II. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Though thou the waters warp, As friend remember'd not.2 Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! &c. Thou art not so unkind &c.] That is, thy action is not so contrary to thy kind, or to human nature, as the ingratitude of man. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis, 1593: 9 "O had thy mother borne so bad a mind, "She had not brought forth thee, but dy'd unkind." Thy tooth is not so keen, MALONE. Because thou art not seen,] This song is designed to suit the Duke's exiled condition, who had been ruined by ungrateful flatterers. Now the winter wind, the song says, is to be preferred to man's ingratitude. But why? Because it is not seen. But this was not only an aggravation of the injury, as it was done in secret, not seen, but was the very circumstance that made the keenness of the ingratitude of his faithless courtiers. Without doubt, Shakspeare wrote the line thus: Because thou art not sheen, i. e. smiling, shining, like an ungrateful court-servant, who flatters while he wounds, which was a very good reason for giving the winter wind the preference. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "Spangled star-light sheen." And several other places. Chaucer uses it in this sense: "Your blissful sister Lucina the shene." And Fairfax: "The sacred angel took his target shene, "And by the Christian champion stood unseen. The Oxford editor, who had this emendation communicated to him, takes occasion from hence to alter the whole line thus: Thou causest not that teen. But, in his rage of correction, he forgot to leave the reason, which is now wanting, Why the winter wind was to be preferred to man's ingratitude. WARBURTON. As DUKE S. If that you were the good sir Rowland's son, you have whisper'd faithfully, you were; I am afraid that no reader is satisfied with Dr. Warburton's emendation, however vigorously enforced; and it is indeed enforced with more art than truth. Sheen, i. e. smiling, shining. That sheen signifies shining, is easily proved, but when or where did it signify smiling? yet smiling gives the sense necessary in this place. Sir T. Hanmer's change is less uncouth, but too remote from the present text. For my part, I question whether the original line is not lost, and this substituted merely to fill up the measure and the rhyme. Yet even out of this line, by strong agitation may sense be elicited, and sense not unsuitable to the occasion. Thou winter wind, says Amiens, thy rudeness gives the less pain, as thou art not seen, as thou art an enemy that dost not brave us with thy presence, and whose unkindness is therefore not aggravated by insult. JOHNSON. Though the old text may be tortured into a meaning, perhaps it would be as well to read: y harts, according to the ancient mode of writing, was easily corrupted. FARMER. So, in the Sonnet introduced into Love's Labour's Lost : "Through the velvet leaves the wind "All unseen 'gan passage find." STEEVENS. Again, in Measure for Measure: 1 "To be imprison'd in the viewless winds." MALONE. Though thou the waters warp,] The surface of waters, so long as they remain unfrozen, is apparently a perfect plane; whereas, when they are, this surface deviates from its exact flatness, or warps. This is remarkable in small ponds, the surface of which, when frozen, forms a regular concave; the ice on the sides rising higher than that in the middle. KENRICK. To warp was, probably, in Shakspeare's time, a colloquial word, which conveyed no distant allusion to any thing else, physical or mechanical. To warp is to turn, and to turn is to change: when milk is changed by curdling, we now say it is turned: when water is changed or turned by frost, Shakspeare says, it is curdled. To be warp'd is only to be changed from its natural state. JOHNSON. And as mine eye doth his effigies witness Dr. Johnson is certainly right. So, in Cynthia's Revels, of Ben Jonson: "I know not, he's grown out of his garb a-late, he's warp'd. And so, methinks too, he is much converted." Thus the mole is called the mould-warp, because it changes the appearance of the surface of the earth. Again, in The Winter's Tale, Act I: "My favour here begins to warp." Dr. Farmer supposes warp'd to mean the same as curdled, and adds, that a similar idea occurs in Timon: 66 the icicle "That curdled by the frost," &c. STEEVENS. Among a collection of Saxon adages in Hickes's Thesaurus, Vol. I. p. 221, the succeeding appears: pinten rceal gepeoppan peden, winter shall warp water. So that Shakspeare's expression was anciently proverbial. It should be remarked, that among the numerous examples in Manning's excellent edition of Lye's Dictionary, there is no instance of peoppan or gepeonpan, implying to freeze, bend, turn, or curdle, though it is a verb of very extensive signification. Probably this word still retains a similar sense in the Northern part of the island, for in a Scottish parody on Dr. Percy's elegant ballad, beginning, "O Nancy, wilt thou go with me," I find the verse" Nor shrink before the wintry wind," is altered to "Nor shrink before the warping wind." "HOLT WHIte. The meaning is this: Though the very waters, by thy agency, are forced, against the law of their nature, to bend from their stated level, yet thy sting occasions less anguish to man, than the ingratitude of those he befriended. HENLEY. Wood is said to warp when its surface, from being level, becomes bent and uneven; from warpan, Saxon, to cast. So, in this play, Act III. sc. iii: "then one of you will prove a shrunk pannel, and, like green timber, warp, warp." I doubt whether the poet here alludes to any operation of frost. The meaning may be only, Thou bitter wintry sky, though thou curlest the waters, thy sting, &c. Thou in the line before us refers only to-bitter sky. The influence of the winter's sky or season may, with sufficient propriety, be said to warp the surface of the ocean, by agitation of its waves alone. That this passage refers to the turbulence of the sky, and the Be truly welcome hither: I am the duke, That lov'd your father: The residue of your for tune, Go to my cave and tell me.-Good old man, [Exeunt. consequent agitation of the ocean, and not to the operation of frost, may be collected from our author's having in King John described ice as uncommonly smooth: "To throw a perfume on the violet, "To smooth the ice," &c. MALONE. As friend remember'd not.] Remember'd for remembering. So, afterwards, Act III. sc. last: "And now I am remember'd—” i. e. and now that I bethink me, &c. MALONE. 3 as thy master is:] The old copy has-masters. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. MALone. ACT III. SCENE I. A Room in the Palace. Enter Duke FREDERICK, OLIVER, Lords, and Attendants. DUKE F. Not see him since? Sir, sir, that cannot be: But were I not the better part made mercy, Of my revenge, thou present: But look to it; Find out thy brother, wheresoe'er he is; Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living, Thy lands, and all things that thou dost call thine, OLI. O, that your highness knew my heart in this! I never lov'd my brother in my life. DUKE F. More villain thou.-Well, push him out of doors ; And let my officers of such a nature an absent argument-] An argument is used for the contents of a book, thence Shakspeare considered it as meaning the subject, and then used it for subject in yet another sense. JOHNSON. Seek him with candle;] Alluding, probably, to St. Luke's Gospel, ch. xv. v. 8: "If she lose one piece, doth she not light a candle,—and seek diligently till she find it?" STEEVENS. VOL. VIII. G |