My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim, Luc. O, soft, sir, hold you still; [Exit Luc. Enter from the house of ANTIPHOLUs of Ephesus, DROMIO of Syracuse. ANT. S. Why, how now, Dromio? where run'st thou so fast? DRO. S. Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio ? am I your man? am I myself ? ANT. S. Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself. 9 My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.] When he calls the girl his only heaven on the earth, he utters the common cant of lovers. When he calls her his heaven's claim, I cannot understand him. Perhaps he means that which he asks of heaven. JOHNSON. All the happiness that I wish for on earth, and all that I claim from heaven hereafter. My sole earth's heaven.So, in the Rape of Lucrece : I "My will that marks thee for for I AIM thee:] The old for I am thee. Some of the modern editors- Perhaps we should read: for I aim thee. my earth's delight." MALONE. copy has He has just told her, that she was his sweet hope's aim. So, in Orlando Furioso, 1594: "Sits sadly dumping, aiming Cæsar's death." Again, in Drayton's Legend of Robert Duke of Normandy : 'I make my changes aim one certain end." STEEVENS. DRO. S. I am an ass, I am a woman's man, and besides myself. ANT. S. What woman's man? and how besides thyself? DRO. S. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me. ANT. S. What claim lays she to thee? DRO. S. Marry, sir, such claim as you would lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast: not that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me. ANT. S. What is she? 2 DRO. S. A very reverend body; ay, such a one as a man may not speak of, without he say, sirreverence: I have but lean luck in the match, and yet she is a wondrous fat marriage. ANT. S. How dost thou mean, a fat marriage? DRO. S. Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench, and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to, but to make a lamp of her, and run from her by her own light. I warrant, her rags, and the tallow in them, will burn a Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday, she'll burn a week longer than the whole world. 2 A very REVEREND-] The old copy has reverent, which is only the ancient spelling of reverend. MALONE. 3 without he say, SIR-REVERENCE,] This is a very old corruption of save-reverence, salva reverentiâ. In Much Ado About Nothing, the more correct expression occurs: 66 "I think you will have me say, save-reverence, a husband." See Blount's Glossography, 8vo. 1682: "Sa reverence, salvă reverentiâ, saving regard or respect; an usual word, but sir-reverence by the vulgar." It is, therefore, we see, very properly put into the mouth of Dromio. MALONE. ANT. S. What complexion is she of? DRO. S. Swart 4, like my shoe, but her face nothing like so clean kept; For why? she sweats, a man may go over shoes in the grime of it. ANT. S. That's a fault that water will mend. DRO. S. No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood could not do it. ANT. S. What's her name? DRO. S. Nell, sir ;-but her name and three quarters3, that is, an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from hip to hip. ANT. S. Then she bears some breadth ? DRO. S. No longer from head to foot, than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her. ANT. S. In what part of her body stands Ireland? DRO. S. Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by the bogs. 4 Swart,] i. e. black, or rather of a dark brown. Thus, in Milton's Comus, v. 436: "No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine." Again, in King Henry VI. P. I. STEEVENS. 66 And whereas I was black and swart before." Mr. Steevens's first definition is right. Swart is a Dutch word; and the Dutch call a blackamoor, a swart. MALONE. s Nell, sir;—but her name AND three quarters, &c.] The old copy has her name is three quarters. MALONE. This passage has hitherto lain as perplexed and unintelligible, as it is now easy and truly humorous. If a conundrum be restored, in setting it right, who can help it? I owe the correction to the sagacity of the ingenious Dr. Thirlby. THEOBALD. This poor conundrum is borrowed by Massinger, in The Old Law, 1653: "Cook. That Nell was Hellen of Greece. "Clown. As long as she tarried with her husband she was Ellen, but after she came to Troy she was Nell of Troy. 66 Cook. Why did she grow shorter when she came to Troy? "Clown. She grew longer, if you mark the story, when she grew to be an ell, &c.” VOL. IV. MALONE. ANT. S. Where Scotland? DRO. S. I found it by the barrenness; hard, in the palm of the hand°. ANT. S. Where France ? DRO. S. In her forehead; arm'd and reverted, making war against her heir". 