SCENE I. A Room in the Palace. Enter Duke But were I not the better part made mercy, Thy lands, and all things that thou dost call thine, Oli. O, that your highness knew my heart in this? I never lov'd my brother in my life. Duke F. More villain thou.-Well, push him out of doors; [Exeunt. with 6 And let my officers of such a nature Corin. And how like you this shepherd's life, master Touchstone? Touch. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in respect it is in the fields, it 1 Though thou the waters warp.' Mr. Holt White has pointed out a Saxon adage in Hickes's Thesaurus, volí. p. 221; Winter shall warp water. So that Shakspeare's expression was anciently proverbial. To warp, from the Gothic Wairpan, jacere, projicere, signified anciently to weave, as may be seen in Florio's Dict. v. ordire; or in Cotgrave v. ourdir. Though thou the waters warp,' may therefore be explained, as Mr. Nares suggests, Though thou weave the waters into a firm texture.' 2 Remember'd for remembering. So afterwards in Act iii. Sc. ult. And now I am remember'd,' i. e. and now that I bethink me, &c. 3 The argument is used for the contents of a book; thence Shakspeare considered it as meaning the subject, and then used it for subject in another sense. 4 Seize by legal process. pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd? Cor. No more, but that I know, the more one sickens, the worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends:--That the property of rain is to wel, and fire to burn: That good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a great cause of the night, is lack of the sun: That he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art, may complain of good breeding, or comes of a very dull kindred. Touch. Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in court, shepherd? Cor. No, truly. Touch. Then thou art damn'd. Cor. Nay, I hope, Touch. Truly, thou art damn'd; like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.10 Cor. For not being at court? Your reason. Touch. Why, if thou never wast at court, then never saw'st good manners; if thou never saw'st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation: Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd. Cor. Not a whit, Touchstone: those, that are good manners at the court, are as ridiculous in the country, as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me, you salute not at the court, but you kiss your hands; that courtesy would be uncleanly, if courtiers were shepherds. Touch. Instance, briefly; come, instance. Cor. Why, we are still handling our ewes; and their fells, you know, are greasy. Touch. Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? and is not the grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow: A better instance, I say; come. Cor. Besides, our hands are hard. Touch. Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow, again: a more sounder instance, come. Cor. And they are often tarr'd over with the surgery of our sheep; And would you have us kiss far? The courtier's hands are prefumed with civet. Touch. Most shallow man! Thou worms-meat, in respect of a good piece of flesh: Indeed!Learn of the wise, and perpend: Civet is of a baser birth than tar; the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd. Cor. You have too courtly a wit for me; I'll rest. Touch. Wilt thou rest damn'd? God help thee, shallow man! God make incision" in thee! thou art raw,12 Cor. Sir, I am a true labourer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other men's good, content with my harm: and the greatest of my pride is, to see my ewes graze, and my lambs suck. Hymns to Night and to Cynthia, which, though overinformed with learning, have many highly poetical pas sages. 7i. e. inexpressible. 8 Of good breeding,' &c. The anomalous use of this preposition has been remarked on many occasions in these plays. 9 A natural being a common term for a fool, Touchstone evidently intended to quibble on the word. 10 Touchstone,' says Malone, I apprehend only means to say, that Corin is completely damned; as irretrievably destroyed as an egg that is spoiled in the roast. ing, by being done on one side only. With Johnson I must say, that 'I do not fully comprehend the meaning of this jest.' 1 God make incision in thee! thou art raw. It has been ingeniously urged that insition or grating is here. meant, and that the phrase may be explained God put knowledge into thee,-but we want instances to confirm this. Steevens thought the allusion here was to the common expression of cutting for the simples; and the 6 This passage seems to evince a most intimate know- subsequent speech of Touchstone, That is another ledge of ancient mythology, but Shakspeare was doubt-simple sin in you,' gives colour to this conjecture. less familiar with that fine racy old poet, Chapman's! 12 i. e. ignorant, unexperienced. 5 i. e. expeditiously. Expedient is used by Shakspeare throughout his plays for expeditious. Touch. That is another simple sin in you: to bring the ewes and rams together, and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle: to be bawt to a bell-wether; and to betray a she-lamb of a twelvemonth, to a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldy ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou be'st not damn'd for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds; I cannot see else how thou shouldst 'scape. Cor. Here comes young master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother. Enter ROSALIND, reading a Paper. Ros. From the east to western Ind, No jewel is like Rosalind, Her worth, being mounted on the wind, Touch. I'll rhyme you so, eight years together einners, and suppers, and sleeping hours excepted; it is the right butter-woman's rank to market. Ros. Out, fool! Touch. For a taste: If a hart do lack a hind, They that reap, must sheaf and bind; Sweetest nut hath sourest rind, He that sweetest rose will find, Must find love's prick, and Rosalind. This is the very false gallop of verses: Why do you infect yourself with them? Ros. Peace, you dull fool; I found them on a tree. Touch. