants of the royal blood, and image to the direct and immediate line. Steevens. Our author again uses the word image in the same sense as here, in his Rape of Lucrece: "O, from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn." Malone. SCENE II. Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace. Enter Countess and Clown. Count. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding. Clo. I will show myself highly fed, and lowly taught: I know my business is but to the court. Count. To the court! why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court! Clo. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off 's cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap: and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the court: but, for me, I have an answer will serve all men. Count. Marry, that's a bountiful answer, that fits all questions. Clo. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks;2 the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock. Count. Will your answer serve fit to all questions? Clo. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffata punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's fore-finger, as a pancake for Shrove 3 2 It is like a barber's chair, &c.] This expression is proverbial. See Ray's Proverbs, and Burton's Anat. of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 666. Again, in More Fools Yet, by R. S. a collection of Epigrams, 4to. 1610: 3 "Moreover sattin sutes he doth compare "As for a knight or worthy gentleman." Steevens. Tib's rush, for Tom's fore-finger,] Tom is the man, and by Tib we are to understand the woman, and therefore, more properly we might read-Tom's rush for, &c. The allusion is to an ancient practice of marrying with a rush ring, as well in other countries as in England. Breval, in his Antiquities of Paris, mentions it as a kind of espousal used in France, by such persons as meant to live together in a state of concubi tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding quean to a wrang nage: but in England it was scarce ever practised except by designing men, for the purpose of corrupting those young women to whom they pretended love. Richard Poore, bishop of Salisbury, in his Constitutions, anni, 1217, forbids the putting of rush rings, or any the like matter, on women's fingers, in order to the debauching them more readily: and he insinuates, as the reason for the prohibition, that there were some people weak enough to believe, that what was thus done in jest, was a real marriage. But, notwithstanding this censure on it, the practice was not abolished; for it is alluded to in a song in a play written by Sir William D'Avenant, called The Rivals: "I'll crown thee with a garland of straw then, which song, by the way, was first sung by Miss Davis; she acted the part of Celania in the play; and King Charles II, upon hear ing it, was so pleased with her voice and action, that he took her from the stage, and made her his mistress. Again, in the song called The Winchester Wedding, in D'Urfey's Pills to purge Melancholy, Vol. I, p. 276: "Pert Strephon was kind to Betty, "And blithe as a bird in the spring; "And Tommy was so to Katy, "And wedded her with a rush ring." Sir J. Hawkins. Tib and Tom, in plain English, I believe, stand for wanton and rogue. So, in Churchyard's Choise: "Tushe, that 's a toye; let Tomkin talke of Tibb." Again, in the Queenes Majesties Entertainment in Suffolk and Norfolk, &c. by Tho. Churchyard, 4to. no date: CUPID. "And doth not Jove and Mars bear sway? Tush, that is true." PHILOSOPHER. "Then put in Tom and Tibbe, and all beares sway as much as you." Steevens. An anonymous writer, [Mr. Ritson] with some probability, supposes that this is one of those covert allusions in which Shakspeare frequently indulges himself. The following lines of Cleiveland on an Hermaphrodite seem to countenance the suppo sition: "Nay, those which modesty can mean, Sir John Hawkins would read-" as Tom's rush for Tib's forefinger." But if this were the author's meaning, it would be ne ling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin. Count. Have you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions? Cio. From below your duke, to beneath your constable, it will fit any question. Count. It must be an answer of most monstrous size, that must fit all demands. Clo. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should speak truth of it: here it is, and all that belongs to 't: Ask me, if I am a courtier; it shall do you no harm to learn. 3 Count. To be young again, if we could: I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier? Clo. O Lord, sir,4. There's a simple putting off;more, more, a hundred of them. cessary to alter still farther, and to read-As Tom's rush for Tib's fourth finger. Malone. At the game of Gleek, the ace was called Tib, and the knave Tom; and this is the proper explanation of the lines cited from Cleiveland. The practice of marrying with a rush ring, mentioned by Sir John Hawkins, is very questionable, and it might be difficult to find any authority in support of this opinion. Douce. It was the Sir John Hawkins's alteration is unnecessary. practice, in former times, for the woman to give the man a ring, as well as for the man to give her one. So, in the last scene of Twelfth Night, the priest, giving an account of Olivia's marriage, says, it was "Attested by the holy close of lips, Strengthen'd by enterchangement of your rings." M. Mason. I believe what some of us have asserted respecting the exchange of rings in the marriage ceremony, is only true of the marriage contract, in which such a practice undoubtedly prevailed. Steevens. 3 To be young again,] The lady censures her own levity in trifling with her jester, as a ridiculous attempt to return back to youth. Johnson. 40 Lord, sir,] A ridicule on that foolish expletive of speech then in vogue at court. Warburton. Thus Clove and Orange, in Every Man out of his Humour : "You conceive me, sir?- -O Lord, sir!" Cleiveland, in one of his songs, makes his Gentleman"Answer, O Lord, sir! and talk play-book oaths." Farmer. Count. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you. Clo. O lord, sir,-Thick, thick, spare not me. Count. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat. Clo. O Lord, sir,-Nay, put me to 't, I warrant you. Count. Do you cry, O Lord, sir, at your whipping, and spare not me? Indeed, your O Lord, sir, is very sequent to your whipping; you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to 't. Clo. I ne'er had worse luck in my life, in my O Lord, sir: I see, things may serve long, but not serve ever. Count. I play the noble housewife with the time, to entertain it so merrily with a fool. Clo. O Lord, sir,-Why, there 't serves well again. Count. An end, sir, to your business: Give Helen this, And urge her to a present answer back: Commend me to my kinsmen, and my son; Clo. Not much commendation to them. Count. Not much employment for you: You understand me? Clo. Most fruitfully; I am there before my legs. SCENE III. [Exeunt severally. Paris. A Room in the King's Palace. Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES. Laf. They say, miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar things, supernatural and causeless. Hence is it, that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear." 5 modern] i. e. common, ordinary. Again, in this play, Act V, sc. iii: “— with her modern grace So, in As you Like it: "Full of wise saws and modern instances." Malone. |