Oli How does he love me? Vio. With adorations, with fertile tears, With groans that thunder love, with fighs of fire.4 Oli. Your lord does know my mind, I cannot love him Yet I fuppofe him virtuous, know him noble, Of great eftate, of fresh and stainless youth; In voices well divulg'd,5 free, learn'd, and valiant, And, in dimension, and the fhape of nature, A gracious perfon: but yet I cannot love him; He might have took his answer long ago. Vio. If I did love you in my mafter's flame, With fuch a fuffering, fuch a deadly life, In your denial I would find no fenfe, I would not understand it. Oli. Oli. 4 This line is worthy of Dryden's Almanzor, and, if not faid in mockery of amorous hyperboles, might be regarded as a ridicule on a paffage in Chapman's tranflation of the first book of Homer, 1598: "Jove thunder'd out a figh;" STEEVENS. 5 Well spoken of by the world. ΜΑΣΟΝΕ. The old copy has cantons; which Mr. Capell, who appears to have been entirely unacquainted with our ancient language, has changed into canzons.-There is no need of alteration. Canton was used for canto in our author's time. MALONE. 7 I have corrected, reverberant. THEOBALD. Mr. Upton well obferves, that Shakspeare frequently ufes the adjective paffive, actively. Theobald's emendation is therefore unneceffary. STEEVENS. Johnfon, in his Dictionary, adopted Theobald's correction. But the following line from T. Heywood's Troja Britannica, 1609, canto 11. ft ix. fhows that the original text thould be preserved: "Give fhrill reverberat echoes and rebounds." A most beautiful expreffion for an ecbo. DOUCE.. HOLT WHITE, Oli. You might do much: What is your parentage I am a gentleman. Oli. Get you to your lord; I cannot love him : let him fend no more; Above my fortunes, pet my frate is well: I am a gentleman.- -I'll be fworn thou art ; Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and fpirit, [Exit, Do give thee five-fold blazon :-Not too faft:-soft! soft! Unless the mafter were the man.'-How now? Even fo quickly may one catch the plague ? To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.- Mal. Re-enter MALVOLIO. Here, madam, at your fervice, Oli. Run after that fame peevish meffenger, The county's man: 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 myfelf. Let me ftop in time. MALONE. Perhaps the means to check herself by observing,―This is unbecoming forwardness on my part, unlefs I were as much in love with the mafter as I am with the man. STEEVENS. 3 County and count in old language were fynonymous. The old copy has countes, which may be right: the Saxon genitive cafe. MALONE. Defire him not to flatter with his lord,+ Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him : [Exit. Oli. I do I know not what; and fear to find Mine eyes too great a flatterer for my mind. Fate, fhew thy force: Ourselves we do not owe:" [Exit, 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 phrafeology of the time. So, in King Richard II: "Shall dying men flatter with those 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 consent, with difcoveries 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 consent, with a discovery of her love, after fhe had actually fent him a ring, which must have dif covered her paffion more ftrongly, 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 fhe fhould 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 subtle 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 passion for this beautiful youth, which my rea.... fon cannot approve. MALONE. i. c. we are not our own mafters. We cannot govern ourselves. STEEVENS. yours; therefore I fhall 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 myfelf. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian, which I call'd Rodorigo; my father was that Sebastian, 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 so 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, 2 over-far believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish her, fhe 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 remem brance again with more. Ant. Pardon me, fir, your bad entertainment. 7 That is, to reveal myself. JOHNSON. Seb. 9 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 esteeming wonder, or wonder and efteem. The meaning is, that he could not venture to think fo highly as others of his fifter. JOHNSON. Thus Milton ufes unexpreffive notes, for unexpreffible, in his hymn on the Nativity. MALONE. 3-fhe is drown'd already, fir, with falt water,] There is a refemblance between this and another falfe thought in Hamlet: "Too much of water baft thou, poor Opbelia, "And therefore I forbid my tears." STEEVENS. Seb. O, good Antonio, forgive me your trouble. Ant. If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your fervant. Fare ye Seb. If you will not undo what you have done, that is, kill him whom you have recover'd, defire it not. 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. [Exit. Ant. The gentlenefs of all the gods go with thee! I have many enemies in Orfino's court, Elfe would I very shortly fee thee there : But, come what may, I do adore thee fo, That danger fhall feem fport, and I will go. [Exit. SCENE II. 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 yourself. She adds mcreover, 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. Vin. 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 stooping 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 loft her tongue, For 4 We fay a man lofes his company when they go one way and he goes another. So Olivia's tongue loft her eyes, her tongue was talking of the duke, and her eyes gazing on his meffenger. JoHNSON. It rather means that the very fixed and eager view the took of Viola, perverted the ufe of her tongue, and made her talk diftractedly. This construction of the verb-loft, is also much in Shakspeare's manner, Dovce. |