_Shakspeare's Use of the Word "Captious"_ (Vol. ii., p. 354.).--Why may not
the word have the same meaning as it has now? A _captious_ person is not
primarily a deceitful person, but either one who catches at any argument to
uphold his own cause, or, more generally, one who catches or cavils at
arguments or expressions used by another, and fastens a frivolous objection
on them; one who takes exception to a point on paltry and insufficient
grounds:
"Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love."
_i.e._ yet into this sieve, which catches at, and yet never holds them, I
still pour the waters of my love.
There seems to me a double meaning of the word _captious_, indicating an
under-current of thought in the author; first, the literal sense, then the
inferential: "this sieve catches at and seems as if it would intercept the
waters of my love, but takes me in, and disappoints me, because it will not
uphold them." The objection to explaining _captious_ by simply
_fallacious_, is that the word means this by inference or consequence,
rather than primarily. Because one who is eager to controvert, _i.e._ who
is captious, generally, but not always, acts for a sophistical purpose and
means to deceive. Cicero, I believe, uses _fallax_ and _captiosus_ as
distinct, not as synonymous, terms.