Page images
PDF
EPUB

Oli. You might do much: What is your parentage
Vio. Above my fortunes, yet my state is well :

I am a gentleman.

Oli.

Get you to your lord;
I cannot love him : let him send no more;
Unless, perchance, you come to me again,
To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well:
I thank you for your pains: fpend this for me.
Vio. I am no fee'd poft, lady; keep your purse;
My mafter, not myself, lacks recompenfe.
Love makes his heart of flint, that you shall love;
And let your fervour, like my mafter's, be
Plac'd in contempt Farewel, fair cruelty.
Oli. What is your parentage?

Above my fortunes, yet my fate is well:

I am a gentleman..

-I'll be fworn thou art ;

[Exit,

Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and fpirit,
Do give thee five-fold blazon:-Not too faft:-foft! foft!
Unless the mafter were the man.-How now?

Even fo quickly may one catch the plague ?
Methinks, I feel this youth's perfections,
With an invifible and fubtle stealth,

To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.-
What, ho, Malvolio!-

Mal.

Re-enter MALVOLIO.

Here, madam, at your fervice.

Oli. Run after that fame peevish messenger,
The county's man: 3 he left this ring behind him,
Would I, or not; tell him, I'll none of it.

Defire

9 Poft, in our author's time, fignified a meffenger. MALONE. 2 Unless the dignity of the mafter were added to the merit of the fervant, I fhall go too far, and difgrace myself. Let me ftop in time.

MALONE.

Perhaps the means to check herfelf by obferving,-This is unbecoming forwardness on my part, unless I were as much in love with the mafter as I am with the man. STEEVENS.

shall love;

-3 County and count in old language were fynonymous. The old copy has countes, which may be right: the Saxon genitive cafe. MALONE. zwould read love make his heart of flint, that you And let ti" MrT

Defire him not to flatter with his lard,4

Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him:
If that the youth will come this way to-morrow,
I'll give him reafons for't. Hie thee, Malvolio.
Mal. Madam, I will.

[Exit.

Oli. I do I know not what; and fear to find
Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.
Fate, fhew thy force: Ourfelves we do not owe:"
What is decreed, muft be: and be this fo!

[Exit,

[blocks in formation]

Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN.

Ant. Will you ftay no longer? nor will you not, that I go with you?

Seb. By your patience, no: my ftars fhine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, diftemper yours;

4 This was the phraseology of the time. So, in King Richard II: "Shall dying men flatter with thofe that live."

Many more inftances might be added. MALONE.

5 I believe the meaning is; I am not mistress of my own actions; I am afraid that my eyes betray me, and flatter the youth without my confent, with discoveries of love. JOHNSON.

Johnfon's explanation of this paffage is evidently wrong. It would be ftrange indeed if Olivia fhould fay. that the feared her eyes would betray her paffion, and flatter the youth, without her confent, with a difcovery of her love, after she had actually fent him a ring, which must have difcovered her paffion more strongly, and was fent for that very purpose.The true meaning appears to me to be thus:-She fears that her eyes bad formed fo flattering an idea of Cefario, that she should not have ftrength of mind fufficient to refift the impreffion. She had just before said:

"Methinks, I feel this youth's perfections,

"With an invifible and fubtle stealth,

"To creep in at mine eyes."

which confirms my explanation of this paffage. M. MASON.

I think the meaning is, I fear that my eyes will feduce my understanding; that I am indulging a paffion for this beautiful youth, which my reafon cannot approve. MALONE.

gi, e. we are not our own masters. We cannot govern ourselves.

• Owe for own is still und in tSTEVENS, north of Engl? Mr.

yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave, that I may bear my evils alone: It were a bad recompenfe for your love, to lay any of them on you.

Ant. Let me yet know of you, whither you are bound.

Seb. No, 'footh, fir; my determinate voyage is mere extravagancy. But I perceive in you fo excellent a touch of modefty, that you will not extort from me what I am willing to keep in; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to exprefs myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebaftian, which I call'd Rodorigo; my father was that Sebaftian, of Meffaline, whom I know, you have heard of: he left behind him, myself, and a fifter, both born in an hour; if the heavens had been pleas'd, 'would we had fo ended! but, you, fir, alter'd that; for, fome hour before you took me from the breach of the fea, was my fifter drown'd. Ant. Alas, the day!

Seb. A lady, fir, though it was faid fhe much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful: but, though I could not, with fuch eftimable wonder, over-far believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish her, the bore a mind that envy could not but call fair: fhe is drown'd already, fir, with falt water,3 though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more.

Ant. Pardon me, fir, your bad entertainment.

7 That is, to reveal myfelf. JOHNSON.

Seb.

8 Sir Thomas Hanmer very judiciously offers to read Metelin, an island in the Archipelago; but Shakspeare knew little of geography, and was not at all folicitous about orthographical nicety. STEEVENS.

9 i. e. what we now call the breaking of the fea, In Pericles it is ftyled-" "the rupture of the fea." STEEVENS.

