BAWD. Why lament you, pretty one? MAR. That I am pretty. BAWD. Come, the gods have done their part in you. MAR. I accuse them not. BAWD. You are lit into my hands, where you are like to live.3 MAR. The more my fault, To 'scape his hands, where I was like to die. BAWD. Yes, indeed, shall you, and taste gentlemen of all fashions. You shall fare well; you shall have the difference of all complexions. What! do you stop your ears? it was, that Leonine was so slack in his office; or, he having omitted to kill me, how fortunate would it have been for me, if those pirates had thrown me into the sea to seek my mother. We should recur to the old copies, and read: MALONE. Not enough barbarous, had not overboard, &c. which is clearly right;-for Marina is not expressing what she wished that Leonine and the Pirates had done, but repining at what they had omitted to do. She laments that Leonine had not struck, instead of speaking, and that the Pirates had not thrown her overboard. M. MASON. The original reading may stand, though with some harshness of construction. Alas, how unfortunate it was, that Leonine was so merciful to me, or that these pirates had not thrown me into the sea to seek my mother. If the second not was intended by the author, he should rather have written did not o'er-board throw me, &c. MALONE. 'You are lit into my hands, where you are like to live.] So, in Antony and Cleopatra: Be of good cheer; "You have fallen into a princely hand; fear nothing." MALONE, MAR. Are you a woman? BAWD. What would you have me be, an I be not a woman? MAR. An honest woman, or not a woman. BAWD. Marry, whip thee, gosling: I think I shall have something to do with you. Come, you are a young foolish sapling, and must be bowed as I would have you. MAR. The gods defend me! BAWD. If it please the gods to defend you by men, then men must comfort you, men must feed you, men must stir you up.-Boult's returned. Enter BOULT. Now, sir, hast thou cried her through the market? BOULT. I have cried her almost to the number of her hairs; I have drawn her picture with my voice. 3 BAWD. And I pr'ythee tell me, how dost thou Now, sir, hast thou cried her through the market? I have drawn her picture with my voice.] So, in The Wife for a Month, [by Fletcher, Vol. V. p. 285, edit. 1778,] Evanthe says, "I'd rather thou had'st deliver'd me to pirates, "Betray'd me to uncurable diseases, "Hung up her picture in a market-place, "And sold her to vile bawds!" And we are told in a note on this passage, [by Mr. Reed] that it was formerly the custom at Naples to hang up the pictures of celebrated courtezans in the publick parts of the town, to serve as directions where they lived. Had not Fletcher the story of Marina in his mind, when he wrote the above lines? M. MASON. The Wife for a Month was one of Fletcher's latest plays. It was exhibited in May, 1624. MALONE. find the inclination of the people, especially of the younger sort? BOULT. 'Faith, they listened to me, as they would have hearkened to their father's testament. There was a Spaniard's mouth so watered, that he went* to bed to her very description. BAWD. We shall have him here to-morrow with his best ruff on. BOULT. To-night, to-night. But, mistress, do you know the French knight that cowers i'the hams ?5 BAWD. Who? monsieur Veroles? BOULT. Ay; he offered to cut a caper at the proclamation; but he made a groan at it, and swore he would see her to-morrow." BAWD. Well, well; as for him, he brought his disease hither: here he does but repair it." I know, a Spaniard's mouth so water'd, that he went &c.] Thus the quarto, 1619. The first copy reads,--a Spaniard's mouth water'd, and he went &c. MALONE. that cowers i'the hams?] To cower is to sink by bending the hams. So, in King Henry VI: "The splitting rocks cowr'd in the sinking sands." Again, in Gammer Gurton's Needle: 66 They cower so o'er the coles, their eies be blear❜d with smoke." STEEVENS. he offered to cut a caper at the proclamation; but he made a groan at it, and swore he would see her to-morrow.] If there were no other proof of Shakspeare's hand in this piece, this admirable stroke of humour would furnish decisive evidence of it. MALOne. 7 here he does but repair it.] To repair here means to renovate. So, in Cymbeline: "O, disloyal thing! "That should'st repair my youth,—” Again, in All's well that ends well : he will come in our shadow, to scatter his crowns in the sun. BOULT. Well, if we had of every nation a traveller, we should lodge them with this sign." It much repairs me "To talk of your good father." MALONE. to scatter his crowns in the sun.] There is here perhaps some allusion to the lues venerea, though the words French crowns in their literal acceptation were certainly also in Boult's thoughts. It occurs frequently in our author's plays. So, in Measure for Measure: "Lucio. A French crown more. "Gent. Thou art always figuring diseases in me." MALONE. I see no allusion in this passage to the French disease, but merely to French crowns in a literal sense, the common coin of that country. Boult had said before, that he had proclaimed the beauty of Marina, and drawn her picture with his voice. He says, in the next speech, that with such a sign as Marina, they should draw every traveller to their house, considering Marina, or rather the picture he had drawn of her, as the sign to distinguish the house, which the Bawd, on account of her beauty, calls the sun and the meaning of the passage is merely this:-" that the French knight will seek the shade or shelter of their house, to scatter his money there."—But if we make a slight alteration in this passage, and read" on our shadow," instead of " in our shadow," it will then be capable of another interpretation. On our shadow may mean on our representation or description of Marina; and the sun may mean the real sign of the house. For there is a passage in The Custom of the Country, which gives reason to imagine that the sun was, in former times, the usual sign of a brothel. When Sulpitia asks, "What is become of the Dane?" Jacques replies, "What! goldy-locks! he lies at the sign of the sun to be new-breeched." M. MASON. Mr. M. Mason's note is too ingenious to be omitted; and yet, where humour is forced, (as in the present instance,) it is fre quently obscure, and especially when vitiated by the slightest typographical error or omission. All we can with certainty infer from the passage before us is, that an opposition between sun and shadow was designed. STEEVENS. BAWD. Pray you, come hither awhile. You have fortunes coming upon you. Mark me; you must seem to do that fearfully, which you commit willingly; to despise profit, where you have most gain. that you live as you do, makes pity in your lovers: Seldom, but that pity begets you a good opinion, and that opinion a mere profit.' MAR. I understand you not. To weep BOULT. O, take her home, mistress, take her home: these blushes of her's must be quenched with some present practice. BAWD. Thou say'st true, i'faith, so they must: for your bride goes to that with shame, which is her way to go with warrant.2 BOULT. 'Faith some do, and some do not. But, mistress, if I have bargained for the joint, 9 BAWD. Thou may'st cut a morsel off the spit. BOULT. I may so. we should lodge them with this sign.] If a traveller from every part of the globe were to assemble in Mitylene, they would all resort to this house, while we had such a sign to it as this virgin. This, I think, is the meaning. A similar eulogy is pronounced on Imogen in Cymbeline: "She's a good sign, but I have seen small reflection of her wit." Perhaps there is some allusion to the constellation Virgo. MALONe. 1 a mere profit.] i. e. an absolute, a certain profit. So, in Hamlet: 66 things rank and gross in nature "Possess it merely." Again, in The Merchant of Venice: "Engag'd my friend to his mere enemy." MALOne. -for your bride goes to that with shame, which is her way to go with warrant.] You say true; for even a bride, who has the sanction of the law to warrant her proceeding, will not surrender her person without some constraint. Which is her with warrant, means only—to which she is entitled to MALONE. way go. to go |