KING. Come, fir, [advancing. ] you blush; as his You chide at him, offending twice as much: One, her hairs were gold, cryftal the other's eyes: You would for paradife break faith and troth; [To LONG. And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath. [TO DUMAIN. What will Birón fay, when that he shall hear A faith infring'd, which fuch a zeal did swear?” How will he fcorn? how will he spend his wit? How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it? 8 One, her hairs- -] The folio reads-On her hairs, &c. I fome years ago conjectured that we fhould read - One, her hairs were gold, &c. i. e. the hairs of one of the ladies were of the colour of gold, and the eyes of the other as clear as crystal. The king is speaking of the panegyricks pronounced by the two lovers on their mistreffes. On examining the firft quarto, 1598, I have found my conjecture confirmed; for fo it reads. One and on are frequently confounded in the old copies of our author's plays. See a note on King John, A& III. fc. iii. MALONE. 9 A faith infring'd, which fuch a zeal did fwear?] The repeated article A (which is wanting in the oldeft copy) appears to have been judicioully restored by the editor of the folio 1632. At least, I fhall adopt his fupplement, till fome hardy critick arises and declares himself fatished with the following line Faith infringed, which fuch zeal did fwear. in which “zeal" must be employed as a dissyllable. Malone's note 7, p. 279. STEEVENS, See Mr. For all the wealth that ever I did fee, [Defcends from the tree. O, what a scene of foolery I have seen, Of fighs, of groans, of forrow, and of teen!" O me, with what ftrict patience have I fat, To fee a king transformed to a gnat! 2 Thefe worms for loving,] So, in The Tempest, Profpero addref fing Miranda, fays "Poor worm, thou art infe&ed. STEEVENS. 3 Your eyes do make no coaches;] Alluding to a paffage in the king's fonnet: "No drop but as a coach doth carry thee." STEEVENS. The old copy has couches, Mr. Pope corrected it. MALONE. teen!] i. e. grief. So, in The Tempest: 4 To think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to. STEEVENS. To fee a king transformed to a gnat!] Mr. Theobald and the fucceeding editors read to a knot. MALONE. Knot has no fenfe that can fuit this place. We may read - fot. The rhymes in this play, are fuch as that fat and fot may be well enough admitted. JOHNSON. A knot is, I believe, a true lover's knot, meaning that the king lay'd his wreathed arms athwart His loving bofom fo long; i. c. remained so long in the lover's posture, that he seem To fee great Hercules whipping a gigg, ed actually transformed into a knot. The word fat is in fome counties pronounced fot. This may account for the feeming want of exa& rhyme. In the old comedy of Albumazar, the fame thought occurs : Why should I twine my arms to cables?" So, in The Tempest: His arms in this fad knot. Again, in Titus Andronicus: Marcus, unknit that forrow-wreathen knot: Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands, "And cannot paffionate our ten-fold grief With folded arms. Again, in The Raging Turk, 1631: as he walk'd, Folding his arms up in a pensive knot." The old copy, however, reads - a gnat, and Mr. Tollet feems to think it contains an allufion to St. Matthew, xxiii. 24. where the metaphorical term of a grat means a thing of leaft importance, or what is proverbially fmall. The fmallness of a gnat is likewise mentioned in Cymbeline. STFEVENS. A knott is likewife a Lincolnshire bird of the fnipe kind. It is foolish even to a proverb, and it is said to be easily enfnared. Ray, in his Ornithology, obferves, that it took its name from Canute, who was particularly fond of it. COLLINS. So, in The Alchemist: "My foo-boy fhall eat pheasants, &c. "Knotts, godwits, &c. Again, in the 25th song of Drayton's Polyolbion; "The hnot that called was Canutus' bird of old, "Of that great king of Danes his name that still doth hold, "His appetite to please that far and near were fought.' STEEVENS. To fee a king transformed to a gnat!] Alluding to the finging of that infed, fuggefted by the poetry the king had been deteded in. HEATH. The original reading, and Mr. Heath's explanation of it, are confirmed by a paffage in Spenter's Faery Queene, B. II. c. ix. "As when a fwarme of gnats at even-tide "Out of the fennes of Alban doe arife, Their murmuring small trompettes founden wide,” &c. MALONE. And Neftor play at push-pin with the boys, 4 Where lies thy grief, O tell me, good Dumain? KING. Too bitter is thy jeft. Are we betray'd thus to thy over-view? BIRON. Not you by me, but I betray'd to you; I, that am honeft; I, that hold it fin To break the vow I am engaged in; I am betray'd, by keeping company With moon-like men, of flrange inconftancy." Gnat is undoubtedly the true reading, and is that, it feems, of the old copy. Biron is abufing the King for his fonnetting like a minstrel, and compares him to a gnat, which always fings as it flies. Befides, the word gnat preferves the rhime, which is here to be attended to. M. MASON. critic Timon] Critic and critical are used by our author in the same sense as cynic and cynical. · Iago, speaking of the fair fex as harfhly as is fometimes the practice of Dr. Warburton, declares he is nothing if not critical. STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens's obfervation is supported by our author's 112th Sonnet: my adder's fenfe "To critick and to flatterer flopped are. With moon-like men, of strange inconftancy. ] readsmen-like men. STEEVENS. MALONE. The old copy read thus: This is a ftrange fenfelefs line, and fhould be "With vane-like men, of strange inconftancy. Warburton. This is well imagined, but the poet perhaps may mean, with men like common men. JOHNSON. The following paffage in K. Henry VI. P. III. adds some support to Dr. Warburton's conje&ure: "Look, as I blow this feather from my face, 12 When fhall you fee me write a thing in rhime? KING. 6 Soft; Whither away fo fafl? A true man, or a thief, that gallops fo? BIRON. I poft from love; good lover, let me go. Strange, which is not in the quarto or first folio, was added by the editor of the fecond folio, and confequently any other word as well as that may have been the author's; for all the additions in that copy were manifefly arbitrary, and are generally injudicious. MALONE. Slight at the authority of the fecond folio is here reprefented to be, who will venture to difplace frange, and put any other word in its place? STEEVENS. I agree with the editors in confidering this paffage as erroneous, but not in the amendment propofed. That which I would fuggeft is, to read moon-like, inftead of men-like, which is a more poetical expreffion, and nearer to the old reading than vane-like. M. MASON. I have not fcrupled to place this happy emendation in the text; remarking at the fame time that a vane is no where ftyled inconftant, although our author beftows that epithet on the moon in Romee and Juliet: the inconftant moon "That monthly changes Again, in Antony and Cleopatra: " now from head to foot "I am marble conflant, now the fleeting moon "No planet is of mine." STEEVENS. Again, more appofitely, in As you like it: -being but a moonish youth, changeable," — inconftant, &c.. MALONE. In pruning me?] A bird is faid to prune himself when he picks and fleeks his feathers. So, in K. Henry IV. P. I: 6 "Which makes him prune himfelf, and bristle up STEEVENS. a gait, a ftate,] State, I believe, in the prefent instance, is opposed to gait, (i. i. motion) and fignifies the act of landing. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: Her motion and her station are as one. STELVENS. |