2 GENT. Befides, you know, it draws fomething near to the speech we had to fuch a purpose. IGENT. But most of all, agreeing with the proclamation. LUCIO. Away; let's go learn the truth of it. BAWD. Thus, what with the war, what with the fweat, what with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am cuftom-fhrunk. How now? what's the news with you? 7 Enter Clown. CLO. Yonder man is carried to prison. CLO. A woman.8 what with the fweat,] This may allude to the Sweating fickness, of which the memory was very fresh in the time of Shakfpeare: but more probably to the method of cure then used for the diseases contracted in brothels. JOHNSON. So, in the comedy of Doctor Dodypoll, 1600: "You are very moift, fir: did you fweat all this, I pray? You have not the difeafe, I hope. STEEVENS. what has he done? CLO. A woman.] The ancient meaning of the verb to do, (though now obfolete) may be guefs'd at from the following paffages: "Chiron. Thou haft undone our mother. "Aaron. Villain, I've done thy mother." Titus Andronicus. Again, in Ovid's Elegies, tranflated by Marlowe, printed at Middlebourg, no date: "The ftrumpet with the ftranger will not do, "Before the room is clear, and door put to.' Again, in The Maid's Tragedy, A&t II. Evadne, while undreffing, fays, "I am foon undone. Dula anfwers, " And as foon done.” Hence the name of Over-done, which Shakspeare has appropriated to his bawd. COLLINS. BAWD. But what's his offence? CLO. Groping for trouts in a peculiar river." BAWD. What, is there a maid with child by him? CLO. No; but there's a woman with maid by him: You have not heard of the proclamation, have you? BAWD. What, proclamation, man? CLO. All houfes in the fuburbs of Vienna must be pluck'd down. BAWD. And what fhall become of those in the city? CLO. They fhall ftand for feed: they had gone down too, but that a wife burgher put in for them. BAWD. But fhall all our houses of refort in the fuburbs be pull'd down?' 9 in a peculiar river.] i. e. a river belonging to an individual; not public property. MALONE. 2 All boufes in the fuburbs-] This is furely too general an expreffion, unless we fuppofe, that all the houfes in the fuburbs were bawdy-bonfes. It appears too, from what the bawd fays below, " But fhall all our boufes of refort in the fuburbs be pulled down?" that the Clown had been particular in his defcription of the houfes which were to be pulled down. I am therefore inclined to believe that we should read here, all bawdy-bonfes, or all houses of refort in the fuburbs. TYRWHITT. 3 But shall all our houfes of refort in the fuburbs be pull'd down?] This will be understood from the Scotch law of James's time, concerning buires (whores): "that comoun women be put at the utmoft endes of townes, queire leaft perril of fire is." Hence Urfala the pig-woman, in Bartholomew-Fair: "I, I, gamesters, mock a plain, plump, foft wench of the fuburbs, do!" FARMER. So, in The Malcontent, 1604, when Altofront difmiffes the various characters at the end of the play to different deftinations, he fays to Macquerelle the bawd: 66 thou unto the fuburbs." Again, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: "Some fourteen bawds; he kept her in the fuburbs." CLO. To the ground, miftrefs. BAWD. Why, here's a change, indeed, in the commonwealth! What shall become of me? CLO. Come; fear not you: good counsellors lack no clients: though you change your place, you need not change your trade; I'll be your tapfter ftill. Courage; there will be pity taken on you: you that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you will be confidered. BAWD. What's to do here, Thomas Tapfter? Let's withdraw. CLO. Here comes fignior Claudio, led by the provost to prison: and there's madam Juliet. [Exeunt. SCENE III. The fame. Enter Provoft, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and Officers; LUCIO, and two Gentlemen. CLAUD. Fellow, why doft thou fhow me thus to Bear me to prifon, where I am committed. CLAUD. Thus can the demi-god, Authority, See Martial, where fummaniana and fuburbana are applied to prostitutes. STEEVENS. The licenced houses of refort at Vienna are at this time all in the fuburbs, under the permiflion of the Committee of Chastity. S. W. The words of heaven;-on whom it will, it will; On whom it will not, fo; yet ftill 'tis just.' 3 Thus can the demi-god, Authority, Make us pay down for our offence by weight.— The words of heaven;-on whom it will, it will; On whom it will not, fo; yet ftill 'tis juft.] The fenfe of the whole is this: The demi-god Authority, makes us pay the full penalty of our offence, and its decrees are as little to be queftioned as the words of heaven, which pronounces its pleasure thus,-I punish and remit punishment according to my own uncontroulable will; and yet who can fay, what doft thou?-Make us pay down for our offence by weight, is a fine expreffion to fignify paying the full penalty. The metaphor is taken from paying money by weight, which is always exact; not fo by tale, on account of the practice of diminishing the fpecies. WARBURTON. I fufpect that a line is loft. JOHNSON. It may be read,―The fword of heaven. Make us pay down for our offence, by weight; The fword of heaven:-on whom, &c. Authority is then poetically called the fword of heaven, which will fpare or punish, as it is commanded. The alteration is flight, being made only by taking a fingle letter from the end of the word, and placing it at the beginning. This very ingenious and elegant emendation was fuggested to me by the Reverend Dr. Roberts, Provoft of Eton; and it may be countenanced by the following paffage in The Cobler's Prophecy, 1594: "In brief, they are the fawords of heaven to punish." Sir W. D'Avenant, who incorporated this play of Shakspeare with Much ado about Nothing, and formed out of them a Tragicomedy called The Law against Lovers, omits the two laft lines of this fpeech; I fuppofe, on account of their feeming obfcurity. STEEVENS. The very ingenious emendation propofed by Dr. Roberts, is yet more ftrongly fupported by another paffage in the play before us, where this phrafe occurs, (Act III. fc. laft): "He who the fword of heaven will bear, Yet I believe the old copy is right. MALONE. Notwithstanding Dr. Roberts's ingenious conjecture, the text is certainly right. Authority, being abfolute in Angelo, is finely ftiled by Claudio, the demi-god. To this uncontroulable power, the poet applies a paffage from St. Paul to the Romans, ch. ix. LUCIO. Why, how now, Claudio? whence comes this reftraint? CLAUD. From too much liberty, my Lucio, li- As furfeit is the father of much fast, Lucio. If I could speak fo wifely under an arrest, I would fend for certain of my creditors: And yet, to say the truth, I had as lief have the foppery of freedom, as the morality of imprisonment.What's thy offence, Claudio? v. 15, 18, which he properly ftyles, the words of heaven: "for he faith to Mofes, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy," &c. And again: "Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy," &C. HENLEY. It should be remembered, however, that the poet is here speaking not of mercy, but punishment. MALONE. Mr. Malone might have fpared himfelf this remark, had he recollected that the words of St. Paul immediately following, and to which the &c. referred, are—" and whom he will he hardeneth.” See alfo the preceding verfe. HENLEY. 4 Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,] To ravin was formerly used for eagerly or voraciously devouring any thing: fo in Wilson's Epiftle to the Earl of Leicester, prefixed to his Difcourfe upon Ufurye, 1572: "For these bee the greedie cormoraunte wolfes indeed, that ravyn up both beafte and man." REED. Ravin is an ancient word for prey. So, in Noah's Flood, by Drayton : 5 "As well of ravine, as that chew the cud." STEEVENS. when we drink, we die.] So, in Revenge for Honour, by Chapman : "Like poifon'd rats, which when they've swallowed STEEVENS. 6 as the morality-] The old copy has mortality. It was corrected by Sir William D'Avenant. MALONE. |