Page images
PDF
EPUB

"

Pol.
There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' the world,
So soon as yours, could win me: so it should now,
Were there necessity in your request, although
"Twere needful I denied it. My affairs

Press me not, 'beseech you, so;

Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder
Were, in your love, a whip to me; my stay,
To you a charge and trouble: to save both,
Farewell, our brother.

Leon.

Tongue-tied, our queen? speak you.
Her. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace,

until

You had drawn oaths from him, not to stay. You, sir,
Charge him too coldly: Tell him, you are sure,
All in Bohemia's well: this satisfaction

The by-gone day proclaim'd; say this to him,
He's beat from his best ward.

Leon.

Well said, Hermione.
Her. To tell, he longs to see his son, were strong:
But let him say so then, and let him go;

But let him swear so, and he shall not stay,

We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.

Yet of your royal presence [To POLIXENES] I'll
adventure

The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
You take my lord, I'll give him my commission,
To let him there a month, behind the gest7
Prefix'd for his parting: yet, good deed, Leontes,

7 To let had for its synonymes to stay or stop; to let him there
is to stay him there. Gests were scrolls in which were marked
the stages or places of rest in a progress or journey, especially
a royal one. Strype says that Cranmer entreated Cecil To let
him have the new resolved upon gests, from that time to the end,
that he might from time to time know where the king was.' It
is supposed to be derived from the old French word giste.

8 i. e. indeed, in very deed, in troth. Good deed is used in the same sense by the Earl of Surrey, Sir John Hayward, and Gascoigne.

3

I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind
What lady she her lord.-You'll stay?

9

No, madam.

Pol.

Her. Nay, but

you will?

Pol.

I may not, verily.

Her. Verily!

You put me off with limber vows: But I,

Though you would seek to unsphere the stars with

oaths,

Should yet say, Sir, no going. Verily,

You shall not go; a lady's verily is As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet? Force me to keep you as a prisoner, Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees, you depart, and save your thanks. say you?

When

How

My prisoner? or my guest? by your dread verily,
One of them you shall be.

Pol.

To be your prisoner, should import offending ; Your guest then, madam: Which is for me less easy to commit,

Than you to punish.

Her.

Not your gaoler then,

But your kind hostess. Come, I'll question you

Of my lord's tricks, and

yours, when

You were pretty lordings 9 then.

Pol.

you were boys;

Two lads that thought there was no more behind,
We were, fair queen,
But such a day to-morrow as to-day,

And to be boy eternal.

Her. Was not my lord the verier wag o'the two?
Pol. We were as twinn'd lambs, that did frisk

i' the sun,

And bleat the one at the other: what we chang'd,
Was innocence for innocence; we knew not

9

Lordings, a diminutive of lords, often used by Chaucer.

[ocr errors]

The doctrine of ill doing, nor dream'd

That any did Had we pursued that life,
And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd
With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven
Boldly, Not Guilty; the imposition clear'd 1o,

Hereditary ours.

Her.

By this we gather,

You have tripp'd since.

Pol.
O my most sacred lady,
Temptations have since then been born to us: for
In those unfledg'd days was my wife a girl;
Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes
Of my young play-fellow.

Her.

Grace to boot 11!

Of this make no conclusion; lest you say,
Your queen and I are devils: Yet, go on;
The offences we have made you do, we'll answer;
If you
first sinn'd with us, and that with us
You did continue fault, and that you slipp'd not
With any but with us.

Leon.

Her. He'll stay, my

Leon.

Is he won yet?

lord.

At my request, he would not.

[blocks in formation]

Her. What? have I twice said well? when was't

before?

10 i. e. setting aside original sin, bating the imposition from the offence of our first parents, we might have boldly protested our innocence.

11 Grace to boot.' An exclamation equivalent to give us grace. In King Richard III. we have:—

'Saint George to boot.'

The phrase has been well explained by the author of the Diversions of Purley.

11

I pr'ythee, tell me : Cram us with praise, and make us
As fat as tame things: One good deed, dying tongue-

less,

ride us,

Slaughters a thousand, waiting upon that.
Our praises are our wages: You may
With one soft kiss, a thousand furlongs, ere

With

But to the goal;

spur we heat an acre.
My last good was, to entreat his stay;

What was my first? it has an elder sister,

Or I mistake you: O,'would, her name were Grace!
But once before I spoke to the purpose: When?
Nay, let me have't; I long.

Leon.
Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death,
Why, that was when
Ere I could make thee open thy white hand,
And clap 12 thyself my love; then didst thou utter,
I am yours for ever.

Her.

It is

Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice: grace, indeed.The one for ever earn'd a royal husband;

The other, for some while a friend.

Leon.

[Giving her Hand to POLIXENEs. Too hot, too hot: [Aside.

To mingle friendship far, is mingling bloods.

I have tremor cordis on me:

But not for joy,—not joy. This entertainment
-my heart dances;
May a free face put on; derive a liberty
From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom 13,

12 At entering into any contract, or plighting of troth, this clapping of hands together set the seal. Numerous instances of allusion to the custom have been adduced by the editors, one shall suffice, from the old play of Ram Alley: Come clap hands a match.' The custom is not yet disused in common life.

13

that a letter has been omitted, and that we should read:-
'from bounty, fertile bosom.' I think with Malone
from bounty's fertile bosom.'

And well become the agent: it may, I grant:
But to be paddling palms, and pinching fingers,
As now they are: and making practis'd smiles,
As in a looking-glass;-and then to sigh, as 'twere
The mort o' the deer 14; O, that is entertainment
My bosom likes not, nor my brows.-Mamillius,
Art thou my boy?
Ay, my good lord.

Mam.

Leon.

I'fecks?

Why, that's my bawcock 15. What, hast smutch'd thy nose?

They say, it's a copy out of mine. Come, captain,
We must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain:
And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf,
Are all call'd, neat.-Still virginalling 16

[Observing POLIXENES and HERMIONE. Upon his palm?-How now, you wanton calf? Art thou my calf?

Mam.

Yes, if you will, my lord. Leon. Thou want'st a rough pash, and the shoots that I have 17,

14 i.e. the death of the deer. The mort was also certain notes played on the horn at the death of the deer.

15 Bawcock.' A burlesque word of endearment supposed to be derived from beau-coq, or boy-cock. It occurs again in Twelfth Night, and in King Henry V. and in both places is coupled with chuck or chick. It is said that bra'cock is still used in Scotland.

16 Still playing with her fingers as a girl playing on the virginals. Virginals were stringed instruments played with keys like a spinnet, which they resembled in all respects but in shape, spinnets being nearly triangular, and virginals of an oblong square shape like a small piano-forte. Spineto and espinette are rendered in the Dictionaries by a paire of virginalles; this was the common term, as the organ was sometimes called a pair of

organs.

17 Thou wantest a rough head, and the budding horns that I have. A pash in some places denoting a young bull calf whose horns are springing; a mad pash, a mad brained boy.

« PreviousContinue »