Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

АСТ III.]

AS YOU LIKE IT.

Line 220. Good my complexion!] The meaning is, Hold good my complexion, i. e. let me not blush. WARBURTON. Line 222. One inch of delay more is a South-seu off discovery.] Every delay, however short, is to me tedious and irksome as the longest voyage, or as a voyage of discovery on the South-sea. How much voyages to the South sea, on which the English had then first ventured, engaged the conversation of that time, may be easily imagined. JOHNSON.

Line 252. Garagantua's mouth-] Rosalind requires nine questions to be answered in one word. Celia tells her that a word of such magnitude is too big for any mouth but that of Garagantua the giant of Rabelais. JOHNSON.

Line 259.

-to count atomies,] Atomies are those floating particles, discernible only when the sun shines through a crevice into a darkened room.

Line 274.

303.

-to kill my heart] A pun on hart and heart. —but I answer you right painted cloth,] This alludes to the fashion, in old tapestry hangings, of mottos and moral sentences from the mouths of the figures worked or printed in them. The poet again hints at this custom in his poem, called, Tarquin and Lucrece:

"Who fears a sentence, or an old man's saw,

"Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe." THEOBALD. I answer you right painted cloth, may mean, I give you a true painted cloth answer; as we say, she talks right Billingsgate; that is, exactly such language as is used at Billingsgate. JOHNSON.

Line 373. -in-land man;] Is used in this play for one civilised, in opposition to the rustick of the priest. So Orlando before-Yet am I in-land bred, and know some nurture. JOHNSON.

Line 403. -an unquestionable spirit ;] That is, a spirit not inquisitive, a mind indifferent to common objects, and negligent of common occurrences. Here Shakspeare has

ANNOTATIONS ON

[ACT III. used a passive for an active mode of speech: so in a former scene, The Duke is too disputable for me, that is, too disputatious. JOHNSON.

May it not mean, unwilling to be conversed with? CHAMIER. Line 447. -to a living humour of madness;] If this be the true reading, we must by living understand lasting, or permanent, but I cannot forbear to think that some antithesis was intended which is now lost; perhaps the passage stood thus, I drove my suitor from a dying humour of love to a living humour of madness. Or rather thus, from a mad humour of love to a loving humour of madness, that is, from a madness that was love, to a love that was madness. This seems somewhat harsh and strained, but such modes of speech are not unusual in our poet: and this harshness was probably the cause of the corruption. JOHNSON.

Line 478. it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room :] A great reckoning, in a little room, implies that the entertainment was mean, and the bill extravagant. The poet here alluded to the French proverbial phrase of the quarter of hour of Rabelais: who said, there was only one quarter of an hour in human life passed ill, and that was between the calling for the reckoning and paying it. WARBURTON.

Line 496. A material fool!] A fool with matter in him; a fool stocked with notions.

Line 503.

ing.

JOHNSON.

-I am foul.] By foul is meant coy or frown

HANMER.

Line 528. -Sir Oliver:] He that has taken his first degree at the university is in the academical style called Dominus, and in common language was heretofore termed Sir. This was not always a word of contempt; the graduates assumed it in their own writings; so Trevisa the historian writes himself Syr John de Trevisa. JOHNSON.

Line 564. Not-O sweet Oliver, O brave, &c.] The Clown dismisses Sir Oliver only because Jaques had put him out

ACT III.]

AS YOU LIKE IT.

of conceit with him, by alarming his pride and raising doubts, touching the validity of a marriage solemnized by one who appears only in the character of an itinerant preacher; though he intends to have recourse to some other of more dignity in the same profession. STEEVENS.

Line 581. I'faith, his hair is of a good colour.] There is much of nature in this petty perverseness of Rosalind; she finds faults in her lover, in hope to be contradicted, and when Celia in sportive malice too readily seconds her accusations, she contradicts herself rather than suffer her favourite to want a vindication. JOHNSON.

