I SOLD. Manka revania dulche. I LORD. O, pray, pray, pray. Ofcorbi dulchos volivorco. PAR. I SOLD. But wilt thou faithfully? PAR. If I do not, damn me. I SOLD. Acordo linta. Come on, thou art granted space. [Exit, with PAROLLES guarded. I LORD. Go, tell the count Roufillon and my brother, We have caught the woodcock, and will keep him muffled, Till we do hear from them. 2 SOLD Captain, I will. I LORD. He will betray us all unto ourselves;Inform 'em" that. I LORD. Till then, I'll keep him dark, and safely lock'd. [Exeunt. Inform 'em-] Old copy-Inform on. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. SCENE II. Florence. A Room in the Widow's Houfe. Enter BERTRAM and DIANA. BER. They told me, that your name was Fontibell. DIA. No, my good lord, Diana. BER. Titled goddefs; And worth it, with addition! But, fair foul, In your fine frame hath love no quality? If the quick fire of youth light not your mind, You are no maiden, but a monument: When you are dead, you should be fuch a one As you are now, for you are cold and ftern;" And now you should be as your mother was, When your fweet felf was got. DIA. She then was honeft. BER. DIA. 7 So fhould you be. My mother did but duty; such, my lord, BER. No more of that! I pr'ythee, do not strive against my vows: 8 7 You are no maiden, but a monument: No: - for you are cold and ftern;] Our author had here probably in his thoughts fome of the ftern monumental figures with which many churches in England were furnished by the rude sculptors of his own time. He has again the fame allufion in Cymbeline: "And be her fenfe but as a monument, "Thus in a chapel lying." MALONE. I believe, the epithet ftern, refers only to the feverity often impreffed by death on features which, in their animated state, were of a placid turn. STEEVENS. No more of that! I pr'ythee, do not firive against my vows: I was compell'd to her;] Against his vows, I believe, means— By love's own fweet constraint, and will for ever Do thee all rights of service. DIA. Ay, fo you ferve us, Till we ferve you: but when you have our roses, You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves, And mock us with our bareness. BER. How have I fworn? DIA. 'Tis not the many oaths, that make the truth; But the plain fingle vow, that is vow'd true. What is not holy, that we fwear not by,' But take the Higheft to witness: Then, pray you, tell me, If I fhould fwear by Jove's great attributes,2 against his determined refolution never to cohabit with Helena; and this vow, or refolution, he had very ftrongly expressed in his letter to the countefs. STEEVENS. So, in Vittoria Corombona, a tragedy by Webfter, 1612: "Henceforth I'll never lie with thee, My vow is fix'd." MALONE. 9 What is not holy, that we fwear not by,] The fense is,—We never fwear by what is not holy, but swear by, or take to witness, the Higheft, the Divinity. The tenor of the reafoning contained in the following lines perfectly correfponds with this: If I should fwear by Jove's great attributes, that I lov'd you dearly, would you believe my oaths, when you found by experience that I loved you ill, and was endeavouring to gain credit with you in order to feduce you to your ruin? No, furely; but you would conclude that I had no faith either in Jove or his attributes, and that my oaths were mere words of course. For that oath can certainly have no tie upon us, which we fwear by him we profefs to love and honour, when at the fame time we give the ftrongest proof of our disbelief in him, by pursuing a courfe which we know will offend and dishonour him. НЕАТН. 2 If I should fwear by Jove's great attributes,] In the print of the old folio, it is doubtful whether it be Jove's or Love's, the characters being not diftinguishable. If it is read Love's, perhaps it may be fomething lefs difficult. I am ftill at a lofs. JOHNSON. To fwear by him whom I protest to love, That I will work against him: Therefore, your oaths BER. Change it, change it; Be not fo holy-cruel: love is holy; And my integrity ne'er knew the crafts, That you do charge men with: Stand no more off, But give thyself unto my fick defires, Who then recover: fay, thou art mine, and ever My love, as it begins, shall so perféver. DIA. I fee, that men make hopes, in fuch affairs, That we'll forfake ourselves. Give me that ring. 3 To fwear by him whom I proteft to love, &c.] This paffage likewife appears to me corrupt. She fwears not by him whom the loves, but by Jupiter. I believe we may read-To fwear to him. There is, fays fhe, no holding, no confiftency, in fwearing to one that I love him, when I fwear it only to injure him. JOHNSON. This appears to me a very probable conjecture. Mr. Heath's explanation, which refers the words " whom I proteft to love"to Jove, can hardly be right. Let the reader judge. MALONE. 41 fee, that men make hopes in fuch affairs,] The four folio editions read: make rope's in fuch a fcatre. The emendation was introduced by Mr. Rowe. I find the word fearre in The Tragedy of Hoffman, 1631; but do not readily perceive how it can fuit the purpofe of the prefent fpeaker: "I know a cave, wherein the bright day's eye, "Look'd never but afcance, through a small creeke, “There have I sometimes liv'd," &c. "Where is the villain's body? Again: "Marry, even heaved over the fearr, and fent a fwimming," &c. Again: "Run up to the top of the dreadful scarre.” Again: "I ftood upon the top of the high scarre,” BER. I'll lend it thee, my dear, but have no power To give it from me. DIA. Will you not, my lord? Ray fays, that a fearre is a cliff of a rock, or a naked rock on the dry land, from the Saxon carre, cautes. He adds, that this word gave denomination to the town of Scarborough. STEEVENS. I fee, that men make hopes, in fuch a scene, That we'll forfake ourselves.] i. e. I perceive that while our lovers are making profeffions of love, and acting their affumed parts in this kind of amorous interlude, they entertain hopes that we shall be betrayed by our paffions to yield to their defires. So, in Much ado about Nothing: "The fport will be, when they hold an opinion of one another's dotage, and no fuch matter,-that's the scene that I would fee," &c. Again, in The Winter's Tale: 66 -It fhall be fo my care "To have you royally appointed, as if The old copy I fee, that men make ropes in such a scarre, &c. which Mr. Rowe altered to-make hopes in fuch affairs; and all the fubfequent editors adopted his correction. It being entirely arbitrary, any emendation that is nearer to the traces of the unintelligible word in the old copy, and affords at the fame time an easy fenfe, is better entitled to a place in the text. A corrupted paffage in the firft sketch of The Merry Wives of Windsor, fuggefted to me [fcene,] the emendation now introduced. In the fifth Act Fenton defcribes to the hoft his scheme for marrying Anne Page: And in a robe of white this night disguised "Wherein fat Falstaff had [r. hath] a mighty scare, "Muft Slender take her," &c. It is manifeft from the correfponding lines in the folio, that feare was printed by mistake for fcene; for in the folio the passage runsfat Falftaff 66 "Hath a great fcene." MALONE. Mr. Rowe's emendation is not only liable to objection from its diffimilarity to the reading of the four folios, but alfo from the aukwardness of his language, where the literal refemblance is most, like the words, rejected. In fuch affairs, is a phrafe too vague for Shakspeare, when a determined point, to which the preceding converfation had been gradually narrowing, was in question; and to MAKE hopes, is as uncouth an expreffion as can well be imagined, |