V10. And what fhould I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elyfium. 8 Perchance, he is not drown'd:-What think you, failors? CAP. It is perchance, that you yourself were fav'd. V10. O my poor brother! and fo, perchance, may he be. CAP. True, madam: and, to comfort you with chance, Affure yourself, after our fhip did split, When you, and that poor number fav'd with you,' V10. The like of him. Know'st thou this country? CAP. Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and born, Not three hours travel from this very place. 8 V10. Who governs here? CAP. A noble duke in nature, as in name.' upon in Illyria? My brother he is in Elyfium.] There is feemingly a play the words Illyria and Elyfium. DOUCE. 9 and that poor number fav'd with you,] We should rather read-this poor number. The old copy has thofe. The failors who were faved, enter with the captain. MALONE. 2 A noble duke in nature as in name.] I know not whether the nobility of the name is comprised in duke, or in Orfino, which is, I think, the name of a great Italian family. JOHNSON. V10. What is his name? CAP. Orfino. V10. Orfino! I have heard my father name him: He was a bachelor then. CAP. And fo is now, Or was fo very late: for but a month Ago I went from hence; and then 'twas fresh V10. What's fhe? CAP. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count That dy'd fome twelve-month fince; then leaving her In the protection of his fon, her brother, And fight of men.' V10. O, that I ferv'd that lady; And might not be deliver'd to the world,* Till I had made mine own occafion mellow, They fay, he hath abjur'd the company And fight of men. O, that I ferv'd that lady!] The old copy reads They fay he hath abjur'd the fight And company of men. O, that I ferv'd that lady; By the change I have made in the orda verborum, the metre of three lines is regulated, and an anticlimax prevented. STEEVENS. 4 And might not be deliver'd to the world,] I wish I might not be made public to the world, with regard to the ftate of my birth and fortune, till I have gained a ripe opportunity for my defign. Viola feems to have formed a very deep defign with very little premeditation: fhe is thrown by fhipwreck on an unknown coaft, hears that the prince is a bachelor, and refolves to fupplant the lady whom he courts. JOHNSON. CAP. That were hard to compass; Because she will admit no kind of fuit, No, not the duke's. VIO. There is a fair behaviour in thee, captain; And though that nature with a beauteous wall Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee I will believe, thou haft a mind that fuits 5 I'll ferve this duke;] Viola is an excellent fchemer, never at a lofs; if the cannot ferve the lady, fhe will ferve the duke. JOHNSON. Thou shalt prefent me as an eunuch to him,] This plan of Viola's was not purfued, as it would have been inconfiftent with the plot of the play. She was prefented to the duke as a page, but not as a eunuch. M. MASON. The use of Evirati, in the fame manner as at prefent, feems to have been well known at the time this play was written, about 1600. BURNEY. When the practice of caftration (which originated certainly in the east) was firft adopted, folely for the purpose of improving the voice, I have not been able to learn. The firft regular opera, as Dr. Burney obferves to me, was performed at Florence in 1600: "till about 1635, mufical dramas were only performed occafionally in the palaces of princes, and confequently before that time eunuchs could not abound. The firft eunuch that was fuffered to fing in the Pope's chapel, was in the year 1600." So early, however, as 1604, eunuchs are mentioned by one of our poet's contemporaries, as excelling in finging: Yes, I can fing, fool, if you'll bear the burthen; and I can play upon inftruments fcurvily, as gentlemen do. O that I had been gelded! I fhould then have been a fat fool for a chamber, a queaking fool for a tavern, and a private fool for all the ladies." The Malcontent, by J. Mariton, 1604. MALONE. That will allow me very worth his service.' CAP. Be you his eunuch, and your mute I'll be: When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see! V10. I thank thee: Lead me on. SCENE III. A room in Olivia's house. [Exeunt. Enter SIR TOBY BELCH, and MARIA. SIR TO. What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus? I am fure, care's an enemy to life. MAR. By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o'nights; your coufin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours. SIR TO. Why, let her except before excepted. MAR. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modeft limits of order. SIR TO. Confine? I'll confine myself no finer than I am: these clothes are good enough to drink in, and fo be thefe boots too; an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own ftraps. MAR. That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it yefterday; and of a foolish knight, that you brought in one night here, to be her wooer. 7 That will allow me] To allow is to approve. So, in King Lear, Act. II. fc. iv: 66 -if your fweet fway "Allow obedience " STEEVENS. let her except before excepted.] A ludicrous ufe of the formal lar phrafe. FARMER. SIR TO. Who? Sir Andrew Ague-cheek? MAR. Ay, he. SIR TO. He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria. MAR. What's that to the purpose? SIR TO. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year. MAR. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats; he's a very fool, and a prodigal. SIR TO. Fie, that you'll fay fo! he plays o'the viol-de-gambo, and fpeaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature. MAR. He hath, indeed,-almoft natural: for, befides that he's a fool, he's a great quarreller; -as tall a man- -] Tall means fout, courageous. So, in "Ay, and he is a tall fellow, and a man of his hands too." Wily Beguiled: Again: "If he do not prove himself as tall a man as he." STEEVENS. viol-de-gambo,] The viol-de-gambo feems, in our author's time, to have been a very fashionable inftrument. In The Return from Parnaffus, 1606, it is mentioned, with its proper derivation: "Her viol-de-gambo is her beft content, "For 'twixt her legs fhe holds her inftrument." COLLINS. So, in the Induction to the Mal-content. 1606. -come fit between my legs here. "No indeed, coufin; the audience will then take me for a viol-de-gambo, and think that you play upon me." In the old dramatic writers, frequent mention is made of a cafe of viols, confifting of a viol-de-gambo, the tenor and the treble. See Sir John Hawkins's Hift. of Mufick, Vol. IV. p. 32, n. 338, wherein is a defcription of a cafe more properly termed a cheft of viols. STEEVENS. 3 He hath indeed,-almoft natural:] Mr. Upton propofes to regulate this paffage differently: He hath indeed, all, moft natural. MALONE. |