CXXXVII. Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes, When my love swears that she is made of truth, Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, O, call not me to justify the wrong Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press [wide. In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes, CXLII. Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide, Lo, as a careful house-wife runs to catch CXLIV. Two loves I have of comfort and despair, But being both from me, both to each friend, guess one angel in another's hell: I Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, Till my bad angel fire my good one out. CXLV. Those lips that Love's own hand did make, CXLVI. Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, CXLVII. My love is a fever, longing still O me! what eyes hath love put in my head, O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind, Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not. CL. CLI. Love is too young to know what conscience is: In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn, CLIII. Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep; O, from what power hast thou this powerful might, The little love-god lying once asleep, Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm'd. P. 695, c. 1, 7. 13. this glutton be, The ancient editors of Shakspeare's works deserve at least the praise of impartiality. If P. they have occasionally corrupted his noblest sentiments, they have likewise depraved his most miserable conceits; as, perhaps, in this instance. I read (piteous constraint, to read such stuff at all!) "➖➖➖➖ this glutton be; To eat the world's due, be thy grave and i. e. be at once thyself and thy grave. The letters that form the two words were probably transposed. I did not think the late Mr Rich had such example for the contrivance of making Harlequin jump down his own throat. STEEVENS. I do not believe there is any corruption in the text. Mankind being daily thinned by the grave, the world could not subsist if the places of those who are taken off by death were not filled up by the birth of children. Hence Shakspeare considers the propagation of the species as the world's due, as a right to which it is entitled, and which it may demand from every individual. The sentiment in the lines before us, it must be owned, is quaintly expressed but the obscurity arises chiefly, I think, from the awkward collocation of the words for the sake of the rhyme. The meaning seems to me to be this Pity the world, which is daily depopulated by the grave, and beget children, in order to supply the loss; or, if you do not fulfil this duty, acknowledge, that as a glutton swallows and consumes more than is sufficient for his own support, so you (who by the course of nature must die, and by your own remissness are likely to die childless) thus "living and dying in single blessedness," consume and destroy the world's due: to the desolation of which you doubly contribute; I. by thy death; 2. by thy dying childless.' Our author's plays, as well as the poems now before us, affording a sufficient number of conceits, it is rather hard that he should be answerable for such as can only be obtained through the medium of alteration; that he should be ridiculed not only for what he has, but for what he has not written. MALONE. Id. l. 33. -Whose un-ear'd womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?] Id. her plenteous womb Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry." STEEVENS. Un-ear'd is unploughed. MALONE. 696, c. 1, l. 15. Music to hear, &c.] I have sometimes thought, Shakspeare might have written - Music to ear, &c. i. e. thou, whose every accent is music to the ear. So, in the Comedy of Errors: "That never words were music to thine ear." Hear has been printed instead of ear in the Taming of the Shrew; or at least the modern editors have supposed so. MALONE. 1.32.-like a makeless wife;] As a widow bewails her lost husband. Make and mate were formerly synonymous So, in Kyng Appolyn of Tyre, 1510: "Certes, madam, I sholde have great joy yfe ye had such a prynce to your make." Again, in The Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, 1562: "Betwixt the armes of me, thy perfect- -for store,] i. e. to be preserved for use. MALONE. Id. c. 2, 1. 14. Save breed, to brave him.] Except children, whose youth may set the scythe of Time at defiance, and reuder thy own death less painful. MALONE. Id. 1. 24. Which husbandry in honour might uphold-] Husbandry is generally used by Shakspeare for economical prudence. So, in King Henry V.: Id. Id. "For our bad neighbours make us early stirrers, Which is both healthful and good husbandry." MALONE. L. 36. By oft predict-] Dr Sewel reads,-By aught predict; but the text is right.-So, i the Birth of Merlin, 1662: "How much the oft report of this bless'd hermit "By Hath won on my desires!" MALONE. The old reading may be the true one. oft predict" may mean.-By what is most frequently prognosticated. STEEVENS. 1. 40. If from thyself to store thou would'st convert] If thou would'st change thy single state, and beget a numerous progeny. So, before: "Let those whom nature hath not made for store." Again, in Romeo and Juliet: "O, she is rich in beauty; only poor, 712 umon. So, in Love's Labour's Lost: P. 697 c. 2, L. 65. So should the lines of life-] This | Id. 1. 61. Making a couplement. That is appears to me obscure. Perhaps the poet wrote "the lives of life:" i. e. children.' MALONE. The "lines of life" perhaps are living pictures,' viz. children. ANON. ་ This explanation is very plausible. Shakspeare has again used line with a reference to painting in All's Well That Ends Well: "And every line and trick of his sweet favour MALONE. Id. l. 66. my pupil pen,] This expression may be considered as a slight proof that the poems before us were our author's earliest compo sitions. STEEVENS. Id 1 24 The eye of heaven is out " MALONE. Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest, Of that beauty thou possessest. Fair was, in our author's time, used as a substantive. To owe in old language is to possess. MALONE. Id. 1. 