Pol. Say, there be; Yet nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean: so, o'er that art, Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock; And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race; This is an art Which does mend nature,-change it rather: but Pol. Then make your garden rich in gillyflowers, And do not call them bastards. 8 serves, "There is an art which can produce flowers, with as great a variety of colours as nature herself." This art is pretended to be taught at the ends of some of the old books that treat of cookery, &c. but, being utterly impracticable, is not worth exemplification. Steevens. 8 in gillyflowers,] There is some further conceit relative to gill flowers than has yet been discovered. The old copy, (in both instances where this word occurs) reads-Gilly'vors, a term still used by low people in Sussex, to denote a harlot. In A Wonder, or a Woman never vex'd, 1632, is the following passage: A lover is behaving with freedom to his mistress as they are going into a garden, and after she has alluded to the quality of many herbs, he adds: "You have fair roses, have you not?" "Yes, sir, (says she) but no gilliflowers." Meaning, perhaps, that she would not be treated like a gill-flirt, i. e. wanton, a word often met with in the old plays, but written flirt-gill in Romeo and Juliet. I suppose gill-flirt to be derived, or rather corrupted, from gilly-flower or carnation, which, though beautiful in its appearance, is apt, in the gardener's phrase, to run from its colours, and change as often as a licentious female. Prior, in his Solomon, has taken notice of the same variability in this species of flowers: "the fond carnation loves to shoot "Two various colours from one parent root." In Lyte's Herbal, 1578, some sorts of gilliflowers are called small honesties, cuckoo gillofers, &c. And in A. W's Commendation of Gascoigne and his Posies, is the following remark on this species of flower: "Some thinke that gilliflowers do yield a gelous smell." See Gascoigne's Works, 1587. Steevens. The following line in The Paradise of Daintie Devises, 1578, may add some support to the first part of Mr. Steevens's note: "Some jolly youth the gilly-flower esteemeth for his joy." Malone. Per. I'll not put The dibble in earth to set one slip of them: Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun, Cam. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing. Per. Out, alas! You 'd be so lean, that blasts of January Would blow you through and through.-Now, my fair est friend, I would, I had some flowers o' the spring, that might 9-dibble-) An instrument used by gardeners to make holes in the earth for the reception of young plants. See it in Minshieu. Steevens. 1 The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun, And with him rises -] Hence, says Lupton, in his Sixth Book of Notable Things: "Some calles it, Sponsus Solis, the Spowse of the Sunne; because it sleepes and is awakened with him." 2 - O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall 66 - ut summa vestem laxavit ab ora, Steevens. "Collecti flores tunicis cecidere remissis." Steevens. The whole passage is thus translated by Golding, 1587: "While in this garden Proserpine was taking her pastime, "In gathering either violets blew, or lillies white as lime, "Dis spide her, lou'd her, caught hir up, and all at once well neere. "The ladie with a wailing voice afright did often call "And as she from the upper part hir garment would have rent, "By chance she let her lap slip downe, and out her flowers went." Ritson. That come before the swallow dares, and take 3 violets, dim, 3 But sweeter than the lids of Funo's eyes, I suspect that our author mistakes Juno for Pallas, who was the goddess of blue eyes. Sweeter than an eye-lid is an odd image: but perhaps he uses sweet in the general sense, for delightful. Johnson. It was formerly the fashion to kiss the eyes, as a mark of extraordinary tenderness. I have somewhere met with an account of the first reception one of our kings gave to his new queen, where he is said to have kissed her fayre eyes. So, in Chaucer's Troilus and Cresseide, v. 1358: "This Troilus full oft her eyen two "Gan for to kisse," &c. Thus also, in the sixteenth Odyssey, 15, Eumæus kisses both the eyes of Telemachus: “ Κυσσε δέ μιν κεφαλήν τε, και αμφω φάεα καλά, " The same line occurs in the following Book, v. 39, where Penelope expresses her fondness for her son. Again, in an ancient MS. play of Timon of Athens, in the possession of Mr. Strutt the engraver: "O Juno, be not angry with thy Jove, "But let me kisse thine eyes my sweete delight." p. 6, b. Another reason, however, why the eyes were kissed instead of the lips, may be found in a very scarce