Which makes me fear the enjoying of my love:
There may as well be amity and life

'Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love.

Por. Ay, but, I fear, you speak upon the rack,
Where men enforced do speak any thing.

Bass. Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.
Por. Well then, confess, and live.

Bass.

Confess, and love, Had been the very sum of my confession:

O happy torment, when my torturer
Doth teach me answers for deliverance!
But let me to my fortune and the caskets.

Por. Away then: I am lock'd in one of them;
If you do love me, you will find me out.—
Nerissa, and the rest, stand all aloof.—

Let musick sound, while he doth make his choice;
Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,

Fading in musick: that the comparison

May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream,
And wat❜ry death-bed for him: He may win;
And what is musick then? then musick is
Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch: such it is,
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day,
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear,
And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,
With no less presence, but with much more love,
Than young Alcides, when he did redeem
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
To the sea-monster:3 I stand for sacrifice,
The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
With bleared visages, come forth to view
The issue of the exploit. Go, Hercules!

2 With no less presence,] With the same dignity of mien.

Johnson.

3 To the sea-monster:] See Ovid, Metamorph. Lib. XI, ver. 199, et seqq. Shakspeare, however, I believe, had read an account of this adventure in The Destruction of Troy:-" Laomedon cast his eyes all bewept on him, [Hercules] and was all abashed to see his greatness and his beauty." See B. I, p. 221, edit. 1617. Malone.

Live thou, I live:-With much much more dismay I view the fight, than thou that mak'st the fray.4

Musick, whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself.

Bass. So may the outward shows be least them

selves;

The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it, and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?

4 Live thou, I live:-With much much more dismay

I view the fight, than_thou that makʼst the fray.] One of the quartos [Roberts's] reads:

Live then, I live with much more dismay

To view the fight, than &c.

The folio, 1623, thus:

Live thou, I live with much more dismay
I view the fight, than &c.

Heyes's quarto gives the present reading. Johnson.

-fancy —] i. e. Love.

So, in A Midsummer-Night's

"Than sighs and tears, poor fancy's followers." Steevens. 6 Reply.] The words, reply, reply, were in all the late editions, except Sir T. Hanmer's, put as verse in the song; but in all the old copies stand as a marginal direction. Johnson.

7 So may the outward shows-] He begins abruptly; the first part of the argument has passed in his mind. Johnson.

ទ -gracious voice,] Pleasing; winning favour. Johnson.

There is no vice1 so simple, but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules, and frowning Mars;
Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk?
And these assume but valour's excrement,2
To render them redoubted. Look on beauty,
And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight;3
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
Making them lightest that wear most of it:4
So are those crisped" snaky golden locks,
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposed fairness, often known

To be the dowry of a second head,

The scull that bred them, in the sepulchre."
Thus ornament is but the guiled shore?

9—

patra:

approve it-] i. e. justify it. So, in Antony and Cleo

66 I am full sorry

"That he approves the common liar, fame."

Steevens.

1 There is no vice-] The old copies read-voice. The emendation was made by the editor of the second folio. Malone. valour's excrement,] i. e. what a little higher is called the beard of Hercules. So, "pedler's excrement," in The Winter's Tale. Malone.

2

3 by the weight;] so; as, false hair, &c.

That is, artificial beauty is purchased
Steevens.

4 Making them lightest that wear most of it: Lightest is here used in a wanton sense. So afterwards:

"Let me be light, but let me not seem light." Malone. 5- crisped-] i. e. curled. So, in The Philosopher's Satires, by Robert Anton:

6

"Her face as beauteous as the crisped morn." Steevens.

in the sepulchre.] See a note on Timon of Athens, Act IV, sc. iii. Shakspeare has likewise satirized this yet prevailing fashion in Love's Labour's Lost. Steevens.

7

the guiled shore-] i. e. the treacherous shore. The Pilgrim, by Beaumont and Fletcher:

"Or only a fair show to guile his mischiefs."

