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From fairies and the tempters of the night,

Guard me, I beseech ye.

[Sleeps.

[Iachimo rifes from the Trunk. Iach. The crickets fing, and man's o'er-labour'd fenfe

Repairs itself by reft our Tarquin thus

Did foftly prefs the rushes, e'er he waken'd
The chastity he wounded. Cytherea,

How bravely thou becom'ft thy bed! fresh lilly,
And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch,
But kifs, one kifs-Rubies unparagon'd

How dearly they do't-Tis her breathing that
Perfumes the chamber thus: the flame o'th' taper
Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids,
To fee th' inclosed light, now canopy'd
Under the windows, white and azure, lac'd
With blue of heav'ns own tinct-but my defign
To note the chamber-I will write all down:
Such and fuch pictures-there the window-fuch
Th' adornment of her bed-the arras, figures-
Why fuch, and fuch,-and the contents o'th' ftory-
Ah, but fome natural notes about her body,
Above ten thoufand meaner moveables,
Would teftify, t'enrich mine inventory.

(4) O, fleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her,
And be her fenfe but as a monument,

Thus in a chapel lying! Come off, come off.-
[Taking off ber Bracelet.
As flippery as the Gordian knot was hard.
'Tis mine, and this will witnefs outwardly,
As ftrongly as the confcience does within,
To th' madding of her lord. On her left breaft
A mole cinque fpotted, like the crimson drops
I'th' bottom of a cowflip. Here's a voucher,

(4) O fleep, &c.] So Ovid fays,

Stulte quid eft fomnus, gelidæ nifi mortis imago?

Stronger

Fool, what is fleep, but th' image of cold death?

See Measure for Measure (the Duke's fine speech to Claudio.}

.

Stronger than ever law could make this fecret

Will force him think, I have pick'd the lock, and taʼen
The treasure of her honour.

No more-to what end?

Why should I write this down, that's rivetted,

Screw'd to my memory. She hath been reading late
The tale of Tereus, here the leaf's turn'd down
Where Philomel gave up-I have enough,

To th' trunk again, and shut the spring of it.

Swift, fwift you dragons of the night, that dawning (5) May bear the raven's eye; I lodge in fear; Tho' this a heav'nly angel, hell is here.

[He goes into the Trunk, the Scene clofes

SCENE IV. Gold.

(6) 'Tis gold

Which buys admittance, oft it doth, yea, makes

Diana's

(5) May bear, &c.] Some copies read, bare, or make bare; others, ope: but the true reading is, bear, a term taken from heraldry, and very fublimely applied. The meaning is, that morning may affume the colour of the raven's eye, which is grey: hence it is so commonly called, the grey-cy'd morning; in Romeo and Juliet,

I'll fay yon grey is not the morning's eye.

Warburton.

No term in heraldry is so common as to bear, so that, doubtless, Mr. Warburton's explanation must be allowed: Shakespear ufes it in Much ado about Nothing;

"So that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, him bear it for a difference between him and his horse."

let

(6) Tis, &c.] See the 2d part of Henry IV. Act 4. Sc. 11. Virgil fays,

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Curs'd gold, how high will daring mortals rife
In every guilt to reach the glitt'ring prize?

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Diana's rangers falfe themselves, and yield up

Their deer to th' stand o'th' stealer: and 'tis gold Which makes the true man kill'd, and faves the thief; Nay, fometimes hangs both thief and true man; what Can it not do, and undo?

SCENE VII. A Satire on Women.

(7) Is there no way for men to be, but women Must be half-workers? We are baftards all;

And

Horace has an ode expreffly on this subject, That gold makes its way thro' all things: 'tis in his 3d book, and the 16th ode. Take part of it in the words of Creech;

A tower of brafs, gates ftrong and barr'd,
And watchful dogs fufpicious guard,
From creeping night-adulterers

That fought imprifon'd Danae's bed
Might have fecur'd one maidenhead,
And freed the old Acrifius from his fears.
But Jove and Venus foon betray'd
The jealous guardian of the maid:
They knew the way to take the hold,
They knew the pass muft open lie
To ev'ry hand and ev'ry eye,

When Jove himself was bribe, and turn'd to gold.
Gold loves to break thro' gates and bars

It is the thunderbolt of wars:

It flies thro' walls, and breaks away:
By gold the Argive augur fell,

It taught the children to rebel,
And made the wife her fatal lord betray.
When engines, and when arts do fail,
The golden wedge can cleave the wall:
Gold, Philip's rival, kings o'erthrew ;
Rough feaman, stubborn as the flood,
And angry feas that they have plough'd,
Bribes quickly fnare and easily subdue, &.

