CXXXVII.

Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
That they behold, and see not what they see?
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks,
Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride,
Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,
Whereto the judgment of my heart is ty'd?
Why should my heart think that a several plot,
Which my heart knows the wide world's common
Or mine eyes seeing this, say, this is not, [place?
To put fair truth upon so foul a face?
In things right true my heart and eyes have err'd,
And to this false plague are they now transferr'd.
CXXXVIII.

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies;
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth supprest.
But wherefore says she not, she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I, that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.
CXXXIX.

O, call not me to justify the wrong
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue;
Use power with power, and slay me not by art.
Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside. [might
What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy
Is more than my o'er-press'd defence can 'bide?
Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:
Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,
Kill me out-right with looks, and rid my pain.
CXL.

Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-ty'd patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;
(As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know ;)
For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee:
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
That I may not be so, nor thou bely'd,
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go
CXLI.

[wide.

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleas'd to dote.
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits, nor my five senses cau
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who lives unsway'd the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin, awards me pain

CXLII.

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:
O, but with mine compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;
Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments,
And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine;
Robb'd others' beds revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:
Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows,
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.

If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self-example may'st thou be deny'd!
CXLIII.

Lo, as a careful house-wife runs to catch
One of her feather'd creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift despatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face,
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;
So run'st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind:
So will I pray that thou may'st have thy Will,
If thou turn back, and my loud crying still.

CXLIV.

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still;
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman, colour'd ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be tura'd fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;

But being both from me, both to each friend, guess one angel in another's hell:

I

Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

CXLV.

Those lips that Love's own hand did make,
Breath'd forth the sound that said, I hate,
To me that languish'd for her sake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue, that ever sweet
Was us'd in giving gentle doom;
And taught it thus anew to greet;
I hate she alter'd with an end,
That follow'd it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who, like a fiend,
From heaven to hell is flown away;
I hate from hate away she threw,
And sav'd my life, saying-not you.

CXLVI.

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Fool'd by those rebel powers that thee array.
Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store,
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And, death once dead, there's no more dying then.

CXLVII.

My love is a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with ever-more unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
CXLVIII.

O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,
How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.

O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy toul faults should find.
CXLIX.

Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not.
When I, against myself, with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake?
Who hateth thee, that I do call my friend?
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon?
Nay, if thou low'rst on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in myself respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;
Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.

CL.

CLI.

Love is too young to know what conscience is:
Yet who knows not, conscience is born of love
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my great body's treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason;
But rising at thy name, doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her-love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.
CLII.

In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing:
In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith toru,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most:
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
And all my honest faith in thee is lost :
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness.
Or made them swear against the thing they see;
For I have sworn thee fair: more perjur'd I,
To swear, against the truth, so foul a lie!

CLIII.

Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep;
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
Which borrow'd from this holy fire of love
A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove,
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at my mistress' eye love's brand new fir'd.
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;
I sick withal, the help of bath desir'd,
And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,
But found no cure: the bath for my help lies
Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.
CLIV

P. 695, c. 1, 7. 13. this glutton be,
To eat the world's due by the grave and
thee.]

The ancient editors of Shakspeare's works deserve at least the praise of impartiality. If P. they have occasionally corrupted his noblest sentiments, they have likewise depraved his most miserable conceits; as, perhaps, in this instance. I read (piteous constraint, to read such stuff at all!)

"➖➖➖➖ this glutton be;

To eat the world's due, be thy grave and
thee,"

i. e. be at once thyself and thy grave.

The letters that form the two words were probably transposed. I did not think the late Mr Rich had such example for the contrivance of making Harlequin jump down his own throat. STEEVENS.

I do not believe there is any corruption in the text. Mankind being daily thinned by the grave, the world could not subsist if the places of those who are taken off by death were not filled up by the birth of children. Hence Shakspeare considers the propagation of the species as the world's due, as a right to which it is entitled, and which it may demand from every individual. The sentiment in the lines before us, it must be owned, is quaintly expressed but the obscurity arises chiefly, I think, from the awkward collocation of the words for the sake of the rhyme. The meaning seems to me to be this Pity the world, which is daily depopulated by the grave, and beget children, in order to supply the loss; or, if you do not fulfil this duty, acknowledge, that as a glutton swallows and consumes more than is sufficient for his own support, so you (who by the course of nature must die, and by your own remissness are likely to die childless) thus "living and dying in single blessedness," consume and destroy the world's due: to the desolation of which you doubly contribute; I. by thy death; 2. by thy dying childless.' Our author's plays, as well as the poems now before us, affording a sufficient number of conceits, it is rather hard that he should be answerable for such as can only be obtained through the medium of alteration; that he should be ridiculed not only for what he has, but for what he has not written. MALONE.