Line 584. as the touch of holy bread.] We should read beard, that is, as the kiss of an holy saint or hermit, called the kiss of charity: This makes the comparison just and decent; the other is impious and absurd. WARBURTON. Line 587. -a nun of winter's sisterhood- -] Means, an unfruitful sisterhood, which had devoted itself to chas

tity.

WARBURTON. Line 613. quite traverse, athwart, &c.] An unexperienced lover is here compared to a puny tilter, to whom it was a disgrace to have his lance broken across, as it was a mark either of want of courage or address. WARBURTON. -power of fancy,] Fancy is here used for love, as before in Midsummer-Night's Dream.

Line 665.

Line 672.

JOHNSON.

-Who might be your mother,] It is common for the poets to express cruelty by saying, of those who commit it, that they were born of rocks, or suckled by tigresses. JOHNSON.

Line 682. Of nature's sale-work:] i. e. Those works that nature makes up carelessly and without exactness. The allusion is to the practice of mechanicks, whose work bespoke is more elaborate, than that which is made up for chance-customers, or to sell in quantities to retailers, which is called sale-work. WARBURTON,

10

ANNOTATIONS ON

[ACT IV

Line 701. Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer:] The sense is, The ugly seem most ugly, when, though ugly, they are scoffers. Line 716.

JOHNSON.

Though all the world could see, None could be so abus'd in sight, as he.] Though all mankind could look on you, none could be so deceived as to think you beautiful but he.

[blocks in formation]

JOHNSON.

ACT IV.

Line 27. -swam in a gondola.] That is, been at Venice, the seat at that time of all licentiousness, where the young English gentlemen wasted their fortunes, debased their morals, and sometimes lost their religion.

The fashion of travelling, which prevailed very much in our author's time, was considered by the wiser men as one of the principal causes of corrupt manners. It was therefore gravely censured by Ascham in his Schoolmaster, and by bishop Hall in his Quo Vadis; and is here, and in other passages, ridiculed by Shakspeare. JOHNSON. Line 159. make the doors-] This is an expression used in several of the midland counties, instead of bar the doors. STEEVENS.

Line 165. Wit, whither wilt?] This was an exclamation much in use, when any one was either talking nonsense, or usurping a greater share in conversation than justly belonged to him. STEEVENS.

Line 174. make her fault her husband's occasion,] That is, represent her fault as occasioned by her husband.

JOHNSON.

Line 191. I will think you the most pathetical break-promise,] We have the same unmeaning word, in Love's Labour's Lost ;

"-most pathetical nit."

ACT V.]

AS YOU LIKE IT.

11

The foregoing noisy scene was introduced only to fill up an interval, which is to represent two hours. This contraction of the time we might impute to poor Rosalind's impatience, but that a few minutes after we find Orlando sending his excuse. I do not see that by any probable division of the acts this absurdity can be obviated. JOHNSON.

Line 308. I see, love hath made thee a tame snake,] A tame snake was, in Shakspeare's time, used as a term of derision.

Line 341. Within an hour;] We must read, within two hours. JOHNSON. Line 364. And he did render him-] i. e. He represented him to be.

Line 374. in which hurtling—] To hurtle, is to skirmish, or bustle.

Line 407.

-cousin-Ganymede !] Celia in her first fright forgets Rosalind's character and disguise, and calls out cousin, then recollects herself, and says Ganymede.

JOHNSON.

ACT V.

Line 33. The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape, &c.] This was designed as a sneer on the several trifling and insignificant sayings and actions, recorded of the ancient philosophers, by the writers of their lives, such as Diogenes Laertius, Philostratus, Eunapius, &c. as appears from its being introduced by one of their wise sayings.

WARBURTON.

Line 85. And you, fair sister.] I know not why Oliver should call Rosalind sister. He takes her yet to be a man. I suppose we should read, and you, and your fair sister.

JOHNSON.

Oliver speaks to her in the character she had assumed, of

a woman courted by Orlando his brother.

CHAMIER.

« ZurückWeiter »