Page images
PDF
EPUB

As o'er-died blacks, as wind, as waters; false
As dice are to be wish'd, by one that fixes
No bourn ''twixt his and mine; yet were it true
To say this boy were like me.-Come, sir page,
Look on me with your welkin eye2: Sweet villain!
Most dear'st! my collop 3!-Can thy dam ?-may't
be?

Affection! thy intention stabs the center*:

9 As o'er-died blacks,] Sir T. Hanmer understands blacks died too much, and therefore rotten. JOHNSON.

It is common with tradesmen to die their faded or damaged stuffs, black. O'er-died black may mean those which have received a die over their former colour.

There is a passage in The old Law of Massinger, which might lead us to offer another interpretation:

66

Blacks are often such dissembling mourners,

"There is no credit given to't, it has lost

"All reputation by false sons and widows:

66

I would not hear of blacks."

It seems that blacks was the common term for mourning. So, in A mad World my Masters, 1608:

[blocks in formation]

"I'll have the church hung round-.”

Black, however, will receive no other hue without discovering itself through it: "Lanarum nigræ nullum colorem bibunt." Plin. Nat. Hist. Lib. VIII. STEEVENS.

The following passage in a book which our author had certainly read, inclines me to believe that the last is the true interpretation. Truly (quoth Camillo) my wool was blacke, and therefore it would take no other colour." Lyly's Euphues and his England,

66

4to. 1580. MALONE.

1 NO BOURN-] Bourn is boundary. So, in Hamlet:

2

[blocks in formation]

welkin-eye :] Blue-eye; an eye of the same colour with the welkin, or sky. JOHNSON.

66

3 -my COLLOP!] So, in The First Part of King Henry VI.: "God knows, thou art a collop of my flesh." STEEVENS. It is given as a proverbial phrase in Heywood's Epigrams, 1566, Sig. C. iv. :

"For I have heard saie it is a deere collup,

"That is cut out of th' owne fleshe." BOSWELL.

* Affection! thy intention stabs the center:] Instead of this

Thou dost make possible, things not so held 3, Communicat'st with dreams;-(How can this be?)

With what's unreal thou coactive art,

And fellow'st nothing: Then, 'tis very credent, Thou may'st co-join with something; and thou dost;

(And that beyond commission; and I find it,) And that to the infection of my brains,

And hardening of my brows.

line, which I find in the folio, the modern editors have introduced another of no authority:

66

Imagination! thou dost stab to the center."

Mr. Rowe first made the exchange. I am not sure that I understand the reading I have restored. Affection, however, I believe, signifies imagination. Thus, in The Merchant of Venice:

affection,

"Mistress of passion, sways it," &c.

Intention is, as Mr.

i. e. imagination governs our passions. Locke expresses it," when the mind with great earnestness, and of choice, fixes its view on any idea, considers it on every side, and will not be called off by the ordinary solicitations of other ideas." This vehemence of the mind seems to be what affects Leontes so deeply, or in Shakspeare's language," stabs him to the center." STEEVENS.

Intention, in this passage, means eagerness of attention, or of desire; and is used in the same sense in The Merry Wives of Windsor, where Falstaff says" She did so course o'er my exteriors with such a greedy intention," &c. M. MASON.

I think, with Mr. Steevens, that affection means here imagination, or perhaps more accurately: "the disposition of the mind when strongly affected or possessed by a particular idea." And in á kindred sense at least to this, it is used in the passage quoted from The Merchant of Venice. MALONE.

5 Thou dost make possible, things not so held,] i. e. thou dost make those things possible, which are conceived to be impossible. JOHNSON.

To express the speaker's meaning, it is necessary to make a short pause after the word possible. I have therefore put a comma there, though perhaps in strictness it is improper. MALONE. 16 -credent,] i. e. credible. So, in Measure for Measure, Act V. Sc. V.:

66

For my authority bears a credent bulk." STEEvens.

POL.

What means Sicilia ?

HER. He something seems unsettled.

POL. How, my lord? What cheer? how is't with you, best brother'? HER.

You look,

As if you held a brow of much distraction:
Are you mov'd, my lord?

LEON.
No, in good earnest.—
How sometimes nature will betray its folly,
Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines
Of my boy's face, methoughts, I did recoil
Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreech'd,
In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzled,
Lest it should bite its master, and so prove,
As ornaments oft do, too dangerous'.

9

How like, methought, I then was to this kernel, This squash, this gentleman:- Mine honest friend,

Will you take eggs for money?

7 What cheer? how is't with you, best brother?] This line, which in the old copy is given to Leontes, has been attributed to Polixenes, on the suggestion of Mr. Steevens. Sir T. Hanmer had made the same emendation. MALONE.

