Vio. And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium. 10 Perchance he is not drown'd: what think you, sailors? 5 Cap. It is perchance that you yourself were sav'd. Vio. O my poor brother! and so perchance may he be. Cap. True, madam: and, to comfort you with chance, Assure yourself, after our ship did split, When you and those poor number sav'd with you Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother, Most provident in peril, bind himself, Courage and hope both teaching him the practice, To a strong mast that lived upon the sea; Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back, I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves So long as I could see. 15 4. Elysium] Pope, Elizium F. 10. those] F; that Rowe, etc.; this Capell, etc.; those.. sav'd] those-poor number!—saved Elze; sav'd] saved F and most edd.; Pope changed to sav'd, in order to make a line of ten syllables. 15. Arion] Orion F. of the seventeenth century, and that his attendants, Valentine, Curio, etc., as well as Olivia, Malvolio, and Maria, are also Venetians; and, secondly, that Sir Toby and Sir Andrew are English residents; the former a maternal uncle to Olivia, her father, a Venetian Count, having married Sir Toby's sister. If this be allowed, and there is nothing that we can perceive in the play to prevent it, there is no impropriety in dressing the above-named characters in the Venetian and English costume of Shakspere's own time, and the two sea-captains and Sebastian in the very picturesque habits of Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote.' Viola might, therefore, by assuming the national male dress, be more readily mistaken for her brother, as it is absurd to suppose that she could otherwise, by accident, light upon a facsimile of the suit he appears in; and any manifest difference, either in form or colour, would tend to destroy the illusion." 4. Elysium] Undoubtedly a pun on "Illyria," to be followed by much playing on "perchance in line 5. Even in The Tempest, Shakespeare's habit of punning is, as we have remarked already (1. i. 16), sometimes pleasantly, but sometimes also perniciously, apparent. 6. perchance] here "by chance,” "only by chance," "by a mere or lucky chance." 8. to... chance] "that you may console yourself with what fortune may have in store for you." 9. split] An expression that occurs frequently in contemporary narratives of voyages. 10. those poor number] "Those" may be due to the plurality implied in "number" (cf. "these set kind of fools," 1. v. 91); or, as Wright suggests, the final s of "numbers" may have disappeared before the initial s of the next word. Possibly as the Captain speaks the words "those poor numbers," he points to the sailors who are standing by. 11. driving] drifting, as in Pericles, III. chorus 50, "So up and down the poor ship drives." 14. lived] kept afloat; the only instance of the word used as a nautical term by Shakespeare. 15. Arion] Fasti, 11. 83 sqq. 16. hold acquaintance] as though he were "in his element," on terms of easy familiarity with the waves. Cf. All's Well that Ends Well, 11. iii. 240. Vio. For saying so there's gold. Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope, 20 Cap. A noble duke, in nature as in name. Vio. What is his name? Cap. Orsino. Vio. Orsino! I have heard my father name him: He was a bachelor then. Cap. And so is now, or was so very late; For but a month ago I went from hence, 25 30 And then 'twas fresh in murmur, (as, you know, 24. as in name] as in his 23, 24. Who... nature] one line, various edd. name some edd., who thus arrange the four lines of dialogue (23-26) as two pentameter lines of verse. 28-34. He was six lines of these seven, ending now. . . month ... she? 18-20.] My own escape gives me a hope (which moreover your words justify) that my brother has also escaped. "The like of him" means, "the same fact with regard to him.” 20. country] This need not be converted into an actual trisyllable, any more than "remembrance" in 1. i. 31 should be pronounced deliberately as a quadrisyllable; we should merely dwell on the second syllable in remembrance," and, in this line, on the word "know'st." 21. bred and born] Either a popular (especially in the North of Ireland) or a careless inversion of "born and bred"; or Shakespeare, as often elsewhere, uses "bred" in the sense of "begotten." 23-28.] As we have seen above (note on line 1), dialogue often breaks up the normal metrical arrangement; cf. also such lines as 34, 45, 63 in this scene. 24. as in name] The Orsini being a noble Italian family. See also Introduction, p. xvii. We may note that Orsino is styled Count in the greater part of the play, and once (1. v. 304) County" (F "Countes"); but he is Duke in this scene, and in Scene 66 ... she?] similarly they form fresh... do . . . seek iv., and in the stage-directions; Duke, moreover, is prefixed to his speeches throughout. Accordingly Fleay writes: "I believe this part of the play was written in 1595 . . . Duke in this play is synonymous with Count, as it is with Emperor in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, and with King in Love's Labour's Lost. Shakespeare does not commit this mistake in plays written after 1595. If any part of it is of the earlier date, it was revised and rewritten at the later." But in Hamlet we have Duke for King (111. ii. 249, 254); and in Titus Andronicus King and Emperor seem interchanged (III. i. 150-154), and in other writers of Shakespeare's time a similar confusion in titles may sometimes be discovered. 27.] See the Duke's remark in v. 266. Thus Shakespeare provides a motive for Viola's interest in Orsino; but her feeling is no deeper than interest, and her inquiries, as Spedding suggests, have reference only to present necessities and the best means of providing for them. See also Int., p. xxxviii. 29. late] lately. 