Yet, since love's argument was first on foot, Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it From what it purpos'd; since, to wail friends lost As to rejoice at friends but newly found. Prin. I understand you not: my griefs are dull3. Biron. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief; And by these badges understand the king. For your fair sakes have we neglected time, Play'd foul play with our oaths: your beauty, ladies, To those that make us both,-fair ladies, you: - my griefs are DULL.] In the old copies it is " my griefs are double:" the compositor or the scribe misheard “dull” double, and made nonsense of the line. This excellent correction is in MS. in the corr. fo. 1632. * As love is full of unbefitting STRANGENESS;] There can be as little hesitation about this emendation of "strangeness" for strains. Mr. Singer is mistaken when he says that the corr. fo. 1632 reads strayings for strains. In the next line but two it certainly alters "straying" to "strange," but that alteration seems also indisputable. Still lower we might read "suggested us to make them," to the improvement of the line, but without warrant. - in itself so BASE,] Biron meant to conclude his speech with four rhyming lines, but he has been defeated by a corruption which crept into the old text, viz. a sin for "so base." The jingle leads to the detection of the error, pointed out in the corr. fo. 1632, which in this part of the comedy has been of singular use in restoring the language of the poet. In the next speech, it shows Sir T. Hanmer to have been right in reading "in our respects" for "our respects" of the 4to, 1598, and "are our respects" of the folio, 1623. Prin. We have receiv'd your letters full of love; Have we not been; and therefore met your loves In their own fashion, like a merriment. Dum. Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest. Long. So did our looks. Ros. We did not quote them so. King. Now, at the latest minute of the hour, Grant us your loves. Prin. A time, methinks, too short Change not your offer made in heat of blood; But that it bear this trial, and last love; Then, at the expiration of the year, Come challenge me, challenge me by these deserts', I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut For the remembrance of my father's death. King. If this, or more than this, I would deny, 6 AS BOMBAST, and as lining to the time:] i. e. To fill up the time, as bombast was formerly used to fill up and stuff out dress. challenge ME by these deserts,] "Me" might possibly be omitted. The sudden hand of death close up mine eye. Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast. Biron. And what to me, my love? and what to me? A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest, Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me? Dum. O! shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife? Mar. Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron, 8 - your sins are RANK:] "Your sins are rack'd," is the reading of the old editions, and it may be strained to a meaning; but it is more probable that rackt was misprinted for "rank." In "Hamlet,” A. iii. sc. 3, we have, "O! my offence is rank." This and the four following lines are struck out in the corr. fo. 1632, but we have not been able to make up our minds to the omission, although it is not unlikely that the author himself left them out here, and applied them, with some enlargement, afterwards. They may have formed part of the first draught of the comedy, and are therefore worth preservation. - for THY love.] So the 4to: the folio reads “for my love.” 10 Which you on all estates will EXECUTE,] Exercise in the corr. fo. 1632; but still, as the old printed text affords not only a clear sense, but one entirely in accordance with what precedes and follows, we do not disturb it. VOL. II. N To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain, You shall this twelvemonth term, from day to day, To enforce the pained impotent to smile. Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be; it is impossible: Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Right joyful of your reformation. Biron. A twelvemonth? well, befal what will befal, I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital. Prin. Ay, sweet, my lord; and so I take my leave. [To the KING. King. No, madam; we will bring you on your way. Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old play; Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy Might well have made our sport a comedy. King. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day, And then 'twill end. 1 Biron. That's too long for a play. Enter ARMADO. Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me, Prin. Was not that Hector? - continue THEM,] In all ancient and modern editions, "them" is misprinted then the indisputable emendation is that of the corr. fo. 1632. In the preceding line it reads dire" for dear; and the epithet is so much more applicable to "groans," that we adopt it, bearing in mind that in short-hand (which was perhaps used in the original text of the play) the same letters spelt the two different words. This is a source of frequent confusion. Dum. The worthy knight of Troy. Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a votary: I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three years. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? it should have followed in the end of our show. King. Call them forth quickly; we will do so. Arm. Holla! approach. Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD, and others. This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring; the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin. SONG. Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue, Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear! II. When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he; Cuckoo, Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear! Unpleasing to a married ear. III. Winter. When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, 2 And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,] The rhymes of the first four lines of the other stanzas are alternate; but in the old copies, in the first stanza, they are mistakenly arranged as couplets. Theobald made the necessary change. |