might easily have been found, Florence being somewhat out of the road from Rousillon to Compostella. JOHNSON. Line 205. Juno,] Alluding to the story of Hercules. JOHNS. Lack advice so much,] Advice is discretion or thought. 212. JOHNSON. ACT III. SCENE V. Line 254. -suggestions-] i. e. Temptations. -257. Are not the things they go under:] They are not really so true and sincere as in appearance they seem to be. To go under the name of any thing is a known expression. The meaning is, they are not the things for which their names would make them pass. JOHNSON. Line 272. -palmers-] i. e. Pilgrims who returning from the holy land carried branches of palm. Line 308. -examined,] That is, questioned, doubted. JOHNS. -brokes-] Deals as a broker. -320. Line 362. 385. ACT III. SCENE VI. JOHNSON. -a hilding,] A hilding is a cowardly fellow. -397. If you give him not John Drum's entertainment,] There is an old motley interlude, (printed in 1601) called Jack Drum's Entertainment; Or, the Comedy of Pasquil and Katharine. In this, Jack Drum is a servant of intrigue, who is ever aiming at projects, and always foil'd, and given the drop. And there is another old piece (published in 1627) call'd, Apollo shroving, in which I find these expressions: Thuriger. Thou lozel, hath Slug infected you? Why do you give such kind entertainment to that cobweb? Scopas. It shall have Tom Drum's entertainment; a flap with a fox-tail. THEOBALD. Line 402. -in any hand.] The usual phrase is—at any hand, but in any hand will do. STEEVENS. Line 435. I will presently pen down my dilemmas,] By this word, Parolles is made to insinuate that he had several ways, all equally certain, of recovering his drum. For a dilemma is an argument that concludes both ways. WARBURTON. Line 444. -possibility of thy soldiership,] I will subscribe (says Bertram) to the possibility of your soldiership. He suppresses that he should not be so willing to vouch for its probability. STEEV. Line 463. we have almost embossed him,] To emboss a deer is to inclose him in a wood. Milton uses the same word: Like that self-begotten bird In th' Arabian woods embost, Which no second knows or third.. JOHNSON. Line 467. naked. -ere we case him,] This is, before we strip him JOHNSON. ACT III. SCENE VII. Line 489. But I shall lose the grounds I work upon.] i. e. By discovering herself to the count. WARBURTON. Line 497. —to your sworn counsel—] To your private knowledge, after having required from you an oath of secrecy. JOHNS. Line 512. 513. 539. important-] i. e. importunate. the county-] County for count. JOHNSON. The sense of the two lines is this, It is a wicked meuning because the woman's intent is to deceive; but a lawful deed, because the man enjoys his own wife. Again, it is a lawful meaning because done by her to gain her husband's estranged affection, but it is a wicked act because he goes intentionally to commit adultery. WARBURTON. ACT IV. SCENE I Line 4. -some band of strangers & the adversary's entertainJOHNSON. ment.] That is, foreign troops in the enemy's pay. Line 19. 42. 43. -chough's language,] A chough is a sea bird. JOHNSON. of Bajazet's mule,] As a mule is dumb by nature, as the mute is by art, the reading may stand. In one of our old Turkish histories, there is a pompous description of Bajazet riding on a mule to the Divan. STEEVENS. ACT IV. SCENE II. Line 125. No more of that! I pr'ythee do not strive against my vows: I was compell'd to her ;] Diana tells him unexpectedly of his wife. He answers with perturbation, No more of that! I pr'ythee do not play the confessor. —against my own consent I was compelled to her. When a young profligate finds his courtship so gravely repressed by an admonition of his duty, he very naturally desires the girl not to take upon her the office of a confessor. JOHNSON. Line 140. If I should swear by Jove's great attributes,] In the print of the old folio, it is doubtful whether it be Jove's or Love's, the characters being not distinguishable. If it is read Love's, perhaps it may be something less difficult. I am still at a loss. JOHNSON. Line 143. To swear by him whom I protest to love, &c.] This passage likewise appears to me corrupt. She swears not by him whom she loves, but by Jupiter. I believe we may read, to swear to him. There is, says she, no holding, no consistency, in swearing to one that I love him, when I swear it only to injure him. Line 196. -Since Frenchmen are so braid, JOHNSON. Nothing is more common than for girls, on such occasions, to say in a pet what they do not think, or to think for a time what they do not finally resolve. JOHNSON. Braid does not signify crooked or perverse, but crafty or deceitful. STEEVENS. ACT IV. SCENE III. Line 200. 