Ber. Madam, I defire your holy wishes. father Laf. He cannot want the best, [Exit Countess. your thoughts, be servants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make inuch of her, Laf. Farewell, pretty lady : You must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt Bertram and Lafeu. countess; and if the living be not enemy to the grief, [i. e. strive WARBURTON 3 That thee may furnish, -] That may help thee with more and better qualifications. Johnson. 4 The best wishes, &c.] That is, may you be mistress of your wishes, and have power to bring them to effect. JOHNSON. Hel. Hel. Oh, were that all!-I think not on my father ; 3 And these great tears grace his remembrance more, Than those I shed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him; my imagination Carries no favour in it, but Bertram's. I am undone ; there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. It were all one, That I should love a bright particular star, And think to wed it, he is so above me : • In his bright radiance and collateral light Must I be comforted, not in his sphere. The ambition in my love thus plagues itself: The hind, that would be mated by the lion, Muft die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague, To see him every hour; to fit and draw His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, In our heart's table; heart, too capable Of every line and ? trick of his sweet favour, But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy Must sanctify his relicks. Who comes here? Enter Parolles. One that goes with him : I love him for his fake; And yet I know him a notorious liar, these great tears-] The tears which the king and countess shed for him. JOHNSON. In his bright radiance &c.] I cannot be united with him and move in the same sphere, but must be comforted at a distance by the radiance that shoots on all sides from him. Johnson. Milton, b. x: - from his radiant feat he rose “« Of high collateral glory." STEEVENS. ? -trick of his sweet favour,] So, in King John: “ he hath a trick of Cour de Lion's face.' Trick seems to be some peculiarity or feature. Johnson. Trick is an expresfion taken from drarving, and is fo explained in another place. The present instance explains itself: to fit and draw His arched brows, &c. and trick of his sweet favour. Frick, however, may mean peculiarity. STEEVENŞ. Think him a great way fool, solely á coward; Par. Save you, fair queen. Hel. Ay. You have some' stain of soldier in you; fet me ask you a question: Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him? Par. Keep him out. Hel. But he assails ; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us fome warlike resistance. Par. There is none; man, fitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up. Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers, and I 3 Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.] Cold for naked; as fuperfluous for over-cloathed. This makes the propriety of the antithefis. WARBURTON. 9 And you monarch.] Perhaps here is some allufion designed to Monarcho, a ridiculous fantastical character of the age of Shake fpeare. Concerning this person, see the notes on Love's Labour Loft, act IV. sc. i. STEEVENS. -stain of soldier-] Stain for colour. Parolles was in red, as appears from his being afterwards called red-tail'd humble-bee. WARBURTON. It does not appear from either of these expressions, that Parolles was entirely dreft in red. Shakespeare writes only fome stain of fole dier, meaning in one sense, that he had red breeches on, (which is fufficiently evident from calling him afterwards red-tailed humblebee,) and in another, that he was a disgrace to soldiery'. Stain is uted in an adverse sense by Shakespeare, in Troilus and Cressida : nor any man an attaint, but he carries fome stain of it.” STEEVENS. Stain rather for what we now say tincture, fome qualities, at least fuperficial, of a soldier. JOHNSON. blowers 66 blowers up !- Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men ? Par. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politick in the commonwealth of nature, to preserve virginity. * Loss of virginity is rational increase; and there was neyer virgin got, till virginity was first loft. That, you were made of, is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once loft, may be ten times found : by being ever kept, is ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion ; away with it. Hel. I will stand for’t a little, though therefore I die a virgin. Par. There's little can be said in't ; 'tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity, is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallible difobedience. 3 He, that hangs himself, is a virgin: virginity murders itself; and should be buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and ? Loss of virginity is rational increase ;-] I believe we should read, national. TYRWHITT. Rational increase may mean the regular increase by which rational beings are propagated. STEEVEN. 3 He, that hangs himself, is a virgin:] But why is he that hangs himself a virgin ? Surely, not for the reason that follows ; Virginity murders itself. For though every virgin be a suicide, yet every suicide is not a virgin. A word or two are dropt, which introduced a comparison in this place; and Shakespeare wrote it thus : as be, that hangs himself, fo is a virgin. And then it follows naturally, virginity murders itself. By this emendation, the Oxford editor was enabled to alter the text thus: He that hangs himself is like a virgin. And this is his usual way of becoming a critick at a cheap expence. WARBURTON. I believe most readers will spare both the emendations, which I do not think much worth a claim or a contest. The old reading is more spritely and equally jut. Johnson. fo 1 fo dies with feeding its own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited fin * in the canon. Keep it not ; you cannot chuse but lose by't: Out with't: within ten years it will make itself two , which is a goodlyincrease; and the principal itself not much the worse : Away with't. Hel. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking? Par. Let me see : Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the glofs with lying ; the longer kept, the less worth : off with't, while 'tis vendible : answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion; richly suited, but unsuitable just like the brooch and the tooth-pick, which? wear not how: Your date & is better in your pye and your porridge, than in your cheek: And your virginity, yourold virginity, * z-inhibited fizij i.e. forbidden. So, in Othello :) - a practiser inity is this Of arts inhibited and out of warrant." So the first folio. Thcobald reads prohibited. STEEVENS, within ten years it will make itself two, which is goodly increase ;-] I think < we should either read ; -within ten years it will make itself ten; or, within two years it will make itself two. Instead of two, Mr. Tollet would read twelve. STEEVENS, 6 - Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes.] Parolles, in answer to the question, borv one shall lose virginity to her own liking ? plays upon the word liking, and says, The must do ill, for virginity, to be fo lost, must like him that likes not virginity. Johnson. ? - which wear not now :-) Thus the old copy, and rightly. Shakespeare often uses the active for the paffive. The modern editors read, “ which we wear not now. TYRWHITT. -Your date is better - -) Here is a quibble on the word date, which means both age, and a kind of candied fruit much used in our author's time. So, in Romeo, and Juliet: “ They call for dates and quinces in the pastry." The fame quibble occurs in Troilus and Cressida: 66 and then to be bak’d with no date in the pye, for then the man's date is out.' STEEVENS. 5 8 |