Enter Don PEDRO, LEONATO, and CLAUDIO. D. PEDRO. Come, shall we hear this musick? CLAUD. Yea, my good lord:-How still the evening is, As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony! D. PEDRO. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? CLAUD. O, very well, my lord: the musick ended, We'll fit the kid-fox with a penny-worth 3. "Pipinetta. My mistresse would rise, and lacks your worship to fetch her haire. 66 66 Petulus, Why, is it not on her head? Pip. Methinks it should; but I mean the haire that she must weare to-day. "Li. Why, doth she weare any haire but her owne? "Pip. In faith, sir, no; I am sure it is her owne when she pays for it." Fines Moryson, describing the dress of the ladies of Shakspeare's time, says: "Gentlewomen virgins weare gownes close to the body, and aprons of fine linen, and go bareheaded, with their hair curiously knotted, and raised at the forehead, but many (against the cold, as they say,) weare caps of hair that is not their own." See The Two Gentlemen of Verona. MALONE. The practice of colouring the hair in Shakspeare's time, receives considerable illustration from Marie Magdalene her Life and Repentance, 1567, where Infidelitie (the Vice) recommends her to a goldsmith to die her hair yellow with some preparation, when it should fade; and Carnal Concupiscence tells her likewise that there was "other geare besides goldsmith's water," for the purpose. DOUCE. 3 D. Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself? Claudio. O, very well, my lord: the musick ended, We'll fit the KID-FOX with a penny-worth.] i. e. we will be even with the fox now discovered. So the word kid, or kidde, signifies in Chaucer: "The soothfastness that now is hid, "Perceiv'd or shew'd. Romaunt of the Rose, 2171, &c. Troilus and Cressida, lib. i. 208. "He kidde anon his bone was not broken." Enter BALTHAZAR, with musick*. D. PEDRO. Come, Balthazar, we'll hear that song again 3. BALTH. O good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander musick any more than once. D. PEDRO. It is the witness still of excellency, Since many a wooer doth commence his suit D. PEDRO. Nay, pray thee, come : Or, if thou wilt hold longer argument, Do it in notes. BALTH. Note this before my notes, There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting. "With that anon sterte out daungere, Romaunt of the Rose, 2130. GREY. It is not impossible but that Shakspeare chose on this occasion to employ an antiquated word; and yet if any future editor should choose to read-hid fox, he may observe that Hamlet has said- Hide fox and all after." STEEVENS. Dr. Warburton reads as Mr. Steevens proposes. MALONE. A kid-for seems to be no more than a young fox or cub. In As You Like It, we have the expression of" two dog-apes." RITSON. with musick.] I am not sure that this stage-direction (taken from the quarto 1600,) is proper. Balthazar might have been designed at once for a vocal and an instrumental performer. Shakspeare's orchestra was hardly numerous; and the first folio, instead of Balthazar, only gives us Jacke Wilson, the name of the actor who represented him. STEEVENS. 5 Come, BALTHAZAR. we'll hear that song again.] Balthazar, the musician and servant to Don Pedro, was perhaps thus named from the celebrated Baltazarini, called De Beaujoyeux, an Italian performer on the violin, who was in the highest fame and favour at the court of Henry II. of France, 1577. BURney. D. PEDRO. Why these are very crotchets that he speaks; Note, notes, forsooth, and noting"! [Musick. BENE. Now, Divine air! now is his soul ravished!-Is it not strange, that sheeps' guts should hale souls out of men's bodies ?-Well, a horn for my money, when all's done. BALTHAZAR Sings. I. BALTH. Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more", But let them go, And be you blith and bonny; Converting all Into, Hey nonny, nonny. II. Sing no more ditties, sing no mo D. PEDRO. By my troth, a good song. D. PEDRO. Ha? no; no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift. 6 - and NOTING!] The old copies-nothing. The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. MALONE. 7 Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,] 66 Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more." BENE. [Aside.] An he had been a dog, that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him and, I pray God, his bad voice bode no mischief! I had as lief have heard the night-raven come what plague could have come after it. 8 D. PEDRO. Yea, marry; [To CLAUDIO.]-Dost thou hear, Balthazar? I pray thee, get us some excellent musick; for to-morrow night we would have it at the lady Hero's chamber-window. BALTH. The best I can, my lord. D. PEDRO. Do so: farewell. [Exeunt BALTHAZAR and musick.] Come hither, Leonato: What was it you told me of to-day? that your niece Beatrice was in love with signior Benedick? CLAUD. O, ay:-Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits. [Aside to PEDRO.] I did never think that lady would have loved any man. 8 - I pray God, his bad voice BODE NO MISCHIEF! I had as lief have heard the NIGHT-RAVEN,] i. e. the owl; vuxтixopa. So, in King Henry VI. P. III. Sc. VI. : "The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time." STEEVENS. Thus also, Milton, in L'Allegro : "And the night-raven sings." DOUCE. 9 Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits.] This is an allusion to the stalking-horse; a horse either real or factitious, by which the fowler anciently sheltered himself from the sight of the game. So, in The Honest Lawyer, 1616: "Lye there, thou happy warranted case "Of any villain. Thou hast been my stalking-horse Again, in the 25th Song of Drayton's Polyolbion: "One underneath his horse to get a shoot doth stalk.” Again, in his Muses' Elysium: "Then underneath my horse, I stalk my game to strike." STEEVENS. Again, in New Shreds of the Old Snare, by John Gee, quarto, p. 23: “Methinks I behold the cunning fowler, such as I have knowne in the fenne countries and els-where, that doe shoot at woodcockes, snipes, and wilde fowle, by sneaking behind a painted cloth which they carrey before them, having pictured in it the LEON. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful, that she should so dote on signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed ever to abhor. BENE. Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner ? [Aside. LEON. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it; but that she loves him with an enraged affection,—it is past the infinite of thought'. shape of a horse; which while the silly fowle gazeth on, it is knockt down with hale shot, and so put in the fowler's budget." REED. A stalking-bull, with a cloth thrown over him, was sometimes used for deceiving the game; as may be seen from a very elegant cut in Loniceri Venatus et Aucupium. Francofurti, 1582, 4to. and from a print by F. Valeggio, with the motto Veste boves operit, dum sturnos fallit edaces. DOUCE. I but that she loves him with an enraged affection,-it is past the INFINITE of thought.] It is impossible to make sense and grammar of this speech. And the reason is, that the two beginnings of two different sentences are jumbled together and made one. For-" but that she loves him with an enraged affection," is only part of a sentence which should conclude thus,-' is most certain.' But a new idea striking the speaker, he leaves his sentence unfinished, and turns to another," it is past the infinite of thought," which is likewise left unfinished; for it should conclude thus to say how great that affection is.' Those broken disjointed sentences are usual in conversation. However, there is one one word wrong, which yet perplexes the sense; and that is infinite. Human thought cannot surely be called infinite with any kind of figurative propriety. I suppose the true reading was definite. This makes the passage intelligible. It is past the definite of thought,'-i. e. it cannot be defined or conceived how great that affection is. Shakspeare uses the word again in the same sense in Cymbeline: "For ideots, in this case of favour, would i. e. could tell how to pronounce or determine in the case. WARBURTON. Here are difficulties raised only to show how easily they can be removed. The plain sense is, I know not what to think otherwise, but that she loves him with an enraged affection: It (this af |