LEON. Too hot, too hot: [Afide. To mingle friendship far, is mingling bloods. MAM. Ay, my good lord. I'fecks? 3 LEON. Why, that's my bawcock. 4 What, haft fmutch'd thy nofe? 9 - from bounty, fertile bofom,] I fuppofe that a letter dropped out at the prefs, and would read from bounty's fertile bosom. MALONE. By fertile bofom, I fuppofe, is meant a bofom like that of the earth, which yields a spontaneous produce. In the fame ftrain is the address of Timon of Athens: "Thou comnon mother, thou, "Teems and feeds all!" STEEVENS. The mort o'the deer; ] A leffon upon the horn at the death of the deer. THEOBALD. So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608: "6 — . He that bloweth the mort before the death of the buck, may very well mifs of his fees." Again, in the oldeft copy of Chevy Chafe: 3 "The blewe a mort uppone the bent." STEEVENS. Ifecks?] A fuppofed corruption of-in faith. vulgar pronounce it-fegs. STEEVENS. Our prefent It Why, that's my bawcock. Perhaps from beau and coq. is ftill faid in vulgar language that fuch a one is a jolly cock, a cock of the game. The word has already occurred in Twelfth Night, and is one of the titles by which Piftol fpeaks of K. Henry the Fifth. STEEVENS. They fay, it's a copy out of mine. Come, captain, We must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain: And yet the fteer, the heifer, and the calf, Are all call'd, neat. Still virginalling - 6 [Obferving POLIXENES and HERMIONE. Upon his palm? Art thou my calf? How now, you wanton calf? Yes, if you will, my lord. LEON. Thou want'ft a rough pash, and the shoots that I have,' We must be neat;] Leontes, feeing his fon's nose smutch'd; cries, we must be neat; then recollecting that neat is the ancient term for horned cattle, he fays, not neat, but cleanly. JOHNSON So, in Drayton's Polyolbion, fong 3: "His large provifion there of flesh, of fowl, of neat." STEEVENS. Still virginalling-] Still playing with her fingers, as a girl playing on the virginals. JOHNSON. A virginal, as I am informed, is a very small kind of spinnet. Queen Elizabeth's virginal-book is yet in being, and many of the leffons in it have proved fo difficult, as to baffle our most expert players on the harpsichord. So, in Decker's Satiro-maflix, or the Untruffing of the Humorous, Poet, 1602: "When we have husbands, we play upon them like virginal jacks, they must rife and fall to our humours, or else they'll never get any good trains of mufick out of one of us." Again, in Ram-alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: "Where be thefe rafcals that skip and down A virginal was ftrung like a spinnet, and shaped, like a piano forte. MALONE. 7 Thou want a rough pash, and the shoots that I have, ] Pafh (fays Sir T. Hanmer) is 'kifs. Paz. Spanish, i. e. thou want'ft a mouth made rough by a beard, to kifs with. Shoots are branches, i. e. horns. Leontes is alluding to the enfigns of cuckoldom. brain'd boy is, however, call'd a mad pash in Cheshire. A mad STEEVENS. Thou want'ft a rough pafh, and the hoots that I have, in connection with the context, fignifies--to make thee a calf thou must 8 To be full like me: -yet, they fay, we are That will fay any thing: But were they falle have the tuft on thy forehead and the young horns that shoot up in it, as I have. Leontes afks the Prince : How now, you wanton calf! Art thou my calf? Mam. Yes, if you will, my lord. Leao. Thou want'ft a rough pash, and the shoots that I have, To be full like me. To pah fignifies to push or dash against, and frequently occurs in old writers. Thus Drayton : They either poles their heads together pafht. Again, in How to choose a good Wife from a bad, 1602. 4to: learn pash and knock, aud beat and mall, "Cleave pates and caputs." 