6 Ant. S. Where Scotland? Dro. S. I found it by the BARRENNESS; hard, in the palm of the hand.] From this passage we may learn, that this comedy was not revived after the accession of the Scottish monarch to the English throne; otherwise it would probably have been struck out by the Master of the Revels, as that relative to the Scotch lord was in the Merchant of Venice, Act I. Sc. I. MALONE. : 7 In her forehead; arm'd and reverted, making war against her HEIR.] All the other countries, mentioned in this description, are in Dromio's replies satirically characterized: but here, as the editors have ordered it, no remark is made upon France; nor any reason given, why it should be in her forehead: but only the kitchen wench's high forehead is rallied, as pushing back her hair. Thus all the modern editions; but the first folio readsmaking war against her heir. And I am very apt to think, this last is the true reading; and that an equivoque, as the French call it, a double meaning, is designed in the poet's allusion and therefore I have replaced it in the text. In 1589, Henry III. of France being stabbed, and dying of his wound, was succeeded by Henry IV. of Navarre, whom he appointed his successor : but whose claim the states of France resisted, on account of his being a protestant. This, I take it, is what he means, by France making war against her heir. Now, as in 1591, Queen Elizabeth sent over 4000 men, under the conduct of the Earl of Essex, to the assistance of this Henry of Navarre, it seems to me very probable, that during this expedition being on foot, this comedy made its appearance. And it was the finest address imaginable in the poet to throw such an oblique sneer at France, for opposing the succession of that heir, whose claim his royal mistress, the queen, had sent over a force to establish, and oblige them to acknowledge. THEOBALD. With this explication Dr. Warburton concurs; and Sir Thomas Hanmer thinks an equivocation was intended, though he retains hair in the text. Yet surely they have all lost the sense in looking beyond it. Our author, in my opinion, only sports with an allusion, in which he takes too much delight, and means that his mistress had the French disease. The ideas are rather too offensive to be dilated. By a forehead armed, he means covered with incrusted eruptions: by reverted, he means having the hair turn ANT. S. Where England? DRO. S. I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I could ing backward. An equivocal word must have senses applicable to both the subjects to which it is applied. Both forehead and France might in some sort make war against their hair, but how did the forehead make war against its heir? JOHNSON. The reading of the autherfack copy, heir, was displaced by the reviser of the second folio, who substituted hair instead of it; doubtless, not perceiving that the passage was intended to convey any other meaning than the common colloquial expression afforded. This innovation kept its place in all the subsequent copies, till at length Mr. Theobald restored the original word; and on mature consideration, I think he was right. The colloquial expression, it may be observed, was "against the hair." But our author, we find, departed from that usage, and wrote "against her," &c. which is equally applicable to France and to Dromio's new wife. Even this slight circumstance ought to have some weight, and affords a confirmation of the original reading. Unquestionably, as has been observed above, an equivocation. was intended in this passage, which, in one point of view, relates to the venereal malady, (called corona veneris,) that breaks out in the forehead, and in another to the war which, when this comedy was written, was carried on by the Leaguers against Henry the Fourth, the rightful heir of the crown of France.-When the passage was recited on the stage, the word heir, (which in our poet's time was, I believe, pronounced with a stronger aspiration than it is at present,) or hair, would equally suggest both the senses here intended to be conveyed. But when our author originally committed his thoughts to paper, it was more natural for him to write heir, because that word precisely marks out the less obvious allusion which yet, it should seem, was uppermost in his thoughts, but which might have been overlooked, if he had written hair for in that case, the political allusion would have rested in his own breast; but by adopting the other mode, he precluded all doubt upon the subject. He therefore, I conceive, wrote the word heir, which is found in the copy printed immediately from the manuscript, because the circumstances of the French king were predominant in his mind, and he knew that the other allusion was sufficiently obvious and would be easily understood. Hence the present regulation of the text appears to me to be that on which Shakspeare himself has set his seal. Dr. Johnson remarks, that "an equivocal term must have senses applicable to both the subjects to which it is applied." A more correct writer would undoubtedly observe that rule; but our author is seldom very scrupulous in this respect, the terms |