Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion; Put on for villainy; not born, where't grows; Pis. Good madam, hear me. Imo. True honest men being heard, like false Æneas, Were, in his time, thought false: and Sinon's weeping Did scandal, many a holy tear: took pity From most true wretchedness: So, thou, Posthumus, Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men6; Goodly, and gallant, shall be false and perjur'd, From thy great fail.-Come, fellow, be thou honest: That is to be hung up as useless among the neglected contents of a wardrobe. So in Measure for Measure : 'That have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall. Clothes were not formerly, as at present, made of slight materials, were not kept in drawers, or given away as soon as lapse of time or change of fashion had impaired their value. On the contrary, they were hung up on wooden pegs, in a room appropriated to the sole purpose of receiving them; and though such cast off things as were composed of rich substances were occasionally ripped for domestic uses, articles of inferior quality were suffered to hang by the walls till age and moths had destroyed what pride would not permit to be worn by servants or poor relations: 'Comitem horridulum tritâ donare lacerna,' seems not to have been customary among our ancestors. When Queen Elizabeth died, she was found to have left above three thousand dresses behind her. Steevens once saw one of these repositories at an ancient mansion in Suffolk, which (thanks to a succession of old maids!) had been preserved with superstitious reverence for almost a century and a half. 6 Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men.' Thy The leaven is, in Scripture phraseology, the whole wickedness of our sinful nature.' See 1 Corinthians, v.. 6, 7, 8. failure, Fosthumus, will lay falsehood to the charge of men without guile make all suspected. : VOL. IX. H Do thou thy master's bidding: when thou seest him, Pis. : Hence, vile instrument! Thou shalt not damn my hand. Imo. Why, I must die; And if I do not by thy hand, thou art No servant of thy master's: Against self-slaughter There is a prohibition so divine, That cravens my weak hand?. Come, here's my heart; Something's afore't:-Soft, soft; we'll no defence; Corrupters of my faith! you shall no more Be stomachers to my heart! Thus may poor fools Believe false teachers: Though those that are betray'd Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor And thou, Posthumus, thou that didst set up 7 That makes me afraid to put an end to my own life.' Hamlet exclaims :- O that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self slaughter.' 8 Shakspeare here means Leonatus's letters, but there is an opposition intended between scripture, in its common signification, and heresy. Of princely fellows, shalt hereafter find Pis. O gracious lady, Since I receiv'd command to do this business, Imo. Wherefore then Do't, and to bed then. For my being absent; whereunto I never 9 Fellows for equals; those of the same princely rank with myself. 10 when thou shalt be disedg'd by her That now thou tir'st on, It is probable that the first, as well as the last, of these metaphorical expressions is from falconry. A bird of prey may be said to be disedged when the keenness of its appetite is taken away by tiring, or feeding, upon some object given to it for that purpose. Thus in Hamlet: Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen. Ham. It would cost you a groaning to take off mine edge." 11 Blind, which is not in the old copy, was supplied by Hanmer. 12 To have thy bow unbent, alluding to a hunter. So in one of Shakspeare's poems in The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599:— 'When as thine eye hath chose the dame And stall'd the deer that thou shouldst strike.' Pis. But to win time To lose so bad employment: in the which Imo. But if I were as wise as honest, then My purpose would prove well. It cannot be, But that my master is abus'd: Some villain, ay, and singular in his art, you Hath done both this cursed injury. Pis. No, on my life I'll give but notice you are dead, and send him Imo. Why, good fellow, What shall I do the while? Where bide? How live? Or in my life what comfort, when I am Dead to my husband? Pis. If you'll back to the court, Imo. No court, no father; nor no more ado With that harsh, noble, simple, nothing 13: That Cloten, whose love-suit hath been to me As fearful as a siege. 13 This line requires some word of two syllables to complete the measure. Steevens proposed to read : With that harsh, noble, simple, nothing, Cloten; Pis. If not at court, Then not in Britain must you bide. Imo. In a great pool, a swan's nest;. Pr'ythee, think Pis. Imo. Pis. Well then, here's the point: You must forget to be a woman; change 14 The poet may have had in his mind a passage in Lyly's Euphues, which he has imitated in King Richard II. See it in a note on that play, vol. v. p. 27. 15 To wear a dark mind is to carry a mind impenetrable to the search of others. Darkness, applied to the mind, is secrecy; applied to the fortune, is obscurity. The next lines are obscure. 'You must (says Pisanio) disguise that greatness which, to appear hereafter in its proper form, cannot yet appear without great danger to itself.' 16 Full of view appears to mean of ample prospect, affording a complete view of circumstances which it is your interest to know. Thus in Pericles, Full of face' appears to signify amply beautiful:' and Duncan assures Banquo that he will labour to make him full of growing,' i. e. of ample growth.' |