We men may say more, swear more: but, indeed, Our shows are more than will; for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love. So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece : "So mild, that Patience seem'd to scorn his woes." In the passage in the text, our author perhaps meant to personify GRIEF as well as PATIENCE; for we can scarcely understand "at grief" to mean "in grief," as no statuary could, I imagine, form a countenance in which smiles and grief should be at once expressed. Shakspeare might have borrowed his imagery from some ancient monument on which these two figures were represented. The following lines in The Winter's Tale seem to countenance such an idea: "I doubt not then, but innocence shall make Again, in King Richard III: "like dumb statues, or unbreathing stones, "Star'd on each other, and look'd deadly pale." In King Lear, we again meet with two personages introduced in the text: "Patience and Sorrow strove, "Who should express her goodliest." Again, in Cymbeline, the same kind of imagery may be traced: nobly he yokes 66 "A smiling with a sigh. 66 I do note "That Grief and Patience, rooted in him both, I am aware that Homer's δακρυθεν γελασασα, and a passage in "Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves "In drops of sorrow-" may be urged against this interpretation: but it should be remembered, that in these instances it is joy which bursts into tears. There is no instance, I believe, either in poetry or real life, of sorrow smiling in anguish. In pain indeed the case is different: the suffering Indian having been known to smile in the midst of torture. But, however this may be, the sculptor and the painter are confined to one point of time, and cannot exhibit successive movements in the countenance. DUKE. But died thy sister of her love, my boy? Dr. Percy, however, thinks, that "grief may here mean grievance, in which sense it is used in Dr. Powel's History of Wales, quarto, p. 356: "Of the wrongs and griefs done to the noblemen at Stratolyn," &c. In the original, (printed at the end of Wynne's History of Wales, octavo,) it is gravamina, i. e. grievances. The word is often used by our author in the same sense, (So, in King Henry IV. P. I: 66 the king hath sent to know "The nature of your griefs ;)" but never, I believe, in the singular number. In support of what has been suggested, the authority of Mr. Rowe may be adduced, for in his life of Shakspeare he has thus exhibited this passage: "She sat like Patience on a monument, "Smiling at Grief." In the observations now submitted to the reader, I had once some confidence, nor am I yet convinced that the objection founded on the particle at, and on the difficulty, if not impossibility, of a sculptor forming such a figure as these words are commonly supposed to describe, is without foundation. I have therefore retained my note; yet I must acknowledge, that the following lines in King Richard II. which have lately occurred to me, render my theory somewhat doubtful, though they do not overturn it: "His face still combating with tears and smiles, Here we have the same idea as that in the text; and perhaps Shakspeare never considered whether it could be exhibited in marble. I have expressed a doubt whether the word grief was employed in the singular number, in the sense of grievance. I have lately observed that our author has himself used it in that sense in King Henry IV. P. II : 66 an inch of any ground "To build a grief on." Dr. Percy's interpretation, therefore, may be the true one. MALONE. I am unwilling to suppose a monumental image of Patience was ever confronted by an emblematical figure of Grief, on purpose that one might sit and smile at the other; because such a representation might be considered as a satire on human insensibility. When Patience smiles, it is to express a Christian triumph over the common cause of sorrow, a cause, of which V10. I am all the daughters of my father's house, And all the brothers too; -and yet I know not :Sir, shall I to this lady? the sarcophagus, near her station, ought very sufficiently to remind her. True Patience, when it is her cue to smile over calamity, knows her office without a prompter; knows that stubborn lamentation displays a will most incorrect to heaven; and therefore appears content with one of its severest dispensations, the loss of a relation or a friend. Ancient tombs, indeed, (if we must construe grief into grievance, and Shakspeare has certainly used the former word for the latter,) frequently exhibit cumbent figures of the deceased, and over these an image of Patience, without impropriety, might express a smile of complacence: "Her meek hands folded on her modest breast, After all, however, I believe the Homeric elucidation of the passage to be the true one. Tyrant poetry often imposes such complicated tasks as painting and sculpture must fail to execute. I cannot help adding, that, to smile at grief, is as justifiable an expression as to rejoice at prosperity, or repine at ill fortune. It is not necessary we should suppose the good or bad event, in either instance, is an object visible, except to the eye of imagination. STEEVENS. She sat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief.] So, in Middleton's Witch, Act iv. sc. iii: "She does not love me now, but painefully "Like one that's forc'd to smile upon a grief." Douce. • I am all the daughters of my father's house, And all the brothers too ;] This was the most artful answer that could be given. The question was of such a nature, that to have declined the appearance of a direct answer, must have raised suspicion. This has the appearance of a direct answer, that the sister died of her love; she (who passed for a man) saying, she was all the daughters of her father's house. WARBURTON. Such another equivoque occurs in Lyly's Galathea, 1592: my father had but one daughter, and therefore I could have no sister." STEEVENS. DUKE. Ay, that's the theme. To her in haste; give her this jewel; say, SCENE V. Olivia's Garden. [Exeunt. Enter Sir TOBY BELCH, Sir ANDREW AGUECHEEK, and FABIAN. SIR TO. Come thy ways, signior Fabian. FAB. Nay, I'll come; if I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be boiled to death with melancholy. SIR TO. Would'st thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally sheep-biter come by some notable shame? FAB. I would exult, man: you know, he brought me out of favour with my lady, about a bear-baiting here. SIR TO. To anger him, we'll have the bear again; and we will fool him black and blue:Shall we not, sir Andrew? SIR AND. An we do not, it is pity of our lives. 1-bide no denay.] Denay, is denial. To denay is an antiquated verb sometimes used by Holinshed. So, p. 620: 66 -the state of a cardinal which was naied and denaied him." Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. II. ch. 10: 66 thus did say "The thing, friend Battus, you demand, not gladly I denay." STEEvens. Enter MARIA. SIR TO. Here comes the little villain :-How now, my nettle of India? 2 my nettle of India?] The poet must here mean a zoophite, called the Urtica Marina, abounding in the Indian seas. "Quæ tacta totius corporis pruritum quendam excitat, unde nomen urticæ est sortita." Wolfgangi Franzii Hist. Animal, 1665, p. 620. "Urtica marinae omnes pruritum quendam movent, et acrimonia suâ venerem extinctam et sopitam excitant." Johnstoni Hist. Nat. de Exang. Aquat. p. 56. Perhaps the same plant is alluded to by Greene in his Card of Fancy, 1608: "the flower of India, pleasant to be seen, but whoso smelleth to it, feeleth present smart." Again, in his Mamillia, 1593: "Consider, the herb of India is of pleasant smell, but whoso cometh to it, feeleth present smart." Again, in P. Holland's translation of the 9th Book of Pliny's Natural History: "As for those nettles, there be of them that in the night raunge to and fro, and likewise change their colour. Leaves they carry of a fleshy substance, and of flesh they feed. Their qualities is to raise an itching smart." Maria had certainly excited a congenial sensation in Sir Toby. The folio, 1623, reads-mettle of India, which may mean, my girl of gold, my precious girl. The change, however, which I have not disturbed, was made by the editor of the folio, 1632, who, in many instances, appears to have regulated his text from more authentic copies of our author's plays than were in the possession of their first collective publishers. STEEVEns. my metal of India?] So, in K. Henry IV. P. I: "Lads, boys, hearts of gold," &c. Again, ibidem: 66 and as bountiful "As mines of India." Again, in K. Henry VIII: "To-day the French "All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods, |
