Look, when a painter would surpass the life, So did this horse excel a common one, : In shape, in courage, color, pace, and bone. Round-hoofed, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide, High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong, Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide: Sometime he scuds far off, and there he stares; And whe'r he run, or fly, they knew not whether; For through his mane and tail the high wind sings, Fanning the hairs, who wave like feathered wings. He looks upon his love and neighs unto her; 1 In the game of base, or prison base, one runs and challenges another to pursue. "To bid the wind a base " is therefore to challenge the wind to speed. We have the same expression in the early play of the Two Gentlemen of Verona: “Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.” Then, like a melancholy malecontent, His testy master goeth about to take him ; As they were mad unto the wood they hie them All swoln with chasing down Adonis sits, An oven that is stopped, or river stayed, 2 But when the heart's attorney once is mute, He sees her coming, and begins to glow, 1 Vails, lowers. • In Richard III. we have, "Why should calamity be full of words? The tongue, in the passage before us, is the attorney to the heart. And with his bonnet hides his angry brow; O, what a sight it was, wistly to view Now was she just before him as he sat, His tenderer cheek receives her soft hand's print, O, what a war of looks was then between them! eyes wooed still, his eyes disdained the wooing: And all this dumb play had his1 acts made plain With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain. Full gently now she takes him by the hand, Or ivory in an alabaster band; So white a friend engirts so white a foe: This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling, Once more the engine of her thoughts began: 1 My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound; ' thee, Though nothing but my body's bane would cure thee." "Give me my hand," saith he; "why dost thou feel it?" "Give me my heart," saith she, "and thou shalt O, give it me, lest thy hard heart do steel it, "For shame," he cries; "let go, and let me go; Thus she replies: "Thy palfrey, as he should, Else, suffered, it will set the heart on fire : The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none, Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone. 1 Malone explains this "thy heart wounded as mine is.” "How like a jade he stood, tied to the tree, Throwing the base thong from his bending crest, "Who sees his true love in her naked bed, Who is so faint that dare not be so bold "Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy; And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee, To take advantage on presented joy; Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee. O, learn to love; the lesson is but plain, And, once made perfect, never lost again." "I know not love," quoth he, "nor will not know it, Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it: "Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it ; My love to love is love but to disgrace it; For I have heard it is a life in death, That laughs, and weeps, and all but with a breath. "Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinished? |