mony in your complexion, that it was a passion of earnest. Ros. Counterfeit, I assure you. Oli. Well then, take a good heart, and counterfeit to be a man. Ros. So I do: but i' faith I should have been a woman by right. Cel. Come, you look paler and paler; pray you, draw homewards: Good sir, go with us. Oli. That will I, for I must bear answer back How you excuse my brother, Rosalind. Ros. I shall devise something: But, I pray you, commend my counterfeiting to him:-Will you go? [Exeunt. ACT V..... SCENE I. The same. Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY. Touch. We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey. Aud. 'Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old gentleman's saying. Touch. A most wicked sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Mar-text. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to you. Aud. Ay, I know who 'tis; he hath no interest in me in the world: here comes the man you mean. Enter WILLIAM. Touch. It is meat and drink to me to see a clown: By my troth, we that have good wits, have much to answer for; we shall be flouting; we cannot hold. Will. Good even, Audrey. Aud. God ye good even, William. Will. And good even to you, sir. Touch. Good even, gentle friend: Cover thy head, cover thy head; nay, pr'ythee, be covered. How old are you, friend? Will. Five and twenty, sir. Touch. A ripe age: Is thy name William? Touch. A fair name: Wast born i' the forest here? Touch. Thank God;—a good answer: Art rich? Touch. So, so, is good, very good, good:-and yet it is not; it is but so so. Will. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit. very excellent Art thou wise? Touch. Why, thou say'st well. I do now remember a saying; The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth; meaning thereby, that grapes were made to eat, and lips to open. do love this maid?7 Will. I do, sir. Touch. Give me your hand: Art thou learned? You Touch. Then learn this of me; To have, is to have: For it is a figure in rhetorick, that drink, being poured out of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other: For all your writers do consent, that ipse is he; now you are not ipse, for I am he. Will. Which he, sir? Touch. He, sir, that must marry this woman: Therefore, you clown, abandon,-which is in the vulgar, leave, -the society,-which in the boorish is, company,—of this female, which in the common is,-woman, which together is, abandon the society of this female; or, clown The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape, &c.] This was designed as a sneer on the several trifling and insignificant sayings and actions, recorded of the ancient philosophers, by the writers of their lives, such as Diogenes Laertius, Philostratus, Eunapius, &c. as appears from its being introduced by one of their wise sayings. Warburton. A book called The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, was printed by Caxton in 1477. It was translated out of French into English by Lord Rivers. From this performance, or some republication of it, Shakspeare's knowledge of these philosophical trifles might be derived. Steevens. 7 meaning thereby, that grapes were made to eat, and lips to open. You do love this maid?] Part of this dialogue seems to have grown out of the novel on which the play is formed: "Phebe is no latice for your lips, and her grapes hang so hie, that gaze at them you may, but touch them you cannot." Malone. thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest; to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage: I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy with thee in faction; I will o'er-run thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways; therefore tremble, and depart. Aud. Do, good William. Will. God rest you merry, sir. Enter CORIN. [Exit. Cor. Our master and mistress seek you; come, away, away. 8 Touch. Trip, Audrey, trip, Audrey; I attend, I attend. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The same. Enter ORLANDO and OLIVER. Orl. Is 't possible, that on so little acquaintance you to wit, I kill thee,] The old copy reads-" or, to wit, I kill thee." I have omitted the impertinent conjunction or, by the advice of Dr. Farmer. Steevens. 9 Is 't possible, &c.] Shakspeare, by putting this question into the mouth of Orlando, seems to have been aware of the impropriety which he had been guilty of by deserting his original. In Lodge's novel, the elder brother is instrumental in saving Aliena from a band of ruffians, who "thought to steal her away, and to give her to the king for a present, hoping, because the king was a great leacher, by such a gift to purchase all their pardons." Without the intervention of this circumstance, the passi of Aliena appears to be very hasty indeed. C author's acquaintance, however, with the manners of heroines in romances, perhaps rendered him occasionally inattentive, as in the present instance, to probability. In The Sowdon of Babylovne, an ancient MS. often quoted by me on other occasions, I find the following very singular confession from the mouth of a Princess: "Be ye not the duke of Burgoyne sir Gy, "Noe, certes lady, it is not I, "It is yonder knight that ye may see. "A, him have I loved many a day, "And yet know I him noght, "For his love I do all that I maye, "To chere you with dede and thought." P. 47. Steevens. should like her? that, but seeing, you should love her? and, loving, woo? and, wooing, she should grant? and will you perséver to enjoy her? Oli. Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden consenting;1 but say with me, I love Aliena: say with her, that she loves me; consent with both, that we may enjoy each other: it shall be to your good; for my father's house, and all the revenue that was old sir Rowland's, will I estate upon you, and here live and die a shepherd. Enter ROSALIND. Orl. You have my consent. Let your wedding be tomorrow: thither will I invite the duke, and all his contented followers: Go you, and prepare Aliena; for, look you, here comes my Rosalind. Ros. God save you, brother. Oli. And you, fair sister.2 Ros. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf. Orl. It is my arm. Ros. I thought, thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion. Orl. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.. Ros. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon, when he showed me your handkerchief? Orl. Ay, and greater wonders than that. 3 Ros. Ó, I know where you are:-Nay, 'tis true: there was never any thing so sudden, but the fight of two rams, and Cæsar's thrasonical brag of—I came, saw, and overcame: For your brother and my sister no sooner met, but they looked; no sooner looked, but 1 — nor her sudden consenting;] Old copy-nor sudden. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. Malone. 2 And you, fair sister.] I know not why Oliver should call Rosalind sister. He takes her yet to be a man. I suppose we should read-And you, and your fair sister. Johnson. Oliver speaks to her in the character she had assumed, of a woman courted by Orlando his brother. Chamier. 3 - never any thing so sudden, but the fight of two rams,] So in Laneham's Account of Queen Elizabeth's Entertainment at Kennelworth Castle, 1575: " ootrageous in their racez az rams at their rut." Steevens. they loved; no sooner loved, but they sighed; no sooner sighed, but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason, but they sought the remedy: and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else be incontinent before marriage: they are in the very wrath of love, and they will together; clubs cannot part them. Orl. They shall be married to-morrow; and I will bid the duke to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes! By so much the more shall I to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall think my brother happy, in having what he wishes for. Ros. Why then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for Rosalind? Orl. I can live no longer by thinking. Ros. I will weary you then no longer with idle talking. Know of me then, (for now I speak to some purpose) that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit: I speak not this, that you should bear a good opinion of my knowledge, insomuch, I say, I know you are; neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in some little measure draw a belief from you, to do yourself good, and not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things: I have, since I was three years old, conversed with a magician, most profound in his art, and yet not damnable. If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries it out, when 4 clubs cannot part them.] It appears from many of our old dramas, that, in our author's time, it was a common custom, on the breaking out of a fray, to call out "Clubs—Clubs,” to part the combatants. So, in Titus Andronicus: "Clubs, clubs; these lovers will not keep the peace." The preceding words-"they are in the very wrath of love," show that our author had this in contemplation. Malone. So, in the First Part of K. Henry VI, when the Mayor of London is endeavouring to put a stop to the combat between the partisans of Glocester and Winchester, he says, .. "I'll call for clubs, if you will not away." And, in Henry VIII, the Porter says, "I missed the meteor once, and hit that woman, who cried out Clubs! when I might see from far some forty truncheoneers draw to her succour." M. Mason. |