Scana Tertia. Enter Rofalind and Celia. Rof. How fay you now, is it not past two a clock ? Cel. I warrant you, with pure loue, & troubled brain, He hath t'ane his bow and arrowes, and is gone forth Scene V. Pope, Han. Warb. Johns. Scene continued, Theob. 2. a clock] o'clock Theob. 3. And... Orlando] I wonder much Orlando is not here. Pope +. and how much Orlando comes? Cap. and here's 5 much Orlando! Steev. '85. and here's 4-7. Prose, Pope et seq. (except Coll.). 1. After the remark upon the 'noisy scene,' which has just passed (see the first note in preceding scene), and which was introduced to fill up the interval of two hours, JOHNSON continues: This contraction of 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. [This remark, if I understand it, and I am not sure that I do, is an undeserved slur on Shakespeare's dramatic art. To defend any dramatist, let alone Shakespeare, against the charge of absurdity in representing the passage of time by the shifting of scenes, is in itself an absurdity which no one, I think, would consciously commit. As this comedy is performed now-a-days, the 'noisy scene' is frequently omitted altogether, and this present scene opens in another part of the Forest;' this of itself is sufficient to indicate a flight of time, and no spectator notes an 'absurdity.' How much more pronounced is this flight when a whole scene intervenes, with new characters and wholly new action. It is to be feared that, in very truth, this Song penetrated to Dr Johnson's deaf ears only as 'noise,' and that, furthermore, Shakespeare's art in dramatic construction was in general so exquisitely concealed that when once it stood revealed with unmistakable plainness, Dr Johnson resented the attempt to sway his mood as a personal affront.—ED.] 3. heere much] WHALLEY: We have still this use of 'much,' as when we say, speaking of a person who we suspect will not keep his appointment, 'Ay, you will be sure to see him much ! MALONE: So the vulgar yet say, 'I shall get much by that, no doubt,' meaning that they shall get nothing. HOLT WHITE: It is spoken ironically. GIFFORD, in a note on 'Much wench, or much son!'-Every Man in his Humour, IV, iv, p. 117, says Much!' is an ironical exclamation for little or none, in which sense it frequently occurs in our old dramatists. Thus in Heywood's Edward IV: 'Much duchess! and much queen, I trow!' [On p. 40 of Edward IV, ed. Sh. Soc. there is Much queen, I trow!' but I cannot find the line as given by Gifford, who is usually accurate.-ED.] 4-7. WALKER (Crit. i, 16): These lines are printed as verse in the Folio; which, Sil. My errand is to you, faire youth, Rof. Patience her felfe would startle at this letter, 9. did] Mal. Cald. Knt, Coll. i, Wh. i, Dyce i. Om. Ff et cet. 10. know] knew Ff. 13. tenure] tenour Theob. et seq. 16. After reading the letter. Han. 7 ΙΟ 15 19 coupled with their being followed by a dialogue, also in verse, inclines me to think Shakespeare meant them as such. [Walker makes no new division of the lines, but aids the rhythm by reading 'warrant' as warr'nt, and contracting and is' to and's.] COLLIER (ed. ii): [Lines 4 and 6] are underscored in the Folio (MS) as if they were a quotation, and they read like it. Celia applied them to Orlando, who had nothing to do with bows and arrows' that we are anywhere informed. [In line 6] 'is' was erased by the old annotator. [Capell introduced a dash after 'forth,' in line 6, and has been followed in every subsequent edition, I think, except the Cambridge, the Globe, Wright's, and White's second edition.] 8. faire youth] Abbott (§ 510), considers an interjectional line, and thus scans : 'Look, who | comes here? | My ér | rand ís | to you || Fair youth, || My gént | le Phé | be bid | me give | you this.' 9. did bid] KEIGHTLEY: Editors, myself included, follow F2, and omit 'did.' I think we are wrong. [We are, therefore, to infer that Keightley would here pronounce Phebe' as a monosyllable, wherein he has Collier for company. It is not impossible that it may have been the lover's pet-name, but where it occurs further on, in V, iv, 25, it seems wholly out of place from Rosalind. I think it should be pronounced uniformly as a dissyllable.