(7) Is there, &c.] Milton fays,

O why did God

Creator wife, that peopled highest heaven
With fpirits mafculine, create at last

And that most venerable man, which I
Did call my father, was, I know not where

This novelty on earth, this fair defect
Of nature, and not fill the world at once
With men, as angels without feminine,
Or find fome other way to generate
Mankind?

When

Par. Loft, B. 1o. W. 888.

This thought, as Dr. Neruton has well obferved, both in Shakefp.ar and Milton, "was originally from Euripides, who makes Hippolitus, in like manner, expoftulate with Jupiter, for not creating man without woman." See Hip. 616.

O Jupiter, why woman, man's fole woe,

Haft thou created? Wherefore didst thou not,
Minding to people earth, perfom thy purpose
Without this female race, this fair defect?

And Jafon is made to talk in the fame ftrain, in the Medka, 573.

Children by other means should be created,
Without the aid of women, these not born,
Man then had shunn'd variety of ills.

Dr. Newton adds, "Such fentiments as thefe, we fuppofe, procured Euripides the name of woman-hater. Arifto, however, hath ventured upon the fame, in Rodomont's invective against woman. Orlando Furiofo, Cant. 27. S. 120.

Why did not nature rather fo provide,

Without your help, that man of man might come,
And one be grafted on another's fide,

As are the apples with the pear and plumb?

Harrington, St. 97.

It would be endlefs to quote from authors, paffages fimilar to this in Shakespear: thofe of our own nation have greatly labour'd on the topic: Mr. Warburton himself hath joined the band, and fought against the ladies, as his pithy reflections on the wife of fob, in his Divine Legation, fhew: however, we ftill find them retaining their power in spite of all the malice of their foes, and amidft fo many enemies ftill triumphaat.

The manner in which the jealous Pofthumus defcribes the anparent modesty of his wife, deferves to be compared with the following paffage from Philafter, who having received a letter to inform him of the falfhood of his mistress,whom he dearly loved and believed perfectly chafte, fays;

10, let

When I was stampt. Some coiner with his tools.
Made me a counterfeit; yet my mother feem'd
The Dian of that time; fo doth my wife

The nonpareil of thisOh, vengeance, vengeance!
Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd,

And pray'd me oft forbearance; did it with

A pudency fo rofy, the sweet view on't

Might well have warm'd old Saturn-that I thought her As chafte as unfunn'd fnow.

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part in me;-for there's no motion

O, let all women,

That love black deeds learn to diffemble here!
Here by this paper fhe doth write to me,
As if her heart were mines of adamant
To all the world befide: but unto me,

A maiden fnow that melted with my looks.

That

See Philafter, A&. 3.

A little further in the same act, he thus declaims against the sex.

Some far place,

Where never womankind durft fet her foot,

For bursting with her poifons, must I seek,

And live to curfe you :

There dig a cave and preach to birds and beasts,

What woman is, and help to fave them from you:

How heav'n is in your eyes, but, in your hearts

More hell, than hell has: how your tongues like scor

pions,

Both heal and poifon; how your thoughts are woven

With thousand changes in on fubtle web,

And worn fo by you. How that foolish man,
That reads the ftory of a woman's face,
And dies believing it, is loft for ever.
How all the good you have is but a fhadow,
I'th' morning with you, and at night behind you
Paft and forgotten: how your vows are frofts,
Laft for a night, and with the next fun gone :
How you are, being taken all together,
A mere confufion, and fo dead a chaos,
That love cannot diftinguish. These fad texts,
Till my laft hour I'm bound to utter of you,
So, farewel all my woe, all my delight.

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