Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

MARG. And your's as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit, but hurt not.

BENE. A most manly wit, Margaret, it will not hurt a woman; and fo, I pray thee, call Beatrice : I give thee the bucklers. *

MARG. Give us the fwords, we have bucklers of

our own.

BENE. If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vice; and they are dangerous weapons for maids.

MARG. Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who, I think, hath legs. [Exit MARGARET.

4

BENE: And therefore will come.

The god of love,

That fits above,

And knows me, and knows me,

How pitiful 1 deferve,

[Singing. ]

I give thee the bucklers.] I fuppofe that to give the buckiers is, to yield, or to lay by all thoughts of defence, fo clypeum abjicere. The reft deferves no comment. JOHNSON.

Greene, in his Second Part of Coney-Catching, 1592. ufes the fame expreffion: "At this his mafter laught, and was glad, for further advantage, to yield the bucklers to his prentise."

Again, in A Woman never Vex'd, a comedy by Rowley, 1632. into whofe hands fhe thrufts the weapons firft, let him take up the bucklers."

[ocr errors]

Again, in Decker's Satiromafix :

66

Charge one of them to take up the bucklers against that hair-monger Horace."

Again, in Chapman's May-day, 1611.

"And now I lay the bucklers at your feet."

Again, in Every Woman in her Humour, 1609.

66

-if you lay down the bucklers, you lose the victory.” Again, in P. Holland's tranflation of Pliny's Natural Hiftory, B. X. Ch. xxi. 66 it goeth against his ftomach (the cock's) to yeeld the gantlet and give the bucklers." STEEVENS.

The god of love, &c.] This was the beginning of an old fong,

I mean, in finging; but in loving, -Leander the good fwimmer, Troilus the firft employer of pandars, and a whole book full of these quondam carpet-mongers, whofe names yet run fmoothly in the even road of a blank verfe, why, they were never fo truly turn'd over and over as my poor felf, in love: Marry, I cannot fhow it in rhime; I have try'd; I can find out no rhime to lady but baby, an innocent rhime; for fcorn, horn, a hard rhime; for School, fool, a babbling rhime; very ominous endings: No, I was not born under a rhiming planet, nor I cannot woo in feftival terms.

Enter BEATRICE.

Sweet Beatrice, would't thou,come when I called thee?

[ocr errors]

BEAT. Yea, fignior, and depart when you bid me. BENE. O, ftay but till then!

BEAT. Then, is fpoken; fare you well now:-and yet, ere I go, let me go with that I came for, which

by W. E. (William Elderton) a puritanical parody of which, by one W. Birch, under the title of The complaint of a Sinner, &c. Imprinted at London, by Alexander Lary for Richard Applow, is ftill extant. The words in this moralifed copy are as follows:

[blocks in formation]

In Bacchus' Bountie, &c. 4to. bl. 1. 1593, is a fong, beginning

6

"The Gods of love

"Which raigne above." STEEVENS.

[ocr errors]

in feftival terms.] i. e. in fplendid phrafeology, fuch as differs from common language, as holidays from common days. Thus, Hofpur, in K. Henry IV. P. I.

"With many holiday and lady terms." STEEVENS.

- with that I came for,] For, which is wanting in the old copy, was inferted by Mr. Rowe.

MALONE.

is, with knowing what hath paffed between you

and Claudio.

BENE. Only foul words; and thereupon I will kifs thee.

BEAT. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkifs'd.

BENE. Thou haft frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit: But, I muft tell thee plainly. Claudio undergoes my challenge; and either I muft fhortly hear from him, or I will fubscribe him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me, for which of my bad parts didft thou firft fall in love with me?

BEAT. For them all together; which maintain’d fo politick a state of evil, that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for lue?

BENE. Suffer love; a good epithet! I do fuffer love, indeed, for I love thee against my will.

BEAT. In spite of your heart, I think; alas! poor heart! If you fpite it for my fake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never love that which my

friend hates.

BENE. Thou and I are too wife to woo peaceably.

BEAT. It appears not in this confeffion: there's not one wife man among twenty, that will praife himself.

8

BENE. An old, an old inftance, Beatrice, that

challenge; i. e. is fubject to it. So, in

undergoes my Cymbeline, A& III. fc. v. in I fhould have caufe to use thee.'

VOL. VI.

undergo thofe employments, where

[ocr errors]

STEEVENSS
B b

lived in the time of good neighbours: if a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he fhall live no longer in monument, than the bell rings, and the widow weeps.

BEAT. And how long is that, think you?

3

BENE. Queftion? Why, an hour in clamour, and a quarter in rheum: Therefore it is most expedient for the wife, (if Don Worm, his confcience, find no impediment to the contrary,) to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myfelf: So much for praising myself, (who, I myself will bear witnefs, is praife-worthy,) and now tell me, How doth your coufin?

[ocr errors]

BEAT. Very ill.

BENE. And how do you?
BEAT. Very ill too.

BENE. Serve God, love me, and mend: there will I leave you too, for here comes one in haste.

Enter URSULA.

URS. Madam, you must come to your uncle; yonder's old coil at home: 3 it is proved, my lady

9 in the time of good neighbours :] i. c. when men were not envious, but every one gave another his due. The reply is extremely humourous. WARBURTON.

2 Question? Why, an hour, &c.] i. c. What a queftion's there, or what a foolish queftion do you ask? But the Oxford editor, not understanding this phrase, contracted into a fingle word, (of which we have many inftances in English) has fairly ftruck it out. WARBURTON.

The phrafe occurs frequently in Shakspeare, and means no more you ask a question, or that is the question. RITSON.

than

3

old coil at home :] So, in King Henry IV. P. II. A& II. fe. iv. By the mafs, here will be old Utis." See note on this

Hero hath been falfely accufed, the prince and Claudio mightily abufed; and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone: Will you come prefently?

BEAT. Will you go hear this news, fignior?

BENE. I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes; and, moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle's. [Excunt

SCENE III.

The infide of a Church.

Enter Don PEDRO, CLAUDIO, and Attendants with mufick and tapers.

CLAUD. Is this the monument of Leonato?

ATTEN. It is, my lord.

CLAUD. [Reads from a fcroll.

[blocks in formation]

paffage. Old, (I know not why) was anciently a common augmentative in familiar language.

Coil is buftle, ftir. So, in King John:

"I am not worth this coil that's made for me."

STEEvens.

4 Done to death-] This obfolete phrafe occurs frequently in our ancient writers. Thus, in Marlowe's Luft's Dominion, 1657: "His mother's hand fhall ftop thy breath,

Thinking her own fon is done to death." MALONE. To do to death is merely an old tranflation of the French phrafe Faire mourir. STEEVENS.

See

in guerdon- Guerdon is reward, remuneration. Coftard's use of this word in Love's Labour's Loft, Aa III. fc. i. The verb, to guerdon, occurs both in King Henry VI. P. II, and in King Henry VIII. STEEVENS.

« AnteriorContinuar »