1. GROOM. More rushes, more rushes.
Dr. Bullein, who speaks much in general commendation of the rush for
its utility, informs us, that "rushes that grow upon dry groundes
be good to strew in halles, chambers and galleries, to walke upon,
_defending apparell, as traynes of gownes and kertles from dust_.
Rushes be olde courtiers, and when they be nothing worth, then
they be cast out of the doores; so be many that do treade upon
them."--_Bulwarke of defence_, 1579, fol. 21. The _length_ of the
_kirtle_ is here ascertained, and Mr. Malone's account of it in this
respect fully confirmed. See his note in Act II. Scene 4, of this play.
SCENE 5. Page 248.
CH. JUST. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet.
Every body will agree with Dr. Johnson in the impropriety of Falstaff's
cruel and unnecessary commitment to prison. The king had already given
him a fit admonition as to his future conduct, and banished him to a
proper distance from the court. We must suppose therefore that the
chief justice had far exceeded his royal master's commands on this
occasion, or that the king had repented of his lenity. The latter
circumstance would indeed augur but unfavourably of the sovereign's
future regard to justice; for had he not himself been a partaker, and
consequently an encourager, of Falstaff's excesses? On the stage this
scene may very well be spared. The audience will be better pleased at
the poor knight's retiring with his companions under the impression
that the king's behaviour to him has been necessarily disguised. No one
will wish to see him _punished_.
KING HENRY V.
Page 263.
CHORUS. O for a muse of fire, &c.
"This," says Dr. Warburton, "goes upon the notion of the Peripatetic
system, which imagines several heavens, one above another; the last
and highest of which was one of fire." We have here one of the very
best specimens of the doctor's flights of fancy. Shakspeare, in all
probability, knew nothing of the Peripatetic philosophy; he simply
wishes for poetic fire, and a due portion of inventive genius. The
other explanation by Dr. Johnson seems likewise too refined.
Page 264.
CHORUS. ... Can this cock-pit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O, the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
Dr. Johnson has elsewhere remarked that Shakspeare was fully sensible
of the absurdity of showing battles on the theatre, which, says he,
is never done but tragedy becomes a farce. The whole of this chorus
receives considerable illustration from a passage in Sir Philip
Sidney's _Defence of poesie_, where, speaking of the inartificial
management of time and place in the theatres of his time, he thus
proceeds: "where you shall have Asia of the one side and Affricke of
the other, and so many other under-kingdoms, that the player when he
comes in, must ever begin with telling where hee is, or else the tale
will not be conceived. Now shall you have three ladies walke to gather
flowers, and then we must beleeve the stage to bee a garden. By and by
we heare newes of shipwracke in the same place, then we are too blame
if we accept it not for a rocke. Upon the backe of that comes out a
hidious monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders
are bound to take it for a cave: _while in the meane time two armies
flie in, represented with foure swordes and bucklers, and then what
hard hart will not receive it for a pitched field?_ Now of time they
are much more liberal. For ordinarie it is that two young princes fall
in love, and after many traverses she is got with child, delivered of a
faire boy; he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, and is ready to
get another child; and all this in two houres space: which how absurd
it is in sence, even sence may imagine: and art hath taught, and all
ancient examples justified, and at this day the ordinary players in
Italie will not erre in." These remarks might with great propriety be
applied to the play before us, to the _Winter's tale_, to _Pericles_,
and some others of Shakspeare's dramas. In France, the contemporary
playwrights were commonly more observant of the unities, though many
charges to the contrary might be brought against them.
ACT I.
SCENE 2. Page 277.
K. HEN. Therefore take heed how you impawn _our_ person,
How you awake the sleeping sword of war.
Dr. Johnson would read _your person_, and then explain it, "take
heed how you pledge your honour, &c. in support of bad advice."
The archbishop might indeed pledge his _opinion_ in this case; but
_person_ must in all events belong to the _king_. It was he who had the
prerogative of making war; and as the impawning of a thing is generally
attended with a risk of its future loss, so the king may here allude to
the danger of his own person, which, from the practice at that time of
sovereigns to engage in battle, might not be inconsiderable.
SCENE 2. Page 281.
CANT. ... Also king Lewis the _tenth_.
Shakspeare having here adopted _Holinshed's error_ in substituting
Lewis the _Tenth_ for Lewis the _Ninth_, Mr. Malone has faithfully
discharged his editorial duty in permitting it to remain. It was
sufficient to point out the mistake in a note; and therefore Mr.
Ritson's genealogy, designed to vindicate the text, but _manifestly
erroneous_, should be omitted.
SCENE 2. Page 291.
CANT. They have a king, and officers of _sorts_.
_Sorts_, if the true reading, rather means _portions_ or _companies_,
than _of different kinds_, according to Mr. Steevens; and such is
the sense of the word in Mr. Reed's quotation, "drummes and _sortes_
of musicke," though adduced in support of Mr. Steevens. In that much
disputed verse 13 of the 68th psalm, the Greek word _cleros_, very
strangely introduced into the _Vulgate translation_, is rendered by
Wicliffe _sortis_; and in another old translation, _lottes_.
SCENE 2. Page 295.
K. HEN. ... or else our grave
Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,
Not worship'd with a _waxen_ epitaph.
The question is whether _paper_, the reading of the quarto, or _waxen_
of the folio, should be adopted. Mr. Malone very justly remarks that
the passage has been misunderstood, and, not finding any construction
of waxen that agrees with the sense required, seems disposed to give
the preference to _paper_ of which epithet he has offered a very
ingenious explanation. The alteration in the folio was doubtless
occasioned by some dissatisfaction with the former word, and made with
a view to improvement: but no satisfactory meaning can be gathered
from the term _waxen_, as connected with the noun _wax_; and the
passages adduced by Mr. Steevens afford a sense entirely opposite
to what is required. It seems to have been forgotten that _waxen_ is
the participle to _wax_, to grow, to increase, to _expand_. Thus in
_Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 3, we have,
"... but as this temple _waxes_,
The inward service of the mind and soul
_Grows_ wide withall----"
In _A Mids. N. Dream_, Act II. Scene 1,
"And then the whole quire hold their lips and loffe,
And _waxen_ in their mirth----"
In _Titus Andronicus_, Act III. Scene 1,
"Who marks the _waxing_ tide _grow_ wave by wave."
A _waxen_ epitaph may be therefore a _long_ or _protracted_ one, such
as a king would expect.
SCENE 2. Page 298.
K. HEN. Tell him he hath made a match with such a _wrangler_,
That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
With _chaces_.
Dr. Johnson informs us that _chace_ is a term at tennis. It is _often_,
not always, necessary to know more of a term than that it belongs to
some particular science. A _chace_ at tennis then is that spot where a
ball falls, beyond which the adversary must strike his ball to gain a
point or chace. At lawn tennis it is the spot where the ball leaves off
rolling. We see therefore why the king has called himself a _wrangler_.
ACT II.
Page 304.
CHOR. And by their hands this grace of kings must die
(If hell and treason hold their promises,)
Ere he take ship for France, and in Southampton.
Linger your patience on; and well digest
The abuse of distance, while we force a play.
The sum is paid; the traitors are agreed;
The king is set from London; and the scene
Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton.
An unnecessary transposition of these _most plain and intelligible_
lines has been offered by Dr. Johnson, on _his_ supposition that every
one who reads them "looks about for a meaning which he cannot find."
In confirmation of their original arrangement, we learn from Stowe and
Holinshed, the historians whom Shakspeare followed, and Dr. Johnson
perhaps never thought worth consulting, that the plot against the king
was laid by the conspirators at Southampton: a circumstance that is
weakened, if not altogether cancelled, by the proposed alteration. See
a speech by King Henry in the ensuing act.
SCENE 1. Page 314.
PIST. No; to the _spital_ go,
And from the powdering tub of infamy
Fetch forth the _lazar kite of Cressid's kind_
Doll Tear-sheet, she by name----
This alludes to the punishment of Cressida for her falsehood to
Troilus. She was afflicted with the leprosy, "like a _Lazarous_" and
sent to the "spittel hous." See Chaucer's _Testament of Creseide_.
SCENE 2. Page 324.
K. HEN. If that same dæmon, that hath gull'd thee thus,
Should with his _lion gait_ walk the whole world----
This very uncommon comparison of the devil to a lion seems to have been
suggested by 1 Pet. v. 8. "The devil as a roaring _lion walketh about_,
seeking whom he may devour."
SCENE 3. Page 329.
QUICK. 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any
_christom_ child.
It was the ancient practice at baptism not only to use water, but oil,
which from the Greek was denominated chrism, whence the name of the
_chrisome_ or white cloth in question. The priest first made the sign
of the cross with the holy oil on the child's breast and between the
shoulders, saying, "I anoint thee with the oil of health, in Christ
Jesus our lord, that thou mayest inherit eternal life. Amen." After
the usual immersion in water, he made another cross on its head with
the oil. Then the chrisome was put on, the priest asking at the same
time the child's name, and saying, "Receive this white, pure and holy
vestment which thou shalt wear before the tribunal of our lord Jesus
Christ that thou mayest inherit eternal life. Amen." This chrisome
might be used a second time on a similar occasion, and then it was
not to be applied to any common use, but brought back and deposited
in the church. The _chrisome_ was an emblem of the Christian purity
communicated by baptism, and which it was expected the party should
maintain during life; and it might also, as Ducange conjectures, have
been used for the purpose of preventing the oil from running off. It
was sometimes ornamented with a sort of crown worked in crimson thread,
alluding to the passion of Christ, and the crown or reward of eternal
life obtained by his sacrifice. It was to be worn seven days, being
taken off on the eighth, as symbolical of the seven ages of man's
life; or, according to others, of the passage from the sabbath of
mortal life to that of eternity. It was also thought to refer to the
influence of the seven planets. The above ceremony took place _before_
the reformation; afterwards several changes were made. The use of oil
was omitted, and the chrisome worn by the child till the mother's
purification by the ceremony of churching, when it was returned to the
church. If the child died before the latter rite, it was buried in the
chrisome; and this is probably the reason why children were called
chrisoms in the bills of mortality. Dame Quickly simply compares the
manner of Falstaff's exit to that of a young infant.
ACT III.
SCENE 5. Page 369.
BOUR. They bid us--to the English dancing schools,
And teach _lavoltas high_, and swift corantoes.
The _lavolta_, as the name implies, is of Italian origin. The man
_turns_ the woman round several times, and then assists her in making a
_high_ spring or cabriole. This dance passed from Italy into Provence
and the rest of France, and thence into England. Monsieur Bodin, an
advocate in the parliament of Paris, and a very savage and credulous
writer on demonology, has gravely ascribed its importation from Italy
into France, to the power of witches. The _naiveté_ with which that
part of the _lavolta_ which concerns the management of the lady in
making the _volta_ is described by Thoinot Arbeau, an author already
quoted, is extremely well worth transcribing, particularly as the book
is seldom to be met with. "Quand vouldrez torner, laissés libre la
main gaulche de la damoiselle, et gettés vostre bras gaulche sur son
dos, en la prenant et serrant de vostre main gaulche par le faulx du
corps au dessus de sa hanche droicte, et en mesme instant getterez
vostre main droicte au dessoubz de son busq pour layder à saulter quand
la pousserez devant vous avec vostre cuisse gaulche: Elle de sa part
mettra sa main droicte sur vostre dos, ou sur vostre collet, et mettra
sa main gaulche sur sa cuisse pour tenir ferme sa cotte ou sa robbe,
affin que cueillant le vent, elle ne monstre sa chemise ou sa cuisse
nue: Ce fait vous ferez par ensemble les tours de la _volte_, comme cy
dessus a esté dit: Et après avoir tournoyé par tant de cadances qu'il
vous plaira, restituerez la damoiselle en sa place, ou elle sentira
(quelque bonne contenance qu'elle face) son cerveau esbranlé, plain
de vertigues et tornoyements de teste, et vous n'en aurez peult estre
pas moins: Je vous laisse à considerer si cest chose bien seante à une
jeusne fille de faire de grands pas et ouvertures de jambes: et si en
ceste volte l'honneur et la santé y sont pas hazardez et interessez."
And again: "Si vous voulez une aultre fois dancer la volte à main
droicte, vous fauldra mettre vostre main droicte sur le doz de la
damoiselle, et la main gaulche soubz son busq, et en la poussant de la
cuisse droicte soubz la fesse, torner le revers de la tabulature cy
dessus. Et nottez qu'il y a dexterité à empoigner et serrer contre
vous la damoiselle, car il faut ce faire en deux mesures ternaires,
desmarchant sur la premiere mésure pour vous planter devant elle, et
sur la fin de la deuxieme mésure, luy mettant l'une des mains sur la
hanche, et l'aultre soubs le busq pour à la troisième mésure commencer
à torner selon les pas contenus en la tabulature."
SCENE 6. Page 379.
PIST. Die and be damn'd; and _figo_ for thy friendship.
The practice of thrusting out the thumb between the first and second
fingers to express the feelings of insult and contempt has prevailed
very generally among the nations of Europe, and for many ages been
denominated _making the fig_, or described at least by some equivalent
expression. There is good reason for believing that it was known to the
ancient Romans. Winckelman in his letter from Herculaneum has described
a bronze satyr as actually making the fig with his fingers, and such a
character is among the engravings in the king of Naples's magnificent
publication on the antiquities of the above city. The upper part of
a similar bronze in a private collection is here copied in the last
figure below. It is more likely that _making the fig_ was borrowed from
this Roman custom, than from another with which it has been sometimes
confounded. This is the _infamis digitus_ of Persius; or the thrusting
out the middle finger, on that account called _verpus_. In many private
as well as public collections of Roman antiquities there are still
preserved certain figures in bronze, ivory, coral, and other materials,
of the following forms.
