Duke. But died thy sister of her love, my boy? Vio. I am all the daughters of my father's house, And all the brothers too;'—and yet I know not:— Sir, shall I to this lady? "His face still combating with tears and smiles, "The badges of his grief and patience." Here we have the same idea as that in the text; and perhaps Shakspeare never considered whether it could be exhibited in marble. I have expressed a doubt whether the word grief was employed in the singular number, in the sense of grievance. I have lately observed that our author has himself used it in that sense in King Henry IV, P. II: 66 an inch of any ground "To build a grief on." Dr. Percy's interpretation, therefore, may be the true one. Malone, I am unwilling to suppose a monumental image of Patience was ever confronted by an emblematical figure of Grief, on purpose that one might sit and smile at the other; because such a representation might be considered as a satire on human insensibility. When Patience smiles it is to express a Christian triumph over the common cause of sorrow, a cause, of which the sarcophagus, near her station, ought very sufficiently to remind her. True Patience, when it is ber cue to smile over cala mity, knows her office without a prompter; knows that stubborn lamentation displays a will most incorrect to heaven; and therefore appears content with one of its severest dispensations, the loss of a relation or a friend. Ancient tombs, indeed, (if we must construe grief into grievance, and Shakspeare has certainly used the former word for the latter) frequently exhibit cumbent figures of the deceased, and over these an image of Patience without impropriety, might express a smile of complacence: "Her meek hands folded on her modest breast, "With calm submission lift the adoring eye "Even to the storm that wrecks her." After all, however, I believe the Homeric elucidation of the passage to be the true one. Tyrant poetry often imposes such complicated tasks as painting and sculpture must fail to execute. I cannot help adding, that, to smile at grief, is as justifiable an expression as to rejoice at prosperity, or repine at ill fortune. It is not necessary we should suppose the good or bad event, in either instance, is an object visible, except to the eye of imagin ation. Steevens. She sat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief.] So, in Middleton's Witch, Act iv, sc. iii : "She does not love me now, but painefully "Like one that 's forc'd to smile upon a grief." Douce. I am all the daughters of my father's house, 1 And all the brothers too;] This was the most artful answer that Duke. Ay, that's the theme. To her in haste; give her this jewel; say My love can give no place, bide no denay.1 [Exeunt. SCENE V. Olivia's Garden. Enter Sir TOBY BELCH, Sir ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK, and FABIAN. Sir To. Come thy ways, signior Fabian. Fab. Nay, I'll come; if I loose a scruple of this sport, let me be boiled to death with melancholy. Sir To. Would'st thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally sheep-biter come by some notable shame? Fab. I would exult, man: you know, he brought me out of favour with my lady, about a bear-baiting, here. Sir To. To anger him, we 'll have the bear again; and we will fool him black and blue:-Shall we not, sir Andrew? Sir And. An we do not, it is pity of our lives. Enter MARIA. Sir To. Here comes the little villain:-How now, my nettle of India?2 could be given. The question was of such a nature, that to have declined the appearance of a direct answer, must have raised suspicion. This has the appearance of a direct answer, that the sister died of her love; she (who passed for a man) saying, she was all the daughters of her father's house. Warburton. Such another equivoque occurs in Lyly's Galatkea, 1592: my father had but one daughter, and therefore I could have no sister." 1 Steevens. bide no denay.] Denay, is denial. To denay is an antiquated verb sometimes used by Holinshed. So, p. 620: “. - the state of a cardinal which was naied and denaied him." Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. II, ch. 10: 66 thus did say "The thing, friend Battus, you demand, not gladly I denay." "Steevens. 2 my nettle of India?] The poet must here mean a zoophite, called the Urtica Marina, abounding in the Indian seas. Mar. Get ye all three into the box-tree: Malvolio's coming down this walk; he has been yonder i' the sun, Quæ tacta totius corporis pruritum quendam excitat, unde nomen urticæ est sortita." Wolfgang. Frangii Hist. Animal, 1665, p. 620. "Urtica marine omnes pruritum quendam movent, et acrimonia suâ venerem extinctam et sopitam excitant Johnstoni Hist. Nat. de Exang. Aquat. p. 56. Perhaps the same plant is alluded to by Greene in his Card of Fancy, 1608: "the flower of India, pleasant to be seen, but whoso smelleth to it, feeleth present smart." Again, in his Mamillia, 1593: "Consider, the herb of India is of pleasant smell, but whoso cometh to it, feeleth present smart." Again, in P. Holland's translation of the 9th Book of Pliny's Natural History: "As for those nettles, there be of them that in the night raunge to and fro, and likewise change their colour. Leaves they carry of a fleshy substance, and of flesh they feed. Their quali ties is to raise an itching smart." Maria had certainly excited a congenial sensation in Sir Toby. The folio, 1623, readsmettle of India, which may mean, my girl of gold, my precious girl. The change, however, which I have not disturbed, was made by the editor of the folio, 1632, who, in many instances, appears to have regulated his text from more authentic copies of our author's plays than were in the possession of their first collective publishers. Steevens. my metal of India?] So, in K. Henry IV, P. I: "Lads, boys, hearts of gold." &c. Again, ibidem: To-day the French "All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods, So Lyly, in his Euphues and his England, 1580: "I saw that Again, in Wily Beguil'd, 1606: "Come, my heart of gold, let's have a dance at the making up of this match."