have seen many of them. Beaded jet, is jet formed into beads. STEEVENS. P. 719, c. 1, l. 39. Upon whose weeping margent she was set. Like usury, applying wet to wet,] In King Henry VI. Part III. we meet with a similar thought: "With tearful eyes add water to the sea, These two lines are not in the old play on which the third part of King Henry VI are formed. Again, in Romeo and Juliet: "With tears augmenting the fresh morning Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep Again, in As You Like It: -Thou mak'st a testament As worldings do, giving the sum of more Upon whose margent weeping she was observed, was formerly sometimes used in the sense of love. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "Sighs and tears, poor fancy's followers." MALONE. แ Id. l. 8. - his grained bat,] So, in Coriolanus: My grained ash." His grained bat is the staff on which the grain of the wood was visible. STEEVENS. A bat is a club. The word is again used in King Lear: "Ise try whether your costard or my bat be the harder." MALONE. Id. l. 13. - her suffering ecstasy-] Her painful perturbation of mind. MALONE. Id. l. 26. —— made him her place;] i. e. her seat, her mansion. In the sacred writings the word is often used in this sense. STEEVENS. So, in As You Like It: "This is no place; this house is but a butchery." Plas in the Welch language signifies a mansion-house. MALONE, Id. 1. 32. What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find:] I suppose he means, things pleasant to be done will easily find people enough to do them, STEEVENS. Id. The words might have been accidentally transposed at the press. Weeping margent, however, is, I believe. right, being much in our author's manner. be-weeped; the margin wetted with tears. MALONE. 1. 35. - in paradise was sawn.] i. e. seen. This irregular participle, which was forced upon the author by the rhyme, is, I believe, used by no other writer. MALONE. Weeping for weeped or To weep is to drop. Milton talks of "Groves whose rich trees wept od'rous Pope speaks of the "weeping amber," and "rye-grass grows on weeping ground," i. e. lands abounding with wet, like the margin of the river on which this damsel is sitting. The rock from which water drops, is likewise poetically called a weeping rock: xp nvr εναον πέτρηρ από ΛΑΚΡΥΟΕΣΣΗΣ. STEEVENS. Id. 1. 48. With sleided silk feat and affectedly-] Sleided silk is, as Dr Percy has elsewhere observed, untwisted silk, prepared to be used in the weaver's sley or slay. So, in Pericles: "Be't, when she weav'd the sleided silk." A weaver's sley is formed with teeth like a comb. Feat is, curiously, nicely. MALONE. With sleided silk feat and affectedly Enswath'd, and seal'd to curious secrecy.] To be convinced of the propriety of this description, let the reader consult the Royal Letters, &c. in the British Museum, where he will find that anciently the ends of a piece of narrow ribbon were placed under the seals of letters, to connect them more closely. STEEVENS. Florio's Italian and English Dialogues, entitled his Second Frutes, 1591, confirm Mr Steevens's observation. In page 89, a person, who is supposed to have just written a letter, calls for "some wax, some sealing thread, his dust-box, and his seal." MALONE. Id. c. 2, l. 2. - that the ruffle knew-] Rufflers were a species of bullies in the time of Shakspeare. "To ruffle in the common wealth," is a phrase in Titus Andronicus. STEEVENS. In Sherwood's French and English Dictionary at the end of Cotgrave's Dictionary, Ruffle and hurliburly are synonymous. MALONE. Id. l. 3. 11 and had let go by The swiftest hours, &c.] Had passed the prime of life, when time appears to move with his quickest pace. MALONE. Id. l. 5. this afflicted fancy-] This afflicted love-sick lady. Fancy, it has been already P. I rather think the word means sown, i. e. all the flowers sown in Paradise. The word is still pronounced sawn in Scotland. Bos WELL. The same thought occurs in King Henry V.: "In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh." STEEVENS. d. 1. 37. His phoenix down-] I suppose he means Id. 66 ➖➖➖ here in the public haunt of men.” MALONE. 1..32. And was my own fee simple,] Had an Id. l. 58. -the patterns of his foul beguiling;] of the passage then should seem to be-My illicit amours were merely the effect of constitution, and not approved by my reason: pure and genuine love had no share in them or in their consequences; for the mere congress of the sexes may produce such fruits, without the affections being at all engaged. MALONE. P. 720, c.2, 1.22. And lo! behold these talents of their hair, &c.] These lockets, consisting of hair platted and set in gold. MALONE. Id. 1. 23. -amorously impleach'd] Impleach'd is interwoven; the same as pleached, a word which our author uses in Much Ado About Nothing, and in Antony and Cleopatra: 66 Steal into the pleached bower, with pleach'd arms bending down Id. l. 30. Whereto his invis'd properties did tend ;] Invis'd for invisible. This is, I believe, a word of Shakspeare's coining. His invis'd properties are the invisible qualities of his mind. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis : "Had I no eyes, but ears, my ears would love Thy inward beauty and invisible." MALONE, Id. 1. 42. O then advance of yours that phraseless hand, Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise ;] So, in Romeo and Juliet: -they may seize On the white wonder of dear Juliet's The "airy scale of praise" is the "scale filled with verbal eulogiums." Air is often thus used by our author. So, in Much Ado About Nothing: "Charm ache with air, and agony with Id. l. 52. Which late her noble suit in court did shun,] Who lately retired from the solicitation of her noble admirers. The word suit, in the sense of request or petition, was much used in Shakspeare's time. MALONE. Id 1.53. Whose rarest havings made the blossoms date; whose accomplishments were so extraordinary that the flower of the young nobility were passionately enamoured of her. MALONE. Id. 1. 54 For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,] By nobles; whose high descent is marked by the number of quarters in their coats of arms. So, in our author's Tarquin and Lu crece : P. then composing.-The lover is speaking of a nun who had voluntarily retired from the world. -But what merit (be adds), could she boast, or what was the difficulty of such an action? What labour is there in leaving what we have not, i. e. what we do not enjoy, or in retraining desires that do agitate our breast? "Paling the place," &c. securing within the pale of a cloister that heart which had never received the impression of love.