8 Are you Mov'D, my lord?] We have again the same expression on the same occasion, in Othello:

66

Iago. I see my Lord, you are mov'd.

“Othel. No, not much mov'd, not much.” MALONE.

9 - my dagger мUZZLED,

Lest it should bite-] So, in King Henry VIII.:

"This butcher's cur is venom-mouth'd, and I

"Have not the power to muzzle him."

Again, in Much Ado about Nothing : "I am trusted with a muzzle." STEEVENS.

I AS ORNAMENTS oft do, too DANGEROUS.] So, in The Merchant of Venice:

"Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
"To a most dangerous sea." STEEVENS.

2 This SQUASH,] A squash is a pea-pod, in that state when the young peas begin to swell in it. HENLEY.

3 Will you take eggs for money?] This seems to be a pro

MAM. No, my lord, I'll fight.

LEON. You will? why, happy man be his dole1!My brother,

verbial expression, used when a man sees himself wronged and makes no resistance. Its original, or precise meaning, I cannot find, but I believe it means, will you be a cuckold for hire. The cuckow is reported to lay her eggs in another bird's nest; he therefore that has eggs laid in his nest is said to be cucullatus, cuckowed, or cuckold. JOHNSON.

The meaning of this is, will you put up affronts ?' The French have a proverbial saying, A qui vendes vous coquilles? i. e. whom do you design to affront? Mamillius's answer plainly proves it. "Mam. No, my Lord, I'll fight." SMITH.

I meet with Shakspeare's phrase in a comedy, call'd A Match at Midnight, 1633 :-" I shall have eggs for my money; I must hang myself." STEEVENS.

Leontes seems only to ask his son if he would fly from an enemy. In the following passage the phrase is evidently to be taken in that sense: "The French infantery skirmisheth bravely afarre off, and cavallery gives a furious onset at the first charge; but after the first heat they will take eggs for their money." Relations of the most famous Kingdomes and Commonwealths thorowout the World, 4to. 1630, p. 154.

Mamillius's reply to his father's question appears so decisive as to the true explanation of this passage, that it leaves no doubt with me even after I have read the following note. The phrase undoubtedly sometimes means what Mr. Malone asserts, but not here. REED.

In A Method for Travell. Shewed by taking the view of France as it stoode in the yeere of our Lord 1593, by Robert Dallington, no date, we meet with the very sentence quoted by Mr. Reed, given as a translation from the French. This is the original: "L'infanterie Francoise escaramouche bravement de loin et la Cavellerie a une furieuse brutée a l'affront, puis apres q'elle s'accomode.”

BOSWELL.

Are you

This phrase seems to me to have meant originally,such a poltron as to suffer another to use you as he pleases, to compel you to give him your money, and to accept of a thing of so small a value as a few eggs in exchange for it?' This explanation appears to me perfectly consistent with the passage quoted by Mr. Reed. He, who will take eggs for money, seems to be what, in As You Like It, and in many of the old plays, is called a tame snake.

The following passage in Campion's History of Ireland, folio,

Are you so fond of your young prince, as we
Do seem to be of ours?

POL.
If at home, sir,
He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter:
Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy;
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all:
He makes a July's day short as December;
And, with his varying childness, cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.

LEON.
So stands this squire
Offic'd with me: We two will walk, my lord,
And leave you to your graver steps.-Hermione,
How thou lov'st us, show in our brother's welcome;
Let what is dear in Sicily, be cheap :

1633, fully confirms my explanation of this passage; and shows that by the words-" Will you take eggs for money," was meant, 'Will you suffer yourself to be cajoled, or imposed upon?— "What my cousin Desmond hath compassed, as I know not, so I beshrew his naked heart for holding out so long. But go to, suppose hee never be had; what is Kildare to blame for it, more than my good brother of Ossory, who, notwithstanding his high promises, having also the king's power, is glad to take eggs for his money, and to bring him in at leisure."

These words make part of the defence of the Earl of Kildare, in answer to a charge brought against him by Cardinal Wolsey, that he had not been sufficiently active in endeavouring to take the Earl of Desmond, then in rebellion. In this 66 passage to take eggs for his money," undoubtedly means to be trifled with, or to be imposed upon.' means in the place of money.' "Will you give me money, and take eggs instead of it?" MALONE.

"For money

4

[ocr errors]

happy man be his DOLE!] May his dole or share in life be to be a happy man. JOHNSON.

The expression is proverbial. Dole was the term for the allowance of provision given to the poor, in great families. So, in Greene's Tu Quoque, 1614:

"Had the women puddings to their dole?"

See vol. v. p. 389, n. 8. STEEVENS.

The alms immemorially given to the poor by the Archbishops. of Canterbury, is still called the dole. See The History of Lambeth Palace, p. 31, in Bibl. Top. Brit. NICHOLS.

« PreviousContinue »