These however are well known to have been used as amulets against
fascination in general, but more particularly against that of the _evil
eye_. They are sometimes accompanied with the common symbol of Priapus,
but often consist of it exclusively. The connexion which this phallic
figure had with the above-mentioned superstition is known to every
classical reader. The introduction of the crescent or moon is not so
easily explained. If these amulets were borrowed from the Egyptians,
as some have supposed, the crescent may denote the influence of Isis
or Venus, and the two symbols united may represent nature, or what the
Hindus intend by their sacred Lingam: but every thing on this subject
must be conjectural, the very essence of it being mysterious.
[Illustration]
The Italian _fica_ seems more intimately and etymologically connected
with the obscure disease known to the Romans by the name of _ficus_; a
term, with its appendages, rather to be conceived than fully explained
in this place. It has afforded matter for some of Martial's Epigrams.
In one of these he thus dashes his mirth against an unlucky sinner:
"Gestari junctis nisi desinis, Ædyle, capris,
Qui modo ficus eras, jam caprificus eris."
lib. iv. ep. 52.
In another he instructs those who delight in the chase how to avoid
this affliction:
"Stragula succincti venator sume veredi:
Nam solet a nudo surgere ficus equo."
lib. xiv. ep. 86.
And lastly, he thus expresses himself immediately to the present
purpose:
"Ut pueros emeret Labienus, vendidit hortos:
Nil nisi ficetum nunc Labienus habet."
lib. xii. ep. 32.
No one who has lived among Italians will fail to perceive the force
of these quotations as applied to the feelings excited by this
most offensive gesticulation, which is justly held in the greatest
abhorrence. Whether it be abstractedly a symbol of the _ficus_ itself,
and, in the use, connected with the very worst of its causes; whether
it be the genuine remains of a custom actually known among the Romans;
or whether a corruption of the _infamis digitus_, must be left to every
one's own determination. The complicated ambiguity of the word _fica_
must be likewise attended to; and whoever is at a loss on this occasion
may consult the _early_ Italian dictionaries.
The author of these remarks, pursuing the opinions of others, had
already offered another explanation, viz. the story of the Milanese
revolt against the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. This he desires to
withdraw, as resting on the very weak authority of Albert Crantz, a
credulous, and comparatively modern, historian; neither is it probable
that an incident so local would have spread so widely throughout
Europe. Again, whoever will take the trouble of comparing the Hebrew
word _techor_ with the story itself, will feel very much inclined to
reject the whole as a fabrication.
The earliest Italian authority for the use of this phrase is the
_Inferno_ of Dante. In the twenty-fifth canto are the following lines:
"Al fine delle sue parole, il ladro
Le mani alzò, con ambeduo _le fiche_
Gridando: togli Dio, ch'a te le squadro."
The miscreant who utters this blasphemy, refines on the gesticulation,
and doubles the measure of it. It is also to be found in Sacchetti's
hundred and fifteenth novel, and in the _Cento novelle antiche_, nov.
55.
Villani, in his Chronicle, relates that in 1228 the inhabitants of
Carmignano insulted the Florentines by setting up a statue on a
rock with the hand making the _fig_, and turned towards the city of
Florence. Pope Paul II. made a law against this insult, which punished
the offending party by a fine of twenty soldi.
In France the use of it may be traced to a very early period. It occurs
in a satire by Guyot de Provins, a poet of the twelfth century. The
Spaniards, in all probability, got it from the Romans. They use the
phrase _higa para vos_ as a term of contemptuous insult and also as a
spell against the consequences of satirical applause. See _Menckenii
dissertationes_, p. 52. Amulets against fascination, or the evil eye,
are still used in Spain by women and children, precisely in the same
manner as formerly among the Romans. These are made of ivory, but more
frequently of jet. A figure of one of the latter, from an original, is
here exhibited.
[Illustration]
It furnishes a very extraordinary combination of subjects: figures of
the holy Virgin and the infant Jesus; the _manus lasciva_ or phallic
hand; and a lunar crescent. It is indeed an obvious remnant of the
ancient Roman amulet, the potency of which is strengthened by the
addition of a Christian mystery. These things are said to be sometimes
met with in nunneries, but the use which is there made of them does not
seem generally known. One of these modern hands, well carved in ivory,
and converted to the purpose of a snuff-box, was lately picked up by a
curious traveller in Russia.
A very learned Spaniard, Ramirez de Prado, the author of a commentary
on Martial and other ingenious works, adopting the opinion of Doctor
Francis Penna Castellon, has fallen into a strange error respecting
the etymology of _higa_. Speaking of it as well known among the
Spanish women and children, he derives the name from _iynx_, the
bird called the wryneck, concerning which the ancients had certain
superstitions. From the _Pharmaceutria_ of Theocritus, it appears to
have been regarded as a love philtre. The similitude of sound has
doubtless contributed to this error. See Laurentij Ramirez de Prado
ΠΕΝΤΗΚΟΝΤΑΡΧΟΣ, 1612, 4to, p. 248.
The Germans, the Dutch, and perhaps other Northern nations, possess
equivalent terms; and it is remarkable that in those languages the
signification of the Roman _ficus_, as a disease, has been preserved.
How the phrase of _making the fig_ first came into the English
language does not appear; it may perhaps be found only in translation.
The Saxons had a term for the _ficus_, which they called ꝼɩc-aðle.
With us the expression has happily dwindled altogether into a more
innocent meaning. _Not to care a fig for one_, literally applies
to the fruit so called, according to modern acceptation. In this
sense it is sometimes used by Shakspeare, who makes Pistol say, "A
_fico_ for the phrase."--_M. Wives of Windsor._ "And _figo_ for thy
friendship."--_Henry the Fifth._ Again, in the _Second Part of Henry
the Sixth_, we have, "A _fig_ for Peter." And in _Othello_, "Virtue? a
_fig_!" In the _Second Part of Henry the Fourth_, Pistol says,
"When Pistol lies _do this_; and _fig me_, like
The bragging Spaniard."
Here the phrase seems accompanied by some kind of gesticulation, which
might either be the thrusting out of the thumb, or the putting of it
into the mouth so as to press out the cheek, another mode of insult
that perhaps originally alluded to the _ficus_, by presenting something
like its form. Thus in Lodge's _Wit's miserie_, "Behold I see contempt
marching forth, giving mee the _fico with his thombe in his mouth_."
In the present play, ancient Pistol, after spurting out his "_figo_ for
thy friendship," as if he were not satisfied with the _measure_ of the
contempt expressed, more emphatically adds, "the fig of _Spain_." This
undoubtedly alludes to the poisoned figs mentioned in Mr. Steevens's
note, because the quartos read, "the fig of Spain _within thy jaw_,"
and "the fig within thy _bowels and thy dirty maw_." Or, as in many
other instances, the allusion may be twofold; for the _Spanish fig_,
as a term of contempt only, must have been very familiar in England in
Shakspeare's time, otherwise the translator of Della Casa's _Galateo_
would not, in the passage cited by Mr. Reed, have used such an
expression, when it was neither in his original nor in Dante; a very
strong circumstance in favour of Mr. Reed's opinion.
On the whole, there is no other way of extricating ourselves from the
difficulties and ambiguities that attend the present subject, than by
supposing some little confusion of ideas in our poet's mind, a weakness
not more uncommon with him than with many of his commentators. Or,
his phraseology might have been inaccurate; and it is to be feared
that too much time and conjecture have been frequently expended on
passages originally faulty, and which it might have been sufficient
to have stated as such, to the exclusion of further comment or useless
explanation.
ACT IV.
Page 399.
CHO. The armourers accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing _rivets_ up.
This does not solely refer to the business of rivetting the plate
armour before it was put on, but as to the part when it was on. Thus
the top of the cuirass had a little projecting bit of iron, that passed
through a hole pierced through the bottom of the casque. When both were
put on, the smith or armourer presented himself, with his rivetting
hammer, _to close the rivet up_, so that the party's head should remain
steady notwithstanding the force of any blow that might be given on
the cuirass or helmet. This custom more particularly prevailed in
tournaments. See _Varietés historiques_, 1752, 12mo, tom. ii. p. 73.
SCENE 2. Page 424.
GRAND. Their horsemen sit like _fixed candlesticks_,
With torch-staves in their hands.
This fashion is of great antiquity, being mentioned in Homer's
description of the palace of Alcinous. _Odys_. book 7.
"Youths forg'd of gold, at every table there,
Stood holding flaming torches, that in night
Gave through the house, each honour'd guest his light."
It is likewise thus alluded to in Lucretius, lib. ii.
"Si non aurea sunt juvenum simulacra per ædeis
Lampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris,
Lumina nocturnis epulis ut suppeditentur."
The practice might originate in a supposed indelicacy of placing
candlesticks on a table. Gregory of Tours relates a story of a French
nobleman named Rauching, who disgraced himself by an act of wanton and
excessive cruelty. When a servant _held a candle before him_ at his
supper, he made him uncover his legs, and drop the burning wax on them;
if the man offered to move, the cruel master was ready with his sword
to run him through; and the more the unfortunate sufferer lamented, the
more his persecutor convulsed himself with savage laughter. Gregor.
Turon. _Hist._ lib. v. cap. 3.
The favourite forms of these inanimate _candle-holders_ were those of
armed warriors. Sometimes they were hairy savages, a fool kneeling on
one knee, &c.
SCENE 4. Page 439.
PIST. Quality, call you me?--Construe me, art thou a gentleman?
The old copy reads _qualitee, calmie custure me_, and has been
corrected or rather _corrupted anew_ into its present form. The
proposed reading of Mr. Malone deserves a decided preference, as
founded on the ingenious conjecture that Pistol is quoting, as he
has elsewhere done, the fragment of an old ballad. It is exceedingly
probable that, whenever chance shall disclose this ballad, we shall
find in it this whole line,
"Calen, o custure me, art thou a gentleman."
Calen may be some proper name; the ballad itself may be provincial, and
_custure_ the representative of _construe_. Nothing is more probable
than that _calmie_ should be a misprint of _calen o_.
SCENE 4. Page 441.
FR. SOL. ... ayez pitié de _moy_!
PIST. _Moy_ shall not serve, I will have forty _moys_.
FR. SOL. O pardonnez _moy_!
PIST. Say'st thou me so? is that a _ton of moys_?
Dr. Johnson says that "_moy_ is a piece of money, whence moi-d'or,
or moi of gold." But where had the doctor made this discovery? His
etymology of _moidor_ is certainly incorrect. _Moidore_ is an English
corruption of the Portuguese _moeda d'ouro_, i. e. _money_ of gold; but
there were no moidores in the time of Shakspeare.
We are therefore still to seek for Pistol's _moy_. Now a _moyos_ or
_moy_ was a measure of corn; in French _muy_ or _muid_, Lat. _modius_,
a bushel. It appears that 27 moys were equal to a last or two _tons_.
To understand this more fully, the curious reader may consult Malyne's
_Lex mercatoria_, 1622, p. 45, and Roberts's _Marchant's Mapp of
commerce_, 1638, chap. 272.
SCENE 4. Page 442.
FR. SOL. Est il impossible d'eschapper la force de ton _bras_?
PIST. _Brass_, cur.
Thou damned and luxurious mountain goat,
Offer'st me _brass_.
A question having arisen concerning the pronunciation of the French
word _bras_ in the time of Shakspeare, it was observed in a former
note that some remarks by the Rev. Mr. Bowle, in another place, had
contributed at least to leave the matter open to discussion. That
gentleman has certainly offered some evidence from Pasquier, that in
the _middle_ of words the _s_ was pronounced where now it is silent;
but on the other hand there is positive proof that the contrary
practice prevailed in 1572, when De la Ramée published his French
grammar. At page 19, he says, "Premierement nous sommes prodigues en
lescripture de _s_, _sans la prononcer_ comme en _maistre_, _mesler_,
_oster_, _soustenir_." This writer has expatiated on the difficulty
which foreigners have in pronouncing the French language on account of
its orthography, and offered a new mode by which it may be avoided.
In the course of this specimen, he has, fortunately for the present
occasion, printed the word _bras_ without the _s_, (see p. 61,) and
thereby supplied the means of deciding the present question, which,
after all, was scarcely worth a controversy. Whoever wrote this
dialogue was unacquainted with the true pronunciation of the French
language, as Mr. Malone has already remarked, and framed Pistol's reply
accordingly. In Eliot's _Orthoepia Gallica_, 1593, 4to, mentioned in
Dr. Farmer's note, there is a passage which seems to have escaped the
doctor's notice. In page 61, the author directs the sentence "vous avez
un _bras_ de fer," to be pronounced "voo-za-ve-zewn _bra_ de fer."
SCENE 5. Page 448.
BOUR. Let him go hence, and with his cap in hand,
Like a base pander, hold the chamber door, &c.
This is an allusion to the conduct of Pandarus when he introduced
Troilus to his niece Cressida's chamber. See the story as related by
Chaucer.
ACT V.
Page 470.
CHOR. ... Like a mighty _whiffler_, 'fore the king
Seems to prepare his way.
