Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

as instanced by Malone from Swetnam, 1620, in an address from a Chambermaid to her Mistress and her Lover :

"Get you both in, and be naught awhile;"

as part of it does in Greene's Tu Quoque ;

Nay, sister, if I stir a foot, hang me; you shall come together of yourselves and be naught."

Steevens instances the Storie of Darius, 1565.

"Come away and be naught awhyle,

" Or surely I will you both defyle."

(2) Him I am before] Him and us, for he and we, occur in all our early writers, and throughout Shakespeare. See Macb. V. 7. Macb. Ant. and Cl. III. 1. Ventid., and I. H. VI. IV. 7. Pucel. In the next scene we have the reverse, I for me, Le Beau, and in Haml. I. 4. Haml. " makes we fools of nature," for us.

(3) nearer to his reverence] i. e. more closely and directly the representative of his honours; the head of the family, and thence entitled to a larger proportion of derivative respect: so Prince Henry to his father.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

My due from thee is this imperial crown,

Which, as immediate from thy place and blood, "Derives itself to me." II. H. IV. (IV. 4.)

[ocr errors]

"Yet reverence,

(That angel of the world) doth make distinction "Of place 'tween high and low." Cymb. IV. 2.

"Honor vel honos, est reverentia alicui exhibita. anglice worshyp." Ortus Vocabulor. 4to. 1514. And thus Cordelia of Lear:

[ocr errors]

Repair those violent harms, that my two sisters "Have in thy reverence made." IV. 7.

It may be here worth notice, that in the novel, Saladine, the Oliver of that piece, is mentioned in these terms: "In came Saladine with his men, and seeing his brother in a browne study, and to forget his wonted reverence, thought to shake him out of his dumps thus." Orlando had just before said, "Go apart, Adam; and thou shalt hear, how he will shake me up.”

(4) I am no villain] The word villain is used by the elder brother, in its present meaning, for a worthless, wicked, or bloody man; by Orlando, in its original signification, for a fellow of base extraction. JOHNSON.

(5) gives them good leave] i. e. ready assent.

"Bast. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave awhile? "Gur. Good leave, good Philip." K. John. STEEVENS.

(6) in the forest of Arden] Ardenne is a forest of considerable extent in French Flanders, lying near the Meuse, and between

Charlemont and Rocroy. It is mentioned by Spenser, in his Colin Clout's come home again, 1595:

"Into a forest wide and waste he came,

"Where store he heard to be of savage prey;
"So wide a forest, and so waste as this,

"Not famous Ardeyn, nor foul Arlo is."

But our author was furnished with the scene of his play by Lodge's Novel. MALONE.

(7) fleet the time] i. e. make to pass, let flit or flow. "Fleten lycour. Spumo. exspumo. despumo." Prompt. parv. "Musicke sent forth a pleasing sound, such as useth to fleete from the loud trumpet.' Lord's Discoverie of the Banian Religion, 4to. 1630, p. 10. See " Mediterranean flote." Temp. I. 2. Ariel.

[ocr errors]

(8) mock the good housewife, Fortune, from her wheel] Two laughing girls, devising sports to divert melancholy thoughts, for her partiality and injurious fickleness, propose, by their raillery, to drive Dame Fortune from her wheel. This seems to be a clear image, and such as in their change of fortunes naturally presented itself; and on the fall and death of Antony, our author makes another lady, Cleopatra, exclaim in nearly similar terms:

"Let me rail so high

"That the false huswife, Fortune, break her wheel."

IV. 13.

(9) swore by his honour—and yet was not forsworn] R. III. IV. 4., swearing by his " George, his garter, and his crown," is answered much in the same way by Q. Eliz.

(10) Cel. Pr'ythee who is't that thou mean'st?

Touch. One that old Frederick, your father, loved.

Ros. My father's love is enough to honour him enough] The modern editors, following Theobald, transfer this speech to Celia, upon the ground that Frederick, the Duke spoken of, was the name of the usurping Duke, the father of Celia. But the Clown might turn towards Rosalind, though addressed by Celia; or might speak inaccurately: neither would it be out of character to make him do so. The answer of Rosalind, at the same time, seems to shew that it was her truly respectable father that was meant; and Malone has well observed, that there is too much of filial warmth in it for Celia :-besides, why should her father be called old Frederick? It appears from the last scene of this play that this was the name of the younger brother. But Shakespeare might have been negligent, and have forgotten himself in the last scene; and the reader must decide for himself.

(11) With bills on their necks-know all men by these presents]

Lassels, in his Voyage of Italy, says of tutors, "Some persuade their pupils, that it is fine carrying a gun upon their necks.” But what is still more, the expression is taken immediately from Lodge, who furnished our author with his plot. "Ganimede on a day sitting with Aliena (the assumed names, as in the play,) cast up her eye, and saw where Rosader came pacing towards them with his forest-bill on his necke." FARMER.

From hence, as well as from the numerous instances supplied by Steevens, of the use of these implements in this way, it is highly probable that an allusion is here made to the undoubted usage of "bills, forest-bills, and bats," being carried on the neck; although the leading idea holden out, is manifestly that of " scrolls, or labels," with an inscription running in a legal form; and for the purpose of a conceit between presence and presents, to which the consonance or chiming of these the last words of the two speeches invited, this course was no doubt pursued.

us,

"The watchman's weapon," says Douce, was the bill; but Stowe's Annal. p. 1040, edit. 1631, inform "that when prentizes and journeymen attended upon their masters and mistresses in the night, they went before them carrying a lanthorne and candle in their hands, and a great long club on their necks." Illustr. II. 51.

(12) have you challenged Charles the wrestler] This wrestling match is minutely described in Lodge's Rosalynde, 1592.

