ing.

Duke. If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again;-it had a dying fall: 1 O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound a

a Like the sweet sound. To those who are familiar with the well-known text,

"O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south," the restoration of the word sound, which is the reading of all the early editions, will at first appear strange and startling. The change from sound to south was made by Pope. Steevens tells us that the thought might have been borrowed from Sidney's Arcadia, Book I., and he quotes a part of the passage. We must look, however, at the context. Sidney writes, "Her breath is more sweet than a

That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing, and giving odour.-Enough; no more; 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

gentle south-west wind, which comes creeping over flowery fields and shadowed waters in the extreme heat of summer." The comparison is here direct. The sweet breath of Urania is more sweet than the gentle south-west wind. Sidney adds, "and yet is nothing, compared to the honey-flowing speech that breath doth carry." The music of the speech is not here compared with the music of the wind;-the notion of fragrance is alone conveyed. If in the passage of the text we read south instead of sound, the conclusion of the sentence, "Stealing and giving odour," rests upon the mind, and the comparison becomes an indirect one between the harmony of the dying fall, and the odour of the breeze that had passed over a bank of violets. This, we think, is not what the poet meant. He desired to compare one sound with another sound. Milton had probably the passage of the text in view when he wrote,

Duke.

Cur.

Enter VALENTINE.

notion of sound as well as fragrance. In Shakspere "the sound that breathes "-the soft murmur of the breeze playing amidst beds of flowers-is put first, because of its relation to the "dying fall" of the exquisite harmony; but in Milton the "perfumes" of the "gentle gales than "the whisper,"-because the image is complete in are more prominent itself, unconnected with what precedes. Further, Shakspere has nowhere else made the south an odour-breathing wind; his other representations are directly contrary. In As You Like It, Rosalind says,

"You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?"

In Romeo and Juliet we have the "dew-dropping south." In Cymbeline, "The south-fog rot him." Mr. White, giving in his text the original word, says that the reading of Pope has been hitherto adopted by every editor except Mr. Knight. He adds-" Did Pope, or the editors who have followed him, ever lie musing on the sward at the edge of a wood, and hear the low sweet hum of the summer air, as it kissed the coyly-shrinking wild flowers upon the banks, and passed on, loaded with fragrance from the sweet salute? If they ever did, how could they make this change of 'sound' to south'? and if they never did, they are unable to entirely appreciate the passage, much less to improve it."

a Heat-heated.

b Season. This metaphor is repeated several times by our poet: the brine seasons, preserves, a brother's dead love fresh. So in Romeo and Juliet:

"Jesu Maria! What a deal of brine

Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste
To season love."

136

The rich golden shaft. The Cupid of the ancient mythology was armed (as Sidney notices) with

"But arrows two, and tipt with gold or lead.” The opposite effects of these weapons are described in Ovid (Metamorph.), and Shakspere might have read the passage in Golding's translation:

"That causeth love is all of gold with point full sharp and bright:

That chaseth love is blunt, whose steel with leaden head is dight."

b Her sweet perfections. Steevens thus explains this passage:-" Liver, brain, and heart, are admitted in poetry as the residence of passions, judgment, and sentiments. These are what Shakspere calls her sweet perfections."" This is doubtless a mistaken interpretation. probably to be "her sweet perfection." The filling of the The phrase ought "sovereign thrones" with "one self king" is the perfection of Olivia's merits,-according to the ancient doctrine that a woman was not complete till her union with a "self king." In Lord Berners' translation of Froissart there is a sentence which glances at the same opinion. The rich Berthault of Malines is desirous to marry his daughter to the noble Earl of Guerles; and he thus communes with himself:-"Howbeit, I will answer these messengers that their coming pleaseth me greatly, and that my daughter should be happy if she might come to so great a perfection as to be conjoined in marriage with the Earl of Guerles."

c Self king. So the first folio; the second, self-same king. Steevens adopts this, because in his notion the metre is improved by the introduction of same; Malone, who rejects it, maintains, however, that self-king means self-same king. We doubt this; believing that the poet meant king of herself. As to Steevens' thousand and one corrections of Shakspere's metre, it is only necessary to bear in mind a principle laid down by Coleridge. In quoting these lines of Beaumont and Fletcher,

he says,

"I'd have a state of wit convok'd, which hath A power to take up on common faith,""This is an instance of that modifying of quantity by emphasis, without which our elder poets cannot be scanned." And he adds, "Quantity, an almost iron law with the Greeks, is in English rather a subject for a peculiarly fine ear, than any law or even rule; but then, instead of it, we have, first, accent; secondly, emphasis; and, lastly, retardation, and acceleration, of the times of syllables, according to the meaning of the words, the passion that accompanies them, and even the character of the person that uses them."-(Literary Remains, Vol. II., p. 290.)

d This is Illyria, lady. So the original. We ordinarily find the text without this is,-the work of the metre-tinkers.

Cap. True, madam ; and, to comfort you with chance,

Assure yourself, after our ship did split, When you, and those poor number* sav'd with you,

Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother, Most provident in peril, bind himself

(Courage and hope both teaching him the prac

tice)

To a strong mast, that liv'd upon the sea;
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves,
So long as I could see.

Vio.
For saying so, there's gold:
Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,
Whereto thy speech serves for authority,
The like of him. Know'st thou this country?
Cap. Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and
born,

Not three hours' travel from this very place.
Vio. Who governs here ?

Cap. A noble duke, in nature as in name.
Vio. What is his name?
Cap. Orsino.

