But take the Highest to witness: Then, pray you tell me, That I will work against him:2 Therefore, your oaths Are words, and poor conditions; but unseal'd; At least, in my opinion. Ber. Change it, change it; Be not so holy-cruel: love is holy; And my integrity ne'er knew the crafts, That you do charge men with: Stand no more off, Who then recover: say, thou art mine, and ever Dia. I see, that men make hopes, in such affairs,3 If I should swear by Jove's great attributes, that I loved you dearly, would you believe my oaths, when you found by experience that I loved you ill, and was endeavouring to gain credit with you in order to seduce you to your ruin? No, surely; but you would conclude that I had no faith either in Jove or his attributes, and that my oaths were mere words of course. For that oath can certainly have no tie upon us, which we swear by him we profess to love and honour, when at the same time we give the strongest proof of our disbelief in him, by pursuing a course which we know will offend and dishonour him. Heath. 1 If I should swear by Jove's great attributes,] In the print of the old folio, it is doubtful whether it be Jove's or Love's, the characters being not distinguishable. If it is read Love's, perhaps it may be something less difficult. I am still at a loss. Johnson. 2 To swear by him whom I protest to love, &c.] This passage likewise appears to me corrupt. She swears not by him whom she loves, but by Jupiter. I believe we may read-To swear to him. There is, says she, no holding, no consistency, in swearing to one that I love him, when I swear it only to injure him. Johnson. This appears to me a very probable conjecture. Mr. Heath's explanation, which refers to the words "whom I protest to love," to Jove, can hardly be right. Let the reader judge. May we not read Malone. To swear by him whom I profess to love. Harris. 3 I see, that men make hopes, in such affairs,] The four folio editions read: make rope's in such a scarre. That we 'll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring. The emendation was introduced by Mr. Rowe. I find the word scarre in The Tragedy of Hoffman, 1631; but do not readily per ceive how it can suit the purpose of the present speaker: Again: Again: Again: "I know a cave, wherein the bright day's eye, "Look'd never but ascance, through a small creeke, "There have I sometimes liv'd," &c. "Where is the villain's body? "Marry, even heaved over the scarr, and sent a swimming," &c. "Run up to the top of the dreadful scarre." "I stood upon the top of the high scarre.' Ray says, that a scarre is a cliff of a rock, or a naked rock on the dry land, from the Saxon carre, cautes. He adds, that this word gave denomination to the town of Scarborough. But as some Latin commentator, (whose name I have forgot) observes on a similar occasion, veritate desperatâ, nihil amplius curæ de hac re suscipere volui. Steevens. I see, that men make hopes, in such a scene, That we'll forsake ourselves.] i. e. I perceive that while our lovers are making professions of love, and acting their assumed parts in this kind of amorous interlude, they entertain hopes that we shall be betrayed by our passions to yield to their desires. So, in Much Ado about Nothing: "The sport will be, when they hold an opinion of one another's dotage, and no such matter,— that 's the scene that I would see," &c. Again, in The Winter's Tale: 66 It shall be so my care "To have you royally appointed, as if The old copy reads: I see, that men make ropes in such a scarre, &c. which Mr. Rowe altered to-make hopes in such affairs; and all the subsequent editors adopted his correction. It being entirely arbitrary, any emendation that is nearer to the traces of the unintelligible word in the old copy, and affords at the same time an easy sense, is better entitled to a place in the text. A corrupted passage in the first sketch of The Merry Wives of Windsor, suggested to me [scene] the emendation now introduced. In the fifth Act, Fenton describes to the Host his scheme for marrying Anne Page: "And in a robe of white this night disguised "Wherein fat Falstaff had [r. hath] a mighty scare, It is manifest, from the corresponding lines in the folio, that Ber. I'll lend it thee, my dear, but have no power To give it from me. Dia. Will you not, my lord? Ber. It is an honour 'longing to our house, Bequeathed down from many ancestors; Which were the greatest obloquy i' the world In me to lose. Dia. Mine honour's such a ring: My chastity's the jewel of our house, Ber. Here, take my ring: My house, mine honour, yea, my life be thine, And I'll be bid by thee. Dia. When midnight comes, knock at my chamber window; I'll order take, my mother shall not hear. scare was printed by mistake for scene; for in the folio the pass age runs 66 fat Falstaff "Hath a great scene." Malone. Mr. Rowe's emendation is not only liable to