Live here in heaven, and may look on her, n; O friar, the damned use that word in hell; A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd, 3 Validity is again employed to signify worth, value, in the first scene of King Lear. By courtship, courtesy, courtly behaviour is meant. See vol. iii. p. 136, note 32. As this is one of the words which have escaped the industry of Shakspeare's editors, it may be as well to elucidate its meaning fully. Bullokar defines' compliment to be ceremony, court-ship, fine behaviour.' See also Cotgrave in Curtisanie and Curialité; and Florio in Cortegianía. Would I might never excell a Dutch skipper in courtship, if I did not put distate into my carriage of purpose, I knew I should not please them.'-Sir Giles Goosecap, a Comedy. Again, in the same play: My lord, my want of courtship makes me fear I should be rude.' Whilst the young lord of Telamon, her husband, Ford's Fancies Chaste and Noble. See also Gifford's Massinger, vol. ii. p. 505, where the true meaning of the word has not escaped the acute and able editor. Fri. Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word. Rom. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment. To comfort thee, though thou art banished. Fri. O, then I see that madmen have no ears. Rom. How should they, when that wise men have no eyes? Fri. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate 5. Rom. Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel: Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love, Then might'st thou speak, then might'st thou tear thy hair, And fall upon the ground, as I do now, 4 So in the poem of Romeus and Juliet, the Friar says:— Virtue is always thrall to troubles and annoy, But wisdom in adversity finds cause of quiet joy.' See also Lyly's Euphues, 1580:- Thou sayest banishment is bitter to the freeborne. There be many meates which are sowre in the mouth and sharp in the maw; but if thou mingle them with sweet sawces, they yeeld both a pleasant taste and wholesome nourishment.-I speake this to this end, that though thy exile seem grievous to thee, yet guiding thyself with the rules of philosophy it shall be more tolerable.' 5 The same phrase, and with the same meaning, occurs in The Winter's Tale : can he speak? hear? Know man from man? dispute his own estate? i. e. is he able to talk over his own affairs, or the present state he is in? Fri. Arise; one knocks; good Romeo, hide thyself. [Knocking within. Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heart-sick groans, Mistlike, infold me from the search of eyes. [Knocking. Fri. Hark, how they knock!-Who's there?Romeo, arise; Thou wilt be taken :-Stay awhile: stand up; [Knocking. Run to my study:-By and by :-God's will! What wilfulness is this?-I come, I come. [Knocking. Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what's your will? Nurse. [Within.] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand; I come from Lady Juliet. Fri. Welcome then. Enter Nurse. Nurse. O holy friar, O tell me, holy friar, Where is my lady's lord, where's Romeo? Fri. There on the ground, with his own tears Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering:-- Rom. Nurse! Nurse. Ah sir! ah sir!-Well, death's the end of all. Rom. Spak'st thou of Juliet? how is it with her? Doth she not think me an old murderer, Now I have stain'd the childhood of our joy Where is she? and how doth she? and what says 6 Nurse. O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps ; And now falls on her bed; and then starts up, Rom. As if that name, Shot from the deadly level of a gun, Fri. me, Did murder her; as that name's cursed hand 6 The epithet concealed is to be understood, not of the person, but of the condition of the lady; so that the sense is, My lady, whose being so, together with our marriage which made her so, is concealed from the world.' 7 Shakspeare has here followed the poem :'Art thou, quoth he, a man? thy shape saith, so thou art, Thy crying and thy weeping eyes denote a woman's heart, For manly reason is quite from off thy mind outchased, And in her stead affections lewd, and fancies highly placed; So that I stood in doubt, this hour at the least, If thou a man or woman wert, or else a brutish beast.' And slay thy lady too that lives in thee, Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth? Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet In thee at once; which thou at once would'st lose. Fye, fye! thou sham'st thy shape, thy love, thy wit; Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all, And usest none in that true use indeed Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit. • Romeo has not here railed on his birth, &c. though in his interview with the Friar, as described in the poem, he is made to do so. Shakspeare copied the remonstrance of the Friar, without reviewing the former part of this scene. He has in other places fallen into a similar inaccuracy, by sometimes following and sometimes deserting his original. The lines from Why rail'st thou on thy birth, &c. to thy own defence, are not in the first copy, they are formed on a passage in the poem. 9 So in King Richard II. Act v. Sc. 3: 'And thy abundant goodness shall excuse And in Barnabe Riche's Farewell:- Knowing that you should otherwise have used me than you have, you should have digressed and swarved from your kind.' 10 To understand the force of this allusion, it should be remembered that the ancient English soldiers, using match locks, instead of locks with flints, as at present, were obliged to carry a lighted match hanging at their belts, very near to the wooden flask in which they carried their powder. The same allusion occurs in Humor's Ordinary, an old collection of English Epi grams: When she his flask and touch-box set on fire, |