The word _belike_, much used by old writers, but now almost obsolete, even
among the poor, seems to have been but very imperfectly understood--as far
as regards its original meaning and derivation. Most persons understand it
to be equivalent, or nearly so, to _very likely_, _in all likelihood_,
_perhaps_, or, ironically, _forsooth_; and in that {359} opinion they are
not far wrong. It occurs in this sense in numerous passages in Shakspeare;
for instance:
"Some merry mocking lord, _belike_."--_Love's Labour's Lost._
"O then, _belike_, she was old and gentle."--_Henry V._
"_Belike_, this show imports the argument."--_Hamlet._
Such also was Johnson's opinion of the word, for he represents it to be
"from _like_, as by _likelihood_;" and assigns to it the meanings of
"probably, likely, perhaps." However, I venture to say, in opposition to so
great an authority, that there is no immediate connexion whatever between
the words _belike_ and _likely_, with the exception of the accidental
similarity in the syllable _like_.
We find three different meanings attached to the same form _like_ in
English, viz. _like_, similis; _to like_, i. e. to be pleased with; and the
present word _belike_, whose real meaning I propose to explain.
The first is from the A.-S. _lic_, _gelic_; Low Germ. _lick_; Dutch
_gelyk_; Dan. _lig_ (which is said to take its meaning from _lic_, a
corpse, _i. e._ an essence), which word also forms our English termination
-_ly_, sometimes preserving its old form _like_; as _manly_ or _manlike_,
_Godly_ or _Godlike_; A.-S. _werlic_, _Godlic_; to which the Teut.
adjectival termination _lich_ is analogous.
The second form, _to like_, i. e. to be pleased with, is quite distinct
from the former (though it has been thought akin to it on the ground that
_simili similis placet_); and is derived from the A.-S. _lician_, which is
from _lic_, or _lac_, a gift; Low Germ. _licon_; Dutch _lyken_.
The third form, the compound term _belike_ (mostly used adverbially) is
from the A.-S. _licgan_, _belicgan_, which means, to lie by, near, or
around; to attend, accompany; Low Germ. and Dutch, _liggen_; Germ.
_liegen_. In the old German, we have _licken_, _ligin_, _liggen_--_jacere_;
and _geliggen_--_se habere_; which last seems to be the exact counterpart
of our old English _belike_; and this it was which first suggested to me
what I conceive to be its true meaning. We find the simple and compound
words in juxtaposition in _Otfridi Evang._, lib. i. cap. 23. 110. in vol.
i. p. 221. of Schilter's _Thes. Teut._:
"Thoh er nu biliban si,
Farames thoh thar er si
Zi thiu'z nu sar giligge,
Thoh er bigraben ligge."
"Etsi vero is (Lazarus) jam mortuus est,
Eamus tamen ubi is sit,
Quomodo id jam se habeat (quo in statu sint res ejus),
Etiamsi jam sepultus jaceat."
On which Schilter remarks:
"Zi thiu'z nu sar giligge quomodo se res habeat, hodie _standi_ verbo
utimur,--wie es stehe, zustehe."
We thus see that the radical meaning of the word _belike_ is to lie or be
near, to attend; from which it came to express the _simple condition_, or
_state of a thing_: and it is in this latter sense that the word is used as
an adverbial or rather an interjectional expression, when it may be
rendered, _it may be so_, _so it is_, _is it so_, &c. Sometimes ironically,
sometimes expressing chance, &c.; in the course of time it became
superseded by the more modern term _perhaps_. Instances of similar
elliptical expressions are common at the present day, and will readily
suggest themselves: the modern _please_, used for entreaty, is analogous.
It is not a little singular that this account of the word _belike_ enables
us to understand a passage in _Macbeth_, which has been unintelligible to
all the commentators and readers of Shakspeare down to the present day. I
allude to the following, which stands in my first folio, Act IV. Sc. 3.,
thus:
" . . . . What I am truly
Is thine, and my poor countries, to command:
Whither indeed before they heere approach,
Old Seyward, with ten thousand warlike men,
Already at a point, was setting foorth:
Now we'll together, and the chance of goodnesse
Be like our warranted quarrel."
Now it is not easy to see why Malcolm should wish that "chance" should "be
_like_," i. e. similar to, their "warranted quarrel;" inasmuch as that
quarrel was most unfortunate and disastrous. Chance is either fortunate or
unfortunate. The epithet _just_, which might apply to the quarrel in
question, is utterly irreconcilable with _chance_. Still this sense has
pleased the editors, and they have made "of goodnesse" a precatory and
interjectional expression. Surely it is far more probable that the poet
wrote _belike_ (_belicgan_, _geliggen_) as one word, and that the meaning
of the passage is simply "May good fortune attend our enterprise." MR.
COLLIER'S old corrector passes over this difficulty in silence, doubtless
owing to the circumstance that the word was well understood in his time.
I have alluded to the word _like_ as expressive in the English language of
three distinct ideas, and in the A.-S. of at least four; is it not possible
that these meanings, which, as we find the words used, are undoubtedly
widely distinct, having travelled to us by separate channels, may
nevertheless have had originally one and the same source? I should be glad
to elicit the opinion of some one of your more learned correspondents as to
whether the unused Hebrew [Hebrew: YLN] may not be that source.