Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom, sure.

DEM. Villain, what hast thou done?

AAR.

Canft not undo.

CHI.

Done! that which thou

Thou haft undone 3 our mother.

AAR. Villain, I have done thy mother.4

DEM. And therein, hellish dog, thou hast un

done.

Woe to her chance, and damn'd her loathed choice! Accurs'd the offspring of fo foul a fiend!

CHI. It shall not live.

AAR.

It shall not die.5

NUR. Aaron, it must: the mother wills it so. AAR. What, must it, nurse? then let no man, but I, Do execution on my flesh and blood.

Out, out, you whore!] The edition 1600 reads,-Zounds, ye whore. ToDD.

'Done! that which thou - Done! which is wanting in the old copies, was very properly added, for the fake of measure, by Mr. Capell. STEEVENS.

2 Done! that which thou

Canft not undo.] The edition 1600 reads:
Dem. Villaine what hast thou done?

Aar. That which thou canst not undoe. TODD. :

3 Thou hast undone -] Edition 1600 reads:-thou hast undone her. TODD.

* Villain, I have done thy mother.] To do is here used obscenely. So, in Taylor the Water Poet's character of a Profii

tute:

"She's facile fieri; (quickly wonne,)

Or, conft'ring truly, easy to be done." COLLINS.

See Vol. VI. p. 203, n. 5. REED.

$ It shall not die.] We may suppose that the measure here was originally perfect, and stood thus:

I say, it shall not die. STEEVENS.

DEM. I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point,

Nurse, give it me; my fword shall foon despatch it. AAR. Sooner this sword shall plow thy bowels

up.

[Takes the Child from the Nurse, and draws. Stay, murderous villains! will you kill your bro

ther?

Now, by the burning tapers of the sky,
That shone so brightly when this boy was got,
He dies upon my scimitar's sharp point,
That touches this my first-born fon and heir!
I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus,
With all his threat'ning band of Typhon's brood,
Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war,
Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands.
What, what; ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys! -
Ye white-lim'd walls!" ye alehouse painted signs!
Coal-black is better than another hue,

6 I'll broach the tadpole - A broach is a spit. I'll spit the tadpole. JOHNSON.

So, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630:

"I'll broach thee on my steel."

Again, in Greene's Pleasant Discovery of the Cofenage of Colliers, 1592:" - with that she caught a spit in her hand, and fwore if he offered to stirre, she should therewith broach him."

COLLINS.

Ye white-lim'd walls!] The old copies have-white limb'd. The word intended, I think, was-white limn'd. Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors read-white-lim'd. MALONE.

I read-lim'd, because I never found the term-limn'd, employed to defcribe white-washing, and because in A MidfummerNight's Dream, we have

" This man, with lime, and rough-caft, doth present

"Wall."

A layer-on of white-wash is not a limner. Limning compre.hends the idea of delineation. STEEVENS.

:

In that it scorns to bear another hue :8
For all the water in the ocean

Can never turn a fwan's black legs to white,
Although she lave them hourly in the flood.
Tell the emperess from me, I am of age
To keep mine own; excuse it how the can.

DEM. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus?
AAR. My mistress is my mistress; this, myself;
The vigour, and the picture of my youth:
This, before all the world, do I prefer;
This, maugre all the world, will I keep safe,
Or fome of you shall fmoke for it in Rome.

DEM. By this our mother is for ever sham'd.
CHI. Rome will despise her for this foul escape.9
NUR. The emperor, in his rage, will doom her

death.

I

CHI. I blush to think upon this ignomy.
AAR. Why, there's the privilege your beauty

bears:

Fye, treacherous hue! that will betray with blush

ing

The close enacts and counsels of the heart !2

* In that it scorns to bear another hue:] Thus both the quarto and the folio. Some modern editions had seems instead of fcorns, which was restored by Dr. Johnfon. MALONE.

Scorns should undoubtedly be inferted in the text.

TYRWHITT.

9-for this foul escape.] This foul illegitimate child.

So, in King John:

I

2

"No Scape of nature." STEEVENS.

MALONE.

-ignomy.] i. e. ignominy. See Vol. XI. p. 426, n. g.

MALONE.

The clofe enacts and counsels of the heart!] So, in Othello: "They are clofe denotements working from the heart,-."

MALONE.

Here's a young lad fram'd of another leer :3
Look, how the black slave smiles upon the father;
As who should fay, Old lad, I am thine own.
He is your brother, lords; sensibly fed
Of that felf-blood that first gave life to you;
And, from that womb, where you imprison'd were,
He is enfranchised and come to light:
Nay, he's your brother by the furer fide,
Although my feal be stamped in his face.

Nur. Aaron, what shall I say unto the empress ?
DEM. Advise thee, Aaron, what is to be done,
And we will all subscribe to thy advice;
Save thou the child, fo we may all be safe.

AAR. Then fit we down, and let us all confult. My fon and I will have the wind of you: Keep there: Now talk at pleasure of your fafety. [They fit on the Ground. DEM. How many women faw this child of his ? AAR. Why, fo, brave lords; When we all join in

league,

I am a lamb: but if you brave the Moor,

:

3-another leer:] Leer is complexion, or hue. So, in As 'you like it: "--a Rosalind of a better leer than you." See Mr. Tollet's note on Act. IV. sc. i. In the notes on the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. Vol. IV. p. 320, lere is supposed to mean skin. So, in Isumbras, MS. Cott. Cal. 11. fol. 129:

"His lady is white as wales bone,

"Here lere brygte to se upon,

So faire as blosme on tre."

Again, in the ancient metrical romance of the Sowdon of Babyloyne, MS:

"Tho fpake Roulande with hevy cheere

"Woordes lamentable,

"When he saugh the ladies so whyte of lere

"Faile brede on theire table." STEEVENS.

- that womb] Edition, 1600-your womb. TODD.

The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,
The ocean swells not fo as Aaron storms.-
But, say again, how many faw the child?

NUR. Cornelia the midwife, and myself, And no one else, but the deliver'd empress. AAR. The emperess, the midwife, and yourself: Two may keep counsel, when the third's away :5 Go to the empress; tell her, this I faid :

[Stabbing her.

Weke, weke!-so cries a pig, prepar'd to the

spit.

DEM. What mean'st thou, Aaron ? Wherefore
didst thou this?

AAR. O, lord, fir, 'tis a deed of policy:
Shall she live to betray this guilt of ours?
A long-tongu'd babbling goffip? no, lords, no.
And now be it known to you my full intent.
Not far, one Muliteus lives, my countryman,
His wife but yesternight was brought to bed;
His child is like to her, fair as you are:
Go pack with him, and give the mother gold, -

5 Two may keep counsel, when the third's away :) This proverb is introduced likewise in Romeo and Juliet, Act II.

6

STEEVENS.

-one Muliteus lives,] The word lives, which is wanting in the old copies, was supplied by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.

Muliteus-) This line being too long by a foot, Muliteus, no Moorish name, (or indeed any name at all,) and the verb -lives wanting to the sense in the old copy, I suspect the defignation of Aaron's friend to be a corruption, and that our author

wrote:

Not far, one Muley lives, my countryman. Muley lives was easily changed by a blundering transcriber, or printer, into-Muliteus. STEEVENS.

7 Go pack with him,] Pack here seems to have the meaning VOL. XXI.

H