"Love's not Time's Foole; tho' rosie lips and cheeks 4to. 1609. (61) For goodness, growing to a plurisy] Superfluity, excess. The dramatic writers of that time frequently call a fulness of blood a plurisy, as if it came, not from supa, but from plus, pluris. WARBURTON. "Against the blood, or plurisie of blood. The disease of blood is, some young horses will feed, and being fat will increase blood, and so grow to a plurisie, and die thereof if he have not soon help." Mascal on Cattle, 1662, p. 187. TOLLET. 66 in a word, Thy plurisy of goodness is thy ill.” Massing. Unnat. Combat. that heal'st with blood "The earth, when it is sick, and cur'st the world M. MASON. The word is spelt plurisy in the quarto, 1604, and is used in the same sense as here, in 'Tis Pity she's a Whore, by Ford, 1633: "Must your hot itch and plurisie of lust, (62) And then this should is like a spendthrift sigh, That hurts by easing] That is, the anxiety and anguish of mind it relieves, is counterbalanced by the waste and exhaustion that it causes of the vital spirits, and draining of the sources of life. Dr. Johnson says, it is a notion very prevalent, that sighs impair the strength, and wear out the animal powers; and this idea is much insisted upon by our author. In M. N. Dr. III. 2. we have: "Sighs of love, that cost the fresh blood dear." Herm. "blood drinking hate," I H. VI. Plantag. II. 4. " blood consuming sighs," II H. VI. Q. Marg. III. 2." blood sucking sighs," III H. VI. Q. Eliz. V. 4. " dry sorrow drinks out blood," R. and Jul. III. 5. Rom. Care preying upon the mind, or the "self harming, or life harming heaviness," in R, II. Bush. II. 2. is a classical idea. We have "Luctus edax” in Sil. Ital. and in Homer. οιος αλατο Ον θυμον κατεδων. 11. Ζ. 201. The modern editors produce many instances in our early writers. Mr. Steevens quotes the Governall of Helthe, &c. printed by Wynkyn de Worde: "And for why whan a man casteth out that noble humour too moche, he is hugely dyscolored, and his body moche febled, more than he lete four sythes, soo moche blode oute of his body." (63) No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize; Revenge should have no bounds] Throw a sacred and inviolable fence over. So blind or hardy are guilt and passion, that they will often, by distinctly acknowledging the justice of any revenge for one foul crime, while they are contriving and instigating another equally atrocious, or propounding maxims that justify their future fate, become parties to their own condemnation. See Timon. "An you begin to rail on society once." I. 2. Tim. And M. for M. II. 1. Ang. (64) unbated] Not blunted, as foils are by a button fixed to the end. "That honour, which shall bate his scythe's keen edge." L. L. L. MALONE. Mr. Steevens cites North's Plutarch: "he shewed the people the cruel fight of fencers, at unrebated swords." And see V. 2. Laert. "Nenna, nen (65) for the nonce] The present purpose. ning Suio-Goth. a se impetrare posse. to prevail with oneself to do a thing, to have a mind to do it. Rich. of Gloster and Chaucer wrote nones. In the old romance of Ywaine and Gawin, it is nanes. Serenius." Todd's Dict. See I H. IV. Poins, I. 2. (66) and long purples] By long purples is meant a plant, the modern botanical name of which is orchis morio mas, anciently testiculus morionis. The grosser name by which it passes, is sufficiently known in many parts of England, and particularly in the county where Shakespeare lived. Thus far Mr. Warner. Mr. Collins adds, that in Sussex it is still called dead men's hands; and that in Lyte's Herbal, 1578, its various names, too gross for repetition, are preserved. One of the grosser names of this plant Gertrude had a particular reason to avoid. MALONE. (67) That liberal shepherds] That, to which free spoken shepherds, &c. Puttenham, speaking in his Arte of Engl. Poesie of the Figure, Parisia or the Licentious, says, when the "intent is to declare in broad and liberal speeches, which might breede offence or scandall, he will seeme to bespeake pardon before hand, wherby licentiousness may be the better borne withall." 4to. 1589, p. 199. Mr. Malone quotes Othel. II. 1. Desd. "Is he not a most profane and liberal counsellor?" And Field's Woman's a Weathercock, 1612: 66 Next that, the fame "Of your neglect, and liberal-talking tongue, (68) As one incapable of her own distress] Unconscious, insensible of. In III. 4. Haml. we have "making stones capable:" but a more apt instance occurs in Henry Brereton's Newes of the present Miseries of Rushia, 4to. 1614. "The wretched state and miserable condition of this untimely widdowed lady, and two sonnes, both so young, that they were not capable of their calamity." P. 29. See also "alongst the galupin or silver paved way of heaven, conducted into the great hall of the gods, Mercury sprinkled me with water, which made me capable of their divine presence." Greene's Orpharion, 4to. 1599, p. 7. "Poore little brat, incapable of care." Drayton's Moses his Birth, 4to. 1630. (69) Or like a creature native and indu'd Unto that element] With qualities naturally adapted to. Mr. Malone says, our old writers used indued and endowed indiscriminately. To indue," says Minsheu