Looked he red? pale? or sad or merrily? Adr. He meant, he did me none: the more my spite. Adr. Have patience, I beseech. 5 ΙΟ 15 or sad or] sad Capell. 4. red? pale?] Editor; or red, or pale, Ff. merrily] merry Collier (ed. 2). 5, 6. case, Of... face?] F 4; case? Of · face. Ff2, 3; case? Oh,... face. F 1. no] a Rowe. 4. or sad or merrily] This seems to be confirmed by 1 Henry IV. v. ii. 12: "Look how we can, or sad or merrily." 6. meteors] The allusion is probably to the electrically charged clouds in the sky, which resemble armies meeting in the shock of battle; perhaps also to the colours of the aurora borealis. Compare King John, III. iv. 157: "Call them meteors, prodigies and signs"; ibid. v. 2. 53:"The vaulty top of heaven Figured quite o'er with burning meteors." Warburton quotes 1 Henry IV. 1. i. 10: "Which like the meteors of a troubled heaven Did lately meet in the intestine shock 7. you] you; you Capell. My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will. Stigmatical in making, worse in mind. Luc. Who would be jealous, then, of such a one? Adr. Ah, but I think him better than I say, And yet would herein others' eyes were worse. My heart prays for him though my tongue do curse. · 20 25 18. his] its Rowe. 22. in mind] F 1; the mind Ff 2, 3, 4. 26. herein] he in Hanmer. 22. Stigmatical] “marked or stig. matised by nature with deformity as a token of his vicious disposition (Johnson). Compare 2 Henry VI. v. i. 215: "Foul stigmatic, that's more than thou canst tell"; and 3 Henry VI. 11. ii. 136:— "A foul mis-shapen stigmatic Stigmatically drawne, like to a (Able to fright) . . .” 27. the lapwing cries away] The well-known habit of the lapwing or peewit is frequently alluded to. Compare Lyly's Campaspe, II. ii. 12 (ed. Fairholt, 1892, vol. i. p. 109): "You resemble the lapwing who crieth most where her nest is not "; and his Mother Bombie, III. iii. (ed. Fairholt, vol. i. p. 109): "I'le talke of other matters and flie from the marke I shoote at, lapwing-like flying far from the place where I nestle." Rushton, Shakespeare's Euphuism, 1871, p. 12, quotes his Euphues: "and in this I resemble the lapwing, who fearing hir young ones to be destroyed by passengers, flieth with a false cry farre from their nestes, making those that looke for them seek where they are not." Steevens quotes Greene's Coney - Catching (1592), pt. ii.: "but again to our priggers, who, as I before said, cry with the lapwing farthest from the nest, and from the place of residence where their most abode is." Shakespeare also has it in his Measure for Measure, I. iv. 32: "with maids to seem the lapwing and to jest, Tongue far from heart and Middleton and Massinger in The Old Law, IV. ii. 152 (Bullen, ii. 210):— "Has [i.e. he has] the lapwing's cunning, I'm afraid, my lord, That cries most when she's farthest from the nest." 28-40. My heart . . to hell] The rushing and irregular metre of these lines seems admirably designed to indicate the haste and excitement of Dromio S. Enter DROMIO of Syracuse. Dro. S. Here! go; the desk; the purse! sweet mistress, now, make haste. Luc. How hast thou lost thy breath? Dro. S. By running fast. 30 Adr. Where is thy master, Dromio? is he well? Dro. S. No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell: A devil in an everlasting garment hath him by the heel, 29. SCENE IV. Pope. sweet mistress] Keightley; sweet Ff; speed Keightley conj.; swift Collier (ed. 2). 