-The person there addressed, as in Twelfth Night, is a woman. The old copy has mettle. The two words are very frequently confounded in the early editions of our author's plays. The editor of the second folio arbitrarily changed the word to nettle, which all the subsequent editors have adopted. Malone. Nettle of India, which Steevens has ingeniously explained, certainly better corresponds with Sir Toby's description of Maria-bere comes the little villain. The nettle of India is the plant that produces what is called cow-itch, a substance only used for the purpose of tormenting, by its itching quality. M. Mason. practising behaviour to his own shadow, this half hour: observe him, for the love of mockery; for, I know, this letter will make a contemplative ideot of him. Close, in the name of jesting! [The men hide themselves] Lie thou there; [throws down a letter] for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling.3 [Exit MAR. Enter MALVOLIO. Mal. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me, she did affect me: and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that follows her. What should I think on 't? Sir To. Here's an over-weening rogue ! Fab. O peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkeycock of him: how he jets under his advanced plumes! Sir And. 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue :Sir To. Peace, I say. Mal. To be count Malvolio; Sir. To. Ah, rogue! Sir And. Pistol him, pistol him. Sir. To. Peace, peace! Mal. There is example for 't; the lady of the strachys married the yeoman of the wardrobe. 3 bere comes the trout that must be caught with tickling.] Cogan, in his Haven of Health, 1595, will prove an able commentator on this passage; "This fish of nature loveth flatterie: for, being in the water, it will suffer itselfe to be rubbed and clawed, and so to be taken. Whose example I would wish no maides to follow, lest they repent afterclaps." Steevens: bow he jets-] To jet is to strut, to agitate the body by a proud motion. So, in Arden of Feversham, 1592: "Is now become the steward of the house, "And bravely jets it in a silken gown." Again, in Bussy D'Ambois, 1607: 5 "To jet in others' plumes so haughtily." Steevens. the lady of the strachy-] We should read Trachy, i. e. Thrace; for so the old English writers called it. Mande ville says: "As Trachye and Macedoigne, of the which Alisandre was kyng." It was common to use the article the before names of places; and this was no improper instance, where the scene was in Illyria. Warburton. What we should read is hard to say. Here is an allusion to some old story which I have not yet discovered. Johnson. Sir And. Fie on him, Jezebel! Straccio (see Torriano's and Altieri's Dictionaries) signifies clouts and tatters; and Torriano, in his Grammar, at the end of his Dictionary, says that straccio was pronounced stratchi. So that it is probable that Shakspeare's meaning was this, that the lady of the queen's wardrobe had married a yeoman of the king's, who was vastly inferior to her. Smith. Such is Mr. Smith's note; but it does not appear that strachy was ever an English word, nor will the meaning given it by the Italians be of any use on the present occasion. Perhaps a letter has been misplaced, and we ought to readstarchy; i. e. the room in which linen underwent the once most complicated operation of starching. I do not know that such a word exists; and yet it would not be unanalogically formed from the substantive starch. In Harsnet's Declaration, 1603, we meet with " a yeoman of the sprucery," i. e. wardrobe; and in the Northumberland Household-Book, nursery is spelt nercy. Starchy, therefore, for starchery, may be admitted. In Romeo and Juliet, the place where paste was made is called the pastry. The lady who had the care of the linen may be signiscantly opposed to the yeoman, i. e. an inferior officer of the wardrobe. While the five different coloured starches were worn, such a term might have been current. In the year 1564, a Dutch woman professed to teach this art to our fair country-women. usual price (says Stowe) was four or five pounds to teach them how to starch, and twenty shillings how to seeth starch," The alteration was suggested to me by a typographical error in The World toss'd at Tennis, no date, by Middleton and Rowley; where straches is printed for starches. I cannot fairly be accused of having dealt much in conjectural emendation, and therefore feel the less reluctance to hazard a guess on this desperate passage. Steevens. "Her The place in which candles were kept, was formerly called the chandry; und in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, a gingerbread woman is called lady of the basket.—The great objection to this emendation is, that from the starchy to the wardrobe is not what Shakspeare calls a very heavy declension." In the old copy the word is printed in italicks as the name of a placeStrachy. 66 The yeoman of the wardrobe is not an arbitrary term, but was the proper designation of the wardrobe-keeper, in Shakspeare's time. See Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: "Vestiario, a wardrobe-keeper, or a yeoman of a wardrobe." The story which our poet had in view is perhaps alluded to by Lyly in Euphues and his England, 1580: assuring myself there was a certain season when women are to be won; in the which moments they have neither will to deny, nor wit to mistrust. Such a time I have read a young gentleman found to obtain the love of the Dutchess of Milaine: such a time I have |