As I, for praise alone, now seek to spill The poor deer's blood, that my heart means no ill. Lords o'er their lords? Prin. Only for praise and praise we may To any lady that subdues a lord. Enter COSTARD. afford Prin. Here comes a member of the commonwealth. Cost. God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady? Prin. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads. Cost. Which is the greatest lady, the highest? Prin. The thickest, and the tallest. Cost. The thickest, and the tallest! it is so ; truth is truth. An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit, One of these maid's girdles for your waist should be fit. Are not you the chief woman? you are the thickest here. Prin. What's your will, sir? what's your will? Cost. I have a letter from monsieur Biron, to one lady Rosaline. Prin. O, thy letter, thy letter; he's a good friend of mine : Stand aside, good bearer.-Boyet, you can carve ; Boyet. I am bound to serve.— This letter is mistook, it importeth none here; It is writ to Jaquenetta. Prin. We will read it, I swear: Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear. Boyet. [Reads.] By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely: More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous; truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The magnanimous and most illustrious king Cophetuas set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was [3] i. e. Open this letter. Our poet uses this metaphor, as the French do their poulet which signifies both a young fowl and a love letter. The Italians use the same manner of expression, when they call a love-epistle una pollicetta amorosa THEOBALD. [4] Still alluding to the capon JOHNSON. [5] The ballad of King Copbetua and the Beggar-Maid, may be seen in the Rcliques of Ancient Poetry. The beggar's name was Penelophon, PERCY. that might rightly say, veni, vidi, vici; which to anatomise in the vulgar, (O base and obscure vulgar!) videlicet, he came, saw, and overcame: he came, one; saw, two; overcame, three. Who came? the king; Why did he come? to see; Why did he see? to overcome: To whom came he? to the beggar; What saw he? the beggar; Who overcame he? the beggar: The conclusion is victory; On whose side? the king's: The captive is enrich'd; On whose side? the beggar's; The catastrophe is a nuptial; On whose side? the king's? no, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king; for so stands the comparison: thou the beggar; for so witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may: Shall I enforce thy love? I could: Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes; For tittles, titles; For thyself, me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part. Thine, in the dearest design of industry, DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar 'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey; Submissive fall his princely feet before, And he from forage will incline to play: But if thou strive, poor soul, what art thou then? Prin. What plume of feathers is he, that indited this letter? What vane? what weather-cock? did you ever hear better? Boyet. I am much deceived, but I remember the style. A phantasm, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport Prin. Thou, fellow, a word: Who gave thee this letter? [6] These six lines appear to be a quotation from some ridiculous poem of that time WARBURTON. [7] A pun upon the word stile. MUSGRAVE. [8] The allusion is to a fantastical character of that time. FARMER. A local allusion employed by a poet like Shakespeare, resembles the mortal steed that drew in the chariot of Achilles. But short services could be expected from either. STEEVENS. Cost. I told you; my lord. Prin. To whom shouldst thou give it? Prin. From which lord, to which lady? Cost. From my lord Biron, a good master of mine, To a lady of France, that he call'd Rosaline. Prin. Thou hast mistaken his letter.-Come, lords, away.-9 Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another day. Boyet. Who is the suitor? who is the suitor?1 Boyet. Ay, my continent of beauty. [Exeunt Ros. Why, she that bears the bow. Finely put off! Boyet. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry, Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry. Finely put on! Ros. Well then, I am the shooter. Boyet. And who is your deer? Ros. If we choose by the horns, yourself: come near. Finely put on indeed!— Mar. You still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the brow. Boyet. But she herself is hit lower: Have I hit her now? Ros. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when king Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it? Boyet. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it. Ros. Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, Boyet. An I cannot, cannot, cannot, An I cannot, another can. [Singing. [Exe. Ros. and KATH. Cost. By my troth, most pleasant! how both did fit it! Mar. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it. [9] Perhaps the Princess said rather,—Come, ladies, away. The rest of the scene deserves no care. JOHNSON. [1] It appears that suitor was anciently pronounced shooter STEEVENS In Ireland, where, I believe, much of the pronunciation of Queen Elizabeth's age is yet retained, the word suitor is at this day pronounced by the vulgar as if it were written shooter MALONE. [2] This was King Arthur's queen, not over famous for fidelity to ber husband. Mordred the Pict is supposed to have been her paramour. STEEVENS. Boyet. A mark! O, mark but that mark; A mark, says my lady! Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be. Mar. Wide o' th' bow hand! I'faith, your hand is out. Cost. Indeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout. Boyet. An if my hand be out, then, belike your hand is in. Cost. Then will she get the upshot by cleaving the pin. Mar. Come, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul. Cost. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to bowl. owl. Boyet. I fear too much rubbing; Good night, my good [Exeunt BOYET and MARIA. Cost. By my soul, a swain! a most simple clown! Lord, Lord! how the ladies and I have put him down! O' my troth, most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit! When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit. Armatho o' th' one side,-O, a most dainty man! To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan! To see him kiss his hand! and how most sweetly a' will swear! And his page o' t'other side, that handful of wit! Sola, sola! [Shouting within. Exit COST. running. SCENE II. The same. Enter HOLOFERNES, Sir NATHANIEL, and DULL. Nath. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of a good conscience. Hol. The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,-blood; [3] i. e. a good deal to the left of the mark; a term still retained in modern archery DOUCE. [4] There is very little personal reflection in Shakespeare. Either the virtue of those times, or the candour of our author, has so affected, that his satire is, for the most part, general, and, as himself says: -his taring like a wild-goose flies, Unclaim'd of any man. The place before us seems to be an exception. For by Holofernes is designed a particular character, a pedant and schoolmaster of our author's time, one John Florio, a teacher of the Italian tongue in London, who has given us a small dictionary of that language under the title of A World of Words, which in his epistle dedicatory, he tells us, "is of little less value than Stephens's Treasure of ripe as a pome water-who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of cœlo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab, on the face of terra,—the soil, the land, the earth. Nath. Truly, master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least: But, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head. Hol. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo. Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo, 'twas a pricket. Hol. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were, replication-or, rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination-after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather, unlettered, or, ratherest, unconfirmed fashion,-to insert again my haud credo for a deer. the Greek tongue," the most complete work that was ever yet compiled of its kind. In his preface, he calls those who criticised his works," sea-dogs, or landcritics; monsters of men if not beasts rather than men; whose teeth are canibals, their toongs adders forks, their lips aspes poison, their eyes basiliskes, their breath the breath of a grave, their words like swordes of Turks, that strive which shall dive deepest into a christian lying bound before them." Well therefore might the mild Nathaniel desire Holofernes to abrogate scurrility. His profession too is the reason that Holofernes deals so much in Italian sentences. There is an edition of Love's Labour's Lost, printed in 1598, and said to be presented before her highness this last Christmas, 1597. The next year, 1598, comes out our John Florio, with his World of Words, recentibus odiis; and in the preface, falls upon the comic poet for bringing him on the stage. "There is another sort of leering curs, that rather snarle than bite, whereof I could instance in one who lighting on a good sonnet of a gentleman's, a friend of mine, that loved better to be a poet than to be counted so, called the author a Rymer. Let Aristophanes and his comedians make plaies, and scowre their mouths on Socrates: those very mouths they make to vilife, shall be the means to amplifie his virtue," &c Here Shakespeare is so plainly marked out as not to be mistaken. As to the sonnet of the gentleman his friend, we may be assured it was no other than his own. And without doubt was parodied in the very sonnet beginning with-The praiseful princess, &c. in which our author makes Holofernes say, he will something affect the letter; for it argues facility From the ferocity of this man's temper it was, that Shakespeare chose for him the name which Rabelais gives to his pedant of Thubal Holoferne. WARBURTON. I am not of the learned commentator's opinion, that the satire of Shakespeare is 80 seldom personal. It is of the nature of personal invectives to be soon unin telligible; and the author that gratifies private malice, animam in vulnere ponit, destroys the future efficacy of his own writings, and sacrifices the esteem of succeeding times to the laughter of a day. It is no wonder, therefore, that the sarcasms which perhaps in our author's time set the play-house in a roar, are now lost among general reflections. Yet whether the character of Holofernes was pointed at any particular man, I am, notwithstanding the plausibility of Dr. W's conjecture, inclined to doubt. JOHNSON. Dr. Warburton is certainly right in his supposition that Florio is meant by the character of Holofernes. Florio had given the first affront. The plaies, says he, that they plaie in England, are neither right comedies, nor right tragedies; but representations of histories without any decorum." The scraps of Latin and Italian are transcribed from his works, particularly the proverb about Venice, which has been corrupted so much. FARMER. [5] A species of apple formerly much esteemed. Malus carbonaria. STE. |