I care no more for, than I do for heaven, But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?1 Count. Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law; God shield, you mean it not! daughter, and mother, So strive2 upon your pulse: What, pale again? My fear hath catch'd your fondness: Now I see The mystery of your loneliness, and find Your salt tears' head.3 Now to all sense 'tis gross, 9 or were you both our mothers, I care no more for, than I do for heaven, So I were not his sister:] There is a designed ambiguity: I care no more for, is, I care as much for. I wish it equally. Farmer. In Troilus and Cressida we find-" I care not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus." There the words certainly mean, I should not be sorry or unwilling to be, &c. According to this, then, the meaning of the passage before us should be, "If you were mother to us both, it would not give me more solicitude than heaven gives me, so I were not his sister." But Helena certainly would not confess an indifference about her future state. However, she may mean, as Dr. Farmer has suggested, "I should not care more than, but equally as, I care for future happiness; I should be as content, and solicit it as much, as I pray for the bliss of heaven." Malone. 11 Can 't no other, But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?] The meaning is obscured by the elliptical diction. Can it be no other way, but if I be your daughter, he must be my brother? Johnson. 2 3 strive-] To strive is to contend. So, in Cymbeline : "That it did strive in workmanship and value." Steevens. Now I see The mystery of your loneliness, and find Your salt tears' head.] The old copy reads-loveliness. Steevens. The mystery of her loveliness is beyond my comprehension: the old Countess is saying nothing ironical, nothing taunting, or in reproach, that this word should find a place here; which it could not unless sarcastically employed, and with some spleen. I dare warrant the poet meant his old lady should say no more than this: "I now find the mystery of your creeping into corners, and weeping, and pining in secret." For this reason I have amended the text, loneliness. The Steward, in the foregoing scene, where he gives the Countess intelligence of Helena's behaviour, says "Alone she was, and did communicate to herself, her own words to her own ears." Theobald. You love my son; invention is asham'd, That truth should be suspected: Speak, is 't so? To tell me truly. Count. Go not about; my love hath in 't a bond, Whereof the world takes note: come, come, disclose The state of your affection; for your passions Have to the full appeach'd. Hel. Then, I confess, Here on my knee, before high heaven and you, I love your son;— My friends were poor, but honest; so 's my love: That he is lov'd of me: I follow him not By any token of presumptuous suit; Nor would I have him, till I do deserve him; The late Mr. Hall had corrected this, I believe, rightly,―your lowliness. Tyrwhitt. I think Theobald's correction as plausible. To choose solitude is a mark of love. Steevens. Your salt tears' head.] The source, the fountain of your tears, the cause of your grief. Johnson. 4 ture. in their kind ] i. e. their language, according to their Steevens. I still pour in the waters of my love, And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like, The sun, that looks upon his worshipper, My dearest madam, Wish chastly, and love dearly, that your Dian 5 captious and intenible sieve,] The word captious I never found in this sense; yet I cannot tell what to substitute, unless carious for rotten, which yet is a word more likely to have been mistaken by the copiers than used by the author. Johnson. Dr. Farmer supposes captious to be a contraction of capacious. As violent ones are to be found among our ancient writers, and especially in Churchyard's Poems, with which Shakspeare was not unacquainted. Steevens. By captious, I believe Shakspeare only meant recipient, capable of receiving what is put into it; and by intenible, incapable of holding or retaining it. How frequently he and the other writers of his age confounded the active and passive adjectives, has been already more than once observed. The original copy reads-intemible. The correction was made in the second folio. Malone. 6 And lack not to lose still:] Perhaps we should readAnd lack not to love still. Tyrwhitt. I believe lose is right. So afterwards, in this speech: whose state is such, that cannot choose 66 "But lend and give, where she is sure to lose.” Helena means, I think, to say that, like a person who pours water into a vessel full of holes, and still continues his employment, though he finds the water all lost, and the vessel empty, so, though she finds that the waters of her love are still lost, that her affection is thrown away on an object whom she thinks she never can deserve, she yet is not discouraged, but perseveres in her hopeless endeavour to accomplish her wishes. The poet evidently alludes to the trite story of the daughters of Danaus. Malone. 7 Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,] i. e whose respectable conduct in age shows, or proves, that you were no less virtuous when young. As a fact is proved by citing witnesses, or examples from books, our author, with his usual license, uses to cite in the same sense of to prove. Malone. 8 Wish chastly, and love dearly, that your Dian Was both herself and love;] i. e. Venus. Helena means to To her, whose state is such, that cannot choose Hel. Count. Madam, I had. Wherefore? tell true." For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me To cure the desperate languishings, whereof Count. For Paris, was it? speak. This was your motive Hel. My lord your son made me to think of this; Had, from the conversation of my thoughts, If Count. you But think you, Helen, should tender your supposed aid, He would receive it? He and his physicians say-" If ever you wished that the deity who presides over chastity, and the queen of amorous rites, were one and the same person; or, in other words, if ever you wished for the honest and lawful completion of your chaste desires." I believe, however, the words were accidentally transposed at the press, and would read 9 Love dearly, and wish chastly, that your Dian &c. Malone. tell true.] This is an evident interpolation. It is needless, because it repeats what the Countess had already said: it is injurious, because it spoils the measure. Steevens. - 1 notes, whose faculties inclusive ] Receipts in which greater virtues were inclosed than appeared to observation. Johnson. A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools, Hel. There's something hints, More than my father's skill, which was the greatest By the luckiest stars in heaven: and, would your Count. Dost thou believe 't? Hel. Ay, madam, knowingly. honour Count. Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave, and love, Means, and attendants, and my loving greetings What I can help thee to, thou shalt not miss. [Exeunt. 2 Embowell'd of their doctrine,] i. e. exhausted of their skill. So, in the old spurious play of K. John: "Back war-men, back; embowel not the clime." Steevens. 3 There's something hints More than my father's skill, that his good receipt, &c.] The old copy reads-some thing in 't. Steevens. Here is an inference, [that] without any thing preceding, to which it refers, which makes the sentence vicious, and shows that we should read There's something hints More than my father's skill, i. e. I have a secret premonition, or presage. Warburton. This necessary correction was made by Sir Thomas Hanmer. Malone. 4 into thy attempt:] So in the old copy. We might more intelligibly read, according to the third folio,-unto thy attempt. Steevens. |