I love thee not a jar o'the clock behind
What lady she her lord.-You'll stay?

Pol.

Her. Nay, but you will?

Pol.

Her. Verily!

No, madam.

I may not, verily.

You put me off with limber vows: But I,

Though you would seek t'unsphere the stars with

oaths,

Should yet say, Sir, no going. Verily,
You shall not go; a lady's verily is
As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet?
Force me to keep you as a prisoner,

Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees,

When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?

My prisoner? or my guest? by your dread verily, One of them you shall be.

Pol.

Your guest then, madam :

To be your prisoner, should import offending;
Which is for me less easy to commit,

Than you to punish.

We were,

You were pretty lordings then.

Pol. fair queen, Two lads that thought there was no more behind, But such a day to-morrow as to-day,

And to be boy eternal.

in the same sense by the Earl of Surrey, Sir John Hayward, and Gascoigne.

• Thus the old copies. Mr. Collier, on the authority of a MS. note in Lord Ellesmere's folio, reads, "what lady should her lord." But there is a pleasing quaintness in the old reading :-She vows she loves him as dearly as any lady whatever loves her husband.

Her. Was not my lord the verier wag o'the two? Pol. We were as twinn'd lambs, that did frisk

i' the sun,

And bleat the one at th' other: what we chang'd,
Was innocence for innocence; we knew not
The doctrine of ill doing, nor dream'd

That any did: Had we pursued that life,
And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd
With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven
Boldly, Not Guilty; the imposition clear'd",

Hereditary ours.

Her.

By this we gather,

You have tripp'd since.

Pol.

O! my most sacred lady,

Temptations have since then been born to us: for
In those unfledg'd days was my wife a girl ;
Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes
Of my young play-fellow.

Her.

Of this make no conclusion;

Grace to boot9!

lest you say,

Your queen and I are devils: Yet, go on;
The offences we have made you do, we'll answer;
If you first sinn'd with us, and that with us
You did continue fault, and that you slipp'd not
With any but with us.

Leon.

Her. He'll stay, my

Leon.

Is he won yet?

lord.

At my request, he would not.

7 The imposition clear'd, hereditary ours, i. e. setting aside original sin, bating the imposition from the offence of our first parents, we might have boldly protested our innocence.

8 To show that to us was to be read as one syllable it is printed to's in the old copies.

9 Grace to boot. An exclamation equivalent to give us grace. In King Richard III. we have:

"Saint George to boot."

The phrase has been well explained by the author of the Diversions of Purley.

Her. What? have I twice said well? when was't

before?

I pr'ythee, tell me : Cram us with praise, and make us 10 As fat as tame things. One good deed, dying tongue

less,

Slaughters a thousand, waiting upon that.
Our praises are our wages: You may ride us,
With one soft kiss, a thousand furlongs, ere

With spur we heat an acre. But to the goal;—
My last good deed was, to entreat his stay;
What was my first? it has an elder sister,

Or I mistake you : O, 'would, her name were Grace!
But once before I spoke to the purpose: When?
Nay, let me have't; I long.

Leon. Why, that was when Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death, Ere I could make thee open thy white hand,

11

And clap11 thyself my love; then didst thou utter, I am yours for ever.

Her.

It is grace, indeed.―

Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice : The one for ever earn'd a royal husband ;

The other, for some while a friend.

Leon.

[Giving her hand to POLIXENES. Too hot, too hot! [Aside.

To mingle friendship far, is mingling bloods.

10 The old copies print cram's and make's for cram us, and make us, indicating that they were to be read as one syllable on account of the metre.

11 And clap thyself my love. At entering into any contract, or plighting of troth, this clapping of hands together set the seal. So in the old play of Ram Alley: "Come, clap hands, a match." The custom is not yet disused in common life.

I have tremor cordis on me :-my heart dances;
But not for joy,-not joy.-This entertainment
May a free face put on; derive a liberty

From heartiness, from bounty's fertile bosom 12,
And well become the agent: it may, I grant:
But to be paddling palms, and pinching fingers,
As now they are: and making practis'd smiles,
As in a looking-glass;—and then to sigh, as 'twere
The mort o' the deer 13; O! that is entertainment!
My bosom likes not, nor my brows.-Mamillius,
Art thou my boy?

Mam.

Leon.

Ay, my good lord.

I'fecks?

Why, that's my bawcock 14. What! hast smutch'd thy nose?—

They say, it is a copy out of mine. Come, captain,
We must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain :
And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf!
Are all call'd, neat.-Still virginalling 15

[Observing POLIXENES and HERMIONE. Upon his palm ?-How now, you wanton calf! Art thou my calf?

Mam.

Yes, if you will, my lord.

12 The old copy has, "from bounty, fertile bosom." I think with Malone that a letter has been omitted.

13 The mort o' the deer, i. e. the death of the deer. The mort was also certain notes played on the horn at the death of the deer. and requiring a deep-drawn breath.

14 Bawcock. A burlesque word of endearment supposed to be derived from beau-coq, or boy-cock. It occurs again in Twelfth Night, and in King Henry V. and in both places is coupled with chuck or chick. It is said that bra'cock is still used in Scotland.

15 Still virginalling, i. e. still playing with her fingers as a girl playing on the virginals. Virginals were stringed instruments played with keys like a spinnet, which they resemble in all respects but in shape, spinnets being nearly triangular, and virginals of an oblong square shape like a small piano-forte. Spineto and espinette are rendered in the Dictionaries by a paire of virginalles; this was the common term, as the organ was sometimes called a pair of organs.

Leon. Thou want'st a rough pash, and the shoots

that I have16,

To be full like me: yet, they say, we are
Almost as like as eggs; women say so,

That will say any thing.

But were they false

As o'er-dyed blacks 17, as wind, as waters; false
As dice are to be wish'd, by one that fixes

No bourn 'twixt his and mine; yet were it true
To say this boy were like me.-Come, sir page,
Look on me with your welkin 18 eye. Sweet villain !
Most dear'st my collop 19! Can thy dam?-may't
be?

Affection! thy intention stabs the centre 20:
Thou dost make possible, things not so held;

16 A rough pash, i. e. thou wantest a rough head, and the budding horns that I have. A pash in some places denoting a young bull calf whose horns are springing; a mad pash, a mad brained boy.

17 False as o'er-dyed blacks, i. e. old faded stuffs of other colours dyed black. Steevens thought that false does not relate to the re-dyed stuffs, but to the falsehoods of those who wore black to simulate mourning for the dead. He cites the following passage from "The Old Law," by Massinger, Middleton, and Rowley, in support of this view of the passage:

"Blacks, are often such dissembling mourners,

There is no credit given to't, it has lost

All reputation by false sons and widows,
I would not hear of blacks."

Tooke

18 Welkin is blue, i. e. the colour of the welkin or sky. says, a rolling eye, from the Saxon wealcan, volvere; but the sense in which Shakespeare always uses the word is against him.

19 Most dear'st! my collop. In King Henry VI. Part I. we have :"God knows, thou art a collop of my flesh."

It is given as a proverbial phrase in Heywood's Epigrams, 1566 :"For I have heard saie it is a deere collup

That is cut out of th' owne flesh."

20 Affection here means sympathy. Intention is intenseness. The centre is the solid globe conceived as the centre of the universe. (See Act ii. Sc. 1, note 11.) The allusion is to the powers ascribed to sympathy between the human system and all nature, however remote or occult. Hence Leontes, like Othello, finds in his very agitation a proof that it corresponds not with a fancy but a reality. And that beyond commission, i. e. it is very credent that