Id. l. 33. -Whose un-ear'd womb

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?]
Thus, in Measure for Measure:

her plenteous womb Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry." STEEVENS.

Un-ear'd is unploughed. MALONE. 696, c. 1, l. 15. Music to hear, &c.] I have sometimes thought, Shakspeare might have written - Music to ear, &c. i. e. thou, whose every accent is music to the ear. So, in the Comedy of Errors:

"That never words were music to thine ear." Hear has been printed instead of ear in the Taming of the Shrew; or at least the modern editors have supposed so. MALONE. 1.32.-like a makeless wife;] As a widow bewails her lost husband. Make and mate were formerly synonymous So, in Kyng Appolyn of Tyre, 1510: "Certes, madam, I sholde have great joy yfe ye had such a prynce to your make." Again, in The Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, 1562:

"Betwixt the armes of me, thy perfect-
loving make."
MALONE.

"For our bad neighbours make us early stirrers,

Which is both healthful and good husbandry." MALONE.

L. 36. By oft predict-] Dr Sewel reads,-By aught predict; but the text is right.-So, i the Birth of Merlin, 1662:

"How much the oft report of this bless'd

hermit

"By

Hath won on my desires!" MALONE. The old reading may be the true one. oft predict" may mean.-By what is most frequently prognosticated. STEEVENS. 1. 40. If from thyself to store thou would'st convert] If thou would'st change thy single state, and beget a numerous progeny. So, before:

"Let those whom nature hath not made for store."

Again, in Romeo and Juliet:

"O, she is rich in beauty; only poor,
That when she dies, with beauty dies her
store." MALONE.

712

umon.

So, in Love's Labour's Lost:

་

This explanation is very plausible. Shakspeare has again used line with a reference to painting in All's Well That Ends Well:

"And every line and trick of his sweet favour MALONE.

Id. l. 66. my pupil pen,] This expression may be considered as a slight proof that the poems before us were our author's earliest compo

sitions. STEEVENS.

Id 1 24

The eye of heaven is out "

MALONE.

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest, Of that beauty thou possessest. Fair was, in our author's time, used as a substantive. To owe in old language is to possess. MALONE.

Id. 1. 44. the master-mistress of my passion ;] It is impossible to read this fulsome panegyrie, addressed to a male object, without an equal mixture of disgust and indignation. We may remark also, that the same phrase employed by Shakspeare to denote the height of encomium, is used by Dryden to express the extreme of reproach:

"That woman,

man

but more daub'd; or if a

Corrupted to a woman; thy man-mistress.” DON SEBASTIAN

Let me be just, however, to our author, who has made a proper use of the term male varlet, in Troilus and Cressida See that play, Act V. Se. 1. STEEVENS,

Some part of this indignation might perhaps have been abated, if it had been considered that such addresses to men, however indelicate. were customary in our author's time, and neither imported criminality, nor were esteemed indecorous. To regulate our judgment of Shakspeare's poems by the modes of modern times, is surely as unreasonable as to try his plays by the rules of Aristotle. Master-mistress does not perhaps mean man-mistress, but sovereign mistress. See Mr Tyrwhitt's note on the 165th verse of the Canterbury Tales, vol. I, p. 197 MALONE.

Id. 1. 49. A man in hue all hues in his controlling. This line is thus exhibited in the old copy:

"A man in hew all Hews in his controlling." Hews was the old mode of spelling hues fcolours), and also Hughes, the proper name MALONE.

Il. 1. 55. But since she prick'd thee out, &c.] To prick is to nominate by a puncture or mark. So, in Julius Cæsar :

"These many then shall die, their names are prick'd'

Again, in King Henry IV. Part IL:

"Shall I prick him, Sir John ?".

I have given a

phrase elsewhere.

wrong explanation of thes

STEEVENS.

"I wish

you the couplement."""

peace of mind, most roya.

I formerly thought this word was of our a thor's invention, but I have lately found it Spenser's Faery Queene:

"Allide with bands of mutual couplement"

MALONE.

Id. 1. 64. That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.] Rondure is a round. Rondeur. Fr The word is again used by our author in Ka Henry V.:

Tis not the rondure of your oldfac walls." MALONE.

P. 698, c. 1,7. 48.

- in death's dateless night
Shakspeare generally used the word dafeles
for endless; having no certain time of
piration. So, in Romeo and Juliet:
seal with a righteous kiss

A dateless bargain to engrossing death"
MALONE.

