Enter KENT and OSWALD, severally. Osw. Good dawning1 to thee, friend: art of this house? Kent. Ay. Osw. Where may we set our horses? Kent. I' the mire. Osw. Pr'ythee, if thou lovest me, tell me. Kent. I love thee not. Osw. Why, then I care not for thee. Kent. If I had thee in Finsbury pinfold, I would make thee care for me. Osw. Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not. Osw. What dost thou know me for? Kent. A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver'd, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; onetrunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch; one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.3 1 Dawning occurs again in Cymbeline, as substantive, for morning. It is still so dark, however, that Oswald does not recognize Kent. Kent probably knows him by the voice. 2 Pinfold is an old word for pound, a public enclosure where stray pigs and cattle are shut up, to be bought out by the owner. 3 Addition, again, for title, but here put for the foregoing string of titles. A few of these may need to be explained. Three-suited knave" probably means one who spends all he has, or his whole income, in dress. Kent afterwards says to Oswald, a tailor made thee." So in Jonson's Silent Woman: "Wert a pitiful fellow, and hadst nothing but three suits of apparel." "Worsted-stocking knave" is another reproach of the same kind. " Osw. Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one that is neither known of thee nor knows thee ! Kent. What a brazen-faced varlet art thou, to deny thou knowest me! Is it two days since I tripp'd up thy heels and beat thee before the King? Draw, you rogue! for, though it be night, yet the Moon shines; I'll make a sop o' the moonshine of you.4 [Drawing his sword.] Draw, you whoreson cullionly barber-monger,5 draw! Osw. Away! I have nothing to do with thee. Kent. Draw, you rascal! you come with letters against the King, and take Vanity the puppet's part 6 against the royalty of her father. Draw, you rogue, or I'll so carbonado your shanks: draw, you rascal! come your ways. Osw. Help, ho! murder! help! Kent. Strike, you slave! stand, rogue, stand; you neat slave, strike! 8 Osw. Help, ho! murder! murder! " [Beating him. "Action-taking" is one who, if you beat him, would bring an action for assault, instead of resenting it like a man of pluck. One-trunk-inheriting," - inherit in its old sense of to own or possess. Superserviceable is about the same as servile; one that overdoes his service; sycophantic. Lily-liver'd was a common epithet for a coward. See vol. iii. page 172, note 15. “A bawd," &c., may be one who does good service in the capacity of a bawd. in 4 An equivoque is here intended, by an allusion to the old dish of eggs moonshine, which was eggs broken and boiled in salad oil till the yolks became hard. It is equivalent to the phrase of modern times, "I'll baste you," or "beat you to a mummy." 5 Called barber-monger because he spends so much time in nursing his whiskers, in getting himself up, and in being barbered. 6 Alluding, probably, to the old moral plays, in which the virtues and vices were personified. Vanity was represented as a female; and puppet was often a term of contempt for a woman. Jonson, in The Devil is an Ass, speaks of certain vices as "Lady Vanity" and "Old Iniquity." 7 To carbonado is to slash with stripes, as a piece of meat to be cooked. 8 Steevens thought that neat slave might mean, "you finical rascal, you assemblage of foppery and poverty." Walker, a better authority, explains it, "Neat in the sense of pure, unmixed; still used in the phrase neat wine," This makes it equivalent to "you unmitigated villain." Enter EDMUND, sword in hand. Edm. How now ! What's the matter? [Parting them. Kent. With you, goodman boy,9 if you please: come, I'll Glos. Weapons? arms? What's the matter here? Enter CORNWALL, REGAN, and Servants. Corn. Keep peace, upon your lives ; He dies that strikes again. What is the matter? Osw. I am scarce in breath, my lord. Kent. No marvel, you have so bestirr'd your valour. You cowardly rascal, Nature disclaims in thee: 11 a tailor made thee. Corn. Thou art a strange fellow: a tailor make a man? Kent. Ay, a tailor, sir: a stone-cutter 12 or a painter could not have made him so ill, though they had been but two hours o' the trade. Corn. Speak yet, how grew your quarrel? Osw. This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared at suit of his gray beard, 9 Kent purposely takes Edmund's matter in the sense of quarrel, and means, "I'll fight with you, if you wish it.” - Goodman, in old usage, is about the same as master or mister. With boy, it is contemptuous. The word occurs repeatedly in the Bible; as "the goodman of the house." 10 To flesh one is to give him his first trial in fighting, or to put him to the first proof of his valour. So in 1 King Henry IV., v. 4: Full bravely hast thou fleshed thy maiden sword." See vol. xi. page 159, note 19. 11 That is, "Nature disowns thee." To disclaim in was often used for to disclaim simply. Bacon has it so in his Advancement of Learning. — It would seem from this passage, that Oswald is one whose "soul is in his clothes." Hence fond of being barbered and curled and made fine. 12 Stone-cutter for sculptor, or an artist in marble, Kent. Thou whoreson zed !13 thou unnecessary letter ! My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar,14 and daub the wall of a jakes with him.— Spare my grey beard, you wagtail? 15 Corn. Peace, sirrah! You beastly knave, know you no reverence? Kent. Yes, sir; but anger hath a privilege. Corn. Why art thou angry? Kent. That such a slave as this should wear a sword, Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these, Like rats, oft bite the holy cords a-twain Which are too intrinse t' unloose; 16 smooth every passion That in the natures of their lords rebel ; 17 Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods; Reneag, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks With every gale 18 and vary of their masters, As knowing nought, like dogs, but following. — A plague upon your epileptic visage ! 19 13 Zed is here used as a term of contempt, because Z is the last letter in the English alphabet: it is said to be an unnecessary letter, because its place may be supplied by S. Ben Jonson, in his English Grammar, says "Z is a letter often heard among us, but seldom seen." 14 Unbolted is unsifted, hence coarse. The Poet has bolted repeatedly in the opposite sense of refined or pure. 15 Wagtail, I take it, comes pretty near meaning puppy. 16 The image is of a knot so intricate, that it cannot be untied. The Poet uses intrinsicate as another form of intrinse, in Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2: "With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate of life at once untie." 17 To smooth is, here, to cosset or flatter; a common usage in the Poet's time. Rebel is here used as agreeing with the nearest substantive, instead of with the proper subject, That. See vol. xiv. page 154, note 12. 18 Reneag is renounce or deny. So in Antony and Cleopatra, i. 1: "His captain's heart reneags all temper." It is commonly spelt renege, and sometimes reneg.The halcyon is a bird called the kingfisher, which, when dried and hung up by a thread, was supposed to turn its bill towards the point whence the wind blew. So in Marlowe's Jew of Malta: But now how stands the wind? into what corner peers my halcyon's bill?" 19 A visage distorted by grinning, as the next line shows. Smile you my speeches, as I were a Fool? Corn. What, art thou mad, old fellow? out? say you that. Kent. No contraries hold more antipathy Than I and such a knave. Corn. Why dost thou call him knave? What's his offence? Kent. His countenance likes me not. Corn. No more, perchance, does mine, nor his, nor hers. Kent. Sir, 'tis my occupation to be plain : I have seen better faces in my time Than stands on any shoulder that I see Corn. This is some fellow, Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect Quite from his nature: 21 he cannot flatter, he ; An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth! An they will take it, so; if not, he's plain. These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness Than twenty silly-duckling óbservants That stretch their duties nicely.22 20 Sarum is an old contraction of Salisbury. Salisbury plain is the largest piece of flat surface in England, and used to be much noted as a lonely and desolate region.- Camelot is said to be a place in Somersetshire where large numbers of geese were bred. Old romances also make it the place where King Arthur kept his Court in the West. "Here, therefore," says Dyce, "there is perhaps a double allusion, — to Camelot as famous for its geese, and to those knights who were vanquished by the Knights of the Round Table being sent to Camelot to yield themselves as vassals to King Arthur." 21 Forces his outside, or his appearance, to something totally different from his natural disposition. — Garb is used repeatedly by Shakespeare in the sense of style or manner. 22 Nicely is punctiliously, with over-strained nicety. — Coleridge has a just |