deuife, of all forts enchantingly beloued, and indeed so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my owne people, who best know him, that I am altogether misprised: but it shall not be so long, this wrastler shall cleare all nothing remaines, but that I kindle the boy thither, which now Ile goe about.

Scana Secunda.

Enter Rofalind, and Cellia.

Exit.

Cel. I pray thee Rofalind, sweet my Coz, be merry.

Scoena Secunda.] Scene IV. Pope +. The Dukes Palace. Rowe. Open walk before the Dukes Palace. Theob. Lawn

before the Dukes Palace. Cap.

1, 3. Cellia] Celia Ff.
2. my Coz] Coz Pope, Han.

162

165

2

a copy of F, which formerly belonged to Steevens, he has marked these lines as descriptive of Shakespeare himself.

162. sorts] RITSON: In this place it means ranks and degrees of men.

162. enchantingly] CALDECOTT: That is, to a degree that could only be the supposed effect of a spell or incantation. WALKER (Crit. ii, 88) compares for the thought: such a holy witch That he enchants societies unto him; Half all men's hearts are his,' Cymb. I, vi, 166.

165. misprised] WRIGHT: Cotgrave gives ‘Mespriser. To disesteeme, contemne disdaine, despise, neglect, make light of, set nought by.'

166. kindle] STEEVENS: Cf. Macb. I, iii, 121, 'enkindle you unto the crown. NARES: To inflame, and thence to incite, to stimulate; that is, to inflame the mind. I. Rosalind] MRS JAMESON (ii, 143): It is easy to seize on the prominent features in the mind of Beatrice, but extremely difficult to catch and fix the more fanciful graces of Rosalind. She is like a compound of essences, so volatile in their nature, and so exquisitely blended, that on any attempt to analyze them, they seem to escape us. To what else shall we compare her, all-enchanting as she is?-to the silvery summer clouds, which, even while we gaze on them, shift their hues and forms, dissolving into air, and light, and rainbow showers?—to the May-morning, flush with opening blossoms and the roseate dews, and 'charm of earliest birds'?-to some wild and beautiful melody, such as some shepherd-boy might pipe to ‘Amarillis in the shade'?—to a mountain streamlet, now smooth as a mirror, in which the skies may glass themselves, and anon leaping and sparkling in the sunshine-or rather to the very sunshine itself? for so her genial spirit touches into life and beauty whatever it shines on! BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE (April, 1833, p. 547. Qu. Thomas Campbell?): But lo! One more delightful, more alluring, more fascinating, more enchanting, more captivating than Beatrice! In pure nature and sweet simplicity, more delightful is Rosalind; in courteous coquetry and quaint disguise, more alluring is Rosalind; in feeling, playing with fancy, and in fancy by feeling tempered, (ah! shall

Rof. Deere Cellia; I fhow more mirth then I am miftreffe of, and would you yet were merrier: vnleffe you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learne mee how to remember any extraordinary pleafure.

Cel. Heerein I fee thou lou'ft mee not with the full waight that I loue thee; if my Vncle thy banished father had banished thy Vncle the Duke my Father, fo thou hadft beene ftill with mee, I could haue taught my loue to take thy father for mine; so wouldst thou, if the truth

4. were] I were Rowe ii et seq.

6. any] my FF, Rowe i.

3

5

1Ο

12

we call her serpent?) more fascinating is Rosalind; in sinless spells and gracious glamoury, (what a witch!) more enchanting is Rosalind; and when to 'still musick' 'enters Hymen, leading her in woman's cloathes' and singing' Then is there mirth in Heaven, When earthly things made even Atone together,' feelest thou not that more captivating is Rosalind-a snow-white lily with a wimple of dew, in bride-like joyance flowering in the forest! LADY MARTIN (p. 409): What the courtly Le Beau had so plainly seen to be the state of the Duke's mind was not likely to have escaped Rosalind's quick, sensitive nature. She feels the cloud of her uncle's displeasure hanging over her and ready to burst at any moment. She will not pain Celia with her forebodings, who is so far from surmising the truth that these first lines she speaks are a gentle reproach to Rosalind for her want of gayety. . . . . It is obvious that Celia has no idea that Rosalind has fallen out of favour with the usurping Duke. . . . . Rosalind will hide from Celia the trouble she sees looming for herself in the not far distance. 4. and would you yet were merrier] JOURDAIN (Philol. Soc. Trans. 1860–1, p. 143) proposes to allot these words to Celia, with an interrogation-mark after them. Although we can thus retain the text of the Folio and reject Rowe's emendation of 'I were,' yet it is at the cost of an even greater change, without any corresponding improvement of the sense, as far as I can see. COLLIER suggests that the original text might be intelligible if we suppose Rosalind to express a wish that Celia were yet even merrier than she appeared to be, an explanation which HALLIWELL says obscures the chief point of Rosalind's speech. ALLEN thus paraphrases the text with Rowe's emendation: "the mirth which I already show is more than I really feel; and do you still (nevertheless) insist I shall be merrier?" Cf. for the transposition of "yet" line 165 post: "I come but in" for "I but come in." Rowe's emendation seems absolutely necessary.-ED.

