Boyet. Belonging to whom? Mar. To my fortunes and me. Prin. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree: This civil war of wits were much better used -- On Navarre and his book-men; for here 'tis abused. Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected. Prin. With what? Boyet. With that which we lovers entitle affected. 23 desire: Boyet. Why, all his behaviours did make their retire " on the word, my lips are not common, though they are certainly several, once part of the common.' The matter seems to have been often drawn upon for illustration. So in Jonson's Discoveries: "Truth lies open to all; it is no man's several." And in Bacon's Apothegms: "Why, there is no beast, that, if you take him from the common, and put him into the several, but he will wax fat."— It must be noted, further, that though is here used in a sense so uncommon as to be hardly intelligible to us,- the sense of because, since, or for. So that "though several they be" is equivalent to since or because they are. This use of though has caused much perplexity to the editors; but Shakespeare has repeated instances of it. So, in Timon of Athens, iv. 3, Apemantus asks, "Dost thou hate a medlar?" and Timon replies, "Ay, though it look like thee"; where though is clearly put for since or for. See also notes on Twelfth Night, ii. 5. 23 Thorough and through are but different forms of the same word, and Shakespeare uses them indifferently, as suits his verse. 24 Agates were much in use, carved into figures like modern cameos. So in Romeo and Juliet, i. 4: "An agate-stone on the fore-finger of an alderman." 25 A very odd and obscure passage, but probably meaning, "his tongue impatient of the slow process of speech, and of being unable to see"; or dissatisfied with the function of speaking, and craving the celerity of vision. All senses to that sense did make their repair, 26 Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye, Who, tendering their own worth from where they were glass'd, An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss. Prin. Come to our pavilion: Boyet is disposed.28 Boyet. But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclosed: I only have made a mouth of his eye, By adding a tongue which I know will not lie. Ros. Thou art an old love-monger, and speakest skilfully. Mar. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him. Ros. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but grim. Boyet. Do you hear, my mad wenches? 26" That they might have no feeling or exercise but that of looking on the fairest of fair." Obscure again. 27 Quotations were commonly printed in the margins of books. 28 "The Princess," says Dyce, " uses disposed in the sense of 'inclined to rather loose mirth, somewhat wantonly merry,' - thinking, as she well might, that Boyet was talking a little too freely; though Boyet, choosing to understand the word simply in the sense of inclined, immediately adds, 'But to speak,' &c." And he amply sustains this explanation by apt passages from Peele, and from Beaumont and Fletcher. ACT III. SCENE I. - A Part of the Park. Enter ARMADO and MOTH. Arm. Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing. Moth. [Sings.] Concolinel1 Arm. Sweet air! - Go, tenderness of years; take this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately 2 hither: I must employ him in a letter to my love. Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?3 Arm. How meanest thou? brawling in French? Moth. No, my complete master but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary 4 to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eyes; sigh a note and sing a note, time 5 through the throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime through the nose, as if snuff'd you love by smelling love; with your hat penthouse-like, o'er the some up 1 Concolinel was perhaps the corrupted title or beginning of an Italian song; and songs used on the stage were often omitted in manuscripts and printed copies of plays, and merely referred to or indicated, as being already well known. Whatever may have been used on this occasion, nothing further is now known of it. 2 Festinately is quickly or hastily; from the Latin festino. 8 Brawl was the name of a dance; from the French branle, which indicates a shaking or swinging motion. Whatever it may have been, Jonson gives it a most Heliconian baptism in his Vision of Delight: In curious knots and mazes, so The Spring at first was taught to go; And Zephyr, when he came to woo His Flora, had their motions too: And thence did Venus learn to lead 4 Canary was the name of a sprightly dance; sometimes accompanied by the castanets. 5 Sometime and sometimes were used indifferently in the Poet's time. 6 shop of your eyes; with your arms cross'd on your thin-belly doublet, like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away. These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice wenches, that would be betrayed without these; and make them men of note - do you note me? — that most are affected to these. Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience? Moth.the hobby-horse is forgot.8 Arm. Callest thou my love hobby-horse? Moth. No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love? Arm. Almost I had. Moth. Negligent student! learn her by heart. Arm. By heart and in heart, boy. Moth. And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove. Moth. A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon the instant: by heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by her; in heart you love her, because your 6 That is, a thin-bellied doublet. Doublet was the name of a man's upper garment; waistcoat, or vest. A thin-bellied seems to have been the opposite of a great-bellied doublet. "The doublets," says Staunton, "were made some without stuffing, thin-bellied, and some bombasted out." He then quotes the following from Stubbes: "Certain I am, there never was any kind of apparel ever invented, that could more disproportion the body of a man, than these doublets with great bellies hanging down, and stuffed," &c. Complements again for accomplishments. See page 12, note 19. 8 The Hobby-horse was a personage in the ancient Morris-dance. The opposition of the Puritans to this dance caused the Hobby-horse to be left out of it; and hence the line or burden of an old song became proverbial: "For O, for O, the Hobby-horse is forgot." See Hamlet, iii. 2. heart is in love with her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you cannot enjoy her. Arm. I am all these three. Moth. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all. Arm. Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter. bassador for an ass. Arm. Ha, ha! what sayest thou? Moth. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very slow-gaited. Arm. The way is but short: away! Moth. As swift as lead, sir. Arm. Thy meaning, pretty ingenious? Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow? Moth. Minimè, honest master; or rather, master, no. Arm. I say lead is slow. Moth. You are too swift, sir, to say so: Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun? Arm. Sweet smoke of rhetoric! He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he : Thump, then, and I flee. [Exit. Moth. 9 The meaning probably is, that the absurd love-message is well matched by the equally absurd choice of Costard as the bearer of it; that is to say, the message, the sender, and the bearer are all just suited to each other, o "in a concatenation accordingly." 10 Melancholy most rude, because it sighs out its breath impolitely in the face of the welkin, that is, the sky. This use of welkin occurs frequently. So in The Tempest, i. 2: "The sea, mounting to th' welkin's cheek, dashes the fire out." Also for sky-coloured in The Winter's Tale, i. 2: "Look on me with your welkin eye." 1 |