MALONE.

(13) one out of suits with fortune] Out of suits with fortune, I believe, means, turned out of her service, and stripped of her livery. STEEVENS.

So afterwards Celia says, but turning these jests out of service, let us talk in good earnest.' MALONE.

In its import it seems equivalent to "out of her books or graces." Johnson says, "having no correspondence with," and that it is a metaphor taken from cards.

[blocks in formation]

Are all thrown down; and that which here stands up Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block] i. e. my intellectual powers are prostrate, and altogether fail me; and what here stands up is no better than a mere block, a passive machine, such as a quintain."

Upon the subject of the quintain, Todd supplies the most satisfactory information. "It is an upright post, on the top of which is a cross post turned upon a pin; at one end of the cross post was a broad board, and at the other a heavy sand-bag. The play was, to ride against the broad end with a lance, and pass by, before the sand-bag, coming round, should strike the tilter on the back." He cites Cambrian popular Antiquities, 1815, by the Rev. Peter Roberts; who states it to be one of the games

at a Welsh wedding. "The gwyntyn (literally the vane), corrupted in English into quintain, is an upright post, on the top of which a spar turned freely. At one end of this spar hung a sand-bag, the other presented a flat side. The rider in passing struck the flat side; and, if not dexterous in passing, was overtaken, and, perhaps, dismounted by the sand-bag, and became a fair object of laughter. I rather think it was not in use amongst the Romans. The name is, I think, decisive of Welsh origin." He adds from Feltham's Sermon on Eccl. II. 2. "The highest contentments, that the world can yield, become to me like the country quintanes: while we run upon them with a hasty speed, if we post not faster off than we at first came on, the bag of sand strikes us in the neck, and leaves us nothing but the blueness of our wounds to boast on." Todd's Dict.

These blocks were in different forms, and the upper part very often in the shape of a man. Prints of such are given in Reed's edition, and to such Orlando must have here alluded.

In the parish of Offham near Town Malling in Kent, opposite the house of a family, bound ratione tenura, to uphold it, there is at this day a Quintain : but it has not, in the memory of any inhabitant, ever been made use of.

(15) And yet, indeed, the shorter is his daughter] Although all the early editions concur in reading taller, there must have been an error in so giving it; for in the next scene Rosalind describes herself as 66 more than common tall," and thence assuming the dress of a man, which her friend did not and in IV. 3. Oliver describes Celia as "low and browner than her brother," who was Rosalind.

(16) swashing outside] i. e. " rattling, blustering, swinging carriage."

"To swash, or to make a noise with swords against tergats. Concrepare gladiis ad scuta. Liv." Baret's Alv. 1580. In H. V. the boy says, as young as I am, I have observed these three

swashers." III. 2.

"Swashing abbottes, which will be called and regarded as princes, and kepe a state, as if they were lordes." Antichrist. 12mo. 1550, p. 147. "What a quarrelling swash-buckler, Mars?" Melton's Figure Caster, 4to. 1620, p. 15.

(17) outface it] i. e. brave it.

"He fronted danger in the fearful'st storme, "And outfac't death in his most uglie forme." Christ. Brooke's fun. Poem on Sir Arth. Chichester. Brit. Bibliogr. II. 239.

"Take state upon them and outbrave a man to his face." Sir Wm. Cornwallis's Prayse of the French Pockes, 4to. 1606. Taught me to face me out of his acquaintance." Tw. N. V. 1. Ant.

[ocr errors]

See Haml. V. 1. Haml.

6

ACT II.

(1) Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head] It was the current opinion in Shakespeare's time, that in the head of an old toad was to be found a stone, or pearl, to which great virtues were ascribed. This stone has been often sought, but nothing has been found more than accidental or perhaps morbid indurations of the skull. JOHNSON.

In a book called A Green Forest, or a Natural History, &c. by John Maplett, 1567, is the following account of this imaginary gem: "In this stone is apparently seene verie often the verie forme of a tode, with despotted and coloured feete, but those uglye and defusedly. It is available against envenoming." Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas, 1639, in most physicians' heads,

[ocr errors]

"There is a kind of toadstone bred."

Again, in Adrasta, or the Woman's Spleen, 1635 :

"Do not then forget the stone

"In the toad, nor serpent's bone," &c.

Pliny, in the 32d Book of his Natural History, ascribes many wonderful qualities to a bone found in the right side of a toad, but makes no mention of any gem in its head. This deficiency however is abundantly supplied by Edward Fenton in his Secrete Wonders of Nature, 4to. bl. 1. 1569, who says, "That there is founde in the heades of old and great toades, a stone which they call Borax or Stelon it is most commonly founde in the head of a hee toad, of power to repulse poysons, and that it is a most soveraigne medicine for the stone."

it;

Thomas Lupton, in his First Booke of Notable Things, 4to. bl. 1. bears repeated testimony to the virtues of the "Tode-stone, called Crapaudina." In his Seventh Booke he instructs us how to procure and afterwards tells us-" You shall knowe whether the Tode-stone be the ryght and perfect stone or not. Holde the stone before a Tode, so that he may see it; and if it be a ryght and true stone, the Tode will leape towarde it, and make as though he would snatch it. He envieth so much that man should have that stone." STEEvens.

"Some report, that the toad before her death sucks up (if not prevented by sudden surprisal) the precious stone (as yet but a jelly) in her head, grudging mankind the good thereof." Fuller's Church History, p. 151. Douce's Illustr. 1. 285.

It is, perhaps, rather a figure in speech, than a fact in natural. history; and it is its eye, proverbially fine, that is the "precious jewel in his head."

« ZurückWeiter »