I come to tender it, and my appliance, 01 With all bound humbleness. How King. We thank you, maiden; But may not be so credulous of eure,When our most learned doctors leave us; and The congregated college have concluded bon That labouring art can never ransome nature From her inaidable estate, I say we must not So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope, To prostitute our past-cure malady To empirics; or to dissever so Our great self and our credit, to esteem A senseless help, when help past sense we deem. Hel. My duty then shall pay me for my pains: I will no more enforce mine office on you; Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts A A modest one, to bear me back again. King. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful: Thou thoughtst to help me; and such thanks I give, As one near death to those that wish him live; But, what at full I know, thou know'st no part; I knowing all my peril, thou no art. Hel. What I can do, can do no hurt to try, Since you set up your rest22 'gainst remedy: He that of greatest works is finisher, două Oft does them by the weakest minister: a 22 i. e. 'Since you have determined or made up your mind that there is no remedy. Set up your rest is a metaphorical expression derived from the game of Primero, at which it seems to have meant to stand upon the cards one held in his hand. This word furnished many other proverbial expressions Italians, one of which is to be found in the Cirillo Calango be Luca Pulci. Fa del suo resto, to adventure all. Haver fatto del resto, to have lost all, or to have nothing to rest upon. 'Riserbar il resto, to reserve one's rest, to be wary and circumspect, &c. &c. All authorities are decisive upon the derivation of this term from Primero, as Mr. Nares has amply shown. So says Minshew, Torriano, and Florio, who is worth quoting: 'Restare, to rest, &c. Also to set up one's rest, to make a rest, or play upon one's rest at Primero. In Spanish too Echar el resto, to set or lay up one's rest, has the same origin and figurative meaning; to adventure all, to be determined. We shall now, it is to be hoped, hear no more of musket rests, &c. in explanation of this phrase. So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown, When judges have been babes23. Great floods have flown From simple sources24; and great seas have dried, Thy pains, not us'd, must by thyself be paid: As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows: The help of heaven we count the act of men.› ⠀ But know I think, and think I know most sure, Hel. The greatest grace lending grace27, Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring; Ere twice in murk and occidental damp 23 An allusion to Daniel judging the two Elders. 24 i. c. when Moees smote the rock in Horeb. 25 This must refer to the children of Israel passing the Red Sea, when miracles had been denied by Pharaoh. Á 26 I am not an impostor that proclaim one thing and design another, that proclaim a cure and aim at a fraud. I think what I speak. 27. e. the divine grace, lending me grace or power to accomplish it. So in Macbeth: at the conclusion we have the grace of grace. What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly, Health shall live free, and sickness freely die. King. Upon thy certainty and confidence, What dar'st thou venture? Hel. Tax of impudence, A strumpet's-boldness, a divulged shame, Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name Sear'd otherwise; ne worse of worst extended, With vilest torture let my life be ended28. King. Methinks, in thee some blessed spirit doth speak; His powerful sound, within an organ weak: In common sense, sense saves another way. And well deserved: Not helping, death's my fee; Hel. But will you make it even? 28 Let me be stigmatized as a strumpet, and, in addition (although that would not be worse, or a more extended evil than what I have mentioned, the loss of my honour, which is the worst that could happen), let me die with torture. Ne is nor. 29 i. e. may be counted among the gifts enjoyed by thee. 30 Prime here signifies that sprightly vigour which usually aecompanies us in the prime of life; which old Montaigne calls, cet estat plein de verdeur et de feste, and which Florio translates, 'that state, full of lust, of prime, and mirth. So in Hamlet"A violet in the youth of primy nature.' 31 Property seems to be used here for performance or achieve ment, singular as it may seem. So in Hamlet, Horatio says of the Grave-digger : "Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.' King. Ay, by my sceptre, and my hopes of heaven32. Hel. Then shalt 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 observ'd, SCENE II. Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace. Enter r Countess and Clown. Count. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding. 32 The old copy reads 'hopes of help. The emendation is Thirlby's, Warburton pro 33 The old copy reads 'image of thy state." posed impage, which Steevens rejects, saying unadvisedly there is no such word,' It is evident that Shakspeare formed it from 'an impe, a scion, or young slip of a tree.' To impe and imping were also in use, as was the whole verb among our ancestors. The context evidently requires a word of this import. The word propagate, in its old sense of increasing by grafting cuttings from an old stock, would never have been so incongruously followed as by image. Shakspeare beautifully alludes to this art in the following passage of the Winter's Tale: You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock Clo. I will show myself highly fed, and lowly taught: I know my business is but to the court. Count. To the court! why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court! Clo. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put it off at court: he that cannot make a leg, put off's cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and, indeed, such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the court: but, for me, I have an answer will serve all men. Count. Marry, that's a bountiful answer, 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. Count. Will your answer serve fit to all questions? Clo. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffata punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's fore-finger2, as a pancake for Shrove-tuesday, a morris for May-day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin. say, an answer Count. Have you, I ness for all questions? r of such fit Clo. From below your duke, to beneath your constable, it will fit any question. Count. It must be an answer of most monstrous size, that must fit all demands. Clo. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the 1 This is a common proverbial expression. 2 Tom and Tibb were apparently common names for a lad and lass, the rush ring seems to have been a kind of love-token, for plighting of troth among rustic lovers. In Green's Menaphon the custom is alluded to, Well, 'twas a goodly worlde when such simplicitie was used, sayes the olde women of our time, when a ring of rush would tie as much love together as a gimmon (gimmal) of golde. The inuendo here is but too obvious. |