John. Come, let us to the banquet. [Exeunt John and Bora. And truft no agent: for beauty is a witch, Which I mistrufted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero! Re-enter Benedick. Bene. Count Claudio? Claud. Yea, the fame, Bene. Come, will you go with me? Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, count. What fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an ufurer's chain? + or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You muft wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero. Claud. I wish him joy of her. Bene. Why, that's fpoken like an honest drover; fo they fell bullocks. But did you think, the prince would have ferv'd you thus? 4 ufurer's chain ?] I know not whether the chain was, in our authour's time, the common ornament of wealthy citizens, or whether he fatirically ufes ufurer and alderman as fynonymous terms. JOHNSON. Ufury feems about this time to have been à common topic of invective. I have three or four dialogues, pafquils, and difcourfes on the fubject, printed before the year 1600. From every one of thefe it appears, that the merchants were the chief ufurers of the age. STEEVENS. Claud. H Claud. I pray you leave me. Bene. Ho! now you ftrike like the blind man ; 'twas the boy that ftole your meat, and you'll beat the post. Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you. [Exit. Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! Now will he creep into fedges.-But, that my lady Beatrice fhould know me, and not know me! the prince's fool!Ha? it may be, I go under that title, becaufe I am merry.-Yea, but fo I am apt to do myfelf wrong: I am not fo reputed. It is the bafe, the bitter difpofition of Beatrice, that puts the world into her perfon, and so gives me out. Well, I'll be reveng'd as I may. Re-enter Don Pedro. Pedro. Now, fignior, where's the count? did you fee him? Bene. Troth, my lord, I have play'd the part of lady Fame. I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren, I told him, (and I think, I told him true) that your grace had got the will of this It is the bafe, tho' bitter, difpofition of Beatrice, who puts the world into her perfon.] That is, It is the difpofition of Beatrice, who takes upon her to perfonate the world, and therefore reprefents the world as faying what he only lays herself. Bafe, tho' bitter. I do not understand how base and bitter are inconfiftent, or why what is bitter fhould not be baje. I believe, we may fafely read, It is the bafe, the bitter difpofition. JOHNSON. 6 as melancholy as a lodge in a warren,] A parallel thought occurs in the first chapter of Ifaiah, where the prophet, defcribing the defolation of Judah, fays,- "The daughter of Zion is left as "a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers," &c. I am informed, that near Aleppo, thefe lonely buildings are ftill made use of, it being neceffary, that the fields where watermelons, cucumbers, &c. are raised, should be regularly watched. STEEVENS. young 7 young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forfaken, or to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt. Pedro. To be whipt! what's his fault? Bene. The flat tranfgreffion of a fchool-boy; who, being overjoy'd with finding a bird's neft, fhews it his companion, and he fteals it. Pedro. Wilt thou make a truft a tranfgreffion? The tranfgreffion is in the stealer. Bene. Yet it had not been amifs, the rod had been made, and the garland too: for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he might have beftow'd on you, who (as I take it) have ftol'n his bird's neft. Pedro. I will but teach them to fing, and restore them to the owner. Bene. If their finging answer your faying, by my faith, you fay honestly. Pedro. The lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you; the gentleman, that danc'd with her, told her fhe is much wrong'd by you. Bene. O, fhe mifus'd me paft the indurance of a' block; an oak, but with one green leaf on it, would have answer'd her; my very vifor began to affume life and fcold with her: She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jefter, and that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jeft upon jeft, with fuch impoffible conveyance upon me, that 7 of this young lady;] Benedick fpeaks of Hero as if she were on the ftage. Perhaps, both fhe and Leonato, were meant to make their entrance with Don Pedro. When Beatrice enters, fhe is fpoken of as coming in alone. STEEVENS. fuch impoffible conveyance] We should read impaffible. A term taken from fencing, when the ftrokes are fo fwift and repeated, as not to be parried or paffed off. WARBURTON. I know not what to propofe. Impoffible feems to have no meaning here, and for impaffible I have not found any authority. Spen fer 254 that I ftood like a man at a mark, with a whole army fhooting at me: She fpeaks poniards, and every word ftabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, fhe would infect to the north ftar. I would not marry her, though the were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he tranfgrefs'd: fhe would have made Hercules have turn'd fpit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you fhall find her the infernal Até in good apparel. I would to God, fome fcholar would conjure her: for, certainly, while fhe is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a fanctuary; and people fin upon purpose, because they would go thither: so, indeed, all difquiet, horror, and perturbation follow her. fer ufes the word importable in a fenfe very congruous to this paffage, for infupportable, or not to be fuftained. Both him charge on either fide, With bideous ftrokes and importable power, Which forced him his ground to traverse wide. It may be eafily imagined, that the tranfcribers would change a word fo unusual, into that word moft like it, which they could readily find. It must be however confeffed, that importable appears harsh to our ears, and I wish a happier critick may find a better word. Sir Tho. Hanmer reads impetuous, which will ferve the purpofe well enough, but is not likely to have been changed to impoffible. Importable was a word not peculiar to Spenfer, but used by the laft tranflators of the Apocrypha, and therefore fuch a word as Shakespeare may be fuppofed to have written. JOHNSON. Impoffible may be licentiously used for unaccountable. Beatrice has already faid, that Benedick invents impoffible flanders. STEEVENS. 9 the infernal Até in good apparel.] This is a pleasant allufion to the custom of ancient poets and painters, who reprefent the furies in rags. WARBURTON. Enter Enter Claudio, Beatrice, Leonato, and Hero. Pedro. Look, here she comes. Bene. Will your grace command me any fervice to the world's end? I will go on the flighteft errand now to the antipodes, that you can devife to fend me on; I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the fartheft inch of Afia; bring you the length of Prefter John's foot: fetch you a hair off the great cham's beard: do you any embaffage to the pigmies, rather than hold three words conference with this harpy: You have no employment for me? Pedro. None, but to defire your good company. Bene. O God, fir, here's a difh I love not. not endure this lady Tongue. I can Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have loft the heart of fignior Benedick. Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while; and I gave him ufe for it, a double heart for a single one: marry, once before he won it of me with falfe dice, therefore your grace may well fay, I have loft it. Pedro. You have put him down, lady, you have put him down. Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, left I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought count Claudio, whom you fent me to feek. bring you the length of Prefter John's foot: fetch you a hair of the great cham's beard] i. e. I will undertake the most difficult task, rather than have any converfation with lady Beatrice. Alluding to the difficulty of accefs to either of those monarchs, but more particularly to the former. So Cartwright, in his comedy call'd The Siege, or Love's Convert, 1641. -bid me take the Parthian king by the beard; or "draw an eye-tooth from the jaw royal of the Perfian monarch." STEEVENS. Pedro. |