With spectacles on nofe, and pouch on fide; Is fecond childishnefs, and mere oblivion; Re-enter ORLANDO, with ADAM. DUKE S. Welcome: Set down your venerable. burden,' And let him feed. ORL. I thank you most for him. paring human life to a stage play of seven acts, (which is no unusual divifion before our author's time.) The fixth he calls the lean and flipper'd pantaloon, alluding to that general character in the Italian comedy, called Il Pantalóne; who is a thin emaciated old man in flippers; and well defigned, in that epithet, because Pantalóne is the only character that acts in flippers. WARBURTON. In The Travels of the three English Brothers, a comedy, 1606, an Italian Harlequín is introduced, who offers to perform a play at a Lord's house, in which among other characters he mentions a jealous coxcomb, and an old Pantaloune." But this is feven years later than the date of the play before us: nor do I know from whence our author could learn the circumftance mentioned by Dr. Warburton, that " Pantalóne is the only character in the Italian comedy that acts in flippers." In Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598, the word is not found. In The Taming of the Shrew, one of the characters, if I remember right, is called an old Pantaloon," but there is no farther defcription of him. MALONE. 3 Set down your venerable burden,] Is it not likely that Shakspeare had in his mind this line of the Metamorphofes? XII. 125. 66 -Patremque "Fert humeris, venerabile onus, Cythereius heros." A. Golding, p. 169, b. edit. 1587, translates it thus: upon his backe JOHNSON. His aged father and his gods, an honorable packe." STEEVENS. ADAM. So had you need; I fcarce can speak to thank you for myself. DUKE S. Welcome, fall to: I will not trouble you As yet, to queftion you about your fortunes :- AMIENS fings. SONG. I. Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not fo unkind As man's ingratitude; 3 Thy tooth is not fo keen, Because thou art not feen, 4 3 Although thy breath be rude. Heigh, bo! fing, beigh, bo! unto the green holly: 3 Thou art not fo unkind, &c.] That is, thy action is not fo contrary to thy kind, or to human nature, as the ingratitude of man. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis, 1593: "O had thy mother borne fo bad a mind, "She had not brought forth thee, but dy'd unkind." MALONE. 4 Thy tooth is not fo keen, Because thou art not feen,] This fong is defigned to fuit the Duke's exiled condition, who had been ruined by ungrateful flatterers. Now the winter wind, the fong fays, is to be preferred to man's ingratitude. But why? Because it is not feen. But this was not only an aggravation of the injury, as it was done in fecret, not feen, but was the very circumftance that made the keenness of the ingratitude of his faithlefs courtiers. Without doubt, Shakfpeare wrote the line thus: Because thou art not sheen, i. e. fmiling, fhining, like an ungrateful court-fervant, who flatters while he wounds, which was a very good reason for giving II. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Though thou the waters warp, As friend remember'd not." Heigh, bo! fing, heigh, bo! &c. the winter wind the preference. So, in The Midsummer Night's Dream: Spangled ftar-light been." And feveral other places. Chaucer ufes it in this sense: "Your blissful fifter Lucina the bene. And Fairfax: "The facred angel took his target hene, "And by the Chriftian champion stood unseen." The Oxford editor, who had this emendation communicated to him, takes occafion from hence to alter the whole line thus: Thou caufeft not that teen. But, in his rage of correction, he forgot to leave the reason, which is now wanting, Why the winter wind was to be preferred to man's ingratitude. WARBURTON. I am afraid that no reader is fatisfied with Dr. Warburton's emendation, however vigorously enforced; and it is indeed enforced with more art than truth. Sheen, i. e. fmiling, shining. That been fignifies fining, is eafily proved, but when or where did it fignify Smiling? yet fmiling gives the fenfe neceffary in this place. Sir T. Hanmer's change is lefs uncouth, but too remote from the prefent text, For my part, I question whether the original line is not loft, and this fubftituted merely to fill up the measure and the rhyme. Yet