8 Myfelf your loyal fervant, your phyfician, LEON. PAUL. Good queen, my lord, good queen: I fay, good queen; And would by combat make her good, fo were I A man, the worst about you.9 LEON. Force her hence. PAUL. Let him, that makes but trifles of his eyes, Firft hand me: on mine own accord, I'll off; But, firft, I'll do my errand -The good queen, For fhe is good, hath brought you forth a daughter; Here 'tis; commends it to your bleffing. LEON. [Laying down the child. Out! A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door: 8 in comforting your evils,] Comforting is here ufed in the legal fenfe of comforting and abetting in a criminal action. To comfort, in old language, is to aid and encourage, mean wicked courfes. MALONE. 9 And would by combat make her good, fo were I M. MASON. Evils here A man, the worst about you. ] The worst means only the lowest, Were I the meaneft of your fervants, I would yet claim the combat against any accufer. JOHNSON. The worst, as Mr. M. Mason and Mr. Henley obferve,) rather means the weakest, or the least expert in the use of arms. STEEVENS. Mr. Edwards obferves, that "The worft about you" may mean the weakeft, or leaft warlike. So, a better man, the best man in company, frequently refer to fkill in fighting, not to moral goodnefs. I think he is right. MALONE 2 A mankind witch! | mankind woman is yet used in the midland counties, for a woman violent, ferocious, and mischievous. It has the fame fenfe in this paffage. WINTER'S TALE. 69 MASON. A moft intelligencing bawd! PAUL. I am as ignorant in that, as you Not fo: Witches are fupposed to be mankind, to put off the softness and delicacy of women; therefore fir Hugh, in The Merry Wives of Windfor, fays of a woman fufpe&ed to be a witch, that he does not like when a woman has a beard." Of this meaning Mr. Theobald has given examples. JOHNSON. So, in The Two Angry Women of Abington, 1599: "That e'er I fhould be feen to ftrike a woman. Why he is mankind, therefore thou may'ft ftrike her." Again, as Dr. Faimer obferves to me, in A. Fraunce's Ivie church: He is fpeaking of the Golden Age; "Noe man murdring man with teare flesh pyke or a poll-ax; Tygers were then tame, fharpe tusked boare was obeiffant; "Stoordy lyons' lowted, noe wolf was knowne to be mankinde.' So, in M. Frobisher's first voyage for the discoverie of Cataya, 4to. bl. 1. 1578: p. 48. "He faw mightie deere, that seemed o be mankind, which ranne at him, and hardly he escaped with his ife," &c. STEEVENS. I shall offer an etymology of the adje&ive mankind, which may ils here perhaps more fully explain it. Dr. Hickes's Anglo-Saxon grammar, p. 119. edit. 1705, obferves: "Saxonicè man eft a mein quod Cimbricè eft nocumentum, Francicè eft nefas, fcelus. So that man kind may fignify one of a wicked and pernicious nature, from the Saxon man, mischief or wickedness, and from kind, nature. TOLLET. Notwithstanding the many learned notes on this expreffion, I am rather confident that mankind, in this paffage, means nothing more than mafculine. So, in Maffinger's Guardian: combat EEVENS y mean man in good. e mid. ievous. "I keep no mankind fervant in my houfe, And Jonfon, in one of his Sonnets, fays "Pallas now thee I call on, mankind maid!" The fame phrafe frequently occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher. Thus in Monfieur Thomas, when Sebaftian fees him in women's clothes, and fuppofes him to be a girl, he says, “A plaguy mankind girl; how my brains totter!' And Gondarino in The Woman-Hater: "Are women grown fo mankind?" In all which places mankind means mafculine. M. MASON. F 3 70 WINTER'S TALE. In fo entitling me: and no less honest 1 hàn you are mad; which is enough, I'll warrant, As this world goes, to pafs for honeft. : LEON. Traitors! Will you not pufh her out? Give her the bastard:Thou, dotard, [To ANTIGONUS.] thou art woman3 tir'd, unroofled By thy dame Partlet here,-take up the bastard; Take't up, I fay; give't to thy crone.* PAUL. Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou For ever Tak'ft up the princefs, by that forced bafenefs 5 3 -thou art woman-tir'd] Woman-tir'd, is peck'd by a wo man; hen-pecked. The phrafe is taken from falconry, and is often employed by writers contemporary with Shakspeare.