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Thus Rosalind of many parts

By heavenly synod was devis'd;
Of many faces, eyes, and hearts,

To have the touches1 dearest priz❜d.

lanta most celebrated, and who therefore must be intended here where she has no epithet of discrimination, the better part seems to have been her heels, and the worse part was so bad that Rosalind would not thank her lover for the comparison. There is a more obscure Atalanta, a huntress and a heroine, but of her nothing bad is recorded, and therefore I know not which was her better part. Shakspeare was no despicable mythologist, yet he seems here to have mistaken some other character for that of Atalanta. Johnson.

Perhaps the poet means her beauty and graceful elegance of shape, which he would prefer to her swiftness. Thus Ovid: -nec dicere posses,

66

"Laude pedum, formæne bono præstantior esset.
"Ut faciem, et posito corpus velamine vidit,
"Obstupuit

و"

But cannot Atalanta's better part mean her virtue or virgin chastity, with which nature had graced Rosalind, together with Helen's beauty without her heart or lewdness, with Cleopatra's dignity of behaviour, and with Lucretia's modesty, that scorned to survive the loss of honour? Pliny's Natural History, B. XXXV, c. iii, mentions the portraits of Atalanta and Helen, utraque excellentissima forma, sed altera ut virgo; that is, "both of them for beauty, incomparable, and yet a man may discern the one [Atalanta] of them to be a maiden, for her modest and chaste countenance," as Dr. P. Holland translated the passage; of which probably our poet had taken notice, for surely he had judgment in painting. Tollet.

I suppose Atalanta's better part is her wit, i. e. the swiftness of her mind. Farmer.

Shakspeare might have taken part of this enumeration of distinguished females from John Grange's Golden Aphroditis, 1577:

who seemest in my sight faire Helen of Troy, Polixene, Calliope, yea Atalanta hir selfe in beauty to surpasse, Pandora in qualities, Penelope and Lucretia in chastenesse to deface." Again, ibid:

"Polixene fayre, Calliop, and

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Again, ibid: "Atalanta who sometyme bore the bell of beauties price in that hyr native soyle."

It may be observed, that Statius also, in his sixth Thebaid, has confounded Atalanta the wife of Hippomenes, and daughter of Siconeus, with Atalanta the daughter of Enomaus, and wife of Pelops. See v. 564. Steevens.

Heaven would that she these gifts should have,
And I to live and die her slave.

Dr. Farmer's explanation may derive some support from a subsequent passage: " as swift a wit as Atalanta's heels."

Malone.

I think this stanza was formed on an old tetrastick epitaph, which, as I have done, Mr. Steevens may possibly have read in a country church-yard:

"She who is dead and sleepeth in this tomb,

"Had Rachel's comely face, and Leah's fruitful womb: "Sarah's obedience, Lydia's open heart,

"And Martha's care, and Mary's better part." Whalley. The following passage in Marston's Insatiate Countess, 1613, might lead one to suppose that Atalanta's better part was her lips : That eye was Juno's;

"Those lips were her's that won the golden ball;
"That virgin blush Diana's."

Be this as it may, these lines show that Atalanta was considered as uncommonly beautiful, and therefore may serve to support Mr. Tollet's first interpretation.

It is observable that the story of Atalanta in the tenth Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses is interwoven with that of Venus and Adonis, which our author had undoubtedly read. The lines most material to the present point run thus in Golding's translation, 1567:

"She overcame them out of doubt; and hard it is to tell
"Thee, whether she did in footemanshippe or beautie more
excell."

he did condemne the young men's love. But when
"He saw her face and body bare, (for why, the lady then
"Did strip her to her naked skin) the which was like to mine,
"Or rather, if that thou wast made a woman, like to thine,
"He was amaz'd."

66— And though that she

"Did flie as swift as arrow from a Turkie bow, yet hee
"More wondered at her beautie, then at swiftnesse of her

pace;

"Her running greatly did augment her beautie and her

grace." Malone.

The passage quoted by Mr. Malone from Marston's Insatiate Countess, has no reference to the ball of Atalanta, but to the golden apple which was adjudged to Venus by Paris, on Mount Ida.

After all, I believe, that " Atalanta's better part" means onlythe best part about her, such as was most commended. Steevens. 9 Sad-] Is grave, sober, not light. Johnson.

So, in Much Ado about Nothing: "She is never sad but when she sleeps." Steevens.

1

the touches-] The features; les traits. Johnson.

Ros. O most gentle Jupiter!-what tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cry'd, Have patience, good people!

Cel. How now! back friends;-Shepherd, go off a little:-Go with him, sirrah.

Touch. Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable. retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage. [Exeunt COR. and TOUCH.

Cel. Didst thou hear these verses?

Ros. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too: for some of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.

Cel. That's no matter; the feet might bear the verses. Ros. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.

Cel. But didst thou hear, without wondering, how thy name should be hang'd and carved upon these trees?

Ros. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder, before you came; for look here what I found on a palmtree:2 I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat,3 which I can hardly remember.

