Of that wide gap 3; since it is in my power Or what is now received: I witness to The times that brought them in; so shall I do Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing, be In fair Bohemia; and remember well, stone in the Dedication of his Promos and Cassandra, which Shakspeare used as the groundwork of Measure for Measure, has pointed at this violation of the rules in the English drama in strong terms: The Englishman in this qualitie is most vaine, indiscreet, and out of order. He first grounds his worke on impossibilities: then in three houres ronnes he thorowe the worlde: marryes, gets children, makes children men, men to conquer kingdomes, murder monsters, and bringeth goddes from heaven, and fetcheth devils from hell,' &c. 3 i. e. leave unexamined the progress of the intermediate time which filled up the gap in Perdita's story. The reasoning of Time is not very clear; he seems to mean, that he who overthrows every thing, and makes as well as overwhelms custom, may surely infringe the laws of custom as they are made by him. 4 i. e. imagine with me. It is a French idiom which Shakspeare has played upon in the Taming of the Shrew. And Falstaff speaking of sack, in King Henry IV. says: 'It ascends me into the brain, dries me there,' &c. Be known, when 'tis brought forth :-a shepherd's daughter, And what to her adheres, which follows after, If ever you have spent time worse ere now; The same. SCENE I. say, [Exit. A Room in the Palace of Polixenes. Enter POLIXEN ES and CAMILLO. Pol. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 'tis a sickness, denying thee any thing; a death, to grant this. Cam. It is fifteen1 years, since I saw my country: though I have, for the most part, been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me: to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to think so; which is another spur to my departure. Pol. As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy services, by leaving me now: the need I have of thee, thine own goodness hath made; better not to have had thee, than thus to want thee: thou, having made me businesses, which none without thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself, or take away with thee the very services thou hast done: which if I have not enough considered, (as too much I cannot), to be more thankful to thee, shall be my study; and my 5 Argument, subject. 6 i. e. approve. 1 It should be sixteen, as Time has just stated, and future pasages have it. Of that profit therein, the heaping friendships2. fatal country, Sicilia, pr'ythee speak no more: whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou call'st him, and reconciled king, my brother: whose loss of his most precious queen and children, are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when saw'st thou the prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue not being gracious, than they are in losing them, when they have approved their virtues. Cam. Sir, it is three days since I saw the prince: What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown: but I have missingly noted 3, he is of late much retired from court; and is less frequent to his princely exercises, than formerly he hath appeared. Pol. I have considered so much, Camillo; and with some care; so far, that I have eyes under my service, which look upon his removedness: from whom I have this intelligence; That he is seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd; a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate. Cam. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note: the report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage. 4 Pol. That's likewise part of my intelligence. But, I fear the angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the place: where we will, 2 Heaping friendships, friendly offices. 3 Missingly noted, observed at intervals. 4 Angle is here used for the bait, or line and hook, that draws his son like a fish away. So in Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2:— throws out his angle for my proper life.' Hamiota is rendered a fisher with the angle' in the dictionaries. not appearing what we are, have some question with the shepherd; from whose simplicity, I think, it not uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Pr'ythee, be my present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia. Cam. I willingly obey your command. Pol. My best Camillo !-We must disguise ourselves. [Exeunt. A Road near the Shepherd's Cottage. Enter AUTOLYCUS 1, singing. When daffodils begin to peer, With, heigh! the doxy over the dale, Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale2. The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, With, hey! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!Doth set my pugging3 tooth on edge; For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. The lark, that tirra-lirra chants, With, hey! with, hey! the thrush and the jay:Are summer songs for me and my aunts*, While we lie tumbling in the hay. Autolycus was the son of Mercury, and as famous for all the arts of fraud and thievery as his father. 'Non fuit Autolyci tam peccata manus.'-Martial. See also Homer's Odyssey, book xix. 2 i. e. the red, the spring blood now reigns over the parts lately under the dominion of winter.' A pale was a division, a place set apart from another, as the English pale, the pale of the church. The words pale and red were used for the sake of the antithesis. The glow of spring reigns over the paleness of winter. 3 A puggard was a cant name for some kind of thief. In the Roaring Girl, 1611, we have Cheaters, lifters, nips, foists, puggards,' &c. Pugging is used by Greene in one of his pieces. 4 Aunt was a cant word for a bawd or trull. I have served Prince Florizel, and, in my time, wore three-pile 5; but now I am out of service: But shall I go mourn for that, my dear? If tinkers may have leave to live, My traffick is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus; who, being, as I am, littered under Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles: With die, and drab, I purchased this caparison; and my revenue is the silly cheat': Gallows, and knock, are too powerful on the highway: beating, and hanging, are terrors to me; for the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it.-A prize! a prize! Enter Clown. Clo. Let me see;-Every 'leven wether—tods3; every tod yields-pound and odd shilling: fifteen hundred shorn,—What comes the wool to? Aut. If the springe hold, the cock's mine. [Aside. 5 i. e. rich velvet, so called. See Measure for Measure, p. 9, note 3. In the fourth act of the same play a mercer is called Master Three-pile. 6 Autolycus means that his practice was to steal sheets; leaving the smaller linen to be carried away by the kites, who will sometimes carry it off to line their nests. 7 The silly cheat is one of the slang terms belonging to coney catching or thievery. It is supposed to have meant picking of pockets. 8 Every eleven sheep will produce a tod or twenty-eight pounds of wool. The price of a tod of wool was about 20 or 22s. in 1581. |