Id. c. 2, l. 26. The region cloud-] i. e. the clouds
of this region or country. So, in Hamlet:
"I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal." STEEVENS.
Il 1.50 Excusing thy sins more than thy siz
are:] The old copy here also has their tire
instead of thy. The latter words of this lite,
whichever reading we adopt, are not very is-
telligible. MALONE.

"Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are, I believe means only this: "Making the 1 cuse more than proportioned to the offence." STEEVENS.

Id. 1.51. For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense. Thus the quarto. The line appears to me un intelligible. Might we read:

For to thy sensual fault I bring incense—” A jingle was evidently intended: but if this word was occasionally accented on the last syi lable (as perhaps it might formerly have bees. it would afford it as well as the reading of the old copy. Many words that are now aceste on an early syllable, had formerly their accel on one more remote. Thus, in A MidsummerNight's Dream :

"It stands as an edict in destiny."
Again, in Hamlet:

Did slay this Fortinbras, who by a seal.
compact-."

Again, in Measure for Measure:

This is the hand, which with a vow'd co tráct....”

I believe the old reading to be the true one. The passage, divested of its jingle, seems designed to express this meaning.- "Towards thy exculpation, I bring in the aid of my soundest faculties, my keenest perception, my utmost strength of reason, my sense." I think I can venture to affirm that no English writer, either ancient or modern, serious or burlesque, ever accented the substantive incense on the last syllable. STEEVENS.

= P. 698, c. 2,1 62. Though in our lives a separable spite,] A cruel fate, that spitefully separates us from each other. Separable for separating. MALONE.

P. 699, c. 1, l. 3. So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite,] Dearest is most operative. So, in Hamlet:

"Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven."

A late editor, Mr Capell, grounding himself on this line, and another in the 89th Sonnet,

'Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt-"

conjectured that Shakspeare was literally lame: but the expression appears to have been only figurative. So again, in Coriolanus: I cannot help it now,

Unless by using means I lame the foot
Of our design"

Again, in As You Like It:

"Which I did store to be my foster-nurse, When service should in my old limbs lie lame."

In the 89th Sonnet the poet speaks of his friends imputing a fault to him of which he was not guilty, and yet, he says, he would acknowledge it: so (he adds), were he to be described as lame, however untruly, yet rather than his friend should appear in the wrong, he would immediately halt. If Shakspeare was in truth lame, he had it not in his power to halt occasionally for this or any other purpose. The defect must have been fixed and permanent. The context in the verses before us in like manner refutes this notion. If the words are to be understood literally, we must then suppose that our admired poet was also poor and despised, for neither of which suppositions there is the smallest ground. MALONE.

made lame by fortune's dearest spite." So, in King Lear:

"A most poor man, made lame to fortune's

blows." STEEVENS.

Id. 1. 7. Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,] This is a favourite expression of Shakspeare. So, in King Henry IV. Part 1:

"And on thy eyelids crown the god of sleep."

Again, in Twelfth Night:

"It yields a very echo to the seat
Where love is throned."

Again, in Timon of Athens:

"And in some sort these wants of mine are crown'd,

That I account them blessings." Entitled means, I think, ennobled. The The same old copy reads-in their parts. error, as has been before observed, has happened in many other places. MALONE.

Entitled in thy parts-" So, with equal

obscurity, in Tarquin and Lucrece:
"But beauty, in that white intituled,

From Venus' doves doth challenge that fair
field."

I suppose he means, that beauty takes its

P. 699, c. 2, l. 9. If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,] If I lose thee, my mistress gains by my loss. MALONE.

Id. l. 39. so much of earth and water wrought,] i. e. being so thoroughly compounded of these two ponderous elements. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra :

-I am air and fire, my other elements

I give to baser life." STEEVENS
Again, in King Henry V.:

"He is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him." MALONE.

Id. 1. 65. To 'cide this title is impanelled—] To 'cide, for to decide. The old copy reads side. MALONE.

P. 700, c. 1, 1 67. Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race;] The expression is here so uncouth, that I strongly suspect this line to be corrupt. Perhaps we should read:

"Shall neigh to dull flesh, in his fiery race." Desire, in the ardour of impatience, shall call to the sluggish animal (the horse), to proceed with swifter motion. MALONE.

Perhaps this passage is only obscured by the awkward situation of the words no dull flesh The sense may be this: Therefore desire, being no dull piece of horse-flesh, but composed of the most perfect love, shall neigh as he proceeds in his hot career'. "A good piece of horse-flesh" is a term still current in the stable. Such a profusion of words, and only to tell us that our author's passion was impetuous, though his horse was slow! STEE