I was going, sir, PIS. To give him welcome. seech you? Exit PISANIO. IMO. Continues well my lord? His health, 'be IACH. Well, madam. IMO. Is he dispos'd to mirth? I hope, he is. IACH. Exceeding pleasant; none a stranger there So merry and so gamesome: he is call'd The Briton reveller 1. IMO. When he was here, He did incline to sadness; and oft-times Ілсн. I never saw him sad. There is a Frenchman his companion, one An eminent monsieur, that, it seems, much loves A Gallian girl at home: he furnaces 2 The thick sighs from him2; whiles the jolly Briton (Your lord, I mean,) laughs from's free lungs, Can cries, O! my sides hold3, to think, that man,—who knows "And I am something curious, being strange, "To have them in safe stowage." Here also strange evidently means, being a stranger. M. MASON. The BRITON REVELLER.] So, in Chaucer's Coke's Tale, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 4369 : 2 "That he was cleped Perkin revelour." STEEVEns. he FURNACES The thick sighs from him ;] So, in Chapman's preface to his translation of the Shield of Homer, 1598; "-furnaceth the universall sighes and complaintes of this transposed world." STEEVENS. So, in As You Like It: Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad." MALOne. Can my SIDES HOLD, &c.] Hence, perhaps, Milton's— 66 Laughter holding both his sides." STEEVENS. So, in Troilus and Cressida, vol. viii. p. 266: By history, report, or his own proof, What woman is, yea, what she cannot choose IMO. Will my lord say so? LACH. Ay, madam; with his eyes in flood with laughter. It is a recreation to be by, And hear him mock the Frenchman: But, heavens know, Some men are much to blame. IMO. Not he, I hope. LACH. Not he: But yet heaven's bounty towards him might 5 4 Be us'd more thankfully. In himself, 'tis much To pity too IMO. What do you pity, sir? LACH. Two creatures, heartily. IMO. Am I one, sir? You look on me; What wreck discern you in me, Deserves your pity? Ілсн. Lamentable! What! To hide me from the radiant sun, and solace I' the dungeon by a snuff? IMO. I pray you, sir, Deliver with more openness your answers To my demands. Why do you pity me? IACH. That others do, 4 66 O!-enough, Patroclus; "Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all In himself, 'tis much ;] If he merely regarded his own character, without any consideration of his wife, his conduct would be unpardonable. MALONE. 5 count-] Old copy-account. STEEVENS. I was about to say, enjoy your-But IMO. (Since doubting things go ill, often hurts more Іасн. Had I this cheek To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch, Whose every touch, would force the feeler's soul To the oath of loyalty"; this object, which 6 - - timely KNOWING,] Rather-timely known. JOHNSON. I believe Shakspeare wrote-known, and that the transcriber's ear deceived him here as in many other places. MALONE. 7 For certainties Either are past remedies; or, timely knowing, The remedy then born,] We should read, I think: Perhaps the meaning is, as I have pointed the passage: 66 "Either are past remedy; or timely knowing "The remedy, then borne." They are either past all remedy; or, the remedy being timely suggested to us by the knowing them, they are the more easily borne. J. BOADEN. 8 What both you spur and stop.] What it is that at once incites you to speak, and restrains you from it. JOHNSON. This kind of ellipsis is common in these plays. What both you spur and stop at, the poet means. See a note on Act II. Sc. III. MALONE. The meaning is, 'what you seem anxious to utter, and yet withhold.' M. MASON. The allusion is to horsemanship. So, in Sidney's Arcadia, book i.: 66 She was like a horse desirous to runne, and miserably spurred, but so short-reined, as he cannot stirre forward.” Again, in Ben Jonson's Epigram to the Earl of Newcastle : "Provoke his mettle, and command his force." STEEVENS. 9 this hand, whose touch, To the oath of loyalty ?] There is, I think, here a reference Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye, That mount the Capitol2; join gripes with hands Made hard with hourly falsehood (falsehood, as 4 Base and unlustrous as the smoky light That's fed with stinking tallow; it were fit, to the manner in which the tenant performed homage to his lord. "The lord sate, while the vassal kneeling on both knees before him, held his hands jointly together between the hands of his lord, and swore to be faithful and loyal." See Coke upon Littleton, sect. 85. Unless this allusion be allowed, how has touching the hand the slightest connection with taking the oath of loyalty? HOLT WHITE. The very touch of such a hand would make the feeler swear to be true. BOSWELL. FIXING it only here:] The old copy has-Fiering. The correction was made in the second folio. MALONE. 66 That mount the Capitol ;] Shakspeare has bestowed some ornament on the proverbial phrase as common as the highway." STEEVENS. 3 - join gripes with hands, &c.] The old edition reads: join gripes with hands 66 "Made hard with hourly falsehood (falsehood as I read : 66 then lie peeping-.” Hard with falsehood, is, 'hard by being often griped with frequent change of hands.' JOHNSON. 4 Base and UNLUSTROUS] Old copy-illustrious. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. That illustrious was not used by our author in the sense of inlustrous or unlustrous, is proved by a passage in the old comedy of Patient Grissell, 1603: the buttons were illustrious and resplendent diamonds." MALONE. 66 A " lack-lustre eye" has been already mentioned in As You Like It. STEEVENS. IMO.. Ілсн. Has forgot Britain. My lord, I fear, And himself. Not I, Inclin'd to this intelligence, pronounce The beggary of his change; but 'tis your graces That, from my mutest conscience, to my tongue, Charms this report out. IMO. Let me hear no more. IACH. O dearest soul! your cause doth strike my heart With pity, that doth make me sick. A lady So fair, and fasten'd to an empery 5 Would make the great'st king double! to be partner'd With tomboys, hir'd with that self-exhibition" 5 to an EMPERY,] Empery is a word signifying sovereign command; now obsolete. Shakspeare uses it in King Richard III. : "Your right of birth, your empery, your own." STEEVENS. 6 With TOMBOYS,] We still call a masculine, a forward girl, tomboy. So, in Middleton's Game at Chess : "Made threescore year a tomboy, a mere wanton." Again, in W. Warren's Nurcerie of Names, 1581: "She comes not unto Bacchus' feastes, "Or Flora's routes by night, "Like tomboyes such as lives in Rome "For euery knaues delight." Again, in Lyly's Midas, 1592: "If thou should'st rigg up down in our jackets, thou would'st be thought a very tomboy.” Again, in Lady Alimony: "What humourous tomboys be these?— "The only gallant Messalinas of our age.' and It appears from several of the old plays and ballads, that the ladies of pleasure, in the time of Shakspeare, often wore the habits of young men. So, in an ancient bl. 1. ballad, entitled The Stout Cripple of Cornwall: "And therefore kept them secretlie "To feede his fowle desire, |