SIR AND. If I do not, never trust me, take it how you will. SIR TO. Come, come; I'll go burn some sack, 'tis too late to go to bed now: come, knight; come, knight. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A Room in the Duke's Palace. Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and others. DUKE. Give me some musick:-Now, good morrow, friends: Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song, CUR. He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing it, DUKE. Who was it? CUR. Feste, the jester, my lord; a fool, that the lady Olivia's father took much delight in: he is about the house, 6 recollected] Studied. WARBURTON. I rather think, that recollected signifies, more nearly to its primitive sense, recalled, repeated, and alludes to the practice of composers, who often prolong the song by repetitions. JOHNSON, DUKE. Seek him out, and play the tune the while. [Exit CURIO.-Musick. Come hither, boy; If ever thou shalt love, DUKE. Thou dost speak masterly: My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye 7 VIO. DUKE. What kind of woman is't? VIO. A little, by your favour.* Of your complexion. DUKE. She is not worth thee then. What years, i'faith? V10. About your years, my lord. to the seat Where Love is thron'd.] i. e. to the heart. So, in Romeo and Juliet: 66 My bosom's lord [i. e. Love] sits lightly on his throne." Again, in Othello: "Yield up, O Love, thy crown, and hearted throne—." So before, in the first act of this play: 66 when liver, brain, and heart, "These sovereign thrones, are all supplied and fill❜d The meaning is, (as Mr. Heath has observed,) "It is so consonant to the emotions of the heart, that they echo it back again." MALONE. 8 -favour.] The word favour ambiguously used. JOHNSON. Favour, in the preceding speech, signifies countenance. STEEVENS. DUKE. Too old, by heaven; Let still the woman take An elder than herself; so wears she to him, VIO. I think it well, my lord. 9 DUKE. Then let thy love be younger than thyself, Or thy affection cannot hold the bent: For women are as roses; whose fair flower, Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour. V10. And so they are: alas, that they are so; To die, even when they to perfection grow! Re-enter CURIO, and Clown. DUKE. O fellow, come, the song we had last night : Mark it, Cesario; it is old, and plain : 9 lost and worn,] Though lost and worn may mean lost and worn out, yet lost and won being, I think, better, these two words coming usually and naturally together, and the alteration being very slight, I would so read in this place with Sir T. Hanmer.. JOHNSON. The text is undoubtedly right, and worn signifies, consumed, worn out. So Lord Surrey, in one of his Sonnets, describing the spring, says: "Winter is worn, that was the flowers bale." Again, in King Henry VI. P. II: "These few days' wonder will be quickly worn." Again, in The Winter's Tale: 66 and but infirmity, "Which waits upon worn times-" MALONE, And the free1 maids, that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chaunt it; it is silly sooth," And dallies with the innocence of love,3 Like the old age. 1 4 CLO. Are you ready, sir? DUKE. Ay; pr'ythee, sing. [Musick. -free-] Is, perhaps, vacant, unengaged, easy in mind. JOHNSON. I rather think, that free means here-not having yet surrendered their liberty to man ;-unmarried. MALOne. Is not free, unreserved, uncontrolled by the restraints of female delicacy, forward, and such as sing plain songs? HENLEY. The precise meaning of this epithet cannot very easily be pointed out. As Mr. Warton observes, on another occasion,"fair and free" are words often paired together in metrical romances. Chaucer, Drayton, Ben Jonson, and many other poets, employ the epithet free, with little certainty of meaning. Free, in the instance before us, may commodiously signify, artless, free from art, uninfluenced by artificial manners, undirected by false refinement in their choice of ditties. STEEVENS. 2- silly sooth,] It is plain, simple truth. JOHNSON. 3 And dallies with the innocence of love,] To dally is to play, to trifle. So, Act III: "They that dally nicely with words." Again, in Swetnam Arraign'd, 1620: 66 he void of fear "Dallied with danger." Again, in Sir W. D'Avenant's Albovine, 1629: "Why dost thou dally thus with feeble motion?" STEEVENS. the old age.] The old age is the ages past, the times of simplicity. JOHNSON. SONG. CLO. Come away, come away, death, 6 I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My part of death no one so true Not a flower, not a flower sweet, Sad true lovers ne'er find my grave, And in sad cypress let me be laid;] i. e. in a shroud of cypress or cyprus. Thus Autolycus, in The Winter's Tale: "Lawn as white as driven snow, 66 Cyprus black as e'er was crow." There was both black and white cyprus, as there is still black and white crape; and ancient shrouds were always made of the latter. STEEVENS. Fly away, fly away,] The old copy reads-Fie away. The emendation is Mr. Rowe's. MALONE. 7 My part of death no one so true Did share it.] Though death is a part in which every one acts his share, yet of all these actors no one is so true as I. JOHNSON. Sad true lover-] Mr. Pope rejected the word sad, and other modern editors have unnecessarily changed true lover totrue love. By making never one syllable the metre is preserved. Since this note was written, I have observed that lover is elsewhere used by our poet as a word of one syllable. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Tie up my lover's tongue; bring him in silently." |
