Heaven would that she thefe gifts should have, Ros. O most gentle Jupiter!-what tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cry'd, Have patience, good people! CEL. How now! back friends?-Shepherd, go off a little-Go with him, firrah. TOUCH. Come, fhepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with fcrip and fcrippage. [Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE. It is obfervable that the ftory of Atalanta in the Tenth Book of Ovid's Metamorphofes is interwoven with that of Venus and Adonis, which our author had undoubtedly read. The lines most material to the prefent point run thus in Golding's Tranflation, 1567: "She overcame them out of doubt; and hard it is to tell "Thee, whether she did in footemanshippe or beautie more excell." - he did condemne the young men's love. But when "He faw her face and body bare, (for why, the lady then Did ftrip her to her naked skin,) the which was like to mine, "Or rather, if that thou waft made a woman, like to thine, "He was amaz'd.” 66 And though that fhe "Did flie as fwift as arrow from a Turkie bow, yet hee grace. MALONE The paffage quoted by Mr. Malone from Marfton's Infatiate Countefs, has no reference to the ball of Atalanta, but to the golden apple which was adjudged to Venus by Paris, on Mount Ida. After all, I believe, that "Atalanta's better part" means onlythe best part about her, fuch as was most commended. STEEVENS. 4 Sad-] Is grave, fober, not light. JOHNSON. So, in Much ado about Nothing :-" She is never fad but when fhe fleeps." STEEVENS. 3 the touches-] The features; les traits. JOHNSON. So, in King Richard III: "Madam, I have a touch of your condition." STEEVENS. CEL. Didft thou hear these verses? Ros. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for fome of them had in them more feet than the verfes would bear. CEL. That's no matter; the feet might bear the verfes. Ros. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verfe, and therefore stood lamely in the verse. CEL. But didft thou hear, without wondering how thy name should be hang'd and carved upon these trees? Ros. I was feven of the nine days out of the wonder, before you came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree: I was never so be-rhimed fince Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat,' which I can hardly remember. 7 6 a palm-tree:] A palm-tree, in the foreft of Arden is as much out of its place, as the lianess in a subsequent scene. STEEVENS, I was never fo be-rhimed fince Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat,] Rofalind is a very learned lady. She alludes to the Pythagorean doctrine, which teaches that fouls tranfmigrate from one animal to another, and relates that in his time fhe was an Irish rat, and by fome metrical charm was rhymed to death. The power of killing rats with rhymes Donne mentions in his Satires, and Temple in his Treatifes. Dr. Grey has produced a fimilar paffage from Randolph: My poets "Shall with a fatire, steep'd in gall and vinegar, JOHNSON, So, in an addrefs to the reader, at the conclufion of Ben Jonson's Poetafter: "Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats "In drumming tunes." STEEVENS, 66 So, in The Defence of Poefie by our author's contemporary, Sir Philip Sidney: Though I will not with unto you to be driven by a poet's verfes, as Rubonax was, to hang yourself, nor to be rimed to death, as is faid to be done in Ireland"- MALONE. CEL. Trow you, who hath done this? A CEL. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck: Change you colour? Ros. I pr'ythee, who? CEL. O lord, lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and fo encounter. Ros. Nay, but who is it? CEL. Is it poffible? Ros. Nay, I pray thee now, with moft petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is. CEL. O wonderful, wonderful, and moft wonderful wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all whooping!? 7 -friends to meet;] Alluding ironically to the proverb: "Friends may meet, but mountains never greet." See Ray's Collection. STEEVENS. but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and fo encounter.] Montes duo inter fe concurrerunt," &c. fays Pliny, Hift. Nat. Lib. II. c. lxxxiii. or in Holland's tranflation: "Two bills (removed by an earthquake) encountered together, charging as it were, and with violence affaulting one another, and retyring again with a moft mighty noise." TOLLET. 