6. learne] This use of 'learn' for teach (see Abbott, § 291) is still common throughout New England. WORDSWORTH calls attention to its use in the PrayerBook version of Ps. xxv, 2: Lead me forth in thy truth, and learn me.'

10. So] ABBOTT, § 133: So is used with the future, and the subjunctive to denote provided that. The full construction is 'be it (if it be) so that.' 'Be it' is inserted in Be it so (that) she will not,' Mid. N. D. I, i, 39.

12. so wouldst thou] ALLEN (MS): That is, 'so wouldst thou [have taught thy love to take my father for thine].' We should now be obliged to write the vice versâ out in full.

13

15

of thy loue to me were so righteously temper'd, as mine is to thee.

Rof. Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to reioyce in yours.

Cel. You know my Father hath no childe, but I, nor none is like to haue; and truely when he dies, thou shalt be his heire; for what hee hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee againe in affection: by mine honor I will, and when I breake that oath, let mee turne monster:therefore my fweet Rofe, my deare Rofe, be merry.

Rof. From henceforth I will Coz, and deuife sports: let me fee, what thinke you of falling in Loue?

Cel. Marry I prethee doe, to make sport withall: but loue no man in good earnest, nor no further in sport neyther, then with safety of a pure blush, thou maist in honor come off againe.

Rof. What shall be our sport then?

Cel. Let vs fit and mocke the good houfwife For

20

25

30

17. but I] but me Han.

19. heire;] heire? Ff.

13. so... as] For other examples of so before as, which are not very common in Shakespeare, see Abbott, § 275.

17. but I] See I, i, 160; and line 266 post.

17, 18. nor none] For double negatives, see Abbott, § 406, and Shakespeare passim. 25. See Lodge's Rosalynde, Appendix.

26. withall] See I, i, 130.

28. pure blush] WRIGHT: A blush that has no shame in it. ALLEN paraphrases: thou may'st come off in (the possession of thy) honor, having saved (preserved) a pure blush.

31. mocke... wheele] JOHNSON: The wheel of Fortune is not the wheel of a housewife. Shakespeare has confounded Fortune, whose wheel only figures uncertainty and vicissitude, with the Destiny that spins the thread of life, though not indeed with a wheel. [This is one of Dr Johnson's unhappy notes which must be offset by a hundred happy ones. There was no confusion in Shakespeare's mind here nor anywhere else; he knew the symbolism in the wheel of Fortune quite as well as Dr Johnson. Fluellen in Henry V: III, vi, 35 (as Wright points out) explains to Pistol that Fortune is painted with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation.' HARNESS, whose original notes though few are good, well says: 'Good housewife seems applied to Fortune merely as a jesting appellation, without any reference to the wheel on which she stood. The wheel of Fortune was an emblem of her mutability, from which Celia and Rosalind proposed to drive her by their wit, that she might ever after cease to be inconstant.'-ED.]

tune from her wheele, that her gifts may henceforth bee bestowed equally.

Rof. I would wee could doe fo: for her benefits are mightily misplaced, and the bountifull blinde woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women.

Cel. 'Tis true, for those that she makes faire, she scarce makes honeft, & those that she makes honest, she makes very illfauouredly.

Rof. Nay now thou goeft from Fortunes office to Natures: Fortune reignes in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of Nature.

32

35

40

Enter Clowne.

Cel. No; when Nature hath made a faire creature,

37, 38. those...&] Om. Rowe i. 39. illfauouredly] ill favouredly F ill-favouredly FF ill favoured Rowe ii+, Coll. (MS), Dyce iii, Huds.

44

43. Enter...] After line 47, Dyce,

Sta.

