Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, at a distance.

Phe. I would not be thy executioner;

I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.

but how does he die by bloody drops? The poet must certainly have wrote:

that deals and lives, &c.

i. e. that gets his bread by, and makes a trade of cutting off heads: but the Oxford editor makes it plainer. He reads:

Than he that lives and thrives by bloody drops. Warburton. Either Dr. Warburton's emendation, except that the word deals, wants its proper construction, or that of Sir Tho. Hanmer, may serve the purpose; but I believe they have fixed corruption upon the wrong word, and should rather read:

Than he that dies his lips by bloody drops?

Will you speak with more sternness than the executioner, whose lips are used to be sprinkled with blood? The mention of drops implies some part that must be sprinkled rather than dipped.

Johnson.

I am afraid our bard is at his quibbles again. To die, means as well to dip a thing in a colour foreign to its own as to expire. In this sense, contemptible as it is, the executioner may be said to die as well as live by bloody drops. Shakspeare is fond of opposing these terms to each other.

In King John is a play on words not unlike this:

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all with purple hands

"Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foes." Camden has preserved an epitaph

same turn:

"He that dyed so oft in sport,
"Dyed at last, no colour for 't."

So, Heywood, in his Epigrams, 1562:

on a dyer, which has the

"Is thy husband a dyer, woman? alack,
"Had he no colour to die thee on but black!
"Dieth he oft? yea too oft when customers call;
"But I would have him one day die once for all.
"Were he gone, dyer never more would I wed,
"Dyers be ever dying, but never dead."

Again, Puttenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589:

"We once sported upon a country fellow, who came to run for the best game, and was by his occupation a dyer, and had very big swelling legs.

"He is but coarse to run a course,

"Whose shanks are bigger than his thigh; "Yet is his luck a little worse

"That often dyes before he die."

"Where ye see the words course and die used in divers senses, one giving the rebound to the other." Steevens.

J. Davies, of Hereford, in his Scourge of Folly, printed about 1611, has the same conceit, and uses almost our author's words:

290979B

Thou tell'st me, there is murder in mine eye:
'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,1

That eyes, that are the frailst and softest things,
Who shut their coward gates on atomies,-
Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!
Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;

And, if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee;
Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down;
Or, if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.

Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee:
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush,2

The cicatrice and capable impressure 3

Thy palm some moment keeps: but now mine eyes,
Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;

OF A PROUD LYING DYER.

"Turbine, the dyer, stalks before his dore,

Like Cæsar, that by dying oft did thrive;
"And though the beggar be as proud as poore,
"Yet (like the mortifide) he dyes to live."

Again, on the same:

"Who lives well, dies well:-not by and by;
"For this man lives proudly, yet well doth die."

Malone.

He that lives and dies, i. e. he who, to the very end of his life, continues a common executioner. So, in the second scene of the fifth Act of this play: "live and die a shepherd." Tollet.

To die and live by a thing is to be constant to it, to persevere in it to the end. Lives, therefore, does not signify is maintained; but the two verbs taken together mean, who is all his life conversant with bloody drops. Musgrave.

1 'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,] Sure for surely.

2

Douce.

lean but upon a rush,] But, which is not in the old copy, was added, for the sake of the metre, by the editor of the second folio. Malone.

3 The cicatrice and capable impressure-] Cicatrice is here not very properly used; it is the scar of a wound. Capable impressure, hollow mark. Johnson.

Capable, I believe, means here-perceptible. Our author often uses the word for intelligent; (See a note on Hamlet,—

"His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
"Would make them capable.")

Hence, with his usual license, for intelligible, and then for per ceptible. Malone.

Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes

If ever, (as that ever may be near)

You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,
Then shall you know the wounds invisible

That love's keen arrows make.

But, till that time,

Phe. Come not thou near me: and, when that time comes, Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;

As, till that time, I shall not pity thee.

Ros. And why, I pray you? [advancing] Who might be your mother,

5

That you insult, exult, and all at once,

Over the wretched? What though you have more beauty,"

4

power of fancy,] Fancy is here used for love, as before, in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Johnson.

5

Who might be your mother,] It is common for the poets to express cruelty by saying, of those who commit it, that they were born of rocks, or suckled by tigresses. Johnson.

6 That you insult, exult, and all at once,] If the speaker intended to accuse the person spoken to only for insulting and exulting; then, instead of all at once, it ought to have been, both at once. But, by examining the crime of the person accused, we shall discover that the line is to be read thus:

That you insult, exult, and rail at once.

For these three things Phebe was guilty of. But the Oxford editor improves it, and, for rail at once, reads domineer. Warburton.