9 out of all whooping!] i. e. out of all measure, or reckoning. So, in the Old Ballad of Yorke, Yorke for my money, &c. 1584: "And then was shooting, out of cry, "The fkantling at a handful nie. Again, in the old bl. I. comedy called Common Conditions: "I have beraed myself out of cry." STEEVENS. This appears to have been a phrafe of the fame import as another formerly in ufe, "out of all cry." The latter feems to allude to the custom of giving notice by a crier of things to be fold. So, in A Chafte Maide of Cheapfide, a comedy by T. Middleton, 1630: "I'll fell all at an outcry." MALONE. An outery is ftill a provincial term for an auction. STEEVENS. Ros. Good my complexion! doft thou think, though I am caparifon'd like a man, I have a doublet and hofe in my difpofition? One inch of delay more is a South-fea-off difcovery." I pr'ythee, tell 2 Good my complexion!] This is a mode of expreffion, Mr. Theobald fays, which he cannot reconcile to common fenfe. Like enough: and fo too the Oxford editor. But the meaning is-Hold good my complexion, i, e. let me not blush. WARBURTON. Good my complexion!] My native character, my female inquifitive difpofition, can't thou endure this!-For thus characterizing the most beautiful part of the creation, let our author answer. MALONE. Good my complexion! is a little unmeaning exclamatory address to her beauty; in the nature of a small oath. RITSON. 3 One inch of delay more is a South-fea-off discovery.] The old copy reads is a South-sea of discoverie, STEEVENS. This is ftark nonfenfe; we must read-off difcovery, i. e. from discovery." If you delay me one inch of time longer, I fhall think this fecret as far from difcovery as the South-fea is." WARBURTON. This fentence is rightly noted by the commentator as nonfenfe, but not fo happily reftored to fenfe. I read thus: One inch of delay more is a South-fea. Discover, I pr'ythee; tell me who is it quickly!-When the tranfcriber had once made difcovery from difcover I, he eafily put an article after South-fea. But it may be read with ftill lefs change, and with equal probability-Every inch of delay more is a South-fea difcovery: Every delay however fhort, is to me tedious and irksome as the longest voyage, as a voyage of difcovery on the South-fea. How much voyages to the South-fea on which the English had then first ventured, engaged the converfation of that time, may be easily imagined. JOHNSON. Of for off, is frequent in the elder writers. A South-fea of difcovery is a difcovery a South-fea off-as far as the South-fea. FARMER. Warburton's fophiftication ought to have been reprobated, and the old, which is the only reading that can preferve the sense of Rofalind, restored. A South-fea of difcovery, is not a difcovery, as FAR OFF, but as COMPREHENSIVE as the South-fea; which, being the largest in the world, affords the widest scope for exercifing curiofity. HENLEY. On a further confideration of this paffage I am ftrongly inclined to think, with Dr. Johnson, that we fhould read-a South-fea difcovery, Delay, however fhort, is to me tedious and irkfome as COR. Sir, I am a true labourer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other men's good, content with my harm and the greatest of my pride is, to fee my ewes graze, and my lambs fuck.. TOUCH. That is another fimple fin in you; to bring the ewes and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the copulation of cattle: to be bawd to a bell-wether; and to betray a she-lamb of a twelvemonth, to a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou be'st not damn'd for this, the devil himself will have no fhepherds; I cannot fee elfe how thou fhouldft 'scape. COR. Here comes young mafter Ganymede, my new miftrefs's brother. Enter ROSALIND, reading a paper. Ros. From the east to western Ind, Her worth, being mounted on the wind, Are but black to Rofalind. Let no face be kept in mind, So, in Hamlet: "and yet but raw neither, in refpect of his quick fail." MALONE. bawd to a bell-wether;] Wether and ram had anciently the fame meaning. JOHNSON. -faireft lin'd,] i. e. moft fairly delineated. Modern editors read-limn'd, but without authority, from the ancient copies. STEEVENS. 4 But the fair of Rofalind.] Thus the old copy. Fair is beauty, complexion. See the notes on a paffage in The Midsummer Night's Dream, A&t I. fc. i. and The Comedy of Errors, Act II. fc. i. |