CLO. What is love? 'tis not hereafter; In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kifs me, fweet and twenty, SIR AND. A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight. SIR TO. A contagious breath. SIR AND. Very fweet and contagious, i'faith. SIR TO. To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall we make the welkin dance* In delay there lies no plenty;] No man will ever be worth much, who delays the advantages offered by the present hour, in hopes that the future will offer more. So, in K. Richard III. Act IV. fc. iii : Delay leads impotent and fnail-pac'd beggary." Again, in K. Henry VI. P. I: "Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends." Again, in a Scots proverb: "After a delay comes a let." See Kelly's Collection, p. 52. STEEVENS. 9 Then come kifs me, fweet and twenty,] This line is obfcure; we might read: Come, a kifs then, fweet and twenty, Yet I know not whether the prefent reading be not right, for in fome counties weet and twenty, whatever be the meaning, is a phrafe of endearment. JOHNSON. So, in Wit of a Woman, 1604 "Sweet and twenty: all sweet and fweet." STEEVENS. Again, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "Good even, and twenty.' MALONE. make the welkin dance-] That is, drink till the sky feems to turn round. JOHNSON. So, in Antony and Cleopatra, A& II. fc. vii: Cup us till the world go round." Again, Mr. Pope: "Ridotta fips and dances, till fhe fee "The doubling luftres dance as faft as fhe." STEEVENJ, indeed? Shall we roufe the night-owl in a catch, that will draw three fouls out of one weaver?3 fhall we do that? SIR AND. An you love me, let's do't: I am dog at a catch. CLO. By'r lady, fir, and fome dogs will catch well. SIR AND. Moft certain: let our catch be, Thou knave. 3 draw three fouls out of one weaver?] Our author reprefents weavers as much given to harmony in his time. I have Thewn the cause of it elfewhere. This expreflion of the power of mufick is familiar with our author. Much ado about Nothing: "Now is his foul ravished. Is it not ftrange that sheep's-guts should bale fouls out of men's bodies ?". -Why, he fays, three fouls, is becaufe he is fpeaking of a catch of three parts; and the peripatetic philofophy, then in vogue, very liberally gave every man three fouls. The vegetative or plaftic, the animal, and the rational. To this, too, Jonfon alludes, in his Poetafter: "What, will I turn fbark upon my friends? or my friends' friends? I fcorn it with my three fouls." By the mention of thefe three, therefore, we may fuppofe it was Shakspeare's purpofe, to hint to us thofe furprizing effects of mufick, which the ancients fpeak of, when they tell us of Amphion, who moved ftones and trees; Orpheus and Arion, who tamed favage beafts; and Timotheus, who governed, as he pleased, the paffions of his human auditors. So noble an obfervation has our author conveyed in the ribaldry of this buffoon character. WARBURTON. In a popular book of the time, Carew's tranflation of Huarte's Trial of Wits, 1594, there is a curious chapter concerning the three fouls," vegetative, fenfitive, and reafonable." FARMER. I doubt whether our author intended any allufion to this divifion of fouls. In The Tempeft, we have-" trebles thee o'er;" i. e. makes thee thrice as great as thou wert before. In the fame manner, I believe, he here only means to defcribe Sir Toby's catch as fo harmonious, that it would hale the foul out of a weaver (the warmest lover of a fong) thrice over; or in other words, give him thrice more delight than it would give another man. Dr. Warburton's fuppofition that there is an allufion to the catch being in three parts, appears to me one of his unfounded refinements. MALONE. " Cro. Hold thy peace, thou knave, knight? I shall be constrain'd in't to call thee knave, knight. SIR AND. 'Tis not the first time I have conftrain'd one to call me knave. Begin, fool; it begins, Hold thy peace. CLO. I fhall never begin, if I hold my peace. SIR AND. Good, i'faith! Come, begin. [They fing a Catch. 