ACT IV.
Scene 2. Page 257.
Host. ... the musick likes you not.
i. e. pleases, in which sense it is used by Chaucer. This is the genuine Saxon meaning of the word, however it might have been corrupted in early times from its Latin original licet. In the next speech Julietta plays upon the word.
Scene 2. Page 258.
Sil. What is your will?
Pro. That I may compass yours.
Sil. You have your wish; my will is even this;—
On which Dr. Johnson observes, "The word will is here ambiguous. He wishes to gain her will; she tells him, if he wants her will he has it." The learned critic seems to have mistaken the sense of the word compass, when he says it means to gain. If it did, his remark would be just. But to compass in this place signifies, to perform, accomplish, take measures for doing a thing. Thus in Twelfth night, Act I. Scene 2, "that were hard to compass;" and in 1 Hen. VI. Act V. Scene 5, "You judge it impossible to compass wonders." Accordingly Sylvia proceeds to instruct Proteus how he may perform her will. Wish and will are here used, as in many other places, though inaccurately, as synonymous. If however Shakspeare really designed to make Proteus say that he was desirous of gaining Sylvia's good will, she must be supposed, in her reply, purposely to mistake his meaning.
Scene 2. Page 260.
Sil. But since your falshood shall become you well
To worship shadows, and adore false shapes.
Dr. Johnson objects to the sense of this passage, and the other commentators offer conjectural interpretations; yet surely nothing is more clear than the sense, and even the grammar may be defended. It is simply, "since your falsehood shall adapt or render you fit to worship shadows." Become here answers to the Latin convenire, and is used according to its genuine Saxon meaning.
Scene 2. Page 260.
Host. By my hallidom, I was fast asleep.
This Mr. Ritson explains, by my holy doom, or sentence at the resurrection, from the Saxon halɩᵹꝺom; but the word does not appear to have had such a meaning. It rather signifies holiness or honesty. It likewise denoted a sacrament, a sanctuary, relics of saints, or anything holy. It seems in later times to have been corrupted into holidame, as if it expressed the holy virgin. Thus we have so help me God and hollidame. See Bullein's Book of the use of sicke men, 1579, in folio, fo. 2 b.
Scene 4. Page 270.
Jul. But since she did neglect her looking-glass,
And threw her sun-expelling mask away.
It was the fashion at this time for the ladies to wear masks, which are thus described by the puritanical Stubs in his Anatomie of abuses, 1595, 4to, p. 59. "When they use to ride abroad they have masks and visors made of velvet wherewith they cover all their faces, having holes made in them against their eyes, whereout they looke. So that if a man that knew not their guise before, should chaunce to meet one of them, he would think he met a monster or a Devil, for face he can shew (see) none, but two broad holes against their eyes, with glasses in them." More will be said on the subject of this mode of disguising the female face in a remark on The merry wives of Windsor, Act IV. Scene 2.
Scene 4. Page 271.
Jul. ... 'twas Ariadne, passioning
For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight.
A note is here inserted, "not" says its learned and classical author, "on the business of Shakspeare," but to introduce a conjecture relating to one of Guido's paintings commonly supposed to represent Ariadne as deserted by Theseus and courted by Bacchus, but which he conceives to have been intended for Bacchus's desertion of this lady for an Indian captive. An attentive examination of the print from Guido's picture will, it is presumed, incline any one to hesitate much before he shall decide on having discerned any traces of an Indian princess; and this supposed character may rather turn out to be Venus introducing the amorous Deity, attended by his followers, to Ariadne, forlorn and abandoned by Theseus in the isle of Chios, according to Ovid, or Naxos according to Lactantius. Nor is the female who accompanies Bacchus "hanging on his arm," as stated by the critic. It is impossible likewise to perceive in this figure the modest looks or demeanour of a female captive, or in the supposed Bacchus the character of a lover, insulting, according to Ovid's description, his former mistress by displaying the beauties of another. Boccaccio has very comically accounted for Ariadne's desertion by Theseus, and her subsequent transfer to Bacchus. He supposes the lady to have been too fond of the juice of the grape, and that on her continuing to indulge this propensity, she was therefore called the wife of Bacchus. See Geneal. deor. lib. xi. c. 29.
Scene 4. Page 274.
Jul. Her eyes are grey as glass.
This was in old times the favourite colour of the eyes in both sexes:
"His eyen are gray as any glasse."
Romance of Sir Isenbras.
"Her eyen gray as glas."
Romance of Libeaus desconus.
"Les iex vairs et rians com un faucon."
Roman de Guerin de Montglaive. MS.
And to come nearer to Shakspeare's time:—In the interlude of Marie Magdalene, a song in praise of her says, "your eyes as gray as glasse and right amiable." The French term ver or vair has induced some of their antiquaries to suppose that it meant green; but it has been very satisfactorily shown to signify in general the colour still called by heralds vair. It is certain however that the French romances and other authorities allude occasionally to green eyes.
Scene 4. Page 274.
Jul. My substance should be statue in thy stead.
In confirmation of Mr. M. Mason's note, it may be observed that in the comedy of Cornelianum dolium, Act I. Scene 5, statua is twice used for a picture. They were synonymous terms, and sometimes a statue was called a picture. Thus Stowe, speaking of Elizabeth's funeral, says that when the people beheld "her statue or picture lying upon the coffin" there was a general sighing, &c. Annals, p. 815, edit. 1631. In the glossary to Speght's Chaucer, 1598, statue is explained picture; and in one of the inventories of King Henry the Eighth's furniture at Greenwich, several pictures of earth are mentioned. These were busts in terra cotta like those still remaining in Wolsey's palace at Hampton Court.