A fafting tiger fafer by the tooth, Than keep in peace that hand which thou doft hold. K. PHI. I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith. PAND. So mak'st thou faith an enemy to faith; For that, which thou haft fworn to do amifs, 8 Our author was probably thinking on the lions, which in his time, as at prefent, were kept in the Tower, in dens fo fmall as fully to juftify the epithet he has ufed. MALONE. 8 Is not amifs, when it is truly done;] This is a conclufion de travers. We should read: Is yet amifs, The Oxford editor, according to his ufual custom, will improve it further, and reads-moft amifs. WARBURTON. I rather read: Is't not amifs, when it is truly done? as the alteration is lefs, and the fense which Dr. Warburton firft discovered is preserved. JOHNSON. The old copies read: Is not amifs, when it is truly done. Pandulph, having conjured the King to perform his first vow to heaven, to be champion of the church, tells him, that what he has fince fworn is fworn against himself, and therefore may not be performed by him: for that, fays he, which you have fworn to do amifs, is not amifs, (i. e. becomes right) when it is done truly (that is, as he explains it, not done at all;) and being not done, where it would be a fin to do it. the truth is moft done when you do it not. So, in Love's Labour's Loft: "It is religion to be thus forfworn." RITSON. And being not done, where doing tends to ill, And falfehood falfehood cures; as fire cools fire, By placing the fecond couplet of this fentence before the firft, the paffage will appear perfectly clear. Where doing tends to ill, where an intended act is criminal, the truth is most done, by not doing the act. The criminal act therefore which thou haft fworn to do, is not amifs, will not be imputed to you as a crime, if it be done truly, in the fenfe I have now affixed to truth; that is, if you do not do it. MALONE. 9 But thou haft fworn against religion; &c.] The propofitions, that the voice of the church is the voice of heaven, and that the pope atters the voice of the church, neither of which Pandulph's auditors would deny, being once granted, the argument here ufed is ir refiftible; nor is it eafy, notwithstanding the gingle, to enforce it with greater brevity or propriety: But thou haft fworn against religion: By what thou fwear'ft against the thing thou fwear'ft: To fwear, fear only not to be forfworn. By what. Sir T. Hanmer reads-By that. I think it should be rather by which. That is, thou wear'ft against the thing, by which thou fwear'ft; that is, against religion. The most formidable difficulty is in thefe lines: This Sir T. Hanmer reforms thus: And mak'ft an oath the furety for thy truth, Dr. Warburton writes it thus: Against an oath the truth thou art unfure which leaves the paffage to me as obfcure as before. By what thou fwear'ft, fwear'ft; against the thing thou And mak'st an oath the furety for thy truth I know not whether there is any corruption beyond the omiffion of a point. The sense, after I had confidered it, appeared to me only this: In fearing by religion against religion, to which thou haft already fworn, thou makeft an oath the fecurity for thy faith against an oath already taken. I will give, fays he, a rule for confcience in these cafes. Thou may'st be in doubt about the matter of an oath; when thou fweareft, thou mayft not be always fure to fwear rightly; but let this be thy fettled principle, wear only not to be forfworn; let not the latter oaths be at variance with the former. Truth, through this whole fpeech, means rectitude of conduct. JOHNSON. I believe the old reading is right; and that the line "By what," &c. is put in appofition with that which precedes it: But thou haft fworn against religion; thou haft fworn, by what thou fweareft, i. e. in that which thou haft fworn, against the thing thou fweareft by; i, e, religion. Our author has many fuch elliptical expreffions. So, in K. Henry VIII: 66 -Whoever the king favours, "The cardinal will quickly find employment [for], Again, ibidem: "This is about that which the bishop fpake" [f], Again, in K, Richard III: "True ornaments to know a holy man" [by]. Again, in The Winter's Tale: "A bed-swerver, even as bad as those Again, ibidem: 2 66 the queen is fpotlefs "In this that you accufe her" [f]. MALONE. reads сору fwear only not to be forfworn;] The old fwears, which in my apprehenfion fhews that two half lines have been loft, in which the perfon fuppofed to wear was mentioned, When the fame word is repeated in two fucceeding lines, the eye of the compofitor often glances from the first to the fecond, and in confequence the intermediate words are omitted. For what has Elfe, what a mockery fhould it be to fwear? And better conquest never canst thou make, So heavy, as thou shalt not shake them off, BAST. Will't not be? Will not a calf's-skin stop that mouth of thine? LEW. Father, to arms! BLANCH. Upon thy wedding day? Against the blood that thou haft married? What, shall our feast be kept with slaughter'd men? Shall braying trumpets,' and loud churlish drums,— been loft, it is now in vain to feek; I have therefore adopted the emendation made by Mr. Pope, which makes some kind of sense. MALONE. 3braying trumpets,] Bray appears to have been particularly applied to exprefs the harth grating found of the trumpet. So, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. IV. c. xii. ft. 6: "And when it ceaft fhrill trompets loud did bray.” Again, B. IV. c. iv. ft. 48: "Then fhrilling trompets loudly 'gan to bray." And elsewhere in the play before us: Hard-refounding trumpets' dreadful bray.” Again, in Hamlet: "The trumpet fhall bray out.” Gawin Douglas, in his Tranflation of the Æneid, renders "sub axe tonanti- (Lib. V. v. 820:) "Under the brayand quhelis and affiltre." Blackmore is ridiculed in the Dunciad, (B. II.) for endeavouring Clamours of hell,—be measures to our pomp? nounce, Upon my knee I beg, go not to arms Against mine uncle. CONST. O, upon my knee, Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee, BLANCH. Now fhall I fee thy love; What motive may Be stronger with thee than the name of wife? CONST. That which upholdeth him that thee upholds, His honour: O, thine honour, Lewis, thine honour! LEW. I mufe,' your majefty doth feem fo cold, When fuch profound refpects do pull you on. to ennoble this word by applying it to the found of armour, war, &c, He might have pleaded these authorities, and that of Milton: "Arms on armour clashing bray'd "Horrible difcord." Paradife Loft, B. VI. v. 209. Nor did Gray, fcrupulous as he was in language, reject it in The Bard: "Heard ye the din of battle bray?" HOLT WHITE. 4-be meafures-] The measures, it has already been more than once obferved, were a fpecies of folemn dance in our author's time. This fpeech is formed on the following lines in the old play: Blanch. And will your grace upon your wedding-day "Forfake your bride, and follow dreadful drums? "Phil. Drums fhall be mufick to this wedding day." 5 I muse,] i. e. I wonder. REED. MALONE. So, in Middleton's "Tragi-Coomodie, called The Witch:" "And why thou ftaift fo long, I muse, "Since the air's so sweet and good." STEEVENS. |