This letter;-that's her chamber.-Tell my lady, I claim the promise for her heavenly picture. Your meffage done, hie home unto my chamber, Where thou shalt find me fad and folitary. [Exit Protheus. To plead for that, which I would not obtain ; But cannot be true fervant to my master, Yet will I woo for him; but yet fo coldly, Enter Silvia. Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you, be my mean Jul. From my mafter, fir Protheus, madam. Jul. Ay, madam. 7 To carry that, which I would have refus'd;] The fenfe is, To go and prefent that which I wish to be not accepted, to praise him whom I wish to be difpraised. JoHNSON. Sil. Urfula, bring my picture there. [Picture brought. Sil. I pray thee, let me look on that again. I will not look upon your master's lines : Jul. Madam, he fends your ladyfhip this ring. Sil. What fay'ft thou? Jul. I thank you, madam, that you tender her: Poor gentlewoman! my master wrongs her much. Sil. Doft thou know her? ful. Almost as well as I do know myself: To think upon her woes, I do protest, That I have wept an hundred feveral times. Sil. Belike, the thinks, that Protheus hath forfook her. Jul. I think he doth; and that's her cause of forrow. Sil. Is the not paffing fair? Jul. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is : When she did think my mafter lov'd her well, She, in my judgment, was as fair as you; $ But But fince fhe did neglect her looking-glafs, ful. About my ftature: for, at pentecoft, But fince he did neglect her looking-glafs, That now he is become as black as 1.] To farve the roses is certainly a very proper expreffion: but what is pinching a tincture? However, ftarved, in the third line, made the blundering editors write pinch'd in the fourth: though they might have seen that it was a tanning fcorching, not a freezing air that was spoken of For how could this latter quality in the air fo affect the whiteness of the skin as to turn it black? We should read: And PITCH'D the lily-tincture of her face. i. e. turned the white tincture black, as the following line has it: That now fhe is become as black as I: and we fay, in common fpeech, as black as pitch.-By the rofes being far'd, is only meant their being withered, and losing their colour. WARBURTON. This is no emendation; none ever heard of a face being pitched by the weather. The colour of a part pinched, is livid, as it is commonly termed, black and blue. The weather may therefore be justly faid to pinch when it produces the fame vifible effect. I believe this is the reason why the cold is faid to pinch. JOHNSON. Cleopatra fays of herself: 9 "I that am with Phoebus' pinches black." STEEVENS. -weep a-good;] i. e. in good earnest. Tout de box. Fr. STEEVENS So in Marlowe's Jew of Malta, 1633: "And therewithal their knees have rankled fo For For I did play a lamentable part: 1 twas Ariadne, paffioning Which For Thefeus perjury and unjust flight;] The hiftory of this twice-deferted lady is too well known to need an introduction here; nor is the reader interrupted on the business of Shakespeare: but I find it difficult to refrain from making a note the vehicle for a conjecture like this, which I may have no better opportunity of communicating to the public.-The subject of a picture of Guido (commonly fuppofed to be Ariadne deferted by Thefeus and courted by Bacchus) may poffibly have been hitherto mistaken. Whoever will examine the fabulous hiftory critically, as well as the performance itself, will acquiefce in the truth of the remark. Ovid, in his Fafti, tell us, that Bacchus (who left Ariadne to go on his Indian expedition) found too many charms in the daughter of one of the kings of that country. "Interea Liber depexos crinibus Indos "Quid me defertis perituram, Liber, arenis "Aufus es ante oculos, adducta pellice, noftros Ovid. Faft. 1. iii. lin. 465. In this picture he appears as if just returned from India, bringing with him his new favourite, who hangs on his arm, and whose prefence only causes thofe emotions fo vifible in the countenance of Ariadne, who has been hitherto reprefented on this occafion, as paffioning For Thefeus' perjury and unjust flight. From this painting a plate was engraved by Giacomo Freij, which is generally a companion to the Aurora of the fame master. The print is fo common, that the curious may eafily fatisfy themselves concerning the propriety of a remark which has perhaps intruded itself among the notes on this author. To paffion is ufed as a verb by writers contemporary with Shakefpeare. In The Blind Beggar of Alexandria, printed 1598, we meet with the fame expreflion: what, are thou paffioning over the picture of Cle anthes ?" Again, in Eliofto Libidinofo, a novel, by John Hinde, 1606: if thou gaze on a picture, thou must with Pigmalion be paffionate." Which I fo lively acted with my tears, Sil. She is beholden to thee, gentle youth ;- I weep myself, to think upon thy words, her. A virtuous gentlewoman, mild, and beautiful. Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, b. iii. c. 2: "Some argument of matter paffioned." STEEVENS. I'll get me fuch a colour'd periwig.] It fhould be remembered, that falfe hair was worn by the ladies, long before vigs were in fashion. These falfe coverings, however, were called periwigs. So in Northward Hoe, 1607: "There is a new trade come up for caft gentlewomen, of perriwig-making: let your wife set up in the Strand." STEEVENS. 3 -her forehead's low;] A high forehead was in our author's time accounted a feature eminently beautiful. So in The Hiftory of Guy of Warwick: Felice his lady is faid to have the Same high forehead as Venus. JOHNSON. -refpective] i. e. respectful, or resectable, STEEVENS. |