Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Host. I tell you what Launce, his man, told me, — he loved her out of all nick.4

Jul. Where is Launce?

Host. Gone to seek his dog; which to-morrow, by his master's command, he must carry for a present to his lady. Jul. Peace! stand aside: the company parts.

Pro. Sir Thurio, fear not you : I will so plead, That you shall say my cunning drift excels.

[blocks in formation]

SILVIA appears above, at her window.

Pro. Madam, good even to your ladyship. Sil. I thank you for your music, gentlemen. Who's that that spake?

Pro. One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's truth,

You'd quickly learn to know him by his voice.

Sil. Sir Proteus, as I take it.

Pro. Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.
Sil. What is your will?

Pro.

That I may compass yours.

Sil. You have your wish; my will is even this, That presently you hie you home to bed.

4 "Out of all nick" is beyond all reckoning. Accounts were formerly kept by cutting nicks or notches in a tally-stick. So in A Woman never Vexed: "I have carried these tallies at my girdle seven years together; for I did ever love to deal honestly in the nick." It is not so very long since this method was laid aside in the English Exchequer; doubtless because the accounts grew to be out of all nick.

5 This was probably one of the "holy wells" to which popular belief ascribed mysterious virtues, and which were visited something as our fashionable watering-places are, though perhaps with different feelings. I hold in memory a very dear and saintly man who used to derive his name from such a well, with a cross to mark the spot, - Crosse Welle.

[ocr errors]

Thou subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man!
Think'st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless,
To be seduced by thy flattery,

That hast deceived so many with thy vows?
Return, return, and make thy love amends.

[ocr errors]

For me, by this pale Queen of night I swear,
I am so far from granting thy request,

That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit ;
And by-and-by intend to chide myself

Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.

Pro. I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady; But she is dead.

Jul. [Aside.] 'Twere false, if I should speak it; For I am sure she is not buried.

Sil. Say that she be; yet Valentine thy friend
Survives; to whom, thyself art witness,

I am betroth'd: and art thou not ashamed
To wrong him with thy importúnacy?

Pro. I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.
Sil. And so suppose am I; for in his grave
Assure thyself my love is buriéd.

Pro. Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth. Sil. Go to thy lady's grave, and call hers thence; Or, at the least, in hers sepúlchre thine.

Jul. [Aside.] He heard not that.

Pro. Madam, if your heart be so obdurate, Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love, The picture that is hanging in your chamber; To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep: For, since the substance of your perfect self Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;

And to your shadow will I make true love.

6 The Poet always uses conceit in a good sense, for conception, thought, understanding, &c. So that conceitless has a bad sense, void of judgment.

Jul. [Aside.] If 'twere a substance, you would, sure, de

ceive it,

And make it but a shadow, as I am.

Sil. I'm very loth to be your idol, sir ;

But, since your falsehood shall become you well
To worship shadows and adore false shapes,
Send to me in the morning, and I'll send it :
And so, good rest.

Pro.

As wretches have o'ernight

That wait for execution in the morn.

[Exeunt PROTEUS, and SILVIA above.

Jul. Host, will you go?

Host. By my halidom,7 I was fast asleep.

Jul. Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus?

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.

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 !

Sil.

Egl.

SILVIA re-appears above, at her window.

[Exeunt.

Who calls?

Your servant and your friend;

One that attends your ladyship's command.

Sil. Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow.
Egl. As many, worthy lady, to yourself.

Halidom, says Minsheu, 1617, is "an old word used by old countrywomen, by manner of swearing." Nares derives it from holy and dom, like kingdom. So that the oath is much the same as "by my faith."

According to your ladyship's impose,8

I am thus early come to know what service
It is your pleasure to command me in.

Sil. O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman,
Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not,-
Valiant and wise, remorseful,9 well-accomplish'd:
Thou art not ignorant what dear good-will
I bear unto the banish'd Valentine;
Nor how my father would enforce me marry
Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhors.
Thyself hast loved; and I have heard thee say
No grief did ever come so near thy heart
As when thy lady and thy true love died,
Upon whose grave thou vow'dst pure chastity.
Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,
To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;
And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,
I do desire thy worthy company,

Upon whose faith and honour I repose.
Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour,

But think upon my grief, — a lady's grief,

And on the justice of my flying hence,

To keep me from a most unholy match,

Which Heaven and fortune still reward with plagues.
I do desire thee, even from a heart

As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,

To bear me company, and go with me:
If not, to hide what I have said to thee,
That I may venture to depart alone.

8 Impose is merely a shortened form of imposition, meaning command or injunction.

9 Remorseful is pitiful, compassionate. The Poet almost always uses remorse in the same sense, -a sense now obsolete except in remorseless.

Egl. Madam, I pity much your grievances; 10
Which since I know they virtuously are placed,
I give consent to go along with you;
Recking 11 as little what betideth me
As much I wish all good befortune you.
When will you go?

Sil.

This evening coming.

Egl. Where shall I meet you?

Sil.

Where I intend holy confession.

At Friar Patrick's cell,

Egl. I will not fail your ladyship. Good morrow,

Gentle lady.

Sil.

Good morrow, kind Sir Eglamour.

[Exeunt EGLAMOUR, and SILVIA above.

Enter LAUNCE, with his Dog.

Launce. 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 dining-chamber, but he steps me to her trencher,12 and steals her capon's leg.

10 Grievances for griefs. So the Poet very often has griefs for grievances. - In the next line we have a doubling of the subject, which and they. Shakespeare, in common with other writers of the time, Bacon among them, has many such; perhaps resulting from an attempt to introduce the Latin idiom of relative clauses where the English does not rightly admit of that idiom.

11 Recking is caring or minding; a sense still current in reckless. So in Hamlet, i. 3: 'And recks not his own read;" that is, regards not his own

lesson.

[ocr errors]

12 Trenchers were used at the tables of the highest noblemen in Shakespeare's day, and were even thought fitting for the king's dining-room in the reign of Henry VIII.

« ZurückWeiter »