VAL. How now, fir? what are you reasoning with yourfeif? SPEED. Nay, I was rhiming; 'tis you that have the reason. VAL. To do what? SPEED. To be a fpokefman from madam Silvia. VAL. To whom? SPEED. To yourfelf: why, fhe wooes you by a figure. VAL. What figure? SPEED. By a letter, I fhould fay. VAL. Why, fhe hath not writ to me? SPEED. What need fhe, when fhe hath made you write to yourself? Why, do you not perceive the jeft? VAL. No, believe me. SPEED. No believing you indeed, fir: But did you perceive her carneft? VAL. She gave me none, except an angry word. VAL. That's the letter I writ to her friend. SPEED. And that letter hath fhe deliver'd, and there an end.4 VAL. I would it were no worse. SPEED. I'll warrant you, 'tis as well: For often you have writ to her; and fhe, in modefty, Or elfe for want of idle time, could not again reply; 3 reafoning with yourself?] That is difcourfing, talking. An Italianifm. JOHNSON. 4 matter. and there an end.] i. e. there's the conclufion of the So, in Macbeth: the times have been "That when the brains were out, the man would die, Or fearing elfe fome meffenger, that might her mind difcover, Herfelf hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover. All this I fpeak in print;' for in print I found it.— Why mufe you, fir? 'tis dinner-time. VAL. I have din'd. SPEED. Ay, but hearken, fir: though the cameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my viduals, and would fain have meat: O, be not like your mistress; be moved, be moved. [Exeunt. SCENE II. Verona. A Room in Julia's Houfe, Enter PROTEUS and JULIA. PRO. Have patience, gentle Julia. JUL. I muft, where is no remedy. PRO. When poffibly I can, I will return. Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's fake. [ Giving a ring. PRO. Why then we'll make exchange; here, take you this. JUL. And feal the bargin with a holy kifs. PRO. Here is my hand for my true confiancy; All this I Speak in print;] In print means with exactness. So, in the comedy of All Fooles, 1605; "not a hair "About his bulk, but it flands in print." Again, in The Portraiture of Hypocrifie, bl. 1. 1589: "- - others lash out to maintaine their porte, which must needes bee in print." STEEVENS. And when that hour o'er-flips me in the day, Enter PANTHINO. PAN. Sir Proteus, you are flaid for. Alas! this parting ftrikes poor lovers dumb. it. [Excunt. III. The fame. A freet. Enter LAUNCE, leading a dog. LAUN. Nav, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the kind of the Launces have this very fault: I have received my proportion, like the prodigious fon, and am going with fir Proteus to the Imperial's court. I think, Crab my dog be the foureft-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my fifter crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our houfe in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur fhed one tear: he is a ftone, a very pebble-flone, and has no more pity in him than a dog: a Jew would have wept to have feen our parting; why, my grandam having no eyes, look you, wept herfelf blind at my parting. Nay, I'll fhow you the manner of it: This fhoe is my father;-no, this left fhoe is my father;--no, no, this left fhoe is my mother;-nay, that cannot be fo neither;-yes, it is fo, it is fo; it hath the worfer fole: This fhoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father; A vengeance on't! there 'tis now, fir, this ftaff is my fifter; for, look you, fhe is as white as a lily, and as fmall as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid; I am the dog:-no, the dog is himfelf, and I am the dog," -O, the dog is me, and I am myfelf; ay, fo, fo. Now come I to my father; Father, your bleffing; now fhould not the fhoe fpeak a word for weeping; now fhould I kifs my father; well, he weeps on now come I to my mother, (O, that fhe could fpeak now!) like a wood woman;—well, I kifs 6 -I am the dog: &c.] A fimilar thought occurs in a play printed earlier than the prefent. See A Chriftian turn'd Turk, 1612: you fhall land for the lady, you for her dog, and I the page; you and the dog looking one upon another: the page prefeuts himself." STEEVENS. 66 7 -I am the dog, &c.] \This paffage is much confufed, and of confufion the prefent reading makes no end. Sir T. Hanmer reads, I am the dog, no, the dog is himself and I am me, the dog is the dog, and I am myfelf. This certainly is more reasonable, but 1 know not how much reafon the author intended to beftow on Launce's foliloquy. JOHNSON, 8 -- like a wood woman; The firft folios agree in would-woman: for which, becaufe it was a mystery to Mr. Pope, he has unmeaningly fubflituted ould woman. But it must be writ, or at leaft understood, wood woman, i. e. crazy, fiantic with grief; or difraded, from any other caufe. The word is very frequently ufed in Chaucer; and fometimes writ wood, fometimes wode. THEOBALD. Print thus: "Now come I to my mother, (0, that he could fpeak now!) like a wood womau.” Perhaps the humour would be heightened by reading-(0, that the fhoe could speak now!) BLACKSTONE, 1 her; why there 'tis ; here's my mother's breath up and down: now come I to my fifler; mark the moan fhe makes: now the dog all this while fheds not a tear, nor fpeaks a word; but fee how I lay the duft with my tears. Enter PANTHINO. PAN. Launce, away, away, aboard; thy mafter is fhipped, and thou art to poft after with oars. What's the matter? why weep'ft thou, man? Away, afs; you will loose the tide, if you tarry any longer. LAUN. It is no matter if the tide were loft; for it is the unkindefl ty'd that ever any man ty'd. PAN. What's the unkindeft tide? LAUN. Why, he that's ty'd here; Crab, my dog. I have followed the punctuation recommended by Sir W. Blackftone. The emendation propofed by him was made, I find, by Sir T. Hanmer. MALONE. O, that he could speak now like a wood woman!] Launce is defcribing the melancholy parting between him and his family. In order to do this more methodically, he makes one of his fhoes ftand for his father, and the other for his mother. And when he has done taking leave of his father, he says, Now come I to my mother, turning to the fhoe that is fuppofed to perfonate her. And in order to render the reprefentation more perfect, he expreffes his wish that it could fpeak like a woman frantic with grief! There could be no doubt about the fenfe of the paffage, had he said— "O that it could fpeak like a wood woman!" But he uses the feminine pronoun in speaking of the hoe, because it is supposed to reprefent a woman. M. MASON. if the ty'd were loft;] This quibble, wretched as it is, might have been borrowed by Shakspeare from Lilly's Endymion, 1591: " Epi. You know it is faid, the tide tarrieth for no man.— Sam. True.-Epi. A monftrous lye; for I was ty'd two hours, and tarried for one to unloofe me." The fame play on words occurs in Chapman's Andromeda Liberata, 1614: "And now came roaring to the tied the tide." STEEVENS. |