Some errors have crept into the remarks on this word which require
correction. It is by no means, as Hanmer had conceived, a corruption
from the French _huissier_. He was apparently misled by the resemblance
which the office of a whiffler bore in modern times to that of an
usher. The term is undoubtedly borrowed from _whiffle_, another name
for a _fife_ or small flute; for whifflers were originally those who
preceded armies or processions as fifers or pipers. Representations of
them occur among the prints of the magnificent triumph of Maximilian
I. In a note on _Othello_, Act III. Scene 2, Mr. Warton had supposed
that _whiffler_ came from what he calls "_the old_ French _viffleur_;"
but it is presumed that that language does not supply any such word,
and that the use of it in the quotation from Rymer's _fœdera_ is
nothing more than a vitiated orthography. In process of time the term
_whiffler_, which had always been used in the sense of a _fifer_, came
to signify any person who went before in a procession. Minsheu, in his
_Dictionary_, 1617, defines him to be a club or staff-bearer. Sometimes
the whifflers carried white staves, as in the annual feast of the
printers, founders, and ink-makers, so curiously described in Randle
Holme's _Academy of armory_, book iii. ch. 3, where one of them is
stated to have carried in his right hand a great bowl of white wine and
sugar. Another mistake occurs in Mr. Warton's note, when he says, that
"by degrees the word _whiffler_ hence acquired the metaphorical meaning
which it at present obtains in common speech, and became an appellation
of contempt." This is by no means the case, for _whiffler_, in its
sense of a _babbler_, _trifler_, or _versatile person_, is pure Saxon,
ƿæꝼleꞃe, _blatero_.
KING HENRY VI.
PART I.
ACT I.
SCENE 1. Page 506.
BED. And with them scourge the bad revolting stars,
That have _consented_ unto Henry's death.
IT is conceived that most readers, after perusing the several notes
on these lines, will be of opinion that some further elucidation is
necessary. The first attempt should be to ascertain the respective
significations of the words _concent_ and _consent_, which can only be
effected by an attention to their Latin etymology.
_Concent_, in its simple and primitive acceptation, is nothing
more than a _singing together harmoniously_; but because in such
harmony there is an _agreement_ of sounds, the word was sometimes
metaphorically used to express _concord or agreement generally_.
_Consent_ never means _union of sounds_, but _agreement generally_,
or an union of _sense_ or _opinion_. Cicero has most carefully
distinguished them when he says, "Ubi enim perspecta vis est rationis
ejus qua causæ rerum atque exitus cognoscuntur, mirus quidam omnium
quasi _consensus_ doctrinarum, _concentusque_ reperitur."--De oratore,
lib. iii. Among English writers, the similitude in sound and an
inattention to orthography have contributed to their common and
promiscuous use.
Mr. Steevens inclines to the meaning above given of _concent_, and
yet he adopts _consent_ in his text; nor are his instances uniform.
Thus in the quotation from Cicero _De nat. deorum_, concentus simply
means _concord_ or _agreement_. In the passage from Milton, _consent_
evidently denotes the same thing. The rest of his quotations relate to
_musical concent_.
Mr. Mason, in his own words, assents to Mr. Steevens's explanation; yet
his instances are all unfortunately calculated to illustrate the other
sense of _barely agreeing_.
The books of Elizabeth's time indiscriminately use both modes of
orthography. Thus we have, "Broughton's _concent_ of Scripture,"
for _consent_; though, as is shown already, either will serve for
_agreement_.
In the two passages cited by Mr. Steevens from Spenser, the orthography
varies, though the meaning is evidently the same, i. e. _musical
concent_. His expectations will be often disappointed who shall seek
an exact meaning from some particular mode of orthography in ancient
writers. There does not perhaps exist a more fallible rule; and it was
reserved for the superior accuracy of modern times to affix any thing
like uniformity of spelling, and consequently of sense, to our language.
It is impossible at this time to collect precisely what the author
of the lines in question intended. The only guide we have is the
passage quoted by Mr. Malone from another part of this play, "You
all _consented_ unto Salisbury's death." Yet, had the poet written
_concented_, the sense in both places might be, _you all acted in
concert, or jointly in unison, to accomplish the death, &c._ This
accords with the following passage in _Pericles_, Act I. Scene 1:--
"The Senate house of planets _all did sit_
To knit in her their best perfections."
An opportunity here presents itself of remarking how injudiciously we
have discarded the more expressive and legitimate term _consort_, as
a company of musicians playing together, for the new-fangled Italian
_concert_. The other would be vulgar to a modern ear, and is now marked
in our dictionaries as a _corrupt spelling_.
ACT III.
SCENE 1. Page 584.
MAY. The bishop's and the duke of Gloster's men,
_Forbidden late to carry any weapon_,
Have fill'd their pockets full of _pebble stones_, &c.
This fact is borrowed, with some variation, from Stowe or Fabian. "Men
being forbidden to bring swords or other weapons, brought great battes
and staves on their neckes; and when _those weapons were inhibited
them_, they took _stones_ and plomets of lead, &c."
SCENE 1. Page 587.
WAR. Sweet king!--the bishop hath a _kindly gird_.
Mr. Steevens has on this occasion, for the sake of the last word,
introduced two notes which might very well have been spared. There
is no doubt that Warwick means to say that the young king has given
Winchester a gentle reproof. This is the plain and obvious meaning of
_gird_. Dr. Johnson is wide, very wide, of the mark.
ACT V.
SCENE 3. Page 645.
PUC. You speedy helpers, that are substitutes
Under the lordly _monarch of the north_,
Appear.
The _monarch of the North_ was Zimimar, one of the four principal
devils invoked by witches. The others were, Amaimon king of the East,
Gorson king of the South, and Goap king of the West. Under these devil
kings were devil marquesses, dukes, prelates, knights, presidents and
earls. They are all enumerated, from Wier _De præstigiis dæmonum_, in
Scot's _Discoverie of witchcraft_, book xv. c. 2 and 3.
KING HENRY VI.
PART II.
ACT I.
SCENE 2. Page 20.
DUCH. With _Margery Jourdain_, the cunning witch.
It appears from Rymer's _Fœdera_, vol. x. p. 505, that in the tenth
year of King Henry the Sixth, _Margery Jourdemayn_, John Virley clerk,
and friar John Ashwell, were, on the ninth of May 1433, brought
from Windsor by the constable of the castle, to which they had
been committed for sorcery, before the council at Westminster, and
afterwards, by an order of council, delivered into the custody of the
Lord Chancellor. The same day it was ordered by the lords of council
that whenever the said Virley and Ashwell should find security for
their good behaviour they should be set at liberty, and in like manner
that Jourdemayn should be discharged on her husband's finding security.
This woman was afterwards burned in Smithfield, as stated in the play
and also in the chronicles.
ACT II.
SCENE 3. Page 64.
PET. Here Robin, an if I die, I give thee my _apron_.
Minsheu and others conceived that this word was derived from _afore
one_, an etymology that perfectly accords with the burlesque manner
of Dean Swift. It has been also deduced from the Greek words προ and
περι; the Latin _porro_ and _operio_, &c. &c. Skinner, with more
plausibility, has suggested the Saxon aꝼoꞃan. After all, _an apron_
is no more than a corruption of _a napron_, the old and genuine
orthography. Thus in _The mery adventure of the pardonere and tapstere_:
"... and therwith to wepe
She made, and with her _napron_ feir and white ywash
She wypid soft hir eyen for teris that she outlash
As grete as any mylstone----"
_Urry's Chaucer_, p. 594.
We have borrowed the word from the old French _naperon_, a large cloth.
See Carpentier _Suppl. ad Cangium_, v. _Naperii_. So _napkin_, which
has perplexed our dictionary-makers, is only a _little_ cloth, from
_nappe_.
SCENE 3. Page 66.
HOR. Hold Peter, hold; I confess treason.
[_Dies._
The real names of these combatants were _John Daveys_ and _William
Catour_, as appears from the original precept to the sheriffs still
remaining in the Exchequer, commanding them to prepare the barriers
in Smithfield for the combat. The names of the sheriffs were Godfrey
Boloyne and Robert _Horne_; and the latter, which occurs in the page
of Fabian's chronicle that records the duel, might have suggested
the name of _Horner_ to Shakspeare. Stowe is the only historian who
has preserved the servant's name, which was _David_. Annexed to the
before mentioned precept is the account of expenses incurred on this
occasion, duly returned into the Exchequer. From this it further
appears that the erection of the barriers, the combat itself, and
the subsequent execution of the armourer, occupied the space of six
or seven days; that the barriers had been brought to Smithfield in a
cart from Westminster; that a large quantity of sand and gravel was
consumed on the occasion, and that the place of battle was strewed
with rushes. Mr. Steevens has inferred from the above record that _the
armourer was not killed by his opponent, but worsted, and immediately
afterwards hanged_. This, however, is in direct contradiction to _all_
the historians that have mentioned the circumstance, who, though they
differ in some particulars, are certainly agreed as to the death of
the accused by the hands of his servant. Halle's words are, "whose
_body_ was drawen to Tyborn and there hanged and beheaded;" a mode
of expression which, though ambiguous, seems rather to refer to the
previous death of the party. Fabian, Grafton, Stowe, and Holinshed,
state that he was slain. It is possible that Mr. Steevens, in making
the above inference, conceived that because the man was hanged he must
necessarily have been alive at the time of his execution: but the
_mercy_ of the law on this occasion certainly made no such distinction;
and _the dead body of the vanquished was equally adjudged to the
punishment of a convicted traitor, in order that his posterity might
participate in his infamy_. Indeed, the record itself seems decisive;
for it states that the dead man was watched _after the battle was
done_, and this probably means before it was conveyed to Tyborn for
execution and decapitation. The same rule was observed in cases of
appeal for murder, as we learn from the laws or assizes of Jerusalem
made there in the fourteenth century; by which he that was _slain_ or
vanquished from cowardice in the field of battle, was adjudged to be
_drawn and hanged_; his horse and arms being given to the constable.
See Thaumassiere _Assises de Jerusalem_, ch. 104, and Selden's
_Duello_, p. 30. The hanging and beheading were confined to cases of
murder and treason; in a simple affair of arms the vanquished party was
only disarmed and led forth ignominiously from the lists.
Since this note was written, the whole of the curious record in the
Exchequer has been printed in Mr. Nicholls's valuable and interesting
work entitled, "_Illustrations of the manners and expences of antient
times in England_", 1797, 4to. As intimately connected with the
present subject, the following extract cannot fail of being acceptable.
It is taken from Gaguin, _Gestes Romains_, printed at Paris by Ant.
Verard, without date, in folio, a volume of extreme rarity, and is part
of the ceremony of an appeal for treason as regulated by Thomas Duke
of Gloucester, high constable to Richard the Second. "Et si la dicte
bataille est cause de traison, celluy qui est vaincu et desconfit sera
desarmé dedans les lices, et par le commandement du conestable sera mis
en un cornet et en reprehencion de luy sera traisné hors avec chevaulx
du lieu mesme ou il est ainsi desarmé parmy les lices jusques au lieu
de justice, ou sera decolé ou pendu selon lusaige du pays, laquelle
chose appartient au mareschal veoir par fournir par son office, et
le mettre a execution," fo. 148:--that is, "If the said battle be on
account of treason, he that is vanquished and discomfited shall be
disarmed within the lists, and by the authority of the constable put
into a little cart; then having received a proper reprimand he shall be
drawn by horses from the spot where he has been disarmed, through the
lists, to the place of public execution, and there hanged or beheaded
according to the custom of the country: which matter the marshal, by
virtue of his office, is to see performed and executed."
ACT III.
SCENE 1. Page 74.
SUF. I think, I should have told your _grace's_ tale.
On this expression Dr. Johnson remarks that "_majesty_ was not the
settled title till the time of King James the First." In a note to vol.
i. p. 97, of the lives of _Leland, Hearne, and Wood_, it is said that
our kings had not the title of _majesty_ in the reign of Henry the
Eighth; and another note in Dr. Warburton's edition of the Dunciad, b.
iv. l. 176, states that James was the first who assumed the title of
_sacred majesty_; all which information is unsupported by authority.
On the other hand, Camden more correctly says, that "_majesty_ came
hither in the time of King Henry the Eighth, as _sacred majesty_
lately in our memory."--_Remains concerning Britain_, p. 198, edit.
1674, 8vo. Selden, referring to this passage, wishes it to be
understood so far as it relates to the title being "commonly in use
and properly to the king applied," because he adduces an instance of
the use of _majesty_ so early as the reign of Henry the Second. In
a letter from queen Elizabeth to Edward the Sixth, she signs "Your
_majesties_ humble sister," and addresses it "To the kinges _most
excellent majestie_."--Harl. MS. No. 6986. In the same volume is a most
extraordinary letter in Italian to Elizabeth, beginning, "Serenissima
et _sacratissima maesta_," which shows that Camden, who wrote what he
says above early in 1603, must rather refer to Elizabeth than James the
First.
The use of _majesty_ is ascribed by the learned authors of the
_Nouveau traité de diplomatique_ to Gondemar king of the Visigoths,
and to the kings of Lorraine in the seventh century; but in France
it is not traceable before the year 1360, about which time Raoul de
Presle, in the dedication to his translation of Saint Augustin _De
civitate Dei_, thus addresses Charles the Fifth: "si supplie à vostre
_royalle majesté_." It was however but sparingly used till the reign
of Louis XI. In the treaty of Créssy the emperor Charles V. is called
_imperial majesty_, and Francis I. _royal majesty_. In that of Château
Cambresis, Henry II. is entitled _most christian majesty_, and Philip
II. _catholic majesty_. Pasquier has some very curious remarks in
reprobation of the use of _majesty_. See _Recherches de la France_,
liv. viii. ch. 5.
