(3) better leer] Cast of countenance. Of a better feature, complexion, or colour, than you. So, in P. Holland's Pliny, B. XXXI. c. ii. p. 403: "In some places there is no other thing bred or growing, but brown and duskish, insomuch as not only the cattel is all of that lere, but also the corn on the ground," &c. The word seems to be derived from the Saxon Hleare, facies, frons, vultus. So Tit. Andron. IV. 2. "Here's a young lad fram'd of another leer." TOLLET. In the notes on the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, Vol. IV. p. 320, lere is supposed to mean skin. So, in Isumbras MSS. Cott. Cal. II. fol. 129: "His lady is white as whales bone, "Here lere bryghte to se upon, "So fair as blosme on tre." STEEVENS. 66 (4) and when you were gravelled for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss] Thus also in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 511; and when he hath pumped his wittes dry, and can say no more, kissing and colling are never out of season." STEEVENS. (5) more new-fangled than an ape] Neither fangle, which occurs in Cymb. "Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment "Nobler than that it covers,” V. 4. Posth. nor this compound, are to be met with in our early dictionaries, though it is found in every writer of the age of Elizabeth and James. Johnson, following Skinner, derives the noun from fengan, Sax. to attempt, and interprets it, "silly attempt, trifling scheme;" and this word "new-fashioned, dressed out in new decorations." Mr. Todd, in his note on Milton's Vacat. Exerc. v. 19, 20, quotes the description of a Fantastick in Barnabe Rych's Faults and nothing but Faults, 4to. 1606: "I beleeve he hath rob'd a jackanapes of his jesture: mark but his countenance, see how he mops and how he mows, and how he straines his lookes. All the apes, that have been in the parrish garden these twentie yeares, would not come nigh him for all maner of compliments." VII. 64. And in his Spenser, II. 127, he adds from the Cobler's Prophecie, 1594: "Niceness is Venus's maide, and new-fangle is her man." F. Q. I. IV. 25. See" May's new-fangled shows," L. L. L. I. 1. Bir. (6) I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain] The allusion is to the cross in Cheapside; the religious images, with which it was ornamented, being defaced, (as we learn from Stowe,) in 1596: "There was then set up, a curious wrought tabernacle of gray marble, and in the same an alabaster image of Diana, and water conveyed from the Thames, prilling from her naked breast." Stowe, in Cheap Ward. Statues, and particularly that of Diana, with water conveyed through them to give them the appearance of weeping figures, were anciently a frequent ornament of fountains. 66 Now could I cry "Like any image in a fountain, which "Runs lamentations." City Match, III. 3. And in Drayton's Rosamond's Epistle to Henry II.: "Here in the garden, wrought by curious hands, WHALLEY. See "weather-bitten conduit," Wint. T. V. 2. 3 Gent. (7) I will laugh like a hyen] The bark of the hyena was anciently supposed to resemble a loud laugh. So, in Webster's Duchess of Malfy, 1623: "Methinks I see her laughing, Again, in The Cobler's Prophecy, 1594: "You laugh hyena-like, weep like a crocodile." STEEVENS. expers (8) Wit, whither wilt] In a sermon preached by Tho. Adams, at Paul's Cross, Mar. 7, 1611, we have: "Vis consilii mole ruit sua, power without pollicy is like a peece without powder: many a pope sings that common ballad of hell: Ingenio perii qui miser ipse meo: "Wit, whither wilt thou? woe is me! 4to. 1514, Edit, 3, p. 39. This, the third edition of this notable discourse, is full of scrap quotation, alliteration, antithesis, and play upon words; and in this last particular, by a most extravagant instance fully exemplifies his own doctrine, and that of our text. He says of theeves. Their church is the highway: there they pray (not to God, but) on men." Ib. p. 37. (9) You shall never take her without her answer] See Chaucer's Merchantes Tale, ver. 10,138-10,149: "Now by my modre Ceres soule I swere, "That though they ben in any gilt ytake, "Al had ye seen a thing with bothe youre eyen, "And wepe and swere and chiden subtilly, " TYRWHITT. (10) -time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let time try] "And that old common arbitrator, Time, "Will one day end it." Tr. and Cr. STEEVEns. (11) -to her own nest] So, in Lodge's Rosalynde: And "I pray you (quoth Aliena) if your own robes were off, what metal are you made of, that you are so satyricall against women? Is it not a foule bird defiles her owne nest?" STEEVENS. (12) —I'll go find a shadow, and sigh till he come] "Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there "Weep our sad bosoms empty." Macb. STEEVENS. "What news, For (13) His leather skin and horns to wear] rester? Hast thou wounded some deere, and lost him in the fall? Care not, man, for so small a losse; thy fees was but the skinne, the shoulders, and the horns." Lodge's Rosalinde. 