But get thee gone; I shall be there before thee. : BALTH. Madam, I go with all convenient fpeed. [Exil. POR. Come on, Neriffa; I have work in hand, That you yet know not of: we'll fee our husbands Before they think of us. NER. Shall they fee us? POR. They fhall, Neriffa; but in fuch a habit, That they fhall think we are accomplished With what we lack. I'll hold thee any wager, When we are both accouter'd like young men, I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two, And wear my dagger with the braver grace; And fpeak, between the change of man and boy, With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps Into a manly ftride; and speak of frays, Like a fine bragging youth: and tell quaint lies, How honourable ladies fought my love, Which I denying, they fell fick and died; I could not do with all; +-then I'll repent, And with, for all that, that I had not kill'd them: And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell, That men fhall fwear, I have discontinued school Above a twelvemonth :-I have within my mind A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks, Which I will practise. NER. Why, fhall we turn to men? POR. Fie! what a queftion's that, If thou wert near a lewd interpreter? But come, I'll tell thee all my whole device 3 accouter'd-] So the earliest quarto, and the folio. The other quarto-apparel'd. MALONE. 4-do with all;] For the fenfe of the word do, in this place, See a note on Measure for Measure, Vol. IV. P. 193. COLLINS.. The old copy reads-withall, Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. When I am in my coach, which stays for us SCENE V. The fame. A Garden. Enter LAUNCELOT and JESSICA. LAUN. Yes, truly:-for, look you, the fins of the father are to be laid upon the children; therefore, I promise you, I fear you.' I was always plain with you, and fo now I fpeak my agitation of the matter: Therefore be of good cheer; for, truly, I think, you are damn'd. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good; and that is but a kind of bastard hope neither. JES. And what hope is that, I pray thee? LAUN. Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you not, that you are not the Jew's daughter. Jɛs. That were a kind of bastard hope, indeed; fo the fins of my mother should be vifited upon me. LAUN. Truly then I fear you are damn'd both by father and mother: thus when I fhun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother: " well, you are gone both ways. therefore, I promise you, I fear you.] I fufpect for has been inadvertently omitted; and we fhould read-I fear for you. MALONE. There is not the flighteft need of emendation. The difputed phrafe is authorized by a paffage in K. Richard III: "The king is fickly, weak, and melancholy, thus when I foun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother:] Originally from the Alexandreis of Philippe Gualtier; JES. I fhall be faved by my husband; he hath made me a Chriftian. but feveral tranflations of this adage were obvious to Shakspeare. Among other places, it is found in an ancient poem, entitled " A Dialogue between Cuftom and Veritie, concerning the use and abufe of Dauncing and Minstrelfie." bl. 1. no date. "While Silla they do feem to fhun, "In Charibd they do fall." &c. Philip Gualtier de Chatillon (afterwards Bishop of Megala) was born towards the latter end of the 12th Century. In the fifth book of his heroic Poem, Darius (who efcaping from Alexander, fell into the hands of Beffus) is thus apoftrophized: Nactus equum Darius, rorantia cæde fuorum Retrogrado fugit arva gradu. Quo tendis inertem The author of the line in queftion (who was unknown to Erafmus) was first ascertained by Galeottus Martius, who died in 1476; (See Menagiana, Vol. I. p. 173. edit. 1729.) and we learn from Henricus Gandavenfis de Scriptoribus Ecclefiafticis, [i. e. Henry of Gaunt,] that the Alexandreis had been a common fchool-book. In febolis Grammaticorum tantæ fuiffe dignitatis, ut præ ipfo veterum Poetarum le&io negligeretur. Barthius alfo, in his notes on Claudian, has words to the fame effect. Et media barbarie non plane ineptus verfificator Galterus ab Infula (qui tempore Joannis Sarejberienfis, ut ex hujus ad eum epiftolis difcimus, vixit)-Tam autem pofica clarus fuit, ut expulfis quibafvis bonis auctoribus, fcholas tennerit. Freinsheim, however, in his comment on Quintus Curtius, confeffes that he had never feen the work of Gualtier. The corrupt ftate in which this poem (of which I have not met with the earliest edition) ftill appears, is perhaps imputable to frequent tranfcription, and injudicious attempts at emendation. Every pedagogue through whofe hands the Mf. paffed, feems to have made fome ignorant and capricious changes in its text; fo that in many places it is as apparently interpolated and corrupted as the ancient copies of Shakspeare. Galterus (fays Hermann in his Confpectus Reipublice Literaria, p. 102.) fecutus eft Curtium, & fæpe ad verbum expreffit, unde ejus cum Curtio collatione, nonnulla ex bọc menda tolli LAUN. Truly, the more to blame he: we were Christians enough before; e'en as many as could well live, one by another: This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs; if we grow all to be pork-eaters, we fhall not fhortly have a rafher on the coals for money. Enter LORENZO. JES. I'll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you fay; here he comes. r LOR. I fhall grow jealous of you fhortly, Launcelot, if you thus get my wife into corners. JES. Nay, you need not fear us, Lorenzo; Launcelot and I are out: he tells me flatly, there is no mercy for me in heaven, because I am a Jew's daughter: and he says, you are no good member of the commonwealth; for, in converting Jews to Chriftians, you raise the price of pork. LOR. I fhall answer that better to the commonwealth, than you can the getting up of the negro's belly: the Moor is with child by you, Launcelot. LAUN. It is much, that the Moor fhould be more than reafon: but if she be less than an honest woman, fhe is, indeed, more than I took her for. funt; id quod experiendo didici. See alfo I. G. Voffius de Poet. Lat. p. 74, and Journal des Sçavans pour Avril, 1760. Though Nicholas Grimoald (without mention of his original) had tranflated a long paffage of the Alexandreis into blank verfe before the year 1557, (See Surrey's Poems, and Warton's History of English Poetry, Vol. III. p. 63.) it could have been little known in England, as it is not enumerated in Philips's Theatrum, &c. a work understood to be enriched by his uncle Milton's extenfive knowledge of modern as well as ancient poetry. STEEVENS. 1 fhall be faved by my husband,] From St. Paul: HENLEY. * It is much that the Moor should be more, &c.] This reminds LOR. How every fool can play upon the word! I think, the best grace of wit will fhortly turn into filence; and difcourfe grow commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, firrah; bid them prepare for dinner. LAUN. That is done, fir; they have all ftomachs. LOR. Goodly lord," what a wit-fnapper are you! then bid them prepare dinner. LAUN. That is done too, fir; only, cover is the word. LOR. Will you cover then, fir? LAUN. Not fo, fir, neither; I know my duty. LOR. Yet more quarrelling with occafion! Wilt thou show the whole wealth of thy wit in an inftant? I pray thee, understand a plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows; bid them cover the table, ferve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner. LAUN. For the table, fir, it shall be served in; for the meat, fir, it fhall be covered; for your com us of the quibbling epigram of Milton, which has the fame kind of humour to boast of: "Galli ex concubitu gravidam te, Pontia, Mori, Quis bene moratam, morigeramque neget ? So, in The Fair Maid of the Weft, 1631: And for you Moors thus much I mean to fay, "I'll fee if more I eat the more I may." STEEVENS. Shakspeare, no doubt, had read or heard of the old epigram on Sir Thomas More: "When More fome years had chancellor been, "No more fuits did remain; "The like fhall never more be seen, "Till More be there again." RITSON. 9. Goodly lord,] Surely this fhould be corrected Good lord! as it is in Theobald's edition. TYRWHITT. |