Did I redeem; a wreck past hope he was:
His life I gave him, and did thereto add
My love, without retention, or restraint,
All his in dedication: for his sake,
Did I expose myself, pure for his love,
Into the danger of this adverse town;
Drew to defend him, when he was beset:
Where being apprehended, his false cunning,
(Not meaning to partake with me in danger,)
Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance,
And grew a twenty-years-removed thing,

While one would wink; denied me mine own purse,
Which I had recommended to his use

Not half an hour before.

VIO.

How can this be?

DUKE. When came he to this town?

ANT. To-day, my lord; and for three months before,

(No interim, not a minute's vacancy,)
Both day and night did we keep company.

Enter OLIVIA and Attendants.

DUKE. Here comes the countess; now heaven walks on earth.

But for thee, fellow, fellow,'thy words are madness: Three months this youth hath tended upon me; But more of that anon.-— -Take him aside.

OLI. What would my lord, but that he may not have

Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable?—
Cesario, you do not keep promise with me.

"But for thee, fellow, fellow, thy words are madness:] Thus this line has been printed in all the editions; but surely we should read,

But for thee, fellow, thy words are madness. HARRIS. `

VIO. Madam?

DUKE. Gracious Olivia,

OLI. What do you say, Cesario?-Good my lord,--

V10. My lord would speak, my duty hushes me. OLI. If it be aught to the old tune, my lord, It is as fat and fulsome' to mine ear,

As howling after musick.

DUKE.

Still so cruel?

OLI. Still so constant, lord.

DUKE. What! to perverseness? you uncivil lady, To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars My soul the faithfull'st offerings hath breath'd out, That e'er devotion tender'd! What shall I do?

OLI. Even what it please my lord, that shall become him.

DUKE. Why should I not, had I the heart to do it,

Like to the Egyptian thief, at point of death,
Kill what I love; a savage jealousy,

7 as fat and fulsome-] Fat means dull; so we say a fat-headed fellow; fat likewise means gross, and is sometimes used for obscene. JOHNSON.

• Why should I not, had I the heart to do it,

Like to the Egyptian thief, at point of death,

Kill what I love;] In this simile, a particular story is presupposed, which ought to be known to show the justness and propriety of the comparison. It is taken from Heliodorus's Ethiopics, to which our author was indebted for the allusion. This Egyptian thief was Thyamis, who was a native of Memphis, and at the head of a band of robbers. Theagenes and Chariclea falling into their hands, Thyamis fell desperately in love with the lady, and would have married her. Soon after, a stronger body of robbers coming down upon Thyamis's party, he was in such fears for his mistress, that he had her shut into a cave with his treasure. It was customary with those barbarians,

VOL. V.

D D

That sometime savours nobly?-But hear me this:
Since you to non-regardance cast my faith,
And that I partly know the instrument

That screws me from my true place in your favour,
Live you, the marble-breasted tyrant, still;
But this your minion, whom, I know, you love,
And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly,
Him will I tear out of that cruel eye,

Where he sits crowned in his master's spite.--
Come boy, with me; my thoughts are ripe in mis-

chief:

I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,
To spite a raven's heart within a dove.

[Going.

Vio. And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly, To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.

OLI. Where goes Cesario?

[Following.

VIO. After him I love, More than I love these eyes, more than my life, More, by all mores, than e'er I shall love wife: If I do feign, you witnesses above,

Punish my life, for tainting of my love!

OLI. Ah me, detested! how am I beguil❜d!

V10. Who does beguile you? who does do you wrong?

when they despaired of their own safety, first to make away with those whom they held dear, and desired for companions in the next life. Thyamis, therefore, benetted round with his enemies, raging with love, jealousy, and anger, went to his cave; and calling aloud in the Egyptian tongue, so soon as he heard himself answered towards the cave's mouth by a Grecian, making to the person by the direction of her voice, he caught her by the hair with his left hand, and (supposing her to be Chariclea) with his right hand plunged his sword into her breast. THEOBALD.

• That screws me from my true place-] So, in Macbeth: "But screw your courage to the sticking-place.”

STEEVENS.

OLI. Hast thou forgot thyself? Is it so long?Call forth the holy father. [Exit an Attendant. Come away. [TO VIOLA. OLI. Whither my lord?-Cesario, husband, stay.

DUKE.

OLI. Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear, That makes thee strangle thy propriety:1 Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up;

Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art As great as that thou fear'st.-O, welcome, father!

Re-enter Attendant and Priest.

Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence,
Here to unfold (though lately we intended
To keep in darkness, what occasion now
Reveals before 'tis ripe,) what thou dost know,
Hath newly past between this youth and me.

PRIEST. A contract of eternal bond of love,2 Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands, Attested by the holy close of lips,

1

- strangle thy propriety:] Suppress, or disown thy property. MALOne.

So, in Macbeth:

“And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp." STEEVENS.

A contract of eternal bond of love,] So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

"The sealing day between my love and me,
"For everlasting bond of fellowship." MALONE.

Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings;"
And all the ceremony of this compáct
Seal'd in my function, by my testimony:

3

Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my

grave,

I have travelled but two hours.

DUKE. O, thou dissembling cub! what wilt
thou be,

When time hath sow'd a grizzle on thy case?*
Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow,
That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?
Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feet,
Where thou and I henceforth may never meet.
V10. My lord, I do protest,—

OLI.
Hold little faith, though thou hast too much fear.
O, do not swear;

interchangement of your rings;] In our ancient marriage ceremony, the man received as well as gave a ring. This custom is exemplified by the following circumstance in Thomas Lupton's First Booke of Notable Things, 4°. bl. 1: "If a marryed man bee let or hyndered through inchauntment, sorcery, or witchcraft, from the acte of generation, let him make water through his maryage ring, and he shall be loosed from the same, and their doinges shall have no further power in him." STEEVENS,

case?] Case is a word used contemptuously for skin. We yet talk of a fox-case, meaning the stuffed skin of a fox.

JOHNSON.

So, in Cary's Present State of England, 1626: "Queen Elizabeth asked a knight named Young, how he liked a company of brave ladies? He answered, as conies at home: the cases are far better than the bodies." like my silver-haired

MALONE.

The same story perhaps was not unknown to Burton, who, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 480, has the following passage: "For generally, as with rich furred conies, their cases are farre better than their bodies," &c. STEEVENS.