In the _Aminta_ of Tasso[73] the lover falls into a mere play of words, demanding how he who had lost himself, could find a mistress. And for the same reason, the following passage in Corneille has been generally condemned: _Chimene._ Mon pere est mort, Elvire, et la premiére épée Dont s’est armé Rodrigue à sa trame coupée. Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez-vous en eau, La moitié de ma vie a mis l’autre au tombeau, Et m’oblige à venger, aprés ce coup funeste, Celle que je n’ai plus, sur celle qui me reste. _Cid, act 3. sc. 3._ To die is to be banish’d from myself: And Sylvia is myself; banish’d from her, Is self from self; a deadly banishment! _Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 3. sc. 3._ _Countess._ I pray thee, Lady, have a better cheer: If thou ingrossest all the griefs as thine, Thou robb’st me of a moiety. _All’s well that ends well, act 3. sc. 3._ _K. Henry._ O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows! When that my care could not with-hold thy riots, What wilt thou do when riot is thy care? O, thou wilt be a wilderness again, Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants. _Second part, Henry IV. act 4. sc. 11._ Cruda Amarilli, che col nome ancora D’amar, ahi lasso, amaramente insegni. _Pastor Fido, act 1. sc. 2._ Antony, speaking of Julius Cæsar: O world! thou wast the forest of this hart; And this, indeed, O world, the heart of thee. How like a deer, stricken by many princes, Dost thou here lie! _Julius Cæsar, act 3. sc. 3._ Playing thus with the sound of words, which is still worse than a pun, is the meanest of all conceits. But Shakespear, when he descends to a play of words, is not always in the wrong; for it is done sometimes to denote a peculiar character; as is the following passage. _King Philip._ What say’st thou, boy? look in the lady’s face. _Lewis._ I do, my Lord, and in her eye I find A wonder, or a wond’rous miracle; The shadow of myself form’d in her eye; Which being but the shadow of your son, Becomes a sun, and makes your son a shadow. I do protest, I never lov’d myself, Till now infixed I beheld myself Drawn in the flatt’ring table of her eye. _Faulconbridge._ Drawn in the flatt’ring table of her eye! Hang’d in the frowning wrinkle of her brow! And quarter’d in her heart! he doth espy Himself Love’s traitor: this is pity now, That hang’d, and drawn, and quarter’d, there should be, In such a love so vile a lout as he. _King John, act. 2. sc. 5._ A jingle of words is the lowest species of this low wit; which is scarce sufferable in any case, and least of all in an heroic poem. And yet Milton in some instances has descended to this puerility: