The same. SCENE IV. Another Room in the same. Enter HELENA and Clown. HEL. My mother greets me kindly: Is she well? CLO. She is not well; but yet she has her health: she's very merry; but yet she is not well: but thanks be given, she's very well, and wants nothing i'the world; but yet she is not well. HEL. If she be very well, what does she ail, that she's not very well? CLO. Truly, she's very well, indeed, but for two things. HEL. What two things? CLO. One, that she's not in heaven, whither God send her quickly! the other, that she's in earth, from whence God send her quickly! Enter PAROLLES. PAR. Bless you, my fortunate lady! HEL. I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good fortunes.1 PAR. You had my prayers to lead them on; and to keep them on, have them still.-O, my knave! How does my old lady? CLO. So that you had her wrinkles, and I her money, I would she did as you say. 1 fortunes.] Old copy-fortune. Steevens. MALONE. Corrected by Mr. PAR. Why, I say nothing. CLO. Marry, you are the wiser man; for many a man's tongue shakes out his master's undoing: To say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your title; which is within a very little of nothing. PAR. Away, thou'rt a knave. CLO. You should have said, sir, before a knave thou art a knave; that is, before me thou art a knave: this had been truth, sir. PAR. Go to, thou art a witty fool, I have found thee. CLO. Did you find me in yourself, sir? or were you taught to find me? The search, sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find in you, even to the world's pleasure, and the increase of laughter. PAR. A good knave, i'faith, and well fed.2Madam, my lord will go away to-night; A very serious business calls on him. The great prerogative and rite of love, Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge; But puts it off by a compell'd restraint ; 3 2 and well fed.] An allusion, perhaps, to the old saying "Better fed than taught;" to which the Clown has himself alluded in a preceding scene:-" I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught." RITSON. But puts it off by a compell'd restraint;] The old copy reads to a compell'd restraint. STEEVENS. The editor of the third folio reads-by a compell'd restraint; and the alteration has been adopted by the modern editors; perhaps without necessity. Our poet might have meant, in his usual licentious manner, that Bertram puts off the completion of his wishes to a future day, till which he is compelled to restrain his desires. This, it must be confessed, is very harsh; Whose want, and whose delay, is strewed with sweets, Which they distil now in the curbed time,* HEL. What's his will else? PAR. That you will take your instant leave o'the king, but our author is often so licentious in his phraseology, that change on that ground alone is very dangerous. In King Henry VIII. we have a phraseology not very different: 66 All-souls day "Is the determin'd respite of my wrongs." i. e. the day to which my wrongs are respited. MALONE. • Whose want, and whose delay, &c.] The sweets with which that want are strewed, I suppose, are compliments and professions of kindness. JOHNSON. Johnson seems not to have understood this passage; the meaning of which is merely this:-"That the delay of the joys, and the expectation of them, would make them more delightful when they come." The curbed time, means the time of restraint. Whose want, means the want of which. So, in The Two Noble Kinsmen, Theseus says: A day or two "Let us look sadly,-in whose end, "The visages of bridegrooms we'll put on." M. MASON, The sweets which are distilled, by the restraint said to be imposed on Bertram, from "the want and delay of the great prerogative of love," are the sweets of expectation. Parolles is here speaking of Bertram's feelings during this "curbed time," not, as Dr. Johnson seems to have thought, of those of Helena. The following lines, in Troilus and Cressida, may prove the best comment on the present passage: "I am giddy; expectation whirls me round. "The imaginary relish is so sweet "That it enchants my sense. What will it be, "When that the watery palate tastes indeed "Love's thrice-reputed nectar? Death, I fear me, "Swooning destruction;" &c. MALONE. And make this haste as your own good proceeding, Strengthen'd with what apology you think May make it probable need." HEL. What more commands he? PAR. That, having this obtain'd, you presently Attend his further pleasure. HEL. In every thing I wait upon his will. PAR. I shall report it so. pray you.-Come, sirrah. [Exeunt. SCENE V. Another Room in the same. Enter LAFEU and BERTRAM. LAF. But, I hope, your lordship thinks not him a soldier. BER. Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof. LAF. You have it from his own deliverance. BER. And by other warranted testimony. LAF. Then my dial goes not true; I took this lark for a bunting. 5 6 -probable need.] A specious appearance of necessity. JOHNSON. a bunting.] This bird is mentioned in Lyly's Love's Metamorphosis, 1601: "but foresters think all birds to be buntings." Barrett's Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1580, gives this account of it: "Terraneola et rubetra, avis alaudæ similis, &c. Dicta terraneola quod non in arboribus, sed in terra versetur et nidificet." The following proverb is in Ray's Collection: "A gosshawk beats not a bunting." STEEVENS. I took this lark for a bunting.] This is a fine discrimination BER. I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge, and accordingly valiant. LAF. I have then sinned against his experience, and transgressed against his valour; and my state that way is dangerous, since I cannot yet find in my heart to repent. Here he comes; I pray you, make us friends, I will pursue the amity. Enter PAROLles. PAR. These things shall be done, sir. [TO BERTRAM. LAF. Pray you, sir, who's his tailor? PAR. Sir? LAF. O, I know him well: Ay, sir; he, sir, is a good workman, a very good tailor. BER. Is she gone to the king? PAR. She is. [Aside to PARolles. BER. Will she away to-night? PAR. As you'll have her. BER. I have writ my letters, casketed my trea sure, Given order for our horses; and to-night, When I should take possession of the bride,- between the possessor of courage, and him that only has the appearance of it. The bunting is, in feather, size, and form, so like the sky-lark, as to require nice attention to discover the one from the other; it also ascends and sinks in the air nearly in the same manner: but it has little or no song, which gives estimation to the skylark. J. JOHNSON. |