-So, in The Widow's Tears, by Chapman, 1612: "He has given me a bone to tire on." Again, in Decker's Match me in London, 1631: "the vulture tires "Upon the eagle's heart." Again, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630: "Mult with keen fang tire upon thy flesh." Partlet is the name of the hen in the old story book of Reynard the Fox. STEEVENS. 4 - thy crone.] i. e. thy old worn-out woman. A croan is an old toothlefs fheep: thence an old woman. So, in The Malcontent, 1606: There is an old crone in the court, her name is Maquerelle. Again, in Love's Mistress, by T. Heywood, 1636: "Witch and hag, crone and beldam.' Again, in Heywood's Golden Age, 1611: "All the gold in Crete cannot get one of you old crones with child. Again, in the ancient enterlude of The Repentance of Marie Magdalene, 1567: "I have knowne peinters, that have made old crones, "To appear as pleafaut as little prety young Jones. 5 Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou - STEEVENS. Tak'ft up the princess, by that forced bafenefs Leontes had ordered Antigonus to take up the baftard; Paulina forbids him to touch the princefs under that appellation. Forced is falfe, uttered with violence to truth. JOHNSON. LEON. He dreads his wife. PAUL. So, I would, you did; then, 'twere paft all doubt, You'd call your children yours. LEON. A neft of traitors! Nor I; nor any, ANT. I am none, by this good light. PAUL But one, that's here; and that's himself: for he The facred honour of himself, his queen's, His hopeful fon's, his babe's, betrays to flander, Whofe fting is fharper than the fword's; and will not 7 (For, as the cafe now ftands, it is a curfe A callat, LEON. Of boundless tongue; who late hath beat her huf band, And now baits me!-That brat is none of mine: Hence with it; and, together with the dam, PAUL. It is yours; And, might we lay the old proverb to your charge, A bafe fon was a common term in our author's time. So, in K. Lear: "With bafe? with bafenefs? baftardy?" MALONE. -flander, MALONE. Whofe fling is harper than the Sword's;] Again in Cymbeline: flander "Whole edge is sharper than the fword, whose tongue Out-venoms all the worms of Nile." DOUCE. So like you, 'tis the worse.-Behold, my lords, The trick of his frown, his forehead; nay, the valley, The pretty dimples of his chin, and cheek; his fmiles ;' 7 The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger:And, thou, good goddess nature, which haft made it So like to him that got it, if thou hast 8 The ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours 7 his fmiles;] Thefe two redundant words might be rejeded, especially as the child has already been reprefented as the inheritor of its father's dimples and frowns. STEEVENS. Our author and his contemporaries frequently take the liberty of ufing words of two fyllables, as monsyllables. So eldeft, highest, lover, either, &c. Dimples is, I believe, employed fo here; and of his, when contra&ted, or founded quickly, make but one syllable likewife. In this view there is no redundancy. MALONĖ. How is the word dimples, to be monofyllabically pronounced? STEEVENS. No yellow in't;] Yellow is the colour of jealousy. JOHNSON. So, Nym fays in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "I will poffefs him with yellowness." STEEVENS. 9 - left the fufpect, as he does, Her children not her husband's!] In the ardour of compofition Shakipeare feems here to have forgotten the difference of sexes. No fufpicion that the babe in queftion might entertain of her future husband's fidelity, could affe& the legitimacy of her offspring. Unless the were herself a " bed-fwerver," (which is not fuppofed,) fhe could have no doubt of his being the father of her children. However painful female jealoufy may be to her that feels it, Paulina, therefore, certainly attributes to it, in the prefent instance, a pang that it can never give. MALONE. The I regard this circumftance as a beauty, rather than a defe&. feeming abfurdity in the laft claufe of Paulina's ardent address to Nature, was undoubtedly defigned, being an extravagance characteristically preferable to languid correctnefs, and chaftifed declamation. STEEVENS. |