Unwillingly to school: And then, the lover; Made to his mistress' eye-brow: Then, a soldier; Even in the cannon's mouth: And then, the justice; With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, 1 Sighing like furnace,] So, in Cymbeline: “ — – he furnaceth the thick sighs from him Malone. دو Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,] So, in Cynthia's Revels, by Ben Jonson : "Your soldiers face-the grace of this face consisteth much in a beard." Steevens. Beards of different cut were appropriated in our author's time to different characters and professions. The soldier had one fashion, the judge another, the bishop different from both, &c. See a note on King Henry V, Act III, sc. vi: "And what a beard of the general's cut," &c. Malone. 3 sudden and quick-] Lest it should be supposed that these epithets are synonymous, it is necessary to be observed that one of the ancient senses of sudden, is violent. Thus, in Macbeth: I grant him sudden, "Malicious," &c. Steevens. 4 Full of wise saws and modern instances,] It is remarkable that Shakspeare uses modern in the double sense that the Greeks used nawos, both for recens and absurdus. Warburton. I am in doubt whether modern is in this place used for absurd: the meaning seems to be, that the justice is full of old sayings and late examples. Johnson. Modern means trite, common. So, in King John: "And scorns a modern invocation." Again, in this play, Act IV, sc. i: " modern censure." Steevens. betray themselves to Again, in another of our author's plays: ". to make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless." 5 The sixth age shifts Malone. Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon;] There is a greater beauty than appears at first sight in this image. He is here 6 With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side; Is second childishness, and mere oblivion; Duke S. Welcome: Set down your venerable burden," And let him feed. Orl. I thank you most for him. Adam. So had you need; I scarce can speak to thank you for myself. Duke S. Welcome, fall to: I will not trouble you comparing human life to a stage play of seven acts, which is no unusual division before our author's time. The sixth he calls the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, alluding to that general character in the Italian comedy, called Il Pantalóne; who is a thin emaciated old man in slippers; and well designed, in that epithet, because Pantalóne is the only character that acts in slippers. Warburton. In The Travels of the Three English Brothers, a comedy, 1606, an Italian Harlequin is introduced, who offers to perform a play at a lord's house, in which, among other characters, he mentions "a jealous coxcomb, and an old Pantaloune." But this is seven years later than the date of the play before us: nor do I know from whence our author could learn the circumstance mentioned by Dr. Warburton, that "Pantalóne is the only character in the Italian comedy that acts in slippers." In Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598, the word is not found. In The Taming of the Shrew, one of the characters, if I remember right, is called "an old Pantaloon," but there is no farther description of him. Malone. 6 the lean and slipper'd pantaloon ; With spectacles on nose,] So, in The Plotte of the deade Man's Fortune: "Enter the panteloun and pescode with spectakles.” Steevens. 7 Set down your venerable burden,] Is it not likely that Shakspeare had in his mind this line of the Metamorphoses? XIII, 125: 66 Patremque "Fert humeris, venerabile onus, Cythereius heros." Johnson. A. Golding, p. 169, b. edit. 1587, translates it thus: 66 upon his backe "His aged father and his gods, an honorable packe." Steevens. AMIENS sings. SONG. I. Blow, blow, thou winter wind, As man's ingratitude;8 Thy tooth is not so keen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! unto the green holly: 8 Thou art not so unkind &c.] That is, thy action is not so contrary to thy kind, or to human nature, as the ingratitude of man. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis, 1593: "O had thy mother borne so bad a mind, "She had not brought forth thee, but dy'd unkind.” 9 Thy Tooth is not so keen, Malone. Because thou art not seen,] This song is designed to suit the Duke's exiled condition, who had been ruined by ungrateful flatterers. Now the winter wind, the song says, is to be preferred to man's ingratitude. But why? Because it is not seen. But this was not only an aggravation of the injury, as it was done in secret, not seen, but was the very circumstance that made the keenness of the ingratitude of his faithless courtiers. Without doubt, Shakspeare wrote the line thus: Because thou art not sheen, i. e. smiling, shining, like an ungrateful court-servant, who flatters while he wounds, which was a very good reason for giving the winter wind the preference. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Spangled star-light sheen." And several other places. Chaucer uses it in this sense: "Your blissful sister Lucina the shene." And Fairfax: "The sacred angel took his target shene, "And by the Christian champion stood unseen." The Oxford editor, who had this emendation communicated to him, takes occasion from hence to alter the whole line thus: Thou causest not that teen. But, in his rage of correction, he forgot to leave the reason, which is now wanting, Why the winter wind was to be preferred to man's ingratitude. Warburton. I am afraid that no reader is satisfied with Dr. Warburton's 2 II. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Though thou the waters warp,1 emendation, however vigorously enforced; and it is indeed enforced with more art than truth. Sheen, i. e. smiling, shining. That sheen signifies shining, is easily proved, but when or where did it signify smiling? yet smiling gives the sense necessary in this place. Sir T. Hanmer's change is less uncouth, but too remote from the present text. For my part, I question whether the original line is not lost, and this substituted merely to fill up the measure and the rhyme. Yet even out of this line, by strong agitation may sense be elicited, and sense not unsuitable to the occasion. Thou winter wind, says Amiens, thy rudeness gives the less pain, as thou art not seen, as thou art an enemy that dost not brave us with thy presence, and whose unkindness is therefore not aggravated by insult. Johnson. Though the old text may be tortured into a meaning, perhaps it would be as well to read: Because the heart's not seen. y harts, according to the ancient mode of writing, was easily corrupted Farmer. So, in the Sonnet introduced into Love's Labour's Lost: . "All unseen 'gan passage find." Steevens. Again, in Measure for Measure: "To be imprison'd in the viewless winds.” Malone. 1 Though thou the waters warp,] The surface of waters, so long as they remain unfrozen, is apparently a perfect plane; 'whereas, when they are, this surface deviates from its exact flatness, or warps. This is remarkable in small ponds, the surface of which, when frozen, forms a regular concave: the ice on the sides rising higher than that in the middle. Kenrick. To warp was, probably, in Shakspeare's time, a colloquial word, which conveyed no distant allusion to any thing else, physical or mechanical. To warp is to turn, and to turn is to change: when milk is changed by curdling, we now say it is turned: when water is changed or turned by frost, Shakspeare says, it is curdled. To be warp'd is only to be changed from its natural state. Johnson. Dr. Johnson is certainly right. So, in Cynthia's Revels, of Ben Jonson: "I know not, he 's grown out of his garb a-late, he 's warp'd.-And so, methinks too, he is much converted." Thus Duke S. If that you were the good sir Rowland's son,— As you have whisper'd faithfully, you were; And as mine eye doth his effigies witness the mole is called the mould-warp, because it changes the appearance of the surface of the earth. Act I: Again, in The Winter's Tale, "My favour here begins to warp." Dr. Farmer supposes warp'd to mean the same as curdled, and adds, that a similar idea occurs in Timon: 66 - the icicle Steevens. "That curdled by the frost," &c. Among a collection of Saxon adages in Hickes's Thesaurus, Vol. I, p. 221, the succeeding appears: pinter sceal gepeorpan peder, winter shall warp water. So that Shakspeare's expression was anciently proverbial. It should be remarked, that among the numerous examples in Manning's excellent edition of Lye's Dictionary, there is no instance of peoɲpan or gepeoppan, implying to freeze, bend, turn, or curdle, though it is a verb of very extensive signification. Probably this word still retains a similar sense in the Northern part of the island, for in a Scottish parody on Dr. Percy's ellegant ballad, beginning, "O Nancy, wilt thou go with me," I find the verse" Nor shrink before the wintry wind," is altered to "Nor shrink before the warping wind." H. White. The meaning is this: Though the very waters, by thy agency, are forced, against the law of their nature, to bend from their stated level, yet thy sting occasions less anguish to man, than the ingratitude of those he befriended. Henley. Wood is said to warp when its surface, from being level, becomes bent and uneven; from warpan, Saxon, to cast. So, in this play, Act III, sc. iii: "- then one of you will prove a shrunk pannel, and, like green timber, warp, warp." I doubt whether the poet here alludes to any operation of frost. The meaning may be only, Thou bitter wintry sky, though thou curlest the waters, thy sting, &c. Thou in the line before us refers only tobitter sky. The influence of the winter's sky or season may, with sufficient propriety, be said to warp the surface of the ocean, by agitation of its waves alone. That this passage refers to the turbulence of the sky, and the consequent agitation of the ocean, and not to the operation of frost, may be collected from our author's having in King John described ice as uncommonly smooth: "To throw a perfume on the violet, "To smooth the ice," &c. Malone. 2 As friend remember'd not.] Remember'd for remembering. So afterwards, Act III, sc. last: "And now I am remember'd -." i. e. and now that I bethink me, &c. Malone. |