Var. Serv. 'Twas due on forfeiture, my lord, six weeks, And past, Isid. Serv. Your steward puts me off, my lord; And I am sent expressly to your lordship. Tim. Give me breath: I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on; [Exeunt ALCIB. and Lords. I'll wait on you instantly.--Come hither, pray you. [To FLAV. Flav. Tim. See them well entertain'd. Flav. Do so, my friends: [Exit TIM. I pray, draw near. [Exit FLAV. Enter APEMANTUS and a Fool.9 Caph. Stay, stay, here comes the fool with Apemantus; let's have some sport with 'em. 8 of date-broke bonds,] The old copy has: - of debt, broken bonds. Mr. Malone very judiciously reads-date-broken. For the sake of measure, I have omitted the latter letter of the second word. So, in Much Ado about Nothing: "I have broke [i. e. broken] with her father." Steevens. To the present emendation I should not have ventured to give a place in the text, but that some change is absolutely necessary, and this appears to be established beyond a doubt by a former line in the preceding scene: "And my reliances on his fracted dates." The transcriber's ear deceived him here as in many other places. Sir Thomas Hanmer and the subsequent editors evaded the difficulty by omitting the corrupted word-debt. Malone. 9 Enter Apemantus and a Fool.] I suspect some scene to be lost, in which the entrance of the Fool, and the page that follows him, was prepared by some introductory dialogue, in which the audience was informed that they were the fool and page of Phry nia, Timandra, or some other courte zan, upon the knowledge of which depends the greater part of the ensuing jocularity. Johnson. Var. Serv. Hang him, he 'll abuse us. Apem. Dost dialogue with thy shadow? Apem. No; 'tis to thyself.-Come away. [To the Fool. Isid. Serv. [to VAR. Serv.] There's the fool hangs on your back already. Apem. No, thou stand'st single, thou art not on him yet. Caph. Where 's the fool now. Apem. He last asked the question.-Poor rogues, and usurers' men! bawds between gold and want!1 All Serv. What are we, Apemantus? Apem. Asses. All Serv. Why? Apem. That you ask me, what you are, and do not know yourselves. Speak to 'em, fool. Fool. How do you, gentlemen? All Serv. Gramercies, good fool: How does your mis•tress? Fool. She's e'en setting on water to scald such chickens as you are.2 'Would, we could see you at Corinth.3 1 Poor rogues, and usurers' men! bawds &c.] This is said so abruptly, that I am inclined to think it misplaced, and would regulate the passage thus: Caph. Where's the fool now? Apem. He last asked the question. All. Why? Apem. That you ask me what you are, and do not know yourselves. Poor rogues, and usurers' men! bawds between gold and want! Speak &c. Thus every word will have its proper place. It is likely that the passage transposed was forgot in the copy, and inserted in the margin, perhaps a little beside the proper place, which the transcriber wanting either skill or care to observe, wrote it where it now stands. Johnson. The transposition proposed by Dr. Johnson is unnecessary. Apemantus does not address these words to any of the others, but mutters them to himself; so that they do not enter into the dialogue, or compose a part of it. M. Mason. 2 She's e'en setting on water to scald &c.] The old name for the disease got at Corinth was the brenning, and a sense of scalding is one of its first symptoms. Johnson. Apem. Good! gramercy. Enter Page. Fool. Look you, here comes my mistress' page.* The same thought occurs in The Old Law, by Massinger: look parboil'd, 46 "As if they came from Cupid's scalding house." Randle Holme, in his Academy of Arms and Blazon, B. III, ch. ii, p. 441, has also the following passage: "He beareth Argent, a Doctor's tub (otherwise called a Cleansing Tub,) Sable, Hooped, Or. In this pockifyed, and such diseased persons, are for a certain time put into, not to boyl up to an heighth, but to parboil" &c. Steevens. It was anciently the practice, and in inns perhaps still continues, to scald off the feathers of poultry, instead of plucking them. Chaucer hath referred to it in his Romaunt of the Rose, 6820: "Without scalding they hem pulle." Henley. 3'Would, we could see you at Corinth.] A cant name for a bawdy-house, I suppose, from the dissoluteness of that ancient Greek city; of which Alexander ab Alexandro has these words: “Et CORINTHI Supra mille prostitutas in templo Veneris assidue degere, et inflammata libidine quæstui meretricio operam dare, et velut sacrorum ministras De famulari" Milton, in his Apology for Smectymnuus, says: "Or searching for me at the Bordellos, where, it may be, he has lost himself, and raps up, without pity, the and sage rheumatick old prelatess, with all her young Corinthian laity, to enquire for such a one." Warburton. See Vol. VIII, p. 217, n. 6. Malone. 