Enter a Page. PAGE. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you. [Exit Page. PAR. Little Helen, farewell: if I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court. HEL. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star. PAR. Under Mars, I. HEL. I especially think, under Mars. PAR. Why under Mars? HEL. The wars have so kept you under, that you must needs be born under Mars. PAR. When he was predominant. HEL. When he was retrograde, I think, rather. PAR. Why think you so? HEL. You go so much backward, when you fight. PAR. That's for advantage. HEL. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety: But the composition, that your valour and fear makes in you, is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well. is a virtue of a good wing,] Mr. Edwards is of opinion, that a virtue of a good wing refers to his nimbleness or fleetness in running away. The phrase, however, is taken from falconry, as may appear from the following passage in Marston's Fawne, 1606: "I love my horse after a journeying easiness, as he is easy in journeying; my hawk, for the goodness of his wing," &c. Or it may be taken from dress. So, in Every Man out of his Humour: "I would have mine such a suit without a difference; such stuff, such a wing, such a sleeve," &c. Mr. Tollet observes, that a good wing signifies a strong wing in Lord Bacon's Natural History, experiment 866 PAR. I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely: I will return perfect courtier; in the which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel,' and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy friends: get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee: so farewell. [Exit. "Certainly many birds of a good wing (as kites and the like) would bear up a good weight as they fly." The same phrase, however, anciently belonged to archery. So Ascham, in his Toxophilus, edit. 1589, p. 57: "--another shaft-because it is lower feathered, or else because it is of a better wing," &c. STEEVENS. The reading of the old copy (which Dr. Warburton changed to ming) is supported by a passage in King Henry V. in which we meet with a similar expression: "Though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing." Again, in King Henry IV. P. I: "Yet let me wonder Harry, "At thy affections, which do hold a wing, "Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors." MALone. The meaning of this passage appears to be this: "If your valour will suffer you to go backward for advantage, and your fear for the same reason will make you run away, the composition that your valour and fear make in you, must be a virtue that will fly far and swiftly."-A bird of a good wing, is a bird of swift and strong flight. Though the latter part of this sentence is sense as it stands, I cannot help thinking that there is an error in it, and that we ought to read-" And is like to wear well," instead of "I like the wear well." M. MASON. 1 so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel,] i. e. thou wilt comprehend it. See a note in Hamlet on the words"Whose form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, "Would make them capable." MALONE. HEL. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull. What power is it, which mounts my love so high; That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?? The mightiest space in fortune nature brings To join like likes, and kiss like native things.3 Impossible be strange attempts, to those That weigh their pains in sense; and do suppose, What hath been cannot be: Who ever strove To show her merit, that did miss her love? What power is it, which mounts my love so high; That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?] She means, by what influence is my love directed to a person so much above me? why am I made to discern excellence, and left to long after it, without the food of hope? JOHNSON. 3 kiss like native things.] each other. M. MASON. Things formed by nature for So, in Chapman's metrical " Address to the Reader," prefixed to his translation of Homer's Iliad, 1611: "Our monosyllables so kindly fall "And meete, opposde in rime, as they did kisse." The mightiest space in fortune nature brings That weigh their pains in sense; and do suppose, STEEVENS. What hath been] All these four lines are obscure, and, I believe, corrupt; I shall propose an emendation, which those who can explain the present reading, are at liberty to reject: Through mightiest space in fortune nature brings Likes to join likes, and kiss like native things. That is, nature brings like qualities and dispositions to meet That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose The king's disease-my project may deceive me. But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me. [Exit. New attempts seem impossible to those who estimate their labour or enterprises by sense, and believe that nothing can be but what they see before them. JOHNSON. I understand the meaning to be this-The affections given us by nature often unite persons between whom fortune or accident has placed the greatest distance or disparity; and cause them to join, like likes (instar parium) like persons in the same situation or rank of life. Thus (as Mr. Steevens has observed) in Timon of Athens: "Thou solderest close impossibilities, "And mak'st them kiss.' This interpretation is strongly confirmed by a subsequent speech of the Countesses steward, who is supposed to have overheard this soliloquy of Helena: "Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt their two estates." The mightiest space in fortune, for persons the most widely separated by fortune, is certainly a licentious expression; but it is such a licence as Shakspeare often takes. Thus, in Cymbeline, the diminution of space is used for the diminution, of which space, or distance, is the cause. If he had written spaces, (as in Troilus and Cressida, her whom we know well 66 "The world's large spaces cannot parallel,)" the passage would have been more clear; but he was confined by the metre. We might, however, read— The mightiest space in nature fortune brings To join, &c. i. e. accident sometimes unites those whom inequality of rank has separated. But I believe the text is right. MALONE. VOL. VIII. SCENE II. Paris. A Room in the King's Palace. Flourish of cornets. Enter the King of France, with letters; Lords and others attending. KING. The Florentines and Senoys" are by the ears; Have fought with equal fortune, and continue 1 LORD. So 'tis reported, sir. KING. Nay, 'tis most credible; we here receive it A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria, 1 LORD. His love and wisdom, Approv'd so to your majesty, may plead KING. He hath arm'd our answer, 2 LORD. It may well serve Senoys-] The Sanesi, as they are termed by Boccace. Painter, who translates him, calls them Senois. They were the people of a small republick, of which the capital was Sienna. The Florentines were at perpetual variance with them. STEEVENS. |