Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

BAGOT. My lord Aumerle, I know your daring

tongue

Scorns to unfay what once it hath deliver❜d.
In that dead time when Glofter's death was plotted,
I heard you fay,-Is not my arm of length,
That reacheth from the refiful English court
As far as Calais, to my uncle's head?
Amongst much other talk, that
very time,
I heard you say, that you had rather refuse
The offer of an hundred thousand crowns,
Than Bolingbroke's return to England;
Adding withal, how bleft this land would be,
In this your coufin's death..

AUM.
Princes, and noble lords,
What answer fhall I make to this base man?
Shall I fo much difhonour my fair ftars,9
On equal terms to give him chastisement?
Either I muft, or have mine honour foil'd
With the attainder of his fland'rous lips.
There is my gage, the manual feal of death,
That marks thee out for hell: I say, thou lieft,
And will maintain, what thou haft faid, is false,
In thy heart-blood, though being all too base
To ftain the temper of my knightly sword.
BOLING. Bagot, forbear, thou shalt not take it up.
AUM. Excepting one, I would he were the best
In all this prefence, that hath mov'd me fo.

9

my fair ftars,] I rather think it fhould be stem, being of the royal blood. WARBURTon.

I think the prefent reading unexceptionable. The birth is fupposed to be influenced by the Stars, therefore our author, with his ufual licence takes ftars for birth. JOHNSON.

We learn from Pliny's Natural Hiftory, that the vulgar error affigned the bright and fair ftars to the rich and great : Sidera fingulis attributa nobis, et clara divitibus, minora pauperibus," &c. Lib. I. cap. viii. ANONYMOUS.

FITZ. If that thy valour stand on sympathies,' There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine: By that fair fun that shows me where thou ftand'st, I heard thee fay, and vauntingly thou fpak'ft it, That thou wert caufe of noble Glofter's death. If thou deny'st it, twenty times thou lieft; And I will turn thy falfehood to thy heart, Where it was forged, with my rapier's point."

I

If that thy valour ftand on fympathies,] Here is a translated fense much harfher than that of stars explained in the foregoing note. Aumerle has challenged Bagot with some hesitation, as not being his equal, and therefore one whom, according to the rules. of chivalry, he was not obliged to fight, as a nobler life was not to be staked in a duel against a bafer. Fitzwater then throws down his gage, a pledge of battle; and tells him that if he stands upon fympathies, that is, upon equality of blood, the combat is now offered him by a man of rank not inferior to his own. Sympathy is an affection incident at once to two subjects. This community of affection implies a likeness or equality of nature, and thence our poet transferred the term to equality of blood. JOHNSON.

2

my rapier's point.] Shakspeare deferts the manners of the age in which this drama was placed, very often without neceffity or advantage. The edge of a fword had ferved his purpofe as well as the point of a rapier, and he had then escaped the impropriety of giving the English nobles a weapon which was not feen in England till two centuries afterwards. JOHNSON.

Mr. Ritfon cenfures this note in the following terms: "It would be well, however, though not quite fo easy, for fome learned critick to bring fome proof in support of this and fuch like affertions. Without which the authority of Shakspeare is at least equal to that of Dr. Johnson." It is probable that Dr. Johnson did not fee the neceffity of citing any authority for a fact so well known, or fufpect that any person would demand one. If an authority, however, only is wanted, perhaps the following may be deemed fufficient to justify the Doctor's obfervation : that time two other Englishmen, Sir W. Stanley, and Rowland Yorke, got an ignominious name of traytors. This Yorke, borne in London, was a man moft negligent and lazy, but desperately hardy; he was in his time moft famous among those who refpected fencing, having been the firft that brought into

66

at

AUM. Thou dar'ft not, coward, live to see that day. FITZ. Now, by my foul, I would it were this hour.

AUм. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this. PERCY. Aumerle, thou lieft; his honour is as true,

In this appeal, as thou art all unjust :

And, that thou art fo, there I throw my gage,
Το prove it on thee to the extremest point
Of mortal breathing; feize it, if thou dar'ft.
AUM. And if I do not, may my hands rot off,
And never brandifh more revengeful steel
Over the glittering helmet of my foe!

LORD. I take the earth to the like, forfworn
Aumerle; 3

England that wicked and pernicious fashion to fight in the fields in duels with a rapier called a tucke, onely for the thruft: the English having till that very time used to fight with backe Swords, fafhing and cutting one the other, armed with targets or bucklers, with very broad weapons, accounting it not to be a manly action to fight by thrusting and ftabbing, and chiefly under the wafte." Darcie's Annals of Queen Elizabeth, 4to. 1623, p. 223, fub anno, 1587.