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit. Ros. I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit in the country: for you'll be rotten e'er you be half ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar. Touch. You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge. Enter CELIA, reading a Paper. Ros. Peace! Here comes my sister, reading; stand aside. For it is unpeopled? No; That shall ci sayings show. 'Twixt the souls of friend and friend: 1 i. e. most fairly delineated. 2 Fair is beauty. 3 The right butter-woman's rank to market' means the jog-trot rate (as it is vulgarly called) with which batter women uniformly travel one after another in their road to market. In its application to Orlando's poetry, it means a set or string of verses in the same coarse cadence and vulgar uniformity of rhythm. 4 The word silent is not in the old copy. Pope corrected the passage by reading Why should this a desert be?" The present reading was proposed by Tyrwhitt, who observes that the hanging of tongues on every tree would not make it less a desert? 5 Civil,' says Johnson, is here used in the same sense as when we say, civil wisdom and civil life, in pposition to a solitary state. This desert shall not appear unpeopled, for every tree shall teach the maxims er incidents of social life." 6i. e. in miniature. So in Hamlet. a hundred du. tats a piece for his picture in little.' Ros. Nay, but who is it? Cel. Is it possible? Ros. Nay, I pray thee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is. Cel. O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonder ful wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all whooping ?12 Ros. Good my complexion!13 dost thou think, though I am caparison'd like a man, I have a 7 The hint is probably taken from the Picture of Apelles, or the Pandora of the Ancients. 8 There is a great diversity of opinion among the commentators about what is meant by the better part of Atalanta, for which I must refer the reader, who is desirous of seeing this knotty point discussed, to the Variorum editions of Shakspeare. 9 A palm tree in the forest of Arden is as much out of its place as a lioness in a subsequent scene. 10 Johnson has called Rosalind a very learned lady for this trite allusion to the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls. It was no less common that the other allusion of rhyming rats to death in Ireland This fanciful idea probably arose from some metrical charm or incantation used there for ridding houses of rats. 11 Alluding ironically to the proverb: Friends may meet, but mountains never greet.* 12 To whoop or hoop is to cry out, to exclain with astonishment. 13 Good my complexion! This singular phrase was probably only a little unmeaning exclamation si doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South sea of discovery.' I pr'ythee, tell me who is it? quickly, and speak apace: I would thou couldst stammer, that thou might'st pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-mouth'd bottle; either too much at once, or none at all. I pr'ythee take the cork out of thy mouth, that I may drink thy tidings. Cel. So you may put a man in your belly. Ros. Is he of God's making? What manner of man? Is his head worth a hat, or his chin worth a beard? Cel. Nay, he hath but a little beard. Ros. Why, God will send more if the man will be thankful: let me stay the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin. Cel. It is young Orlando; that tripp'd up the wrestler's heels, and your heart, both in an instant. Ros. Nay, but the devil take mocking; speak sad brow, and true maid.2 Cel. I'faith, coz, 'tis he. Cel. Orlando. Ros. Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose ?-What did he, when thou saw'st him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? and when shalt thou see him again? Answer me in one word. Cel. You must borrow me Garagantua's mouth first: 'tis a word too great for any mouth of this age's size: To say, ay, and no, to these particulars, is more than to answer in a catechism. Ros. But doth he know that I am in this forest, and in man's apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he wrestled? Cel. It is as easy to count atomies,' as to resolve the propositions of a lover:-but take a taste of my finding him, and relish it with a good observance. I found him under a tree, like a dropp'd acorn. Ros. It may well be call'd Jove's tree, when it drops forth such fruit. Cel. Give me audience, good madam. Ros. Proceed. Cel. There lay he, stretch'd along, like a wounded knight. Ros. Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes the ground. Cel. Cry, holla! to thy tongue, I pr'ythee; it curvets very unseasonably. He was furnish'd like a hunter. Ros. O ominous! he comes to kill my heart." Cel. I would sing my song without a burden: thou bring'st me out of tune. Ros. Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on. Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES. Orl. I do desire we may be better strangers. Jaq. I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks. Orl. I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly. Jaq. Rosalind is your love's name? Jaq. I do not like her name. Orl. There was no thought of pleasing you, when she was christen'd. Jaq. What stature is she of? Orl. Just as high as my heart. Jaq. You are full of pretty answers: Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conn'd them out of rings? Orl. Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence you have studied your questions. Jaq. You have a nimble wit; I think it was made of Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all our misery. Orl. I will chide no breather in the world, but myself; against whom I know most faults. Jaq. The worst fault you have, is to be in love. Orl. "Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am weary of you. Jaq. By my troth, I was seeking for a fool, when I found you. Orl. He is drown'd in the brook; look but in and you shall see him. Jaq. There shall I see mine own figure. Orl. Which I take to be either a fool, or a cipher. Jaq. I'll tarry no longer with you: farewell, good signior love. Orl. I am glad of your departure; adieu, good monsieur melancholy. Ros. Exit JAQ.-CEL. and Ross. come forward. will speak to him like a saucy lacquey, and under that habit play the knave with him.-Do you hear, forester ? Orl. Very well; what would you? Orl. You should ask me, what time o'day; there's no clock in the forest. Ros. Then there is no true lover in the forest; else sighing every minute, and groaning every hour, would detect the lazy foot of time, as well as a clock. Orl. And why not the swift foot of time? had not that been as proper? Ros. By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces with divers persons: I'll tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal. Orl. I pr'ythee, who doth he trot withal? Ros. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid, between the contract of her marriage, and the day it is solemnized: if the interim be but a se'nnight, Cel. You bring me out:-Soft! comes he not time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of here? Ros. "Tis he; slink by, and note him. [CELIA and ROSALIND retire. Jaq. I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone. Orl. And so had I; but yet, for fashion's sake, thank you too for your society. I Jaq. God be with you; let's meet as little as we can. mlar to Goodness me! many such have been current infamiliar speech at all times. A south sea of discovery,' is not a discovery as fu: off, but as comprehensive as the South Sea, which beng the largest in the world, affords the widest scope forexercising curiosity. 2 Speak sad brow, and true maid.' Speak seriously and honestly; or in other words, speak with a seri ous countenance, and as truly as thou art a virgin.' 3 i. e. how was he dressed? seven years. Orl. Who ambles time withal. man that hath not the gout; for the one sleeps Ros. With a priest that lacks Latin, and a rich easily, because he cannot study; and the other lives merrily, because he feels no pain: the one the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious pclacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning; nury: These time ambles withal. Örl. Who doth he gallop withal Ros. With a thief to the gallows: for though he 6 Holla! This was a term of the manege, by which the rider restrained and stopped his horse. 7 A quibble between hart and heart, then spelt the same. 8 To answer right painted cloth, is to answer sententiously. We still say she talks right Billingsgate Painted cloth was a species of hangings for the walls of 4' Garagantua.' The giant of Rabelais, who swal-rooms, which has generally been supposed and explainowed five pilgrims, their staves and all, in a salad. 5 An atomie is a mote flying in the sunne. Any thing o small that it cannot be made lesse ' Bullokar's Inglish Expositor, 1616. ed to mean tapestry; but was really cloth or canvass painted with various devices and moitos. The verses, mottos, and proverbial sentences on such cloths are often made the subject of allusion in our old writers. go as sof ly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there. Orl. Who stays it withal? Ros. With lawyers in the vacation: for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how time moves. Orl. Where dwell you, pretty youth? Ros. As the coney that you see dwell where she is kindled. Orl. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed' a dwelling. Ros. I have been told so of many: but, indeed, an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland" man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God, I am not a woman, to be touch'd with so many giddy offences as he hath generally tax'd their whole sex withal. Orl. Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of women? Ros. There were none principal; they were all like one another, as half-pence are; every one fault seeming monstrous, till his fellow fault came to match it. Orl. I pr'ythee, recount some of them. Ros. No; I will not cast away my physic, but on those that are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, that abuses our young plants with carving Rosalind on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies on brambles; all forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind: if I could meet that fancymonger, I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him. Orl. I am he that is so love-shaked; I pray you tell me your remedy. Ros. There is none of my uncle's marks upon you: he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes, I am sure, you are not prisoner. Orl. What were his marks? an un Orl. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he. Ros. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak? Orl. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much. you, Ros. Love is merely a madness; and I tell deserves as well a dark house and a whip, as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so pu nished and cured, is, that the lunacy is so ordinary, that the whippers are in love too: Yet I profess curing it by counsel. Orl. Did you ever cure any so? Ros. Yes, one; and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress; and I set him every day to woo me: At which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing, and liking; proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every passion something, and for no passion truly any thing, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour: would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; then I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love, to a living humour of madness;10 which was to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic: And thus I cured him; and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't. Orl. I would not be cured, youth. Ros. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cote, and woo me. : Orl. Now, by the faith of my love, I will tell me where it is. Ros. Go with me to it, and I'll show it you: and, by the way, you shall tell me where in the forest you live: Will you go? Orl. With all my heart, good youth. Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosalind :-Come, sister, will you go? [Exeunt. SCENE III. Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY;" JAQUES at a distance, observing them. Touch. Come apace, good Audrey; I will fetch up your goats, Audrey: And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature content you? Ros. A lean cheek; which you have not: a blue eye, and sunken; which you have not: questionable spirit; which you have not: a beard neglected; which you have not ;-but I pardon you for that; for, simply, your having in beard is a younger brother's revenue:-Then your hose should be ungarter'd, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and every thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation." But you are no such man; you are rather point-Gothe. device in your accoutrements; as loving yourself, than seeming the lover of any other. Orl. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love. that Aud. Your features! Lord warrant us! what features ?12 Touch. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious13 poet, honest Ovid, was among the Jaq. O knowledge ill-inhabited !14 worse than Jove in a thatch'd house! [Aside. Touch. When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room :15-Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical. Ros. Me believe it! you may as soon make her you love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do, than to confess she does: that is one of the points in which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosa-nest in deed, and word? Is it a true thing? lind is so admired? 1 i. e. sequestered. 2 i. e. civilized. See note on Act ii. Sc. 7. 3 Courtship is here used for courtly behaviour, cour tiership. See Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. Sc. 3. The context shows that this is the sense :- for there he fell in love; i. e. at court. 4 i. e. a blueness about the eyes, an evidence of anxiety and dejection. 3 i. e. a spirit averse to conversation. Shakspeare often uses question for discourse, conversation, as in the next scene: 'I met the duke yesterday, and had mach question with him.' 6 Haring is possession, estate. 7 These seem to have been the established and characteristical marks of a lover in Shakspeare's time. 8 i. e. precise, exact; drest with finical nicety. 9 Moonish, that is, as changeable as the moon. 10 If, says Johnson, this be the true reading, we must by living understand lasting or permanent."""But Aud. I do not know what poetical is: Is it ho he suspected that this passage was corrupt; that origi nally some antithesis was intended, which is now lost. 11 Audrey is a corruption of Etheldreda. The saint of that name is so styled in ancient calendars. 12 What features! Mr. Nares's explanation of this passage appears to be the true one, it is that the word feature is too learned for the comprehension of Audrey,' and she reiterates it with simple wonder. 13 Shakspeare remembered that caper was Latin for a goat, and thence chose this epithet. There is also a poor quibble between goats and goths. 14 II-lodged. 15 A great reckoning in a little room.' Warburton, with his usual ingenuity, has found out a reference to the saying of Rabelais, that there was only one quarter of an hour in human life passed ill, and that was between the calling for a reckoning and the paying it.' Tavern jollity is interrupted by the coming in of a great reckon. ing, and there seems a sly insinuation that it could not be escaped from in a little room. Touch. No, truly, for the truest poetry is the most feigning; and lovers are given to poetry; and what they swear in poetry, may be said, as lovers, they do feign.' Aud. Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical? Touch. I do, truly for thou swear'st to me thou art honest; now, thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign. Aud. Would you not have me honest ? Touch. No truly, unless thou wert hard favour'd: for honesty coupled to beauty, is to have honey a Jaq. A material fool!2 Aud Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest! Touch. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut, were to put good meat into an unclean dish. Aud. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul,3 [Aside. Touch. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee: and to that end, I have been with Sir Oliver Mar-text, the vicar of the next village; who hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest, and to couple us. Jaq. I would faín see this meeting. Aud. Well, the gods give us joy! Touch. Amen. A man may if he were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly but hornbeasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are necessary. It is said,-Many a man knows no end of his goods: right; many a man has good horns, and knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; 'tis none of his own getting. Horns? Even so:- -Poor men alone?-No, no; the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man therefore blessed? No: as a wall'd town is more worthier than a vil lage, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a bachelor: and by how much defence' is better than no skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to want. Enter SIR OLIVER MAR-TEXT. Here comes Sir Oliver:-Sir Oliver Mar-text, you are well met: Will you dispatch us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel? Sir Oli. Is there none here to give the woman? Touch. I will not take her on gift of any man. Jaq. And will you, being a mian of your breeding, be married under a bush, like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is: this fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk pannel, and, like green timber, warp, warp. Touch. I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of another: for he is not like to marry me well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife. [Aside. Jaq. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee. Touch. Come, sweet Audrey; We must be married, or we must live in bawdry. O brave Oliver, Leave me not behind thee: But-wind away, Begone, I say, I will not to wedding with thee." [Exeunt JAQ. TOUCH. and AUDREY. Sir Oli. "Tis no matter; ne'er a fantastical knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling. [Exit. SCENE IV. The same. Before a Cottage. Enter ROSALIND and CELIA. Ros. Never talk to me, I will weep. Cel. Do, I pr'ythee; but yet have the grace to consider, that tears do not become a man. Ros. But have I not cause to weep? Cel. As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep. marry, Ros. His very hair is of the dissembling colour. Cel. Something browner than Judas's :10 his kisses are Judas's own children. Ros, I'faith, his hair is of a good colour. Cel. An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour. touch of holy bread. Ros. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the Cel. He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana: a nun of winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in them." Ros. But why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not? Cel. Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him. Cel. Yes I think he is not a pick-purse, nor a horse-stealer; but for his verity in love, I do think Sir Oli. Truly, she must be given, or the mar-him as concave as a cover'd goblet, or a worm-eatriage is not lawful. Jaq. [Discovering himself.] Proceed, proceed; I'll give her. Touch. Good even, good master What ye call't: How do you, sir? You are very well met: God'ild you' for your last company: I am very glad to see you:-Even a toy in hand here, sir:-Nay; pray be cover❜d. 1 This should probably be read-it may be said, as lovers they do feign.' 2A material fool, is a fool with matter in him. 3 I thank the gods I am foul. The humour of this passage has, I think, been missed by the commentators. Audrey in the simplicity of her heart here thanks the gods amiss ;' mistaking foulness, for some notable virtue, or commendable quality. But indeed foul was an ciently used in opposition to fair, the one signifying homely, the other handsome. 4 Lean deer are called rascal deer. 5 i. e. the art of fencing. 6 Sir Oliver. This title, it has been already observed, was formerly applied to priests and curates in general. See notes on Merry Wives of Windsor, Act. i. Sc. 1. 7 i. e. God yield you, God reward you. 8 i. e. his yoke, which, in ancient time, resembled a bow or branching horns. See note on Merry Wives of Windsor, Act v. Sc. 5. en nut. Ros. Not true in love? Cel. Yes, when he is in; but, I think he is not in. Ros. You have heard him swear downright, ho was. Cel. Was is not is: besides the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmers of false reckonings: He attends here in the forest on the duke your father. Ros. I met the duke yesterday, and had much question12 with him. He asked me of what parentage I was; I told him, of as good as he; so he laugh'd, and let me go. But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a man as Orlando? 9 The ballad of 'O sweete Olyver, leave me not be. hind thee,' and the answer to it, are entered on the Stationers' books in 1584 and 1586. Touchstone says I will sing-not that part of the ballad which saysLeave me not behind thee;' but that which saysBegone, I say,' probably part of the answer. 10 It has been already observed, in a note on The Merry Wives of Windsor, that Judas was constantly represented in old paintings and tapestry, with red hair and beard. 11 Surely this speech is sufficiently intelligible with out the blundering of Theobald or the pedantic refinement of Warburton? There is humour in the expres sion cast lips; which Theobald rightly explained left off, as we still say cast clothes. Who would ever dream of taking this figurative passage in its literal meaning? The nun of winter's sisterhood, with the very ice of chastity in her lips, needs no explanation 12 Question is conversation. |