Let not my sister read it in your eye; Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator; Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted; Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife. 'Tis holy sport to be a little vain, When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife. Ant. S. Sweet mistress, (what your name is else, I know not, Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine,) Less in your knowledge, and your grace you show not, 6 7 Your weeping sister is no wife of mine, - - become disloyalty ;] i. e. make disloyalty become you. Nor to her bed no homage do I owe: Far more, far more, to you do I decline 3. Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs, And, in that glorious supposition, think He gains by death, that hath such means to die: Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink 2! Luc. What are you mad, that you do reason so? Ant. S. Not mad, but mated 3; how, I do not know. Luc. It is a fault that springeth from your eye. Ant. S. For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by. Luc. Gaze where you should', and that will clear your sight. Ant. S. As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night. Luc. Why call you me love? call my sister so. Ant. S. Thy sister's sister. Luc. Ant. S. That's my sister. No; It is thyself, mine own self's better part; Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart; 8 9 To you do I DECLINE.] i. e. I do decline, or lean, from her to you. but it is altered, as it stands in the text, in the folio of 1632. 1 And as a BED I'll take thee,] The earliest folio has bud for bed; the correction is made in the second folio. 2 Let Love, being light, be drowned if SHE sink !] Shakespeare not unfrequently makes Lore feminine. 3 Not mad, but MATED ;] The words which follow mated-" how, I do not know"-support the notion of Monck Mason, that a play was intended on the double meaning of "mated,” as confounded or bewildered, and matched with a wife. 4 Gaze WHERE you should,] The old copies read when for where. Ant. S. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I aim thee". Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life: Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife. Give me thy hand. Luc. Enter DROMIO of Syracuse hastily. [Exit. Ant. S. Why, how now, Dromio! where run'st thou so fast? Dro. S. Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself? Ant. S. Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself. Dro. S. I am an ass; I am a woman's man, and besides myself. Ant. S. What woman's man? and how besides thyself? Dro. S. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me. Ant. S. What claim lays she to thee? Dro. S. Marry, sir, such claim as you would lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast not that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me. Ant. S. What is she? Dro. S. A very reverend body; ay, such a one as a man may not speak of, without he say, sir-reverence. I have but lean luck in the match, and yet she is a wondrous fat marriage. Ant. S. How dost thou mean a fat marriage? Dro. S. Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench, and all 5 I AIM thee.] "I am thee" in the old copies, which Shakespeare could not have written. It was not peculiar to him to convert "aim" into a verb transitive: "I aim thee" means, I aim at thee. 6 — without he say, SIR-REVERENCE.] A very old corruption of save-reverence, saltâ reverentiá. grease; and I know not what use to put her to, but to make a lamp of her, and run from her by her own light. I warrant, her rags, and the tallow in them, will burn a Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday, she'll burn a week longer than the whole world. Ant. S. What complexion is she of? Dro. S. Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing like so clean kept: for why? she sweats; a man may go over shoes in the grime of it. Ant. S. That's a fault that water will mend. Dro. S. No, sir; 'tis in grain: Noah's flood could not do it. Ant. S. What's her name? Dro. S. Nell, sir; but her name is three quarters, that is, an ell'; and three quarters will not measure her from hip to hip. Ant. S. Then she bears some breadth? Dro. S. No longer from head to foot, than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her. Ant. S. In what part of her body stands Ireland? Dro. S. Marry, sir, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs. Ant. S. Where Scotland? Dro. S. I found it by the barrenness, hard, in the palm of the hand. Ant. S. Where France? Dro. S. In her forehead; arm'd and reverted, making war against her heir. 7 - that is, AN ELL] Or a Nell. This reply has been strangely misprinted and misunderstood by all the commentators: they altered "is" to "and," because they were puzzled by the old punctuation, and because they did not know that "an ell" Flemish is three quarters of a yard. Dromio merely says, that “an ell," or three quarters of a yard, "will not measure her from hip to hip." 8 I found it by the BARRENNESS :] Hence Malone concluded hastily that "The Comedy of Errors" was not revived after the accession of James I., " otherwise the passage would have been struck out by the Master of the Revels." See the "Introduction." 9 arm'd and reverted, making war against her HEIR.] Theobald thought, Ant. S. Where England? Dro. S. I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them: but I guess, it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it. Ant. S. Where Spain? Dro. S. Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath. Ant. S. Where America, the Indies? Dro. S. O! sir, upon her nose, all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who sent whole armadoes of carracks to be ballast at her nose. Ant. S. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands? Dro. S. O sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me; call'd me Dromio; swore, I was assured to her: told me what privy marks I had about me, as the mark of my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I, amazed, ran from her as a witch and, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith, and my heart of steel, she had transform'd me to a curtaildog, and made me turn i' the wheel'. Ant. S. Go, hie thee presently post to the road, and Malone concurred with him, that Shakespeare in this passage about France, intended a covert reference to the state of that country after the assassination of Henry III. in 1589, when the people were "making war against the heir" to the throne, Henry IV. In 1591, Elizabeth sent over the Earl of Essex to Henry's assistance, and the conjecture is that the Comedy of Errors was produced soon afterwards. In this opinion Johnson does not concur, and sees in the passage nothing more than an equivocation respecting the corona veneris, a disorder which he supposes Dromio to impute to the kitchen-wench. There can be little doubt that Theobald is right; for if no allusion to the heir of France had been meant, hair would, probably, not have been spelt heire, as it stands in the oldest copy, though the second folio converts it into haire. The words "arm'd and reverted" also would hardly have been employed by Shakespeare, had he not intended more than Johnson saw in the passage. 1- and made me turn i' the wheel.] i. e. The wheel attached to the spit, she being the kitchen-maid. It may be doubted whether "steel" and "wheel" were not intended to rhyme, and the elision "i' the," for the purpose of making in the one syllable, looks like it. VOL. II. L |