1592. STEEVENS. (14) Take thou no scorn, to wear the horn] In King John in two parts, 1591, we find "But let the foolish Frenchman take no scorn "If Philip front him with an English horn." MALONE. And in the old comedy of Grim the Collier of Croydon : Unless your great infernal majesty "Do solemnly proclaim, no devil shall scorn "Hereafter still to wear the goodly horn.” To take scorn occurs in I. H. VI. IV. 4. And take foul scorn, to fawn on him by sending." STEEVENS. We find "Thinke discourtesie," Prol, to Sir John Harrington's Metam. of Ajax, 1596. (15) Patience herself would startle at this letter, And play the swaggerer ;] "This would make mercy swear, and play the tyrant." (16) a tame snake] i. e. spiritless. M. for M. STEEVENS. "If those silie poore soules had taken up armour against his majesties power, they might justly be called rebels; but, alas! they were silie poore snakes, utterly unarmed." Tobacco tortured, 4to. 1616, p. 156. D "And still the poorest, miserable snakes.” 66 Meliusque miserrimus horum." Juv. XI. 12. Fasciculus florum. 12mo. 1636, p. 161. (17) purlieus of this forest] Purlieu, says Manwood's Treatise on the Forest Laws, c. xx. " Is a certaine territorie of ground adjoyning unto the forest, meared and bounded with unmoveable marks, meeres, and boundaries: which territories of ground was also forest, and afterwards disaforested againe by the perambulations made for the severing of the new forest from the old." REED. Purlieus are the outskirts or borders. The derivation of the word, which our other dictionaries had not before given, appears in Mr. Todd." Pur Fr. clear, exempt, and lieu, a place." "In H. III.'s time the charta de Foresta was established; so that there was much land disafforested, which hath been called pourlieus ever since." Howell's Letters, IV. 16. (18) The rank of osiers] Row. "Short be the rank of pearles, circling her tongue." Wit's Interpreter, 8vo. 1571, p. 226. (19) bestows himself, like, &c.] i. e. carries, shows. Mr. Steevens instances II H. IV. "How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen." (20) this bloody napkin] "A napkin or handkerchiefe, wherewith wee wipe away the sweate. Sudarium." Baret's Alv. 1580. Mr. Steevens cites Ray, that a pocket handkerchief is so called about Sheffield, in Yorkshire: and Greene's Never too Late, 1616: "I can wet one of my new lockram napkins with weeping." Napery, indeed, signifies linen in general in Decker's Honest Whore, 1635 : pr'ythee put me into wholesome napery.” And in Chapman's May-Day, 1611: "Besides your munition of manchet napery plates." Naperia, Ital. STEEVENS. (21) Under an oak, &c.] The passage stands thus in Lodge's novel: " Saladyne, wearie with wandring up and downe, and hungry with long fasting, finding a little cave by the side of a thicket, eating such fruite as the forrest did affoord, and contenting himself with such drinke as nature had provided, and thirst made delicate, after his repast he fell into a dead sleepe. As thus he lay, a hungry lyon came hunting downe the edge of the grove for pray, and espying Saladyne, began to ceaze upon him; but seeing he lay still without any motion, he left to touch him, for that lyons hate to pray on dead carkasses and yet desirous to have some foode, the lyon lay downe and watcht to see if he would stirre. While thus Saladyne slept secure, fortune that was careful of her champion, began to smile, and brought it so to passe, that Rosader (having stricken a deere that but lightly hurt fled through the thicket) came pacing downe by the grove with a boare-speare in his hande in great haste, he spyed where a man lay asleepe, and a lyon fast by him : amazed at this sight, as he stood gazing, his nose on the sodaine bledde, which made him conjecture it was some friend of his. Whereupon drawing more nigh, he might easily discerne his visage, and perceived by his phisnomie that it was his brother Saladyne, which drave Rosader into a deepe passion, as a man perplexed, &c. But the present time craved no such doubting ambages; for he must eyther resolve to hazard his life for his reliefe, or else steale away and leave him to the crueltie of the lyon. In which doubt hee thus briefly debated," &c. STEEVENS. (22) To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead] "There is a great clemencie in lions; they will not hurt them that lie groveling." Choise of Change, &c. 4to. 1585. "Their mercie is known by oft examples; for they spare them that lye on the ground." Bartholomæus. (23) "Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you, Tr. and Cress. V. 3. Douce's Illustr. 1. 307. Cousin-Ganymede] Celia, in her first fright, forgets Rosalind's character and disguise, and calls out cousin, then recollects herself, and says, Ganymede. JOHNSON. ACT V. (1) meaning thereby, that grapes were made to eat, and lips to open. You do love this maid] Part of this dialogue seems to have grown out of the novel on which the play is formed: "Phebe is no latice for your lips, and her grapes hang so hie, that gaze at them you may, but touch them you cannot." MALONE. |