4 They fing a catch.] This catch is loft. JOHNSON. A catch is a fpecies of vocal harmony to be fung by three or more perfons; and is fo contrived, that though each fings precifely the fame notes as his fellows, yet by beginning at stated periods of time from each other, there refults from the performance a harmony of as many parts as there are fingers. Compofitions of this kind are, in ftrictness, called Canons in the unifon; and as properly, Catches, when the words in the different parts are made to catch or answer each other. One of the most remarkable examples of a true catch is that of Purcel, Let's live good honeft lives, in which, immediately after one perfon has uttered thefe words, "What need we fear the Pope?" another in the course of his finging fills up a rest which the first makes, with the words, "The devil." The catch above-mentioned to be fung by fir Toby, fir Andrew, and the Clown, from the hints given of it, appears to be fo contrived as that each of the fingers calls the other knave in turn; and for this the clown means to apologize to the knight, when he fays, that he fhall be conftrained to call him knave. I have here fubjoined the very catch, with the mufical notes to which it was fung in the time of Shakspeare, and at the original performance of this Comedy: A 3 voc. ? Hold thy peace and I pree thee hold thy peace Thou knave, thou knave: hold thy peace thou knave. Enter MARIA. MAR. What a catterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not call'd up her steward, Malvolio, and bid him turn you out of doors, never trust me. SIR TO. My lady's a Cataian,' we are politicians; Malvolio's a Peg-a-Ramfey, and Three merry men The evidence of its authenticity is as follows. There is extant a book entitled, "PAMMELIA, Mufickes Mifcellanie, or mixed Varietie of pleasant Roundelays and delightful catches of 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10 parts in one." Of this book there are at least two editions, the fecond printed in 1618. In 1609, a fecond part of this book was published with the title of DEUTEROMELIA, and in this book is contained the catch above given. SIR J. HAWKINS. 9 — a Cataian,] It is in vain to feek the precife meaning of this term of reproach. I have already attempted to explain it in a note on The Merry Wives of Windfor. I find it ufed again in Love and Honour, by Sir W. D'Avenant, 1649: Hang him, bold Cataian." STEEVENS. Peg-a-Ramfey,] In Durfey's Pills to purge Melancholy is a very obfcene old fong, entitled Peg-a-Ramfey. See alfo Ward's Lives of the Profeffors of Gresham College, p. 207. PERCY. Nafh mentions Peg of Ramfey among feveral other ballads, viz. Rogera, Bafilino, Turkelony, All the flowers of the Broom, Pepper is black, Green Sleeves, Peggie Ramfic. It appears from the fame author, that it was likewife a dance performed to the music of a fong of that name. STEEVENS. Peggy Ramfey, is the name of fome old fong; the following is the tune to it: Peggy Ramfey. SIR J. HAWKINS. be we.3 Am not I confanguineous? am I not of her Three merry men, &c.] Three merry men be we, is likewise a fragment of fome old fong, which I find repeated in Weftward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607, and by Beaumont and Fletcher in The Knight of the Burning Pefile: "Three merry men "And three merry men "And three merry men be we." Again, in The Bloody Brother, of the fame authors: "As ever did fing, three parts in a ftring, Again, in Ram-alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: "And three merry men, and three merry men, " And three merry men be we a." STEEVENS. This is a conclufion common to many old fongs. One of the moft humorous that I can recollect, is the following: "The wife men were but feaven, nor more shall be for me; "The mufes were but nine, the worthies three times three; "And three merry boyes, and three merry boyes, and three merry boyes are wee. "The vertues they were feven, and three the greater bee; "The Cæfars they were twelve, and the fatal fisters three. "And three merry girles, and three merry girles, and three merry girles are wee." There are ale-houses in fome of the villages in this kingdom, that have the fign of The Three Merry Boys; there was one at Highgate in my memory. SIR J. HAWKINS. Three merry men be we, may, perhaps, have been taken originally from the fong of Robin Hood and the Tanner. Old Ballads, Vol. I. p. 89: Then Robin Hood took them by the hands, "With a hey, &c. "And danced about the oak-tree; "For three merry men, and three merry men, But perhaps the following, in The Old Wines Tale, by George Peele, 1595, may be the original. Anticke, one of the characters, fays: « - let us rehearse the old proverb, "Three merrie men, and three merrie men, "I in the wood, and thou on the ground, "And Jack fleepes in the tree." STEEVENS. |