Jul. Host, will you go? Host. By my hallidom3, I was fast asleep. Host. Marry, at my house: Trust me, I think 'tis almost day. Jul. Not so; but it hath been the longest night That e'er I watch'd, and the most heaviest*. [Exeunt. SCENE III. The same. Enter EGLAMOUR. Egl. This is the hour that madam Silvia Entreated me to call and know her mind: There's some great matter she'd employ me in.Madam, madam! SILVIA appears above, at her window. Sil. Who calls? Egl. Your servant, and your friend; One that attends your ladyship's command. Sil. Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good-morrow. Sil. O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman, 3 Halidom (says Minsheu), an old word, used by old countrywomen by manner of swearing; of the Saxon word halıgdome ex halig, i. e. sanctum; and dome, dominum and judicium. The double superlative is very often used by the writers of Shakspeare's time. 1 Impose is injunction, command; a task set at college in consequence of a fault is still called an imposition. 2 i. e. pitiful. Nor how my father would enforce me marry To Mantua, where, I hear, he makes abode; As full of sorrows as the sea of sands, Egl. Madam, I pity much your grievances *; 3 It was common in former ages for widowers and widows to make vows of chastity in honour of their deceased wives or husbands. Besides observing the vow, the widow was, for life, to wear a veil, and a mourning habit. The same distinction may have been made in respect of male votarists; this circumstance might inform the players how Sir Eglamour should be dressed and will account for Silvia's having chosen him as a person in whom she could confide without injury to her character. 4 In Shakspeare's time griefs frequently signified grievances; and the present instance shows that in return grievance was sometimes used in the sense of grief. 5 To reck is to care for. So in Hamlet: "And recks not his own read." As much I wish all good befortune you. Sil. This evening coming. Sil. Good-morrow, kind Sir Eglamour. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. The same. Enter LAUNCE, with his Dog. When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look you, it goes hard: one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I saved from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it! I have taught him- —even as one would say precisely, Thus I would teach a dog. I was sent to deliver him, as a present to mistress Silvia, from my master; and I came no sooner into the diningchamber, but he steps me to her trencher, and steals her capon's leg. O, 'tis a foul thing, when a cur cannot keep himself in all companies! I would have, as one should say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been hanged for't: sure as I live, he had suffer'd for't: you shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or four gentleman-like dogs, under the duke's table he had not been there (bless the mark) a pissing while; but all the chamber smelt him. Out with the dog, says one; What cur is that? says another; Whip him out, says the third; Hang him 1 i. e. restrain. up, says the duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it was Crab; and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs: Friend, quoth I, you mean to whip the dog? Ay, marry, do I, quoth he. You do him the more wrong, quoth I; 'twas I did the thing you wot of. He makes me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How many masters would do this for their servant? Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had been executed: I have stood on the pillory for geese he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for't: thou think'st not of this now!—Nay, I remember the trick you served me, when I took my leave of madam Silvia: did not I bid thee still mark me, and do as I do? When didst thou see me heave up my leg, and make water against a gentlewoman's farthingale? didst thou ever see me do such a trick? Enter PROTEUS and JULIA. Pro. Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well, And will employ thee in some service presently. Jul. In what you please;-I will do what I can. Pro. I hope, thou wilt.-How now, you whoreson peasant! [TO LAUNCE. Where have you been these two days loitering? Laun. Marry, sir, I carried mistress Silvia the dog you bade me. Pro. And what says she to my little jewel? Laun. Marry, she says, your dog was a cur; and tells you, currish thanks is good enough for such a present. Pro. But she received my dog? Laun. No, indeed, did she not: here have I brought him back again. Pro. What, didst thou offer her this from me ? Laun. Ay, sir; the other squirrel was stolen from me by the hangman's boys in the market-place: and then I offered her mine own; who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift the greater. Pro. Go, get thee hence, and find my dog again, Or ne'er return again into my sight. Away, I say: Stay'st thou to vex me here? Sebastian, I have entertained thee, She loved me well deliver'd it to me. Jul. It seems you loved her not, to leave her token: She's dead, belike. Pro. Not so; I think she lives. Jul. Alas! Pro. Why dost thou cry, alas? Jul. I cannot choose but pity her. As Pro. Wherefore should'st thou pity her? you you as well She dreams on him that has forgot her love; 2 Still an end, and most an end, are vulgar expressions, and mean perpetually, generally. See Gifford's Massinger, iv. 282. "Now help, good heaven! 'tis such an uncouth thing To be a widow out of Term-time! I Do feel such aguish qualms, and dumps, and fits, The Ordinary. |