What is not holy, that we swear not by, But take the Highest to witness: Then, pray you, tell me, If I should swear by Jove's great attributes, oaths Therefore, your Are words, and poor conditions, but unseal'd; Ber. Change it, change it: Be not so holy-cruel: love is holy; And my integrity ne'er knew the crafts That you do charge men with: Stand no more off, Who then recover: say thou art mine, and ever Dia. I see, that men make hopes in such a war,3 That we'll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring. 2 Few passages in Shakespeare have been more belaboured than this. To understand it, we must bear in mind what Bertram has been doing and trying to do. He has been swearing love to Diana, and in the strength of that oath wants she should do that which would ruin her. This is what she justly calls loving her ill, because it is a love that seeks to injure her. She therefore retorts upon him, that oaths in such a suit are but an adding of perjury to lust. As to the latter part of the passage, we agree entirely with Mr. Collier, that " these lines have not been under stood on account of the inversion." The first him refers to Jove, and whom, not to this, but to the second him; or rather whom and the latter him are correlative. The meaning, then, at once ap pears, if we render the sentence thus: This has no holding, this will not hold, to swear by Heaven that I will work against him, or seek his hurt, whom I protest to love." What, therefore, does she conclude? why, that his oaths are no oaths, but mere words and poor, unseal'd, unratified conditions. H. 3 That is, in such a strife or contest as the one in hand. The original here reads, “make ropes in such a scarre;" which Knight and Collier retain, though both suspect it to be a corruption. Sev. Ber. I'll lend it thee, my dear; but have no power To give it from me. Dia. Will you not, my Jord? Ber. It is an honour 'longing to our house, Bequeathed down from many ancestors; Which were the greatest obloquy i'the world In me to lose. Dia. Mine honour's such a ring: My chastity's the jewel of our house, Ber. Here, take my ring ; My house, mine honour, yea, my life be thine, Dia. When midnight comes, knock at my cham- eral corrections have been proposed, of which that in the text is by far the best. It was made by Singer, who rightly suggests that warre, as it was always written by Shakespeare, might easily get turned by the printer into scarre. Yet we have to own that make hopes is not a very Shakespearian expression: it carries a tameness hardly to be looked for in one so apt to deal in bold, strong metaphors. Which may lend some weight to the suggestion that both ropes and scar may be right, as expressing the strange means men will resort to, to overcome great difficulties. Camden says "scarr is a craggy, stony hill;" and Ray calls འ scarre the cliff of a rock," and says it is so used in Scarborough. And the word thus occurs in Drayton's Poly-Olbion, Song 27: To fence her furthest point from that rough Neptune's rage, That Shakespeare may have meant to use the figure of a man framing a ladder of ropes to surmount a steep, ragged cliff, is there fore possible, though we can scarce think it probable. H. I'll order take my mother shall not hear. When back again this ring shall be deliver'd: thee. [Exit. Dia. For which live long to thank both Heaven and me! You may so in the end. My mother told me just how he would woo, Have the like oaths: He has sworn to marry me, 4 Richardson derives braid from the Anglo-Saxon bræægan, and explains it to mean hasty, sudden, violent. Mr. Dyce accepts his derivation, but thinks its meaning here to be " violent in desire, lustful." But the balance of authority seems to be with Steevens and Singer, who make it another word, from the Anglo-Saxon bred, and explain it as meaning false, deceitful, perfidious. This agrees very well with the old character which foreign writers from Tacitus to Coleridge have generally set upon the French as a nation. And it is noticeable that Diana speaks as if she had now found an individual example of what she considered a national characteristic. In The Winter's Tale, Act iv. sc. 3, the Clown, referring to Autolycus, asks," Has he any unbraided wares!” where unbraided evidently means genuine, undamaged. It is there shown in a note that braided wares meant false, deceitful wares To show that the adjective is here used in the same sense, Singer quotes from a very ancient Carol for St. Stephen's Day, where Herod asks the saint who is prophesying the Saviour's birth, Marry that will, I live and die a maid: SCENE III. The Florentine Camp. [Exit. Enter French Envoy, French Gentleman, and two or three Soldiers. Gent. You have not given him his mother's letter? there is Env. I have deliver'd it an hour since something in't that stings his nature, for on the reading it he chang'd almost into another man. Gent. He has much worthy blame laid upon him, for shaking off so good a wife, and so sweet a lady. Env. Especially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure of the king, who had even tun'd his bounty to sing happiness to him. I will tell you » thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly with you. Gent. When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and am the grave of it. 1 Env. He hath perverted a young gentlewomar here in Florence, of a most chaste renown, and thi night he fleshes his will in the spoil of her honour he hath given her his monumental ring, and think: himself made in the unchaste composition. Gent. Now, God delay our rebellion: as we are ourselves, what things are we ! Env. Merely our own traitors: And as in the common course of all treasons, we still see them What eyleth the, Stevyn, art thou wood? or thou gynnist to brede?" And to the same purpose Steevens cites from Green's Never too Late, 1616 : "Dian rose with all her maids, Blushing thus at Love his braids." H. reveal themselves, till they attain to their abhorr'd ends; so he that in this action contrives against his own nobility, in his proper stream o'erflows himself. Gent. Is it not most damnable in us to be trumpeters of our unlawful intents? We shall not, then, have his company to-night. Env. Not till after midnight; for he is dieted to his hour. Gent. That approaches apace: I would gladly have him see his company' anatomiz'd, that he might take a measure of his own judgments, wherein so curiously he had set this counterfeit." Env. We will not meddle with him till he come; for his presence must be the whip of the other. Gent. In the mean time, what hear you of these wars? Env. I hear there is an overture of peace. Gent. Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded. Env. What will count Rousillon do, then? will he travel higher, or return again into France? Gent. I perceive by this demand you are not altogether of his council. Env. Let it be forbid, sir! so should I be a great Ideal of his act. Gent. Sir, his wife, some two months since, fled This may mean, "they are perpetually talking about the mis. chief they intend to do, till they have obtained an opportunity of doing it." 2 That is, betrays his own secrets in his talk. 3 Damnable for damnably; the adjective used adverbially. Company for companion; referring of course to Parolles. This is a very just and moral reason. Bertram, by finding how ill he has judged, will be less confident and more open to admonition. Counterfeit, besides its ordinary signification of a person pretending to be what he is not, also meant a picture: the word set shows that it is used in both senses here. |