Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

To fwear by him whom I proteft to love,

That I will work against him; Therefore, your oaths Are words, and poor conditions; but unfeal'd;

At leaft, in my opinion.

Ber. Change it, change it;

Be not fo holy cruel: love is holy;

And my integrity ne'er knew the crafts,

That you

do charge men with: Stand no more off, But give thyself unto my fick defire,

Who then recovers: fay, thou art mine, and ever My love, as it begins, fhall fo persever.

Dia. I fee, that men make hopes in fuch affairs, That we'll forfake ourfelves, Give me that ring, Ber. I'll lend it thee, my dear, but have no power To give it from me,

calling him to atteft my love, and fhewing at the fame time, by working against him by a wicked paffion, that I have no refpect to the name which I invoke. JOHNSON.

7 To fwear by him whom I proteft to love,

That I will work against him :]

This paffage likewife appears to me corrupt. She fwears not by him whom he loves, but by Jupiter. I believe we may read, to fwear to him. There is, fays the, no holding, no confiftency, in fwearing to one that I love him, when I fwear it only to injure him. JOHNSON,

[ocr errors]

I fee, that men make hopes in fuch affairs]

The four folio editions read:

make rope's in fuch a scarre.

The emendation was introduced by Mr. Rowe. I find the word fearre in the Tragedy of Hoffman, 1631:

"I know a cave, wherein the bright day's eye

"Look'd never but afcance, through a small creeke,
"Or little cranny of the fretted fearre:

"There I have fometimes liv'd &c."

Again: "Where is the villain's body?

"Marry, even heaved over the fearr, and fent a fwimming &c." Again: Run up to the top of the dreadful fcarre." Again: "I ftood upon the top of the high fearre." Ray fays, that a fearre is the cliff of a rock, or a naked rock on the dry land, from the Saxon carre, cautes. He adds, that this word gave denomination to the town of Scarborough, STEEVens.

[blocks in formation]

Dia. Will you not, my lord?

Ber. It is an honour 'longing to our house, Bequeathed down from many ancestors; Which were the greateft obloquy i' the world In me to lose.

Dia. Mine honour's fuch a ring :

My chastity's the jewel of our house,
Bequeathed down from many ancestors;
Which were the greateft obloquy i'the world
In me to lofe: Thus your own proper wisdom
Brings in the champion honour on my part,
Against your vain affault.

Ber. Here, take my ring:

My houfe, mine honour, yea, my life be thine,
And I'll be bid by thee.

Dia. When midnight comes, knock at my chamber window;

I'll order take, my mother fhall not hear.
Now will I charge you in the band of truth,
When you have conquer'd my yet maiden bed,
Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me :
My reasons are moft ftrong; and you fhall know them,
When back again this ring shall be deliver'd :
And on your finger, in the night, I'll put
Another ring; that, what in time proceeds,
May token to the future our paft deeds.

Adieu, 'till then; then, fail not: You have won
A wife of me, though there my hope be done.

Ber. A heaven on earth I have won, by wooing

thee.

[Exit. Dia. For which live long to thank both heaven and me!

You may fo in the end.

My mother told me juft how he would woo,

As if the fat in his heart; fhe fays, all men

Have the like oaths: he had fworn to marry me,

When his wife's dead; therefore I'll lie with him,

When

When I am bury'd. Since Frenchmen are so braid,
Marry that will, I live and die a maid;
Only, in this difguise, I think't no fin
To cozen him, that would unjustly win.

SCENE

The Florentine camp.

[Exit.

III.

Enter the two French Lords, and two or three Soldiers. 1 Lord. You have not given him his mother's let

ter?

2 Lord. I have deliver'd it an hour fince: there is fomething in't that ftings his nature; for, on the reading it, he chang'd almost into another man.

Since Frenchmen are so braid,

Marry that will, I'll live and die a maid;]

What! because Frenchmen were falfe, fhe that was an Italian, would marry nobody. The text is corrupted; and we should read: Since Frenchmen are fo braid,

Marry 'em that will, I'll live and die a maid.

i. e. fince Frenchmen prove fo crooked and perverse in their manners, let who will marry them, I had rather live and die a maid, than venture upon them. This fhe fays with a view to Helen, who appeared fo fond of her husband, and went through fo many difficulties to obtain him. WARBURTON.

