VAL. Not for the world: why, man, she is mine own; And I as rich in having such a jewel, As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, VAL. Ay, and we are betroth'd; nay, more, our marriage hour, With all the cunning manner of our flight, , Some necessaries that I needs must use; And then I'll presently attend you. VAL. Will you make haste? PRO. I will.— [Exit VALENTINE. Even as one heat another heat expels, Or as one nail by strength drives out another, below: "But she loves you," which makes no part of a verse. Again, afterwards in this scene: 66 Val. Will you make haste? "Pro. I will." MALONE. 3 - unto the ROAD,] The haven where ships ride at anchor. So, in the Merchant of Venice: 66 For here I find for certain that my ships "Are safely come to road." MALONE. Is by a newer object quite forgotten". 4 Even as one heat another heat expels, Or as one nail by strength drives out another, Is by a newer object quite forgotten.] Our author has frequently introduced this kind of imagery in subsequent plays. So in King John : falshood falshood cures, as fire cures fire, "Within the scorched veins of one new-burn'd." Again, in Julius Cæsar: "As fire drives out fire, so pity pity." Again, in Coriolanus ; "One fire drives out one fire, one nail one nail." The latter image occurs also in the Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, 1582: which the poet may here have had in his thoughts, having, like the author of that poem, applied this imagery to the subject of love : "And as out of a planke a nayle a nayle doth drive, "So novel love out of the minde the ancient love doth rive." MALONE. 5 Is IT her MIEN, or Valentinus' praise,] The only authentick copy of this play, the folio 1623, reads "It is mine, or Valentine's praise?" Finding no sense here, the editor of the second folio, perceiving a note of interrogation at the end of the sentence, very rightly made the words it is change places; but absurdly supplied the word omitted by reading "Is it mine then, or Valentinean's praise?" Dr. Warburton supplied the word eye; and the subsequent editors read with him," Is it mine eye, or," &c. I shall subjoin his note, that the reading which he suggested may not be deprived of such support as it affords. For the present judicious and happy emendation, I am indebted to my friend the Rev. Mr. Blakeway, Vicar of St. Mary's, in Shrewsbury : "Is it her mien, i. e. countenance, air," &c. The word mien occurs but in one other place in these plays, Merry Wives of Windsor, Act. I. Sc. III. when it is spelt as it is here : "but the revolt of mine is dangerous;" indeed that is the general spelling of this word in Shakspeare's age, adopted from the French language, from which the word was taken. It appears to me more probable that a compositor should omit a personal pronoun than the principal and important word of the clause; that is, that her was omitted, rather than eye. Besides, Her true perfection, or my false transgression, 6 this emendation is much more consonant to the following line, with which the present, thus amended, exactly corresponds: "Is it her mien, or Valentines praise, "Her true perfection, or my false transgression?" Again, below: "She is fair; &c." For Valentines, the old genitive case of Valentine, I formerly substituted Valentinus', which is found in a former scene; [Act I. Sc. III.]; and Mr. Steevens afterwards adopted the same reading; for he had before printed Valentinos. But there is no need of departing in this instance from the old copy, which is supported by similar examples elsewhere. MALOne. Here Proteus questions with himself, whether it is his own praise, or Valentine's, that makes him fall in love with Valentine's mistress. But not to insist on the absurdity of falling in love through his own praises, he had not indeed praised her any farther than giving his opinion of her in three words, when his friend asked it of him. A word is wanting in the first folio. The line was originally thus: "It is mine eye, or Valentino's praise?" Proteus had just seen Valentine's mistress, whom her lover had been lavishly praising. His encomiums, therefore, heightening Proteus's ideas of her at the interview, it was the less wonder he should be uncertain which had made the strongest impression, Valentine's praises, or his own view of her. WARBURTON. 6 a WAXEN IMAGE 'gainst a fire,] Alluding to the figures made by witches, as representatives of those whom they designed to torment or destroy. See my note on Macbeth, Act I. Sc. III. STEEVENS. King James ascribes these images to the devil, in his treatise of Daemonologie: "to some others at these times he teacheth how to make pictures of ware or claye, that by the roasting thereof the persons that they bear the name of may be continually melted, and dried away by continual sicknesse." See Servius on the 8th Eclogue of Virgil, Theocritus Idyl. 2. 22. Hudibras, p. 2. 1. 2. v. 331. S. WESTON. O! but I love his lady too, too much; 7 - with more ADVICE,] Is, on further knowledge, on better consideration. STEEVENS. 66 The word is still current among mercantile people, whose constant language is we are advised by letters from abroad; meaning-informed. So, in bills of exchange, the conclusion always is, "without further advice-." So, as Mr. Steevens has observed, in Measure for Measure: "Yet did repent me, after more advice." MALone. 8 'Tis but her PICTURE] This is evidently a slip of attention, for he had seen her in the last scene, and in high terms offered her his service. JOHNSON. I believe Proteus means to say that, as yet, he had seen only her outside form, without having known her long enough to have any acquaintance with her mind. So, in Cymbeline: "All of her that is out of door most rich! "If she be furnish'd with a mind so rare," &c. Again, in The Winter's Tale, Act. II. Sc. I.: "Praise her but for this her without-door form." Perhaps Proteus is mentally comparing his fate with that of Pyrocles, the hero of Sidney's Arcadia, who fell in love with Philoclea immediately on seeing her portrait in the house of Kalander. STEEVENS. I do not believe the poet had the Arcadia at all in his thoughts. When a passage affords a natural and easy meaning, why should we suppose that the writers had a passage of a preceding author in contemplation, which, instead of confirming that interpretation, is inconsistent with it, and presents a circumstance wholly different. MALONE. 9 And that hath DAZZLED my reason's light; But when I look, &c.] Our author uses dazzled as a trisyllable. So, also, Drayton : "A diadem once dazzling the eye, "The day too darke to see affinitie," &c. The editor of the second folio, not perceiving this, introduced so, ("And that hath dazzled so," &c.) a word as hurtful to the sense as unnecessary to the metre. The plain meaning is, Her mere If I can check my erring love, I will; SCENE V. [Exit. A Street. Enter SPEED and LAUNCE. SPEED. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Milan 1. LAUNCE. Forswear not thyself, sweet youth; for I am not welcome. I reckon this always-that a man is never undone, till he be hang'd; nor never welcome to a place, till some certain shot be paid, and the hostess say, welcome. SPEED. Come on, you mad-cap, I'll to the alehouse with you presently; where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how did thy master part with madam Julia? LAUNCE. Marry, after they closed in earnest, they parted very fairly in jest. SPEED. But shall she marry him? LAUNCE. No. SPEED. How then? Shall he marry her? LAUNCE. No, neither. SPEED. What, are they broken? LAUNCE. No, they are both as whole as a fish. outside has dazzled me ;-when I am acquainted with the perfections of her mind, I shall be struck blind. Mr. Steevens, who, in the three editions which preceded mine, had followed the corrupt reading of the second folio, has here not subjoined one word in defence of that adulterated copy. MALONE. -to Milan.] It is Padua in the former editions. See the note on Act III. Sc. III. POPE. |
