And clap thyself my love; then didst thou utter,

I am yours for ever.

Her. It is Grace, indeed.

Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice: The one for ever earn'd a royal husband;

The other, for some while a friend.

[Giving her hand to POLIXENES.

Leo. Too hot, too hot:
To mingle friendship far, is mingling bloods.
I have tremor cordis on me :-my heart dances;
But not for joy,-not joy.-This entertainment
May a free face put on; derive a liberty
From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,
And well become the agent: it may, I grant:
But to be paddling palms, and pinching fingers,
As now they are; and making practis'd smiles,
As in a looking-glass; and then to sigh, as 'twere
The mort o' th' deer; O, that is entertainment
My bosom likes not, nor my brows.-Mamillius,
Art thou my boy?

Mam. Ay, my good lord.

Leo. I'fecks ?4

[Aside.

Why, that's my bawcock. What, hast smutch'd thy nose?
-They say, it's a copy out of mine. Come, captain,
We must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain:

And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf,

Are all call'd, neat.-Still virginalling

[Observing POLIX. and HERMI.

Upon his palm ?-How now, you wanton calf?

Art thou my calf?

Mam. Yes, if you will, my lord.

[2] She opened her hand, to clap the palm of it into his, as people do when they confirm a bargain. Hence the phrase-to clap up a bargain, i. e. make one with no other ceremony than the junction of hands. This was a regular part of the ceremony of troth-plighting, to which Shakespeare often alludes. MALONE.

[3] A lesson upon the horn at the death of the deer. THEOBALD. [4] A supposed corruption of-in faith. Our present vulgar pronounce it--fegs. STEEVENS.

[5] Perhaps from beau and coq. It is still said in vulgar language that such a one is a jolly cock, a cock of the game. STEEVENS.

[6] Still playing with her fingers, as a girl playing on the virginals.

JOHNSON. A virginal, as I am informed is a very small kind of spinnet. Queen Elizabeth's virginal-book is yet in being, and many of the lessons in it have proved so difficult as to baffle our most expert players on the harpsichord. STEEVENS.

A virginal was strung like a spinnet, and shaped like a piano forte. MALONE.

Leo. Thou want'st a rough pash, and the shoots that I

have,"

To be full like me :-yet, they say, we are
Almost as like as eggs; women say so,
That will say any thing: But were they false
As o'er-died blacks," as wind, as waters; false
As dice are to be wish'd, by one that fixes
No bourn 'twixt his and mine; yet were it true
Το say this boy were like me.-Come, sir page,
Look on me with your welkin eye :9 Sweet villain!
Most dear'st! my collop!-Can thy dam?-may't be?
Affection! thy intention stabs the center:'

Thou dost make possible, things not so held,*
Communicat'st with dreams ;-(How can this be?)—
With what's unreal thou coactive art,

And fellow'st nothing: Then, 'tis very credent,"
Thou may'st co-join with something; and thou dost;
(And that beyond commission; and I find it)
And that to the infection of my brains,

And hardening of my brows.

Pol. What means Sicilia ?

Her. He something seems unsettled.

Pol. How, my lord?

What cheer? how is't with you, best brother?
Her. You look,

As if you held a brow of much distraction:
Are you mov'd, my lord?

Leo. No, in good earnest.

How sometimes nature will betray its folly,
Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines
Of my boy's face, methoughts, I did recoil
Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreech'd,

[7] Thou want'st a rough pash, and the shoots that I have, in connexion with the context, signifies-to make thee a calf thou must have the tuft on thy forehead and the young horns that shoot up in it, as I have. HENLEY.

I have lately learned that pash in Scotland signifies a head. Many words, that are now only used in that country, were perhaps once common to the whole island of Great Britain, or at least to the northern part of England. MALONE.

[8] It is common with tradesmen, to die their faded or damaged stuffs black. O'er-died blacks may mean those which have received a die over their former colour. STEEVENS.

[9] Blue-eye; an eye of the same colour with the welkin, or sky. JOHNSON. [1] Intention, in this passage, means eagerness of attention. M. MASON. [2] i. e. thou dost make those things possible, which are conceived to be impossible. JOHNSON.

[3] Credent-i. e. credible.

12

STEEVENS.
VOL. IV.

H 2

In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzled,
Lest it should bite its master, and so prove,
As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.

How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,
This squash, this gentleman :-Mine honest friend, -
Will you take eggs for money?

Mam. No, my lord, I'll fight..

Leo. You will? why, happy man be's dole !o.
My brother,

Are you so fond of your young prince, as we
Do seem to be of ours?

Pol. If at home, sir,

He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter:
Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy;
My parasite, my soldier. statesman, all:
He makes a July's day.ort as December;
And, with his varying childness, cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.
Leo. So stands this squire

Offic'd with me: We two will walk, my lord,
And leave you to your graver steps.-Hermione,

How thou lov'st us, show in our brother's welcome :

Let what is dear in Sicily, be cheap :

Next to thyself, and my young rover, he's
Apparent to my heart.7

Her. If you would seek us,

We are yours i' th' garden: Shall's attend you there?
Leo. To your own bents dispose you you'll be found,
Be you beneath the sky:-I am angling now,

Though you perceive me not how I give line.
Go to, go to!

