OLI. How does he love me? V10. With adorations, with fertile tears,' With groans that thunder love, with fighs of fire." OLI. Your lord does know my mind, I cannot love him: Yet I fuppofe him virtuous, know him noble, V10. If I did love you in my master's flame, S with fertile tears,] With, which is not in the old copy. was added by Mr. Pope to fupply the metre. Tears is here ufed as a diffyllable, like fire, hour, fwear, &c. "With adoration's fertile tears," i. e. with the copious tears that unbounded and adoring love pours forth. MALONE. To read tears as a diffyllable [i. e. t-ars] at the end of a verse, is what no ancient examples have authorised, and no human ears can endure. STEEVENS. With groans that thunder love, with fighs of fire.] This line is worthy of Dryden's Almanzor, and, if not faid in mockery of amorous hyperboles, might be regarded as a ridicule on a paífage in Chapman's tranflation of the firft book of Homer, 1598: "Jove thunder'd out a figh;" or, on another in Lodge's Rofalynde, 1592: The winds of my deepe fighes "That thunder ftill for noughts," &c. STEEVENS. So, in our author's Lover's Complaint: "O, that forc'd thunder from his heart did fly!" MALONE. 1 In voices well divulg'd,] Well fpoken of by the world. So, in Timon: "Is this the Athenian minion, whom the world MALONE. OLI. Why, what would you? V10. Make me a willow cabin at your gate, OLI. You might do much: What is your parentage? V10. Above my fortunes, yet my state is well: I am a gentleman. you to your lord; I cannot love him: let him fend no more; 8 Write loyal cantons of contemned love,] The old copy has cantons; which Mr. Capell, who appears to have been entirely unacquainted with our ancient language, has changed into canzons.-There is no need of alteration. Canton was used for canto in our author's time. So, in The London Prodigal, a Comedy, 1605: "What-do-you-call-him has it there in his third canton.' Again, in Heywood's Preface to Britaynes Troy, 1609:-" in the judicial perufal of these few cantons," &c. MALONE. 9 Holla your name to the reverberate hills,] I have corrected, reverberant. THEOBALD. Mr. Upton well obferves, that Shakspeare frequently ufes the adjective paffive, actively. Theobald's emendation is therefore unneceffary. B. Jonfon, in one of his mafques at court, fays: which fkill, Pythagoras "Firft taught to men by a reverberate glass." STEEVENS. Johnfon, in his Dictionary, adopted Theobald's correction. But the following line from T. Heywood's Troja Britannica, 1609, canto 11. ft. ix. fhows that the original text fhould be preferved: "Give fhrill reverberat echoes and rebounds." 2 HOLT WHITг. the babbling giflip of the air-] A most beautiful expreffion for an echo. Douce. To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well: Above my fortunes, yet my flate is well: I am a gentleman.— I'll be fworn thou art; Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and fpirit, Do give thee five-fold blazon:-Not too faft:foft! foft! Unless the mafter were the man.'-How now? To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.- MAL. Re-enter MALVOLIO. Here, madam, at your service. OLI. Run after that fame peevish meffenger, The county's man: he left this ring behind him, 3 I am no fee'd poft,] Poft, in our authour's time, fignified a meffenger. MALONE. 4 - Soft! Soft! Unless the mafter were the man.] Unlefs the dignity of the mafter were added to the merit of the fervant, I fhall go too far, and difgrace myself. Let me ftop in time. MALONE. Perhaps the means to check herfelf by obferving,-This is unbecoming forwardnefs on my part, unless I were as much in love with the mafter as I am with the man. STEEVENS. 5 The county's man:] County and count in old language were fynonymous. The old copy has countes, which may be right: the Saxon genitive cafe. MALONE. Would I, or not; tell him, I'll none of it. OLI. I do I know not what; and fear to find to flatter with his lord,] This was the phrafeology of the time. So, in King Richard II : "Shall dying men flatter with those that live."' Many more inftances might be added. MALONE. 7 Mine eye, &c.] I believe the meaning is; I am not mistress of my own actions; I am afraid that my eyes betray me, and flatter the youth without my confent, with discoveries of love. It JOHNSON. Johnfon's explanation of this paffage is evidently wrong. would be ftrange indeed if Olivia should say, that she feared her eyes would betray her paffion, and flatter the youth, without her confent, with a discovery of her love, after she had actually sent him a ring, which must have discovered her paffion more strongly, and was fent for that very purpose.-The true meaning appears to me to be thus :-She fears that her eyes had formed fo flattering an idea of Cefario, that she should not have ftrength of mind fufficient to refift the impreffion. She had juft before said: "Methinks, I feel this youth's perfections, "To creep in at mine eyes." which confirms my explanation of this paffage. M. MASON. I think the meaning is, I fear that my eyes will feduce my understanding; that I am indulging a paffion for this beautiful youth, which my reafon cannot approve. MALONE. 8 Ourfelves we do not owe;] i. e. we are not our own mafters. We cannot govern ourselves. So, in Macbeth: the difpofition that I owe;" i. e. own, poffefs. 66 STEEVENS ACT II. SCENE I. The Sea-coast. Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN. ANT. Will you ftay no longer? nor will you not, that I go with you? SEB. By your patience, no: my stars fhine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, diftemper yours; therefore I fhall crave of you your leave, that I may bear my evils alone: It were a bad recompenfe for your love, to lay any of them on you. ANT. Let me yet know of you, whither you are bound. SEB. No, 'footh, fir; my determinate voyage is mere extravagancy. But I perceive in you fo excellent a touch of modefty, that you will not extort from me what I am willing to keep in; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to exprefs myfelf." You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebaftian, which I call'd Rodorigo; my father was that Sebaftian of Meffaline, whom I know, you have heard of: he left behind him, myfelf, and a fifter, both born in an hour; If the heavens had been pleas'd, 'would we had fo ended! but, you, fir, alter'd that; for, fome hour before you took me from the breach of the fea,' was my fifter drown'd. 2 9 to express myfelf.] That is, to reveal myfelf. JOHNSON. Meffaline,] Sir Thomas Hanmer very judiciously offers to read Metelin, an ifland in the Archipelago; but Shakspeare knew little of geography, and was not at all folicitous about orthographical nicety. The fame miftake occurs in the concluding fcene of the play: 3 "Of Maline; Sebaftian was my father." STEEVENS. the breach of the fea,] i. e. what we now call the breaking of the fea. In Pericles it is ftyled" the rupture of the fea." STEEVENS. |