Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

Par. Will this capricio hold in thee, art sure? Ber. Go with me to my chamber, and advise me. I'll send her straight away: To-morrow9

I'll to the wars, she to her single sorrow.

Par. Why, these balls bound; there's noise in it.— 'Tis hard;

A young man, married, is a man that's marr'd:
Therefore away, and leave her bravely; go:

The king has done you wrong; but, hush! 'tis so.

SCENE IV.

The same. Another Room in the same.

Enter HELENA and Clown.

[Exeunt.

Hel. My mother greets me kindly: Is she well? Clo. She is not well; but yet she has her health: she's very merry; but yet she is not well: but thanks be given, she 's very well, and wants nothing i' the world; but yet she is not well.

Hel. If she be very well, what does she ail, that she's not very well.

Clo. Truly, she's very well indeed, but for two things. Hel. What two things?

Clo. One, that she's not in heaven, whither God send her quickly! the other, that she's in earth, from whence God send her quickly!

Enter PAROLLES.

Par. Bless you, my fortunate lady!

"And when smolke and smoulder smight in his syghte,
"It doth him worse than his wyfe, or wete to slepe;
"For smolke or smoulder, smiteth in his eyen

"Til he be blear'd or blind," &c.

The old copy reads-detected wife. Mr. Rowe made the correction.

Steevens.

The emendation is fully supported by a subsequent passage: ""Tis a hard bondage to become the wife

"Of a detesting lord." Malone.

9 I'll send her straight away: To-morrow-] As this line wants a foot, I suppose our author wrote-" Betimes to-morrow." So, in Macbeth:

I will to-morrow,

"Betimes I will," &c. Steevens.

Hel. I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good fortunes.1

Par. You had my prayers to lead them on; and to keep them on, have them still.-O, my knave! How does my old lady?

Clo. So that you had her wrinkles, and I her money, I would she did as you say.

Par. Why, I say nothing.

Clo. Marry, you are the wiser man; for many a man's tongue shakes out his master's undoing: To say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your title; which is within a very little of nothing.

Par. Away, thou 'rt a knave.

Clo. You should have said, sir, before a knave thou art a knave; that is, before me thou art a knave: this had been truth, sir.

Par. Go to, thou art a witty fool, I have found thee. Clo. Did you find me in yourself, sir? or were you taught to find me? The search, sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find in you, even to the world's pleasure, and the increase of laughter.

Par. A good knave, i' faith, and well fed.2-
Madam, my lord will go away to-night;
A very serious business calls on him.
The great prerogative and rite of love,

Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge;
But puts it off by a compell'd restraint;3

1 - fortunes.] Old copy-fortune. Corrected by Mr. SteeMalone.

vens.

2

and well fed.] An allusion, perhaps, to the old saying"Better fed than taught;" to which the Clown has himself alluded in a preceding scene:-"I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught." Ritson.

3 But puts it off by a compell'd restraint;] The old copy reads -to a compell'd restraint. Steevens.

The editor of the third folio reads-by a compell'd restraint; and the alteration has been adopted by the modern editors; perhaps without necessity. Our poet might have meant, in his usual licentious manner, that Bertram puts off the completion of his wishes to a future day, till which he is compelled to restrain his desires. This, it must be confessed, is very harsh; but our author is often so licentious in his phraseology, that change on that

Whose want, and whose delay, is strewed with sweets,
Which they distil now in the curbed time,4

To make the coming hour o'erflow with joy,
And pleasure drown the brim.

Hel.

What's his will else?

Par. That you will take your instant leave o' the king, And make this haste as your own good proceeding, Strengthen'd with what apology you think

May make it probable need.5

Hel.

What more commands he?

Par. That, having this obtain'd, you presently

Attend his further pleasure.

Hel. In every thing I wait upon his will.
Par. I shall report it so.

Hel.

I pray you.-Come, sirrah. [Exeunt.

ground alone is very dangerous. In King Henry VIII, we have a phraseology not very different:

66

All-souls day

"Is the determin'd respite of my wrongs."

i. e. the day to which my wrongs are respited. Malone.

4 Whose want, and whose delay, &c.] The sweets with which this want is strewed, I suppose, are compliments and professions of kindness. Johnson.

