ANT. S. Now, as I am a christian, answer me, In what safe place you have bestow'd my money; Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours,' That stands on tricks when I am undispos'd: Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me? DRO. E. I have some marks of yours upon my pate, Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders, But not a thousand marks between you both.If I should pay your worship those again, Perchance, you will not bear them patiently. ANT.S. Thy mistress' marks! what mistress, slave, hast thou? DRO. E. Your worship's wife, my mistress at the Phoenix ; She that doth fast, till you come home to dinner, And prays, that you will hie you home to dinner. ANT. S. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face, Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave. DRO. E. What mean you, sir? for God's sake, hold your hands; Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels. [Exit DRO. E. ANT. S. Upon my life, by some device or other, The villain is o'er-raught of all my money. 1 that merry sconce of yours,] Sconce is head. So, in Hamlet, Act V: "why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce ?" Again, in Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: 66 I say no more, "But 'tis within this sconce to go beyond them.” STEEVENS. o'er-raught-] That is, over-reached. JOHNSON. 3 They say, this town is full of cozenage;3 So, in Hamlet: 66 certain players "We o'er-raught on the way." Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. VI. c. iii: 3 of cozenage;] This was the They say, this town is full character the ancients give of it. was proverbial amongst them. Εφεσια γραμμαία, in the same sense. As, nimble jugglers, that deceive the eye, Dark-working sorcerers, that change the mind, Soul-killing witches, that deform the body;] Those, who attentively consider these three lines, must confess, that the poet intended the epithet given to each of these miscreants, should declare the power by which they perform their feats, and which would therefore be a just characteristick of each of them. Thus, by nimble jugglers, we are taught, that they perform their tricks by slight of hand: and by soul-killing witches, we are informed, the mischief they do is by the assistance of the devil, to whom they have given their souls: but then, by dark-working sorcerers, we are not instructed in the means by which they perform their ends. Besides, this epithet agrees as well to witches as to them; and therefore certainly our author could not design this in their characteristick. We should read: Drug-working sorcerers, that change the mind; and we know, by the history of ancient and modern superstition, that these kind of jugglers always pretended to work changes of the mind by these applications. WARBURTON. The learned commentator has endeavoured with much earnestness to recommend his alteration; but, if I may judge of other apprehensions by my own, without great success. This interpretation of soul-killing is forced and harsh. Sir T. Hanmer reads soul-selling, agreeable enough to the common opinion, but without such improvement as may justify the change. Perhaps the epithets have only been misplaced, and the lines should be read thus: Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, Soul-killing sorcerers, that change the mind, This change seems to remove all difficulties. By soul-killing I understand destroying the rational faculties by such means as make men fancy themselves beasts. JOHNSON. Dark-working sorcerers, may only mean sorcerers who carry on their operations in the dark. Thus, says Bolingbroke, in The Second Part of King Henry VI: 66 -wizards know their times: Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night," &c. Witches themselves, as well as those who employed them, were supposed to forfeit their souls by making use of a forbidden agency. In that sense they may be said to destroy the souls of others as well as their own. Hence, Sidney, in his Astrophel and Stella: "No witchcraft is so evill, as which man's minde destroyeth." The same compound epithet occurs in Christopher Middleton's Legend of Humphrey Duke of Glocester, 1600: "They charge her, that she did maintaine and feede The hint for this enumeration of cheats, &c. Shakspeare might have received from the old translation of the Menæchmi, 1595: "For this assure yourselfe, this towne Epidamnum is a place of outrageous expences, exceeding in all ryot and lasciviousnesse; and (I heare) as full of ribaulds, parasites, drunkards, catchpoles, cony-catchers, and sycophants, as it can hold: then for curtizans," &c. STEEVENS. 5 — liberties of sin:] Sir T. Hanmer reads-libertines, which, as the author has been enumerating not acts but persons, seems right. JOHNSON. By liberties of sin, I believe, Shakspeare means licensed offenders, such as mountebanks, fortune-tellers, &c. who cheat with impunity. Thus, says Ascham, "I was once in Italie myself; but I thank God my abode there was but nine daies; and yet I sawe in that little tyme in one citie (Venice) more libertie to sinne, than ever I yet heard tell of in London in nine yeare, STEEVENS, If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner. [Exit. ACT II. SCENE I. A publick Place. Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA. ADR. Neither my husband, nor the slave return'd, That in such haste I sent to seek his master! Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock. Luc. Perhaps, some merchant hath invited him, And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner. Good sister, let us dine, and never fret: A man is master of his liberty: Time is their master; and, when they see time, They'll go, or come: If so, be patient, sister. 6 ADR. Why should their liberty than ours be more? LUC. Because their business still lies out o'door. ADR. Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill." Luc. O, know, he is the bridle of your will. ill.] This word, which the rhyme seems to countenance, was furnished by the editor of the second folio. The first has-thus. MALONE. ADR. There's none, but asses, will be bridled so. Luc. Why headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.* There's nothing, situate under heaven's eye, But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky: The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls, Are their males' subject, and at their controls: 7 Adr. There's none, but asses, will be bridled so. Luc. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.] Should it not rather be leash'd, i. e. coupled like a headstrong hound? The high opinion I must necessarily entertain of the learned Lady's judgment, who furnished this observation, has taught me to be diffident of my own, which I am now to offer. The meaning of this passage may be, that those who refuse the bridle must bear the lash, and that woe is the punishment of headstrong liberty. It may be observed, however, that the seamen still use lash in the same sense as leash; as does Greene, in his Mamillia, 1593: "Thou didst counsel me to beware of love, and I was before in the lash." Again, in George Whetstone's Castle of Delight, 1576: "Yet both in lashe at length this Cressid leaves." Lace was the old English word for a cord, from which verbs have been derived very differently modelled by the chances of pronunciation. So, in Promos and Cassandra, 1578: "To thee Cassandra which dost hold my freedom in a lace." When the mariner, however, lashes his guns, the sportsman leashes his dogs, the female laces her clothes, they all perform one act of fastening with a lace or cord. Of the same original is the word windlass, or more properly windlace, an engine, by which a lace or cord is wound upon a barrel. To lace likewise signified to bestow correction with a cord, or rope's end. So, in the Second Part of Decker's Honest Whore, 1630: "Gets here hard hands, or lac'd correction." Again, in The Two Angry Women of Abingdon, 1599: "So, now my back has room to reach; I do not love to be laced in, when I go to lace a rascal." STEEVENs. I agree with the learned Lady who reads leash'd with woe. M. MASON. |