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Methinks, your maw, like mine, should be your clock," And strike you home without a messenger.

Ant. S. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of

season;

Reserve them till a merrier hour than this:

Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?

Dro. E. To me, sir? why, you gave no gold to me. Ant. S. Come on, sir knave, have done your foolish

ness,

And tell me, how thou hast dispos'd thy charge.

Dro. E. My charge was but to fetch you from the

mart

Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner;
My mistress, and her sister, stay for you.

Ant. S. Now, as I am a christian, answer me,
In what safe place you have bestow'd my money;
Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours,1
That stands on tricks when I am undispos'd:
Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?
Dro. E. I have some marks of yours upon my pate,
Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,
But not a thousand marks between you both.-
If I should pay your worship those again,
Perchance, you will not bear them patiently.

Ant. S. Thy mistress' marks! what mistress, slave, hast thou?

Dro. E. Your worship's wife, my mistress at the Phœnix;

She that doth fast, till you come home to dinner,

So, in Every Woman in her Humour, 1609:

"Host. Out of my doors, knave, thou enterest not my doors; I have no chalk in my house; my posts shall not be guarded with a little sing-song." Malone.

9 Methinks, your maw, like mine, should be your clock,] The old copy reads-your cook. Mr. Pope made the change. Malone. So, Plautus:

66 — me puero uterus erat solarium."

See Aul. Gell. L. III, ch. iii. Steevens.

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that merry sconce of yours,] Sconce is head. So, in Ham why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce ?"

let, Act V: "

Again, in Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611:

66

I say no more,

"But 'tis within this sconce to go beyond them." Steevens.

VOL. VI.

Ff

And prays, that you will hie you home to dinner.
Ant. S. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face,
Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.

Dro. E. What mean you, sir? for God's sake, hold

your hands;

Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.

[Exit DRO. E. Ant. S. Upon my life, by some device or other, The villain is o'er-raught of all my money. They say, this town is full of cozenage;3 As, nimble jugglers, that deceive the eye, Dark-working sorcerers, that change the mind, Soul-killing witches, that deform the body;"

2 · o'er-raught —] That is, over-reached. Johnson. So, in Hamlet:

66

- certain players

"We o'er-raught on the way."

Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. VI, c. iii:

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Having by chance a close advantage view'd, "He over-raught him," &c. Steevens.

3 They say, this town is full of cozenage;] This was the character the ancients give of it.

Hence 'E

λPapμaxa was proverbial amongst them. Thus Menander uses it, and 'EQσia paula, in the same sense. Warburton.

4 As nimble jugglers, that deceive the eye,

Dark-working sorcerers, that change the mind,

Soul-killing witches, that deform the body;] Those, who attentively consider these three lines, must confess, that the poet intended the epithet given to each of these miscreants, should declare the power by which they perform their feats, and which would therefore be a just characteristick of each of them. Thus, by nimble jugglers, we are taught, that they perform their tricks by slight of hand: and by soul-killing witches, we are informed, the mischief they do is by the assistance of the devil, to whom they have given their souls: but then, by dark-working sorcerers, we are not instructed in the means by which they perform their ends. Besides, this epithet agrees as well to witches as to them; and therefore certainly our author could not design this in their characteristick. We should read:

Drug-working sorcerers, that change the mind,

and we know, by the history of ancient and modern superstition, that these kind of jugglers always pretended to work changes of the mind by these applications. Warburton.

The learned commentator has endeavoured with much earnestness to recommend his alteration; but, if I may judge of other apprehensions by my own, without great success. This inter

Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such like liberties of sin :5
If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.
I'll to the Centaur, to go seek this slave;
I greatly fear, my money is not safe.

[Exit.

pretation of soul-killing is forced and harsh. Sir T. Hanmer reads soul-selling, agreeable enough to the common opinion, but without such improvement as may justify the change. Perhaps the epithets have only been misplaced, and the lines should be read thus:

Soul-killing sorcerers, that change the mind, Dark-working witches, that deform the body; This change seems to remove all difficulties.

By soul-killing I understand destroying the rational faculties by such means as make men fancy themselves beasts. Johnson. Dark-working sorcerers, may only mean sorcerers who carry on their operations in the dark. Thus, says Bolingbroke, in The Second Part of King Henry V1:

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wizards know their times:

"Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night," &c. Witches themselves, as well as those who employed them, were supposed to forfeit their souls by making use of a forbidden agency. In that sense they may be said to destroy the souls of others as well as their own. Hence, Sidney, in his Astrophel

and Stella:

"No witchcraft is so evill, as which man's minde destroyeth." The same compound epithet occurs in Christopher Middleton's Legend of Humphrey Duke of Glocester, 1600:

"They charge her, that she did maintaine and feede

"Soul-killing witches, and convers'd with devils."