33. everlasting] e'erlasting S. Walker conj. hath him by the heel] Spedding conj.; hath him; Ff; hath him still or hath him at his will Keightley conj. 32. in Tartar limbo] i.e. in prison. Limbo or Limbus patrum strictly meant a place of confinement on the borders of hell, inhabited by the souls of the pious who died A.c. and of unbaptised infants, etc. Compare Titus Andronicus, III. i. 149: "As far from help as Limbo is from bliss!"; and Milton, Paradise Lost, iii, 495 "Into a Limbo large and broad." Hence the word was humorously applied to a prison; the more so, when qualified with the epithet Tartar," which of course stands for "Tartarus," or hell itself. It was only too well known to some Elizabethans. Compare line 40 post; Henry V. II. ii. 123: "He might return to vasty Tartar back"; and Twelfth Night, II. v. 226: "To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit! Compare also Greene's Never too Late (Dyce, 1831, vol. i. p. xviii.): "If coyne want, then either to Limbo, or els clap vp a commoditie (if so much credite be left)," etc. 33. A devil. . . heel] I think we are compelled to adopt Spedding's conjecture. The line must rhyme with the next-I cannot for one moment believe that Shakespeare would have introduced an unrhymed couplet in a passage otherwise rhymed-and I think that, metrically speaking, it ought to run as a pure "fourteener" (see Introduction) : A de'il in an év | erlást | ing gár ment háth | him bý | the héel, there being no difficulty whatever in treating "devil" as a monosyllable. In fact it is so in two passages of the next scene of this Act, viz. 1v. iii. 72 and 77, and in numerous other passages in the dramatists; e.g. Greene's Friar Bacon, etc. (Dyce, 1831, vol. i. p. 165): "Wherein the devils plead homage to his words." 33. an everlasting garment] The "devil in an everlasting garment was the sergeant (lines 56 and 61 post) in his "buff" jerkin ("all in buff," line 36, "suit of buff," line 45 post), or "suit of durance" (Iv. iii. 27 post), made of "everlasting " cloth. "Buff" is also a cant term for a man's skin, i.e. a garment which lasts him as long as his life. Hence in the next scene (IV. iii. 13) the sergeant is called "the picture of old Adam," i.e. of Adam unclad. Compare 1 Henry IV. I. ii. 48, where the Prince says to Falstaff, "And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?"; also Barry's Ram-Alley or Merry Tricks, 1611 (Dodsley, v. One whose hard heart is buttoned up with steel; A fiend, a fury, pitiless and rough; 35 34. One] Ff 2, 3, 4; On F 1. buttoned up with steel] Collier (ed. 2) here inserts, who knows no touch of mercy, cannot feel. (Theobald); Fairie Ff. 417): "I have certain goblins in buff jerkins." Malone, comparing this passage with Iv. iii. 27, "suits of durance," observes, "it should seem that the sergeant's buff jerkin was called a robe of durance with allusion to his occupation of arresting men and putting them in durance or prison; and that durance being a kind of stuff sometimes called everlasting, the buff jerkin was hence called an everlasting garment.' There are numerous other references in the dramatists, e.g. Beaumont and Fletcher's Woman-Hater, IV. ii., where Pandar says: "And wer 't not for my smooth soft silken citizen, I'd quit this transitory trade, get me An everlasting robe, sear up my conscience, And turn sergeant." Compare also the "tawny coats " of 1 Henry VI. 1. iii. 47, 56, and III. i. 74 (referring to the dress of the bishop's retainers, or apparitors of the ecclesiastical courts); also Middleton and Dekker's Roaring Girl (Dodsley, vi. 82): "Husband, lay hold on yonder tawny coat (i.e. of the summoner or apparitor). 33. hath him by the heel] Perhaps a metaphor from the butcher's or poulterer's shop. Compare 1 Henry IV. II. iv. 480: "Hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker or a poulter's hare"; but preferably, perhaps, referring to the stocks: 2 Henry IV. I. ii. 141, where the Chief Justice says to Falstaff, "To punish you by the heels would amend the attention of your ears." But Shakespeare no doubt had in mind Lyly's Mother Bombie, v. iii. (Fairholt, ii. 135): "I sweare 35. fury] Pope, ed. 2 by the rood's body, I'le lay you by the heeles." 