Ros. I'faith, his hair is of a good colour." CEL. An excellent colour: your chesnut was ever the only colour. Ros. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread.' CEL. He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana:2 a nun of winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in them. Judas was constantly represented in ancient painting or tapestry, with red hair and beard. So, in The Insatiate Countess, 1613: "I ever thought by his red beard he would prove a Judas." STEEVENS. • I'faith, his hair is of a good colour.] There is much of nature in this petty perverseness of Rosalind: she finds fault in her lover, in hope to be contradicted, and when Celia in sportive malice too readily seconds her accusations, she contradicts herself rather than suffer her favourite to want a vindication. JOHNSON. as the touch of holy bread.] We should read beard, that is, as the kiss of an holy saint or hermit, called the kiss of charity. This makes the comparison just and decent; the other impious and absurd. WARBURTON. 2 a pair of cast lips of Diana:] i. e. a pair left off by Diana. THEobald. 3 a nun of winter's sisterhood-] This is finely expressed. But Mr. Theobald says, the words give him no ideas. And it is certain, that words will never give men what nature has denied them. However, to mend the matter, he substitutes Winifred's sisterhood. And after so happy a thought, it was to no purpose to tell him there was no religious order of that denomination. The plain truth is, Shakspeare meant an unfruitful sisterhood, which had devoted itself to chastity. For as those who were of the sisterhood of the spring, were the votaries of Venus; those of summer, the votaries of Ceres; those of autumn, of Pomona: so these of the sisterhood of winter were the votaries of Diana; called, of winter, because that quarter is not, like the other three, productive of fruit or increase. On this account it is, that when the poet speaks of Ros. But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not? CEL. Nay certainly, there is no truth in him. CEL. Yes: I think he is not a pick-purse, nor a horse-stealer; but for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as a cover'd goblet, or a worm eaten nut. Ros. Not true in love? CEL. Yes, when he is in; but, I think he is not in. Ros. You have heard him swear downright, he was. what is most poor, he instances it in winter, in these fine lines of Othello: "But riches fineless is as poor as winter The other property of winter, that made him term them of its sisterhood, is its coldness. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "To be a barren sister all your life, "Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon." WARBURTON. There is certainly no need of Theobald's conjecture, as Dr. Warburton has most effectually supported the old reading. In one circumstance, however, he is mistaken. The Golden Legend, p. ccci. &c. gives a full account of St. Winifred and her sisterhood. Edit. by Wynkyn de Worde, 1527. STEEVens. as concave as a cover'd goblet,] Why a cover'd? Because a goblet is never kept cover'd but when empty. Shakspeare never throws out his expressions at random. WARBURTON. Warburton asks, “Why a cover'd goblet?"-and answers, "Because a goblet is never covered but when empty." If that be the case, the cover is of little use; for when empty, it may as well be uncovered. But it is the idea of hollowness, not that of emptiness, that Shakspeare wishes to convey; and a goblet is more completely hollow when covered, than when it is not. M. MASON. CEL. Was is not is: besides, the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmers of false reckonings: He attends here in the forest on the duke your father. Ros. I met the duke yesterday, and had much question with him: He asked me, of what parentage I was; I told him, of as good as he; so he laugh'd, and let me go. But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a man as Orlando? CEL. O, that's a brave man! he writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the much question] i. e. conversation. So, in The Merchant of Venice: "You may as well use question with the wolf." STEEVENS. quite traverse, athwart &c.] An unexperienced lover is here compared to a puny tilter, to whom it was a disgrace to have his lance broken across, as it was a mark either of want of courage or address. This happened when the horse flew on one side, in the career: and hence, I suppose, arose the jocular proverbial phrase of spurring the horse only on one side. Now as breaking the lance against his adversary's breast, in a direct line, was honourable, so the breaking it across against his breast was, for the reason above, dishonourable: hence it is, that Sidney, in his Arcadia, speaking of the mock-combat of Clinias and Dametas, says: "The wind took such hold of his staff that it crost quite over his breast," &c.—And to break across was the usual phrase, as appears from some wretched verses of the same author, speaking of an unskilful tilter: 66 Methought some staves he mist: if so, not much amiss: "For when he most did hit, he ever yet did miss. "One said he brake across, full well it so might be," &c. This is the allusion. So that Orlando, a young gallant, affecting the fashion, (for brave is here used, as in other places, for fashionable,) is represented either unskilful in courtship, or timorous. The lover's meeting or appointment corresponds to the tilter's career; and as the one breaks staves, the other breaks heart of his lover; as a puny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose: but all's brave, that youth mounts, and folly guides:-Who comes here? Enter CORIN. COR. Mistress, and master, you have oft enquired After the shepherd that complain'd of love; Who you saw sitting by me on the turf, Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess That was his mistress. CEL. Well, and what of him? oaths. The business is only meeting fairly, and doing both with address: and 'tis for the want of this, that Orlando is blamed. WARBURTON. So, in Northward Hoe, 1607: 66 melancholick like a tilter, that had broke his staves foul before his mistress." STEEVENS. A puny tilter, that breaks his staff like a noble goose :] Sir Thomas Hanmer altered this to a nose-quill'd goose, but no one seems to have regarded the alteration. Certainly nose-quill'd is an epithet likely to be corrupted: it gives the image wanted, and may in a great measure be supported by a quotation from Turberville's Falconrie: "Take with you a ducke, and slip one of her wing feathers, and having thrust it through her nares, throw her out unto your hawke." FARMER. Again, in Philaster, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "He shall for this time only be seel'd up "With a feather through his nose, that he may only "See heaven," &c. Again, in the Booke of Hawkyng, Huntyng, and Fishing, &c. bl. 1. no date: "-and with a pen put it in the haukes nares once or twice," &c. Again, in Philemon Holland's translation of the tenth Book of Pliny's Natural History, 1601, p. 300: "It is good moreover to draw a little quill or feather through their nostrills acrosse,' &c. STEEVens. " 7 of his lover ;] i. e. of his mistress. See Vol. V. p. 222, note 7. Malone. COR. If you will see a pageant truly play'd, Ros. SCENE V. Another Part of the Forest. Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE. [Exeunt. SIL. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Say, that you love me not; but say not so Whose heart the accustom'd sight of death makes hard, Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck, Will you sterner be Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?] This is spoken of the executioner. He lives, indeed, by bloody drops, if you will: but how does he die by bloody drops? The poet must certainly have wrote: that deals and lives, &c. i. e. that gets his bread by, and makes a trade of cutting off heads: but the Oxford editor makes it plainer. He reads: Than he that lives and thrives by bloody drops. WARBURTON. |