VAL. Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he. DUKE. Welcome him then according to his worth; Silvia, I speak to you; and you, sir Thurio:For Valentine, I need not 'cite him to it 2: I'll send him hither to you presently. [Exit DUKE. VAL. This is the gentleman, I told your ladyship, Had come along with me, but that his mistress Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.. SIL. Belike, that now she hath enfranchis'd them Upon some other pawn for fealty. VAL. Nay, sure, I think, she holds them prisoners still. SIL. Nay, then he should be blind; and, being blind, How could he see his way to seek out you? VAL. Why, lady, love hath twenty pair of eyes. THU. They say, that love hath not an eye at all. VAL. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself; Upon a homely object love can wink. Enter PROTEUS. SIL. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman. VAL. Welcome, dear Proteus !-Mistress, I beseech you, Confirm his welcome with some special favour. 2 I need not 'CITE him to it :] i. e. incite him to it. MALONE. 3 They say, that love hath not an eye at all.] Thus certainly Cupid hath been long represented by the moderns; and on this fancy, Amaltheus formed his beautiful lines on Acon and Leonilla. But it is remarkable that no trace of such a notion has been found in any ancient Latin or Greek poet; nor has it been ascertained at what period or by whom this delineation of the god of love was first given. MALONE. مط n e er, SIL. Too low a mistress for so high a servant. PRO. Not so, sweet lady; but too mean a servant 3 PRO. No, that you are worthless 3. Enter a SERVANT. SER. Madam', my lord your father would speak with you. eIL. I wait upon his pleasure. [Exit SERVANT.] Go with me:-Once more, new servant, welcome: When you have done, we look to hear from you. [Exeunt SILVIA, THURIO, and SPEED. VAL. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came ? PRO. Your friends are well, and have them much commended. VAL. And how do yours? PRO. I left them all in health. n NE. inly this illa. een cer d of 3 No, that you are worthless.] I have supplied the particle no, to fill up the measure. JOHNSON. 4 Ser. Madam, my lord your father-] This speech in all the editions is assigned improperly to Thurio; but he has been all along upon the stage, and could not know that the duke wanted his daughter. Besides, the first line and half of Silvia's answer is evidently addressed to two persons. A servant, therefore, must come in and deliver the message; and then Silvia goes out with Thurio. THEOBALD. VAL. How does your lady; and how thrives your love? PRO. My tales of love were wont to weary you; I know, you joy not in a love-discourse. VAL. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now: I have done penance for contemning love; Whose high imperious* thoughts' have punish'd me With bitter fasts, with penitential groans, With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs; For, in revenge of my contempt of love, Love hath chas'd sleep from my enthralled eyes, And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow. O, gentle Proteus, love's a mighty lord; And hath so humbled me, as, I confess, There is no woe to his correction", * First folio, emperious. S WHOSE high imperious thoughts-] For whose I read those. I have contemned love and am punished. Those high thoughts, by which I exalted myself above human passions or frailties, have brought upon me fasts and groans. JOHNSON. I have no doubt that the reading of the old copy is right. Imperious (which in our author's time generally signified imperial), is an epithet very frequently applied to love by Shakspeare and his contemporaries. So, in The Famous Historie of George Lord Faulconbridge, 4to. 1616, p. 16: "Such an imperious God is love, and so commanding." A few lines lower, Valentine observes, that "love's a mighty lord." That imperious formerly signified imperial, is shewn by a passage in Hamlet: 66 "Imperious Cæsar dead and turn'd to clay —" and various others quoted there and elsewhere. See also Cowdray's Alphabetical Table of Hard Words, 8vo. 1604 : Imperious; desiring to rule; full of commanding; stately." MALONE. no woe to his correction,] No misery that can be compared to the punishment inflicted by love. Herbert called for the prayers of the Liturgy a little before his death, saying, None to them, none to them. JOHNSON. 6 The same idiom occurs in an old ballad, quoted in Cupid's Whirligig, 1607: "There is no comfort in the world "To women that are kind." MALONE. Nor, to his service, no such joy on earth! PRO. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye: Was this the idol that you worship so? VAL. Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint? PRO. I will not flatter her. VAL. O flatter me; for love delights in praises. PRO. When I was sick, you gave me bitter pills; And I must minister the like to you. VAL. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine, Yet let her be a principality3, Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth. VAL. Sweet, except not any; Except thou wilt except against my love. 7 No; 8 but she is an eartHLY PARAGÓN.] So, in Cymbeline : By Jupiter an angel, or if not, An earthly paragon." MALONE. So -a PRINCIPALITY,] The first or principal of women. the old writers use state: "She is a lady, a great state." Laty"This look is called in states warlie, in others otherwise." Sir T. More. JOHNSON. mer. There is a similar sense of this word in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, viii. 38: "nor angels nor principalities." Mr. M. Mason thus judiciously paraphrases the sentiment of Valentine: 66 If you will not acknowledge her as divine, let her at least be considered as an angel of the first order, superior to every thing on earth." STEEVENS. Dr. Johnson's interpretation, "the principal of women,' appears to me questionable. Both from the preceding and the subsequent words, Valentine seems to mean that his mistress was more than any earthly sovereign, and subordinate only to the Divine Nature. The poet was probably thinking of the words in the Sacred Writings quoted by Mr. Steevens. MALONE. VAL. And I will help thee to prefer her too: PRO. Why, Valentine, what braggardism* is this? VAL. Pardon me, Proteus: all I can, is nothing To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing; She is alone. PRO. Then let her alone 2. *First folio, braggadisme. 9 lest the BASE EARTH Should from her vesture chance to steal a KISS, Disdain to root, &c.] So, in King Richard II. : 66 "To make the base earth proud by kissing it." Again, in Venus and Adonis : 1 "But if thou fall, O then imagine this, MALONE. SUMMER-SWELLING flower,] I once thought that our poet had written summer-smelling; but the epithet which stands in the text I have since met with in the translation of Lucan, by Sir Arthur Gorges, 1614, b. viii. p. 354: 66 no Roman chieftaine should The original is, 66 ripasque æstate tumentes," 1. 827. May likewise renders it summer-swelled banks. The summerswelling flower is the flower which swells in summer, till it expands itself into bloom. STEEVENS. 2 Val. She is alone. Pro. Then let her alone.] These speeches, and innumerable others of the same kind which occur in these plays, might have shewn Mr. Steevens how improper and unwarrantable it is, by insertion or omission of words, to make all our poet's lines blank verse in those scenes where the dialogue in general is metrical. So, |