1 Lord] The later editors have with great liberality bestowed lordship upon these interlocutors, who, in the original edition, are called, with more propriety, capt. E. and capt. G. It is true that captain E. is in a former scene called lord E. but the subordination in which they seem to act, and the timorous manner in which they converse, determines them to be only captains. Yet as the later readers of Shakspeare have been used to find them lords, I have not thought it worth while to degrade them in the margin. JOHNSON. JOHNSON. Line 226. —in his proper stream o'erflows himself:] That is, betrays his own secrets in his own talk. The reply shews that this is the meaning. Line 234. - -he might take a measure of his own judgments,] This is a very just and moral reason. Bertram, by finding how erroneously he has judged, will be less confident, and more easily moved by admonition. JOHNSON. Line 303. bring forth this counterfeit module;] Module being the pattern of any thing, may be here used in that sense. Bring forth this fellow, who, by counterfeit virtue, pretended to make himself a pattern. JOHNSON. Line 349. 360. -that had the whole theorick-] i. e. Theory. -I con him no thanks for 't,] To con thanks may, indeed, exactly answer the French sçavoire gré. To con is to know. STEEVENS. Line 377. off their cassocks,] Cassock signifies a horseman's loose coat, and is used in that sense by the writers of the age of Shakspeare. STEEVENS. Line 419. Dian. The count's a fool, and full of gold,] After this line there is apparently a line lost, there being no rhime that corresponds to gold. JOHNSON. Line 438. Men are to mell with, boys are not to kiss;] To mell, from the French meler, is to meddle or mingle; from which the meaning of the expression may be understood. Line 460. -an egg out of a cloister;] I know not that cloister, though it may etymologically signify any thing shut, is used by our author, otherwise than for a monastery, and therefore I cannot guess whence this hyperbole could take its original; perhaps it means only this: He will steal any thing, however trifling, from any place, however holy. JOHNSON. Line 485. he's a cat still.] That is, throw him how you will, he lights upon his legs. The same speech also was applied by king James to Coke, with respect to his subtleties of law, that throw him which way we would, he could still like a cat light upon his legs. JOHNSON. Line 494. Why does he ask him of me?] This is nature. Every man is on such occasions more willing to hear his neighbour's character than his own. JOHNSON. Line 509. to beguile the supposition-] That is, to deceive the opinion, to make the count think me a man that deserves well. JOHNSON. Line 574. -577. ACT IV. SCENE IV. When WARB. saucy trusting of the cozen'd thoughts, Defiles the pitchy night!] Saucy may very properly JOHNSON, signify luxurious, and by consequence lascivious. Line 587. But with the word, the time will bring on summer, &c.] With the word, i. e. in an instant of time. WARBURTON. The meaning of this observation is, that as briars have sweetness with their prickles, so shall these troubles be recompensed with joy. JOHNSON. Line 591. the fines-] i. e. the finis, or end. ACT IV. SCENE V. Line 594. whose villainous saffron would have made all the unbak'd und doughy youth of a nation in his colour :] This alludes to a fantastic fashion, then much followed, of using yellow starch for their bands and ruffs. WARBURTON. Stubbs in his Anatomie of Abuses, published in 1595, speaks of starch of various colours. "The one arch or piller wherewith the devil's kingdome of great ruffes is underpropped, is a certain kinde of liquid matter, "which they call startch, wherein the devill hath learned them to "wash and dye their ruffes, which, being drie, will stand stiff " and inflexible about their neckes. And this startch they make "of divers substances, sometimes of wheate flower, of branne, " and other graines: sometimes of rootes, and sometimes of other thinges of all collours and hues, as white, redde, blewe, purple, and the like." STEEVENS. Line 600. I would I had not known him!] This dialogue serves to connect the incidents of Parolles with the main plan of the play. JOHNSON. |
