-LOR. Meet me, and Gratiano, At Gratiano's lodging some hour hence. SALAR. 'Tis good we do so. [Exeunt SALAR. and SALAN. GRA. Was not that letter from fair Jessica? LOR. I must needs tell thee all: Shehath directed, Come, go with me; peruse this, as thou goest: SCENE V. [Exeunt. The same. Before Shylock's House. Enter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT. SHY. Well, thou shalt see, thy eyes shall be thy The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio:- LAUN. Why, Jessica! SHY. Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call. LAUN. Your worship was wont to tell me, I could do nothing without bidding. Enter JESSICA. JES. Call you? What is your will? SHY. I am bid forth to supper, Jessica; There are my keys :-But wherefore should I go? The prodigal Christian.5-Jessica, my girl, LAUN. I beseech you, sir, go; my young master doth expect your reproach. SHY. So do I his. LAUN. And they have conspired together,-Iwill not say, you shall see a masque; but if you do, then it was not for nothing that my nose fell a bleeding on Black-Monday last, at six o'clock i'the morning, * I am bid forth-] I am invited. To bid in old language meant to pray. MALONE. That bid was used for invitation, may be seen in St. Luke's Gospel, ch. xiv. 24: “ none of those which were bidden shall taste of my supper." HARRIS. 5 to feed upon The prodigal Christian.] Shylock forgets his resolution. In a former scene he declares he will neither eat, drink, nor pray with Christians. Of this circumstance the poet was aware, and meant only to heighten the malignity of the character, by making him depart from his most settled resolve, for the prosecution of his revenge. STEEVENS. •-- then it was not for nothing that my nose fell a bleeding on Black-Monday last,]"Black-Monday is Easter-Monday, and was so called on this occasion: in the 34th of Edward III. (1360) the 14th of April, and the morrow after Easter-day, King Ed falling out that year on Ash-wednesday was four year in the afternoon. SHY. What are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica: Lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum, ward, with his host, lay before the city of Paris; which day was full dark of mist and hail, and so bitter cold, that many men died on their horses' backs with the cold. Wherefore, unto this day, it hath been called the Blacke-Monday." Stowe, p. 264–6. GREY, It appears from a passage in Lodge's Rosalynde, 1592, that some superstitious belief was annexed to the accident of bleeding at the nose: "As he stood gazing, his nose on a sudden bled, which made him conjecture it was some friend of his." STEEVENS. Again, in The Dutchess of Malfy, 1640, Act I. sc. ii: "How superstitiously we mind our evils? "The throwing downe salt, or crossing of a hare, "Or singing of a creket, are of "To daunt whole man in us." Again, Act I. sc. iii: 66 power My nose bleeds. One that was superstitious would count this ominous, when it merely comes by chance." REED. 7 Lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum, And the vile squeaking of the wry-neck'd fife,] "Primâ nocte domum claude; neque in vias "Sub cantu querulæ despice tibiæ." Hor. Lib. III. Od. vii. MALONE. It appears from hence, that the fifes, in Shakspeare's time, were formed differently from those now in use, which are straight, not wry-necked. M. MASON. I have no mind of feasting forth to-night: go.-Go you before me, sirrah; Say, I will come. LAUN. I will go before, sir.Mistress, look out at window, for all this; There will come a Christian by, Will be worth a Jewess' eye. [Exit LAUN. SHY. What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha? JES. His words were, Farewell, mistress; nothing else. SHY. The patch is kind enough; but a huge feeder, Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day you, • There will come a Christian by, Will be worth a Jewess' eye.] It's worth a Jew's eye, is a proverbial phrase. WHALLEY. 9 The patch is kind enough;] This term should seem to have come into use from the name of a celebrated fool. This I learn from Wilson's Art of Rhetorique, 1553: "A word-making, called of the Grecians Onomatopeia, is when we make words of our own mind, such as be derived from the nature of things;as to call one Patche, or Cowlson, whom we see to do a thing foolishly; because these two in their time were notable fools." Probably the dress which the celebrated Patche wore, was in allusion to his name, patched or parti-coloured. Hence the stage fool has ever since been exhibited in a motley coat. Patche, of whom Wilson speaks, was Cardinal Wolsey's fool. MALONE: Shut doors' after you: Fast bind, fast find; [Exit. JES. Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost, I have a father, you a daughter, lost. [Exit. SCENE VI. The same. Enter GRATIANO and SALARINO, masqued. GRA. This is the pent-house, under which Lo renzo Desir'd us to make stand.2 SALAR. His hour is almost past. GRA. And it is marvel he out-dwells his hour, For lovers ever run before the clock. SALAR. O, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly To seal love's bonds new made, than they are wont, To keep obliged faith unforfeited! GRA. That ever holds: Who riseth from a feast, With that keen appetite that he sits down? Shut doors-] Doors is here used as a dissyllable. MALONE. 2 Desir'd us to make stand.] Desir'd us stand, in ancient elliptical language, signifies-desired us to stand. The words to make, are an evident interpolation, and consequently spoil the measure. STEEVENS. 30, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly-1 Lovers have in poetry been always called Turtles or Doves, which in lower language may be pigeons. JOHNSON. Thus, Chapman, in his version of Homer's Catalogue of Ships, Iliad the second: 66 Thisbe, that for pigeons doth surpasse—;" Mr. Pope, in more elegant language: 66 Thisbe, fam'd for silver doves-," STEEVENS. |