objection from its dissimilarity to the reading of the four folios, but also from the aukwardness of his language, where the literal resemblance is most, like the words, rejected. In such affairs, is a phrase too vague for Shakspeare, when a determined point, to which the preceding conversation had been gradually narrowing, was in question; and to MAKE hopes, is as uncouth an expression as can well be imagined. in Nor is Mr. Malone's supposition, of scene for scarre, a whit more in point: for, first, scarre, in every part of England where rocks abound, is well known to signify the detached protrusion of a large rock; whereas scare is terror or affright. Nor was scare, the first sketch of The Merry Wives of Windsor, a mistake for scene, but an intentional change of ideas; scare implying only Falstaff's terror, but scene including the spectator's entertainment. On the supposal that make hopes is the true reading, in such a scarre, may be taken figuratively for in such an extremity, i. e. in so desperate a situation. Henley. My reasons are most strong; and you shall know them, My mother told me just how he would woo, As if she sat in his heart; she says, all men To cozen him, that would unjustly win. SCENE III. The Florentine Camp. [Exit. Enter the two French Lords, and two or three Soldiers. 1 Lord. You have not given him his mother's letter? 2 Lord. I have delivered it an hour since: there is 4 Since Frenchmen are so braid, Marry that will, I'll live and die a maid:] Braid signifies crafty or deceitful. So, in Greene's Never too Late, 1616: "Dian rose with all her maids, 66 Blushing thus at love his braids." Chaucer uses the word in the same sense; but as the passage where it occurs in his Troilus and Cressida is contested, it may be necessary to observe, that Bred is an Anglo-Saxon word, signifying fraus, astus. Again, in Thomas Drant's Translation of Horace's Epistles, where its import is not very clear: "Professing thee a friend, to plaie the ribbalde at a brade." In The Romaunt of the Rose, v. 1336, braid seems to mean forthwith, or, at a jerk. There is nothing to answer it in the French, except tantost. In the ancient song of Lytyl Thanke, (MS. Cotton, Titus A. xxvi,) “at a brayd" undoubtedly signifies-at once, on a sudden, in the instant: "But in come ffrankelyn at a brayd." Steevens. something in 't that stings his nature; for, on the reading it, he changed almost into another man. 1 Lord. He has much worthy blame laid upon him, for shaking off so good a wife, and so sweet a lady. 2 Lord. Especially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure of the king, who had even tuned his bounty to sing happiness to him. I will tell you a thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly with you. 1 Lord. When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the grave of it. 2 Lord. He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in Florence, of a most chaste renown; and this night he fleshes his will in the spoil of her honour: he hath given her his monumental ring, and thinks himself made in the unchaste composition. 1 Lord. Now, God delay our rebellion; as we are ourselves, what things are we! 2 Lord. Merely our own traitors. And as in the common course of all treasons, we still see them reveal themselves, till they attain to their abhorred ends; so 5 1 Lord.] The latter editors have with great liberality bestowed lordship upon these interlocutors, who, in the original edition, are called, with more propriety, capt. E. and capt. G. It is true that captain E. in a former scene is called lord E. but the subordination in which they seem to act, and the timorous manner in which they converse, determines them to be only captains. Yet as the latter readers of Shakspeare have been used to find them lords, I have not thought it worth while to degrade them in the margin. Johnson. These two personages may be supposed to be two young French Lords serving in the Florentine camp, where they now appear in their military capacity. In the first scene, where the two French lords are introduced, taking leave of the king, they are called in the original edition, Lord E. and Lord G. G. and E. were, I believe, only put to denote the players who performed these characters. In the list of actors prefixed to the first folio, I find the names of Gilburne and Ecclestone, to whom these insignificant parts probably fell. Perhaps, however, these performers first represented the French Lords, and afterwards two captains in the Florentine army; and hence the confusion of the old copy. In the first scene of this Act, one of these captains is called throughout, 1. Lord E. The matter is of no great importance. Malone. 6 till they attain to their abhorred ends;] This may meanthey are perpetually talking about the mischief they intend to do, till they have obtained an opportunity of doing it. Steevens. |