Both Camden and Selden agree that the title of _Grace_ began about the
time of Henry the Fourth, and of _excellent Grace_ under Henry the
Sixth.
SCENE 1. Page 91.
YORK. ... I have seen him
Caper upright like a wild _Mórisco_,
Shaking the bloody darts as he his bells.
However just Dr. Johnson's explanation of Morisco may be in an
etymological point of view, it is at least doubtful whether it mean
in this place a real or even personated _Moor_. Nothing more may be
intended than simply a performer in a morris dance. It may be likewise
doubted whether in the English morris dance, a single Moorish character
was ever introduced. The quotation from Junius is extremely perplexing;
yet it must be remembered that he was a foreigner, and speaking perhaps
conjecturally.
SCENE 2. Page 96.
K. HEN. ... Come, _basilisk_,
And kill the innocent gazer with thy _sight_.
Bartholomæus, with whom it has been shown that Shakspeare was well
acquainted, speaking of the basilisk or cockatrice, says, "In his
_sight_ no fowle nor birde passeth harmelesse, and though he be farre
from the foule, yet it is burnt and devoured by his mouth.... Plinius
also sayth there is a wilde beast called Catobletas [which is] great
noyeng to mankinde: _for all that see his eyen should dye anone, and
the same kinde hath the cockatrice_."--_De propriet. rer._ lib. xviii.
c. 16. The same property is also mentioned by Pliny of the basilisk,
but Holland's translation was not printed till after this play was
written. It is true that if Shakspeare did not write the lines in
question, the original author might have used a Latin Pliny.
SCENE 2. Page 103.
WAR. Oft have I seen a _timely-parted_ ghost.
It has been very plausibly suggested that _timely-parted_ signifies _in
proper time_, as opposed to _timeless_; yet in this place it seems to
mean _early_, _recently_, _newly_. Thus in _Macbeth_, Act II. Scene 3,
"He did command me to call _timely_ on him."
Again, in _The unfaithful lover's garland_,
"Says he, I'll rise; says she, I scorn
To be so _timely parted_."
Porter, in his comedy of the _Two angry women of Abingdon_, 1599, 4to,
seems to have had Warwick's speech in view when he wrote these lines:
"Oft have I heard a _timely married_ girl
That _newly_ left to call her mother mam, &c."
SCENE 2. Page 105.
WAR. But see, his face is black and full of blood.
The accounts given by the English historians of the Duke of
Gloucester's death are very discordant and unsatisfactory. They relate
that he was smothered between feather-beds; that he was found dead in
his bed; that a red hot spit was thrust through him; and that he died
of grief. There is another account of this event, which, as it seems
to have been quite unnoticed in our histories, and may deserve as much
attention as either of the foregoing, shall here be given.
George Chastellain, a celebrated soldier, poet, and historian, was by
birth a Flemming, and is said to have been in the service of Philip
duke of Burgundy. He travelled into various countries, and wrote
an account of what he had seen, under the title of _The wonderful
occurrences of his time_. Speaking of his visit to England, he says,
"Passant par Angleterre
Ie veis en grant tourment
Les seigneurs de la terre
S'entretuer forment
Avec un tel deluge
Qui cueurs esbahissoit
Que a peine y eut refuge
Ou mort n'apparoissoit.
Ung nouveau roy creerent
Par despiteux vouloir
Le viel en debouterent
Et son legitime hoir
Qui fuytif alla prendre
Descosse le garand,
De tous siécles le mendre
Et le plus tollerant."
This alludes to the flight of Henry the Sixth into Scotland. In another
place he speaks as an eye witness of the death of duke Humphrey, and
relates that _he was strangled in a cask of wine_, adding also the
reason,
"Par fortune senestre
Veiz a l'oeil vifvement
Le grant _duc de Clocestre_
Meurdrir piteusement
_En vin plein une cuve
Failloit que estranglé fust,
Cuydant par celle estuve,
Que la mort ny parut_."
What credit he may deserve may be worth the inquiry of some future
historian. His work in general will strike every reader as a strange
mixture of veracity and credulity.
The above singular mode of inflicting death seems to have prevailed
about this time; for we find not long afterwards another instance of
it in the execution of George duke of Clarence, who, as is generally
agreed, was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. He appears to have
chosen the manner of his death, on which Mr. Hume makes the following
observation: "A whimsical choice, which implies that _he had an
extraordinary passion for that liquor_."[16] It should rather be
inferred that the punishment in question was more frequent than is
commonly known, and made use of for culprits of rank and eminence when
dispatched in secret. Jean Molinet, the continuator of the above work
of Chastellain, has thus described this event:
"Jay veu _duc de Clarence_
Bouté en une tour
Qui queroit apparence
De regner a son tour;
De mort preadvisee
_Le roy le feist noyer
Dedans mallevoisee
Pour le moins ennuyer_."
SCENE 2. Page 116.
Q. MAR. Away! though parting be a fretful _corrosive_.
A learned commentator has stated that this word was _generally_ written
_corsive_ in Shakspeare's time, and he has indeed proved that it was
so written _sometimes_. The fact is, it was written as at present in
prose, and in poetry either way, as occasion required. Thus Drant in
his translation of _Horace's satyres_, 1566, 4to:
"Wote you not why? _corrosyve_ style
Is _corsey_ to the eye."
In the text it should be printed _cor'sive_.
SCENE 3. Page 116.
K. HEN. O beat away the busy meddling fiend
That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul.
It was the belief of our pious ancestors, that when a man was on his
death-bed the devil or his agents attended in the hope of getting
possession of the soul, if it should happen that the party died without
receiving the sacrament of the eucharist, or without confessing his
sins. Accordingly in the ancient representations of this subject, and
more particularly in those which occur in such printed services of
the church as contain the vigils or office of the dead, these _busy
meddling fiends_ appear, and with great anxiety besiege the dying man;
but on the approach of the priest and his attendants, they betray
symptoms of horrible despair at their impending discomfiture. In an
ancient manuscript book of devotions, written in the reign of Henry
the Sixth, there is a prayer addressed to Saint George, with the
following very singular passage: "Judge for me whan the moste hedyous
and damnable dragons of helle shall be redy to take my poore soule and
engloute it in to theyr infernall belyes."
Shakspeare, who in many instances has proved himself to have been well
acquainted with the forms and ceremonies of the Romish church, has,
without doubt, on the present occasion availed himself of the above
opinion. Whether this had happened to that pre-eminent painter, who,
among the numerous monuments of his excellence that have immortalized
himself and done honour to his country, has depicted the last moments
of Cardinal Beaufort with all the powers of his art, cannot now be
easily ascertained. He has been censured for personifying the fiend,
on the supposition that the poet's language is merely figurative;
with what justice this note may perhaps assist in deciding. Some
might disapprove the renovation of Popish ideas; whilst others, more
attentive to ancient costume, and regardless of popular or other
prejudices, might be disposed to defend the painter on the ground of
strict adherence to the manners of the times.
The reader may not be displeased at being introduced to a more intimate
acquaintance with the _ancient_ mode of representing a dying man as
above referred to. It is copied from a print in a later edition of the
_Ars moriendi_, one of those books on which the citizens of Haarlem
found their claim to the invention of printing; whereas it is in fact
no more than a collection of wooden engravings made for pious purposes,
and explained by writing cut on the same blocks, and by no means a
real specimen of the above art. To this is added another exhibition
of the same subject, but very superior in point of art. It is copied
from an engraving in wood by an unknown artist of considerable merit;
and from the striking resemblance which it bears to the picture of our
great painter above alluded to, much cannot be hazarded in supposing
that he might have taken some hints from it, as it is well known that
he collected many prints with the view of making such use of preceding
excellence as the most exalted genius will ever condescend to do.
The Greeks, when persons were dying, drove away evil spirits by placing
at the door branches of bramble or buckthorn. They likewise made a
noise by beating brazen vessels for the same purpose.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
ACT IV.
SCENE 2. Page 139.
CADE. ... the _three-hoop'd_ pot shall have ten hoops.
The note here is not sufficiently explanatory. The old drinking pots,
being of wood, were bound together, as barrels are, with hoops; whence
they were called _hoops_. Cade promises that every can which now had
three hoops shall be increased in size so as to require ten. What
follows in the notes about "burning of cans," does not appear to relate
to the subject.
SCENE 2. Page 140.
SMITH. The clerk of Chatham.
This person is a nonentity in history, and in all probability a
character invented by the writer of the play. It is presumed that few
will be inclined to agree with Mr. Ritson in supposing him to have been
Thomas Bayly, _a necromancer at Whitechapel_, and Cade's bosom friend.
SCENE 7. Page 161.
CADE. Then break into his son in law's house, Sir _James_ Cromer.
Mr. Ritson cites William of Worcester to show that this sheriff's name
was _William_. The author of the play, if wrong, may be justified by
the examples of Halle, Grafton, Stowe, in his early editions, and
Holinshed, who call him _James_. Fabian, as if doubtful, leaves a blank
for Crowmer's Christian name. As to the fact itself, the evidence
of William of Worcester, a contemporary writer, is entitled to the
preference. Fuller's list of the sheriffs of Kent likewise makes the
name _William_.
SCENE 10. Page 173.
CADE. I think this word sallet was born to do me good: for many a
time, but for a _sallet_, my brain-pan had been cleft with a brown
bill.
The notes on this occasion may admit of correction as well as
curtailment. It is possible that we have borrowed _sallet_ from the
French _salade_, in the sense of a helmet: but the original word is
the old Teutonic _schale_, which signifies generally _a covering_.
Hence _shell_, _scale_, _scull_, _shield_, &c. Wicliffe does not use
_brain-pan_ for scull, in Judges ix. 53, as Mr. Whalley supposes, but
_brain_, simply.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] One should almost suppose that the historian had recollected
Cyrano de Bergerac's dream of a visit to the infernal regions, where he
saw the Duke of Clarence, "who," says he, "_voluntarily drowned himself
in a barrel of Malmsey_, seeking for Diogenes, in hopes of getting half
his tub to lodge in."
KING HENRY VI.
PART III.
ACT I.
SCENE 1. Page 223.
EXE. Here comes the queen whose looks _bewray_ her anger.
Although the word _bewray_ has received very proper illustration on
the present and other occasions, it remains to observe that its simple
and original meaning was to _discover_ or _disclose_; that it has been
confounded with _betray_, which is used, though not exclusively, for
_to discover for bad or treacherous purposes_, a sense in which bewray
is never _properly_ found. Of this position take the following proof:
"If you do so, saide the other, then you ought to let me knowe what
so ever you know your selfe: unlesse you thinke that yourself will
_bewray_ yourself, except you doubt yourself will deceive yourself, and
unlesse you thinke that yourself will _betray_ your self."--Lupton's
_Siuqila_, 1580, 4to, sign. L 4. b.
SCENE 1. Page 224.
Q. MAR. _Rather_ than made that savage duke thine heir.
The note which follows Mr. Steevens's was _not_ inadvertently
introduced by that gentleman, though it certainly should not have been
retained _as the text now stands_.
SCENE 4. Page 242.
Q. MAR. [Putting a _paper_ crown on his head.]
Mr. Ritson has not shown, as he conceived he had, that the preceding
commentator was _certainly mistaken_: for the author of the play, if
he be accountable for the stage direction, could not have "followed
history with the utmost precision," when he makes _queen Margaret_ put
a _paper_ crown on York's head; whereas Holinshed, the black-letter
chronicler whom Mr. Ritson should have first consulted, and who only
follows Whethamstede, relates that a garland of _bulrushes_ was placed
on York's head; which was afterwards stricken off and presented to the
queen. Nor is there historical evidence that the queen herself put on
the crown. Shakspeare has continued the same error in _King Richard the
Third_, where he makes Gloucester say to queen Margaret,
"The curse my noble father laid on thee
When thou didst crown his noble brows with _paper_."
He was therefore, in this instance, misled by the author of _King Henry
the Sixth_; or he must have written the queen's speech himself.
SCENE 4. Page 244.
YORK. Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth.
Again in _Cymbeline_, Act III. Scene 4;
"Whose tongue outvenoms all the worms of Nile."
ACT III.
SCENE 2. Page 310.
L. GREY. But, mighty lord, this merry inclination
Accords not with the _sadness_ of my suit.
The following is offered as a very select instance of the use of
_sadness_ for _seriousness_. It is from Tom Coriat's speech that he
made to a Mahometan who had called him an infidel. "But I pray thee
tell me thou Mahometan, dost thou in _sadness_ call me _Giaur_? That
I doe, quoth he. Then quoth I, in very _sober sadness_ I retort that
shameful word in thy throate."
SCENE 2. Page 314.
GLO. Like to a chaos, or an _unlick'd bear-whelp_.
The common opinion which Dr. Johnson mentions of the bear bringing
forth unformed lumps of animated flesh, and afterwards licking them
into proper shape, has been very properly exposed and confuted by Sir
Thomas Brown in his _Enquiries into vulgar errors_, book iii. ch. 6.
His adversary Ross, in his _Arcana microcosmi_, p. 115, has attempted
a solution of this matter, by stating it as a fact that bears bring
forth their young deformed and mis-shapen, by reason of the thick
membrane in which they are wrapped, that is, covered over with a mucous
and phlegmatick matter. This, he says, the dam contracts in the winter
time, by lying in hollow caves without motion, so that to the eye the
cub appears like an unformed lump. The above mucilage is afterwards
licked away by the dam, and the membrane broken, whereby that which
before seemed to be unformed appears now in its right shape. And this,
he contends, against Dr. Brown, is all that the ancients meant. See
more on the subject of the old opinion in Bartholomæus _De proprietat.
rerum_, lib. xviii. c. 112.