43. Clowne.] Touchstone Theob. ii. 44. No;] No! Theob. No? Han.

31. houswife] WHITE (ed. ii; note on Oth. II, i, 132): In Shakespeare's day, and in some parts of England still, this word is pronounced husif, which has passed into hussy. [The pronunciation husif is still quite general, I think, in this country; and is always given to certain little pocket-books containing needles, thread, thimble, &c. To call Fortune a husif is jocular, but to call her a hussy is a little too jocular; nor do I imagine that White would have counselled that pronunciation here, though it is appropriate enough in the passage in Othello.-ED.]

35. blinde woman] From many instances where rhythm obliges us to pronounce as one word with the accent on the first syllable, such words as wise man, true man, long man, &c., WALKER (Crit. ii, 139) suggests that these words be printed and pronounced blindwoman.

38. honest] STAUNTON: That is, chaste. [See III, iii, 15, and V, iii, 5.]

39. illfauouredly] CAPELL (i, 55): Alter'd by the four latter moderns [i. e. Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Warburton] into ill-favoured; in order, as may be suppos'd, to make the antithesis the rounder. But how if that roundness was dislik'd by the Poet, as thinking it destructive of the ease of his dialogue? yet this he might think, and with great reason. COLLIER (ed. ii): Strictly speaking, Fortune does not make the honest ill-favouredly,' but ill-favoured; and the adverbial termination is erased in the (MS).

40-42. MOBERLY: Shakespeare constantly harps on the motive powers of human action; nature, destiny, chance, art, custom. In this place he playfully distinguishes nature from chance; in Wint. Tale, IV, iii, he argues that the resources of art are themselves gifts of nature: Nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean.' In Macb. I, iii, he shows that destiny can work itself without our help (if chance will have me king, why chance may crown me'), and in Ham. III, iv, 161, he splendidly exhibits the force of custom in 'almost changing the stamp of

nature.'

may she not by Fortune fall into the fire? though nature hath giuen vs wit to flout at Fortune, hath not Fortune fent in this foole to cut off the argument?

Rof. Indeed there is fortune too hard for nature, when fortune makes natures naturall, the cutter off of natures witte. Cel.

Peraduenture this is not Fortunes work neither, but Natures, who perceiueth our naturall wits too dull to reason of such goddesses, hath fent this Naturall for

45

50

53

Cap. Steev. Knt, Coll. Sing. Wh. i, Sta.
Ktly, Rlfe, Dyce iii.

53. hath] and hath Mal. Dyce i, Cam. Wh. ii.

43. Clowne] DOUCE (i, 309): Touchstone is the domestic fool of Frederick, the Duke's brother, and belongs to the class of witty or allowed fools. He is threatened with the whip, a mode of chastisement which was often inflicted on this motley personage. His dress should be a party-coloured garment. He should occasionally carry a bauble in his hand, and wear asses' ears to his hood, which is probably the head-dress intended by Shakespeare, there being no allusion whatever to a cock's head or comb. The three-cornered hat which Touchstone is made to wear on the modern stage is an innovation, and totally unconnected with the genuine costume of the domestic fool. [See Appendix, p. 309, Source of the Plot.']

44. No;] It is not easy to reject Hanmer's interrogation-point, which, indeed, has been generally adopted. MOBERLY gives this good paraphrase of the whole speech: True that Fortune does not make fair features; but she can mar them by some accident. So Nature makes us able to philosophize, chance spoils our grave philosophy by sending us a fool.'

52, 53. perceiueth. ...hath sent] MALONE suggested, and reads, ‘and hath sent.' CALDECOTT, who never deserts his Folio, says that 'perceiveth' is equivalent to 'who, inasmuch as she perceiveth.' DYCE in his first edition adopted Malone's emendation, because, as he said, 'it is more probable that and was omitted by the original compositor than that "perceiveth" should be a misprint for perceiving;' and of Caldecott's defence he remarks that the general style of the dialogue is opposed to the idea of Shakespeare's having intended such an ellipsis here.' But in his last edition he adopts perceiving with the quiet remark that it is a correction of the Second Folio. Dyce's vacillation, a quality in which he excels, is a proof not of thoughtlessness, but of extreme thoughtfulness; it is to be regretted that with it was not joined a little more openness in confessing it, and a good deal less acrimony in criticising others. The choice here is so evenly balanced between perceiving of F, and the and of Malone that we can debate a long while over a very trifling matter. In the end, I think, however, that the gray authority of the Second Folio should prevail.—ED.

53. reason of] That is, talk, discuss concerning. For the use of of,' as equiv alent to about, concerning, see also V, iv, 59; or Mer. of Ven. I, iii, 54: 'I am debating of my present store,' or Abbott, § 174. See also Mer. of Ven. II, viii, 30: 'I reason'd with a Frenchman yesterday,' that is, talked.