Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

the one maintain'd by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

SONG.

Spring.67 When daisies pied, and violets, blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,

Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo.-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

II.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

Winter. When icicles hang by the wall,'

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl,

To-who:

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot 68.

IV.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the

songs of Apollo. You, that way; we, this way.

[Exeunt.

ANNOTATIONS

UPON

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

[ocr errors]

With all these, living in philosophy.] The stile of the rhyming scenes in this play is often entangled and obscure. I know not certainly to what all these is to be referred; I suppose he means, that he finds love, pomp, and wealth in philosophy. JOHNSON. 2 When I to feast expressly am forbid;] The copies all have,

When I to fast expressly am forbid.

But if Biron studied where to get a good dinner, at a time when he was forbid to fast, how was this studying to know what he was forbid to know? Common sense, and the whole tenour of the context require us to read, feast, or to make a change in the last word of the verse.

When I to fast expressly am fore-bid;

i. e. when I am enjoined before-hand to fast.

THEOBALD.

3 To seek the light of truth; while truth the while Doth falsely blind -] Falsely is here,

and in many other places, the same as dishonestly or

treacherously. The whole sense of this gingling declamation is only this, that a man by too close study may read himself blind, which might have been told with less obscurity in fewer words.

JOHNSON.

4 Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding.] To proceed is an academical term, meaning, to take a degree, as he proceeded bachelor in physick. The sense is, he has taken his degrees on the art of hindering the degrees of others.

JOHNSON.

A dangerous law against gentility!] I have ventured to prefix the name of Biron to this line, it being evident, for two reasons, that it, by some accident or other, slipt out of the printed books. In the first place, Longaville confesses, he had devis'd the penalty: and why he should immediately arraign it as a dangerous law, seems to be very inconsistent. In the next place, it is much more natural for Biron to make this reflexion, who is cavilling at every thing: and then for him to pursue his reading over the remaining articles.As to the word gentility, here, it does not signify that rank of people called, gentry; but what the French express by, gentilesse, i. e. elegantia, urbanitas. And then the meaning is this. Such a law for banishing women from the court, is dangerous, or injurious, to politeness, urbanity, and the more refined pleasures of life. For men without women would turn brutal, and savage, in their natures and behaviour.

THEOBALD.

Not by might master'd, but by special grace.] Biron, amidst his extravagancies, speaks with great

« ElőzőTovább »