When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,

To-who;
Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot,

When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And, coughing drowns the pårson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marián's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,

To-who;
Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

1110

Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You, that way; we, this way.

[Exeunt omnes.

BY

SAM. JOHNSON & GEO. STEEVENS,

A N D

THE VARIOUS COMMENTATORS,

UPON

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST,

WRITTEN BY

WILL. SHAKSPERE.

-SIC ITUR AD ASTRA.

VIRG.

LONDON:

Printed for, and under the Direčtion of, John Bell, British Library, STRAND, Bookseller to His Royal Highness the PRINCE OF WALES.

MDCCLXXXVII.

ANNOTATIONS

U PON

LOVE's LABOUR's LOST.

ACT I.

Line 32. With all these living in philosophy.] The style of the rhyming scenes in this play is often entangled and obscure. I know not certainly to what all these is to be referred; I suppose he means, that he finds love, pomp, and wealth in philosophy.

JOHNSON. Doth not all these refer to his companions ? Henley. nor sleep.] The folio—not sleep

STEEV Ens. 62. When I to feast expressly am forbid ;] The copies all have : When I to fast expressly am forbid ; Aij

But

48.

But if Biron studied where to get a good dinner, at a time when he was forbid to fast, how was this studying to know what he was forbid to know ? Common sense, and the whole tenour of the context, require us to read, feast, or to make a change in the last word of the verse :

When I to fast expressly am fore-bid ; i. e, when I am enjoined before-hand to fast.

THEOBALD. 75

-while truth the while Doth falsely blind-] Falsely is here, and in many other places, the same as dishonestly or treacherously. The whole sense of this jingling declamation is only this, that a man by too close study may read him, self blind.

JOHNSON. 82. Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,

And give him light that was it blinded by. ] The meaning is, that when he dazzles, that is, has his eye made weak, by fixing his eye upon a fairer eye, that fairer

eye shall be his heed, his direction or lode-star (See Midsummer Night's Dream), and give him light that was blinded by it.

JOHNSON. 92. Too much to know, is, to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name.

e.] The consequence, says Biron, of too much knowledge, is not any 'real solution of doubts, but mere empty reputation. That is, too much knowledge gives only fame a name, which every godfather can give likewise. JOHNSON.

95. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding/] To proceed is an academical term, meaning, to take a de

green