Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumain ? KING. Too bitter is thy jest. Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view? BIRON. Not you by me, but I betray'd to you; I, that am honest; I, that hold it sin To break the vow I am engaged in ; I am betray'd, by keeping company With moon-like men, of strange inconstancy. 7 *First folio, candle. CRITICK Timon-] Critic and critical are used by our author in the same sense as cynic and cynical. Iago, speaking of the fair sex as harshly as is sometimes the practice of Dr. Warburton, declares he is nothing if not critical. STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens's observation is supported by our author's 112th Sonnet : "To critick and to flatterer stopped are." MALONE. 8 With MOON-like men, of strange inconstancy.] The old copy reads-" men-like men." STEEVENS. This is a strange senseless line, and should be read thus: "With vane-like men of strange inconstancy." WARBURTON. This is well imagined, but the poet perhaps may mean—with men like common men. JOHNSON. The following passage in K. Henry VI. P. III. adds some support to Dr. Warburton's conjecture: 66 Look, as I blow this feather from my face, "And as the air blows it to me again, 66 Obeying with my wind when I do blow, "And yielding to another when it blows, 66 Commanded always by the greatest gust; "Such is the lightness of your common men." Strange, which is not in the quarto or first folio, was added by the editor of the second folio, and consequently any other word as well as that may have been the author's; for all the additions in that copy were manifestly arbitrary, and are generally injudicious. MALONE. Slight as the authority of the second folio is here represented to be, who will venture to displace strange, and put any other word in its place? STEEVENS. When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme ? KING. Soft; Whither away so fast? A true man, or a thief, that gallops so? BIRON. I post from love; good lover, let me go. Enter JAQUENETTA and Costard. JAQ. God bless the king! KING. What present hast thou there? COST. Some certain treason. What makes treason here? I agree with the editors in considering this passage as erroneous, but not in the amendment proposed. That which I would suggest is, to read moon-like, instead of men-like, which is a more poetical expression, and nearer to the old reading than vane-like. M. MASON. I have not scrupled to place this happy emendation in the text: remarking at the same time that a vane is no where styled inconstant, although our author bestows that epithet on the moon in Romeo and Juliet: 66 now from head to foot I am marble-constant, now the fleeting moon "No planet is of mine." STEEVENS. Again, more appositely, in As You Like It: "being but a moonish youth, changeable,"-inconstant, &c. MALONE. 9 In PRUNING me?] A bird is said to prune himself when he picks and sleeks his feathers. So, in King Henry IV. P. I. : "Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up "The crest of youth —. STEEVENS. I -a gait, a STATE,] State, I believe, in the present instance, is opposed to gait (i. e. the motion,) and signifies the act of standing. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: 66 Her motion and her station are as one." STEEVENS. COST. Nay, it makes nothing, sir. KING. If it mar nothing neither, The treason, and you, go in peace away together. JAQ. I beseech your grace, let this letter be read; Our parson 2 misdoubts it; 'twas treason, he said. KING. Biron, read it over. [Giving him the letter. Where had'st thou it? JAQ. Of Costard. KING. Where had'st thou it ? COST. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. KING. How now! what is in you? why dost thou tear it? BIRON. A toy, my liege, a toy; your grace needs not fear it. LONG. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear it. DUM. It is Birón's writing, and here is his name. Guilty, my lord, guilty; I confess, I confess. BIRON. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess: He, he, and you, my liege, and I †, Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die. BIRON. * First folio, it was. True, true; we are four : Folio and 4to.-He, he, and you: and you, my liege, and I. 2 Our PARSON] Here, as in a former instance, in the authentick copies of this play, this word is spelt person; but there being no reason for adhering here to the old spelling, the modern is preferred. MALONE. Hence, sirs; away. Will these turtles be gone? KING. COST. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. [Exeunt COSTARd and Jaquenetta. BIRON. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O let us embrace! As true we are, as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face *; Young blood doth not obey an old decree: We cannot cross the cause why we were born; Therefore, of all hands must we be forsworn. KING. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine ? BIRON. Did they, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline, That, like a rude and savage man of Inde, 3 At the first opening of the gorgeous east 3, Bows not his vassal head; and, strucken blind, Kisses the base ground with obedient breast? What peremptory eagle-sighted eye Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, That is not blinded by her majesty ? KING. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd thee now? My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon; She, an attending star, scarce seen a light. BIRON. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Birón": O, but for my love, day would turn to night! * First folio, heaven will show his face. 3 † First folio, are. the gorgeous east,] Milton has transplanted this into the third line of the second book of Paradise Lost: "Or where the gorgeous east." STEEVENS. 4 She, an attending star,] Something like this is a stanza of Sir Henry Wotton, of which the poetical reader will forgive the insertion : Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek; Where several worthies make one dignity; Where nothing wants, that want itself doth seek. Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues,— Fye, painted rhetorick! O, she needs it not : To things of sale a seller's praise belongs°; 6 She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn, Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye : Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born, And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. O, 'tis the sun, that maketh all things shine! KING. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony. BIRON. Is ebony like her? O wood divine! A wife of such wood were felicity. "You meaner beauties of the night, 66 That poorly satisfy our eyes, "More by your number than your light, "You common people of the skies, "What are you when the sun shall rise?" JOHNSON. 66 Micat inter omnes "Julium sidus, velut inter ignes "Luna minores." Hor. MALONE. 5 My eyes are then no eyes, nor I BIRÓN :] Here, and indeed throughout this play, the name of Birón is accented on the second syllable. In the first quarto, 1598, and the folio, 1623, he is always called Berowne. From the line before us it appears, that in our author's time the name was pronounced Biroon. MALONE. This was the mode in which all French words of this termination were pronounced in English. Mr. Fox always in the House of Commons said Touloon when speaking of Toulon. BOSWELL. To things of SALE a seller's PRAISE belongs ;] So, in our author's 21st Sonnet: "I will not praise, that purpose not to sell." MAlone. 7 Is ebony like her? O wood divine!] Word is the reading of all the editions that I have seen: but both Dr. Thirlby and Mr. Warburton concurr'd in reading (as I had likewise conjectured) : O wood divine! THEOBALD. |