I see no need of emendation. The speaker may mean thus: Who might be your mother, that you insult, exult, and that too all in a breath? Such is, perhaps, the meaning of all at once. Steevens. What though you have more beauty,] The old copy reads: What though you have no beauty. Steevens.

7

Though all the printed copies agree in this reading, it is very accurately observed to me, by an ingenious unknown correspondent, who signs himself L. H. (and to whom I can only here make my acknowledgment) that the negative ought to be left out. Theobald.

That no is a misprint, appears clearly from the passage in Lodge's Rosalynde, which Shakspeare has here imitated: "Sometimes have I seen high disdaine turned to hot desires.Because thou art beautiful, be not so coy; as there is nothing more faire, so there is nothing more fading."--Mr. Theobald corrected the error, by expunging the word no; in which he was copied by the subsequent editors; but omission, (as I have often observed) is, of all the modes of emendation, the most excep

(As, by my faith, I see no more in you
Than without candle may go dark to bed)
Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?
Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
I see no more in you, than in the ordinary
Of nature's sale-work: -Od's my little life!
I think, she means to tangle my eyes too:—
No, 'faith, proud mistress, hope not after it;
'Tis not your inky brows, your black-silk hair,
Your bugle eye-balls, nor your cheek of cream,
That can entame my spirits to your worship.9

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tionable. No was, I believe, a misprint for mo, a word often used by our author and his contemporaries for more. So, in a former scene of this play: "I pray you, mar no mo of my verses with reading them ill-favour'dly." Again, in Much Ado about Nothing: "Sing no more ditties, sing no mo." Again, in The Tempest: "Mo widows of this business making Many other instances might be added. The word is found in almost every book of that age. As no is here printed instead of mo, so in Romeo and Juliet, Act V, we find in the folio, 1623, Mo matter, for No matter. This correction being less violent than Mr. Theobald's, I have inserted it in the text. "What though I should allow you had more beauty than he, (says Rosalind) though by my faith," &c. (for such is the force of As in the next line) "must you therefore treat him with disdain?" In Antony and Cleopatra we meet with a passage constructed nearly in the same

manner:

66

Say, this becomes him,

(As his composure must be rare indeed
"Whom these things cannot blemish) yet," &c.

Again, in Love's Labour's Lost:

"But say that he or we, (as neither have)

"Receiv'd that sum," &c.

Again, more appositely, in Camden's Remaines, p. 190, edit. 1605: "I force not of such fooleries; but if I have any skill in sooth-saying, (as in sooth I have none) it doth prognosticate that I shall change copie from a duke to a king." Malone.

As mo, (unless rhyme demands it) is but an indolent abbreviation of more, I have adopted Mr. Malone's conjecture, without his manner of spelling the word in question. If mo were right, how happens it that more should occur twice afterwards in the same speech? Steevens.

8 Of nature's sale-work:] Those works that nature makes up carelessly and without exactness. The allusion is to the practice of mechanicks, whose work bespoke is more elaborate than that which is made up for chance-customers, or to sell in quantities to retailers, which is called sale-work. Warburton.

You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?
You are a thousand times a properer man,
Than she a woman: "Tis such fools as you,
That make the world full of ill-favour'd children:
'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;
And out of you she sees herself more proper,
Than any of her lineaments can show her.—
But, mistress, know yourself; down on your knees,
And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love:
For I must tell you friendly in your ear,—
Sell when you can; you are not for all markets:
Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer;
Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.1
So, take her to thee, shepherd;-fare you well.
Phe. Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together;
I had rather hear you chide, than this man woo.

Ros. He's fallen in love with her foulness,2 and she 'll fall in love with my anger: If it be so, as fast as she answers thee with frowning looks, I'll sauce her with bitter words. Why look you so upon me?

Phe. For no ill will I bear you.

Ros. I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine:

Besides, I like you not: If you will know my house, 'Tis at the tuft of olives, here hard by:

Will you go, sister?-Shepherd, ply her hard:-
Come, sister:-Shepherdess, look on him better,
And be not proud: though all the world could see,
None could be so abus'd in sight as he.3

Come, to our flock.

[Exeunt Ros. CEL. and COR.

9 That can entame my spirits to your worship.] So, in Much Ado about Nothing:

Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand." Steevens. 1 Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.] The sense is, The ugly seem most ugly, when, though ugly, they are scoffers. Johnson. with her foulness,] So, Sir T. Hanmer; the other editions-your foulness. Johnson.

2

None could be so abus'd in sight as he.] Though all mankind could look on you, none could be so deceived as to think you beautiful but he. Johnson.