take occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for lovers, lacking (God warn us!) matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss. ORL. How if the kiss be denied? Ros. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter. ORL. Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress? Ros. Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress; or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit. ORL. What, of my suit? Ros. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. Am not I your Rosalind? ORL. I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of her. Ros. Well, in her person, I say—I will not have you. ORL. Then, in mine own person, I die. Ros. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he could to die before; and he is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for and when you were gravelled for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss.] Thus also in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 511: “—and when he hath pumped his wittes dry, and can say no more, kissing and colling are never out of season." STEEVENS. 9-(God WARN us!)] If this exclamation (which occurs again in the quarto copies of A Midsummer-Night's Dream) is not a corruption of " God ward us," i. e. defend us, it must mean, summon us to himself." So, in King Richard III.; 66 "And sent to warn them to his royal presence." STEEVENS. a hot midsummer night: for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and, being taken with the cramp, was drowned: and the foolish chroniclers of that age' found it was-Hero of Sestos. But these are all lies; men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love. ORL. I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I protest, her frown might kill me. Ros. By this hand, it will not kill a fly: But come, now I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition; and ask me what you will, I will grant it. ORL. Then love me, Rosalind. Ros. Yes, faith will I, Fridays, and Saturdays, and all. ORL. And wilt thou have me? Ros. Ay, and twenty such. Ros. Are you not good? ORL. I hope so. Ros. Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?-Come, sister, you shall be the priest, I — CHRONICLERS of that age-] Sir T. Hanmer readscoroners, by the advice, as Dr. Warburton hints, of some anonymous critick. JOHNSON. Mr. Edwards proposes the same emendation, and supports it by a passage in Hamlet: "The coroner hath sat on her, and finds it-Christian burial." I believe, however, the old copy is right; though found is undoubtedly used in its forensick sense. MALONE. I am surprised that Sir Thomas Hanmer's just and ingenious amendment should not be adopted as soon as suggested. The allusion is evidently to a coroner's inquest, which Rosalind supposes to have sat upon the body of Leander, who was drowned in crossing the Hellespont, and that their verdict was, that Hero of Sestos was the cause of his death. The word found is the legal term on such occasions. We say, that a jury found it lunacy, or found it manslaughter; and the verdict is called the finding of the jury. M. MASON. and marry us.-Give me your hand, Orlando :What do you say, sister? ORL. Pray thee, marry us. CEL. I cannot say the words. Ros. You must begin,--Will you, Orlando,CEL. Go to:--Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind? ORL. I will. Ros. Ay, but when? ORL. Why now; as fast as she can marry us. Ros. Then you must say,—I take thee, Rosalind, for wife. ORL. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife. Ros. I might ask you for your commission; but, -I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband: There a girl goes before the priest; and, certainly, a woman's thought runs before her actions. ORL. So do all thoughts; they are winged. Ros. Now tell me, how long you would have her, after you have possessed her. ORL. For ever, and a day. Ros. Say a day, without the ever: No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cockpigeon over his hen; more clamorous than a parrot against rain; more new-fangled than an ape; more giddy in my desires than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do 2 THERE a girl goes before the priest ;] The old copy reads "There's a girl," &c. The emendation in the text was proposed to me long ago by Dr. Farmer. STEEVENS. 3- I will weep for nothing, like DIANA in the fountain,] The allusion is to the cross in Cheapside; the religious images, with which it was ornamented, being defaced, (as we learn from Stowe,) in 1596: "There was then set up, a curious wrought tabernacle of gray marble, and in the same an alabaster image of Diana, that when you are disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou art inclined to sleep. ORL. But will my Rosalind do so? Ros. By my life, she will do as I do. ORL. O, but she is wise. Ros. Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the wiser, the waywarder: Make the doors 5 upon a woman's wit, and it will out at the casement; shut that, and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney. ORL. A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say,-Wit, whither wilt? and water conveyed from the Thames, prilling from her naked breast." Stowe, in Cheap Ward. Statues, and particularly that of Diana, with water conveyed through them to give them the appearance of weeping figures, were anciently a frequent ornament of fountains. So, in The City Match, Act III. Sc. III.: Now could I cry Like any image in a fountain, which "Runs lamentations." And again, in Rosamond's Epistle to Henry II. by Drayton : "Here in the garden, wrought by curious hands, 4 "Naked Diana in the fountain stands." WHALLEY. I will laugh like a HYEN,] The bark of the hyena was anciently supposed to resemble a loud laugh. So, in Webster's Duchess of Malfy, 1623: 66 Methinks I see her laughing, "Excellent Hyena!' Again, in The Cobler's Prophecy, 1594: "You laugh hyena-like, weep like a crocodile." STEEVENS. S MAKE the doors-] This is an expression used in several of the midland counties, instead of bar the doors. So, in The Comedy of Errors: "The doors are made against you." STEEVENS. 6 — Wit, whither wilt?] This must be some allusion to a story well known at that time, though now perhaps irretrievable. JOHNSON. This was an exclamation much in use, when any one was Ros. Nay, you might keep that check for it, till you met your wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed. ORL. And what wit could wit have to excuse that? Ros. Marry, to say,-she came to seek you there. You shall never take her without her answer', unless you take her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool. either talking nonsense, or usurping a greater share in conversation than justly belonged to him. So, in Decker's Satiromastix, 1602: "My sweet, Wit whither wilt thou, my delicate poetical fury," &c. Again, in Heywood's Royal King, 1637: "Wit is the word strange to you? Wit?— : "Whither wilt thou?" Again, in the Preface to Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, 1621: "Wit whither wilt thou? woe is me, "Thou hast brought me to this miserie." The same expression occurs more than once in Taylor the waterpoet, and seems to have been the title of some ludicrous performance. STEEVENS. If I remember right, these are the first words of an old madrigal. MALONE. 7 You shall never take her without her answer,] See Chaucer's Marchantes Tale, ver. 10,138—10,149: 8 "Ye, sire, quod Proserpine, and wol ye so? "And wepe and swere and chiden subtilly, "That ye shul ben as lewed as ben gees." TYRWHITT. - make her fault her husband's occasion,] That is, represent her fault as occasioned by her husband. Sir T. Hanmer reads, her husband's accusation. JOHNSON. |
