Perchance, you will not bear them patiently. DRO. E. Your worship's wife, my mistress at the She that doth fast, till you come home to dinner, face, Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave. [Strikes DROMIO, E. DRO. E. What mean you, sir? for God's sake, hold your hands; Nay, an you will not sir, I'll take my heels. * 1 [Exit DROMIO, E. ANT. S. Upon my life, by some device or other, The villain is o'er-raught of all my money. They say, this town is full of cozenage2; As, nimble jugglers, that deceive the eye, Dark-working sorcerers, that change the mind, Soul-killing witches, that deform the body; I * First folio, o'erwrought. - o'er-raught-] That is, over-reached. JOHNSON, So, in Hamlet: 66 certain players "We o'er-raught on the way." Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. vi. c. 3: 66 Having by chance a close advantage view'd, "He over-raught him," &c. STEEVENS. 2 They say, this town is full of cozenage ;] This was the character the ancients give of it. Hence 'Esa äλPapuana was proverbial amongst them. Thus Menander uses it, and 'Ep pala, in the same sense. WARBURTON. 3 As, nimble jugglers, that deceive the eye, DARK-WORKING sorcerers, that change the mind, SOUL-KILLING witches, that deform the body;] Those, who attentively consider these three lines, must confess, that the poet intended the epithet given to each of these miscreants, should declare the power by which they perform their feats, and which would therefore be a just characteristick of each of them. Thus, by nimble jugglers, we are taught, that they perform their tricks by slight of hand; and by soul-killing witches, we are informed, Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, the mischief they do is by the assistance of the devil, to whom they have given their souls: but then, by dark-working sorcerers, we are not instructed in the means by which they perform their ends. Besides, this epithet agrees as well to witches as to them; and therefore certainly our author could not design this in their characteristick. We should read: 66 Drug-working sorcerers, that change the mind," and we know, by the history of ancient and modern superstition, that these kind of jugglers always pretended to work changes of the mind by these applications. WARBURTON. The learned commentator has endeavoured with much earnestness to recommend his alteration; but, if I may judge of other apprehensions by my own, without great success. This interpretation of soul-killing is forced and harsh. Sir T. Hanmer reads soul-selling, agreeable enough to the common opinion, but without such improvement as may justify the change. Perhaps the epithets have only been misplaced, and the lines should be read thus: Soul-killing sorcerers, that change the mind, "Dark-working witches, that deform the body." This change seems to remove all difficulties. By soul-killing I understand destroying the rational faculties by such means as make men fancy themselves beasts. JOHNSON. Dark-working sorcerers, may only mean sorcerers who carry on their operations in the dark. Thus, says Bolingbroke, in The Second Part of King Henry VI. : 66 wizards know their times: "Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night," &c. Witches themselves, as well as those who employed them, were supposed to forfeit their souls by making use of a forbidden agency. In that sense they may be said to destroy the souls of others as well as their own. Hence, Sidney, in his Astrophel and Stella: "No witchcraft is so evill, as which man's minde destroyeth." The same compound epithet occurs in Christopher Middleton's Legend of Humphrey Duke of Glocester, 1600: 66 66 They charge her, that she did maintaine and feede Soul-killing witches, and convers'd with devils." The hint for this enumeration of cheats, &c. Shakspeare might have received from the old translation of the Menæchmi, 1595; "For this assure yourselfe, this towne Epidamnum is a place of outrageous expences, exceeding in all ryot and lasciviousnesse; and (I heare) as full of ribaulds, parasites, drunkards, catchpoles, cony-catchers, and sycophants, as it can hold then for curtizans," &c. STEEVENS. 4 LIBERTIES of sin :] Sir T. Hanmer reads, libertines, which, If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner. [Exit. ACT II. SCENE I. A publick Place. Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA. ADR. Neither my husband, nor the slave return'd, That in such haste I sent to seek his master! Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock. Luc. Perhaps, some merchant hath invited him, And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner. Good sister, let us dine, and never fret: A man is master of his liberty: Time is their master; and, when they see time, They'll go, or come: If so, be patient, sister. ADR. Why should their liberty than ours be more? Luc. Because their business still lies out o'door. ADR. