HOST. Marry, at my house: Trust me, I think, 't is almost day. SCENE III.-The same. [Exeunt. EGL. This is the hour that madam Silvia Entreated me to call, and know her mind; SIL. Who calls? SILVIA appears above, at her window EGL. Your servant, and your friend; One that attends your ladyship's command. According to your ladyship's impose a, I am thus early come, to know what service (Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not,) To Mantua, where, I hear, he makes abode; Which Heaven and fortune still reward with plagues. • Impose-command. The word, as a noun, does not occur again in Shakspere. I do desire thee, even from a heart As much I wish all good befortune you. SIL. This evening coming. EGL. Where shall I meet you? SIL. At friar Patrick's cell, Where I intend holy confession. EGL. I will not fail your ladyship: Good morrow, gentle lady. SIL. Good morrow, kind sir Eglamour. SCENE IV.-The same. [Exeunt. Enter LAUNCE, with his dog. When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look you, it goes hard: one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I saved from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it! I have taught himeven as one would say precisely, Thus I would teach a dog. I was sent to deliver him, as a present to mistress Silvia, from my master; and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber, but he steps me to her trencher27; and steals her capon's leg. O, 't is a foul thing when a cur cannot keep a himself in all companies! I would have, as one should say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been hanged for 't; sure as I live he had suffered for 't: you shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or four gentlemanlike dogs, under the duke's table: he had not been there (bless the mark!) a pissing while, but all the chamber smelt him. Out with the dog," says one; "What cur is that?" says another; Whip him out," says the third; Hang him up," says the duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it was Crab; and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs: "Friend," quoth I," you mean to whip the dog?" "Ay, marry, do I," quoth he. "You do him the more wrong," quoth I; "'t was I did the thing you wot of." He makes me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How many masters would do this for their servant? Keep-restrain. 66 Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks 28 for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had been executed: I have stood on the pillory29 for geese he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for 't: thou think'st not of this now! -Nay, I remember the trick you served me when I took my leave of madam Silvia; did not I bid thee still mark me, and do as I do? When didst thou see me heave up my leg, and make water against a gentlewoman's farthingale? didst thou ever see me do such a trick? Enter PROTEUS and JULIA. PRO. Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well, And will employ thee in some service presently. JUL. In what you please.—I'll do what I can. PRO. I hope thou wilt.-How now, you whoreson peasant; LAUN. Marry, sir, I carried mistress Silvia the dog you bade me. PRO. And what says she to my little jewel? [TO LAUNCE. LAUN. Marry, she says, your dog was a cur; and tells you, currish thanks is good enough for such a present. PRO. But she received my dog? LAUN. No, indeed, did she not: here have I brought him back again. PRO. What, didst thou offer her this from me? LAUN. Ay, sir; the other squirrel was stolen from me by the hangman's boys in the market-place: and then I offered her mine own; who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift the greater. PRO. Go, get thee hence, and find my dog again, A slave, that still an end a turns me to shame. Partly, that I have need of such a youth, Witness good bringing up, fortune, and truth: She lov'd me well deliver'd it to me. JUL. It seems you lov'd her not to leave her token: She is dead, belike? [Exit LAUNCE. • Still an end—almost perpetually. A common form of expression in our old writers. Gifford has given several examples in a note to Massinger's 'A Very Woman.'-Act III., Scene 1. She lov'd me well, who deliver'd it to me. To leave-to part with. PRO. Not so; I think she lives. JUL. Alas! PRO. Why dost thou cry, alas! JUL. I cannot choose but pity her. PRO. Wherefore shouldst thou pity her? JUL. Because, methinks, that she lov'd you as well She dreams on him that has forgot her love; This ring I gave him, when he parted from me, And now am I (unhappy messenger) To plead for that, which I would not obtain; To carry that, which I would have refus'd; To praise his faith, which I would have disprais'd. I am my master's true confirmed love; But cannot be true servant to my master, Unless I prove false traitor to myself. As, Heaven it knows, I would not have him speed. Enter SILVIA, attended. Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you, be my mean To hear me speak the message I am sent on. JUL. From my master, sir Proteus, madam. [Exit PROTEUS. SIL. Ursula, bring my picture there. Go, give your master this: tell him, from me, SIL. I pray thee, let me look on that again. I will not look upon your master's lines: I know they are stuff'd with protestations, JUL. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring. 1 SIL. The more shame for him that he sends it me; Though his false finger have profan'd the ring, SIL. What say'st thou ? JUL. I thank you, madam, that you tender her: Poor gentlewoman! my master wrongs her much. SIL. Dost thou know her? JUL. Almost as well as I do know myself: To think upon her woes I do protest That I have wept an hundred several times. SIL. Belike, she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her. SIL. Is she not passing fair? JUL. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is: [Picture brought. "the * In this passage pinch'd means painted, and not, as Johnson has it, pinched with cold. Black signifies dark, tanned. In the next act Thurio says, " my face is black," as opposed to "fair." It is curious that black, bleak, blight, are words having a strong affinity; and that, therefore, air," which "starv'd the roses," and "pinch'd the lily-tincture," so as to make "black," is the same as the withering and blighting agency, the bleak wind, which covers vegetation with a sterile blackness. (See Richardson's Dictionary.) |