31. fresh in murmur] had just begun to be talked about; "murmur" may What great ones do the less will prattle of), Vio. What's she? Cap. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count Vio. Cap. 35 That died some twelvemonth since; then leaving her In the protection of his son, her brother, And sight of men. O! that I serv'd that lady, 40 That were hard to compass, Because she will admit no kind of suit, 45 39, 40. the company And 38. love] F; loss Walker, Dyce, and others. sight] Hanmer; the sight And company] F, Ff, and some edd. mellow F, Ff, Rowe, and others. suggest "with bated breath," but this is scarcely borne out by "will prattle of" in the next line. 32. the less] Cf. "Both more and less have given him the revolt," Macbeth, v. iv. 12. 34. What's she?]"What" is an interrogative of wider scope than "who," and inquires especially into rank, etc. Cf. "What is he at the gate, cousin?" in I. v. 120. For this interjectional line, see note on 23-28. 38. for whose dear love] This reading of F is greatly to be preferred to "for whose dear loss," suggested by Walker and others; and we may compare with "my dear faith" in 1. iv. 25. It is perfect poetry, and means "out of her exceeding love of him"; or possibly, "love strongly affecting her." 39, 40. the company And sight] This transposition, by Hanmer, of the F reading (see textual notes) avoids anticlimax and restores metre, and it has been accepted by most editors. 41. deliver'd] discovered (weakened from legal sense of the word); cf. Coriolanus, v. iii. 391, "The sorrow that delivers us thus charged makes 42. mellow,] you think so. Cf. also the entry "Delivered unwrapped," Bacon's Promus, Fol. 126. 41-43. And might... estate is] And that I need not be discovered to the world in respect of my real condition, until I had brought to maturity the proper occasion for revealing myself. Here "What my estate is " best follows "world," and depends on "delivered," as in the well-known text (Luke iv. 34), "I know thee, who thou art-the Holy One of God" (where the English idiom imitates the Greek). And in this play we may note "Conceal me what I am" in 1. ii. 52, and "I see you what you are" in 1. v. 259. And we should bear in mind how frequently some special idiom occurs more than once in the same play. As to the figure "mellowing," compare "delivered upon the mellowing of occasion," Love's Labour's Lost, IV. ii. 72. "Mellow" in our text is surely a predicated adjective, though some prefer to regard it as a transitive, others as an intransitive, verb, and thus alter the sense entirely. Vio. There is a fair behaviour in thee, captain; And though that nature with a beauteous wall I will believe thou hast a mind that suits 50 55 60 Cap. Be you his eunuch, and your mute I'll be: When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see. Vio. I thank thee: lead me on. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-A Room in Olivia's House. Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA. Sir To. What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus ? I am sure care's an enemy to life. Mar. By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' nights: your cousin, my lady, takes great Sir To. Why, let her except, before excepted. Sir To. Confine! I'll confine myself no finer than I am. These clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too: an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps. Mar. That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it yesterday; and of a foolish knight that you brought in one night here to be her wooer. Sir To. Who? Sir Andrew Aguecheek? Mar. Ay, he. Sir To. He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria. Sir To. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year. 5. o nights] a nights F, Ff. 7. except, before] F, except before Hanmer and others. 12. an they be not] and they be not F, Ff; Theobald changed to 18. Aguecheck] Ague-cheeke F. 20. any's] F, any Pope. an, Pope to if. 5. cousin] Often in Shakespeare used of any degree of relationship except the first; in this play it seems to stand for "niece" in the present line, and for "uncle" in I. v. 121 and v. 307. As to the relationship between Olivia and Sir Toby, see note on I. ii. 2. 4 7. except, before excepted] Sir Toby whimsically quotes the legal Latin "exceptis excipiendis" (those things excepted which have before been excepted)."It is the usual language of leases, To have and to hold the said demised premises, etc. (except before excepted),"" Malone. Bulloch's suggested reading, "let her except-before th' excepted," i.e. "let her say so, and to myself, not to you, a servant," has little to sustain it; legal quibbling was dear to the dramatist (Introduction, p. xxv, footnote 4), and we have many examples in this play. Maria's "Ay" must seem to interpret the legal phrase, and to give no sanction to Bulloch's conjecture. Nor is Maria an ordinary servant; cf. Rowe's "Confident to Olivia" (list of Dramatis Persona). Nash has (Epistle Dedicatorie, 1594) "Against your perfections no tongue can except." Cf. also Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1. iii. 83. 9. modest] moderate; possibly as in IV. ii. 34. 10. confine myself] dress myself; an intentional perversion of Maria's phrase. 12. an] F "and"-and elsewhere throughout the play. "If" was one of the older meanings of "and," which word was usually printed in full till about 1600. The shortened form "an" is Theobald's. See also note on II. v. 139. 20. tall] "There is scarcely a writer of Jonson's age who does not frequently use tall in the sense of bold or courageous," Gifford. 22. ducats] coins of silver or gold, of varying value. Cotgrave says they hold a rate much about v, or vjs, sterl. the peece"; and in England they were worth about 6s. 8d. They were so called because first coined (in silver) in the duchy (Low Lat. ducatus, Ital. ducato) of Apulia in 1140, by Roger II. |