66 When in Cheshire a pash is used for a mad-brained boy, it is defigned to characterize him from the wantonnefs of a calf that blunders on, and runs his head against any thing. HENLEY. And again (as Mr. Henley on another occafion obferves) in the Virgin Martyr: when the battering ram "Were fetching his career backward to pash STEEVENS. I have lately learned that pah in Scotland fignifies a head. The old reading therefore may ftand. Many words, that are now used only in that country, were perhaps once common to the whole ifland of Great Britain, or at leaft to the northern part of England. The meaning therefore of the prefent paffage, I fuppofe, is this. You tell me (fays Leontes to his fon) that you are like me; that you are my calf. I am the horned bull thou wanteft the rough head and the horns of that animal, completely to refemble your father. MALONE. • To be full like me: ] Full is here as in other places, used by our author, adverbially; to be entirely like me. As o'er-died blacks, ] Sir T. too much, and therefore rotten. MALONE. Hanmer understands blacks died 2 As dice are to be wifh'd, by one that fixes Affection! thy intention ftabs the center: 5 It is common with tradefmen to die their faded or damaged fluffs, black. O'er died blacks may mean those which have received a die over their former colour. There is a paffage in The old Law of Maffinger, which might lead us to offer another interpretation: Blacks are often fuch diffembling mourners, "There is no credit given to't, it has loft "All reputation by falfe fons and widows: 66 I would not hear of blacks." It feems that blacks was the common term for mourning. So, in A Mad World my Mafters, 1608: in fo many blacks "I'll have the church hung round". Black, however, will receive no other hue without difcovering itfelf through it. "Lanarum nigræ nullum colorem bibunt.” Plin. Nat. Hift. Lib. VIII. STEEVENS. The following paffage in a book which our author had certainly read, inclines me to believe that the laft is the true interpretation. Truly (quoth Camillo) my wool was blacke, and therefore it could take no other colour." Lyly's Euphues and his England, 4to. 1580. 3 No bourn] Bourn is boundary. So, in Hamlet: * MALONE. welkin-eye:] Blue-eye; an eye of the fame colour with the welkin, or fky. JOHNSON. 4 my collop!] So, in The First Part of K. Henry VI: "God knows, thou art a collop of my flesh." STEEVENS. 5 Affection! thy intention flabs the center:] Inftead of this line, which I find in the folio, the modern editors have introduced another of no authority: Imagination! thou doft flab to the center. Mr. Rowe first made the exchange. I am not fure that I un Thou doft make poffible, things not fo held," be?) (How can this With what's unreal thou coactive art, And fellow't nothing: Then, 'tis very credent,' ́ And hardening of my brows. POL. HER. He fomething feems derftand the reading I have reftored. What means Sicilia ? unfettled. Affection, however, I believe, figuifies imagination. Thus, in The Merchant of Venice: 66 affection, "Miftrefs of paffion, Tways it," &c. i. e. imagination governs our paffions. Intention is, as Mr. Locke expreffes it, "when the mind with great earneftnefs, and of choice, fixes its view on any idea, confiders it on every fide, and will not be called off by the ordinary follicitation of other ideas. This vehemence of the mind feems to be what affects Leonies fo deeply, or, in Shakspeare's language,—ftabs him to the center. STEEVENS. Intention, in this paffage, means eagerness of attention, or of defire; and is ufed in the fame fenfe in The Merry Wives of Windfor, where Falflaff fays" She did fo courfe o'er my exteriors, with fuch a greedy intention,' &c. M. MASON. I think, with Mr. Steevens, that affection means here imagination, or perba more accurately, the difpofition of the mind when Atrongly affected or poffeffed by a particular idea And in a kindred fenfe at least to this, it is ufed in the paffage quoted from The Merchant of Venice. MALONE. Thou doft make poffible, things not fo held, ] i. e. thou doft make thofe things poffible, which are conceived to be impoffible. JOHNSON. To exprefs the fpeaker's meaning, it is neceffary to make a fhort paufe after the word poffible. I have therefore put a comma there, though perhaps in ftri&tnefs it is improper. MALONE. 7 credent,] i. e. credible. A& V. fc. v: So, in Meafure for Measure, "For my authority bears a credent bulk." STEEVENS. |