[Aside, observing POLIX. and HER.

[4] A squash is a pea-pod, in that state when the young peas begin to swell in it. HENLEY.

[5] The meaning of this is, will you put up affronts? The French have a prover bial saying, A qui vendez vous coquilles ? i. e.whom do you design to affront? Mamillius's answer plainly proves it. Mam. No, my lord, I'll fight. SMITH.

Leontes seems only to ask his son if he would fly from an enemy. In the following passage the phrase is evidently to be taken in that sense: "The French infantery skirmisheth bravely afarre off and cavallery gives a furious onset at the first charge; but after the first heat they will take eggs for their money. REED.

[6] The expression is proverbial. Dole was the term for the allowance of provisions given to the poor, in great families. STEEVENS.

The alms immemorially given to the poor by the Archbishops of Canterbury, is still called the dole. NICHOLS.

[7] That is, heir apparent, or the next claimant. JOHNSON.

1

8

How she holds up the neb, the bill to him!
And arms her with the boldness of a wife

[Exeunt POLIX. HER. and Attendants. To her allowing husband! Gone already; Inch-thick, knee-deep; o'er head and ears

one.9

a fork'd

Go, play, boy, play ;-thy mother plays, and I
Play too; but so disgrac'd a part, whose issue
Will hiss me to my grave; contempt and clamour
Will be my knell.-Go, play, boy, play;-There have
been,

Or I am much deceiv'd, cuckolds ere now;
And many a man there is, even at this present,
Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by th' arm,
That little thinks she has been sluic'd in his absence,
And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour,' by
Sir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in't,
Whiles other men have gates; and those gates open'd,
As mine, against their will: Should all despair,
That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
Would hang themselves. Physic for't there is none;
It is a bawdy planet, that will strike

Where it is predominant; and 'tis powerful, think it,
From east, west, north, and south: Be it concluded,
No barricado for a belly; know it;

It will let in and out the enemy,

With bag and baggage: many a thousand of us
Have the disease, and feel't not.-How now, boy?
Mam. I am like you, they say.

Leo. Why, that's some comfort.
-What! Camillo there?

Cam. Ay, my good lord.

Leo. Go play, Mamillius; Thou'rt an honest man.—

[Exit MAMILLIUS.

Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.

Cam. You had much ado to make his anchor hold:

When you cast out, it still came home.2

[8] This word is commonly pronounced and written nib. It signifies here the mouth. STEEVENS.

[9] That is, a horned one; a cuckold. JOHNSON.

This metaphor perhaps owed its introduction and currency, to the once frequent depredations of neighbours on each other's fish, a complaint that often occurs in ancient correspondence.. STEEVENS.

[2] This is a sea-faring expression, meaning, the anchor would not take hold.

STEEVENS

Leo. Didst note it?

Cam. He would not stay at your petitions; made His business more material.

Leo. Didst perceive it?

They're here with me already; whispering, rounding,* Sicilia is a so-forth 5 'Tis far gone,

When I shall gust it last. -How cam't, Camillo,

That he did stay?

Cam. At the good queen's entreaty.

Leo. At the queen's, be't: good, should be pertinent; But so it is, it is not. Was this taken

By any understanding pate but thine?
For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in
More than the common blocks :-Not noted, is't,
But of the finer natures? by some severals,
Of head-piece extraordinary? lower messes,"
Perchance, are to this business purblind: say.

Cam. Business, my lord? I think, most understand Bohemia stays here longer.

Leo. Ha?

Cam. Stays here longer.

Leo. Ay, but why?

Cam To satisfy your highness, and the entreaties Of our most gracious mistress.

Leo. Satisfy

The entreaties of your mistress ?-satisfy ?-
Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,
With all the nearest things to my heart, as well
My chamber-councils: wherein, priest-like, thou
Hast cleans'd my bosom; I from thee departed
Thy penitent reform'd: but we have been

[3] Not Polixenes and Hermione, but casual observers, people accidentally present. THIRLBY.

[4] To round in the ear is to whisper or to tell secretly. The expression is very copiously explained by M. Casaubon, in his book de Ling. Sax. JOHNSON.

[5] This was a phrase employed when the speaker, through caution or disgust, wished to escape the utterance of an obnoxious term. A commentator on Shakespeare will often derive more advantage from listening to vulgar than to polite conversation. At the corner of Fleet Market, I lately heard one woman describing another, say "Every body knows that her husband is a so-forth." As she spoke the last word, her fingers expressed the emblem of cuckoldom. STEEVENS. [6] Gust it-i. e. taste it. STEEVENS.

[7] I believe lower messes is only used as an expression to signify the lowest degree about the court. Formerly not only at every great man's table the visitants were placed according to their consequence or dignity, but with additional marks of inferiority, viz. of sitting below the great saltseller placed in the center of the table, and of having coarser provision set before them. STEEVENS.