ACT IV.
SCENE 7. Page 359.
GLO. For many men that _stumble at the threshold_.
To understand this phrase rightly, it must be remembered that some of
the old thresholds or steps under the door, were, like the hearths,
raised a little, so that a person might stumble over them unless proper
care was taken. A very whimsical reason for this practice is given in a
curious little tract by Sir Balthazar Gerbier, entitled, _Councel and
advice to all builders_, 1663, 24mo, in these words, "A good surveyour
shuns also the ordering of doores with _stumbling-block-thresholds_,
though our forefathers affected them, perchance to perpetuate the
antient custome of bridegroomes, when formerly at their return from
church [they] did use to lift up their bride, and to knock their head
against that of the doore, for a remembrance, that they were not to
passe the threshold of their house without their leave."
ACT V.
SCENE 7. Page 403.
CLAR. What will your grace have done with Margaret?
Reignier her father, to the king of France
Hath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem,
And hither have they sent _it_ for her ransom.
Unless there be some omission in this speech, it must either be
regarded as improperly elliptical, or as ungrammatical. _It_ refers to
the sum of money borrowed by Margaret's father, which is mentioned by
the French historians to have been fifty thousand crowns. The author of
the play followed Holinshed.
* * * * *
The right accentuation of Hĕcătē, as well as the proper description
of Althea's torch, which Shakspeare, in _King Henry the Fourth_, had
misrepresented, are additional arguments that he did _not_ write the
whole of these plays; but that they were composed by some person who
had more classical knowledge, but infinitely less genius than our
author.
KING RICHARD III.
ACT I.
SCENE 1. Page 461.
GLO. _He capers_ nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
The question with Dr. Johnson is, whether it be _war_ that capers, or
_York_; and he justly remarks that if the latter, the antecedent is at
an almost forgotten distance. The amorous temper of Edward the Fourth
is well known; and there cannot be a doubt that by _the lascivious
pleasing of a lute_, he is directly alluded to. The subsequent
description likewise that Richard gives of himself is in comparison
with the _king_. Dr. Johnson thought the image of _war capering_
poetical; yet it is not easy to conceive how _grimvisag'd war_ could
_caper in a lady's chamber_.
SCENE 1. Page 462.
GLO. Cheated of feature by _dissembling_ nature.
The poet by this expression seems to mean no more than that nature had
made for Richard features _unlike_ those of other men. To dissemble,
both here and in the passage quoted from _King John_, signifies the
reverse of to _resemble_, in its active sense, and is not used as
_dissimulare_ in Latin.
ACT II.
SCENE 3. Page 540.
2 CIT. Ill news by'r lady; _seldom comes the better_.
Well might the author of the book quoted by Mr. Reed say "that proverb
indeed is auncient," as will appear from the following curious account
of its origin extracted from a manuscript collection of stories
compiled about the time of king Henry the Third:--
"Quidam abbas dedit monachis suis tria fercula. Dixerunt monachi,
Iste parum dat nobis. Rogemus Deum ut cito moriatur. Et sive ex hac
causa, sive ex alia, mortuus est. Substitutus est alius, qui eis tamen
dedit duo fercula. Irati monachi contristati dixerunt, Nunc magis est
orandum, quia unum ferculum subtractum est, Deus subtrahat ei vitam
suam. Tandem mortuus est. Substitutus est tertius, qui duo fercula
subtraxit. Irati monachi dixerunt, Iste pessimus est inter omnes,
quia fame nos interficit; rogemus Deum quod cito moriatur. Dixit unus
monachus, Rogo Deum quod det ei vitam longam, et manu teneat eum nobis.
Alii admirati querebant quare hoc diceret; qui ait, Vide quod primus
fuit malus, secundus pejor, iste pessimus; timeo quod cum mortuus
fuerit alius pejor succedet, qui penitus nos fame perimet. Unde solet
dici, _Seilde comed se betere_."
SCENE 4. Page 546.
Q. ELIZ. A _parlous_ boy.
"Parlous," says Mr. Steevens, "is keen, shrewd." Mr. Ritson is of a
different opinion, and thinks it a corruption of _perilous_, dangerous.
Both parties are right; but it is probably used here as _perilous_, in
like manner as the nurse in _Romeo and Juliet_ talks of "a _parlous_
knock," and as it is also to be taken in _A midsummer night's dream_,
where Mr. Steevens had properly explained it; and the instance which
he has given on the present occasion does, in fact, corroborate his
former note. _Parlous_ is likewise made synonymous with _shrewd_ by
Littelton. See his Latin dict. v. _importunus_. In Middleton's play of
_The changeling_, we have "a _parlous_ fool," i. e. _shrewd_, "he must
sit in the fourth form at least." Yet a few pages further the same word
is as clearly used for _perilous_. After all there is little or no
difference in the senses of it, for in shrewdness there is certainly
peril. He that meets with a _shrew_, may well be said to be _in
danger_. Some might think that this word is the same as _talkative_,
in which case it must have been borrowed from the French; but that
language does not furnish an adjective of the kind. The original
corruption was _perlious_. Thus in an unpublished work by William of
Nassyngton, a poet of the fifteenth century, who wrote on the Lord's
prayer, &c., we have, "Methinks this maner is _perlious_."
ACT III.
SCENE 1. Page 561.
YORK. Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me;
Because that I am little, like an _ape_,
He thinks that you should _bear me on your shoulders_.
Mr. M. Mason contends that this is simply an allusion to Richard's
deformity, and is not inclined to admit the propriety of Dr. Johnson's
supposition that York means to call his uncle a _bear_. From a
quotation given by the former gentleman, it is clear that Shakspeare,
when alluding to Richard's deformity, mentions his _back_; and it
is therefore probable that he would have used the same term in the
present instance, had he adverted to the duke's shape. For this reason
Dr. Johnson's opinion seems preferable; yet something more might
have been intended. The practice of keeping apes or domestic monkeys
was formerly much more common than at present. Many old prints and
paintings corroborate this observation,[17] and in some the monkey
appears chained to a large globe or roller of wood, which, whilst it
permitted the animal to shift his situation, prevented him from making
his escape. It is almost unnecessary to add that the monkey, as the
intimate companion of the domestic fool, would often get upon his
shoulders. There is a fine picture, by Holbein, of Henry the Eighth
and some of his family, which by favour of his majesty now decorates
the meeting room of the Society of Antiquaries. In it is an admirable
portrait of Will Somers, the king's fool, with a monkey clinging to
his neck, and apparently occupied in rendering his friend William a
very essential piece of service, wherein this animal is remarkably
dexterous, the fool reclining his head in a manner that indicates
his sense of the obligation. York may therefore mean to call his
uncle a fool, and this, after all, may be the _scorn_ that Buckingham
afterwards refers to.
Every one is acquainted with the propensity of the monkey to climbing
upon other animals. Gervase Markham in his _Cavalerice_, a treatise
on horsemanship, already referred to, devotes a chapter to inform his
readers "how a horse may be taught to doe any tricke done by _Bankes_
his curtall," in which he says, "I will shew you by the example of
two or three trickes, how you shall make your horse to doe any other
action as well as any dog or _ape_ whatsoever, except it be _leaping
upon your shoulders_." The curious reader may find more illustration of
the subject in the specimen of Dr. Boucher's _Supplement to Johnson's
dictionary_, article _ape_; but the learned and ingenious author was
certainly mistaken in supposing that fools carried the _representations
of apes on their shoulders_, and probably in what he says concerning
the origin of the phrase of putting an _ape_ in a man's hood.
ACT IV.
SCENE 2. Page 621.
K. RICH. Because that like a _Jack_, thou keep'st the _stroke_.
At Horsham church, in Sussex, there was a figure dressed in scarlet
and gold, that struck the quarters. He was called _Jack o' the
clock-house_. The French term for this kind of automaton is _jaquemar_,
the etymology of which is very fanciful and uncertain.
ACT V.
SCENE 1. Page 660.
BUCK. _Holy_ king Henry----
This epithet is not applied without good reason. King Henry the Sixth,
though never actually canonized, was regarded as a saint, and miracles
were supposed to have been performed by him. In some of our church
service-books before the Reformation, there are prayers which are
said to have been of his composition, and one in particular that is
addressed to him is entitled, "A prayer to _holy_ king Henry."
SCENE 3. Page 665.
K. RICH. Besides, the king's name is a tower of strength.
Borrowed from _Proverbs_, xviii. v. 10. "The _name_ of the Lord is _a
strong tower_."
SCENE 3. Page 667.
CATE. ... It's supper time, my lord;
It's _nine_ o'clock.
"A supper at so late an hour as nine o'clock in the year 1485," says
Mr. Steevens, "would have been a prodigy." It certainly would, and
even at the time when this play was written, the period to which the
criticism more justly belongs. In either instance there was a reason
for preferring the text of the quarto copy, and yet the unnecessary
alteration is retained.
SCENE 3. Page 688.
K. RICH. This and Saint George _to boot_.
Dr. Johnson is undoubtedly right against both his opponents, one of
whom has adduced the phrase _St. George to borrow_, unintentionally
in support of him. _To borrow_ is no more a verb than _to boot_;
it means _as a pledge or security_, _borrow_ being the Saxon term
for _a pledge_. The phrase is an invocation to the saint to act as
a protector. _Saint George to thrive_ is evidently a misconceived
paraphrase of the old mode of expression, by improperly changing the
substantive to a verb. Holinshed, in the speech of Richard before the
battle, introduces "_St. George to borrowe_."
SCENE 3. Page 690.
K. RICH. Long kept in Bretagne at our _mother's_ cost.
It has already been stated by Dr. Farmer that the mistake here of
_mother_ for _brother_ must be placed to the account of the book which
Shakspeare followed, viz. Holinshed's chronicle; but the doctor has
omitted to notice that in the _first edition_ of Holinshed the word is
rightly printed _brother_. It is no otherwise worth while to mention
this fact, than that it points out the particular edition of the above
historian which Shakspeare used. Nothing can be more judicious nor
decisive than Mr. Malone's argument for retaining the historical errors
of Shakspeare, and Mr. Ritson's desire of changing the text does not
correspond with those principles of accuracy on which he laid so much
stress.
SCENE 3. Page 691.
K. RICH. A _milksop_, &c.
This is from Holinshed, "To begyn with the earle of Richmonde capitayne
of this rebellion, he is a _Welsh milksoppe_," &c.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] See the fine frontispiece by Coriolano to Vesalius's Anatomy.
KING HENRY VIII.
ACT I.
SCENE 1. Page 21.
BUCK. ... but this top-proud fellow
(Whom from the flow of gall I _name not_, but
From _sincere motions_)
Dr. Johnson explains _sincere motions_ to be _honest indignation_; and,
for _name not_, would substitute _blame not_. But is not the following
the plain sense, without any alteration? "this top-proud fellow, whom I
call so, not from an excess of bitterness, but from a genuine _impulse_
of the mind."
SCENE 1. Page 26.
BUCK. I am the shadow of poor Buckingham,
Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on,
By dark'ning my clear sun.
It is no easy matter on some occasions to comprehend the precise
meaning of Shakspeare's metaphors, which are often careless and
confused; and of this position the present lines are, doubtless, an
example. We have here a double comparison. Buckingham is first made
to say that he is but a shadow; in other terms, a dead man. He then
adverts to the _sudden_ cloud of misfortune that overwhelms him, and,
like a shadow, obscures his prosperity.
SCENE 3. Page 42.
CHAM. Is it possible the spells of France should juggle
Men into such strange _mysteries_?
Dr. Johnson's explanation is much too fanciful. Mysteries are _arts_,
and here _artificial fashions_.
ACT II.
SCENE 2. Page 71.
NOR. I'll venture one _heave_ at him.
The first folio reads "I'll venture one; _have_ at him," and this,
except as to the punctuation, is right. _Have at you_ was a common
phrase; it is used by Surrey in the ensuing act, and afterwards by
Cromwell.
SCENE 2. Page 73.
CAM. ... which so griev'd him, [Doctor Pace]
That he ran mad and died.
This is from Holinshed. "Aboute this time the king received into favor
doctor Stephen Gardiner, whose service he used in matters of great
secrecie and weighte, admitting him in the room of Doctor Pace, the
which being continually abrode in ambassades, and the same oftentymes
not much necessarie, by the Cardinalles appointment, at length he toke
such greefe therwith, that he fell out of his right wittes."
SCENE 3. Page 75.
ANNE. ... 'tis a sufferance panging
As soul and body's severing.
Of the parallel passages already cited, this is not the least so, from
_Measure for measure_;
"... in _corporal sufferance_ feels a _pang_ as great
As when a giant dies."
SCENE 4. Page 98.
[_they rise to depart._
Mr. Ridley's note is very judiciously introduced to get rid of the
interpolated stage direction inserted by some of the editors, and to
account for the king's apostrophe to Cranmer. He might have adduced an
earlier exemplification of his remark from the ensuing scene, where
Norfolk asks, _when Cranmer returns_? The archbishop of Canterbury, who
attends the procession to Blackfriars, was William Warham.
ACT III.
SCENE 2. Page 112.
SUF. ... I persuade me, from her
Will fall some blessing to this land, which shall
In it be memoriz'd.
This is, no doubt, a compliment to queen Elizabeth.
SCENE 2. Page 126.
SUR. ... I'll startle you
Worse than the sacring bell, when the brown wench
Lay kissing in your arms, lord cardinal.