Again, in Bulleine's Dialogue between Soarneffe and Chirurgi, fol. 1579, p. 20: "There is a new kynd of inftruments to let bloud withall, whych brynge the bloud-letter fometyme to the gallowes, because hee ftryketh to deepe. These inftruments are called the ruffins tucke, and long foining rapier: weapons more malicious than manly." REED.

3 I take the earth to the like, &c.] This speech I have restored from the first edition in humble imitation of former editors, though, I believe, against the mind of the author. For the earth I fuppofe we should read, thy oath. JOHNSON.

.

To take the earth is, at present, a fox-hunter's phrase. So, in The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, 1598:

"I'll follow him until he take the earth.”

But I know not how it can be applied here. It should feem, however, from the following paffage in Warner's Albion's Eng

And spur thee on with full as many lies

As may be holla'd in thy treacherous ear
From fun to fun :4 there is my honour's pawn;
Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.

land, 1602, B. III. c. xvi. that the expreffion is yet capable of another meaning :

"Lo here my gage, (he terr'd his glove) thou know'st the victor's meed."

To terre the glove was, I fuppofe, to dash it on the earth. We ftill fay to ground a mufquet, and to ground a bowl.

Let me add, however, in fupport of Dr. Johnson's conjecture, that the word oath, in Troilus and Creffida, quarto 1609, is corrupted in the fame manner. Inftead of the " — untraded oath," it gives "untraded earth." We might read, only changing the place of one letter, and altering another :

I task thy heart to the like,

i. e. I put thy valour to the fame trial. So, in King Henry IV. A& V. fc. ii:

"How fhow'd his tasking? feem'd it in contempt ?" The quarto, 1597, reads-tak; the fucceeding quartos, viz. 1598, 1608, and 1615, have take. STEEVENS.

Task is the reading of the first and beft quarto in 1597. In that printed in the following year the word was changed to take; but all the alterations made in the feveral editions of our author's plays in quarto, after the first, appear to have been made either arbitrarily or by negligence. (I do not mean to include copies containing new and additional matter.) I confefs I am unable to explain either reading; but I adhere to the elder, as more likely to be the true one. MALONE.

4 From fun to fun :] i. e, as I think, from fun-rise to fun-fet. So, in Cymbeline :

"Imo. How many score of miles may we well ride "Twixt hour and hour?

"Pifa. One score 'twixt fun and fun,

"Madam, 's enough for you, and too much too." "The time appointed for the duello (fays Saviolo,) hath alwaies bene 'twixt the rifing and the setting fun; and whoever in that time doth not prove his intent, can never after be admitted the combat upon that quarrel." On Honour and honourable Quarrels, 4to. 1595. This paffage fully fupports the emendation here made, and my interpretation of the words. The quartos read→ From fin to fin. The emendation, which in my apprehenfion

AUM. Who fets me elfe? by heaven, I'll throw

at all:

I have a thousand spirits in one breast,5
To answer twenty thousand fuch as you.

SURREY. My lord Fitzwater, I do remember well The very time Aumerle and you did talk.

FITZ. My lord, 'tis true: you were in presence then; And you can witness with me, this is true.

SURREY. AS falfe, by heaven, as heaven itself is true. FITZ. Surrey, thou lieft.

SURREY.

Dishonourable boy!
That lie fhall lie fo heavy on my fword,
That it fhall render vengeance and revenge,
Till thou the lie-giver, and that lie, do lie
In earth as quiet as thy father's fcull.

In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;
Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'ft.

FITZ. How fondly doft thou fpur a forward horfe!
If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,
I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,"

requires no enforcement or fupport, was propofed by Mr. Steevens, who explains these words differently. He is of opinion that they mean, from one day to another. MALONE.

However ingenious the conjecture of Mr. Steevens may be, I think the old reading the true one. From fin to fin, is from one denial to another; for those denials were feverally maintained to be lies. HENLEY.

5-1 have a thousand spirits in one breaft,] So, in King Richard III:

6

"A thousand hearts are great within my bofom."

STEEVENS. My lord, 'tis true: you were in presence then ;] The quartos omit-My lord, and read-'Tis very true, &c. The folio ferves both readings, and confequently overloads the metre.

pre

STEEVENS.

7 I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,] I dare meet him where no help can be had by me against him. So, in Macbeth:

« AnteriorContinuar »