Enter an old Shepherd. SHEP. I would, there were no age between ten and three and twenty; or that youth would fleep out the reft: for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, ftealing, fighting.-Hark you now!Would any but thefe boil'd brains of nineteen, and two-and-twenty, hunt this weather? They have fcared away two of my beft sheep; which, I fear, the wolf will fooner find, than the mafter: if any where I have them, 'tis by the fea-fide, browzing on ivy. Good luck, an't be thy will! what have we here? [Taking up the child.] Mercy on's, a barne; a very pretty barne! A boy, or a child,' I wonder? A pretty one; a very pretty one: Sure, fome fcape: though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been fome ftair-work, fome trunk-work, fome behind-door-work: they were warmer that got this, than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity: yet I'll tarry till my fon come; he holla'd but even now. Whoa, họ hoa! if any where I have them, 'tis by the fea-fide, browzing nivy.] This alfo is from the novel: " [The Shepherd] fearing either that the wolves or eagles had undone him, (for he was fo poore as a fheepe was halfe his fubítance,) wand'red downe towards the fea-cliffes, to fee if perchance the beepe was brouzing on the fea-ivy, whereon they doe greatly feed." MALONE. 4a barne; a very pretty barne!] i. e. child. So, in R. Broome's Northern Lafs, 1633: "Peace wayward barne! O ceafe thy moan, Thy far more wayward daddy's gone." It is a North Country word. Barns for barns, things born; feeming to anfwer to the Latin nati. STEEVENS. 5 — À boy, or a child,] I am told, that in fome of our inland counties, a female infant, in contradistinction to a male one, is still termed, among the peafantry,—a child. STEEVENS. 1 Enter Clown. CLOWN. Hilloa, loa! SHEP. What, art fo near? If thou'lt fee a thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ail'ft thou, man? CLOWN. I have feen two fuch fights, by fea, and by land; but I am not to fay, it is a fea, for it is now the fky; betwixt the firmament and it, you cannot thrust a bodkin's point. SHEP. Why, boy, how is it? CLOWN. I would, you did but fee how it chafes, how it rages, how it takes up the fhore! but that's not to the point: O, the most piteous cry of the fouls! fometimes to fee 'em, and not to fee poor 'em: now the fhip boring the moon with her mainmaft; and anon fwallow'd with yeft and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a hogfhead. And then for the land fervice,-To fee how the bear tore out his fhoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and faid, his name was Antigonus, a nobleman:-But to make an end of the ship:-to fee how the fea poor fouls flap-dragon'd it: -but, firft, how the roar'd, and the sea mock'd them;-and how the poor gentleman roar'd, and the bear mock'd him, both roaring louder than the fea, or weather. SHEP. 'Name of mercy, when was this, boy? CLOWN. Now, now; I have not winked fince I faw these fights: the men are not yet cold under 3 now the ship boring the moon with her main-maft ;] So, in Pericles: "But fea-room, and the brine and cloudy billow kifs the moon, I care not." MALONE. 4 pers Thou flap-dragon'd it :] i. e. fwallowed it, as our ancient tofwallowed flap-dragons. So, in Love's Labour's Loft: art easier fwallowed than a flap-dragon." See note on K. Henry IV. P. II. A& II. fc. iv. STERVENS. water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman; he's at it now. SHEP. Would I had been by, to have help'd the old man!' CLOWN. I would you had been by the ship fide, to have help'd her; there your charity would have lack'd footing. [Afide. SHEP. Heavy matters! heavy matters! but look thee here, boy. Now blefs thyfelf; thou met'st with things dying, I with things new born. Here's a fight for thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for a fquire's child! Look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open't. So, let's fee; -It was told me, I fhould be rich by the fairies: this is fome changeling:-open't: What's within, boy? Shep. Would I had been by, to have help'd the old man.] Though all the printed copies concur in this reading, I am perfuaded, we ought to restore, nobleman. The Shepherd knew nothing of Antigonus's age; befides, the Clown hath juft told his father, that he faid his name was Antigonus, a nobleman; and no lefs than three times in this fhort fcene, the Clown, fpeaking of him, calls him the gentleman. THEOBALD. I fuppofe the Shepherd infers the age of Antigonus from hist inability to defend himself; or perhaps Shakspeare, who was confcious that he himself defigned Antigonus for an old man, has inadvertently given this knowledge to the Shepherd who had never feen him. STEEVENS. 