And now am I, unhappy messenger, 110 To plead for that which I would not obtain, I am my master's true-confirmed love; But cannot be true servant to my master, Enter Silvia, attended. Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you, be my mean 120 To bring me where to speak with Madam Silvia. Sil. What would you with her, if that I be she? Jul. If you be she, I do entreat your patience To hear me speak the message I am sent on. Sil. From whom? Jul. From my master, Sir Proteus, madam. Jul. Aye, madam. Sil. Ursula, bring my picture there. Go give your master this: tell him, from me, get, 130 Would better fit his chamber than this shadow. Jul. Madam, please you peruse this letter.Pardon me, madam; I have unadvised Deliver❜d you a paper that I should not: This is the letter to your ladyship. I will not look upon your master's lines: I know they are stuff'd with protestations, 140 And full of new-found oaths; which he will break As easily as I do tear his paper. Jul. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring. Though his false finger have profaned the ring, Jul. She thanks you. Sil. What say'st thou? 150 Jul. I thank you, madam, that you tender her. Poor gentlewoman! my master wrongs her much. Sil. Dost thou know her? Jul. Almost as well as I do know myself: That I have wept a hundred several times. Sil. Belike she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her. Jul. I think she doth; and that 's her cause of sor row. Sil. Is she not passing fair? Jul. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is: 160 When she did think my master loved her well, She, in my judgment, was as fair as you; But since she did neglect her looking-glass, Jul. About my stature: for, at Pentecost, When all our pageants of delight were play'd, Our youth got me to play the woman's part, 171 And I was trimm'd in Madam Julia's gown; Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments, As if the garment had been made for me: Therefore I know she is about my height. And at that time I made her weep agood, For I did play a lamentable part: Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight; Which I so lively acted with my tears, That my poor mistress, moved therewithal, Wept bitterly; and, would I might be dead, If I in thought felt not her very sorrow! Sil. She is beholding to thee, gentle youth. Alas, poor lady, desolate and left! 180 I weep myself to think upon thy words. [Exit Silvia, with attendants. 164. Alluding, no doubt, to the custom thus noticed by Stubbs in his Anatomie of Abuses, published in 1595: "When they" (the ladies) "use to ride abroad, they have masks or visors made of velvet, wherewith they cover all their faces, having holes made in them against their eyes, whereout they look."-H. N. H. Jul. And she shall thank you for 't, if e'er you know her. 190 A virtuous gentlewoman, mild and beautiful! >Her eyes are gray as glass; and so are mine: Aye, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high. 202. False hair was much worn by ladies in Shakespeare's time; it being then one of the "latest fashions," and induced by a general desire to have hair like the Queen's. In Northward Hoe, 1607, is an allusion to it: "There is a new trade come up for cast gentlewomen, of periwig-making. Let your wife set up in the Strand." The fashion is thus referred to in The Merchant of Venice: "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."—H. N. H. 203. The gray eyes of the Poet's time were the same as the blue eyes of ours. Glass was not colorless then as we have it, but of a light-blue tint. So that eyes as gray as glass were of the soft azure or cerulean, such as usually go with the auburn and yellow hair of Silvia and Julia.-H. N. H. 204. A high forehead was then accounted a feature eminently beautiful. Our author, in The Tempest, shows that low foreheads were in disesteem: "apes with foreheads villainous low."-H. N. H. What should it be that he respects in her, If this fond Love were not a blinded god? 210 And, were there sense in his idolatry, [Exit. 205. That is, "What he respects in her has equal relation to myself."-H. N. H. |