There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine: stands upon sympathies, that is, upon equality of blood, the combat is now offered him by a man of rank not inferior to his own. Sympathy is an affection incident at once to two subjects. This community of affection implies a likeness or equality of nature, and thence our poet transferred the term to equality of blood. JOHNSON. 2 If thou deny'st it twenty times, thou liest.] This is the punctuation of the quarto. The folio, followed by Mr. Steevens, points the passage thus: 3 "If thou deny'st it, twenty times thou liest." MALONE. my RAPIER'S POINT.] Shakspeare deserts the manners of the age in which this drama was placed, very often without necessity or advantage. The edge of a sword had served his purpose as well as the point of a rapier, and he had then escaped the impropriety of giving the English nobles a weapon which was not seen in England till two centuries afterwards. JOHNSON. at Mr. Ritson censures this note in the following terms: "It would be well, however, though not quite so easy, for some learned critick to bring some proof in support of this and such like assertions. Without which the authority of Shakspeare is at least equal to that of Dr. Johnson." It is probable that Dr. Johnson did not see the necessity of citing any authority for a fact so well known, or suspect that any person would demand one. If an authority, however, only is wanted, perhaps the following may be deemed sufficient to justify the Doctor's observation : that time two other Englishmen, Sir W. Stanley, and Rowland Yorke, got an ignominious name of traytors. This Yorke, borne in London, was a man most negligent and lazy, but desperately hardy; he was in his time most famous among those who respected fencing, having been the first that brought into England that wicked and pernicious fashion to fight in the fields in duels with a rapier called a tucke, onely for the thrust the English having till that very time used to fight with backe swords, slashing and cutting one the other, armed with targets or bucklers, with very broad weapons, accounting it not to be a manly action to fight by thrusting and stabbing, and chiefly under the waste." AUM. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see that day. FITZ. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour. AUM. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this. PERCY. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true, In this appeal, as thou art all unjust : And, that thou art so, there I throw my gage, LORD. I task the earth to the like, forsworn Darcie's Annals of Queen Elizabeth, 4to. 1623, p. 223, sub anno, 1587. Again, in Bulleine's Dialogue between Soarnesse and Chirurgi, fol. 1579, p. 20: "There is a new kynd of instruments to let bloud withall, whych brynge the bloud-letter sometyme to the gallowes, because hee stryketh to deepe. These instruments are called the ruffins tucke, and long foining rapier: weapons more malicious than manly." REED. See vol. viii. p. 70, n. 3. MALONE. 3 I take the EARTH to the like, &c.] This speech I have restored from the first edition in humble imitation of former editors, though, I believe, against the mind of the author. For the earth I suppose we should read, thy oath. JOHNSON. To" take the earth" is, at present, a fox-hunter's phrase. So, in The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, 1598 : "I'll follow him until he take the earth.” But I know not how it can be applied here. It should seem, however, from the following passage in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, b. iii, c. xvi. that the expression is yet capable of another meaning: "Lo here my gage (he terr'd his glove) thou know'st the victor's meed." To terre the glove was, I suppose, to dash it on the earth. We still say to ground a musquet, and to ground a bowl. Let me add, however, in support of Dr. Johnson's conjecture, And spur thee on with full as many lies that the word oath, in Troilus and Cressida, quarto, 1609, is corrupted in the same manner. Instead of the " untraded oath," it gives "untraded earth." We might read, only changing the place of one letter, and altering another: 66 "I task thy heart to the like.” i. e. I put thy valour to the same trial. So, in King Henry VI. Act V. Sc. II. : "How show'd his tasking? seem'd it in contempt ?" The quarto 1597 reads-task; the succeeding quartos, viz. 1598, 1608, and 1615, have-take. STEEVENS. Task is the reading of the first and best quarto, in 1597. In that printed in the following year the word was changed to take; but all the alterations made in the several editions of our author's plays in quarto, after the first, appear to have been made either arbitrarily or by negligence. (I do not mean to include copies containing new and additional matter.) I confess I am unable to explain either reading; but I adhere to the elder, as more likely to be the true one. MALONE. I should read 66 ness. TALBOT. I take the earth," i. e. I take the earth to wit 4 From SUN to SUN:] i. e. as I think, from sun-rise to sunset. So, in Cymbeline: "Imo. How many score of miles may we well ride ""Twixt hour and hour? "Pisa. One score 'twixt sun and sun, "Madam, 's enough for you, and too much too." "The time appointed for the duello (says Saviolo,) hath alwaies been 'twixt the rising and the setting sun; and whoever in that time doth not prove his intent, can never after be admitted the combat upon that quarrel." On Honour and honourable Quarrels, 4to. 1595. This passage fully supports the emendation here made, and my interpretation of the words. The quartos read"From sin to sin." The emendation, which in my apprehension requires no enforcement or support, was proposed by Mr. Steevens, who explains these words differently. He is of opinion that they mean, from one day to another. MALONE. However ingenious the conjecture of Mr. Steevens may be, I think the old reading the true one. "From sin to sin," is from one denial to another; for those denials were severally maintained to be lies. HENLEY. AUM. Who sets me else? by heaven, I'll throw at all: I have a thousand spirits in one breast 3, SURREY. My lord Fitzwater, I do remember well The very time Aumerle and you did talk. FITZ. "Tis very true: you were in presence then"; And you can witness with me, this is true. SURREY. AS false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true. FITZ. Surrey, thou liest. SURREY. Dishonourable boy! That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword, That it shall render vengeance and revenge, In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn; FITZ. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse! If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live, s I have a thousand spirits in one breast,] Richard III.: So, in King "A thousand hearts are great within my bosom." STEEVENS. 6 MY LORD, 'tis true: you were in presence then ;] The quartos omit My lord, and read-" "Tis very true," &c. The folio preserves both readings, and consequently overloads the metre. STEEVENS. "Tis very true." So the quarto 1597. MALone. 7 I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,] I dare meet him where no help can be had by me against him. So, in Macbeth : or be alive again, "And dare me to the desert with thy sword." JOHNSON. So also, in The Lover's Progress, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "Maintain thy treason with thy sword? with what Contempt I hear it! in a wilderness And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies, AUM. Some honest Christian trust me with a gage, That Norfolk lies: here do I throw down this", BOLING. These differences shall all rest under gage, Till Norfolk be repeal'd: repeal'd he shall be, To all his land and signories; when he's return'd, CAR. That honourable day shall ne'er be seen.Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought For Jesu Christ; in glorious Christian field Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross, Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens : And toil'd with works of war, retir'd himself To Italy; and there, at Venice, gave His body to that pleasant country's earth', And his pure soul unto his captain Christ, in this new world,] In this world where I have just begun to be an actor Surrey has, a few lines above, called him boy. JOHNSON. 9 here do I throw down this,] Holinshed says, that on this occasion" he threw down a hood that he had borrowed." STEEVENS. He had before thrown down his own hood, when accused by Bagot. MALONE. gave His body to that pleasant country's earth,] This is not historically true. The duke of Norfolk's death did not take place till after Richard's murder. MALONE. |