35. fury] On the whole, I think the balance of probability inclines in favour of Theobald's reading. "Dromio," says Theobald, "describes the bailiff by names proper to raise horror and detestation," and asks how fairy "comes up to these terrible ideas." Besides, the collocation of limbo," "hell," "devil" and "fiend" seems to show that Shakespeare's thoughts were running on the infernal regions. "Fury," moreover, seems to be supported by many parallel passages; e.g. Greene, Orlando Furioso (Dyce, 1831, vol. i. p. 45), has "Orl. What Fury hath enchanted me? Mel. A Fury sure worse than Megaera was "; and in his LookingGlass for London and England (vol. i. p. 79):: "A fury now from heaven to lands unknown Hath made the Prophet speak not to his own"; 3 Henry VI. 1. iii. 31:"The sight of any of the house of York Is as a fury to torment my soul"; Titus Andronicus, v. ii. 82: "Welcome, dread Fury, to my woeful house"; Antony and Cleopatra, II. v. 40: "Thou should'st come like a Fury crown'd with snakes"; Massinger, Fatal Dowry, v. i. 66: "Oh my good lord! deliver me from these Furies." And see Webster's White Devil, v. ii. 9, where it is certainly used of the male sex : "Vitt. What intends the fury? Flam. You are my lord's executrix," etc. Johnson, on the other hand, supports A wolf, nay, worse; a fellow all in buff; A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands: 37. a] omitted by Collier. of] and Collier (ed. 2). countermands] commands Theobald. alleys] allies Ff. lands] lanes Grey conj. But I doubt whether this or a passage like "No fairy takes (i.e. afflicts with disease, etc.), Hamlet, I. i. 163, or the mention of "fairy land" or "fairies" in II. ii. 189, 190 supra, is sufficient to counterbalance Theobald's argument. Shakespeare, in his use of either word, would scarcely trouble to consider any question of sex. It is noteworthy that Spenser associates fiend and fury in the Faerie Queene, bk. ii. c. v. st. 37: "As one affright With hellish feends or Furies mad uprore"; and that on the other hand Lyly associates fiend with fairy in his Endimion, IV. iii. (Fairholt, 1892, p. 60): "And so by fairies or fiends have beene thus handled." Shakespeare in his earlier comedies was greatly influenced by Lyly; and hence the Folio reading may be right. 37. back-friend] referring to the sergeant's approach from behind. See Dekker's Honest Whore, pt. ii. (Dodsley, iii. 406; Pearson, ii. 165): There" [i.e. in the bridewell, "the Brick house of Castigation "]"you shall see your puncke amongst her back-friends." 38. Also his West-ward Hoe, III. i. (Pearson, p. 317): "Thou hast back't many a man in thy time, I warrant. Amb. (the sergeant. I have had many a man by the backe, Sir." 37. shoulder-clapper] Steevens quotes Dekker's Satiromastix, 1602 (Pearson, i. 234): "Wee that are heades of Legions and Bandes and feare none but these same shoulderclappers." 37. countermands] forbids, prevents. Compare Lucrece, 276: "My heart shall never countermand mine eye." 38. creeks] This word may mean here a small stream; at least that must be the meaning in the only other passage in Shakespeare where the word occurs, viz. Cymbeline, IV. ii. 151, where Guiderius says of Cloten's head, "I'll throw it into the creek." Drayton, Polyolbion, xix., uses it in this sense: "That Crouch amongst the rest, name of a creek." But the word undoubtedly had also the meaning of "a narrow or winding passage penetrating the interior of any place and passing out of sight; an out of the way corner," New Eng. Dict.; which cites T. Watson, Centurie of Love, 1582, xcv. (Arb.) 131, "A Labyrinth is a place made full of turnings and creekes." The latter meaning is doubtless intended by Shakespeare in this passage. 38. narrow lands] Perhaps narrow landings, or landing places running into the river. Shakespeare's |