2 Thefe words Dr. Warburton calls an interpolation of the players, but what did the players gain by it? they may be fometimes guilty of a joke without the concurrence of the poet, but they never lengthen a fpeech only to make it longer. Shakspeare often confounds the active and paffive adjectives. Eftimable wonder is efteeming wonder, or wonder and efteem. The meaning is, that he could not venture to think so highly as others of his fifter. JOHNSON.

Thus Milton ufes unexpreffive notes, for unexpressible, in his hymn on the Nativity. MALONE.

3 he is drown'd already, fir, with falt water,] There is a resemblance between this and another falfe thought in Hamlet:

"Too much of water baft thou, poor Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears." STEEVENS

Rather Breakers MT.

Seb. O, good Antonio, forgive me your trouble. Ant. If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your fervant.

Seb. If you will not undo what you have done, that is, kill him whom you have recover'd, defire it not. Fare ye well at once: my bofom is full of kindness; and I am yet fo near the manners of my mother, that upon the leaft occafion more, mine eyes will tell tales of me. I am bound to the count Orfino's court: farewel.

Ant. The gentleness of all the gods go with thee!
I have many enemies in Orfino's court,
Elfe would I very shortly see thee there :
But, come what may, I do adore thee fo,

[Exit.

That danger fhall feem fport, and I will go.

[Exit.

SCENE II.
A Street.

Enter VIOLA; MALVOLIO following.

Mal. Were not you even now with the countefs Olivia? Vio. Even now, fir; on a moderate pace I have fince arrived but hither.

Mal. She returns this ring to you, fir; you might have faved me my pains, to have taken it away yourfelf. She adds moreover, that you fhould put your lord into a defperate affurance she will none of him: And one thing more; that you be never fo hardy to come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord's taking of this. Receive it fo.

Vio. She took the ring of me; I'll none of it.

Mal. Come, fir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is, it fhould be fo return'd: if it be worth ftooping for, there it lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it. [Exit. Vio. I left no ring with her: What means this lady? Fortune forbid, my outfide have not charm'd her! She made good view of me; indeed, fo much, That, fure, methought, her eyes had lost her tongue,4

For

4 We fay a man lofes his company when they go one way and he goes another. So Olivia's tongue lost her eyes, her tongue was talking of the duke, and her eyes gazing on his meffenger. JoHNSON.

This

It rather means that the very fixed and eager view the took of Viola, perverted the ufe of her tongue, and made her talk distractedly. conftruction of the verb-loft, is also much in Shakspeare's manner, Douc.

[ocr errors]

For fhe did fpeak in starts diftractedly.

She loves me, fure; the cunning of her paffion
Invites me in this churlish meffenger.

None of my lord's ring! why, he sent her none.
I am the man ;-If it be fo, (as 'tis)
Poor lady, the were better love a dream.
Difguife, I fee, thou art a wickedness.
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
How eafy is it, for the proper-false

In women's waxen hearts to fet their forms !6
Alas, our frailty is the caufe, not we;

For, fuch as we are made of, fuch we be.

How will this fadge ? My mafter loves her dearly;

And

5 Is, I believe, the dexterous fiend, or enemy of mankind. JOHNSON.
Pregnant is certainly dexterous, or ready. So, in Hamlet :

"How pregnant fometimes his replies are!" STEEVENS.

This is obfcure. The meaning is, bow easy is disguise to women !how eafily does their own falfhood, contained in their waxen changeable bearts, Cenable them to affume deceitful appearances! The two next lines are perhaps tranfpofed, and should be read thus:

"For fuch as we are made, if fuch we be,
"Alas, our frailty is the caufe, not we."

JOHNSON.

I am not certain that this explanation is juft. Viola has been condemning those who disguise themselves becaufe Olivia had fallen in love with a fpecious appearance. How eafy is it, fhe adds, for those who are at once proper (i. e. fair in their appearance) and falfe (i. e. deceitful) to make an impreffion on the eafy hearts of women?The proper-false is certainly a lefs elegant expreffion than the fair deceiver, but feems to mean the fame thing. A proper man, was the ancient phrafe for a bandfome man:

"This Ludovico is a proper man.' Othello.

To fet their forms, means, to plant their images, i. e. to make an impref-
fion on their easy minds. Mr. Tyrwhitt concurs with me in this in-
terpretation STEEVENS.

This paffage, according to John fon's explanation of it, is fo fevere a
fatire upon women, that it is unnatural to fuppofe that Shakspeare should
put it in the mouth of one of the fex, especially a young one. Nor do I
think that the words can poflibly exprefs the fenfe which he contends for.
Steevens's explanation appears to be the true one. The word proper cer
tainly means bandfume; and Viola's reflection, how easy it was for those
who are handfome and deceitful, to make an impreffion on the waxen
hearts of women, is a natural fentiment for a girl to utter who was herself
in love, M. MASON.

7. To fadge, is to fuit, to fit. STIEVING,

[ocr errors]

In the senses the chiefly uses this word it Tears to be derived for the French word, ignant, accnte, shock.on_WT.

« PreviousContinue »