Maq. O good my lord, I have lived in the court this twenty year: they that have been old courtiers, and come to live in the city, they are spited at, and thrust to the walls like apricocks, good my lord.
Bil. My lord, I did know your lordship in this disguise; you heard me ever say, if Altofront did return, I would stand for him: besides, ’twas your lordship’s pleasure to call me wittol and cuckold: you must not think, but that I knew you, I would have put it up so patiently. 202
Mal. You o’er-joy’d spirits, wipe your long-wet eyes.
[To Pietro and Aurelia.
Hence with this man [Kicks out Mendoza]: an eagle takes not flies.
You to your vows [To Pietro and Aurelia]: and thou into the suburbs.[581]
[To Maquerelle.
You to my worst friend I would hardly give;
Thou art a perfect old knave [To Bilioso]: all-pleas’d live
You two unto my breast [To Celso and the Captain]: thou to my heart.
[To Maria.
The rest of idle actors idly part:
And as for me, I here assume my right, 210
To which I hope all’s pleas’d: to all, good-night.
[Cornets, a flourish. Exeunt.
[555] Some copies of ed. 1. “distuned.”
[556] Some copies of ed. 1. “head.”
[557] Sticks for setting the plaits of ruffs. They were first made of wood or bone, but afterwards of steel.
[558] Some copies of ed. 1. “falling-band.”
[559] Some copies of ed. 1. “St. Andrew Jaques.”
[560] Ed. 2. “wrapt.”
[561] This is the reading of ed. 2.—Some copies of ed. 1. give “windle.” Perhaps the true reading is “wimble” (= nimble), a word which Marston uses in The First Part of Antonio and Mellida (see p. 58).
[562] Outweigh.
[563] Contraction of “you must.”
[564] Given to Aurelia (perhaps rightly) in ed. 2. and some copies of ed. 1.
[565] “I ha’ done,” &c.—Old eds.:—
“Aur. I ha done; one word, take heede, I ha done.”
[566] Regions.—“Marche. A region, coast, or quarter.”—Cotgrave.
[567] Some copies of ed. 1. “Genoa.”
[568] Ed. 2. “count.”
[569] Ed. 2. “to.”
[570] Some copies of ed. 1. “come downe.”
[571]
A frotted jerkin—a jerkin in which sweet oil had
been rubbed. Cf. Cynthia’s Revels, v. 2:—
“Amo. Is the perfume rich in this jerkin?
Per. Taste, smell; I assure you, sir, pure benjamin, the
only spirited scent that ever awaked a Neapolitan nostril.... I
frotted a jerkin for a new-revenued gentleman yielded me three
score crowns but this morning, and the same titillation.”
[572] Old eds. “as.”
[573] Omitted in some copies of ed. 1.
[574] Old eds. “Pietro.”
[575] Some copies of ed. 1. “Lorenzo.”
[576] Some copies of ed. 1. “to liue till.”
[577] “O, I have seen ... so patiently” (ll. 180-202).—This passage was added in ed. 2.
[578] Some copies read “men.”
[579] Old ed. “conceale.”
[580] Some copies read “men.”
[581] Where the bawdy-houses were located.
SPOKEN BY THE PROLOGUE.
To wrest each hurtless thought to private sense
Is the foul use of ill-bred impudence:
Immodest censure now grows wild,
All over-running.
Let innocence be ne’er so chaste,
Yet at the last
She is defil’d
With too nice-brainèd cunning.
O you of fairer soul,
Control 10
With an Herculean arm
This harm;
And once teach all old freedom of a pen,
Which still must write of fools, whiles’t writes of men!
[582] The “imperfect ode” and the epilogue are not found in some copies of ed. 1.
Your modest silence, full of heedy stillness,
Makes me thus speak: a voluntary illness
Is merely[583]
senseless; but unwilling error,
Such as proceeds from too rash youthful fervour,
May well be call’d a fault, but not a sin:
Rivers take names from founts where they begin.
Then let not too severe an eye peruse
The slighter brakes[584]
of our reformèd Muse,
Who could herself herself of faults detect,
But that she knows ’tis easy to correct, 10
Though some men’s labour: troth, to err is fit,
As long as wisdom’s not profess’d, but wit.
Then till another’s happier Muse appears,[585]
Till his Thalia feast your learnèd ears,
To whose desertful lamps pleased Fates impart
Art above nature, judgment above art,
Receive this piece, which hope nor fear yet daunteth:
He that knows most knows most how much he wanteth.
[583] Wholly.
[584] Clearly another form of bracks, i.e., cracks, flaws.
[585] A fine compliment to Ben Jonson.
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
Minor punctuation errors were corrected. Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to follow the section of text or scene of the play in which the related anchors occur. In screen view, transliterations of Greek appear when the cursor is placed over the dotted underline text.
Line numbers in the original text are occasionally inaccurate. Line numbers for the prose portions of plays may not be accurate if the display width of the user’s viewer does not match the width of the original text.
Anomolies noted; left unchanged:
—In Act V of “Antonio’s Revenge,” the first two scenes are both identified as “Scene 1.”
—Footnotes [78], [237], and [478] each have two anchors that refer to the note.
Changes to text:
—Introduction: ‘indentified’ to ‘identified’
“... he is to be identified with ...”
—First part of Antonio and Mellida, Act III, Scene 1, line 113:
duplicate ‘myself’ removed from
“... Well, ere yon sun set, I’ll show myself myself,...”
—The Malcontent, Act V, Scene 3, line 88:
duplicate ‘a’ removed from
“... Life is a a frost of cold felicity,...”