-ED.] 12. writing of it] For other instances of this construction of verbal nouns, see, if need be, Abbott, § 178. 14. as] ABBOTT, § 115: As was used almost, but not quite, redundantly after 'seem' (as it is still after 'regard,' 'represent'): 'To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead,'-[line 123, below], and even after 'am' [as here, where it means]: 'I am here in the character of,' &c. 18. calls... and that] ABBOTT, § 382: As in Latin, a verb of speaking can be omitted where it is implied by some other word, as here: She calls me proud, and (says) that,' &c. 19. man... Phenix] WALKER in his Article (LI, Vers. p. 243) on the plural of Substantives ending in a plural sound which are found without the usual addition of s 20 Her loue is not the Hare that I doe hunt, Sil. No, I protest, I know not the contents, Rof. Come, come, you are a foole, And turn'd into the extremity of loue. 20. doe] did Ff, Rowe. 25. you are] you're Pope+, Dyce iii, Huds. 25 26. turn'd into the] turned in the or turn'd so in the Cap. conj. the extremity] th' extremity Pope +, Dyce iii, Huds. or es, instances (p. 266) 'words ending in x,' and cites the present line thus: Were men as rare as Phoenix,' which last word he evidently thinks should be thus printed Phoenix' as an indication of the plural. LETTSOM's foot-note is as follows: 'Walker does not say from what edition he took the reading men. I find it in a small edition published by Tilt in 1836, professedly "from the text of the corrected copies of Steevens and Malone," and therefore I suppose it is the reading of what used to be called the received text. The Four Folios, Pope, Hanmer, Theobald, Capell, Var. 1821, Knight, and Collier all read " man," but the sense seems to demand men.' Lettsom might have added, as reading 'man,' Rowe i, ii, Warburton, Johnson, the Var. 1773, 1778, 1785, Steevens, 1793, Malone, 1790, Rann, Var. 1803, 1813, Harness, Singer's First Edition, Chalmers, Campbell,—all except Hazlitt, 1851, who reads men. In Hazlitt I am inclined to think that the reading is by no means accidental.-ED. 19. Phenix] HALLIWELL: That there is but one Phoenix in the World, which after many hundred years burneth it self, and from the ashes thereof ariseth up another, is a conceit not new or altogether popular, but of great Antiquity.'-Brown's Vulgar Errors [Book III, chap. xii, p. 144, ed. 1672]. 19. 'od's my will] Are not all these oaths, in which Rosalind indulges with marked freedom, her attempts to assume a swashing and a martial outside? Before she donned doublet and hose she uttered none. 'Faith' was then her strongest affirmation, but from the hour she entered Arden we hear these charming little oaths from Ganymede. This, among others, is a reason, I think, why we should not adopt Spedding's pulpiter in place of 'Jupiter' in III, ii, 154; or Collier's 'Love, love' in lieu of 'Jove, Jove' in II, iv, 60.-ED. 24. write it] MASON (p. 87): The metre of this line is imperfect, and the sense of the whole; for why should Rosalind dwell so much upon Phebe's hands unless Silvius had said something about them? I have no doubt but the line originally ran thus: Phebe did write it with her own fair hand! And then Rosalind's reply will naturally follow. COWDEN-CLARKE: Mason's conjecture is very plausible. Some allusion to the whiteness and delicacy of Phebe's hand seems requisite to account for Rosalind's abuse of its colour and texture. 26. turn'd into] CAPELL: Had Silvius been at first a cool lover, as now a hot one, the word 'turn'd' had been proper; but as this was never the case, we must either put a sense upon 'turn'd' that is not common, to wit, got or fall'n; or else suspect a corruption, and look out for amendment: [See Text. Notes] both [of these are] 27 I saw her hand, she has a leatherne hand A freestone coloured hand: I verily did thinke She has a huswiues hand, but that's no matter: I say she neuer did inuent this letter, Sil. Sure it is hers. 30 Rof. Why, tis a boyfterous and a cruell ftile, 35 Then in their countenance : vvill you heare the letter? 