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Hel. The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes, Before I speak, too threateningly replies: Love make your fortunes twenty times above Her that so wishes, and her humble love! 2 Lord. No better, if you please.

Hel. My wish receive, Which great love grant! and so I take my leave.

Laf. Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine, I'd have them whipped; or I would send them to the Turk, to make eunuchs of.

Hel. Be not afraid [to a Lord] that I your hand should

take;

I'll never do you wrong for your own sake:
Blessing upon your vows! and in your bed
Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!

Laf. These boys are boys of ice, they 'Il none have her: sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne'er got them.

Hel. You are too young, too happy, and too good, To make yourself a son out of my blood.

4 Lord. Fair one, I think not so.

Laf. There's one grape yet,5-I am sure, thy father drank wine. But if thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known thee already.

Hel. I dare not say, I take you; [to BER.] but I give Me, and my service, ever whilst I live,

Into your guiding power.-This is the man.

4 Laf. Do all they deny her?] None of them have yet denied her, or deny her afterwards, but Bertram. The scene must be so regulated that Lafeu and Parolles talk at a distance, where they may see what passes between Helena and the lords, but not hear it, so that they know not by whom the refusal is made.

Johnson.

5 There's one grape yet,] This speech the three last editors [Theobald, Hanmer, and Warburton] have perplexed themselves, by dividing between Lafeu and Parolles, without any authority of copies, or any improvement of sense. I have restored the old reading, and should have thought no explanation necessary, but that Mr. Theobald apparently misunderstood it.

Old Lafeu having, upon the supposition that the lady was refused, reproached the young lords as boys of ice, throwing his eyes on Bertram, who remained, cries out, There is one yet into whom his father put good blood—but I have known thee long enough to know thee for an ass. Johnson.

King. Why then, young Bertram, take her, she's thy wife.

Ber. My wife, my liege? I shall beseech your highness, In such a business give me leave to use

The help of mine own eyes.

King.

What she has done for me?

Ber.

Know'st thou not, Bertram,

Yes, my good lord;

But never hope to know why I should marry her.
King. Thou know'st, she has rais'd me from my sickly

bed.

Ber. But follows it, my lord, to bring me down
Must answer for your raising? I know her well;
She had her breeding at my father's charge:
A poor physician's daughter my wife!-Disdain
Rather corrupt me ever!

King. 'Tis only title thou disdain'st in her, the which
I can build up. Strange is it, that our bloods,
Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off
In differences so mighty: If she be

All that is virtuous, (save what thou dislik'st
A poor physician's daughter) thou dislik'st
Of virtue for the name: but do not so:

From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed:
Where great additions swell, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour: good alone

Is good, without a name; vileness is so:1
The property by what it is should go,

6 'Tis only title - ] i. e. the want of title. Malone.

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7 Of colour, weight, and heat,] That is, which are of the same colour, weight, &c. Malone.

8 From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,] The old copy has-whence. This easy correction [when] was prescribed by Dr. Thirlby. Theobald.

9 Where great additions swell,] Additions are the titles and descriptions by which men are distinguished from each other.

1

good alone

Malone.

Is good, without a name; vileness is so:] Shakspeare may mean, that external circumstances have no power over the real ature of things. Good alone (i. e. by itself) without a name (i. e.

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Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
In these to nature she 's immediate heir;2
And these breed honour: that is honour's scorn,
Which challenges itself as honour's born,
And is not like the sire:3 Honours best thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive

without the addition of titles) is good. Vileness is so (i. e. is itself.) Either of them is what its name implies:

"The property by what it is should go,

"Not by the title

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"Let's write good angel on the devil's horn,

"Tis not the devil's crest." Measure for Measure.

Steevens.

Steevens's last interpretation of this passage is very near being right; but I think it should be pointed thus:

good alone

Is good;--without a name, vileness is so.

Meaning that good is good without any addition, and vileness would still be vileness, though we had no such name to distinguish it by. A similar expression occurs in Macbeth:

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Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, "Yet grace must still look so."

That is, grace would still be grace, as vileness would still be vileness. M. Mason.

The meaning is,-Good is good, independent on any wordly distinction or title: so vileness is vile, in whatever state it may appear. Malone.

2 In these to nature she's immediate heir;] To be immediate heir is to inherit without any intervening transmitter: thus she inherits beauty immediately from nature, but honour is transmitted by ancestors. Johnson.