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill 5. Luc. O, know, he is the bridle of your will. as the author has been enumerating not acts but persons, seems right. JOHNSON. By liberties of sin, I believe Shakspeare meant licensed offenders, such as mountebanks, fortune tellers, &c. who cheat with impunity. Thus, says Ascham: "I was once in Italie myself, but I thank God my abode there was but nine days; and yet I saw in that little tyme in one citie, [Venice,] more libertie to sinne, than ever I yet heard tell of in London in nine years." STEEVENS. By liberties of sin, I understand, not licensed offenders, but licentious actions; sinful liberties. MALONE. 5 -ill.] This word, which the rhyme seems to countenance, was furnished by the editor of the second folio. The first hasthus. MALONE. ADR. There's none, but asses, will be bridled so. Luc. Why head-strong liberty is lash'd with woeo. There's nothing, situate under heaven's eye, But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky: The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls, Are their males' subjects, and at their controls: Men, more divine, the masters of all these 8, 6 Adr. There's none, but asses, will be bridled so. Luc. Why, head-strong liberty is LASH'D with woe.] Should it not rather be leash'd, i. e, coupled like a headstrong hound? The high opinion I must necessarily entertain of the learned lady's judgment, who furnished this observation, has taught me to be diffident of my own, which I am now to offer. The meaning of this passage may be, that those who refuse the bridle must bear the lash, and that woe is the punishment of headstrong liberty. It may be observed, however, that the seamen still use lash in the same sense as leash; as does Greene, in his Mamillia, 1593: "Thou didst counsel me to beware of love, and I was before in the lash." Again, in George Whetstone's Castle of Delight, 1576: Yet both in lashe at length this Cressid leaves.' Lace was the old English word for a cord, from which verbs have been derived very differently modelled by the chances of pronunciation. So, in Promos and Cassandra, 1578: "To thee Cassandra which dost hold my freedom in a lace.” When the mariner, however, lashes his guns, the sportsman leashes his dogs, the female laces her clothes, they all perform one act of fastening with a lace or cord. Of the same original is the word windlass, or more properly windlace, an engine, by which a lace or cord is wound upon a barrel. To lace likewise signified to bestow correction with a cord, or rope's end. So, in the Second Part of Decker's Honest Whore, 1630: "Gets here hard hands, or lac'd correction.” Again, in The Two Angry Women of Abingdon, 1599: 66 So, now my back has room to reach; I do not love to be laced in, when I go to lace a rascal." STEEVENS. 7 Are their males' SUBJECTS,] So the original copy; for which Mr. Steevens and the other modern editors have given us-subject. I had also fallen into the same errour; which was obligingly pointed out to me by Mr. James Boaden. MALONE. 8 MEN-the MASTERS, &c.] The old copy has man-the master, &c. and in the next line-lord. Corrected by Sir T. Hanmer. MALONE. Lords of the wide world, and wild watry seas, ADR. This servitude makes you to keep unwed. Luc. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey. Luc. Till he come again, I would forbear. ADR. Patience, unmov'd, no marvel though she pause1; They can be meek, that have no other cause 2. 9 - start some other WHERE ?] I cannot but think, that our author wrote: 66 start some other hare? So, in Much Ado About Nothing, Cupid is said to be a good hare-finder. JOHNSON. I suspect that where has here the power of a noun. So, in King Lear: "Thou losest here, a better where to find." Again, in Tho. Drant's translation of Horace's Satires, 1567: they ranged in eatche where, 66 "No spousailes knowne," &c. The sense is,-How, if your husband fly off in pursuit of some other woman? The expression is used again, Scene III. : his eye doth homage otherwhere." 66 Again, in Romeo and Juliet, Act I.: "This is not Romeo, he's some otherwhere." Otherwhere signifies-in other places. So, in King Henry VIII. Act II. Sc. II. : "The king hath sent me otherwhere.” Again, in Chapman's version of the Second Book of Homer's Odyssey: I 2 "For we will never go, where lies our good, STEEVENS. she PAUSE ;] To pause is to rest, to be in quiet. JOHNSON. They can be meek, that have NO OTHER CAUSE.] That is, who have no cause to be otherwise. M. MASON. |