To listen our propose: This is thy office, MARG. I'll make her come, I warrant you, pre sently. [Exit. HERO. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come, As we do trace this alley up and down, Our talk must only be of Benedick: When I do name him, let it be thy part To praise him more than ever man did merit: My talk to thee must be, how Benedick Is sick in love with Beatrice: Of this matter Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made, That only wounds by hearsay. Now begin; Enter BEATRICE, behind. For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs our propose:] Thus the quarto. The folio readsour purpose. Propose is right. See the preceding note. STEEVENS. Purpose, however, may be equally right. It depends only on the manner of accenting the word, which, in Shakspeare's time, was often used in the same sense as propose. Thus, in Knox's History of the Reformation in Scotland, p. 72: "with him six persons; and getting entrie, held purpose with the porter." Again, p. 54: "After supper he held comfortable purpose of God's chosen children." REED. HERO. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. [They advance to the bower. No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful; I know, her spirits are as coy and wild As haggards of the rock." URS. But are you sure, That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely? HERO. So says the prince, and my new-trothed lord. URS. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam? HERO. They did intreat me to acquaint her of it: But I persuaded them, if they lov'd Benedick, To wish him wrestle with affection, 6 And never to let Beatrice know of it. URS. Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman 'As haggards of the rock.] Turberville, in his book of Falconry, 1575, tells us, that "the haggard doth come from foreign parts a stranger and a passenger ;" and Latham, who wrote after him, says, that, "she keeps in subjection the most part of all the fowl that fly, insomuch, that the tassel gentle, her natural and chiefest companion, dares not come near that coast where she useth, nor sit by the place where she standeth. Such is the greatness of her spirit, she will not admit of any society, until such a time as nature worketh," &c. So, in The tragical History of Didaco and Violenta, 1576: "Perchaunce she's not of haggard's kind, 6 To wish him-] i. e. recommend or desire. So, in The Honest Whore, 1604: "Go wish the surgeon to have great respect," &c. Again, in The Hog hath lost his Pearl, 1614: " But lady mine that shall be, your father hath wish'd me to appoint the day with you." REED. 1 Deserve as full, as fortunate a bed," HERO. O God of love! I know, he doth deserve As much as may be yielded to a man: But nature never fram'd a woman's heart Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice: Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, Misprising what they look on; and her wit Values itself so highly, that to her 8 9 All matter else seems weak: she cannot love, URS. Sure, I think so ; And therefore, certainly, it were not good HERO. Why, you speak truth: I never yet saw man, How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur'd, But she would spell him backward:1 if fair-faced, 7 as full, &c.] So, in Othello: "What a full fortune doth the thick-lips owe?" &c. Mr. M. Mason very justly observes, that what Ursula means to say is, "that he is as deserving of complete happiness in the marriage state, as Beatrice herself." STEEvens. 8 Misprising-] Despising, contemning. JOHNSON. To misprise is to undervalue, or take in a wrong light. So, in Troilus and Cressida: All matter else seems weak:] So, in Love's Labour's Lost: 66 to your huge store "Wise things seem foolish, and rich things but poor." STEEVENS. spell him backward:] Alluding to the practice of witches in uttering prayers. She'd swear, the gentleman should be her sister; If black, why, nature, drawing of an antick, Made a foul blot: if tall, a lance ill-headed; The following passages containing a similar train of thought, are from Lyly's Anatomy of Wit, 1591; "If one be hard in conceiving, they pronounce him a dowlte: if given to study, they proclaim him a dunce; if merry, a jester: if sad, a saint: if full of words, a sot: if without speech, a cypher: if one argue with him boldly, then is he impudent: if coldly, an innocent: if there be reasoning of divinitie, they cry, Quæ supra nos, nihil ad nos: if of humanite, sententias loquitur carnifex." Again, p. 44, b: "if he be cleanly, they [women] term him proude: if meene in apparel, a sloven: if tall, a lungis: if short, a dwarf: if bold, blunt: if shamefast, a cowarde," &c. P. 55: " If she be well set, then call her a bosse: if slender, a hasil twig: if nut brown, black as a coal: if well colour'd, a painted wall: if she be pleasant, then is she wanton: if sullen, a clowne: if honest, then is she coye." STEEVENS. 2 If black, why, nature, drawing of an antiek, Made a foul blot:] The antick was a buffoon character in the old English farces, with a blacked face, and a patch-work habit. What I would observe from hence is, that the name of antick or antique, given to this character, shows that the people had some traditional ideas of its being borrowed from the ancient mimes, who are thus described by Apuleius: "mimi centunculo, fuligine faciem obducti." WARBURTON. I believe what is here said of the old English farces, is said at random. Dr. Warburton was thinking, I imagine, of the modern Harlequin. I have met with no proof that the face of the antick or Vice of the old English comedy was blackened. By the word black in the text, is only meant, as I conceive, swarthy, or dark brown. MALONE. A black man means a man with a dark or thick beard, not a swarthy or dark-brown complexion, as Mr. Malone conceives. DOUCE. When Hero says, that" nature drawing of an antick, made a foul blot," she only alludes to a drop of ink that may casually fall out of a pen, and spoil a grotesque drawing. STEEVENS. VOL. VI. G If low, an agate very vilely cut:3 3 If low, an agate very vilely cut:] But why an agate, if low? For what likeness between a little man and an agate? The ancients, indeed, used this stone to cut upon; but very exquisitely. I make no question but the poet wrote: an aglet very vilely cut: An aglet was a tag of those points, formerly so much in fashion. These tags were either of gold, silver, or brass, according to the quality of the wearer; and were commonly in the shape of little images; or at least had a head cut at the extremity. The French call them, aiguillettes. Mezeray, speaking of Henry the Third's sorrow for the death of the princess of Conti, says, "-portant meme sur les aiguillettes des petites tetes de mort." And as a tall man is before compared to a lance ill-headed; so, by the same figure, a little man is very aptly liken'd to an aglet ill-cut. WARBURTON. The old reading is, I believe, the true one. Vilely cut may not only mean aukwardly cut by a tool into shape, but gro tesquely veined by nature as it grew. To this circumstance, I suppose, Drayton alludes in his Muses' Elizium : "With th' agate, very oft that is "As nature meant to show in this Pliny mentions that the shapes of various beings are to be discovered in agates; and Mr. Addison has very elegantly compared Shakspeare, who was born with all the seeds of poetry, to the agate in the ring of Pyrrhus, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine Muses in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of nature, without any help from art. STEEvens. Dr. Warburton reads aglet, which was adopted, I think, too hastily by the subsequent editors. I see no reason for departing from the old copy. Shakspeare's comparisons scarcely ever answer completely on both sides. Dr. Warburton asks, "What likeness is there between a little man and an agate?" No other than that both are small. Our author has himself, in another place, compared a very little man to an agate. "Thou whorson mandrake, (says Falstaff to his page,) thou art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never so man'd with an agate till now." Hero means no more than this: "If a man be low, Beatrice will say that he is as diminu tive and unhappily formed as an ill-cut agate." |