Johnson seems not to have understood this passage; the meaning of which is merely this:-"That the delay of the joys, and the expectation of them, would make them more delightful when they come." The curbed time, means the time of restraint. Whose want, means the want of which. So, in The Two Noble Kinsmen, Theseus says:

A day or two

"Let us look sadly,-in whose end,

"The visages of bridegrooms we 'll put on." M. Mason. The sweets which are distilled, by the restraint said to be imposed on Bertram, from "the want and delay of the great prerogative of love," are the sweets of expectation. Parolles is here speaking of Bertram's feelings during this "curbed time," not, as Dr. Johnson seems to have thought, of those of Helena. The following lines, in Troilus and Cressida, may prove the best comment on the present passage:

5

"I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.

"The imaginary relish is so sweet

"That it enchants my sense. What will it be,
"When that the watery palate tastes indeed
"Love's thrice-reputed nectar? Death, I fear me,
"Swooning destruction;" &c. Malone.

· probable need.] A specious appearance of necessity.

Johnson

SCENE V.

Another Room in the same.

Enter LAFEU and BERTRAM.

Laf. But, I hope, your lordship thinks not him a soldier.

Ber Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof.
Laf. You have it from his own deliverance.

Ber. And by other warranted testimony.

Laf. Then my dial goes not true; I took this lark for a bunting."

Ber. I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge, and accordingly valiant.

Laf. I have then sinned against his experience, and transgressed against his valour; and my state that way is dangerous, since I cannot yet find in my heart to repent. Here he comes; I pray you, make us friends, I will pursue the amity.

Enter PAROLLES.

Par. These things shall be done, sir.
Laf. Pray you, sir, who 's his tailor?

Par. Sir?

[To BER.

Laf. O, I know him well: Ay, sir; he, sir, is a good

workman, a very good tailor.

Ber. Is she gone to the king?

Par. She is.

Ber. Will she away to-night?

Par. As you'll have her.

[Aside to PAR.

-a bunting.] This bird is mentioned in Lyly's Love's Metamorphosis, 1601: "— but foresters think all birds to be buntings." Barrett's Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1580, gives this account of it: "Terraneola et rubetra, avis alaudæ similis, &c. Dicta terraneola quod non in arboribus, sed in terra versetur et nidificet." The following proverb is in Ray's Collection: "A gosshawk beats not a bunting." Steevens.

I took this lark for a bunting.] This is a fine discrimination between the possessor of courage, and him that only has the appearance of it.

The bunting is, in feather, size, and form, so like the sky-lark, as to require nice attention to discover the one from the other; it also ascends and sinks in the air nearly in the same manner: but it has little or no song, which gives estimation to the skylark. F. Johnson.

Ber. I have writ my letters, casketed my treasure, Given order for our horses; and to-night,

When I should take possession of the bride,

And, ere I do begin,

Laf. A good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner; but one that lies three-thirds,” and uses a known truth to pass a thousand nothings with, should be once heard, and thrice beaten.—God save you captain. Ber. Is there any unkindness between my lord and you, monsieur?

Par. I know not how I have deserved to run into my lord's displeasure.

Laf. You have made shift to run into 't, boots and spurs and all, like him that leap'd into the custard;8 and out of it you'll run again, rather than suffer question for your residence.

Ber. It may be, you have mistaken him, my lord.

Laf. And shall do so ever, though I took him at his prayers. Fare you well, my lord; and believe this of me, There can be no kernel in this light nut; the soul of this man is his clothes: trust him not in matter of heavy consequence; I have kept of them tame, and know their natures.-Farewel, monsieur: I have spoken bet

7 A good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner; but one that lies three-thirds, &c.] So, in Marlowe's King Edward II, 1598:

"Gav. What art thou?

"2 Poor Man. A traveller.

"Gav. Let me see; thou would'st well

"To wait on my trencher, and tell me lies at dinner-time.”

Malone.

8 You have made shift to run into 't, boots and spurs and all, like him that leap'd into the custard;] This odd allusion is not introduced without a view to satire. It was a foolery practised at city entertainments, whilst the jester or zany was in vogue, for him to jump into a large deep custard, set for the purpose, to set on a quantity of barren spectators to laugh, as our poet says in his Hamlet. I do not advance this without some authority; and a quotation from Ben Jonson will very well explain it :

"He may perchance, in tail of a sheriff's dinner,

86

Skip with a rhime o' th' table, from New-nothing,
"And take his Almain-leap into a custard,

"Shall make my lady mayoress, and her sisters,
Laugh all their hoods over their shoulders."

66

Devil's an Ass, Act I, sc. i. Theobald

« AnteriorContinuar »