Are you so fond of your young prince, as we
Do seem to be of ours?
Pol.

If at home, sir,
He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter:
Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy;
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all:
He makes a July's day short as December;
And, with his varying childness, cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood.
Leon.

So stands this squire
Offic'd with me; We two will walk, my lord,
And leave you to your graver steps.-Herinione,
How thou lov'st us, show in our brother's welcome;
Let what is dear in Sicily, be cheap:
Next to thyself, and my young rover, he's
Apparents to my heart.
Her.

If you would seek us, We are yours i' the garden: Shall's attend you

there? Leon. To your own bents dispose you: you'll be found, Be you

beneath the sky:-I am angling now, Though you perceive me not how I give line. Go to, go to! [Aside. Observing Pol. and HER: How she holds up the neb,6 the bill to him! And arms her with the boldness of a wife To her allowing husband !? Gone already; Inch-thick, knee-deep; o'er head and ears a fork'd

[Exeunt PoL. HER. and Attendants.

one.

6

See p. 39, n. 9. Steevens.

The alms immemorially given to the poor by the Archbishops of Canterbury, is still called the dole. See The History of Lambeth Palace, p. 31, in Bibl. Top. Brit. Nichols. 5 Apparent - ] That is, heir apparent, or the next claimant.

Johnson. the neb,] The word is commonly pronounced and written nib. It signifies here the mouth. So, in Anne the Queen of Hungarie, being one of the Tales in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, 1566:

- the amorous wormes of love did bitterly gnawe and teare his heart wyth the nebs of their forked heads." Steevens.

7 To her allowing husband!] Allowing in old language is approve ing. Malone.

a fork'd one.] That is, a horned one; a cuckold. Johnson. So, in Othello:

“Even then this forked plagne is fated to us,
“When we do quicken." Malone.

8

Go, play, boy, play ;-thy mother plays, and I
Play too; but so disgrac'd a part, whose issue
Will hiss me to my grave; contempt and clamour
Will be my knell.-Go, play, boy, play ;-There have

been,
Or I am much deceiv’d, cuckolds ere now;
And many a man there is, even at this present,
Now, while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm,
That little thinks she has been sluic'd in his absence,
And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, 1 by
Sir Smile, his neighbour: nay, there's comfort in 't,
Whiles other men have gates; and those gates open’d,
As mine, against their will: Should all despair,
That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
Would hang themselves. Physick for 't there is none;
It is a bawdy planet, that will strike
Where 'tis predominant; and ’tis powerful, think it,
From east, west, north, and south: Be it concluded,
No barricado for a belly; know it;
It will let in and out the enemy,
With bag and baggage: many a thousand of us
Have the disease, and feel 't not.-How now, boy?

Mam. I am like you, they say.?
Leon.

Why, that's some comfort.-What! Camillo there?

Cam. Ay, my good lord.
Leon. Go play, Mamillius; thou ’rt an honest man.-

[Erit MAM. Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.

9

even at this present,] i.e. present time. So, in Macbeth: “ Thy letters have transported me beyond

“ This ignorant present;”. See note on this passage; Act I, sc. v. Steevens.

1 And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour,] This metaphor perhaps owed its introduction and currency, to the once frequent depredations of neighbours on each others, fish, a complaint that often occurs in ancient correspondence. Thus, in one of the Paston Letters, Vol. IV, p. 15 : “ My mother bade me send you word that Waryn Herman hath daily fished her water all this year.” Steevens.

- they say.] They, which was omitted in the original copy by the carelessness of the transcriber or printer, was added by the editor of the second folio. Malone.

2

Cam. You had much ado to make his anchor hold:
When you cast out, it still came home.3
Leon.

Didst note it?
Cam. He would not stay at your petitions; made
His business more material. 4
Leon.

Didst perceive it?They're here with me already;5 whispering, rounding, Sicilia is a 80-forth:7 'Tis far gone,

3

4

- it still came home.) This is a sea.faring expression, meaning, the anchor would not take hold. Steevens.

— made His business more material.] i.e. the more you requested him to stay, the more urgent he represented that business to be which summoned him away. Steevens.

5 They're here with me already;) Not Polixenes and Hermione, but casual observers, people accidentally present. Thirlby.

6 — whispering, rounding,) To round in the ear, is to whisper, or to tell secretly. The expression is very copiously explained by M. Casaubon, in his book de Ling. Sax. Fohnson.

The word is frequently used by Chaucer, as well as later wri. ters. So, in Lingua, 1607: “I helped Herodotus to pen some part of his Muses ; lent Pliny ink to write his history; and rounded Rabelais in the ear, when he historified Pantagruel.” Again, in The Spanish Tragedy:

“Forthwith revenge she rounded me i' th' ear.” Steevens. ? Sicilia is a so-forth:] This was a phrase employed when the speaker, through caution or disgust, wished to escape the utter. ance of an obnoxious term. A commentator on Shakspeare will often derive more advantage from listening to vulgar than to po. lite conversation. At the corner of Fleet Market, I lately heard one woman, describing another, say—“Every body knows that her husband is a so-forth.” As she spoke the last word, her fin. gers expressed the emblem of cuckoldom. Mr. Malone readsSicilia is a-so-forth. Steevens.