Was there any Skeltonical tradition to this effect in Shakspeare's
time, or has he only taken a hint from one of the articles against
Wolsey, which is conceived in the following terms? "Also the said Lord
Cardinall did call before him Sir John Stanly knight which had taken a
farm by Covent seal of the Abbot of Chester and afterwards by his power
and might contrary to right committed the said Sir John Stanly to the
prison of Fleet by the space of a year unto such time as he compelled
the said Sir John to release his Covent seal to one Leghe of Adlington,
which married one Lark's daughter, _which woman the said Lord Cardinall
kept, and had with her two children_," &c.
SCENE 2. Page 127.
SUR. First, that, without the king's assent, or knowledge,
You wrought to be a legate; by which power
You maim'd the jurisdiction of all bishops.
We have here in substance the first of the articles exhibited by the
lords of the privy council and two of the judges against Wolsey. They
had been unfaithfully recorded in some of our histories, but were at
length printed by Lord Coke from the originals in his fourth Institute,
chap. 8.
SCENE 2. Page 127.
NOR. Then, that, in all you writ to Rome, or else
To foreign princes, _Ego et rex meus_
Was still inscrib'd; in which you brought the king
To be your servant.
The nature of this supposed offence has been apparently misconceived
by Shakspeare and others whom he might have followed. The original
article against Wolsey, states, that "the Lord Cardinall of his
presumptuous mind, in divers and many of his letters and instructions
sent out of this realme to outward parts had joyned himself with your
Grace, as in saying and writing, _The king and I would ye should do
thus. The king and I doe give unto you our hearty thankes_. Whereby it
is apparent that he used himself more like a fellow to your Highnes,
then like a subject." Wolsey's crime therefore was not in degrading
the king beneath himself, but in assuming a degree of consequence
that seemed to place him on a level with his sovereign. The offensive
language when put into Latin would be more striking and apt to deceive;
but the idiom of the language required the above arrangement of the
words.
SCENE 2. Page 128.
SUF. Then that without the knowledge
Either of king or council, when you went
Ambassador to the emperor, you made bold
To carry into Flanders the great seal.
SUR. Item, you sent a large commission
To Gregory de Cassalis, to conclude,
Without the king's will, or the state's allowance,
A league between his highness and Ferrara.
Both these charges seem included in the third article. "Also the said
Lord Cardinall being your ambassador in France, sent a commission
to Sir Gregory de Cassalis under your great seale in your grace's
name to conclude a treaty of amity with the Duke of Ferrara, without
any commandment or warrant of your highnes, nor your said highnesse
advertised or made privy to the same."
SCENE 2. Page 129.
SUF. That out of mere ambition you have caus'd
Your holy hat to be stamp'd on the king's coin.
An absurd and frivolous allegation against the unfortunate Cardinal,
being the substance of the fortieth article. The episcopal privileges
of coining money had been long established, and were conceded in this
reign to Bainbrigge and Lee the predecessor and successor of Wolsey, as
well as to the archbishops of Canterbury, Warham and Cranmer. But the
great offence was placing the _Cardinal's hat_ under the king's arms,
"which like deed," says the article, "hath not been seen to be done by
any subject within your realm before this time." It may be asked how
could it, Wolsey being the only English cardinal to whom the privilege
of striking money had been granted? Nor could there be any substantial
reason for regarding the cardinal's hat as more offensive than the
bishop's mitre, which had already appeared on the coins of Durham.
SCENE 2. Page 129.
SUF. Lord Cardinal, the king's further pleasure is,--
Because all those things, you have done of late
By your power legatine within this kingdom,
Fall into the compass of a _præmunire_,--
That therefore such a writ be sued against you.
The poet was under the necessity of introducing the _præmunire_
immediately after the articles; but we learn from Cavendish that
"Maister Cromwell inveighed against the byll of articles with such
wittie persuasions and depe reasons that the same could take none
effect. _Then were his enemyes constrained to indite him in a_
PREMUNIRE," &c.
SCENE 2. Page 131.
WOL. And when he falls, he falls like _Lucifer_.
Manifestly borrowed from that fine passage in _Isaiah_, xiv. ver. 12:
"How art thou _fallen_ from heaven, O _Lucifer_, son of the morning!"
SCENE 2. Page 135.
WOL. And sleep in _dull cold_ marble.
Mr. Gray seems to have remembered this line in his _elegy_,--
"Or flattery sooth the _dull cold_ ear of death."
SCENE 2. Page 137.
WOL. Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal
I serv'd my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
Dr. Johnson remarks, that "this sentence was really uttered by Wolsey."
The _substance_ of it certainly was. The words themselves have been
preserved in the valuable Life of Wolsey by _George_ Cavendish his
gentleman usher, which Shakspeare might have used either in Stowe's
chronicle or in manuscript; for several copies are still remaining that
were transcribed in the reign of Elizabeth. Mr. Malone has already
taken due notice of their very superior value, and of the omissions and
interpolations in the printed editions. In the latter, the work has
been abridged of many details of great curiosity with respect to the
manners of the times. A new and correct edition would be well deserving
of the patronage of an enlightened public. The real words uttered by
Wolsey were these; "Yf I hadd served God as diligently as I have done
the kinge, he wolde not have geven me over in my graye heares."
ACT V.
SCENE 3. Page 193.
MAN. ... and hit that woman, who cry'd out, _Clubs_!
It has been observed, in illustration of this practice of crying
out _clubs_, that it was usually adopted in any quarrel or tumult
in the streets; but it remains to point out the persons that were
so called, because the watchmen's weapon was the _bill_. Stowe
informs us, that "when prentizes and journeymen attended upon their
masters and mistresses in the night, they went before them carrying a
lanthorne and candle in their hands, and a _great long club on their
neckes_."--_Annales_, p. 1040, edit. 1631. The frequency of this
exclamation in nocturnal quarrels might in process of time adapt the
expression to general occasion.
SCENE 4. Page 199.
It is submitted that the stage exhibition of Elizabeth's christening
should be conducted according to the curious and circumstantial details
of the manner in which it was really performed, to be found in Halle's
_Chronicle_, and copied from him by Stowe into his _Annales_.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
PROLOGUE.
... Priam's six-gated city.
In this, as well as in Dr. Farmer's subsequent note, it might have
been better to have quoted Caxton's translation of the _Recuyles or
destruction of Troy_, instead of _Lydgate_. In the edition of 1607 of
the former work, which, in all probability, is that used by the author
of the play, the gates of Troy are thus named; _Dardan_, _Timbria_,
_Helias_, _Chetas_, _Troyen_, _Antenorides_. These are nearer to the
text than those in the other quotation from Lydgate, whose work the
author does not seem to have consulted. Should the curious reader be
desirous of seeing the manner in which Troy was formerly represented,
he may be gratified by an inspection of it in its full glory; the gates
inscribed with their names, and fortified with portcullises, in the
edition of Jaques Milot's _Mystere de la destruction de Troye_, Lyon,
1544, folio; or in Raoul le Fevre's _Recueil des hystoires Troyennes_,
Lyon, 1510, folio. This was also a favourite subject in old tapestry,
a very fine and ancient specimen of which remained a long time in the
painted chamber that separates the two houses of parliament, till
it was removed during the repairs of Saint Stephen's chapel for the
accommodation of the Irish members. A copy of it was fortunately taken
by that ingenious artist, Mr. John Carter, draughtsman to the Society
of Antiquaries.
ACT I.
SCENE 1. Page 223.
TRO. Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The _knife_ that made it.
When poets speak of the wounds inflicted by love, they generally
make the instrument to be an _arrow_; how a _knife_ came here to be
introduced is not easy to account for. Is it possible that our author
has transposed the old saying that _a knife cuts love_?
SCENE 3. Page 245.
NEST. ... and, anon, behold
The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements,
Like _Perseus' horse_.
Mr. Steevens, admitting the curiosity of his colleague's note on this
passage, is unwilling to allow that its design to prove the horse of
Perseus a ship, and not an animal, has been accomplished. The learned
editor observes, that "Shakspeare would not have contented himself
with merely comparing one ship to another;" and that "unallegorized
_Pegasus_ might be fairly stiled _Perseus'_ horse, because the heroism
of _Perseus_ had given him existence." That one thing is compared to
another which resembles it, can surely be no solid objection to the
justice of a comparison; and though the birth of the unallegorized
Pegasus was doubtless the result of Perseus's bravery in conquering
Medusa, it was incumbent on the objector to have demonstrated how this
_horse of Perseus_ had "bounded between two moist elements," to have
made good the poet's comparison. There can be no doubt that the author
of the simile has alluded to the fact concerning the _ship_ Pegasus
adduced by Mr. Malone; and every thing leads to the supposition that
he used the _authority_ of Caxton's Troy book, though, as will be seen
presently, _that_ was not the most ancient of the kind.
It is undoubtedly a well justified poetical license to compare a ship
to a horse, on account of its speed. In the translation of an old
Celtic ballad called _The maid's tragedy_, the monarch who pursues the
flying damsel is sometimes said to traverse the waves on _an enchanted
steed_; "which," say the Edinburgh reviewers, "probably arises from
some equivocal expression in the original, as the Scalds term a ship
the rider, and sometimes the horse of the ocean."--_Edinb. review_,
1805, p. 439.
Mr. Malone has stated in the beginning of his valuable note, that "we
nowhere hear of Perseus's horse;" and that "Pegasus was the property
not of Perseus but of Bellerophon." This is not quite accurate. It
is certain that _Ovid_ has _not_ mounted Perseus on any horse in his
combat with the monster which was to devour Andromeda; and therefore it
is matter of wonder that the mythological dictionary of Chompré, and
particularly that most excellent one by Lempriere, should positively
affirm that he has. This error has been likewise adopted by other
writers. But though classic authority be wanting that Perseus made use
of a horse, Boccaccio, in his _Genealogia Deorum_, lib. xii. c. 25, has
quoted Lactantius as saying, that when Perseus undertook his expedition
against Gorgon, at the instance of king Polydectus, he was accompanied
by the winged horse Pegasus, but not that he used him in delivering
Andromeda. Boccaccio adds that others were of opinion that he had a
_ship_ called Pegasus. The liberties which the old French translators
of Ovid's Metamorphoses have taken, and their interpolations, are
unaccountable. Some have caused Perseus at the instant of his birth, to
bestride Pegasus, and travel away to Helicon. In the cuts to many of
the early editions of Ovid, the designers have not only placed him on
Pegasus in the adventure with Andromeda, but even in his attack upon
Atlas. These facts may serve to account for the multiplied errors of
artists, who, neglecting to consult proper authorities, have trusted to
the erroneous examples of their predecessors. Achilles Tatius, in his
third book of _The loves of Clitophon and Leucippe_, has described a
picture of Perseus delivering Andromeda, in which he is made to descend
by means of wings to his feet; and another on the same subject is
spoken of by Lucian in his description of a house. In neither of these
is there any mention of a horse.
ACT II.
SCENE 1. Page 276.
THER. ... an _assinego_ may tutor thee.
Some doubt having arisen whether an _assinego_ is an _ass_ or an
_ass-driver_, the following passages from Ligon's _History of
Barbadoes_, 1673, will serve to decide the question in favour of the
_four-legged animal_; and demonstrate at the same time that the above
term is not exclusively applied to a male ass, as Mr. Ritson had
supposed. "We found it was far better for a man that had money, goods,
or credit, to purchase a plantation there ready furnish'd, and stockt
with servants, slaves, horses, cattle, _assinigoes_, camels, &c." And
again, "And though I found at Barbadoes some who had musical minds;
yet I found others, whose souls were so fixt upon, and so riveted to
the earth, and the profits that arise out of it, as their souls were
lifted no higher; and those men think, and have been heard to say, that
three whip-sawes going all at once in a frame or pit, is the best and
sweetest musick that can enter their ears; and to hear a cow of their
own low, or an _assinigo bray_, no sound can please them better."--pp.
22, 107.
SCENE 3. Page 309.
ULYSS. Praise him that got thee, _she_ that gave thee suck.
This ungrammatical line, though perhaps the property of Shakspeare,
might as well be corrected.
SCENE 3. Page 309.
ULYSS. Let Mars divide eternity in twain
And give him half.
How Mars was to accomplish this the metaphysicians must decide. The
idea is an odd compound of grandeur and absurdity. It might have turned
to some account in the hands of the ingenious Edgworths.
ACT III.
SCENE 2. Page 329.
CRES. ... For to be wise, and love,
Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.
If this be Shakspeare's, he got it from Taverner's translation of
_Publius Syrus_, at the end of _Catonis disticha_, 1553, 12mo, where it
stands thus, "To be in love and to be wyse is scarce graunted to God.
It is not one man's propertie both to love and also to be of a sounde
mynde."
SCENE 2. Page 333.
PAN. ... let all pitiful _goers-between_ be call'd to the world's
end after my name, call them all _Pandars_.
Although the above is, no doubt, the real etymology of the word
_pandar_, the original use of it does not rest with Shakspeare. An
earlier instance occurs in Gabriel Harvey's _Pierce's supererogation_,
1593, 4to, in which "the pandars stew" is mentioned. All other
derivations must be rejected, because the term occurs in no language
but our own. Nashe, in his _Have with you to Saffron Walden_, has most
extravagantly deduced it from _Pandora_; and he adds that Sir Philip
Sidney fetches it from Plautus. In Sir Philip's _Defence of poesie_,
the author, speaking of Terence's _Gnatho_ and Chaucer's _Pandar_,
says, "we now use their names to signifie their trades."