The hint for this enumeration of cheats, &c. Shakspeare might have received from the old translation of the Menæchmi, 1595: "For this assure yourselfe, this towne Epidamnum is a place of outrageous expences, exceeding in all ryot and lasciviousnesse; and (I heare) as full of ribaulds, parasites, drunkards, catchpoles, cony-catchers, and sycophants, as it can hold: then for curtizans," &c. Steevens.

5 liberties of sin:] Sir T. Hanmer reads-libertines, which, as the author has been enumerating not acts but persons, seems right. Johnson.

By liberties of sin, I believe, Shakspeare means licensed offenders, such as mountebanks, fortune-tellers, &c. who cheat with impunity.

Thus, says Ascham, "I was once in Italie myself; but I thank God my abode there was but nine daies; and yet I sawe in that little tyme in one citie (Venice) more libertie to sinne, than ever I yet heard tell of in London in nine yeare." Steevens.

ACT II.....SCENE I.

A publick Place.

Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA.

Adr. Neither my husband, nor the slave return'd,
That in such haste I sent to seek his master!
Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.

Luc. Perhaps, some merchant hath invited him,
And from the mart he 's somewhere gone to dinner.
Good sister, let us dine, and never fret:

A man is master of his liberty:

Time is their master; and, when they see time,
They'll go, or come: If so, be patient, sister.

Adr. Why should their liberty than ours be more?
Luc. Because their business still lies out o' door.
Adr. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill.6
Luc. O, know, he is the bridle of your will.
Adr. There's none, but asses, will be bridled so.
Luc. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe."

6 ill.] This word, which the rhyme seems to countenance, was furnished by the editor of the second folio. The first has— thus. Malone.

7 Adr. There's none, but asses, will be bridled so.

Luc. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.] Should it not rather be leash'd, i. e. coupled like a headstrong hound?

The high opinion I must necessarily entertain of the learned lady's judgment, who furnished this observation, has taught me to be diffident of my own, which I am now to offer.

The meaning of this passage may be, that those who refuse the bridle must bear the lash, and that woe is the punishment of headstrong liberty. It may be observed, however, that the seamen still use lash in the same sense as leash; as does Greene, in his Mamillia, 1593: "Thou didst counsel me to beware of love, and I was before in the lash." Again, in George Whetstone's Castle of Delight, 1576: "Yet both in lashe at length this Cressid leaves." Lace was the old English word for a cord, from which verbs have been derived very differently modelled by the chances of pronunciation. So, in Promos and Cassandra, 1578:

"To thee Cassandra which dost hold my freedom in a lace.” When the mariner, however, lashes his guns, the sportsman leashes his dogs, the female laces her clothes, they all perform one act of fastening with a lace or cord. Of the same original is the word windlass, or more properly windlace, an engine, by which a lace or cord is wound upon a barrel.

8

There's nothing, situate under heaven's eye,
But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky:
The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,
Are their males' subject, and at their controls:
Men, more divine, the masters of all these,
Lords of the wide world, and wild watry seas,
Indued with intellectual sense and souls,
Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,
Are masters to their females, and their lords:
Then let your will attend on their accords.

Adr. This servitude makes you to keep unwed.
Luc. Not this, but troubles of the marriage bed.
Adr. But, were you wedded, you would bear some

sway.

Luc. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey.

Adr. How if your husband start some other where?" Luc. Till he come home again, I would forbear.

To lace likewise signified to bestow correction with a cord, or rope's end. So, in the Second Part of Decker's Honest Whore, 1630:

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"Gets here hard hands, or lac'd correction."

Again, in The Two Angry Women of Abingdon, 1599: "So, now my

back has room to reach; I do not love to be laced in, when I go to lace a rascal." Steevens.

I agree with the learned Lady who read-leash'd with woe.

M. Mason. 8 Men, the masters &c.] The old copy has Man,-the master &c. and in the next line-Lord. Corrected by Sir T. Hanmer.

Malone.

9 — start some other where?] I cannot but think, that our author wrote:

start some other hare?

So, in Much Ado about Nothing, Cupid is said to be a good harefinder. Johnson.

I suspect that where has here the power of a noun. So, in King Lear:

"Thou losest here, a better where to find.”

Again, in Tho. Drant's translation of Horace's Satires, 1567: 66 they ranged in eatche where,

"No spousailes knowne." &c.

The sense is, How, if your husband fly off in pursuit of some other woman? The expression is used again, scene iii:

his eye doth homage otherwhere."

Again, in Romeo and Juliet, Act I:

"This is not Romeo, he 's some otherwhere."

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