Then, gentle brother, get you in again; Comfort my fifter, chear her, call her wife; 'Tis holy fport to be a little * vain, When the fweet breath of flattery conquers ftrife. S. Ant. Sweet miftrefs, (what your name is else, I know not; Nor by what wonder you do hit on mine :) Lefs in your knowledge and your grace you fhow not Smother'd in errors, feeble, fhallow, weak, Your weeping fifter is no wife of mine; Far more, far more, to you do I decline. He gains by death, that hath fuch means to die; (not,) got Place in the firft Copies instead of but And thefe two Monotyllables have by Miftake reciprocally difpoffefs'd one another in many other Paffages of our Author's Works. THEO. * Vain is light of tongue, not voracious. Luc. Luc. Gaze where you fhould, and that will clear your fight. S. Ant. As good to wink, fweet love, as look on Luc. Why call you me, love? call my fister so. S. Ant. No; It is thyfelf, mine own felf's better part : S. Ant. Call thyself fifter, fweet; for I mean thee: Give me thy hand. Luc. Oh, foft, Sir, hold you ftill; I'll fetch my fifter, to get her good will. [Ex. Luciana. SCEN E III. Enter Dromio of Syracufe. S. Ant. Why, how now, Dromio, where run'ft thou fo faft? I S. Dro. Do you know me, Sir? am I Dromio? am your man? am I myself? S. Ant. Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself. S. Dro. I am an afs, I am a woman's man, and befides myself. S. Ant. What woman's man? and how befides thyfelf? S. Dro. Marry, Sir, befides myself, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me. My fole earth's heav'n, and my heav'n's claim.] When he calls the girl his only heaven on earth, he utters the common K 3 cant of lovers. When he calls her his heaven's claim, I cannot underftand him. Perhaps he means that which he asks of heaven. S. Ant. S. Ant. What claim lays fhe to thee? S. Dro. Marry, Sir, fuch a claim as you would lay to your horfe; and she would have me as a beaft: not that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that fhe, being a very beaftly creature, lays claim to me. S. Ant. What is she? S. Dro. A very reverent body; ay, fuch a one as a man may not speak of, without he fay, Sir reverence: I have but lean luck in the match; and yet is she a wond'rous fat marriage. S. Ant. How doft thou mean, a fat marriage? S. Dro. Marry, Sir, fhe's the kitchen wench, and all greafe; and I know not what ufe to put her to, but to make a lamp of her, and run from her by her own light. I warrant, her rags, and the tallow in them, will burn a Lapland winter: if the lives 'till doomsday, fhe'll burn a week longer than the whole world. S. Ant. What complexion is fhe of? Ș. Dro. Swart, like my fhoe, but her face nothing like fo clean kept; for why? fhe fweats, a man may go over fhoes in the grime of it. S. Ant. That's a fault, that water will mend. S. Dro. No, Sir, 'tis in grain; Noab's flood could not do it. S. Ant. 7 What's her name? S: Dro. Nell, Sir;-but her name and three quarters (that is, an ell and three quarters) will not measure her from hip to hip. 7 S. Ant What's her name? S. Dro. Nell, Sir; but her Name is three Quarters; that is, an El and three Qu rters, &c.] This Paffage has hitherto lain as perplext and unintelligible, as it is now eafy, and truly humorous. If a Conundrum be reflor'd, in fetting it right, who can help it? There are enough befides in our Author, and Ben Jonson to countenance that current Vice of the Times when this Play appear'd. Nor is Mr. Pope, in the Chastity of his Tafte, to bristle up at me for the Revival of th s Witticifm, fince I owe the Correction to the Sagacity of the ingenious Dr. Thirity. THEOBALD. S. Ant. Then fhe bears fome breadth? S. Dro. No longer from head to foot, than from hip to hip; fhe is spherical, like a globe: I could find out countries in her. S. Ant. In what part of her body ftands Ireland? S. Dro. Marry, Sir, in her buttocks, I found it out by the bogs. S. Ant. Where Scotland? S. Dro. I found it out by the barrenness, hard in the palm of her hand. S. Ant. Where France? * S. Ant. Where France ? S. Dro. In her forehead: arm'd and reverted, making War against ber Hair.] All the other Countries, mention'd in this Defcription, are in Dromic's Replies fatirically characteris'd: but here, as the Editors have order'd it, no Remark is made upon France; nor any Reason given, why it fhould be in her Forehead: but only the Kitchen-wench's high Forehead is rallied, as pufhing back her Hair. Thus all the modern Editions; but the firit Folio reads making War a gainst her Heir -And I am very apt to think, this laft is the true Reading; and that an Equivoque, as the French call it, a double Meaning, is defign'd in the Poet's Allufion: and therefore I have replac'd it in the Text. In 1589, Henry III, of France being stabb'd, and dying of his Wound, was fucceeded by Henry IV. of Navarre, whom he appointed his Succeffor; but whofe Claim the States of France, refifted, on account of his being a Proteftant. This, I take it, is S. Dro. what he means, by France making War against her Heir. Now as, in 1591, Queen Elizabeth fent over 4000 Men, under the Conduct of the Earl of Effex, to the Afiftance of this Henry of Navarre; it feems to me very probab'e, that during this Expedition being on foot, this Comedy made its Appearance. And it was the fineft Addrefs imaginable in the Poet to throw fuch an oblique Sneer at France, for oppofing the Succeffion of that Heir, whofe Claim his Royal Miftrefs, the Queen, had fent over a Force to eftablifh, and oblige them to acknowledge. THEOBALD. With this correction and explication Dr. Warburton concurs, and Sir T. Hanmer thinks an equivocation intended, though he retains hair in the text. Yet furely they have all loft the fenfe by looking beyond it. Our authour,in my opinion, only fports with an allufion, in which he takes too much delight, and means that his mistrefs had the French disease. The ideas are rather too offenfive to S. Dro. In her forehead; arm'd and reverted, making war against her hair. S. Ant. Where England? S. Dro. I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them; but I guess it ftood in her chin, by the falt rheum that ran between France and it. S. Ant. Where Spain? S. Dro. Faith, I faw it not, but I felt it hot in her breath. S. Ant. Where America, the Indies? S. Dro. Oh, Sir, upon her nofe, all o'er embellish'd with rubies, carbuncles, fapphires; declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who fent whole armadoes of carracts to be ballaft at her nose. S. Ant. Where ftood Belgia, the Netherlands? S. Dro. Oh, Sir, I did not look fo low. To conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me, call'd me Dromio, fwore I was affur'd to her, told me what privy marks I had about me, as the marks of my fhoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I, amaz'd, ran from her as a witch. 'And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith, be dilated, By a forehead armed, he means covered with incrufted eruptions; by reverted, he means having the hair turning backward. An equivocal word muft have fenfes applicable to both the fubjects to which it is applied. Both Forehead and France might in fome fort make war againft their hair, but how did the forehead make war against its beir? The fense which I have given immediately occurred to me, and will, I believe,arife to every reader who is contented with the meaning that lies before him, without fending our conjecture in fearch of refinements. |