Boyet. So you grant pasture for me. Mar. [Offering to kiss her. Not so, gentle beast; My lips are no common, though several 11 they be. Boyet. Belonging to whom? Mar. To my fortunes and me. Prin. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles, agree: The civil war of wits were much better used By the heart's still rhetoric, disclosed with eyes12, Prin. With what? Boyet. With that which we lovers entitle, affected. Prin. Your reason? Boyet. Why, all his behaviours did make their retire To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire: His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed, Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed: His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see 13, Did stumble with haste in his eye-sight to be; All senses to that sense did make their repair, 11 A quibble is here intended upon the word several, which besides its ordinary signification of separate, distinct, signified also an enclosed pasture as opposed to an open field or common. Bacon and others used it in this sense. Dr. James has given a different explanation of the term, which may be its local signification, but the above is the general sense in old writers. One example may suffice. There was a lord that was leane of visage but immediately after his marriage he grew fat. One said to him "Your Lordship doth contrary to other married men; for they first wax lean, and you wax fat." Sir Walter Raleigh stood by, and said "Why there is no beast, that if you take him from the common, and put him into the several, but he will wax fat." -Bacon's Apophthegms, 1625, p. 296. 12 So in Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond, 1594: 'Sweet silent rhetoric of persuading eyes Dumb eloquence.' 13 Although the expression in the text is extremely odd, yet the sense appears to be, that his tongue envied the quickness of his eyes and strove to be as rapid in its utterance, as they in their perception. To feel only looking on fairest of fair; Methought, all his senses were lock'd in his eye, > As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy; Who, tend'ring their own worth, from where they were glass'd, Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd. An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss. I only have made a mouth of his eye, By adding a tongue which I know will not lie. Ros. Thou art an old love-monger, and speak'st skilfully. Mar. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him. Ros. Then was Venus like her mother; for her yose father is but grim. Boyet. Do you hear, my mad wenches? Mar. Boyet. No. What then, do you see? You are too hard for me. [Exeunt. Ros. Ay, our way to be gone. Boyet. ま ACT III. SCENE I, Another part of the same. Enter ARMADO and Moтн. Arm. Warble, child, make passionate my sense of hearing. 14 In Shakspeare's time notes, quotations, &c, were usually printed in the exterior margin of books. Vol. II. 14 Moth. Concolinel 1. [Singing. Arm. Sweet air!-Go, tenderness of years; take this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately 2 hither; I must employ him in a letter to my love. Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl 3? Arm. How mean'st thou? brawling in French? Moth. No, my complete master: but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eye-lids; sigh a note, and sing a note; sometime through the throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love; sometime through the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling love; with your hat penthouselike o'er the shop of your eyes; with your arms crossed on your thinbelly-doublet, like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away: These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice wenches that would be betrayed without these; and make them men of note, (do you note, men 6?) that most are affected to these. Arm. How hast thou purchased this experience? Moth. By my penny of observation. 1 A song is apparently lost here. In old comedies the songs are frequently omitted. On this occasion the stage direction is generally Here they sing or Cantant. 2 i. e, hastily. So in Lear: 'Advise the Duke where you are going to a most festinate preparation." 3 A kind of dance; spelt bransle by some authors; being the French name for the same dance. There is the figure of it set down in Marston's Malcontent. It appears that several persons united hands in a circle and gave each other continuar shakes, the steps changing with the tune. It usually consisted of three pas, and a pied-joint to the time of four strokes of the bow; which being repeated, was termed a double brawl. Canary was the name of a sprightly dance, sometimes accom. panied by the castanets, i. e. accomplishments. 6 One of the modern editors, with great plausibility, proposes to read "do you note me ?“ The allusion is probably to the old popular pamphlet 'A Pennyworth of Wit.' Arm. But 0,-but 0, Moth the hobby-horse is forgot. Arm. Callest thou my love, hobby-horse??b Moth. No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love? Arm. Almost I had. Moth. Negligent student! learn her by heart. Moth. And out of heart, master: all those three I will prove.dem Arm. What wilt thou prove? Moth. A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon the instant: By heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with her; and out of heart you love her, being out of her; that at heart that you cannot enjoy her. Arm. I all these three. 12. am al •Moth. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all, me Arm. Fetch hither the swain; he must t carry n a letter, Moth. A message, well sympathised; a horse to be embassador for an ass! Arm. Ha, ha! what sayest thou? Moth. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very slow-gaited; But I go. Arm. The way is but short; away, Moth, As swift as lead, sir. Arm. Thy meaning, pretty ingenious? Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow? 8 The Hobby-horse was a personage belonging to the ancient Morris dance, when complete. It was the figure of a horse fastened round the waist of a man, his own legs going through the body of the horse, and enabling him to walk, but concealed by a long footcloth, while false legs appeared where those of the man should be at the sides of the horse, Latterly the Hobby-horse was frequently omitted, which appears to have occasioned a popular ballad, in which was this line, or burden. It had become almost a proverbial expression, and occurs again in Hamlet, Act iij. Sc. 2. Arm. I say, lead is slow..03nd He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he: Moth. Thump then, and I flee. llage [Exit. Arm. A most acute juvénal: voluble and free of grace!! face: By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy! My diw ogol Re-enter MOTH and COSTARD. Moth. A wonder, master, here's a Costard 10 broken in a shin. Arm. m. Some enigma, some riddle;-come, l'envoy 11;-begin. thy Cost. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy: no salve' in the mail 12, sir: O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain ; no l'envoy, no l'envoy, no salve, sir, but a plantain! Arm. By virtue, thou enfortest laughter; thy spleen; of my lungs to O, pardon me, 'take' salve for silly thought, myculous simili Press Dothesp the incons for a salve 20a, ma my l'envoy, and the word, l'envoy, Moth. Do the wise think them l'envoy a salve? 9 Quick, ready. other? is not (10 feadhead; a name adopted from an apple shaped like a man's head. It must have been a common sort of apple, as it gave a name to the dealers in apples, who were called costarmongers. 11 An old French term for concluding verses, which served either to convey the moral, or to address the poem to some person. 12 A mail or male was a budget, wallet, or portmanteau. Cos tard, mistaking enigma, riddle, and l'envoy for names of salves, objects to the application of any salve in the budget, and cries out for a plantain leaf. There is a quibble upon salve and salve, a word with which it was not unusual to conclude epistles, &c, and which therefore was a kind of l'envoy. |