Ant. E. Why, give it to my wife, and fetch your money. Ang. Come, come, you know, I gave it you even now; Either send the chain, or send by me some token1. Ant. E. Fie! now you run this humour out of breath: Come, where's the chain? I pray you let me see it. Ant. E. I answer you! What should I answer you ? to say so. Ang. You wrong me more, sir, in denying it: Consider, how it stands upon my credit. Mer. Well, officer, arrest him at my suit. Off. I do; and charge you in the duke's name to obey me. Ang. This tonches me in reputation : Either consent to pay this sum for me, Or I attach you by this officer. Ant. E. Consent to pay thee that I never had ! Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar'st. Ang. Here is thy fee; arrest him, officer; I would not spare my brother in this case, If he should scorn me so apparently. Malone has a very long note on this passage, in which he says 'it was not Angelo's meaning, that Antipholus of Ephesus should send a jewel or other token by him, but that Antipholus should send him with a verbal token to his wife, by which it might be ascertained that he came from Antipholus; and that she might safely pay the price of the chain.' In the name of common sense, what does this prove?-Can it signify whether the token Angelo wishes Antipholus to send by him was to be verbal or material? Tokens were common in Shakspeare's time of many kinds; there were tavern tokens, which were counters of lead or leather. There were written tokens or billes, as they were then called, 'given to men by which they might receive a certaine sum of money,' &c. Such a one Angelo probably requires. Off. I do arrest you, sir; you hear the suit. Ant. E. I do obey thee, till I give thee bail: But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear As all the metal in your shop will answer. Ang. Sir, sir, I shall have law in Ephesus, To your notorious shame, I doubt it not. Enter DROMIO of Syracuse. Dro. S. Master, there is a bark of Epidamnum, That stays but till her owner comes aboard, And then, sir, she bears away: our fraughtage3, sir, I have convey'd aboard; and I have bought The oil, the balsamum, and aqua-vitae. The ship is in her trim; the merry wind Blows fair from land: they stay for nought at all, But for their owner, master, and yourself. Ant. E. How now! a madman! Why thou peevish sheep, What ship of Epidamnum stays for me? Dro. S. A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage'. Ant. E. Thou drunken slave, I sent thee for a rope; And told thee to what purpose and what end. Dro. S. You sent me, for a rope's end as soon: You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark. Ant. E. I will debate this matter at more leisure, And teach your ears to list me with more heed. To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight: Give her this key, and tell her, in the desk, 5 Freight, cargo. 6 Peevish was used for mad, or foolish. Shakspeare has it again in this sense in King Henry V.-What a wretched peevish fellow is this King of England to mope with his fat brain'd followers so far out of his knowledge. Again in Cymbeline :— 'Desire my man's abode where I did leave him: he is strange and peevish. There are numerous other examples. I believe it is always used in this sense by Shakspeare, and by most of his cotemporaries. Minsheu explains peevish by foolish. And long before, in Horman's Vulgaria, 1519, we have: A pyvyshe wytted felowe, Deliri capitis homo,' p. 64. See the old Latin dictionaries in v. Insania. 1 i. e. carriage; hire is here a dissyllable, and is spelt hier in the old copy. That's cover'd o'er with Turkish tapestry, And that shall bail me: hie thee, slave; be gone. [Exeunt Mer. ANG. Officer, and ANT. E. Dro. S. To Adriana! that is where we din'd, Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband: She is too big, I hope, for me to compass. Thither I must, although against my will, For servants must their masters' minds fulfil. [Exit. SCENE II. The same. Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA. Adr. Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so? Might'st thou perceive austerely in his eye That he did plead in earnest, yea or no? Look'd he or red, or pale; or sad, or merrily? What observation mad'st thou in this case, Of his heart's meteors tilting in his face1? Luc. First, he denied you had in him no right2. Adr. He meant, he did me none; the more my spite. Luc. Then swore he, that he was a stranger here. Adr. And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were. Luc. Then pleaded I for you. 1 The allusion is to those meteors which have sometimes been thought to resemble armies meeting in the shock of battle. The following comparison in the second book of Paradise Lost best explains it: 'As when to warn proud cities, war appears To battle in the clouds, before each van Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears, 2 This double negative had the force of a stronger asseveration in the phraseology of that age. So in King Richard III:You may deny that God were not the cause Of my lord Hastings' late imprisonment.' Adr. move. First, he did praise my beauty; then, my speech. Adr. Did'st speak him fair? Luc. Have patience, I beseech. Adr. I cannot, nor I will not, hold me still; My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will. He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere3, Ill-fac'd, worse-bodied, shapeless every where; Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind; Stigmatical in making4, worse in mind. Luc. Who would be jealous then of such a one? No evil lost is wail'd when it is gone. Adr. Ah! but I think him better than I say, And yet would herein others' eyes were worse: Far from her nest the lapwing cries away5; My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse. Enter DROMIO of Syracuse. Dro. S. Here, go; the desk, the purse; sweet now, make haste. Luc. How hast thou lost thy breath? Dro. S. By running fast. Adr. Where is thy master, Dromio? is he well? Dro. S. No, he's in tartar limbo, worse than hell: A devil in an everlasting garments hath him, 3 Dry, withered. 4 Marked or stigmatized by nature with deformity. This expression, which appears to have been proverbial, is again alluded to in Measure for Measure, Act i. S. 5, p. 19. See note there. 6 The buff or leather jerkin of the sergeant is called an everlasting garment, because it was so durable. So in King Henry IV. Part I. And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance. Thus also in Davies's Epigrams: 'Kate being pleas'd, wish'd that her pleasure could It appears probable that there was also a kind of stuff called durance. See note on King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 2. One, whose hard heart is button'd up with steel; A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough; A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff; A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands8; A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well9; One that, before the judgment, carries poor souls to hell10. Adr. Why, man, what is the matter? Dro. S. I do not know the matter? he is 'rested on the case. Adr. What, is he arrested? tell me, at whose suit. Dro. S. I know not at whose suit he is arrested, well; But is11 in a suit of buff, which 'rested him, that can I tell: Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk? Adr. Go, fetch it, sister.-This I wonder at, [Exit LUCIANA. That he, unknown to me, should be in debt: Tell me, was he arrested on a band12 ? Dro. S. Not on a band, but on a stronger thing; A chain, a chain; do you not hear it ring? Adr. What, the chain? Theobald would read a fury; but a fairy, in Shakspeare's time, sometimes meant a malevolent sprite, and coupled as it is with pitiless and rough, the meaning is clear. 8 The first folio reads, lans. Shakspeare would have put lanes but for the sake of the rhyme. 9 To hunt or run counter signifies that the hounds or beagles hunt it by the heel,' i. e. run backward, mistaking the course of the game. To draw dry foot was to follow the scent or track of the game. There is a quibble upon counter, which points at the prison so called. 10 Hell was the cant term for prison. There was a place of this name under the Exchequer, where the king's debtors were confined. 11 Thus the old authentic copy. The omission of the personal pronoun was formerly very common: we should now write he's. 12 i. e. a bond. Shakspeare takes advantage of the old spelling to produce a quibble. |