66 Perhaps the word old was inadvertently omitted in the preceding fpeech: nor the bear half dined on the old gentleman;" Mr. Steevens's fecond conjecture, however, is, I believe, the true one. MALONE. 6 a bearing-cloth] A bearing-cloth is the fine mantle or cloth with which a child is ufually covered, when it is carried to the church to be baptized. PERCY. 7 -fame changeling :] i. e. fome child left behind by the fairies, in the room of one which they had ftolen. So, in A Midfummer-Night's Dream : "A lovely boy, ftol'n from an Indian king; "She never had fo fweet a changeling." STEEVENS. CLOWN. You're a made old man; if the fins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold! SHEP. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove fo: up with it, keep it clofe; home, home, the next way. We are lucky, boy; and to be fo ftill, requires nothing but fecrecy.-Let my fheep go:Come, good boy, the next way home. CLOWN. GO you the next way with your findings; I'll go fee if the bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten: they are never curft, but when they are hungry: if there be any of him left, I'll bury it. SHEP. That's a good deed: If thou may'ft difcern by that which is left of him, what he is, fetch me to the fight of him. CLOWN. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i'the ground. SHEP. 'Tis a lucky day, boy; and we'll do good deeds on't. [Exeunt. 7 You're a made old man ;] In former copies :-You're a mad old man; if the fins of your youth are forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold! This the Clown fays upon his opening his fardel, and difcovering the wealth in it. But this is no reason why he fhould call his father a mad old man. I have ventured to correct in the text-You're a made old man; i. e. your fortune's made by this adventitious treasure. So our poet, in a number of other paffages. THEOBALD. Dr. Warburton did not accept this emendation, but it is certainly right. The word is borrowed from the novel: "The good man defired his wife to be quiet: if she would hold peace, they were made for ever." FARMER. 8 the next way.] i. e. the nearest way. So, in King Henry IV. P. I: ""Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be redbrealt teacher." STEEVENS. 9 They are never curft, but when they are hungry:] Curft, fignifies mischievous. Thus the adage: Curft cows have short horns. HENLEY. STANFORD LIBRARY ACT IV. Enter Time, as Chorus. TIME. I,—that please some, try all; both joy, and terror, Of good and bad; that make, and unfold error,'- O'er fixteen years,' and leave the growth untried -that make, and unfold error,] This does not, in my opinion, take in the poet's thought. Time does not make mistakes, and discover them, at different conjunctures; but the poet means, that Time often for a feafon covers errors, which he afterwards difplays and brings to light. I chufe therefore to read: that mask and unfold error, THEOBALD. Theobald's emendation is furely unneceffary. Departed time renders many facts obfcure, and in that fenfe is the caufe of error. Time to come brings difcoveries with it. "These very comments on Shakspeare (fays Mr. M. Mason) prove that time can both make and unfold error." STEEVENS. 3 that I flide O'er fixteen years,] This trefpafs, in refpect of dramatic unity, will appear venial to thofe who have read the once famous Lyly's Endymion, or (as he himself calls it in the prologue) his Man in the Moon. This author was applauded and very liberally paid by queen Elizabeth. Two acts of his piece comprize the fpace of forty years, Endymion lying down to fleep at the end of the fecond, and waking in the firft fcene of the fifth, after a nap of that unconfcionable length. Lyly has likewife been guilty of much greater abfurdities than ever Shak fpeare committed; for he fuppofes that Endymion's hair, features, and perfon, were changed by age during his fleep, while all the other perfonages of the drama remained without alteration. George Whetstone, in the epiftle dedicatory, before his Promos and Caffandra, 1578, (on the plan of which Measure for Measure is formed) had pointed out many of thefe abfurdities and offences |