What, not a word ?-you take your pennyworths now; Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant, That you shall rest but little.-God forgive me, set up his rest,] This expression, which is frequently employed by the old dramatick writers, is taken from the manner of firing the harquebuss. This was so heavy a gun, that the soldiers were obliged to carry a supporter called a rest, which they fixed in the ground before they levelled to take aim. Decker uses it in his comedy of Old Fortunatus, 1600: “ set your heart at rest, for I have set up my rest, that unless you can run swifter than a hart, home you go not." The same expression occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher's Elder Brother : 66 My rest is Again, in The Roaring Girl, 1611: up, "Like a musket on a rest." See Montfaucon's Monarchie Françoise, tom. v. plate 48. STEEVENS. The above expression may probably be sometimes used in the sense already explained; it is, however, oftener employed with a reference to the game at primero, in which it was one of the terms then in use. In the second instance above quoted it is certainly so. To avoid loading the page with examples, I shall refer to Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, vol. x. p. 364, edit. 1780, where several are brought together. Reed. "To set up one's rest," is, in fact, a gambling expression, and means that the gamester has determined what stake he should play for. In the passage quoted by Steevens from Fletcher's Elder Brother, when Eustace says: 66 My rest is up, and I will go no less;" he means to say, my stake is laid, and I will not play for a smaller. The same phrase very frequently occurs in the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. It is also used by Lord Clarendon, in his History, as well as in the old comedy of Supposes, published in the year 1587. M. MASON. Nash quibbles upon this word, in his Terrors of the Night: "You that are married and have wives of your owne, and yet hold too nere frendship with your neighbours, set up your rests, that the Night will be an il neighbour to your rest, and that you shall have as little peace of minde as the rest." BOSWELL. Ay, let the county take you in your bed': Enter Lady CAPULET. LA. CAP. What noise is here? NURSE. O lamentable day! Look, look! O heavy day! LA. CAP. What is the matter! NURSE. LA. CAP. O me, O me!—my child, my only life, Revive, look up, or I will die with thee! Help, help!-call help. Enter CAPULET. CAP. For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come. NURSE. She's dead, deceas'd, she's dead; alack the day! LA. CAP. Alack the day! she's dead, she's dead, she's dead. CAP. Ha! let me see her:-Out, alas! she's cold; Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff; Life and these lips have long been separated: Death lies on her, like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field. Accursed time ! unfortunate old man! 7 - why LADY!-fye, you SLUG-A-BED! Ay, let the county take you in your bed ;] So, in The Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet: First softly did she call, then louder did she cry, MAL O 8 Accursed time! &c.] This line is taken from the first quarto, 1597. MALONE. NURSE. O lamentable day! LA. CAP. O woful time! CAP. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail, Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak". Enter Friar LAURENCE and PARIS, with Musicians. FRI. Come, is the bride ready to go to church? CAP. Ready to go, but never to return : O son, the night before thy wedding day Hath death lain with thy bride':-See, there she lies, 9 Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail, Ties up my tongue, and WILL NOT LET ME SPEAK.] Our author has here followed the poem closely, without recollecting that he had made Capulet, in this scene, clamorous in his grief. In The Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, Juliet's mother makes a long speech, but the old man utters not a word : "But more than all the rest the father's heart was so "Smit with the heavy news, and so shut up with sudden woe, "That he ne had the power his daughter to beweep, Ne yet to speak, but long is forc'd his tears and plaints to keep." MALONE. O son, the night before thy wedding day Hath death lain with thy bride:] Euripides has sported with this thought in the same manner. Iphig. in Aul. ver. 460. Τήνδ ̓ αὖ τάλαιναν παρθενον (τί παρθενον ; "Αδης νιν, ὡς ἔοικε, νυμφεύσει τάχα). SIR W. RAWLINSON. "Hath death lain with thy bride." Perhaps this line is coarsely ridiculed in Decker's Satiromastix : "Dead: she's death's bride; he hath her maidenhead.” STEEVENS. Decker seems rather to have intended to ridicule a former line in this play: 66 I'll to my wedding bed, "And Death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead." If indeed any ridicule was intended, for he has the same thought in his Wonderful Yeare. “Death rudely lay with her, and spoiled her of a maidenhead in spite of her husband." The word see in the line before us, is drawn from the first quarto. MALONE. Flower as she was, deflowered by him 2. And doth it give me such a sight as this? LA. CAP. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful day! Most miserable hour, that e'er time saw But one, poor one, one poor and loving child, 2 FLOWER as she was, DEFLOWERED by him.] This jingle was common to other writers; and, among the rest, to Greene, in his Greene in Conceipt, 1598: -a garden-house having round about it many flowers, and within it much deflowering." 66 COLLINS. 3 Death is my son-in-law, &c.] The remaining part of this speech, "death is my heir," &c. was omitted by Mr. Pope in his edition; and some of the subsequent editors, following his example, took the same unwarrantable licence. The lines were very properly restored by Mr. Steevens. MALONE. life LEAVING, all is death's.] The old copies read-life living. The emendation was made by Mr. Steevens. MALONE. smorning's face.] The quarto 1597 continues the speech of Paris thus: "And doth it now present such prodigies? Distrest, remediless, unfortunate. "O heavens! Oh nature! wherefore did you make me 6 O woe! O woeful, &c.] This speech of exclamations is not in the edition above-cited [that of 1597]. Several other parts unnecessary or tautology, are not to be found in the said edition; which occasions the variation in this from the common books. РОРЕ. Most lamentable day! most woful day, PAR. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spited, slain! Most détestable death, by thee beguil'd, By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown !— Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, Uncomfortable time! why cam'st thou now O child! O child!—my soul, and not my child!— FRI. Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not In these confusions. Heaven and yourself Your part in her you could not keep from death; In the text the enlarged copy of 1599 is here followed. MALONE. 7 Dead art thou! &c.] From the defect of the metre it is probable that Shakspeare wrote: Dead, dead, art thou! &c. When the same word is repeated, the compositor often is guilty of omission. MALONE. I have repeated the word-dead, though in another part of the line-Dead art thou, dead! STEEVENS. - confusion's CURE] Old copies-care. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. These violent and confused exclamations, says the Friar, will by no means alleviate that sorrow which at present overwhelms and disturbs your minds. So, in The Rape of Lu 'crece : "Why, Collatine, is woe the cure of woe?" MALONE. |