In regulating this line, I have adopted a hint suggested by Mr. M. Mason. I have more than once observed, that almost every abrupt sentence in these plays is corrupted. These words without the break now introduced, are to me unintelligible. Leontes means I think I already hear my courtiers whispering to each other, “Sicilia is a cuckold, a tame cuckold, to which (says he) they will add every other opprobrious name and epithet they can think of;" for such, I suppose, the meaning of the words-50forth. He avoids naming the word cuckold, from a horror of the very sound. I suspect, however, that our author wrote-Sicilia is-and so forth. So, in The Merchant of Venice: “I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following."

When I shall gust it last. —How came 't, Camillo,
That he did stay?
Cam.

At the good queen's entreaty.
Leon. At the queen's, be 't: good, should be pertinent:
But so it is, it is not. Was this taken
By any understanding pate but thine?
For thy conceit is soaking,' will draw in
More than the common blocks:- Not noted, is 't,
But of the finer natures? by some severals,
Of head-piece extraordinary lower messes,

8

9

1

Again, in Hamlet:

" I saw him enter such a house of sale,

“ (Videlicet, a brothel) or so forth.” Again, more appositely, in King Henry IV, P. II:

with a dish of carraways, AND so forth.” Again, in Troilus and Cressida: “Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, AND so forth, the spice and salt that season a man?" Malone.

gust it -] i. e. taste it. Steevens.
“ Dedecus ille domus sciet ultimus.” Juv. Sat. X.

Malone. is soaking,] Dr. Grey would read-in soaking; but I think without necessity. Thy conceit is of an absorbent nature, will draw in more, &c. seems to be the meaning. Steevens.

lower messes,] I believe, lower messes is only used as an expression to signify the lowest degree about the court. See Anstis. Ord. Gart. 1, App. p. 15: “The earl of Surry began the borde in presence: the earl of Arundel washed with him, and sat both at the first messe.

." Formerly not only at every great man's table the visitants were placed according to their consequence or dignity; but with additional marks of inferiority, viz. of sitting below the great saltseller placed in the centre of the table, and of having coarser provisions set before them. The former custom is mentioned in The Honest Whore, by Decker, 1604: “Plague bim; set him beneath the salt, and let him not touch a bit till every one has had his full cut. The latter was as much a sub. ject of complaint in the time of Beaumont and Fletcher, as in that. of Juvenal, as the following instance may prove:

“Uncut up pies at the nether end, filled with moss and stones,
“ Partly to make a sbew with,
“And partly to keep the lower mess from eating.”

Woman Hater, Act I, sc. ii. This passage may be yet somewhat differently explained. It appears from a passage in The merye Fest of a Man called Howle. glas, bl. 1. no date, that it was anciently the custom in publick houses to keep ordinaries of different prices: " What table will you be at? for at the lordes table thei give me no less than to

a

VOL. VI.

Perchance, are to this business purblind: say.

Cam. Business, my lord? I think, most understand Bohemia stays here longer. Leon.

Ha? Cam.

Stays here longer. Leon. Ay, but why?

Cam. To satisfy your highness, and the entreaties
Of our most gracious mistress.
Leon.

Satisfy
The entreaties of your mistress?. -satisfy ?-
Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,
With all the nearest things to my heart, as well
My chamber-councils : wherein, priest-like, thou
Hast cleans'd my bosom; I from thee departed
Thy penitent reform’d; but we have been
Deceiv'd in thy integrity, deceiv'd
In that which seems so.
Cam.

Be it forbid, my lord!
Leon. To bide upon 't;-Thou art not honest: or,
If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward;
Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining
From course requir’d: Or else thou must be counted
A servant, grafted in my serious trust,
And therein negligent; or else a fool,
That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn,
And tak’st it all for jest.
Cam.

My gracious lord,
I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful;
In every one of these no man is free,
But that his negligence, his folly, fear,

shylinges, and at the merchaunts table xvi pence, and at my houshold servantes geve me twelve pence." -Leontes comprehends inferiority of understanding in the idea of inferiority of rank. Steevens.

Concerning the different messes in the great families of our an. cient nobility, see The Houshold Book of the 5th Earl of Northumberland, 8vo. 1770. Percy.

hoxes honesty behind,] To hox is to ham-string. So, in Knolles' History of the Turks:

alighted, and with his sword hoxed his horse.” King James VI, in his 11th Parliament, had an act to punish “hochares,” or slayers of horse, oxen, &c. Steevens.

The proper word is, to hough, i. e. to cut the hough, or hamstring. Malone

2