Prin. Alas, poor Maccabæus, how hath he been baited! Enter ARMADO, for Hector. Biron. Hide thy head, Achilles here comes Hector in arms. Dum. Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry. Kong. Hector was but a Troyan in respect of this. Boget. But is this Hector? 640 Kong. I think Hector was not so clean-timbered. Lang. His leg is too big for Hector's. Boyet. No; he is best indued in the small. Dum. He's a god or a painter; for he makes faces. Arm. The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty, Gave Hector a gift, Dom. A gilt nutmeg. Biron. A lemon. Long. Stuck with cloves. Dam. No, cloven. Arm. Peace ! 650 The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty, A man so breathed, that certain he would 661 From morn till night, out of his pavilion. That mint. That columbine. Arm Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue. Long. I must rather give it the rein, for it rans against Hector. Dum. Ay, and Hector's a greyhound. Arm. The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat not the bones of the buried when he breathed, he was a man. But I will forward with my device. [To the Princess] Sweet royalty, bestow on me the sense of hearing. 670 Prin. Speak, brave Hector: we are much delighted. Arm. I do adore thy sweet grace's slipper. Boyet. [Aside to Dum.] Loves her by the foot. Dum. [Aside to Boyet] He may not by the yard. Arm. This Hector far surmounted Hannibal, Cost. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she is two months on her way. Arm. What meanest thou? 680 Cost. Faith, unless you play the honest Troyan, the poor wench is cast away: she's quick; the child brags in her belly already: 'tis yours. Arm. Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? thou shalt die. Cost. Then shall Hector be whipped for Jaquenetta that is quick by him and hanged for Pompey that is dead by him. 690 Dum. Most rare Poinpey! Biron. Pompey is moved. More Ates, more Ates! stir them on! stir them on! Arm. By the north pole, I do challenge thee. Cost. I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man: I'll slash; I'll do it by the sword. I bepray you, let me borrow my arms again. Dum. Room for the incensed Worthies! Dum. Most resolute Pompey! Moth. Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you not see Pompey is uncasWhat mean you? ing for the combat? will lose your reputation. the little hole of discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier. [Exeunt Worthies. King. How fares your majesty ? Prin. Boyet, prepare; I will away tonight. King. Madam, not so; I do beseech you, stay. Prin. Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious lords, For all your fair endeavors; and entreat, 740 King. The extreme parts of time extremely forms 750 770 Even to the opposed end of our intents: Prin. We have received your letters full of love; Your favors, the ambassadors of love; At courtship, pleasant jest and courtesy, 790 In their own fashion, like a merriment. We did not quote them so. King. Now, at the latest minute of the hour, Grant us your loves. Prin. Change not your offer made in heat of blood; And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine, For the remembrance of my father's death. 820 King. If this, or more than this, I would deny, To flatter up these powers of mine with rest, The sudden hand of death close up mine eye! Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast. [Biron. And what to me, my love? and what to me? Ros. You must be purged too, your sins are rack'd, You are attaint with faults and perjury: 830 A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest, A wife? me: 850 Behold the window of my heart, mine eye, Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue And therewithal to win me, if you please, Visit the speechless sick and still converse With all the fierce endeavor of your wit It cannot be; it is impossible: Rs. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, Whose influence is begot of that loose grace Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools: A jest's prosperity lies in the ear 871 Of him that hears it, never in the tongue When icicles hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail And Tom bears logs into the hall And milk comes frozen home in pail Tu-who, a merry note, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, Tu-who, a merry note, 920 930 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. (WRITTEN ABOUT 1591. INTRODUCTION. This is Shakespeare's one farcical play. Its sources of laughter lie almost wholly in the situa tions and incidents, hardly at all in the characters. The spectator of the play is called upon to accept much that is improbable and all but impossible; not, as in A Midsummer Night's Dream, for the sake of freer play of imagination, and because the world pictured by the poet is a fairy-world of romantic beauty and grotesqueness, but for the sake of mere fun and laughter-stirring surprises. So cleverly, however, are the incidents and persons entangled and disentangled, so rapidly does surprise follow surprise, that we are given no time to raise difficulties or ofler objections. The subject of the comedy is the same as that of the Menaechmi of Plautus-mistakes of identity arising from the likeness of twin-born children. How Shakespeare made acquaintance with Plautus has not been ascertained; possibly through William Warner's translation of the Menaechmi, seen in manuscript before its publication in 15.5; more probably through an earlier play, not now extant. To the twins of the Menaechmi, Shakespeare has added a second pair of brothers, the twins Dromio. This does not make the improbability of the whole seem greater, but rather the reverse; for the fun is doubled, and where so much is incredible we are carried away and have no wish but to yield ourselves up to belief in the incredible for the time being, so as to enter thoroughly into the jest. Shakespeare added other characters-the Duke Solinus (when he can he always introduces a duke), Egeon, Balthazar, Angelo, the Abbess, and Luciana; and he alters the character of the married brother, Antipholus, from the repulsive Menaechmus of Plautus, with whom we can have little sympathy, into a person who at least is not base and vicious. The scene he transfers from Epidamnum to Ephesus, that city which had an evil repute for its roguery, licentiousness, and magical practices, a city in which such errors might be supposed to be the result of sorcery and witchcraft. (See Act I., Sc. H., L. 97--102.) To Shakespeare belongs wholly the serious background, from which the farcical incidents stand out in relief-the story of the Syracusan merchant who almost forfeits his life in the search for his lost children, and finally recovers both the lost ones and his own liberty. The date of the play cannot be exactly determined, but it is certainly one of the very earliest. "In what part of her body stands France ?" asks Antipholus of Syracuse, questioning Dromio about the kitchen-wench, who is so large and round that she has been compared to a globe; and Dromio answers: "In her forehead, armed and reverted, making war against her hair." (Act III., Sc. II., L. 125–127). France was in a state of civil war, fighting for and against her heir, Heuri IV., from August, 1589, until shortly before his coronation in February, 1594. In 1591, Henri received the assistance of troops from England, commanded by the Earl of Essex. 20 If any born at Ephesus be seen My woes end likewise with the evening sun. We came aboard. A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd, 70 Yet the incessant weepings of my wife, Forced me to seek delays for them and me. 90 Duke. Nay, forward, old man; do not break off so; For we may pity, though not pardon thee. now 100 Worthily term'd them merciless to us! We were encounter'd by a mighty rock; |