SCENE 3. Page 338.
CAL. ... But this Antenor
I know is such a _wrest_ in their affairs.
If a former explanation should be thought to stand in need of further
authority, the following may suffice.
In _A treatise between trouth and information_, by W. Cornishe, printed
among the works of Skelton, are these lines:
"A harpe geveth sounde as it is sette,
The harper may _wrest_ it untunablye;
A harper with his _wrest_ may tune the harpe wrong,
Mystunyng of an instrument shal hurt a true songe."
The same instrument was used for tuning other stringed instruments, as
appears from the same poem:
"The claricord hath a tunely kynde,
As the wyre is _wrested_ hye and lowe;
So it turnyth to the players mynde,
For as it is _wrested_ so must it nedes showe,
Any instrument mystunyd shall hurt a trew song,
Yet blame not the claricord the _wrester_ doth wrong."
Again,
"With golden strings such harmonie
His harpe so sweet did _wrest_;
That he reliev'd his phrenesie
Whom wicked sprites possest."
Archb. Parker's _Psalter_, sign. B. 1. b.
In King James's edict against combats, &c., p. 45, is this passage,
"this small instrument the tongue being kept in tune by the _wrest_ of
awe," &c.
And in Swetnam's _Arraignment of women_, 1615, 4to, "They are always
tempering their wits, as fidlers do their strings, who _wrest_ them so
high, that many times they stretch them beyond time, tune, and reason."
ACT IV.
SCENE 5. Page 383.
ULYSS. ... set them down
For sluttish spoils of opportunity,
And _daughters of the game_.
This expression seems borrowed from the _maister of the game_, the
ancient title of the king's game-keeper. There was also a treatise
on hunting, so called, which Shakspeare had often read of, or might
perhaps have seen.
ACT V.
SCENE 3. Page 425.
TRO. Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you
Which better fits a _lion_ than a man.
See a preceding note pp. 189, 190.
SCENE 9. Page 444.
HECT. I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek.
The author of this play, in his account of the death of Hector, has
undoubtedly departed from his original; and, as it should seem, without
necessity. Mr. Steevens, on this occasion, takes notice of _Lydgate's_
vehement reprehension of Homer's praise of Achilles, and of his gross
violation of the characters drawn by the Grecian poet; but he has
censured the wrong person. Lydgate has only followed his predecessor
Guido of Colonna, who, (or perhaps the original writer Benoit de Saint
More,) adopting the statement in the prologue to Dares Phrygius,
appears to regard the latter as a more correct and veracious historian
than Homer.
SCENE 9. Page 451.
PAN. Some _galled goose of Winchester_ would hiss.
If Mr. Mason had accidentally consulted the English part of Littelton's
excellent dictionary, he would not have doubted that "any symptom of
the venereal disease was called a Winchester goose."
ON THE STORY OF THIS PLAY.
Of Lollius, the supposed inventor of this story, it will become every
one to speak with diffidence. Until something decisive relating to him
shall occur, it is better to conclude with Mr. Tyrwhitt, that Chaucer
borrowed the greatest part of his admirable story from Boccaccio's
Philostrato; and that he either invented the rest altogether, or
obtained it from some completer copy of the Philostrato than that which
we now possess. What Dryden has said of Lollius is entirely destitute
of proof, and appears to be nothing more than an inference from
Chaucer's own expressions.
It would be a matter of extreme difficulty to ascertain, with any sort
of precision, when and in what manner the story of Troilus and Cressida
first made its appearance. Whether the author of the Philostrato was
the first who detailed it so minutely as it is there found, remains
to be decided; but it is certain that so much of it as relates to
the departure of Cressida from Troy, and her subsequent amour with
Diomed, did exist long before the time of Boccaccio. The work in which
it is most known at present is the _Troy book_ of Guido of Colonna,
composed in 1287, and, _as he states_, from Dares Phrygius, and
Dictys Cretensis, neither of whom mentions the name of Cressida. Mr.
Tyrwhitt, as it has eventually proved, had, with his usual penetration
and critical acuteness, suspected that Guido's Dares was in reality
an old Norman French poet named _Benoit de Saint More_, who wrote in
the reign of our Henry the Second, and who himself made use of Dares.
This work seems to be the earliest authority now remaining. The task
which Mr. Tyrwhitt had declined, has on this occasion been submitted
to; and the comparison has shown that Guido, whose performance had
long been regarded as original, has only translated the Norman writer
into Latin. It is most probable that he found _Benoit's_ work when he
came into England, as he is recorded to have done; and that pursuing a
practice too prevalent in the middle ages, he dishonestly suppressed
the mention of his real original. What has been advanced by Mr. Warton
and some other writers respecting an old French romance under the name
of Troilus and Cressida, will not carry the story a moment higher;
because this French romance is in fact nothing more than a much later
performance, about the year 1400, compiled by _Pierre de Beauvau_ from
the Philostrato itself. This has been strangely confounded with several
other French works on the Troy story related with great variety of
circumstance, all or most of which were modelled on that of Guido of
Colonna or his original; citing, as they had done, the supposititious
histories of Dictys and Dares. It is worth while to embrace this
opportunity of mentioning, for the first time, that there is a _prose_
French version of _Benoit's_ metrical romance; but when made, or by
whom, does not appear in a MS. of it transcribed at Verona in 1320.
Lydgate professedly followed Guido of Colonna, occasionally making use
of and citing other authorities. In a short time afterwards _Raoul le
Fevre_ compiled from various materials his _Recueil des histoires de
Troye_, which was translated into English and published by Caxton; but
neither of these authors has given more of the story of Troilus and
Cressida than any of the other romances on the war of Troy; Lydgate
contenting himself with referring to Chaucer. Of _Raoul le Fevre's_
work, often printed, there is a fine MS. in the British museum,
Bibl. Reg. 17, E. II., under the title of _Hercules_, that must have
belonged to Edward the Fourth, in which _Raoul's_ name is entirely and
unaccountably suppressed. The above may serve as a slight sketch of
the romances on the history of the wars of Troy; to describe them all
particularly would fill a volume.
It remains to inquire concerning the materials that were used in the
construction of this play. Mr. Steevens informs us that Shakspeare
received the greatest part of them from the _Troy book of Lydgate_.
It is presumed that the learned commentator would have been nearer
the fact had he substituted the _Troy book or recueyl_ translated by
_Caxton_ from _Raoul le Fevre_; which, together with a translation
of Homer, supplied the incidents of the Trojan war. Lydgate's work
was becoming obsolete, whilst the other was at this time in the prime
of its vigour. From its first publication to the year 1619, it had
passed through six editions, and continued to be popular even in the
eighteenth century. Mr. Steevens is still less accurate in stating _Le
Fevre's_ work to be a translation from Guido of Colonna; for it is only
in the latter part that he has made any use of him. Yet Guido actually
had a French Translator before the time of Raoul: which translation,
though never printed, is remaining in MS. under the whimsical title
of "La _vie_ de la _piteuse destruction_ de la noble et supellative
cité de Troye le grant. Translatée en Francois lan MCCCLXXX;" and at
the end it is called "Listoire _tres plaisant_ de la destruction de
Troye la grant." Such part of our play as relates to the loves of
Troilus and Cressida was most probably taken from Chaucer, as no other
work, accessible to Shakspeare, could have supplied him with what was
necessary.
TIMON OF ATHENS.
ACT I.
SCENE 1. Page 481.
Enter APEMANTUS.
"See this character of a cynic finely drawn by Lucian in his _Auction
of the philosophers_; and how well Shakspeare has _copied_ it," says
Dr. Warburton; who took it for granted that our author could read
Lucian _out of English_. Until this can be proved, or that any English
translation of the above piece existed in Shakspeare's time, we are at
liberty to doubt how far Apemantus is a copy from Lucian, or rather
to believe that he is a highly finished portrait after a very slight
sketch by Plutarch.
ACT IV.
SCENE 3. Page 587.
TIM. She, [her] whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
To the _April day_ again.
It had been better to have withdrawn Dr. Johnson's note, for he has
entirely misconceived the meaning of this part of Timon's speech. He
has mistaken the _person_ who was to be _embalmed to the April day
again_, and supposed, without reason, that the wedding day is here
called _April_ or _fools day_. Mr. Tollett has already corrected the
first of these errors, and properly explained the _April day_ to mean
the _freshness_ of youth. See a description of April from an old
calendar in p. 45. The word _day_ in this instance is equivalent with
_time_.
SCENE 3. Page 593.
TIM. To the _tub-fast_ and the _diet_.
What this _diet_ was may be seen at large in Dr. Bullein's _Bulwarke of
defence_, fo. 57 b. and in his _Booke of compoundes_, fo. 42, 43.
In a former note a conclusion was too hastily drawn, concerning the
origin of _Cornelius's tub_. It was stated that it took its name from
the hero of Randolph's pleasant comedy of _Cornelianum dolium_; but
the term is much older, being mentioned in Lodge's _Wit's miserie_,
1599, 4to, sig. F iiij b. Its origin therefore remains in a state of
uncertainty; for what Davenant has left us in his _Platonick lover_ can
only be regarded as a piece of pleasantry.
SCIOLT. As for _Diogenes_ that fasted much, and took his habitation
in a tub, to make the world believe he lov'd a strict and severe
life, he took the diet, sir, and in that very tub swet for the
French disease.
FRED. And some unlearned apothecary since, mistaking 's name,
called it _Cornelius tub_.
Act iii.
There is yet another passage which may be worth inserting, as it
throws a gleam of light on this obscure term. It is from _The law
of drinking_, 1617, 12mo, p. 55. "Like ivie they cling close about
_Cornelius' bulke_; till sleepe surprize them, oblivion divide them,
and _brave Cornelius_ guide them to his _tub_."
SCENE 3. Page 624.
TIM. The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears.
Some difficulty has arisen in the course of the notes on this passage
to account for the manner in which the sea could despoil the moon of
its moisture and change it into saline tears. It has been judiciously
remarked by one of the commentators, that we are not to attend on these
occasions merely to philosophical truth, but to consider what might
have been the received or vulgar notions of the time: yet no example of
such notions applicable to the present occasion has been produced. The
following may perhaps serve to supply this defect, and to establish at
the same time the genuineness of the text: "The moone gathereth deawe
in the aire, for she printeth the vertue of hir moysture in the aire,
and chaungeth the ayre in a manner that is unseene, and breedeth and
gendereth deawe in the utter part thereof."--Bartholomæus _De propriet.
rerum_, lib. viii, c. 29.
ACT V.
SCENE 5. Page 658.
ALCIB. Here lies a _wretched_ corse, &c.
There is a _fourth_ epitaph on Timon, which is scarcely worth
mentioning, but as it perhaps completes the list, and might even,
as well as that in Kendal and Painter, have suggested the slight
alteration made by Shakspeare. It is in Pettie's translation of
Guazzo's _Civile conversation_, 1586, 4to, fo. 5, as follows:
"Here doe I lie, ne am the same
I heretofore was wont to bee;
Thou reader never aske my name,
A _wretched_ end God send to thee."
THE FOOL.
The fool in this play is a very obscure and insignificant character.
Dr. Johnson's conjecture that he belongs to one of Alcibiades's
mistresses is extremely probable. Many ancient prints conduce to show
that women of this description were attended by buffoons; and there is
good reason for supposing, partly from the same kind of evidence, that
in most brothels such characters were maintained to amuse the guests
by their broad jokes and seasonable antics. In _Measure for measure_
we have such a person, who is also a tapster; and in _Antony and
Cleopatra_, Act I. Scene 1, we hear of a _strumpet's fool_.
The dress, in the present instance, should be a party-coloured garment,
with a hood and asses' ears, and a cock's comb. He might also carry a
bauble.
CORIOLANUS.
ACT I.
SCENE 1. Page 12.
MEN. Even to the court, the heart,--to the seat o' the brain.
Mr. Malone has most ingeniously shown that the _heart_ here signifies
the _seat of the brain_, that is, of the understanding; and this is
conformable to the old philosophy. Thus our English Pliny, Bartholomew
Glanville, informs us, from Aristotle, that the substance of the
brain being cold, it is placed before the well of heat, which is, the
heart; and that small veins proceed from the heart, of which is made a
marvellous caul wherein the brain is wrapped. _De propr. rerum_, lib.
v. c. 3. On this ground, the heart has been very appositely made the
seat of reason; and accordingly in another place, Glanville tells us
that in the heart is "all business and knowing."
If the above able commentator be right in his chronology of this play,
and there appears to be no reason for doubting that he is so, the
present lines must have been imitated by a contemporary writer of great
ability and poetical talents, though undeservedly obscure. This is
W. Parkes, who calls himself a student of Barnard's inn. In his work
entitled _The curtaine-drawer of the world_, 1612, 4to, he has two
passages which bear so strong a resemblance, that a mere coincidence of
thought is entirely out of the question. This is the first, in p. 6:
"If any vice arise from the _court_, as from the _head_, it immediately
discends to the cittie, _as the heart_, from thence drawes downe to
the country, as the heele: and so like an endlesse issue or theame,
runs through the whole land." The other is in p. 13: "For whereas that
member was ordained for a light and window, and as a true interpreter
to expresse and expound the consultations, and councels, and purposes
of that hidden dumbe and secret privy-councellour that _sits within
the throne and breast_ and bosome of every living man, it many times
doth belye, and forge, and flatter, and speaks then most faire when the
deepest deceit and treachery is intended: not the foot, nor the finger,
nor the whole hand: no not the whole body, nor all the members thereof,
either severally, by themselves, or joyntly together (this one onely
excepted) that doth so stretch, and draw, and finger, and fold and
unfold this curtaine or canopy to the daily use and deceit of itselfe
and others, as it alone doth."