40 42 Yet heard too much of Phebes crueltie. Rof. She Phebes me : marke how the tyrant vvrites. 29. on] one FF, 36. vvomens] Ff, Cam. woman's Rowe et cet. 37. giant rude] giant-rude Var. '21. within the bounds of probability, but the first of them seems the most eligible: for 'turned' will signify-head-turned; and then Rosalind's meaning will be,-Come, come, you're a simpleton, and the violence of your love has turn'd your head. WRIGHT: That is, brought into. Compare, for this sense of 'turn,' Two Gent. IV, iv, 67: 'A slave, that still an end turns me to shame.' The Temp. I, ii, 64: 'O my heart bleeds To think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to.' Twelfth N. II, v, 224: 'It cannot but turn him into a notable contempt.' Cor. III, i, 284: The which shall turn you to no further harm.' Hence Capell's emendations are unneces sary. 28. freestone coloured] WRIGHT: Of the colour of Bath brick. NEIL: Stratford-on-Avon is situated on the Oolite strata, which are much used in building because they are able to be worked freely or easily by the mason. This, therefore, is a glover'sson-like descriptive phrase for a somewhat brownish-yellow hand, readily suggested to a Warwickshire man. 32. his hand] Is the key to the masculine character of Phebe's handwriting, which evidently surprises Rosalind, to be found in the emphatic 'waspish action with which Silvius says she wrote the letter? Like Hamlet's nervous gesture when he writes: So, uncle, there you are!'-ED. 34, &c. Phebe's letter, apart from the deception which is practised on Silvius, is, I think, charming, pace Hartley Coleridge; Rosalind is therefore forced into this furious, exaggerated abuse of it, and into fictitious quotations from it, in order to arouse in Silvius a proper degree of manly indignation against Phebe, and to make him, poor tame snake, believe in her cruelty.-ED. 37. giant rude] For many more such compounds see Abbott, § 430. 39. countenance] For the sake of exactest rhythm this is to be pronounced as a dissyllable. See Abbott, § 468, Rof. Read. Why, thy godhead laid a part, 43, 47. Read] This imperative mood here betrays the stage copy.-ED. 43. HARTLEY COLERIDGE (ii, 144): Phebe is no great poetess. It may be remarked in general that the poetry, introduced as such by Shakespeare, is seldom better than doggerel. A poem in a poem, a play in a play, a picture in a picture, the imitation of flageolet or trumpet in pianoforte music, are all departures from legitimate art; and yet how frequent in our old drama was the introduction of play within play! Sometimes, as in Bartholomew Fair, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Taming of the Shrew, and others, the main performance is as it were double-dramatised; an expedient which Moore, in his Lalla Rookh, has transferred to narrative. But more frequently the episodic drama is more or less subservient to the plot, as in Hamlet, The Roman Actor, &c.; or purely burlesque, as in Midsummer Night's Dream. 51. vengeance] JOHNSON: Here used for mischief. 52. That is, of course, meaning that I am a beast. Theobald, by his comma after 'me,' made it possible to suppose that Rosalind calls Phebe a beast.-ED. 54. Haue] ABBOTT, § 412: The subjunctive is not required, and therefore 'have' is probably plural here. 56. aspect] SCHMIDT paraphrases this as look, air, countenance, but WRIGHT is clearly more correct in interpreting it as an astrological term used to denote the favourable or unfavourable appearance of the planets,' for which interpretation Schmidt furnishes many examples. The accent,' adds Wright,' is always on the last syllable.' 59. loue] WALKER (Crit. i, 295) marks this word as suspicious, but does not suggest any in its room; he merely says: 'Love occurs three other times in the course |