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.

Is he won yet?

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

fore?

I pr'ythee, tell me: Cram us with praise, and make us
As fat as tame things: One good deed, dying tongueless,
Slaughters a thousand, waiting upon that.

Our praises are our wages: You may ride us,
With one soft kiss, a thousand furlongs, ere
But to the goal;7.
My last good deed was, to entreat his stay;
What was my first? it has an elder sister,

With spur we heat an acre.

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

the period between childhood and the present time temptations have been born to you, and as in that interval you have become acquainted with us, the inference or insinuation would be strong against us, as your corrupters, and "by that kind of chase," your Queen and I would be devils. Malone.

7 With spur we heat an acre. But to the goal;] Thus this passage has been always printed; whence it appears, that the editors did not take the poet's conceit. They imagined that, But to the goal, meant, but to come to the purpose; but the sense is different, and plain enough when the line is pointed thus:

ere

Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death,
Ere I could make thee open thy white hand,

And clap 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.

[Giving her hand to POL. Too hot, too hot: [Aside.

Leon.
To mingle friendship far, is mingling bloods.
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, fertile bosom,1

8 And clap thyself my love;] She opened her hand, to clap the palm of it into his, as people do when they confirm a bargain. Hence the phrase—to clap up a bargain, i. e. make one with no other ceremony than the junction of hands. So, in Ram-alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611:

66 Speak, widow, is 't a match?
"Shall we clap it up?"

Again, in A Trick to catch the Old One, 1618:
"Come, clap hands, a match."

Again, in King Henry V:

66

and so clap hands, and a bargain." Steevens.

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;2 O, that is entertainment
My bosom likes not, nor my brows.-Mamillius,
Art thou my boy?

Mam.

Leon.

Ay, my good lord.

I'fecks? 3

Why, that's my bawcock. What, hast smutch'd thy

nose?

They say, it's a copy out of mine. Come, captain,
We must be neat; 5 not neat, but cleanly, captain:
And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf,

Are all call'd, neat.-Still virginalling."

[Observing POL. and HER.

earth, which yields a spontaneous produce. In the same strain is the address of Timon of Athens:

"Teems and feeds all!" Steevens.

2 The mort o' the deer;] A lesson upon the horn at the death of the deer. Theobald:

So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608: "- He that bloweth the mort before the death of the buck, may very well miss of his fees." Again, in the oldest copy of Chevy Chace:

"The blewe a mort uppone the bent." Steevens.

3 I'fecks?] A supposed corruption of-in faith. Our present vulgar pronounce it-fegs. Steevens.

4 Why, that's my bawcock.] Perhaps from beau and coq. It is still said in vulgar language that such a one is a jolly cock, a cock of the game. The word has already occurred in Twelfth Night, and is one of the titles by which Pistol speaks of King Henry the Fifth. Steevens.

5 We must be neat;] Leontes, seeing his son's nose smutched, cries, we must be neat; then recollecting that neat is the ancient term for horned cattle, he says, not neat, but cleanly. Johnson. So, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 3:

"His large provision there of flesh, of fowl, of neat." Steevens. 6 Still virginalling -] Still playing with her fingers, as a girl playing on the virginals. Johnson.

A virginal, as I am informed, is a very small kind of spinnet. Queen Elizabeth's virginal-book is yet in being, and many of the lessons in it have proved so difficult, as to baffle our most expert players on the harpsichord.

Upon his palm?-How now, you wanton calf? my calf?

Art thou
Mam.

Yes, if you will, my lord.

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

I have,7

So, in Decker's Satiromastix, or the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet, 1602:

"When we have husbands, we play upon them like virginal jacks, they must rise and fall to our humours, else they 'll never get any good strains of musick out of one of us." Again, in Ram-alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611:

"Where be these rascals that skip up and down
"Like virginal jacks?" Steevens.

A virginal was strung like a spinnet, and shaped like a piano forte. Malone.

7 Thou want'st a rough pash, and the shoots that I have,] Pash, (says Sir T. Hanmer) is kiss. Paz. Spanish, i. e. thou want'st a mouth made rough by a beard, to kiss with. Shoots are branches, i. e. horns. Leontes is alluding to the ensigns of cuckoldom. A madbrained boy, is, however, called a mad pash in Cheshire. Steevens. Thou want'st a rough pash, and the shoots that I have, in connexion with the context, signifies-to make thee a calf thou must have the tuft on thy forehead and the young horns that shoot up in it, as I have. Leontes asks the Prince:

How now, you wanton calf?

Art thou my calf?

Mam. Yes, if you will, my lord.

Leon. Thou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have,
To be full like me.

To pash signifies to push or dash against, and frequently occurs in old writers. Thus, Drayton:

"They either poles their heads together pasht."

Again, in How to choose a good Wife from a bad, 1602, 4to: learn pash and knock, and beat and mall,

66

"Cleave pates and caputs."

When in Cheshire a pash is used for a mad-brained boy, it is designed to characterize him from the wantonness of a calf that blunders on, and runs his head against any thing. Henley, In Troilus and Cressida, the verb pash also occurs:

66

waving his beam

"Upon the pashed corses of the kings
"Epistrophus and Cedius."

And again, (as Mr. Henley on another occasion observes) in The Virgin Martyr :

when the battering ram

"Were fetching his career backward, to pash

"Me with his horns to pieces." Steevens.

I have lately learned that pash in Scotland signifies a head. The old reading therefore may stand. Many words, that are

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-died blacks, as wind, as waters; false
As dice are to be wish'd, by one that fixes
No bourn1 'twixt his and mine; yet were it true
To say this boy were like me.-Come, sir page,
Look on me with your welkin eye:2 Sweet villain!
Most dear'st! my collop!3-Can thy dam?-may 't be?

now used only in that country, were perhaps once common to the whole island of Great Britain, or at least to the northern part of England. The meaning, therefore, of the present passage, I suppose, is this: You tell me, (says Leontes to his son) that you are like me; that you are my calf. I am the horned bull: thou wantest the rough head and the horns of that animal, completely to resemble your father, Malone.

8 To be full like me:] Full is here, as in other places, used by our author, adverbially;—to be entirely like me. Malone.

9 As o'er-died blacks,] Sir T. Hanmer understands blacks died too much, and therefore rotten. Johnson.

It is common with tradesmen, to die their faded or damaged stuffs, black. O'er died blacks may mean those which have received a die over their former colour.

There is a passage in The old Law of Massinger, which might lead us to offer another interpretation:

66 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."

It seems that blacks was the common term for mourning. So, in A mad World my Masters, 1608:

66 in so many blacks

"I'll have the church hung round —.”

Black, however, will receive no other hue without discovering itself through it: "Lanarum nigræ nullum colorem bibunt.” Plin. Nat. Hist. Lib. VIII. Steevens. The following passage in a book which our author had certainly read, inclines me to believe that the last is the true interpretation. "Truly (quoth Camillo) my wool was blacke, and therefore it could take no other colour." Lyly's Euphues and his England, 4to. 1580. Malone.

1 No bourn -] Bourn is boundary. So, in Hamlet:

2

66

from whose bourn

"No traveller returns."

Steevens.

welkin-eye:] Blue-eye; an eye of the same colour with the welkin, or sky. Johnson.

3