Dro. S. Not a man of those, but he hath the wit to lose his hairs. Ant. S. Why, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers without wit. Dro. S. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost: Yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity. Ant. S. For what reason? Dro. S. For two; and sound ones too. Dro. S. Sure ones then. Ant. S. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing. Dro. S. Certain ones then. Ant. S. Name them. Dro. S. The one, to save the money that he spends in tiring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge. Ant. S. You would all this time have proved, there is no time for all things. Dro. S. Marry, and did, sir; namely, e'en10 no time to recover hair lost by nature. Ant. S. But your reason was not substantial, why there is no time to recover. Dro. S. Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald, and therefore, to the world's end, will have bald followers. Ant. S. I knew, 'twould be a bald conclusion: But soft! who wafts11 us yonder? "This great voluminous pamphlet may be said Shakspeare too frequently alludes to this loss of hair by a certain disease. It seems to have been a joke that pleased him, and probably tickled his auditors. 9 To false, as a verb, has been long obsolete; but it was current in Shakspeare's time. Thus in King Edward IV. 1626: 'She falsed her faith, and brake her wedlock bands.' 10 The old copy, by mistake, has in. 11 i. e. beckons us. So in Hamlet : It wafts me still:-go on, I'll follow thee.' Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA. Adr. Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown; The time was once, when thou unurg'd would'st vow Am better than thy dear self's better part. As take from me thyself, and not me too. I know thou canst; and therefore, see, thou do it. 12 Imitated by Pope in his Epistle from Sappho to Phaon :'My music then you could for ever hear, And all my words were music to your ear.' 13 Fall is here a verb active. So in Othello :- Being strumpeted14 by thy contagion. Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed; I live disstain'd15, thou undishonoured. Ant. S. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not: In Ephesus I am but two hours old, As strange unto your town, as to your talk; Luc. Fie, brother! how the world is chang'd with you: When were you wont to use my sister thus? Dro. S. By me? Adr. By thee: and this thou didst return from him, That he did buffet thee, and, in his blows Denied my house for his, me for his wife. Ant. S. Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman? What is the course and drift of your compact? Dro. S. I sir? I never saw her till this time. Ant. S. Villain, thou liest; for even her very words Didst thou deliver to me on the mart. Dro. S. I never spake with her in all my life. Ant. S. How can she thus then call us by our names, Unless it be by inspiration? Adr. How ill agrees it with your gravity, 14 Shakspeare is not singular in the use of this verb. So in Heywood's Iron Age, 1632: 'By this adultress basely strumpeted.' 15 i. e. unstain'd. 16 i. e. separated, parted Shakspeare uses the word in the first part of King Henry VI. Act ii. Sc. 4, in a similar sense :And by his treason stand'st thou not attainted, Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry?' But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt. Who, all for want of pruning, with intrusion Ant. S. To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme: What, was I married to her in my dream? I'll entertain the offer'd19 fallacy. Luc. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner. Dro. S. O, for my beads! I cross me for a sinner. This is the fairy land;-0, spite of spites! We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprites20; Malone has given an instance of a similar use of the word from a letter of the Earl of Nottingham's in favour of Edward Alleyn: 'Situate in a very remote and exempte place near Coulding Lane, &c. So in The Triumph of Honour, by Beaumont and Fletcher: lest for contempt They fix you there a rock whence they're exempt.' 17 So Milton's Paradise Lost. b. v.: 6- -They led the vine To wed her elm. She spous'd about him twines Thus also in A Midsummer Night's Dream : the female ivy 80 Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.' Mr Douce observes that there is something extremely beautiful in making the vine the lawful spouse of the elm, and the parasite plants here named its concubines. See also Ovid's tale of Vertumnus and Pomona. 18 i. e. unfruitful. So in Othello: autres vast, and deserts idle.' 19 The old copy reads freed; which is evidently wrong, perhaps a corruption of proffered or offer'd. 20 Theobald changed owls to uphes in this passage most unwarrantably. It was those 'unlucking birds', the striges or screechowls, which are meant. It has been asked, 'how should Shakspeare know that screech-owls were considered by the Romans as witches ?" Do these cavillers think that Shakspeare never Vol. IV. 7 If we obey them not, this will ensue, They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue. Luc. Why prat'st thou to thyself, and answer'st not? Dromio, thou drone21, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot! Dro. S. I am transformed, master, am not I? Ant. S. I think, thou art, in mind, and so am I. Dro. S. Nay, master, both in mind, and in my shape. Ant. S. Thou hast thine own form. Dro. S. Dro. S. Master, shall I be porter at the gate? looked into a book? Take an extract from the Cambridge Latin Dictionary, 1594, 8vo. probably the very book he used. 'Strix, a scritche owle; an unluckie kind of bird (as they of old time said) which sucked out the blood of infants lying in their cradles; a witch, that changeth the favour of children; an hagge or fairie. Too in The London Prodigal, a comedy, 1605:-"Soul, I think I am sure crossed or witch'd with an owl' The epithet elvish is not in the first folio; but the second has elves, which was probably meant for elvish. 21 The old copy reads 'Dromio, thou Dromio.' The emendation is Theobald's. 22 i. e. call you to confession. |