2

So, in King Richard III:

"Madam, I have a touch of your condition." Steevens. a palm-tree:] A palm-tree, in the forest of Arden, is as much out of its place, as the lioness in a subsequent scene.

Steevens.

3 I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time that I was an Irish rat,] Rosalind is a very learned lady. She alludes to the Pythagorean doctrine, which teaches that souls transmigrate from one animal to another, and relates that in his time she was an Irish rat, and by some metrical charm was rhymed to death. The power of killing rats with rhymes Donne mentions in his Satires, and Temple in his Treatises. Dr. Grey has produced a similar passage from Randolph:

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My poets

"Shall with a satire, steep'd in gall and vinegar,
Rhyme them to death as they do rats in Ireland.”

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Johnson.

So, in an address to the reader at the conclusion of Ben Jonson's Poetaster:

"Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats

"In drumming tunes." Steevens.

So, in The Defence of Poesie, by our author's contemporary, Sir Philip Sidney: "Though I will not wish unto you-to be driven

Cel. Trow you, who hath done this?

Ros. Is it a man?

Cel. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck: Change you colour?

Ros. I pr'ythee, who?

Cel. O lord, lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and so encounter.5

Ros. Nay, but who is it?

Cel. Is it possible?

Ros. Nay, I pray thee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is.

Cel. O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all whooping!

Ros. Good my complexion!" dost thou think, though

by a poet's verses, as Rubonax was, to hang yourself, nor to be rimed to death, as is said to be done in Ireland-." Malone.

4

-friends to meet;] Alluding ironically to the proverb:
"Friends may meet, but mountains never greet."

See Ray's Collection. Steevens.

5

but mountains may be removed with earthquakes, and so encounter.] "Montes duo inter se concurrerunt," &c. says Pliny, Hist. Nat. Lib. II, c. lxxxiii, or in Holland's translation: "Two hills (removed by an earthquake) encountered together, charging as it were, and with violence assaulting one another, and retyring again with a most mighty noise." Tollet.

6

out of all whooping!] i. e. out of all measure, or reckoning. So, in the old ballad of Yorke, Yorke for my Money, &c. 1584: "And then was shooting, out of cry,

"The skantling at a handful nie.”

Again, in the old bl. 1. comedy called Common Conditions:

"I have beraed myself out of cry." Steevens.

This appears to have been a phrase of the same import as another formerly in use, "out of all cry." The latter seems to allude to the custom of giving notice by a crier of things to be sold. So, in A Chaste Maide of Cheapside, a comedy, by T. Middleton, 1630: "I'll sell all at an outcry." Malone.

An outcry is still a provincial term for an auction.

Steevens.

7 Good my complexion!] This is a mode of expression, Mr. Theobald says, which he cannot reconcile to common sense. Like enough: and so too the Oxford editor. But the meaning is-Hold good my complexion, i. e. let me not blush. Warburton.

Good my complexion!] My native character, my female inquisitive disposition, canst thou endure this!-For thus character

I am caparison'd like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South-seaoff discovery. I pr'ythee, tell me, who is it? quickly, and speak apace: I would thou couldst stammer, that thou might'st pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-mouth'd bottle; either too much at once, or none at all. I pr'ythee take the cork out of thy mouth, that I may drink thy tidings. Cel. So you may put a man in your belly.

izing the most beautiful part of the creation, let our author anMalone.

swer.

Good my complexion! is a little unmeaning exclamatory address to her beauty; in the nature of a small oath. Ritson.

8 One inch of delay more is a South-sea-off discovery.] The old copy reads-is a South-sea of discoverie. Steevens.

This is stark nonsense; we must read-off discovery, i. e. from discovery. "If you delay me one inch of time longer, I shall think this secret as far from discovery as the South-sea is.

Warburton. This sentence is rightly noted by the commentator as nonsensé, but not so happily restored to sense. I read thus:

One inch of delay more is a South-sea. Discover, I pr'ythee; tell me who is it quickly!-When the transcriber had once made discovery from discover I, he easily put an article after South-sea. But it may be read with still less change, and with equal probability-Every inch of delay more is a South-sea discovery: Every delay, however short, is to me tedious and irksome as the longest voyage, as a voyage of discovery on the South-sea. How much voyages to the South-sea on which the English had then first ventured, engaged the conversation of that time, may be easily imagined. Johnson.

Of for off, is frequent in the elder writers. A South-sea of discovery is a discovery a South-sea off-as far as the South-sea.

Farmer. Warburton's sophistication ought to have been reprobated, and the old, which is the only reading that can preserve the sense of Rosalind, restored. A South-sea of discovery, is not a discovery, as FAR OFF, but as COMPREHENSIVE as the South-sea; which, being the largest in the world, affords the widest scope for exercising curiosity. Henley.

On a further consideration of this passage I-am strongly inclined to think, with Dr. Johnson, that we should read a Southsea discovery. "Delay, however short, is to me tedious and irksome as the longest voyage, as a voyage of discovery on the South-sea." The word of, which had occurred just before, might have been inadvertently repeated by the compositor.

VOL. V.

H

Malone.

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