3

that is honour's scorn,

Which challenges itself as honour's born,

And is not like the sire: Perhaps we might read more elegantly-as honour-born,-honourably descended: the child of hon

our.

Malone.

Honour's born, is the child of honour. Born is here used, as bairn still is in the North. Henley.

4 And is not like the sire: Honours best thrive, &c.] The first folio omits-best; but the second folio supplies it, as it is necessary to enforce the sense of the passage, and complete its mea-. Steevens.

sure.

The modern editors read-Honours best thrive; in which they have followed the editor of the second folio, who introduced the word best unnecessarily; not observing that sire was used by our author, like fire, hour, &c. as a dissyllable. Malone.

Where is an example of sire, used as a dissyllable, to be found? Fire and hour were anciently written fier and hower; and conse

Than our fore-goers: the mere word 's a slave,
Debauch'd on every tomb; on every grave,
A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb,

Where dust, and damn'd oblivion, is the tomb
Of honour'd bones indeed. What should be said?
If thou canst like this creature as a maid,

I can create the rest: virtue, and she,

Is her own dower: honour, and wealth, from me.
Ber. I cannot love her, nor will strive to do 't.
King. Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou should'st strive
to choose.

Hel. That you are well restor'd, my lord, I am glad; Let the rest go.

King. My honour 's at the stake; which to defeat,
I must produce my power:5 Here, take her hand,
Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift;
That dost in vile misprision shackle up

My love, and her desert; that canst not dream,
We, poizing us in her defective scale,

Shall weigh thee to the beam: that wilt not know,

quently the concurring vowels could be separated in pronunciation. Steevens.

5 My honour's at the stake; which to defeat,

I must produce my power:] The poor King of France is again made a man of Gotham, by our unmerciful editors. For he is not to make use of his authority to defeat, but to defend his honTheobald.

our.

Had Mr. Theobald been aware that the implication or clause of the sentence (as the grammarians say) served for the antecedent "Which danger to defeat," there had been no need of his wit or his alteration. Farmer.

Notwithstanding Mr. Theobald's pert censure of former editors for retaining the word defeat, I should be glad to see it restored again, as I am persuaded it is the true reading. The French verb defaire (from whence our defeat) signifies to free, to disembarrass, as well as to destroy. Defaire un naud, is to untie a knot; and in this sense, I apprehend, defeat is here used. It may be observed, that our verb undo has the same varieties of signification; and I suppose even Mr. Theobald would not have been much puzzled to find the sense of this passage, if it had been written; -My honour's at the stake, which to undo I must produce my power. Tyrwhitt.

6

· that canst not dream,

We, poizing us in her defective scale,

Shall weigh thee to the beam;] That canst not understand,

It is in us to plant thine honour, where

We please to have it grow: Check thy contempt:
Obey our will, which travails in thy good:
Believe not thy disdain, but presently

Do thine own fortunes that obedient right,
Which both thy duty owes, and our power claims;
Or I will throw thee from my care for ever,
Into the staggers, and the careless lapse

Of youth and ignorance; both my revenge and hate,
Loosing upon thee in the name of justice,
Without all terms of pity: Speak; thine answer.
Ber. Pardon, my gracious lord; for I submit
My fancy to your eyes: When I consider,
What great creation, and what dole of honour,
Flies where you bid it, I find, that she, which late
Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now
The praised of the king; who, so ennobled,
Is, as 'twere, born so.

King.

Take her by the hand, And tell her, she is thine: to whom I promise A counterpoize; if not to thy estate,

A balance more replete.

Ber.

I take her hand.

King. Good fortune, and the favour of the king,
Smile upon this contract; whose ceremony
Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,
And be perform'd to-night: the solemn feast

that if you and this maiden should be weighed together, and our royal favours should be thrown into her scale, (which you esteem so light) we should make that in which you should be placed, to strike the beam. Malone.

7 Into the staggers,] One species of the staggers, or the horse's apoplexy, is a raging impatience, which makes the animal dash himself with a destructive violence against posts or walls. To this the allusion, I suppose, is made. Johnson.

Shakspeare has the same expression in Cymbeline, where Posthumus says:

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"Whence come these staggers on me?" Steevens.

whose ceremony

Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,

And be perform'd to-night:] Several of the modern editors read-new-born brief.

Steevens.

This, if it be at all intelligible, is at least obscure and inaccu rate. Perhaps it was written thus:

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