CEL. You must borrow me Garagantua's mouth2 firft: 'tis a word too great for any mouth of this age's fize: To fay, ay, and no, to these particulars, is more than to anfwer in a catechism. Ros. But doth he know that I am in this forest, and in man's apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he wrestled? CEL. It is as easy to count atomies,3 as to refolve the propofitions of a lover:-but take a taste of my finding him, and relish it with a good obfervance. I found him under a tree, like a dropp'd acorn. Ros. It may well be call'd Jove's tree, when it drops forth fuch fruit.4 2 Garagantua's mouth-] Rofalind requires nine queftions to be answered in one word. Celia tells her that a word of fuch magnitude is too big for any mouth but that of Garagantua the giant of Rabelais. JOHNSON. Garagantua fwallowed five pilgrims, their ftaves and all, in a fallad. It appears from the books of the Stationers' Company, that in 1592 was published, "Garagantua his Prophecie." And in 1594, "A booke entitled, The Hiftory of Garagantua." The book of Garagantua is likewife mentioned in Laneham's Narrative of Queen Elizabeth's Entertainment at KenelworthCuftle, in 1575. Some tranflator of one of these pieces is cenfured by Hall, in his fecond Book of Satires: "But who conjur'd, &c. "Or wicked Rablais dronken revellings "To grace the misrule of our tavernings?" STEEVENS. 3 to count atomies,] Atomies are those minute particles difcernible in a ftream of funfhine that breaks into a darkened room. HENLEY. "An atomie, (fays Bullokar, in his English Expofitor, 1616,) is a mote flying in the funne. Any thing so small that it cannot be made leffe." MALONE. - when it drops forth fuch fruit.] The old copy reads— when it drops forth fruit. The word fuch was fupplied by the editor of the second folio. I once fufpected the phrase, "when CEL. Give me audience, good madam. Ros. Proceed. CEL. There lay he, stretch'd along, like a wounded knight. Ros. Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes the ground.5 CEL. Cry, holla! to thy tongue, I pr’ythee; it curvets very unfeasonably. unfeasonably. He was furnith'd like a hunter. Ros. O ominous! he comes to kill my heart.7 it drops forth," to be corrupt; but it is certainly our author's; for it occurs again in this play: "Could not drop forth fuch giant-rude invention." This paffage ferves likewise to fupport the emendation that has been made. MALONE. 5-fuch a fight, it well becomes the ground.] So, in Hamlet: 6 Cry, holla! to thy tongue,] The old copy has-the tongue. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. Holla was a term of the manege, by which the rider restrained and stopp'd his horse. So, in our author's Venus and Adonis : "What recketh he his rider's angry ftir, "His flattering holla, or his ftand I fay?" The word is again used in Othello, in the fame fense as here: "Holla! ftand there." MALONE. Again, in Cotton's Wonders of the Peak: "But I must give my mufe the hola here." REED. 7 to kill my heart.] A quibble between heart and hart. STEEVENS. Our author has the fame expreffion in many other places. So, in Love's Labour's Loft: 66 Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart." Again, in his Venus and Adonis : they have murder'd this poor heart of mine." But the preceding word, hunter, fhows that a quibble was here CEL. I would fing my fong without a burden: thou bring'ft me out of tune. Ros. Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak. Sweet, fay on. Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES. CEL. You bring me out :-Soft! comes he not here? Ros. 'Tis he; flink by, and note him. [CELIA and ROSALIND retire. JAQ, I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone. ORL. And fo had I; but yet, for fashion fake, I thank you too for your fociety. JAQ. God be with you; let's meet as little as we can. QRL. I do defire we may be better strangers. JAQ. I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-fongs in their barks. ORL. I pray you, mar no more of my verfes with reading them ill-favouredly. JAQ. Rofalind is your love's name? ORL. Yes, juft. JAQ. I do not like her name. ORL. There was no thought of pleafing you, when she was chriften'd. JAQ. What ftature is fhe of? intended between heart and hart. In our author's time the latter word was often written instead of heart, as it is in the present inftance, in the old copy of this play. MALONE. ORL. Juft as high as my heart. JAQ. You are full of pretty anfwers: Have you not been acquainted with goldfiniths' wives, and conn'd them out of rings? ORL. Not fo; but I anfwer you right painted cloth, from whence you have ftudied your quef tions. 8 8 but I answer you right painted cloth,] This alludes to the fashion in old tapestry hangings, of mottos and moral fentences from the mouths of the figures worked or painted in them. The poet again hints at this cuftom, in his poem, called, Tarquin and Lucrece : "Who fears a fentence, or an old man's faw, "Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe." THEOBALD. So, in Barnaby Riche's Soldier's Wife to Britons Welfare, or Captaine Skill and Captaine Pill, &c. 1604, p. 1: “It is enough for him that can but robbe a painted cloth of a hiftorie, a booke of a discourse, a fool of a fashion, &c. The fame allufion is common to many of our old plays. So, in The Two angry Women of Abington, 1599: "Now will I fee if my memory will ferve for fome proverbs. O, a painted cloth were as well worth a fhilling, as a thief is worth a halter." Again, in A Match at Midnight, 1633: "There's a witty pofy for you. "-No, no; I'll have one fhall favour of a faw. 66 Why then 'twill smell of the painted cloth." "In painted cloth, the ftory of the prodigal." From this laft quotation we may fuppofe that the rooms in publick houses were ufually hung with what Falstaff calls water-work. On these hangings, perhaps, moral fentences were depicted as iffuing from the mouths of the different characters represented. Again, in Sir Thomas More's English Works, printed by Raftell, 1557: "Mayfter Thomas More in hys youth devyfed in hys father's house in London, a goodly hangyng of fyne paynted clothe, with nine pageauntes, and verfes over every of those pageauntes; which verfes expreffed and declared what the ymages in those pageauntes reprefented: and also in those JAQ. You have a nimble wit; I think it was made of Atalanta's heels. me? and we two will rail world, and all our misery. Will you fit down with against our mistress the pageauntes were paynted the thynges that the verses over them dyd (in effecte) declare." Of the prefent phrafeology there is an inftance in King John: He speaks plain cannon-fire, and bounce, and smoke." STEEVENS. I answer you right painted cloth, may mean, I give you a true painted cloth anfwer; as we fay, fhe talks right Billingsgate: that is, exactly such language as is used at Billingfgate. JOHNSON. This fingular phrase may be justified by another of the fame kind in King Henry V: "I fpeak to thee plain foldier." Again, in Twelfth-Night: "He speaks nothing but madman." There is no need of Sir T. Hanmer's alteration: "I answer you right in the Style of painted cloth." We had before in this play, "It is the right butter-woman's rate to market." So, in Golding's tranflation of Ovid, 1567: the look of it was right a maiden's look." I fuppofe Orlando means to fay, that Jaques's questions have no more of novelty or fhrewdnefs in them than the trite maxims of the painted cloth. The following lines, which are found in a book with this fantastick title,-No whipping nor tripping, but a kind of friendly fnipping, octavo, 1601, may serve as a specimen of painted cloth language: Read what is written on the painted cloth: "And turn the colt to pafture with the mare;" &c. That moral fentences were wrought in these painted cloths, is afcertained by the following paffage in A Dialogue both pleafaunt and pitifull, &c. by Dr. Willyam Bulleyne, 1564, (fign. H 5.) which has been already quoted: "This is a comelie parlour, and faire clothes, with pleasaunte borders aboute the fame, with many wife fayings painted upon them." MALONE. |