Mar. Are you a woman? Bawd. What would you have me be, an I be not a woman? Mar. An honest woman, or not a woman. Bawd. Marry, whip thee, gosling: I think I shall have something to do with you. Come, you are a young foolish sapling, and must be bowed as I would have you. Mar. The gods defend me! Bawd. If it please the gods to defend you by men, then men must comfort you, men must feed you, men must stir you up.-Boult's returned. Enter BOULT. Now, sir, hast thou cried her through the market? Boult. I have cried her almost to the number of her hairs; I have drawn her picture with my voice. Bawd. And I pr'ythee tell me, how dost thou find the inclination of the people, especially of the younger sort? Boult. 'Faith, they listened to me, as they would have hearkened to their father's testament. There was a Spaniard's mouth so watered, that he went to bed to her very description. Bawd. We shall have him here to-morrow with his best ruff on. 6 Boult. To-night, to-night. But, mistress, do you know the French knight that cowers i'the hams? Bawd. Who? Monsieur Veroles? Boult. Ay; he offered to cut a caper at the proclamation; but he made a groan at it, and swore he would see her to-morrow, 6 To cower is to sink or crouch down. Thus in King Henry VI.: The splitting rocks cow'rd in the sinking sands.' Again in Gammer Gurton's Needle : They cower so o'er the coles, their eies be blear'd with smoke.' Bawd. Well, well; as for him, he brought his disease hither: here he does but repair it. I know, he will come in our shadow, to scatter his crowns in the sun 8 Boult. Well, if we had of every nation a traveller, we should lodge them with this sign9. Bawd. Pray you, come hither awhile. You have fortunes coming upon you. Mark me; you must seem to do that fearfully, which you commit willingly; to despise profit, where you have most gain. To weep that you live as you do, makes pity in your lovers: Seldom, but that pity begets you a good opinion, and that opinion a mere 10 profit. Mar. I understand you not. Boult. 0, take her home, mistress, take her home: these blushes of hers must be quenched with some present practice. Bawd. Thou say'st true, i'faith, so they must: for your bride goes to that with shame, which is her way with warrant. to go Boult. 'Faith some do, and some do not. But, mistress, if I have bargained for the joint, Bawd. Thou may'st cut a morsel off the spit. 7 i. e. renovate it. So in Cymbeline, Act i. Sc. 2, p. 11:— "O disloyal thing! Thou should'st repair my youth.' 8 The allusion is to the French coin écus de soleil, crowns of the sun. The meaning of the passage is merely this, That the French knight will seek the shade of their house to scatter his money there.' 9 If a traveller from every part of the globe were to assemble in Mitylene, they would all resort to this house, while we had such a sign to it as this virgin.' A similar eulogy is pronounced on Imogen in Cymbeline:- She's a good sign; but I have seen small reflection of her wit.' 10 i. e. an absolute, a certain profit. Bawd. Who should deny it? Come, young one, I like the manner of your garments well. Boult. Ay, by my faith, they shall not be changed yet. Bawd. Boult, spend thou that in the town: report what a sojourner we have: you'll lose nothing by custom. When nature framed this piece, she meant thee a good turn; therefore say what a paragon she is, and thou hast the harvest out of thine own report. Boult. I warrant you, mistress, thunder shall not so awake the beds of eels 11, as my giving out her beauty stir up the lewdly-inclined. I'll bring home some to-night. Bawd. Come your ways; follow me. Mar. If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep, Untied I still my virgin knot will keep. Diana, aid my purpose! Bawd. What have we to do with Diana? Pray you, will you go with us? SCENE IV. [Exeunt. Tharsus. A Room in Cleon's House. Enter CLEON and DIONYZA. Dion. Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone? Cle. O Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter The sun and moon ne'er look'd upon! Dion. You'll turn a child again. I think Cle. Were I chief lord of all the spacious world, 11 Thunder is supposed to have the effect of rousing eels from the mud, and so render them more easy to take in stormy weather. Marston alludes to this in his Satires: They are nought but eeles, that never will appeare I'd give it to undo the deed1. O lady,' I' the justice of compare! O villain Leonine, Whom thou hast poison'd too! If thou had'st drunk to him, it had been a kindness Becoming well thy feat: what canst thou say, When noble Pericles shall demand his child? Dion. That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates, To foster it, nor ever to preserve. She died at night; I'll say so. Who can cross it? Unless you play the impious innocent3, And for an honest attribute, cry out, She died by foul play. Cle. O, go to. Well, well, Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods Dion. Cle. To such proceeding Who ever but his approbation added, Though not his pre-consent, he did not flow From honourable courses. Dion. Be it so then: 1 So in Macbeth:- Wake Duncan with this knocking:Ay, 'would, thou couldst!' In Pericles, as in Macbeth, the wife is more criminal than the husband, whose repentance follows immediately on the murder. 2 The old copy reads face. The emendation is Mason's. Feat is deed, or exploit. 3 An innocent was formerly a common appellation for an idiot. She calls him an impious simpleton, because such a discovery would touch the life of one of his own family, his wife. This is the ingenious interpretation of Malone; but I incline to think with Mason that we should read, VOL. IX. the pious innocent.' G G Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead, Whilst ours was blurted 5 at, and held a malkin o, You not your child well loving, yet I find, Cle. Heavens forgive it! Dion. And as for Pericles, What should he say? We wept after her hearse, And even yet we mourn; her monument * The old copy reads, She did disdain my child.' But Marina was not of a disdainful temper. Her excellence indeed eclipsed the meaner qualities of her companion, i. e. in the language of the poet, distained them. In Tarquin and Lucrece we meet with the same verb again: ‹ Were Tarquin night (as he is but night's child), The verb is several times used by Shakspeare in the sense of to eclipse, to throw into the shade; and not in that of to disgrace, as Steevens asserts. See vol. viii. p. 450, note 3. The same cause for Dionyza's hatred to Marina is also alleged in Twine's translation: The people beholding the beautie and comlinesse of Tharsia, said-Happy is the father that hath Tharsia to his daughter; but her companion that goeth with her is foule and ill-favoured. When Dionisiades heard Tharsia commended, and her owne daughter, Philomacia, so dispraised, she returned home wonderful wrath,' &c. 5 This contemptuous expression frequently occurs in our ancient dramas. So in King Edward III. 1596:-~ This day hath set derision on the French, And all the world will blurt and scorn at us.' 6 A coarse wench, not worth a good morrow. 7 'It greets me' appears to mean it salutes me, or is grateful to me. So in King Henry VIII.: 'Would, I had no being, If this salute my blood a jot.' |