thou crushest the snake! that is the way to make an offence gracious 16; though few have the grace to do it. Arm. For the rest of the worthies ?- 17 Arm. We will have, if this fadge 17 not, an antick. I beseech you, follow. Hol. Via 18, goodman Dull! thou hast spoken no word all this while. Dull. Nor understood none neither, sir. Hol. Allons! we will employ thee. Dull. I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play on the tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay. Hol. Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport, away. [Exeunt. SCENE II. Another part of the same. Before the Princess's Pavilion. Enter the Princess, KATHARINE, ROSALINE, and MARIA. Prin. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart, If fairings thus come plentifully in: A lady wall'd about with diamonds! Look you, what I have from the loving king. Ros. Madam, came nothing else along with that? Prin. Nothing but this? yes, as much love in rhyme, 16 That is, convert our offence against yourselves into a dramatic propriety, 17 i. e. suit not, go not, 18 An Italian exclamation signifying Courage! Come on! See Vol. i. p 221. As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper, Ros. That was the way to make his god-head wax1: For he hath been five thousand years a boy. Kath. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too. Ros. You'll ne'er be friends with him; he kill'd your sister. Kath. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy; And so she died: had she been light, like you, Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit, She might have been a grandam ere she died: And so may you; for a light heart lives long. Ros. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word? Kath. A light condition in a beauty dark. Ros. We need more light to find your meaning out. Kath. You'll mar the light, by taking it in snuff3; Therefore, I'll darkly end the argument. Ros. Look, what you do, you do it still i' the Kath. So do not you; for you are a light wench. Ros. Great reason; for, Past cure is still past care. But Rosaline, you have a favour too: Who sent it? and what is it? 1 Grow. 2 This was a term of endearment formerly. So in Hamlet: 'Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse.' 3 Snuff is here used equivocally for anger, and the snuff of a candle. See King Henry IV. Act i. Sc. 3. 4 A set is a term at tennis for a game. Ros. I would, you knew: And if my face were but as fair as yours, Ros. Much, in the letters; nothing in the praise, Ros. 'Ware pencils 5! How! let me not die debtor, My red dominical, my golden letter: 0, that your face were not so full of O's! 6 your Kath. A pox of that jest! and beshrew all shrows! Prin. But what was sent to you from fair Du main? Kath. Madam, this glove. Prin. Did he not send you twain. Kath. Yes, madam; and moreover, Some thousand verses of a faithful lover: A huge translation of hypocrisy, Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity. Mar. This, and these pearls, to me sent Longaville; The letter is too long by half a mile. 5 She advises Katharine to beware of drawing likenesses, lest she should retaliate. 6 Theobald is scandalized at this language from a princess. But Dr. Farmer observes there need no alarm-the small-pox only is alluded to; with which it seems Katharine was pitted; or as it is quaintly expressed "her face was full of O's." Davison has a canzonet "on his lady's sicknesse of the poxe;" and Dr. Donne writes to his sister, "At my return from Kent, I found Pegge had the poxe." Such a plague was the small-pox formerly, that its name might well be used as an imprecation. Prin. I think no less: Dost thou not wish in heart, The chain were longer, and the letter short? Mar. Ay, or I would these hands might never part. Prin. We are wise girls, to mock our lovers so. Ros. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so. That same Birón I'll torture ere I go. O, that I knew he were but in by the week?! That he should be my fool, and I his fate. Prin. None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd, As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd, excess, As gravity's revolt to wantonness. Mar. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note, As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote; Since all the power thereof it doth apply, To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity. 7 This is an expression taken from the hiring of servants meaning 'I wish I knew that he was in love with me, or my servant,' as the phrase is. 8 The meaning of this obscure line seems to be,-I would make him proud to flatter me, who make a mock of his flattery. 9 The old copies read pertaunt-like. The modern editions read with Sir T. Hanmer, portent-like: of which Warburton has given an ingenious but unfounded explanation. The reading I have adopted may be explained tyrant-like. Potents is used for potentates in K. John, Act ii. Sc. 2. 10 Johnson remarks that these are observations worthy of a man who has surveyed human nature with the closest attention.' Enter BOYET. Prin. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face. Boyet. O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her grace? Prin. Thy news, Boyet? Boyet. Prepare, madam, prepare! Arm, wenches, arm! encounters mounted are That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage; |