If you buy ladies' flesh at a million a dram, you cannot preserve it from tainting: But, I see, you have some religion in you, that you fear. POST. This is but a custom in your tongue; you bear a graver purpose, I hope. IACH. I am the master of my speeches; and would undergo what's spoken, I swear. POST. Will you ?—I shall but lend my diamond till your return :-Let there be covenants drawn between us: My mistress exceeds in goodness the hugeness of your unworthy thinking: I dare you to this match: here's my ring. PHI. I will have it no lay. LACH. By the gods it is one :-If I bring you no sufficient testimony that I have enjoyed the dearest bodily part of your mistress, my ten thousand ducats are yours; so is your diamond too. If I come off, and leave her in such honour as you have trust in, she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold are yours provided, I have your commendation, for my more free entertainment. POST. I embrace these conditions 5; let us have See p. 30, and 31, n. 6. Though the reply of lachimo may not have been warranted by the preceding words of Posthumus, it was certainly meant by the speaker as a provoking circumstance, a circumstance of incitation to the wager. STEEVENS. Does it not mean-You shew yourself a friend to your ring which you have described as being so dear to you, by not risking it on such a wager, and your prudence is evinced by your caution? BOSWELL. 4 I am the master of my speeches ;] i. e. I know what I have said; I said no more than I meant. STEEVENS. 5 Iach. If I bring you No sufficient testimony that I have enjoyed the dearest bodily part of your mistress, my ten thousand ducats are YOURS; so is your diamond too. If I come off, and leave her in such honour as you have trust in, she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold are yoURS, &c. Post. I embrace these conditions ; &c.] This was a wager between the two speakers. Iachimo declares the conditions of it; and Posthumus embraces them, as well he might; for lachimo articles betwixt us :-only, thus far you shall answer. If you make your voyage upon her, and give me directly to understand you have prevailed, I am no further your enemy, she is not worth our debate: if she remain unseduced, (you not making it appear otherwise,) for your ill opinion, and the assault you have made to her chastity, you shall answer me with your sword. IACH. Your hand; a covenant: We will have these things set down by lawful counsel, and straight away for Britain; lest the bargain should catch cold, and starve: I will fetch my gold, and have our two wagers recorded. POST. Agreed. [Exeunt POSTHUMUS and IACHIMO. FRENCH. Will this hold, think you ? PHI. Signior lachimo will not from it. Pray, let us follow 'em. [Exeunt. mentions only that of the two conditions which was favourable to Posthumus: namely, that if his wife preserved her honour he should win concerning the other, in case she preserved it not, lachimo, the accurate expounder of the wager, is silent. To make him talk more in character, for we find him sharp enough in the prosecution of his bet; we should strike out the negative, and read the rest thus: " If I bring you sufficient testimony that I have enjoyed, &c. my ten thousand ducats are mine; so is your diamond too. If I come off, and leave her in such honour, &c. she your jewel, &c. and my gold are yours." WARBURTON. I once thought this emendation right, but am now of opinion, that Shakspeare intended that lachimo having gained his purpose, should designedly drop the invidious and offensive part of the wager, and to flatter Posthumus, dwell long upon the more pleasing part of the representation. One condition of a wager implies the other, and there is no need to mention both. JOHNSON. SCENE VI. Britain. A Room in CYMBELINE'S Palace. Enter Queen, Ladies, and CORNELIUS. QUEEN. Whiles yet the dew's on ground, gather those flowers; Make haste: Who has the note of them? 1 LADY. QUEEN. Despatch. I, madam. [Exeunt Ladies. Now, master doctor; have you brought those drugs? madam: COR. Pleaseth your highness, ay: here they are, [Presenting a small box. But I beseech your grace, (without offence; My conscience bids me ask ;) wherefore you have Commanded of me these most poisonous com pounds, Which are the movers of a languishing death; QUEEN. Other conclusions"? I will try the forces 6 I Do wonder, doctor,] I have supplied the verb do for the sake of measure, and in compliance with our author's practice when he designs any of his characters to speak emphatically: Thus, in Much Ado About Nothing: 66 I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool," &c. STEEVENS. 7 Other CONCLUSIONS?] Other experiments. "I commend," says Walton," an angler that trieth conclusions, and improves his art." JOHNSON. Of these thy compounds on such creatures as Allayments to their act; and by them gather COR. Your highness Shall from this practice but make hard your heart: Besides, the seeing these effects will be Both noisome and infectious. QUEEN. O, content thee. Enter PISANIO. Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him [Aside. And enemy to my son.-How now, Pisanio?- Hark thee, a word.- COR. [Aside.] I do not like her. She doth think, she has So, in Antony and Cleopatra: 66 She hath pursued conclusions infinite "Of easy ways to die." MALone. 8 Your highness Shall from this practice but make hard your heart :] There is in this passage nothing that much requires a note, yet I cannot forbear to push it forward into observation. The thought would probably have been more amplified, had our author lived to be shocked with such experiments as have been published in later times, by a race of men who have practised tortures without pity, and related them without shame, and are yet suffered to erect their heads among human beings. Cape saxa manu, cape robora, pastor. JOHNSON. 9 I do not like her.] This soliloquy is very inartificial. The speaker is under no strong pressure of thought; he is neither resolving, repenting, suspecting, nor deliberating, and yet makes a long speech to tell himself what himself knows. JOHNSON. Strange lingering poisons: I do know her spirit, A drug of such damn'd nature: Those, she has, Which first, perchance, she'll prove on cats, and dogs; Then afterward up higher; but there is QUEEN. Until I send for thee. COR. No further service, doctor, I humbly take my leave. [Exit. QUEEN. Weeps she still, say'st thou? Dost thou think, in time 3 She will not quench3; and let instructions enter As great as is thy master: greater; for This soliloquy, however inartificial in respect of the speaker, is yet necessary to prevent that uneasiness which would naturally arise in the mind of an audience on recollection that the Queen had mischievous ingredients in her possession, unless they were undeceived as to the quality of them; and it is no less useful to prepare us for the return of Imogen to life. STEEVENS. I -a time,] So the old copy. All the modern editions— for a time. So, in the novel printed at the end of this play : "She appointing the other to be at the court the same time.” MALONE. 2 So to be false WITH HER.] The two last words may be fairly considered as an interpolation, for they hurt the metre, without enforcement of the sense. "For thee," in the next line but one, might on the same account be omitted. STEEVENS. 3 -quench;] i. e. grow cool. STEEVENS. |