SCENE IV.-The same. Enter LAUNCE, with his dog. When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look you, it goes, hard: one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I saved from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it! I have taught him-even as one would say precisely, Thus I would teach a dog. I was sent to deliver him, as a present to mistress Silvia, from my master; and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber, but he steps me to her trencher, and steals her capon's leg. O, 't is a foul thing But this, as it has been remarked, would make Sir Eglamour bestow his pity on the most true affections as well as on the grievances. Unless, as I have sometimes thought, grievances in Shakespeare's age occasionally bore the meaning of sorrowful or crossed affections, the corruption would seem to lie in the word plac'd, which may have been a misprint for caused, or some word to the same effect. when a cur cannot keep himself in all companies ! I would have, as one should say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than be, to take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been hanged for 't; sure as I live he had suffer'd for 't: you shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or four gentlemanlike dogs, under the duke's table: he had not been there (bless the mark !) a pissing while, but all the chamber smelt him. Out with the dog, says one; What cur is that? says another; Whip him out, says a third; Hang him up, says the duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it was Crab; and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs: Friend, quoth I, you mean to whip the dog? Ay, marry, do I, quoth he. You do him the more wrong, quoth I; 'twas I did the thing you wot of. He makes me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How many masters would do this for their servant? Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had been executed: I have stood on the pillory for geese he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for 't: thou think'st not of this now!-Nay, I remember the trick you served me when I took my leave of madam Silvia; did not I bid thee still mark me, and do as I do? When didst thou see me heave up my leg, and make water against a gentlewoman's farthingale? didst thou ever see me do such a trick? Enter PROTEUS and JULIA. PRO. Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well, And will employ thee in some service presently. JUL. In what you please.-I'll do what I can. PRO. I hope thou wilt.-How now, you whoreson peasant; [TO LAUNCE. Where have you been these two days loitering? LAUN. Marry, sir, I carried mistress Silvia the dog you bade me. PRO. And what says she to my little jewel? LAUN. Marry, she says, your dog was a cur; and tells you, currish thanks is good enough for such a present. PRO. But she received my dog? LAUN. No, indeed, did she not: here have I brought him back again. PRO. What, didst thou offer her this from me? (*) First folio, his. That still an end-1 Still an end and most an end were Do feel such aguish qualms, and dumps, and fits, LAUN. Ay, sir; the other squirrel was stolen from me by the hangman's boys in the marketplace: and then I offered her mine own; who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift the greater. PRO. Go, get thee hence, and find my dog again, Or ne'er return again into my sight. Away, I say: Stay'st thou to vex me here? [Exit LAUNCE. A slave, that still an end turns me to shame. Sebastian, I have entertained thee, Partly, that I have need of such a youth, That can with some discretion do my business, For 't is no trusting to yon foolish lout; But, chiefly, for thy face and thy behaviour; Which (if my augury deceive me not) Witness good bringing up, fortune, and truth: Therefore know thee, for this I entertain thee. Go presently, and take this ring with thee, Deliver it to madam Silvia : She lov'd me well, deliver'd it to me. JUL. It seems you lov'd not her to leave her token: She is dead, belike? PRO. Not so; I think she lives. PRO. Why dost thou cry, alas! As you do love your lady Silvia : PRO. Well, give her that ring, and therewithal This letter;-that's her chamber.-Tell my lady, I claim the promise for her heavenly picture. Your message done, hie home unto my chamber, Where thou shalt find me, sad and solitary. [Exit PROTEUS. JUL. How many women would do such a message? Alas, poor Proteus! thou hast entertain'd b To leave her token :] The old copy has "It seems you lov'd not her, not leave her token." The second not, there can be little doubt, was a misprint for to To leave means to part with, to give away. To bind him to remember my good will: Enter SILVIA, attended. Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you, be my mean JUL. From my master, sir Proteus, madam. JUL. Ay, madam. SIL. Ursula, bring my picture there. [Picture brought. Go, give your master this: tell him, from me, One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget, Would better fit his chamber, than this shadow. JUL. Madam, please you peruse this letter.- SIL. I pray thee, let me look on that again. I will not look upon your master's lines: JUL. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring. it me; For, I have heard him say a thousand times, His Julia gave it him at his departure: SIL. What say'st thou ? JUL. I thank you, madam, that you tender her: Poor gentlewoman! my master wrongs her much. SIL. Dost thou know her? JUL. Almost as well as I do know myself: To think upon her woes I do protest That I have wept a hundred several times. SIL. Belike, she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her. JUL. I think she doth, and that's her cause of sorrow. SIL. Is she not passing fair? JUL. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is: When she did think my master lov'd her well, She, in my judgment, was as fair as you; But since she did neglect her looking-glass, And threw her sun-expelling mask away, (2) The air hath starv'd the roses in her cheeks, And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face, That now she is become as black as I. SIL. How tall was she? JUL. About my stature: for, at Pentecost, When all our pageants of delight were play'd, Our youth got me to play the woman's part, And I was trimm'd in madam Julia's gown; Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments, As if the garment had been made for me: Therefore, I know she is about my height. And, at that time, I made her weep a-good," For I did play a lamentable part; Madam, 't was Ariadne, passioning For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight; Which I so lively acted with my tears, ▸ I made her weep a-good,-] That is, weep in good earnest. And therewithall their knees have rankled so, That I have laughed a-good.”—MARLOWE'S Jew of Malta. 'Twas Ariadne, passioning-] To passion as, a verb, is not at all unfrequent in writers contemporary with our author, and meant, I believe, not merely to feel emotion, but to display it by voice or gesture, or both. So in "Venus and Adonis "Dumbly she passions, frantickly she doteth." Her eyes are gray as glass;] "By a gray eye was meant what we now call a blue eye: gray, when applied to the eye, is rendered That my poor mistress, moved therewithal, SIL. She is beholden to thee, gentle youth!— A virtuous gentlewoman, mild, and beautiful. I should have scratch'd out your unseeing eyes, by Coles in his Dict., 1679, ceruleus, glaucus."-MALONE. Old glass is said to have a bluish tinge. d I can make respective-] That is, regardful, considerative, observable. e My substance should be statue-] It is true enough, as the commentators have shown, that the words statue and picture were of old used indiscriminately; but is not image here meant? and had not the poet in his mind the story of Pygmalion? That be was conversant with it we know: "What, is there none of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman to be had-"-Measure for Measure. |