HELEN. 'Twill make us proud to be his fervant, Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty PAR. Sweet, above thought I love thee.* [Exeunt. SCENE II. The fame. Pandarus' Orchard. Enter PANDARUS and a Servant, meeting. PAN. How now? where's thy mafter? at my coufin Creffida's? SERV. No, fir; he ftays for you to conduct him thither. Enter TROILUS. PAN. O, here he comes.-How now, how now? TRO. Sirrah, walk off. PAN. Have you feen my coufin? [Exit Servant. TRO. No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door, Like a strange foul upon the Stygian banks Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon, And give me swift tranfportance to those fields, Where I may wallow in the lily beds Propos'd for the deferver! O gentle Pandarus, From Cupid's fhoulder pluck his painted wings, And fly with me to Creffid! 4 -- above thought I love thee.] So, in Antony and Cleopatra: "She's cunning paft man's thought." STEEVENS. PAN. Walk here i'the orchard, I'll bring her ftraight. [Exit PANDARUS. TRO. I am giddy; expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relifh is fo fweet That it enchants my fenfe; What will it be, I fear it much; and I do fear befides, Re-enter PANDARUS. PAN. She's making her ready, fhe'll come ftraight you must be witty now. She does fo blush, and fetches her wind fo fhort, as if she were fray'd with a sprite: I'll fetch her. It is the prettieft villain:-The fetches her breath as fhort as a new-ta'en fparrow. [Exit PANDARUS. TRO. Even fuch a paffion doth embrace my bo fom: " My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulfe; 5 tun'd too harp-] So the quarto, and more accurately than the folio, which has and too fharp. JoHNSON. The quarto has to instead of too. MALONE. Even fuch a paffion doth embrace my bofom:] So, in The Merchant of Venice: rafh-embraced defpair." MALONE. Like vaffalage at unawares encount'ring Enter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA. PAN. Come, come, what need you blufh? fhame's a baby. Here fhe is now: fwear the oaths now to her, that you have fworn to me.-What, are you gone again? you must be watch'd ere you be made tame, muft you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward, we'll put you i'the fills. Why do you not speak to her?-Come, draw this curtain, and let's fee your picture." Alas 3 Like vaffalage at unawares encountʼring The eye of majesty.] Mr. Rowe seems to have imitated this paffage in his Ambitious Stepmother, A&t I: "Well may th' ignoble herd "Start, if with heedlefs fteps they unawares STEEVENS. you must be watch'd ere you be made tame,] Alluding to the manner of taming hawks. So, in The Taming of a Shrew: to watch her as we watch thefe kites." STEEVENS. Hawks were tam'd by being kept from fleep, and thus Pandarus means that Creffida fhould be tamed. MALONE, the fills.] That is, in the fhafts. Fill is a provincial word used in fome counties for thills, the shafts of a cart or waggon. See Vol. V. p. 431, n. 8. The editor of the fecond folio, for fills, the reading of the first folio, fubftituted files, which has been adopted in all the modern editions. The quarto has filles, which is only the more ancient fpelling of fills. The words "draw backward" fhew that the original is the true reading. MALONE. Sir T. Hanmer fupports the reading of the fecond folio, by faying-put you in the files," alludes to the custom of putting men fufpected of cowardice [i, e, of drawing backward,] in the middle places." STEEVENS. 6 Come, draw this curtain, and let's fee your picture.] It should feem from these words that Creffida, like Olivia in Twelfth Night, the day, how loath you are to offend day-light! an 'twere dark, you'd clofe fooner. So, fo; rub on, and kifs the miftrefs. How now, a kifs in feefarm! build there, carpenter; the air is fweet." Nay, you fhall fight your hearts out, ere I part you. The faulcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i'the river: go to, go to. was intended to come in veil'd. Pandarus however had as ufual a double meaning. MALONE. 7 So, fo; rub on, and kifs the miftrefs.] The allufion is to bowling. What we now call the jack, feems in Shakspeare's time to have been termed the mistress. A bowl that kiffes the jack or mistress, is in the most advantageous fituation. Rub on is a term at the fame game. So, in No Wit like a Woman's, a comedy, by Middleton, 1657: So, a fair riddance; "There's three rubs gone; I've a clear way to the mistress." Again, in Decker's Satiromaftix, 1602: Mini. Since he hath hit the mistress so often in the fore-game, we'll even play out the rubbers. "Sir Vaugh. Play out your rubbers in God's name; by Jefu I'll never bowl in your alley." MALONE. An inftance to the fame effect was long ago fuggefted in a note on Cymbeline, Act II. fc. i. STEEVENS. 8 -a kifs in fee-farm!] is a kifs of a duration that has no bounds; a fee-farm being a grant of lands in fee, that is, for ever, referving a certain rent. MALONE. How much more poetically is the fame idea expreffed in Coriolanus, when the jargon of law was absent from our author's thoughts! 66 O, a kifs, Long as my exile, fweet as my revenge!" STEEVENS. build there, carpenter; the air is fweet.] So, in Macbeth: does approve By his lov'd manfionry, that heaven's breath "Smells wooingly here." STEEVENS. The faulcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i'the river:] Pandarus means, that he'll match his niece against her lover for any bett. The tercel is the male hawk; by the faulcon we generally understand the female. THEOBALD. I think we should rather read:-at the tercel-. TYRWHITT. In Chaucer's Troilus and Creffeide, 1. iv. 410, is the following TRO. You have bereft me of all words, lady. PAN. Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but fhe'll bereave you of the deeds too, if fhe call your activity in queftion. Here's-In witnefs whereof ably 2—Come in, come in; What, billing again? the parties interchangeI'll go get a fire. [Exit PANDARUS. CRES. Will you walk in, my lord? TRO. O Creffida, how often have I wifh'd me thus? CRES. Wish'd, my lord?-The gods grant!—O my lord! TRO. What should they grant? what makes this ftanza, from which Shakspeare may have caught a glimpfe of meaning, though he has not very clearly expreffed it. Pandarus is the speaker: "What? God forbid, alway that eche plefaunce Again, in Fenton's Tragicall Difcourfes, bl. 1. 4to. 1567: how is that poffible to make a froward kite a forward hawke to the ryver ?" P. 159, b. Mr. M. Mafon obferves that the meaning of this difficult paffage is, "I will back the falcon against the tiercel, I will wager that the falcon is equal to the tiercel." STEEVENS. 2 the parties interchangeably-] have fet their hands and feals. So afterwards: "Go to, a bargain made: seal it, feal it.” Shakspeare appears to have had here an idea in his thoughts that he has often exprefs'd. So, in Measure for Meafure: "But my kifles bring again, "Seals of love, but feal'd in vain." Again, in his Venus and Adonis : "Pure lips, fweet feals in my foft lips imprinted, MALONE. |