in his Dictionary, "sæpissime refertur ad dotes animo infusas, quibus nimirum ingenium alicujus imbutum et initiatum est, unde et G. instruire est L. imbuere. Imbuere proprie est inchoare et initiari." In Cotgrave's French Dictionary, 1611, instruire is interpreted "to fashion, to furnish with.” Our author uses this term in the same way in Oth. "For let our finger ache and it endues "Our other healthful members, ev'n to that sense where it means fashions, moulds, adapts by communicating or imparting congenial sensations; makes to participate of. My (70) I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But that this fully doubts it] Douts, does out. rage had flamed, if this flood of tears had not extinguished it." The quartos and folio of 1632 read drowns for doubts. In this sense, so spelt, it is found in H. V. Dauph. IV. 2, as was the orthography of that age; and see also I. 4. Haml. to Horat. ACT V. (1) an act hath three branches; it is to act, to do, and to perform: Argal, &c.] Warburton says, this is ridicule upon scho lastic divisions without distinction: and distinctions without difference. The quartos, instead of "perform: argal," read "perform, or all; she," &c. The phrase occurs (2) Even christian] Equal, fellow. throughout Chaucer. "Despitous is he that hath disdain of his neighbour, that is to sayn, of his even cristen." The Persones Tale, Tyrwh. III. 181, and ib. 207, 209, 236, 237. Mr. Steevens quotes also Chaucer's Jack Upland, and Gower's Confess. Amant.: "Of beautie sighe he never hir even." Lib. V. p. 102. And the Paston Letters, III. 421, &c. as does Mr. Malone Hall's Chronicle, fo. 261, H. VIII. to his parliament: " -you might say that I, beyng put in so speciall a trust as I am in this case, were no trustie frende to you, nor charitable man to mine even christian,—." And we have, in G. Chapman's Translation of the Works and Days of Hesiod, "Give never to thy friend an even respect "With thy borne brother." 4to. 1629, p. 32. Μηδε κασιγνηίῳ ισον ποιείσθαι εταιρον. ν. 705. (3) Was he a gentleman] Undoubtedly, says Mr. Douce, a ridicule this of heraldry. He cites Gerard Leigh's Accedence of Armourie, 4to. 1591, p. 13. "For that it might be known, that even anon after the creation of Adam, there was both gentlenes and ungentlenes, you shall understand, that the second man that was born was a gentleman, whose name was Abell;" and elsewhere," Jesus Christ, a gentleman of great linage." Ib. He adds the very ancient proverbial saying: "When Adam delv'd, and Eve span, "Where was then the gentleman?" Illustr. II. 262. (4) a stoup of liquor] A jug. "Stoup is a common word in Scotland at this day, and denotes a pewter vessel, resembling our wine measure, but of no determinate quantity; that being ascertained by an adjunct, as gallon-stoup, pint-stoup, mutchkinstoup. The vessel, in which they fetch or keep water, is also called the water-stoup. A stoup of wine is therefore equivalent to a pitcher of wine.' RITSON. See Tw. N. II. 3. Sir Toby. (5) In youth, when I did love, did love, Methought, it was very sweet, To contract, O, the time, for ah, my behove O, methought, there was nothing meet] This is part of Lord Vaux's" Sonnet" of "The aged Lover renounceth Love," published in Lord Surrey's Poems; or rather scraps of it, ill strung together, and put into the mouth of a clown, and purposely, as Dr. Percy has observed, in this mangled state, the better to sustain the character: neither was it very likely or fitting that he should be found more at home in the department of elegant poetry, than he was in crowner's-quest law. Upon this subject see Warton's Hist. of Engl. Poetry, III. p. 45, and for the entire Sonnet, Percy's Reliques, I. 180, 1794. Injudicious reforms and amendments of such incoherencies have been offered by the modern editors in the beginning and end of the Clown's song in Tw. N. IV. 2., and are given too under the authority of Dr. Farmer. Behove is behoof. (6) But Age, with his stealing steps, And hath shipped me intill the land, caught, the quartos read into and claw'd. Instead of intill and The originals of this, and the preceding stanza, are thus given in Dr. Percy's Ancient Songs: "I lothe that I did love; "In youth that I thought sweete: "Hath claude me with his crowche; "As there had bene none such." Another passage in the original, as given by Lord Surrey, in Surrey and Wyatt's Poems, 1717, 8vo. p. 155, runs thus: "For beauty with her band, "These croked cares hath wrought, "And shipped me into the land, "From whence I first was brought." The deviations in the text are very natural strokes of our great artist: for so that the clown relieves his labour, and prevents those impressions or uneasy sensations, which the nature of that labour might subject him to, he is utterly regardless of the rhyme and sense; and accordingly is made to introduce a line that consists with neither. This line not being found in Lord Vaux, but being taken from another author, Lord Surrey, the clown could only be made to depart from the original, in order to be more in character. The same observations apply as well to passages in the M. W. of W. III. 1. Sir Hugh, as to Lear, "come on the broom," III. 6. Edgar. |