HEL. Then fhalt thou give me, with thy kingly hand, What husband in thy power I will command: To choose from forth the royal blood of France; KING. Here is my hand; the premises obferv'd, More fhould I question thee, and more I must; Though, more to know, could not be more to trust; From whence thou cam'ft, how tended on,-But reft Unqueftion'd welcome, and undoubted bleft. meant to equivocate with her. Befides, obferve, the greatest part of the fcene is ftrictly in rhyme: and there is no fhadow of reafon why it should be interrupted here. I rather imagine the poet wrote: Ay, by my fceptre, and my hopes of heaven. THIRLBY. 4 With any branch or image of thy ftate:] Shakspeare unqueftionably wrote impage, grafting. Impe, a graff, or flip, or fucker: by which the means one of the fons of France, Caxton calls our Prince Arthur, that noble impe of fame. WARBURTON. Image is furely the true reading, and may mean any reprefentative of thine; i. e. any one who resembles you as being related to your family, or as a prince reflects any part of your ftate and majefty. There is no fuch word as impage; and, as Mr. M. Mafon obferves, were fuch a one coined, it would mean nothing but the art of grafting. Mr. Henley adds, that branch refers to the collateral defcendants of the royal blood, and image to the direct and immediate line. STEEVENS. Our author again ufes the word image in the fame sense as here, in his Rape of Lucrece: "O, from thy cheeks my image thou haft torn." MALONE. Give me fome help here, ho!-If thou proceed [Flourib. Exeunt. SCENE II. Roufillon. A Room in the Countefs's Palace. Enter Countefs and Clown. COUNT. Come on, fir; I fhall now put you to the height of your breeding. CLO. I will fhow myfelf highly fed, and lowly taught: I know my business is but to the court. COUNT. To the court! why, what place make you fpecial, when you put off that with fuch contempt? But to the court! CLO. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may eafily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off's cap, kifs his hand, and fay nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and, indeed, fuch a fellow, to fay precisely, were not for the court: but, for me, I have an anfwer will ferve all men. COUNT. Marry, that's a bountiful anfwer, that fits all questions. CLO. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks; the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock. 5 It is like a barber's chair, &c.] This expreffion is proverbial. See Ray's Proverbs. So, in More Fooles Yet, by R. S. a collection of Epigrams. 4to. 1610: COUNT. Will your answer serve fit to all queftions? CLO. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffata punk, as Tib's rufh for Tom's fore-finger," as 6 "Moreover fattin futes he doth compare "As for a knight or worthy gentleman." STEEVENs. Tib's rufh for Tom's fore-finger,] Tom is the man, and by Tib we are to understand the woman, and therefore, more properly we might read-Tom's rush for, &c. The allufion is to an ancient practice of marrying with a rufh ring, as well in other countries as in England. Breval, in his Antiquities of Paris, mentions it as a kind of efpoufal ufed in France, by fuch perfons as meant to live together in a state of concubinage: but in England it was scarce ever practifed except by defigning men, for the purpose of corrupting those young women to whom they pretended love. Richard Poore, bishop of Salisbury, in his Conftitutions, anni, 1217, forbids the putting of rush rings, or any the like matter, on women's fingers, in order to the debauching them more readily: and he infinuates as the reafon of the prohibition, that there were fome people weak enough to believe, that what was thus done in jeft, was a real marriage. But notwithstanding this cenfure on it, the practice was not abolithed; for it is alluded to in a fong in a play written by fir William D'Avenant, called The Rivals: "I'll crown thee with a garland of ftraw then, "And I'll marry thee with a rush ring." which fong, by the way, was firft fung by Mifs Davis; she acted the part of Celania in the play; and King Charles II. upon hearing it, was fo pleafed with her voice and action, that he took her from the stage, and made her his mistress. Again, in the fong called The Winchester Wedding, in D'Urfey's Pills to purge Melancholy, Vol. I. p. 276: "Pert Strephon was kind to Betty, "And blithe as a bird in the spring; "And Tommy was fo to Katy, And wedded her with a rush ring." SIR J. HAWKINS. Tib and Tom, in plain English, I believe, ftand for wanton and rogue. So, in Churchyard's Choife: "Tufhe, that's a toye; let Tomkin talke of Tibb." a pancake for Shrove-tuesday, a morris for Mayday, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a fcolding quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin. Again, in the Queenes Majefties Entertainment in Suffolk and Norfolk, &c. by Tho. Churchyard, 4to. no date: Cupid. "And doth not Jove and Mars bear sway? Tufh, that is true." Philofopher. "Then put in Tom and Tibbe, and all beares fway as much as you." STEEVENS. An anonymous writer, [Mr. Ritfon,] with fome probability, fuppofes that this is one of thofe covert allufions in which Shakspeare frequently indulges himself. The following lines of Cleiveland on an Hermaphrodite feem to countenance the fuppofition: 66 Nay, thofe which modefty can mean, "But dare not fpeak, are Epicene. "That gamefter needs must overcome, "That can play both with Tib and Tom." Sir John Hawkins would read-" as Tom's rush for Tib's forefinger." But if this were the author's meaning, it would be necef fary to alter ftill farther, and to read-As Tom's rush for Tib's fourth finger. MALONE. At the game of Gleek, the ace was called Tib, and the knave Tom; and this is the proper explanation of the lines cited from Cleiveland. The practice of marrying with a rub ring mentioned by Sir John Hawkins is very questionable, and it might be difficult to find any authority in fupport of this opinion. DouCE. Sir John Hawkins's alteration is unneceffary. It was the practice in former times for the woman to give the man a ring as well as for the man to give her one. So, in the laft fcene of Twelfth Night, the priest giving an account of Olivia's marriage, fays, it was "Attefted by the holy clofe of lips, "Strengthen'd by enterchangement of your rings." M. MASON. I believe what many of us have afferted refpecting the exchange of rings in the marriage ceremony, is only true of the marriage contract, in which fuch a practice undoubtedly prevailed. STEEVENS. COUNT. Have you, I fay, an anfwer of fuch fitnefs for all queftions? CLO. From below your duke, to beneath your conftable, it will fit any question. COUNT. It must be an answer of moft monstrous fize, that must fit all demands. CLO. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned fhould speak truth of it: here it is, and all that belongs to't: Afk me, if I am a courtier; it shall do you no harm to learn. COUNT. To be young again,' if we could:-I will be a fool in question, hoping to be the wifer by your answer. I pray you, fir, are you a courtier? CLO. O Lord, fir,There's a fimple putting off;-more, more, a hundred of them. COUNT. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you. CLO. O Lord, fir,-Thick, thick, fpare not me. COUNT. I think, fir, you can eat none of this homely meat. CLO. O Lord, fir,-Nay, put me to't, I warrant you. COUNT. You were lately whipp'd, fir, I think. CLO. O Lord, fir,-Spare not me. 7 To be young again,] The lady cenfures her own levity in trifling with her jester, as a ridiculous attempt to return back to youth. JOHNSON. 8 O Lord, fir,] A ridicule on that foolish expletive of speech then in vogue at court. WARBURTON. Thus Clove and Orange, in Every Man out of his Humour : "You conceive me, fir?-O Lord, fir!" Cleiveland, in one of his fongs, makes his Gentleman"Anfwer, O Lord, fir! and talk play-book oaths.” FARMER. |