That makes thee stare thus? Wherefore breaks that sigh From the inward of thee? One, but painted thus, That drug-damn'd' Italy hath out-craftied him ', And he's at some hard point.-Speak, man; thy tongue firmed by the practice of our ancient translators from classick authors. STEEVENS. The propriety of my remark is not shaken by this observation. Translators woul have the true quantity of a classical name forced upon their attention; but the writers of Shakspeare's age, when they were not translating, were accustomed to disregard the true pronunciation of Greek and Latin names. See vol. vii. p. 203, and p. 238. MALONE. 7-haviour-] This word, as often as it occurs in Shakspeare, should not be printed as an abbreviation of behaviour. Haviour was a word commonly used in his time. See Spenser, Æglogue, IX.: "Their ill haviour garres men missay." STEEVENs. 8 If it be SUMMER NEWS, Smile to't before:] So, in our author's 98th Sonnet: "Yet not the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell "Could make me any summer's story tell." MALONE. out-CRAFTIED him,] Thus the old copy, and so Shakspeare certainly wrote. So, in Coriolanus: chaste as the icicle, "That's curdied by the frost from purest snow." Mr. Pope and all the subsequent editors read-out-crafted here, and curdled in Coriolanus. 66 MALONE. May take off some extremity, which to read PIS. Please you, read; And you shall find me, wretched man, a thing The most disdain'd of fortune. IMO. [Reads.] Thy mistress, Pisanio, hath played the strumpet in my bed; the testimonies whereof lie bleeding in me. I speak not out of weak surmises ; but from proof as strong as my grief, and as certain as I expect my revenge. That part, thou, Pisanio, must act for me, if thy faith be not tainted with the breach of hers. Let thine own hands take away her life: I shall give thee opportunities at MilfordHaven: she hath my letter for the purpose: Where, if thou fear to strike, and to make me certain it is done, thou art the pandar to her dishonour, and equally to me disloyal. PIs. What shall I need to draw my sword? the paper Hath cut her throat already 2.-No, 'tis slander; Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile'; whose breath Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie sword? the paper 2 What shall I need to draw my Hath cut her throat already.] So, in Venus and Adonis: "Struck dead at first, what needs a second striking ? MALONE. 99 3 Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, &c.] So, in Churchyard's Discourse of Rebellion, &c. 1570: "Hit venom castes as far as Nilus flood, [brood] Serpents and dragons by the old writers were called worms. Of this, several instances are given in the last Act of Antony and Cleopatra. STEEVENS. 4 Rides on the POSTING WINDS,] So, in King Henry V.: "making the wind my post-horse." MALONE. All corners of the world: kings, queens, and states", IMO. False to his bed! What is it, to be false? To lie in watch there, and to think on him "? To weep 'twixt clock and clock? if sleep charge nature, To break it with a fearful dream of him, PIs. Alas, good lady! IMO. I false? Thy conscience witness :-Iachimo, Thou didst accuse him of incontinency; Thou then look'dst like a villain; now, methinks, Thy favour's good enough".-Some jay of Italy, Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him: 3 -states,] Persons of highest rank. JOHNSON. See vol. viii. p. 305, n. 6. MALONE. So, in Chapman's version of the second Iliad : "The other scepter-bearing states arose too and obey'd "The people's rector." STEEVens. 6 What is it, to be false? To lie in watch there, and to think on him?] This passage should be pointed thus: "What! is it to be false, “To lie in watch there, and to think on him?” M. MASON. 7 Thou then look'dst like a villain; now, methinks, "Those wicked creatures yet do look well favour'd, 8 - Some JAY of Italy,] There is a prettiness in this expression; putta, in Italian, signifying both a jay and a whore: Isupfrom the gay feathers of that bird. WARBURTON. pose So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: "Teach him to know turtles from jays." STEEVENS. 9 Whose MOTHER was her PAINTING,] Some jay of Italy, made by art; the creature, not of nature, but of painting. In this sense painting may be not improperly termed her mother. JOHNSON, Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion'; 66 I met with a similar expression in one of the old comedies, but forgot to note the date or name of the piece: a parcel of conceited feather-caps, whose fathers were their garments." STEEVENS. 66 In All's Well That Ends Well, we havewhose judgments are "Mere fathers of their garments." MALONE. "Whose mother was her painting," i. e. her likeness. HARRIS. Poor I am stale, A GARMENT OUT OF FASHION;] This image occurs in Westward for Smelts, 1620, immediately at the conclusion of the tale on which our play is founded: "But (said the Brainford fish-wife) I like her as a garment out of fashion." STEEVENS. 2 And, for I am RICHER than to HANG BY THE WALLS, I must be ripp'd:] To "hang by the walls," does not mean, to be converted into hangings for a room, but to be hung up, as useless, among the neglected contents of a wardrobe. So, in Measure for Measure: "That have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall. When a boy, at an ancient mansion-house in Suffolk, I saw one of these repositories, which (thanks to a succession of old maids!) had been preserved, with superstitious reverence, for almost a century and a half. Clothes were not formerly, as at present, made of slight materials, were not kept in drawers, or given away as soon as lapse of time or change of fashion had impaired their value. On the contrary, they were hung up on wooden pegs in a room appropriated to the sole purpose of receiving them; and though such cast-off things as were composed of rich substances, were occasionally ripped for domestick uses, (viz. mantles for infants, vests for children, and counterpanes for beds,) articles of inferior quality were suffered to hang by the walls, till age and moths had destroyed what pride would not permit to be worn by servants or poor relations. Comitem horridulum tritâ donare lacerna, seems not to have been customary among our ancestors.-When Queen Elizabeth died, she was found to have left above three thousand dresses behind her; and there is yet in the wardrobe of Covent-Garden Theatre, a rich suit of clothes that once belonged to King James I. When I saw it last, it was on the back of Justice Greedy, a character in Massinger's New Way to Pay Old Debts. STEEVENS. Imogen, as Mr. Roberts suggests to me, "alludes to the hang Men's vows are women's traitors! All good seem ing, By thy revolt, O husband, shall be thought PIS. Good madam, hear me. IMO. True honest men being heard, like false Æneas, Were, in his time, thought false Did scandal many a holy tear; took pity mus, Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men3; nest: Do thou thy master's bidding: When thou see'st him, A little witness my obedience: Look! ings on walls, which were in use in Shakspeare's time."-These being sometimes wrought with gold or silver, were, it should seem, occasionally ript and taken to pieces for the sake of the materials, MALONE. 66 3 Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men; &c.] i. e. says Mr. Upton, "will infect and corrupt their good name, (like sour dough that leaveneth the whole mass,) and wilt render them suspected." So, in Hamlet, vol. vii. p. 228: "Some habit that too much o'erleavens In the line below he would read-fall, instead of fail. So, in King Henry V.: And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot, "To mark the full-fraught man, and best indued, I think the text is right. MALONE. So, in The Winter's Tale : 66 "" for the fail "Of any point," &c. STEEVENS. |
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