even out of this line, by ftrong agitation may sense be elicited, and fenfe not unfuitable to the occafion. Thou winter vind, fays Amiens, thy rudeness gives the less pain, as thou art not feen, as thou art an enemy that doft not brave us with thy prefence, and whofe unkindness is therefore not aggravated by infult. JOHNSON, Though the old text may be tortured into a meaning, perhaps it would be as well to read: Because the beart's not seen. y harts, according to the ancient mode of writing, was eafily corrupted. FARMER. DUKE S. If that you were the good fir Rowland's fon, As you have whifper'd faithfully, you were; So, in the Sonnet introduced into Love's Labour's Loft: "All unjeen 'gan paffage find." STEEVENS. Again, in Meafure for Meajure: "To be imprison'd in the viewless winds." MALONE. 5 Though thou the waters warp,] The furface of waters, fo long as they remain unfrozen, is apparently a perfect plane; whereas, when they are, this furface deviates from its exact flatnefs, or warps. This is remarkable in small ponds, the furface of which when frozen, forms a regular concave; the ice on the fides rifing higher than that in the middle. KENRICK. To warp was probably in Shakspeare's time, a colloquial word, which conveyed no diftant allufion to any thing else, physical or mechanical. To warp is to turn, and to turn is to change: when milk is changed by curdling, we now fay it is turned: when water is changed or turned by froft, Shakspeare fays, it is curdled. To be warp'd is only to be changed from its natural ftate. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnfon is certainly right. So, in Cynthia's Revels, of Ben Jonfon. "I know not, he's grown out of his garb a-late, he's warp'd. And fo, methinks too, he is much converted." Thus the mole is called the mould-warp, because it changes the appearance of the furface of the earth. Again, in The Winter's Tale, Act I: My favour here begins to warp." Dr. Farmer fuppofes warp'd to mean the fame as curdled, and adds that a fimilar idea occurs in Timon: Among a collection of Saxon adages in Hickes's Thefaurus, Vol. I. p. 221, the fucceeding appears: pinzen rceal zeþeorpan peder, winter shall warp water. So that Shakspeare's expreffion was anciently proverbial. It should be remarked, that among the numerous examples in Manning's excellent edition of Lye's Dictionary, there is no inftance of peonpan or zepeoppan, implying to freeze, bend, turn, or curdle, though it is a verb of very extenfive fignification. Probably this word ftill retains a fimilar fenfe in the Northern part of the Ifland, for in a Scottish parody on Dr. Percy's elegant ballad, beginning, "O Nancy, wilt thou go with me," And as mine eye doth his effigies witness That lov'd your father: The refidue of your for tune, Go to my cave and tell me.-Good old man, [Exeunt. I find the verfe "Nor fhrink before the wintry wind," is altered to The meaning is this: Though the very waters, by thy agency, are forced, against the law of their nature, to bend from their ftated level, yet thy fting occafions lefs anguifh to man, than the ingratitude of thofe he befriended. HENLEY. Wood is faid to warp when its furface, from being level, becomes bent and uneven; from warpan, Sax. to caft. So, in this play, then one of you will prove a fhrunk Act III. fc. iii: " pannel, and, like green timber, warp, warp." I doubt whether the poet here alludes to any operation of froft. The meaning may be only, Thou bitter wintry fky, though thou curleft the waters, thy fting, &c. Thou in the line before us refers only to-bitter fky. The influence of the winter's fky or feafon may, with fufficient propriety, be faid to warp the furface of the ocean, by agitation of its waves alone. That this paffage refers to the turbulence of the sky, and the confequent agitation of the ocean, and not to the operation of froft, may be collected from our author's having in King Johu defcribed ice as uncommonly fmooth: "To throw a perfume on the violet, "Tofmooth the ice," &c. MALONE. 6 As friend remember'd not.] Remember'd for remembering. So, afterwards, Act III. sc. last: "And now I am remember'd"i. e. and now that I bethink me, &c. 7 as thy mafter is:] The old by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. copy has-mafters. Corrected MALONE. |