Thou tell'ft me, there is murder in mine eye: That eyes, that are the frail'ft and softeft things, Now counterfeit to fwoon; why now fall down; Now fhow the wound mine eye hath made in thee: Some fear of it; lean but upon a rush,3 The cicatrice and capable impreffure" -129 Thy palm fome moment keeps: but now mine eyes, Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not; Nor, I am fure, there is no force in eyes it to the end. Lives therefore does not fignify is maintained, but the two verbs taken together mean, who is all his life converfant with bloody drops. MUSGRAVE. 'Tis pretty, fure, and very probable,] Sure for furely. DOUCE. 8 lean but upon a rush,] But, which is not in the old copy, was added for the fake of the metre, by the editor of the second folio. MALONE. 9 The cicatrice and capable impreffure-] Cicatrice is here not very properly used; it is the fcar of a wound. Capable impreffure, hollow mark. JOHNSON. Capable, I believe, means here-perceptible. Our author often ufes the word for intelligent; (See a note on Hamlet,— "His form and caufe conjoin'd, preaching to stones, hence, with his ufual licence, for intelligible, and then for percep You meet in fome fresh cheek the power of fancy,' Then fhall you know the wounds invisible That love's keen arrows make. PHE. But, till that time, Come not thou near me: and, when that time comes, Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not; As, till that time, I fhall not pity thee. Ros. And why, I pray you? [Advancing] Who might be your mother,' That you infult, exult, and all at once, Over the wretched? What though you have more beauty,' 2 power of fancy,] Fancy is here used for love, as before in The Midsummer Night's Dream. JOHNSON. 3 Who might be your mother,] It is common for the poets to exprefs cruelty by faying, of those who commit it, that they were born of rocks, or fuckled by tigreffes. JOHNSON. 4 That you infult, exult, and all at once,] If the speaker intended to accufe the perfon fpoken to only for infulting and exulting; then, inftead of all at once, it ought to have been, both But by examining the crime of the perfon accufed, we fhall discover that the line is to be read thus : at once. That you infult, exult, and rail at once. For these three things Phebe was guilty of. But the Oxford editor improves it, and, for rail at once, reads domineer. WARBURTON. I fee no need of emendation. The fpeaker may mean thus: Who might be your mother, that you infult, exult, and that too all in a breath? Such is perhaps the meaning of all at once. STEEVENS. What though you have more beauty,] The old copy reads: What though you have no beauty. STEEVENS. Though all the printed copies agree in this reading, it is very accurately obferved to me by an ingenious unknown correfpondent, who figns himself L. H. (and to whom I can only here make my acknow ledgement) that the negative ought to be left out. THEOBALD. That no is a mifprint, appears clearly from the paffage in Lodge's Rofalynde, which Shakspeare has here imitated: "Sometimes have I feen high difdaine turned to hot defires.-Because thou art beautiful, be not fo coy; as there is nothing more faire, fo there is nothing more fading."-Mr. Theobald corrected the error, by expunging the word no; in which he was copied by the fubfequent editors; (As, by my faith, I fee no more in you Than without candle may go dark to bed,) but omiffion (as I have often obferved) is of all the modes of emendation the moft exceptionable. No was, I believe, a mifprint for me, a word often used by our author and his contemporaries for mare. So, in a former fcene in this play: "I pray you, mar no mo of my verfes with reading them ill-favour'dly," Again, in Much ado about Nothing: "Sing no more ditties, fing no mo." Again, in The Tempeft: "Mo widows of this bufinefs making-" Many other inftances might be added. The word is found in almost every book of that age. As no is here printed instead of mo, fo in Romeo and Juliet, Act V, we find in the folio, 1623, Mo matter, for Na matter. This correction being lefs violent than Mr. Theobald's, I have inferted it in the text. What though I should allow you had more beauty than he, (fays Rofalind,) though by my faith," &c. (for fuch is the force of As in the next line) "muft you therefore treat him with difdain?" In Antony and Cleopatra we meet with a paffage conftructed nearly in the fame manner: 66 Say, this becomes him, (As his compofure must be rare indeed "Whom these things cannot blemish,) yet," &c. Again, in Love's Labour's Loft : "But fay that he or we, (as neither have,) "Receiv'd that fum," &c, Again, more appofitely, in Camden's Remaines, p. 190, edit. 1605 "I force not of fuch fooleries; but if I have any fkill in foothfaying (as in footh I have none) it doth prognofticate that I fhall change copie from a duke to a king," MALONE, of As mo (unless rhyme demands it) is but an indolent abbreviation more, I have adopted Mr. Malone's conjecture, without his manner of fpelling the word in queftion. If mo were right, how happens it that more fhould occur twice afterwards in the fame fpeech? STEEVENS. Of nature's fale-work:] Thofe works that nature makes up carelessly and without exactnefs, The allufion is to the practice of mechanicks, whose work bespoke is more elaborate than that which is made up for chance-cuftomers, or to fell in quantities to retailers, which is called sale-work, WARBURTON, I think, the means to tangle my eyes too:- 8 Ros. He's fallen in love with her foulness, and fhe'll fall in love with my anger: If it be fo, as fast as fhe answers thee with frowning looks, I'll fauce her with bitter words.-Why look you fo upon me? PHE. For no ill will I bear you. Ros. I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falfer than vows made in wine: Befides, I like you not: If you will know my house, "That can entame my spirits to your worship.] So, in Much ado about Nothing: "Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand." STEEVENS. 8 Foul is moft foul, being foul to be a fcoffer.] The fenfe is, The ugly feem moft ugly, when, though ugly, they are fcoffers. JOHNSON. 9 with her foulness,] So, Sir Tho. Hanmer; the other editions-your foulnefs. JOHNSON. 'Tis at the tuft of olives, here hard by: Will [Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN. PHE. Dead fhepherd! now I find thy faw of might; Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first fight? 3 If SIL. Sweet Phebe, РНЕ. Ha! what fay'ft thou, Silvius? SIL. Sweet Phebe, pity me. PHE. Why, I am forry for thee, gentle Silvius. SIL. Wherever forrow is, relief would be: you do forrow at my grief in love, By giving love, your forrow and my grief 2 though all the world could fee, None could be fo abus'd in fight as he.] Though all mankind could look on you, none could be fo deceived as to think you beautiful but he. JOHNSON. 3 Dead fhepherd! now I find thy faw of might; Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first fight?] The second of thefe lines is from Marlowe's Hero and Leander, 1637, fig. B b. where it stands thus: "Where both deliberate, the love is flight: "Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first fight ?" This line is likewife quoted in Belvidere, or the Garden of the Mules, 1610, p. 29, and in England's Parnassus, printed in 1600, p. 261. STEEVENS. This poem of Marlowe's was fo popular, (as appears from many of the contemporary writers,) that a quotation from it must have been known at once, at leaft by the more enlightened part of the audience. Our author has again alluded to it in the Two Gentlemen of Verona.-The "dead fhepherd," Marlowe, was killed in a brothel in 1593. Two editions of Hero and Leander, I believe, had been published before the year 1600; it being entered in the Stationers' Books, Sept. 28, 1593, and again, in 1597. MALONE. |