4-- my mistress' page.] In the first passage this Fool speaks of his master, in the second [as exhibited in the modern editions] of his mistress. In the old copy it is master in both places. It should rather, perhaps, be mistress in both, as it is in a fultowing and a preceding passage: "All. How does your mistress ?" "Fool. My mistress is one, and I am ber fool." Steevens. I have not hesitated to print mistress in both places. Master was frequently printed in the old copy instead of mistress, and vice versa, from the ancient mode of writing an M only, which stood in the MSS. of Shakspeare's time either for the one or the other; and the copyist or printer completed the word without attending to the context. This abbreviation is found in Coriolanus, fol. 1623, p. 21: "Where's Cotus? My M. calls for him?" Again, more appositely, in The Merchant of Venice, 1623: "What ho, M. [Master] Lorenzo, and M. [ Mistress] Lo renzo." In Vol. VI, p. 44, n. 2, and Vol. X, p. 142, n. 1, are found corruptions similar to the present, in consequence of the prin ter's completing the abbreviated word of the MS. improperly. Malone. Page. [to the Fool] Why, how now, captain? what do you in this wise company?-How dost thou, Apemantus? Apem. 'Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I might answer thee profitably. Page. Pr'ythee, Apemantus, read me the superscription of these letters; I know not which is which. Apem. Canst not read? Page. No. Apem. There will little learning die then, that day thou art hanged. This is to lord Timon; this to Alcibiades. Go; thou wast born a bastard, and thou 'It die a bawd. Page. Thou hast whelped a dog; and thou shalt famish, a dog's death. Answer not, I am gone. [Exit Page. Apem. Even so thou out-run'st grace. Fool, I will go with you to lord Timon's. Fool. Will you leave me there? Apem. If Timon stay at home. You three serve three usurers? All Serv. Ay; 'would they served us! Apem. So would I,- —as good a trick as ever hangman served thief. Fool. Are you three usurers' men? All Serv. Ay, fool. Fool. I think, no usurer but has a fool to his servant: My mistress is one, and I am her fool. When men come to borrow of your masters, they approach sadly, and go away merry; but they enter my mistress' houses merrily, and go away sadly: The reason of this? Var. Serv. I could render one. Apem. Do it then, that we may account thee a whoremaster, and a knave; which notwithstanding, thou shalt be no less esteemed. Var. Serv. What is a whoremaster, fool? Fool. A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. 'Tis a spirit: sometime, it appears like a lord; sometime, like a lawyer; sometime, like a philosopher, with two stones more than his artificial one:6 He is very often 5 my mistress' house] Here again the old copy readsmaster's. I have corrected it for the reason already assigned. The context puts the matter beyond a doubt. Mr. Theobald, I find, had silently made the same emendation; but in subsequent editions the corrupt reading of the old copy was again restored. Malone. like a knight; and, generally in all shapes, that man goes up and down in, from fourscore to thirteen, this spirit walks in. Var. Serv. Thou art not altogether a fool. Fool. Nor thou altogether a wise man: as much foolery as I have, so much wit thou lackest. Apem. That answer might have become Apemantus. All Serv. Aside, aside; here comes lord Timon. Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS. Apem. Come with me, fool, come. Fool. I do not always follow lover, elder brother, and woman; sometime, the philosopher. [Exeunt APEM. and Fool. Flav. 'Pray you, walk near; I'll speak with you anon. [Exeunt Serv. Tim. You make me marvel: Wherefore, ere this time, Had you not fully laid my state before me; That I might so have rated my expence, As I had leave of means? Flav. You would not hear me, Go to: At many leisures I propos'd. Tim. Perchance, some single vantages you took, Flav. O my good lord! 6 his artificial one:] Meaning the celebrated philosopher's stone, which was in those times much talked of. Sir Thomas Smith was one of those who lost considerable sums in seeking of it. Johnson. Sir Richard Steele was one of the last eminent men who enter. tained hopes of being successful in this pursuit. His laboratory was at Poplar, a village near London, and is now converted into a garden house. Steevens. 7 made your minister,] So the original. The second folio and the later editions have all: made you minister. Johnson. The construction is:-And made that unaptness your minister. Malone. |