-When fetters are put upon us by our consent, they do not appear irksome, &c. Such is the meaning of the text as now regulated. In Antony and Cleopatra the verb to pale is used in the sense of to hem in: "Whate'er the ocean pales, or sky inclips, Is thine, if thou wilt have it." The word form, which I once suspected to be corrupt, is undoubtedly right. The same phraseology is found in Tarquin and Lucrece : the impression of strange kinds Is form'd in them (women), by force, by fraud, or skill." It is also still more strongly supported by the passage quoted by Mr Steevens from Twelfth Night. MALONE. I do not believe there is any corruption in the words ". did no form receive," as the same expression occurs again in the last stanza but three: 66 --a plenitude of subtle matter, Applied to cautels, all strange forms réceives." Again, in Twelfth Night: "How easy is it for the proper false In women's waxen hearts to set their forms?" STEEVENS. 721, c. 1, 1.8. My parts had power to charm a sacred sun,] Perhaps the poet wrote-"a sacred nun." If sun be right, it must mean, the brightest luminary of the cloister. So, in King Henry VIII: -When these suns (For so they phrase them) by their heralds The noble spirits to arms, they did perform In Coriolanus, the chaste Valeria is called "Love's arms are proof 'gainst rule, &c." The meaning however of the text as it stands, may be-The warfare that love carries on against rule, sense, &c. produces to the parties engaged a peaceful enjoyment, and sweetens, &c. The construction in the next line is perhaps irregular.-Love's arms are peace, &c. and love sweetens. MALONE. Perhaps we should read: "Love aims at peace Yet sweetens," &c. STEEVENS. That flame-] That is, procured for the glowing roses in his cheeks that flame, &c. Gate is the ancient perfect tense of the verb to get. MALONE. Id. c. 2, l. 6. O cleft effect!] O divided and discordant effect!-0 cleft, &c. is the modern correction. The old copy has-Or cleft effect, from which it is difficult to draw any meaning. MALONE. Id. l. 11. and civil fears;] Civil formerly signified grave, decorous. So, in Romeo and Juliet: 726 EXPLANATORY NOTES ON A LOVER'S COMPLAINT. P. 721, c. 2, l. 16. Applied to cautels,] Applied to | Id. I. 40.-that borrow'd motion, seeming ow'd,] insidious purposes, with subtilty and cunning. So, in Hamlet: "Perhaps he loves you now; And now no soil of cautel doth besmirch The virtue of his will." MALONE. That passion which he copied from others so naturally that it seemed real and his own Ow'd has here, as in many other places in our author's works, the signification of owned. MALONE. THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM. I. Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a brook, With young Adonis, lovely, fresh and green, Such looks as none could look but beauty's queen. To win his heart, she touch'd him here and there: But whether unripe years did want conceit, Then fell she on her back, fair queen, and toward; II. Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn, A longing tarriance for Adonis made, A brook, where Adon us'd to cool his spleen: III. Fair was the morn, when the fair * queen of love, Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove, For Adon's sake, a youngster proud and wild; Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill: Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds; She, silly queen, with more than love's good will, Forbade the boy he should not pass those grounds; Once, quoth she, did I see a fair sweet youth Here in these brakes deep-wounded with a boar, Deep in the thigh, a spectacle of ruth! See, in my thigh, quoth she, here was the sore: She showed hers; he saw more wounds than one, And blushing fled, and left her all alone. IV. Venus with young Adonis sitting by her, Even thus, quoth she, he seized on my lips, V. Crabbed age and youth Youth is nimble, age is lame; Youth is wild, and age is tame. Age, I do abhor thee, O, my love, my love is young; O, sweet shepherd, hie thee, For methinks thou stay'st too long. VI. Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely pluck'd, soon faded, VII. Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle, Her lips to mine how often hath she join'd, She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth; VIII. Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, IX. If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love? O, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd: Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant prove; Those thoughts, to me like oaks, to thee like osiers bow'd. Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes, Where all those pleasures live, that art can comprehend. If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice; Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend; All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder; Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire: Thine eye Jove's lightning seems, thy voice his dreadful thunder, Which (not to anger bent) is music and sweet fire. Celestial as thou art, O do not love that wrong, To sing the heavens' praise with such an earthly tongue. X. Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good, And as good lost are seld or never found, XI. Good night, good rest. Ah! neither be my share : Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile, As take the pain, but cannot pluck the pelf. XII. Lord, how mine eyes throw gazes to the east! XIII. It was a lording's daughter, the fairest one of three, That liked of her master as well as well might be, Till looking on an Englishman, the fairest eye could see, Her fancy fell a turning. Long was the combat doubtful, that love with love did fight, To leave the master loveless, or kill the gallant knight: To put in practice either, alas it was a spite But one must be refused, more mickle was the pain, That nothing could be used, to turn them both to gain, For of the two the trusty knight was wounded with disdain: Alas, she could not help it! Thus art with arms contending was victor of the day, Which by a gift of learning did bear the maid away; Then lullaby, the learned man hath got the lady gay; For now my song is ended. XIV. On a day (alack the day!) XV. My flocks feed not, My ewes breed not, My rams speed not, All is amiss: Love's denying, Faith's defying, Heart's renying, Causer of this. |