Vio. Orsino! I have heard my father name him :

He was a bachelor then.

Cap. And so is now, or was so very late : For but a month ago I went from hence; And then 't was fresh in murmur, (as, you know, What great ones do, the less will prattle of,) That he did seek the love of fair Olivia.b

Vio. What's she?

Cap. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a

count

That died some twelvemonth since; then leaving her

In the protection of his son, her brother,
Who shortly also died: for whose dear love,

Those poor number. So the original. The ordinary reading is that poor number.

b We request the reader to look particularly at this part of the dialogue, beginning "Who governs here?" Is it not strictly metrical, and do not the three or four short lines that are thrown in render the question and answer rapid and spirited? It is printed here exactly as in the original. But the passage has been jammed into the Procrustean bed of Steevens, and in all editions before the Pictorial was turned out as follows:

They say, she hath abjur'd the company
And sight of men."

Vio.
O, that I serv'd that lady :
And might not be deliver'd to the world,
Till I had made mine own occasion mellow
What my estate is.

Cap.

That were hard to compass; Because she will admit no kind of suit, No, not the duke's.

Vio. There is a fair behaviour in thee, captain; And though that nature with a beauteous wall Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee

I will believe thou hast a mind that suits
With this thy fair and outward character.
I prithee, and I'll pay thee bounteously,
Conceal me what I am; and be my aid
For such disguise as, haply, shall become
The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke;
Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him,
It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing,
And speak to him in many sorts of music,
That will allow me very worth his service.
What else may hap, to time I will commit;
Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.

Cap. Be you his eunuch, and your mute I'll be;

When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see!

Vio. I thank thee: Lead me on. [Exeunt.

SCENE III-A Room in Olivia's House.

Enter Sir TOBY BELCH and MARIA.

Sir To. What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure care's an enemy to life.

Mar. By my troth, sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' nights; your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.

Sir To. Why, let her except before excepted. Mar. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.

Sir To. Confine? I'll confine myself no finer than I am these clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too; an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.

Mar. That quaffing and drinking will undo you I heard my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight, that you brought in one night here, to be her wooer.

Sir To. Who? Sir Andrew Ague-cheek?
Mar. Ay, he.

Sir To. He's as tall a man as any 's in Illyria.
Mar. What's that to the purpose?

Sir To. Why, he has three thousand ducats a

year.

Mar. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats; he's a very fool, and a prodigal.

Sir To. Fie, that you'll say so! he plays o' the viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature.

Mar. He hath, indeed, almost natural for besides that he's a fool, he's a great quarreller; and but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 't is thought among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave.

Sir To. By this hand, they are scoundrels and subtractors that say so of him. Who are they? Mar. They that add, moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company.

Sir To. With drinking healths to my niece: I'll drink to her as long as there is a passage in my throat, and drink in Illyria. He's a coward, and a coystril, that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o' the toe like a parish-top. What, wench? Castiliano-vulgo; for here comes sir Andrew Ague-face.

Enter Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.

Sir And. Sir Toby Belch! how now, sir Toby Belch!

Sir To. Sweet sir Andrew!

Sir And. Bless you, fair shrew.

Mar. And you too, sir.

Sir To. Accost, sir Andrew, accost.

Sir And. What's that?

Sir To. My niece's chamber-maid.

Sir And. Good mistress Accost, I desire bet

ter acquaintance.

Mar. My name is Mary, sir.

Sir And. Good mistress Mary Accost,Sir To. You mistake, knight; accost is, front her, board her, woo her, assail her.

Sir And. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company. Is that the meaning of accost?

Mar. Fare you well, gentlemen.

Sir To. An thou let part so, sir Andrew, 'would thou might'st never draw sword again.

a Tall-stout-bold.

b Warburton refines upon this phrase of the knight, and would read Castiliano volto-"put on your Castilian countenance; that is, your grave, solemn looks."

c Board her-address her.

Sir And. An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?

Mar. Sir, I have not you by the hand.

Sir And. Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.

Mar. Now, sir, thought is free: I pray you, bring your hand to the buttery-bar, and let it drink.

Sir And. Wherefore, sweetheart? what's your metaphor ?

Mar. It's dry, sir.

Sir And. Why, I think so; I am not such an ass but I can keep my hand dry. But what's your jest?

Mar. A dry jest, sir.

Sir And. Are you full of them?

Mar. Ay, sir; I have them at my fingers' ends: marry, now I let go your hand I am barren. [Exit MARIA. Sir To. O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary: When did I see thee so put down?

Sir And. Never in your life, I think; unless you see canary put me down: Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian, or an ordinary man has: but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.

Sir To. No question.

Sir And. An I thought that, I'd forswear it. I'll ride home to-morrow, Sir Toby.

Sir To. Pourquoy, my dear knight ? Sir And. What is pourquoy? do or not do? I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and bear-baiting: O, had I but followed the arts!

Sir To. Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.

Sir And. Why, would that have mended my hair?

Sir To. Past question; for thou see'st it will not curl by nature.

Sir And. But it becomes me well enough, does 't not?

Sir To. Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs, and spin it off.

Sir And. 'Faith, I'll home to-morrow, Sir Toby; ; your niece will not be seen; or, if she be, it's four to one she 'll none of me: the count himself, here hard by, woos her.

Sir To. She'll none o' the count; she 'll not match above her degree, neither in estate, years,

Curl by nature. This is a very happy correction by Theobald. The original reads, cool my nature.