409. _thewes_, mental qualities. So also in E. 1542; Gower, Conf. Amant.
lib. vii. sect. 1 (ed. Pauli, iii. 85); Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 3; i. 10. 4;
ii. 1. 33, &c. 'The common signification of the word _thews_ in our old
writers, is manners, or qualities of mind and disposition.... By _thews_
Shakespeare means unquestionably brawn, nerves, muscular vigour (Jul. Caes.
i. 3; 2 Hen. IV, iii. 2; Hamlet, i. 3). And to this sense, and this only,
the word has now settled down; the other sense, which was formerly so
familiar in our literature, is quite gone out and forgotten. [With respect
to _theawe_ = sinew, in Layamon, l. 6361] Sir F. Madden remarks (iii.
471):--"This is the only instance in the poem of the word being applied to
bodily qualities, nor has any other passage of an earlier date than the
sixteenth century been found in which it is so used." It may be conjectured
that it had only been a provincial word in this sense, till Shakespeare
adopted it'; Craik's English of Shakespeare; note on Jul. Caesar, i. 3. 81.
412. _embrace_, hold fast; 'omnium animos nexu sibi magni amoris
_astrinxerat_.' Compare Tennyson's Lord of Burleigh with ll. 394-413.