Would caft the gorge at, this embalms and spices her gold, says he, that induces some one (more attentive to thrift than love) to accept in marriage the hand of the experienced and o'er-worn widow. - Wed is here used for wedded. So, in The Comedy of Errors, Act I. fc. i: " In Syracufa was I born, and wed "Unto a woman, happy but for me." If wed is used as a verb, the words mean, that effects or produces her Second marriage. MALONE. I believe, unwapper'd means undebilitated by venery, i. e. not halting under crimes many and stale. STEEVENS. e Mr. Tyrwhitt explains wap'd, in the line cited from Chaucer, by stupified; a sense which accords with the other instances adduced by Mr. Steevens, as well as with Shakspeare. The wappen'd widow, is one who is no longer alive to those pleasures, the defire of which was her first inducement to marry. HENLEY. I fufpect that there is another error in this passage, which has escaped the notice of the editors, and that we should read"woo'd again," instead of "wed again." That a woman should wed again, however wapper'd, [or wappen'd] is nothing extraordinary. The extraordinary circumstance is, that she should be woo'd again, and become an object of defire. M. MASON. 3 She, whom the spital-house, and ulcerous fores Would cast the gorge at, Surely we ought to read: or, should the first line be thought deficient in harmony, She at whose ulcerous fores the spital-house So, in Spenfer's Fairy Queen: "And all the way, most like a brutish beast, " He spewed up his gorge." The old reading is nonfenfe. I must add, that Dr. Farmer joins with me in suspecting this passage to be corrupt, and is fatisfied with the emendation I have proposed. STEEVENS. In Antony and Cleopatra, we have honour and death, for honourable death. "The fpital-house and ulcerous fores," therefore may be used for the contaminated spital-house; the spital-house replete with ulcerous fores. If it be asked, how can the spital-house, or how can ulcerous fores, caft the gorge at the female here described, let the following passages anfwer the question: "Heaven stops the nose at it, and the moon winks." Othello. 4 To the April day again. Come, damned earth, "Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd, "Makes mouths at the invisible event." Again, in Hamlet: Again, ibidem: Again, in Julius Cæfar: "-till our ground, " Singing his pate against the burning zone," &c. "Over thy wounds now do I prophecy, "Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,." Again, in The Merchant of Venice : when the bag-pipe fings i'the nose,." Again, in the play before us: ." when our vaults have wept "With drunken spilth of wine In the preceding page, all fores are faid to lay fiege to nature; which they can no more do, if the passage is to be understood literally, than they can caft the gorge at the fight of the perfon here described. In a word, the diction of the text is so very Shakspearian, that I cannot but wonder it should be suspected of corruption. The meaning is, Her whom the spital-house, however polluted, would not admit, but reject with abhorrence, this embalms, &c. or, (in a loofer paraphrase) Her, at the fight of whom all the patients in the spital-house, however contaminated, would ficken and turn away with loathing and abhorrence, disgusted by the view of still greater pollution, than any they had yet experience of, this embalms and spices, &c. To "caft the gorge at," was Shakspeare's phraseology. So, in Hamlet, Act V. fc. i: "How abhorr'd in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it." To the various examples which I have produced in support of the reading of the old copy, may be added these: "Our fortune on the fea is out of breath, " And finks most lamentably." Again, ibidem: " Mine eyes did ficken at the fight." Again, in Hamlet : Antony and Cleopatra. "Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults." Again, ibidem: - we will fetters put upon this fear, "Which now goes too free-footed." Again, in Troilus and Cressida: "His evasions have ears thus long." MALONE. Thou common whore of mankind, that put'st odds drum?-Thou'rt quick, But yet I'll bury thee: Thou'lt go, strong thief, Enter ALCIBIADES, with drum and fife, in warlike manner; PHRYNIA, and TYMANDRA. ALCIB. Speak. What art thou there? TIM. A beast, as thou art. The canker gnaw thy heart, 4 To the April day again.) That is, to the wedding day, called by the poet, fatirically, April day, or fool's day. JOHNSON. The April day does not relate to the widow, but to the other diseased female, who is represented as the outcast of an hospital. She it is whom gold embalms and spices to the April day again: i. e. gold reftores her to all the freshness and faweetness of youth. Such is the power of gold, that it will " make black, white; foul, fair; Wrong, right;" &c. A quotation or two may perhaps support this interpretation. So, in Sidney's Arcadia, p. 262, edit. 1633: "Do you see how the spring time is full of flowers, decking itself with them, and not aspiring to the fruits of autumn? What lesson is that unto you, but that in the April of your age you should be like April." Again, in Stephens's Apology for Herodotus, 1607: "He is a young man, and in the April of his age." Peacham's Compleat Gentleman, chap. iii. calls youth "the April of man's life." Shakspeare's Sonnet entitled Love's Cruelty, has the same thought: "Thou art thy mother's glass, and the in thee "Calls back the lovely April of her prime." Daniel's 31ft Sonnet has, " _ the April of my years." Master Fenton " smells April and May." TOLLET. 5 Do thy right nature.] Lie in the earth where nature laid thee. 6 JOHNSON. JOHNSON. -Thou'rt quick,] Thou hast life and motion in thee. For showing me again the eyes of man! ALCIB. What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee, That art thyself a man? TIM. I am misanthropos, and hate mankind. For thy part, I do with thou wert a dog, That I might love thee something. ALCIB. I know thee well; But in thy fortunes am unlearn'd and strange. TIM. I know thee too; and more, than that I know thee, I not defire to know. Follow thy drum; PHRY. TIM. I will not kiss thee; To thine own lips again. Thy lips rot off! I am misanthropos,] A marginal note in the old tranflation of Plutarch's Life of Antony, furnished our author with this epithet: " Antonius followeth the life and example of Timon Misanthropus, the Athenian." MALONE. ४ gules, gules:] Might we not repair the defective metre of this line, by adopting a Shakspearian epithet, and reading, gules, total gules; as in the following passage in Hamlet? "Now is he total gules." STEEVENS. 9 I will not kiss thee;) This alludes to an opinion in former times, generally prevalent, that the venereal infection tranfmitted to another, left the infecter free. I will not, says Timon, take the rot from thy lips, by kissing thee. JOHNSON. Thus, The Humourous Lieutenant says: "He has some wench, or fuch a toy, to kiss over, "To draw this foolish pain down." STEEVENS. ALCIB. How came the noble Timon to this change? TIM. As the moon does, by wanting light to give: But then renew I could not, like the moon; There were no funs to borrow of. TIM. Promise me friendship, but perform none: If Thou wilt not promise, the gods plague thee, for Thou art a man! if thou dost perform, confound thee, For thou'rt a man! ALCIB. I have heard in some fort of thy miferies. TIM. Thou saw'st them, when I had profperity. ALCIB. I see them now; then was a blessed time.* TIM. As thine is now, held with a brace of har lots. TYMAN. Is this the Athenian minion, whom the If Art thou Tymandra? Thou wilt not promise, &c.] That is, however thou may'st act, fince thou art man, hated man, I wish thee evil. JOHNSON. 2 then was a blessed time.) I suspect, from Timon's anMALONE. fwer, that Shakspeare wrote thine was a blessed time. I apprehend no corruption. Now, and then, were defignedly oppofed to each other. STEEVENS. |