So, in

I should not have thought the word wanted explanation, but that some of our modern editors have rejected it, and read gilded. Guiled is the reading of all the ancient copies. Shakspeare in

To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,

The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,
Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee:

Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
'Tween man and man: but thou, thou meager lead,
Which rather threat'nest, than dost promise aught,
Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence,1
And here choose I; Joy be the consequence!

this instance, as in many others, confounds the participles. Guiled stands for guiling. Steevens.

8

9

tern,

Indian beauty;] Sir T. Hanmer reads:

Indian dowdy. Johnson.

thou pale and common drudge

'Tween man and man:] So, in Chapman's Hymnus in Noc4to. 1594:

"To whom pale day (with whoredome soked quite)

"Is but a drudge.” Steevens.

1 Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence,] The old copies read-paleness. Steevens.

Bassanio is displeased at the golden casket for its gaudiness, and the silver one for its paleness; but what! is he charmed with the leaden one for having the very same quality that displeased him in the silver? The poet certainly wrote:

Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence:

This characterizes the lead from the silver, which paleness does not, they being both pale. Besides, there is a beauty in the antithesis between plainness and eloquence; between paleness and eloquence none. So it is said before of the leaden casket:

"This third, dull lead, with warning all is blunt." Warburton. It may be that Dr. Warburton has altered the wrong word, if any alteration be necessary. I would rather give the character of silver,

Thou stale and common drudge

""Tween man and man."

The paleness of lead is for ever alluded to.

"Diane declining, pale as any ledde.”

Says Stephen Hawes. In Fairfax's Tasso, we have"The lord Tancredie, pale with rage as lead,"

Again, Sackville, in his Legend of the Duke of Buckingham: "Now pale as lead, now cold as any stone.”

And in the old ballad of The King and the Beggar:

66 She blushed scarlet red,

"Then straight again, as pale as lead."

As to the antithesis, Shakspeare has already made it in A Midsummer-Night's Dream:

Por. How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rash embrac'd-despair,
And shudd'ring fear, and green-ey'd jealousy.
O love be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,
In measure rain thy joy,2 scant this excess;
I feel too much thy blessing, make it less,

"When (says Theseus) I have seen great clerks look pale, "I read as much, as from the rattling tongue

"Of saucy and audacious eloquence." Farmer.

By laying an emphasis on Thy, [Thy paleness moves me, &c.] Dr. W.'s objection is obviated. Though Bassanio might object to silver, that "pale and common drudge," lead, though pale also, yet not being in daily use, might, in his opinion, deserve a preference. I have therefore great doubts concerning Dr. Warburton's emendation. Malone.

2 In measure rain thy joy,] The first quarto edition reads:
In measure range thy joy.

The folio, and one of the quartos:
In measure rainê thy joy.

I once believ'd Shakspeare meant:

In measure rein thy joy.

The words rain and rein were not in these times distinguished by regular orthography. There is no difficulty in the present reading, only where the copies vary, some suspicion of error is always raised. Johnson.

Having frequent occasion to make the same observation in the perusal of the first folio, I am also, strongly inclined to the former word; but as the text is intelligible, have made no change. Rein in the second instance quoted below by Mr. Steevens, is spelt in the old copy as it is here;-raine. So, in The Tempest, edit. 1623:

66

do not give dalliance

"Too much the raigne." Malone.

I believe Shakspeare alluded to the well known proverb, It cannot rain, but it pours.

So, in The Laws of Candy, by Beaumont and Fletcher:

66

pour not too fast joys on me,

"But sprinkle them so gently, I may stand them."

The following quotation by Mr. Malone from K. Henry IV, P. I, confirms my sense of the passage:

❝ but in short space

"It rain'd down fortune show'ring on thy head,

"And such a flood of greatness fell on you," &c.

Mr. Tollet is of opinion that rein is the true word, as it better agrees with the context; and more especially on account of the following passage in Coriolanus, which approaches very near to the present reading:

-being once chaf'd, he cannot "Be rein'd again to temperance."