With spectacles on nose, and pouch on fide; Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM. DUKE S. Welcome: Set down your venerable. burden,3 And let him feed. I thank you most for him. paring human life to a stage play of seven acts, (which is no unusual divifion before our author's time.) The fixth he calls the lean and flipper'd pantaloon, alluding to that general character in the Italian comedy, called Il Pantalone; who is a thin emaciated old man in flippers; and well defigned, in that epithet, because Pantalóne is the only character that acts in flippers. WARBURTON. In The Travels of the three English Brothers, a comedy, 1606, an Italian Harlequin is introduced, who offers to perform a play at a Lord's house, in which among other characters he mentions " a jealous coxcomb, and an old Pantaloune." But this is seven years later than the date of the play before us: nor do I know from whence our author could learn the circumstance mentioned by Dr. Warburton, that "Pantalóne is the only character in the Italian comedy that acts in flippers." In Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598, the word is not found. In The Taming of the Shrew, one of the characters, if I remember right, is called " an old Pantaloon," but there is no farther defcription of him. MALONE. 3 -Set down your venerable burden,] Is it not likely that Shakspeare had in his mind this line of the Metamorphofes? XIII. 125. Patremque " Fert humeris, venerabile onus, Cythereius heros." JOHNSON. upon his backe A. Golding, p. 169, b. edit. 1587, translates it thus: "His aged father and his gods, an honorable packe." STEEVENS. ADAM. So had you need; DUKE S. Welcome, fall to: I will not trouble you As yet, to question you about your fortunes :- AMIENS fings. SONG. I. Blow, blow, thou winter wind, As man's ingratitude; 3 Although thy breath be rude. Heigh, ho! fing, heigh, ho! unto the green holly: 3 Thou art not so unkind, &c.] That is, thy action is not so contrary to thy kind, or to human nature, as the ingratitude of man. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis, 1593: "O had thy mother borne so bad a mind, "She had not brought forth thee, but dy'd unkind." MALONE. ▲ Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not feen,] This song is designed to fuit the Duke's exiled condition, who had been ruined by ungrateful flatterers. Now the winter wind, the song says, is to be preferred to man's ingratitude. But why? Because it is not seen. But this was not only an aggravation of the injury, as it was done in secret, not feen, but was the very circumstance that made the keenness of the ingratitude of his faithless courtiers. Without doubt, Shakspeare wrote the line thus: Because thou art not sheen, i. e. fmiling, shining, like an ungrateful court-servant, who flatters while he wounds, which was a very good reason for giving II. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Though thou the waters warp, As friend remember'd not. the winter wind the preference. So, in The Midsummer Night's Dream: Spangled star-light sheen." And feveral other places. Chaucer ufes it in this sense : " Your blissful sister Lucina the shene. And Fairfax: "The facred angel took his target shene, " And by the Christian champion stood unseen." The Oxford editor, who had this emendation communicated to him, takes occafion from hence to alter the whole line thus: Thou causeft not that teen. But, in his rage of correction, he forgot to leave the reason, which is now wanting, Why the winter wind was to be preferred to man's ingratitude. WARBURTON, I am afraid that no reader is fatisfied with Dr. Warburton's emendation, however vigorously enforced; and it is indeed enforced with more art than truth. Sheen, i. e. smiling, shining. That heen fignifies shining, is easily proved, but when or where did it fignify smiling? yet smiling gives the sense necessary in this place. Sir T. Hanmer's change is less uncouth, but too remote from the present text, For my part, I question whether the original line is not loft, and this substituted merely to fill up the measure and the rhyme. Yet even out of this line, by strong agitation may sense be elicited, and sense not unfuitable to the occafion. Thou winter wind, says Amiens, thy rudeness gives the less pain, as thou art not feen, as thou art an enemy that doft not brave us with thy prefence, and whose unkindness is therefore not aggravated by infult. JOHNSON, Though the old text may be tortured into a meaning, perhaps it would be as well to read: Because the beart's not seen. y barts, according to the ancient mode of writing, was easily corrupted, FARMER. DUKE S. If that you were the good fir Rowland's fon, As you have whisper'd faithfully, you were; So, in the Sonnet introduced into Love's Labour's Loft: Again, in Meafure for Measure: "To be imprison'd in the viewless winds." MALONE. 5 Though thou the waters warp,] The surface of waters, so long as they remain unfrozen, is apparently a perfect plane; whereas, when they are, this furface deviates from its exact flatness, or warps. This is remarkable in small ponds, the furface of which when frozen, forms a regular concave; the ice on the fides rifing higher than that in the middle. KENRICK. To warp was probably in Shakspeare's time, a colloquial word, which conveyed no diftant allusion to any thing else, physical or mechanical. To warp is to turn, and to turn is to change: when milk is changed by curdling, we now fay it is turned when water is changed or turned by froft, Shakspeare says, it is curdled. To be warp'd is only to be changed from its natural state. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnfon is certainly right. So, in Cynthia's Revels, of Ben Jonfon. "I know not, he's grown out of his garb a-late, he's warp'd. And fo, methinks too, he is much converted." Thus the mole is called the mould-warp, because it changes the appearance of the furface of the earth. Again, in The Winter's Tale, Act I: My favour here begins to warp." Dr. Farmer supposes warp'd to mean the fame as curdled, and adds that a fimilar idea occurs in Timon: the icicle "That curdled by the froft," &C. STEEVENS. Among a collection of Saxon adages in Hickes's Thesaurus, Vol. I. p. 221, the succeeding appears: pinter sceal zebeoppan peder, winter shall warp water. So that Shakspeare's expreffion was anciently proverbial. It should be remarked, that among the numerous examples in Manning's excellent edition of Lye's Dictionary, there is no instance of peoppan or zepeonpan, implying to freeze, bend, turn, or curdle, though it is a verb of very extensive fignification. Probably this word still retains a fimilar sense in the Northern part of the Island, for in a Scottish parody on Dr. Percy's elegant ballad, beginning, " O Nancy, wilt thou go with me," And as mine eye doth his effigies witness tune, Go to my cave and tell me.-Good old man, Thou art right welcome as thy master is: "— Support him by the arm.-Give me your hand, And let me all your fortunes understand. [Exeunt. I find the verse "Nor shrink before the wintry wind," is altered to " Nor shrink before the warping wind." HOLT WHITE. The meaning is this: Though the very waters, by thy agency, are forced, against the law of their nature, to bend from their stated level, yet thy fting occafions less anguish to man, than the ingratitude of those he befriended. HENLEY. Wood is faid to warp when its surface, from being level, becomes bent and uneven; from warpan, Sax. to caft. So, in this play, Act III. fc. iii: then one of you will prove a shrunk pannel, and, like green timber, warp, warp." I doubt whether the poet here alludes to any operation of froft. The meaning may be only, Thou bitter wintry sky, though thou curleft the waters, thy fting, &c. Thou in the line before us refers only to bitter sky. The influence of the winter's sky or season may, with fufficient propriety, be faid to warp the surface of the ocean, by agitation of its waves alone. That this passage refers to the turbulence of the sky, and the confequent agitation of the ocean, and not to the operation of froft, may be collected from our author's having in King Jobu defcribed ice as uncommonly smooth : "To throw a perfume on the violet, "To smooth the ice," &c. MALONE. 6 As friend remember'd not.] Remember'd for remembering. So, afterwards, Act III. fc. last: "And now I am remember'd". i. e. and now that I bethink me, &c. MALONE. 7 as thy master is:] The old copy has-masters. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. MALONE. |