book, entitled A courtlie Controversy of Cupid's Cautels: Conteyning Fiue tragicall Histories, c. Translated out of French &c. by H. W. [Henry Wotton] 4to. 1578: "Oh howe wise were our forefathers to forbidde wyne so strictly unto their children, and much more to their wives, so that for drinking wine they deserved defame, and being taken with the maner, it was lawful to kisse their mouthes, whereas otherwise men kissed but their eyes, to showe that wine drinkers were apt to further offence.” The eyes of Juno were as remarkable as those of Pallas: 66 βοώπις πότνια Ηρη." Homer. But (as Mr. M. Mason observes) "we are not told that Pallas was the goddess of blue eye-lids; besides, as Shakspeare joins in the comparison, the breath of Cytherea with the eye-lids of Juno, it is evident that he does not allude to the colour, but to the fragrance of violets." Steevens. So, in Marston's Insatiate Countess, 1613: 66 That eye was Juno's, "Those lips were hers that won the golden ball, Spenser, as well as our author, has attributed beauty to the eye lid: "Upon her eye-lids many graces sate, "Under the shadow of her even brows." Fairy Queen, B. II, c. iii, st. 25. Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, Flo. What? like a corse? Per. No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on; Not like a corse: or if, not to be buried, 4 But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers: Again, in his 40th Sonnet: 4 "When on each eye-lid sweetly do appear "An hundred graces, as in shade they sit." Malone. pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold &c.] So, in Pimlyco, or Runne Red-Cap, 1609: "The pretty Dazie (eye of day) "The Prime-Rose which doth first display "Her youthful colours, and first dies: "Beauty and Death are enemies." Again, in Milton's Lycidas: 66 - the rathe primrose that forsaken dies." Mr. Warton, in a note on my last quotation, asks "But why does the Primrose die unmarried? Not because it blooms and decays before the appearance of other flowers; as in a state of solitude, and without society. Shakspeare's reason, why it dies unmarried, is unintelligible, or rather is such as I do not wish to understand. The true reason is, because it grows in the shade, uncherished or unseen by the sun, who was supposed to be in love with some sorts of flowers." Perhaps, however, the true explanation of this passage may be deduced from a line originally subjoined by Milton to that already quoted from Lycidas: "Bring the rathe primrose that unwedded dies, Steevens. 5 bold oxlips,] Gold is the reading of Sir T. Hanmer; the former editions have bold. Johnson. The old reading is certainly the true one. The oxlip has not a weak flexible stalk like the cowslip, but erects itself boldly in the face of the sun. Wallis, in his History of Northumberland, says, that the great oxlip grows a foot and a half high. It should be confessed, however, that the colour of the oxlip is taken notice of by other writers. So, in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584: " - yellow oxlips bright as burnish'd gold." Steevens. Methinks, I play as I have seen them do In Whitsun' pastorals: sure, this robe of mine Does change my disposition. Flo. What you do, Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet, I'd have you do it ever: when you sing, I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms; To sing them too: When you do dance, I wish you So singular in each particular, Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds, That all your acts are queens. Per. O Doricles, Your praises are too large: but that your youth, You woo'd me the false way. 8 But quick, and in mine arms.] So, Marston's Insatiate Countess, 1613: "Isab. Heigh ho, you 'll bury me, I see. "Rob. In the swan's down, and tomb thee in my arms." Again, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 1609: "O come, be buried "A second time within these arms." Malone. - Each your doing, &c.] That is, your manner in each act crowns the act. Johnson. 8 - but that your youth, And the true blood which fairly peeps through it,] So, Marlowe, in his Hero and Leander : "Through whose white skin, softer than soundest sleep, "With damaske eyes the ruby blood doth peep." The part of the poem that was written by Marlowe, was published, I believe, in 1593, but certainly before 1598, a Second Part or Continuation of it by H. Petowe having been printed in that year. It was entered at Stationers' Hall in September 1593, and is often quoted in a collection of verses entitled England's Parnassus, printed in 1600. From that collection it appears, that Marlowe wrote only the first two Sestiads, and about a hundred lines of the third, and that the remainder was written by Chapman. Malone. |