The paffage is very unimportant, and the old reading reasonable enough. Nothing is more common than for girls, on fuch occafions, to fay in a pet what they do not think, or to think for a time what they do not finally refolve. JOHNSON.

Braid does not fignify crooked or perverfe, but crafty or deceitful. So, in Greene's Never too Late, 1616:

"Dian rose with all her maids,

"Blushing thus at love his braids."

Chaucer ufes the word in the fame fenfe; but as the paffage where it occurs in his Troilus and Creffida, is contested, it may be neceffary to obferve, that Bhed is an Anglo-Saxon word, fignifying fraus, aftus. Again, in Tho. Drant's Tranflation of Horace's Epiftles, where its import is not very clear:

66

Profeffing thee a friend, to plaie the ribbalde at a brade." In the Romaunt of the Rofe, 1336, Braid feems to mean forthwith, or, at a jerk. There is nothing to answer it in the Fr. exfept tantoft. STEEVENS.

1 Lord.

I Lord'. He has much worthy blame laid upon him, for fhaking off fo good a wife, and fo fweet a lady.

2 Lord. Efpecially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure of the king, who had even tun'd his bounty to fing happiness to him. I will tell you a thing, but you fhall let it dwell darkly with you.

1 Lord. When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the grave of it.

2 Lord, He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in Florence, of a moft chafte renown; and this night he fleshes his will in the spoil of her honour : he hath given her his monumental ring, and thinks himself made in the unchafte compofition.

1 Lord. Now God delay our rebellion; as we are ourfelves, what things are we!

2 Lord. Merely our own traitors. And as in the common course of all treasons, we ftill fee them reveal themselves, till they attain to their abhorr'd ends2; fo he, that in this action contrives against his own nobility, 3 in his proper ftream o'erflows himself.

Lord. Is it not meant damnable in us, to be

1 Lord.] The latter editors have with great liberality bestowed lordship upon these interlocutors, who, in the original edition, are called, with more propriety capt. E. and capt. G. It is true that captain E. is in a former fcene called lord E. but the fubordination in which they seem to act, and the timorous manner in which they converfe, determines them to be only captains. Yet as the latter readers of Shakespeare have been used to find them lords, I have not thought it worth while to degrade them in the margin. JOHNSON.

G. and E. were, I believe, only put to denote the players who performed these characters. In the lift of actors prefixed to the first folio, I find the names of Gilburne and Ecclestone, to whom thefe infignificant parts probably fell. MALONE.

[ocr errors]

till they attain to their abhorr'd ends; 1 This may mean-they are perpetually talking about the mischief they intend to do, till they have obtained an opportunity of doing it. STEEVENS. 3 in his proper fream o'erflows bimfelf.] That is, betrays his own fecrets in his own talk. The reply fhews that this is the meaning. JOHNSON.

trumpeters

trumpeters of our unlawful intents? We fhall not then have his company to-night?

2 Lord. Not 'till after midnight; for he is dieted to his hour.

1 Lord. That approaches apace: I would gladly have him fee his company anatomized; that he might take a measure of his own judgment 4, wherein fo curiously he had fet this counterfeit,

2 Lord. We will not meddle with him till he come; for his prefence must be the whip of the other.

1 Lord. In the mean time, what hear you of these wars?

2 Lord, I hear, there is an overture of peace.

I Lord. Nay, I affure you, a peace concluded. 2 Lord. What will count Roufillon do then? will he travel higher, or return again into France?

I Lord. I perceive by this demand, you are not altogether of his counsel.

2 Lord. Let it be forbid, fir! fo fhould I be a great deal of his act.

2 Lord. Sir, his wife, fome two months finçe, fled from his houfe; her pretence is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques le grand; which holy undertaking, with moft auftere fanctimony, the accomplish'd: and, there refiding, the tenderness of her nature, became as a prey to her grief; in fine, made a groan of her laft breath, and now the fings in heaven.

2 Lord. How is this juftified?

Lord. The stronger part of it by her own letters; which makes her ftory true, even to the point of her death: her death itself, which could not be her office to fay, is come, was faithfully confirm'd by the rector of the place.

2 Lord. Hath the count all this intelligence?

-he might take a measure of his own judgment, -] This is a very just and moral reafon. Bertram, by finding how erroneoufly he has judged, will be lefs confident, and more easily moved by admonition. JOHNSON.

1 Lord.

« AnteriorContinuar »