It is rather extraordinary that none of Shakspeare's commentators
should have noticed the skilful manner in which he has diversified and
expanded the well known apologue of _the belly and the members_, the
origin of which it may be neither unentertaining nor unprofitable to
investigate, as well as the manner in which it has been used, and by
whom.
The composition has been generally ascribed to Menenius Agrippa; but
as it occurs in a very ancient collection of Æsopian fables, there
may be as much reason for supposing it the invention of Æsop as
there is for making him the parent of many others. The first person
who has introduced Menenius as reciting this fable is Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, book 6. Then follow Livy, lib. 2; Plutarch, in the
life of Coriolanus; Florus, lib. 1. cap. 23; each of whom gives it in
his own manner. During the middle ages there appeared a collection of
Latin fables in hexameter verse, that has agitated the opinions of the
learned to little purpose in their endeavours to ascertain the real
name of the compiler or versifier. He has been called Romulus, Accius
and Salo. Nor is the time when he lived at all known. These fables
are sometimes called _anonymous_, and have been published in various
forms. An excellent edition by Nilant appeared in 1709, 12mo. Many of
them were translated into French verse in the eleventh century by a
French lady who calls herself _Marie de France_, in which form they
have been happily preserved with many others extremely curious composed
by the same ingenious person, on whose life and writings a most
valuable memoir has been communicated to the Society of Antiquaries, by
the author's truly learned and amiable friend the Abbé Gervase de la
Rue, professor of history in the university of Caen. William Herman of
Gouda, in Holland, reduced them into Latin prose about the year 1500,
omitting some, and adding others. The works of Romulus and Herman of
Gouda, have been published in a great variety of forms and languages,
and constitute the set of Æsopian fables which commences with that
of the cock and the precious stone; in all which the apologue of the
belly and the members is to be found, and sometimes with considerable
variation. What Camden has given is from John of Salisbury, who wrote
in the reign of Henry the Second, and professes to have received it
from Pope Hadrian IV. See his _Polycraticon, sive de nugis curialium_,
1. vi. c. 24. Camden has omitted the latter part; and the learned
reader will do well to consult the original, where he will find some
verses by Q. Serenus Sammonicus, a physician in the reign of Caracalla,
that allude to the fable. John of Salisbury has himself composed two
hundred Latin lines _De membris conspirantibus_, which are in the
_first edition_ of his _Polycraticon_ printed at Brussels, without
date, about 1470. These were reprinted by Andreas Rivinus at Leipsic,
1655, 8vo; and likewise at the end of the fourth volume of Fabricius's
_Bibliotheca mediæ et infinæ ætatis_, Hamburg, 1735, 8vo. They are,
most probably, the lines which are called in Sinner's catalogue of the
MSS. at Berne, "Carmen _Ovidii_ de altercatione ventris et artuum,"
vol. iii. p. 116. Nor was this fable unknown in the Eastern world.
Syntipas, a Persian fabulist, has placed it in his work, published, for
the first time, from a MS. at Moscow, by Matthæus. Lips. 1781, 8vo.
Lafontaine has related it in his own inimitable manner; and lastly, the
editor of Baskerville and Dodsley's _Æsop_ has given it in a style not
inferior perhaps to that of any of his predecessors.
SCENE 4. Page 35.
MAR. All the contagion of the _south_ light on you.
See the note on Caliban's similar wish, "A _south_-west blow on you,"
p. 5.
ACT II.
SCENE 1. Page 77.
BRU. The _napless_ vesture of humility.
"The players read the _Naples_," says Mr. Steevens; but the players are
right, and the fault was with the printer in giving the word with a
capital letter. The termination _less_ in old books is very frequently
spelled with a single _s_; so that Mr. Rowe's change scarcely deserves
the name of _a correction_.
ACT IV.
SCENE 1. Page 159.
COR. I shall be lov'd when I am lack'd.
Thus Cæsar in _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act I. Scene 4, "And the ebb'd
man comes dear'd by being lack'd." We have still preserved this
proverbial saying in another form. Mother Cole says, "When people are
miss'd, then they are mourn'd." It is, in fact, Horace's "extinctus
amabitur idem."
JULIUS CÆSAR.
ACT I.
SCENE 2. Page 254.
CAS. Now is it Rome indeed, and _room_ enough.
This jingle of words is deserving of notice on no other account than as
it shows the pronunciation of _Rome_ in Shakspeare's time.
SCENE 3. Page 266.
CAS. Why old men fools, and children calculate.
In this manner has the former punctuation of the line, which had
a comma after _men_, been disturbed at the suggestion of Sir
W. Blackstone, and thereby rendered extremely uncouth if not
unintelligible. He observes that there is no prodigy in old men's
calculating from their past experience; but the poet means old dotards
in a second state of childhood. With the supposed power of divination
in _fools_, few are unacquainted. He that happens to be so may consult
the popular history of Nixon, the Cheshire prophet.
ACT II.
SCENE 2. Page 299.
CAL. When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.
This might have been suggested by what Suetonius has related of the
blazing star which appeared for seven days together, during the
celebration of games instituted by Augustus in honour of Julius. The
common people believed that this comet indicated his reception among
the gods; and not only his statues were accordingly ornamented with
its figure, but medals were struck on which it was represented. One of
these, struck by Augustus, is here exhibited.
[Illustration]
Pliny relates that a comet appeared before the death of Claudius, lib.
ii. c. 25; and Geffrey of Monmouth speaks of one that preceded the
death of Aurelius Ambrosius; but the comets would have appeared though
the men had not died, and the men would not have lived longer had the
comets never been seen.
SCENE 2. Page 300.
SER. Plucking the entrails of an offering forth
They could not find a heart within the beast.
CÆS. The gods do this in shame of cowardice:
Cæsar should be a beast without a heart,
If he should stay at home to day, for fear.
Dr. Johnson remarks on this occasion, that "the ancients did not place
courage in the heart." He had forgotten his classics strangely.
"Nunc animis opus, Ænea, nunc _pectore firmo_."
_Æn._ vi. 261.
"... Juvenes, _fortissima_ frustra
_Pectora_----."
_Æn._ ii. 263.
"... Teucrûm minantur _inertia corda_."
_Æn._ ix. 55.
"... excute, dicens,
_Corde_ metum----"
Ovid. _Metam._ lib. iii. 689.
"_Corda pavent_ comitum, mihi mens interrita mansit."
Ovid. _Metam._ lib. xv. 514.
"_Cor pavet_ admonitu temeratæ sanguine noctis."
Ovid. _Epist._ xiv. 16.
"Nescio quæ _pavidum_ frigora _pectus_ habent."
Ovid. _Epist._ xix. 192.
ACT III.
SCENE 1. Page 329.
ANT. ... for mine eyes,
Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine,
Began to water.
We have a similar expression in _The tempest_, Act V. Scene 1, where
Prospero says,
"Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,
Mine eyes even sociable to the shew of thine,
Fall fellowly drops."
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
ACT I.
SCENE 1. Page 410.
ANT. Let Rome in Tiber melt! and the _wide arch_
Of the _rang'd_ empire fall! Here is my space.
As _range_ signifies _compass_, _extent_, so the verb seems to be
used, rather licentiously, in the present instance, in the sense of
_spread_, _extended_. It may be doubted, at least, whether there be any
allusion to a triumphal arch, as Dr. Warburton supposed, or even of a
fabric standing on pillars, according to Dr. Johnson. The _wide arch_
may refer to the vast concave of the Roman world, its wide domains
covered by _the arch of heaven_, which has been beautifully styled by
some oriental writer "the star-built arch of heaven." See _The tales of
Inatulla_ by Dow, vol. i. p. 78.
SCENE 3. Page 440.
CLEO. O my oblivion is a very Antony
And I am _all_ forgotten.
She compares her memory to Antony, and says she is treacherously
abandoned and neglected by _both_. Mr. Steevens's explanation of the
first line is satisfactory; but one cannot well agree with him or
Mason, that "I am all forgotten" can possibly mean, "I forget myself,
or every thing."
ACT II.
SCENE 4. Page 490.
ANT. ... and his quails
Ever beat mine, _inhoop'd_ at odds.
It may be doubted whether quail-fighting was practised in Shakspeare's
time, though Dr. Farmer appears to have thought so; but when our poet
speaks of their being _inhoop'd_, he might suppose that Cæsar's or
Antony's quails, which he found in Plutarch, were trained to battle
like game cocks in a _ring_ or _circle_. Hanmer plausibly reads
_incoop'd_, but no change is necessary.
Quail combats were well known among the ancients, and especially at
Athens. Julius Pollux relates that a circle was made in which the
birds were placed, and he whose quail was driven out of this circle
lost the stake, which was sometimes money, and occasionally the quails
themselves. Another practice was to produce one of these birds, which
being first smitten or filliped with the middle finger, a feather was
then plucked from its head: if the quail bore this operation without
flinching, his master gained the stake, but lost it if he ran away. The
Chinese have been always extremely fond of quail-fighting, as appears
from most of the accounts of that people, and particularly in Mr.
Bell's excellent relation of his travels to China, where the reader
will find much curious matter on the subject. See vol. i. p. 424,
edit.. in 8vo. We are told by Mr. Marsden that the Sumatrans likewise
use these birds in the manner of game cocks. The annexed copy from an
elegant Chinese miniature painting represents some ladies engaged at
this amusement, where the quails are actually _inhoop'd_.
SCENE 5. Page 493.
CHAR. ... 'Twas merry, when
You wager'd on your angling; when your diver
Did hang a salt-fish on his hook, which he
With fervency drew up.
This incident, which, as Mr. Steevens has already remarked, was
borrowed from Plutarch, probably suggested a story related by Nashe,
"of a scholler in Cambridge, that standing angling on the towne bridge
there, as the country people on the market day passed by, secretly
bayted his hooke wyth a red herring wyth a bell about the necke, and
so conveying it into the water that no man perceived it, all on the
sodayn, when he had a competent throng gathered about hym, up he twicht
it agayne, and layd it openly before them, whereat the gaping rurall
fooles, driven into no lesse admiration than the common people about
London some few yeares since were at the bubbling of Moore-ditch, sware
by their christendomes that as many dayes and yeeres as they had lived,
they never saw such a myracle of a red herring taken in the fresh water
before."--_Lenten stuffe, or praise of the red herring_, 1599, 4to,
p. 60. But Cleopatra's trick was of a different nature. Antony had
fished unsuccessfully in her presence, and she had laughed at him. The
next time therefore he directed the boatman to dive under the water
and attach a fish to his hook. The queen perceived the stratagem, but
affecting not to notice it, congratulated him on his success. Another
time, however, she determined to laugh at him once more, and gave
orders to her own people to get the start of his divers, and put some
dried _salt-fish_ on his hook.
SCENE 5. Page 499.
CLEO. Some innocents 'scape not the thunder bolt.
This alludes to a superstitious notion among the ancients, that
they who were stricken with lightning were honoured by Jupiter, and
therefore to be accounted holy. Their bodies were supposed not to
putrify; and after having been shown for a certain time to the people,
were not burned in the usual manner, but buried on the spot where the
lightning fell, and a monument erected over them. Some, however, held a
contrary opinion. See the various notes on the line in Persius,
"Triste jaces lucis, evitandumque bidental," _Sat._ ii.
The ground also that had been smitten by a thunderbolt was accounted
sacred, and afterwards inclosed: nor did any one presume to walk on it.
This we learn from Festus, "fulguritum, id quod est fulmine ictum; qui
locus statim fieri putabatur religiosus, quod eum Deus sibi dicasse
videretur." These places were therefore consecrated to the gods, and
could not in future become the property of any one.
SCENE 7. Page 512.
2. SER. I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service, as a
_partizan_ I could not heave.
Dr. Johnson says the partizan is a pike, and so say many of our
dictionaries; but it was in reality a weapon between a pike and a
halbert. Not being so long as the former, it was made use of in
trenches, in mounting a breach, and in attacking or defending a
lodgment; on all which occasions the pike would have been unmanageable.
Its upper extremity resembled that of a halbert, but was longer and
broader. In more modern times it wanted the cutting axe which belongs
to the halbert, though in that used by the old Switzers and Germans
it seems to have had it. The etymology of the word has been much
controverted, but appears to lie between the Latin _pertica_ and the
German _bart_, an axe, whence _bardike_, a little axe. Shakspeare
himself has distinguished it from the pike, "Let us make him with our
_pikes and partizans_ a grave."--_Cymbeline_, Act IV. Scene 2.
SCENE 7. Page 518.
ENO. Drink thou; increase the _reels_.
Here is some corruption, and unless it was originally _revels_, the
sense is irretrievable. In all events Mr. Steevens has erred in saying
that "_reel_ was not, in our author's time, employed to signify a
dance." The following passage in a book with which the learned editor
was well acquainted, and which had escaped his excellent memory, proves
the contrary:--"Agnis Tompson was after brought againe before the
king's majestie and confessed that upon the night of Allhollon even
last, she was accompanied with a great many witches to the number of
two hundreth; and that all they together went by sea each one in a
riddle or cive, and went in the same very substantially with flaggons
of wine making merrie and drinking by the waye in the same riddles or
cives, to the kerke of North Barrick in Lowthian, and that after they
had landed, tooke hands on the land, and daunced this _reill or short
daunce_, singing all with one voice,