COUNT. Return you thither? 1 GEN. Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed. HEL. [Reads.] Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France. Tis bitter. COUNT. Find you that there? HEL. Ay, madam. 1 GEN. 'Tis but the boldness of his hand, haply, which His heart was not consenting to. COUNT. Nothing in France, until he have no wife! There's nothing here, that is too good for him, That twenty such rude boys might tend upon, COUNT. Parolles, was't not? 1 GEN. Ay, my good lady, he. COUNT. A very tainted fellow, and full of wick edness. My son corrupts a well-derived nature With his inducement. 1 GEN. Indeed, good lady, The fellow has a deal of that, too much, Which holds him much to have." a deal of that, too much, Which holds him much to have.] That is, his vices stand him in stead. Helen had before delivered this thought in all the beauty of expression: COUNT. You are welcome, gentlemen. I will entreat you, when you see my son, To tell him, that his sword can never win The honour that he loses: more I'll entreat you Written to bear along. 2 GEN. We serve you, madam, In that and all your worthiest affairs. COUNT. Not so, but as we change our courtesies. Will you draw near? [Exeunt Countess and Gentlemen. HEL. Till I have no wife, I have nothing in Nothing in France, until he has no wife! Thou shalt have none, Rousillon, none in France, That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou 66 I know him a notorious liar "Think him a great way fool, solely a coward; "That they take place, when virtue's steely bones "Look bleak in the cold wind-," WARBURTON. Mr. Heath thinks that the meaning is, this fellow hath a deal too much of that which alone can hold or judge that he has much in him; i. e. folly and ignorance. MALONE. Not so, &c.] The gentlemen declare that they are servants to the Countess; she replies,-No otherwise than as she returns the same offices of civility. JOHNSON. That sings with piercing,' do not touch my lord! With sharp constraint of hunger; better 'twere 7-move the still-piecing air, That sings with piercing,] The words are here oddly shuffled into nonsense. We should read: pierce the still-moving air, That sings with piercing. i. e. pierce the air, which is in perpetual motion, and suffers no injury by piercing. WARBURTON. The old copy reads-the still-peering air. Perhaps we might better read : the still-piecing air, i. e. the air that closes immediately. This has been proposed already, but I forget by whom. STEEVENS. Piece was formerly spelt-peece: so that there is but the change of one letter. See Twelfth-Night, first folio, p. 262: "Now, good Cesario, but that peece of song MALONE. Ihave no doubt that still-piecing was Shakspeare's word. But the passage is not yet quite sound. We should read, I believe, rove the still-piecing air. i. e. fly at random through. The allusion is to shooting at rovers in archery, which was shooting without any particular aim. TYRWHITT. Mr. Tyrwhitt's reading destroys the designed antithesis between move and still; nor is he correct in his definition of roving, which is not shooting without a particular aim, but at marks of uncertain lengths. DOUCE. the ravin lion] i. e. the ravenous or ravening lion. To ravin is to swallow voraciously. MALONE. See Macbeth, Act IV. sc. i. STEEVENS. Were mine at once: No, come thou home, Rou síllon, Whence honour but of danger wins a scar," My being here it is, that holds thee hence: [Exit. • Whence honour but of danger &c.] The sense is, from that abode, where all the advantages that honour usually reaps from the danger it rushes upon, is only a scar in testimony of its bravery, as, on the other hand, it often is the cause of losing all, even life itself. HEATH. SCENE III. Florence. Before the Duke's Palace. Flourish. Enter the Duke of Florence, BERTram, Lords, Officers, Soldiers, and others. DUKE. The general of our horse thou art; and we, Great in our hope, lay our best love and credence, Upon thy promising fortune. BER. Sir, it is DUKE. Then go thou forth; And fortune play upon thy prosperous helm,2 As thy auspicious mistress! BER. This very day, Great Mars, I put myself into thy file: Make me but like my thoughts; and I shall prove A lover of thy drum, hater of love. We'll strive to bear it for your worthy sake, [Exeunt. To the extreme edge of hazard.] So, in our author's 116th Sonnet: "But bears it out even to the edge of doom." MALONE. Milton has borrowed this expression; Par. Reg. B. I: "You see our danger on the utmost edge "Of hazard." STEEVENS. And fortune play upon thy prosperous helm,] So, in King Richard III: "Fortune and victory sit on thy helm!" Again, in King John: "And victory with little loss doth play "Upon the dancing banners of the French." STEEVENS. |