44. the master-mistress of my passion ;] It is impossible to read this fulsome panegyrie, addressed to a male object, without an equal mixture of disgust and indignation. We may remark also, that the same phrase employed by Shakspeare to denote the height of encomium, is used by Dryden to express the extreme of reproach: "That woman, man but more daub'd; or if a Corrupted to a woman; thy man-mistress.” DON SEBASTIAN Let me be just, however, to our author, who has made a proper use of the term male varlet, in Troilus and Cressida See that play, Act V. Se. 1. STEEVENS, Some part of this indignation might perhaps have been abated, if it had been considered that such addresses to men, however indelicate. were customary in our author's time, and neither imported criminality, nor were esteemed indecorous. To regulate our judgment of Shakspeare's poems by the modes of modern times, is surely as unreasonable as to try his plays by the rules of Aristotle. Master-mistress does not perhaps mean man-mistress, but sovereign mistress. See Mr Tyrwhitt's note on the 165th verse of the Canterbury Tales, vol. I, p. 197 MALONE. Id. 1. 49. A man in hue all hues in his controlling. This line is thus exhibited in the old copy: "A man in hew all Hews in his controlling." Hews was the old mode of spelling hues fcolours), and also Hughes, the proper name MALONE. Il. 1. 55. But since she prick'd thee out, &c.] To prick is to nominate by a puncture or mark. So, in Julius Cæsar : "These many then shall die, their names are prick'd' Again, in King Henry IV. Part IL: "Shall I prick him, Sir John ?". I have given a phrase elsewhere. wrong explanation of thes STEEVENS. "I wish you the couplement.""" peace of mind, most roya. I formerly thought this word was of our a thor's invention, but I have lately found it Spenser's Faery Queene: "Allide with bands of mutual couplement" MALONE. Id. 1. 64. That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.] Rondure is a round. Rondeur. Fr The word is again used by our author in Ka Henry V.: Tis not the rondure of your oldfac walls." MALONE. P. 698, c. 1,7. 48. - in death's dateless night A dateless bargain to engrossing death" Id. c. 2, l. 26. The region cloud-] i. e. the clouds "Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are, I believe means only this: "Making the 1 cuse more than proportioned to the offence." STEEVENS. Id. 1.51. For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense. Thus the quarto. The line appears to me un intelligible. Might we read: For to thy sensual fault I bring incense—” A jingle was evidently intended: but if this word was occasionally accented on the last syi lable (as perhaps it might formerly have bees. it would afford it as well as the reading of the old copy. Many words that are now aceste on an early syllable, had formerly their accel on one more remote. Thus, in A MidsummerNight's Dream : "It stands as an edict in destiny." Did slay this Fortinbras, who by a seal. Again, in Measure for Measure: This is the hand, which with a vow'd co tráct....” I believe the old reading to be the true one. The passage, divested of its jingle, seems designed to express this meaning.- "Towards thy exculpation, I bring in the aid of my soundest faculties, my keenest perception, my utmost strength of reason, my sense." I think I can venture to affirm that no English writer, either ancient or modern, serious or burlesque, ever accented the substantive incense on the last syllable. STEEVENS. = P. 698, c. 2,1 62. Though in our lives a separable spite,] A cruel fate, that spitefully separates us from each other. Separable for separating. MALONE. P. 699, c. 1, l. 3. So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite,] Dearest is most operative. So, in Hamlet: "Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven." A late editor, Mr Capell, grounding himself on this line, and another in the 89th Sonnet, 'Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt-" conjectured that Shakspeare was literally lame: but the expression appears to have been only figurative. So again, in Coriolanus: I cannot help it now, Unless by using means I lame the foot Again, in As You Like It: "Which I did store to be my foster-nurse, When service should in my old limbs lie lame." In the 89th Sonnet the poet speaks of his friends imputing a fault to him of which he was not guilty, and yet, he says, he would acknowledge it: so (he adds), were he to be described as lame, however untruly, yet rather than his friend should appear in the wrong, he would immediately halt. If Shakspeare was in truth lame, he had it not in his power to halt occasionally for this or any other purpose. The defect must have been fixed and permanent. The context in the verses before us in like manner refutes this notion. If the words are to be understood literally, we must then suppose that our admired poet was also poor and despised, for neither of which suppositions there is the smallest ground. MALONE. made lame by fortune's dearest spite." So, in King Lear: "A most poor man, made lame to fortune's blows." STEEVENS. Id. 1. 7. Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,] This is a favourite expression of Shakspeare. So, in King Henry IV. Part 1: "And on thy eyelids crown the god of sleep." Again, in Twelfth Night: "It yields a very echo to the seat Again, in Timon of Athens: "And in some sort these wants of mine are crown'd, That I account them blessings." Entitled means, I think, ennobled. The The same old copy reads-in their parts. error, as has been before observed, has happened in many other places. MALONE. Entitled in thy parts-" So, with equal obscurity, in Tarquin and Lucrece: From Venus' doves doth challenge that fair I suppose he means, that beauty takes its P. 699, c. 2, l. 9. If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,] If I lose thee, my mistress gains by my loss. MALONE. Id. l. 39. so much of earth and water wrought,] i. e. being so thoroughly compounded of these two ponderous elements. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra : -I am air and fire, my other elements I give to baser life." STEEVENS "He is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him." MALONE. Id. 1. 65. To 'cide this title is impanelled—] To 'cide, for to decide. The old copy reads side. MALONE. P. 700, c. 1, 1 67. Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race;] The expression is here so uncouth, that I strongly suspect this line to be corrupt. Perhaps we should read: "Shall neigh to dull flesh, in his fiery race." Desire, in the ardour of impatience, shall call to the sluggish animal (the horse), to proceed with swifter motion. MALONE. Perhaps this passage is only obscured by the awkward situation of the words no dull flesh The sense may be this: Therefore desire, being no dull piece of horse-flesh, but composed of the most perfect love, shall neigh as he proceeds in his hot career'. "A good piece of horse-flesh" is a term still current in the stable. Such a profusion of words, and only to tell us that our author's passion was impetuous, though his horse was slow! STEE |