Act I, 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.
Act I, 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.
Act II, 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.
Act II, 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."
Act II, 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."
Act III, 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.
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.
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.
Act IV, 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.
Act IV, 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.
Act IV, 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.
Act IV, 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."
Act IV, 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.
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."
Act III, 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.
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.
Act II, 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.
Act III, 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.
Act III, 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.
Act III, 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."
Act III, 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_."
Act III, 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.
Act III, 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.
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.
Act IV, 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.
Act IV, 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.
Act IV, 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.
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.
Act I, 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.
Act I, 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.
Act I, 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."
Act III, 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.
Act I, 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."
Act II, 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."
Act V, 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."
Act V, 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.
Act V, 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."
Act V, 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.
Act V, 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."
Act I, 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.
Act I, 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.
Act II, 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."
Act II, 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."
Act II, 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.
Act III, 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.
Act III, 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.
Act III, 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.
Act III, 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."
Act III, 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.
Act III, 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.
Act III, 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!"
Act III, 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."
Act III, 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.
Act V, 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?
Act I, 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.
Act II, 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.
Act II, 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."
Act III, 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."
Act III, 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.
Act V, 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.
Act V, 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.
Act IV, 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."
Act III, 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.
Act I, 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.
Act I, 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.
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.
Act II, 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.
Act I, 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.
Act II, 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.
Act II, 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.
Act II, 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.
Act II, 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,
'Commer goe ye before, commer goe ye, Gif ye will not goe before, commer let me.'
At which time she confessed, that Geilles Duncane did goe before them playing this reill or daunce upon a small trump, call a Jewes trump, untill they entered into the kerk of North Barrick."--Newes from Scotland declaring the damnable life and death of doctor Fian, a notable sorcerer, who was burned at Edenbrough in January last, 1591, sign. B iij.
Act III, Scene 6 — Page 543
CÆS. ... The wife of Antony Should have an army for an usher.
An usher is a person who introduces others ceremoniously, though originally a door-keeper, from the French huissier, and that from huis, ostium. This is no otherwise worth the mention, than to mark the corrupt orthography of the word, which ought to be written husher. Thus Spencer,
"A gentle husher, vanitie by name, Made roome, and passage for them did prepare."
Fairy queen, B. i. Canto 4, st. 13.
Cavendish, the servant of Cardinal Wolsey, speaking of his master's arrest by the Earl of Northumberland, says, "he toke the Earle by the hande, and led him in to his bedchamber. And they being there all alone, save onely I who kept the dore according to my dutye, being gentleman ussher, &c."--Life of Wolsey, MS.
Act III, Scene 6 — Page 544
CÆS. ... and have prevented The ostent of our love.
Mr. Steevens, in claiming the merit of this necessary change from ostentation, had forgotten that it had been already made by Sir Thomas Hanmer.
Act III, Scene 6 — Page 544
CÆS. ... Which soon he granted, Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him.
The change was made by Dr. Warburton from abstract, which he declares to be absurd; but, as an eminent critic has remarked, it has been made very unnecessarily. The canon somewhere laid down, viz. that where the old text is capable of a meaning, no alteration should be hazarded, ought to have been observed in this instance. The sense is obviously, "Octavia drew away or abstracted Cleopatra from Antony," and she might therefore be very properly called, in Shakspeare's bold language, an abstract.
Another reason for retaining the old reading is, that, generally speaking, Dr. Warburton's emendations are inadmissible.
Act III, Scene 11 — Page 587
ANT. If from the field I shall return once more To kiss these lips, I will appear in blood-- I will be treble-sinew'd, hearted, breath'd, And fight maliciously: for when mine hours Were nice and lucky, men did ransom lives Of me for jests----
The word nice, sometimes used by Shakspeare in a sense bordering on that of amorous or wanton, seems in the present instance to have precisely that meaning. Antony says that his former luxurious hours with Cleopatra were fortunate to those who asked his favours, but that now he will appear in blood. The historian Stowe, in recording an accident that happened to one Mary Breame in the year 1583, says that she "had beene accused by her husband to bee a nice woman of her body." We have also an old play entitled The nice wanton.
Act III, Scene 11 — Page 589
ENO. ... and in that mood, The dove will peck the estridge.
i. e. the falcon. See note p. 268, &c.
Act IV, Scene 9 — Page 611
1. SOLD. ... so bad a prayer Was never yet for sleeping.
2. SOLD. Go we to him.
In the old copy sleep. The alteration is by Mr. Steevens, and, as he says, for the sake of measure; but that was already complete. The harmony is certainly improved, as the accent is to be laid on to in the ensuing line.
Act IV, Scene 12 — Page 624
ANT. My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is Even such a body: here I am Antony; Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave. I made these wars for Egypt; and the queen,-- Whose heart, I thought, I had, for she had mine; ... she, Eros, has Pack'd cards with Cæsar, and false play'd my glory Unto an enemy's triumph.
One should really suppose that Shakspeare had written this speech just after having lost a game at cards, and before the manner in which it had been played was out of his mind. Dr. Warburton's explanation is too superficial to merit the commendation which Dr. Johnson has bestowed on it. That of Mr. Malone is much more judicious and satisfactory; but it has not been perceived that a marked and particular allusion is intended. This is to the old card game of trump, which bore a very strong resemblance to our modern whist. It was played by two against two, and sometimes by three against three. It is thus mentioned in Gammer Gurton's needle, Act II. Scene 2: "We be fast set at trump man, hard by the fire;" and like wise in Dekkar's Belman of London, among other card games. In Eliot's Fruits for the French, 1593, p. 53, it is called "a verie common alehouse game in England;" and Rice, in his Invective against vices, 12mo, b. l. n. d. but printed before 1600, speaking of sharpers' tricks at cards, mentions "renouncyng the trompe and comming in againe." The Italians call it triomphetto; see Florio's dictionary. In Capitolo's poem on Primero, another card game, 1526, 8vo, it is called trionfi, and consigned to the peasants. Minsheu, in his Spanish dialogues, p. 25, makes it a game for old men. We, in all probability, received it from the French triomphe, which occurs in Rabelais as one of Gargantua's games. The term indicates a winning or triumphant card; and therefore there can be no pretence for deriving it from tromper, whatever Ben Jonson might have thought to the contrary, who, in reality, seems only to indulge in a pun upon the word.
Act IV, Scene 12 — Page 627
ANT. I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now All length is torture.
Mr. Steevens suspects that the author wrote life; surely without reason. Length is extension or protraction of life.
THE CLOWN.
He is a mere country fellow; but Shakspeare, in compliance with the usual expectations of the audience, has bestowed on him a due portion of wit and satire.
CYMBELINE.
Act I, Scene 2 — Page 18
IMO. ... he is A man worth any woman; overbuys me Almost the sum he pays.
This has already been so ingeniously interpreted, that there is considerable hazard in the offer of any other conjecture on the subject; yet, may not Imogen mean, "the possession of me is much too dearly bought by the banishment to which you sentence him; he has almost nothing for so large a price."
Act I, Scene 5 — Page 27
Enter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, &c.
Mr. Malone having shown that this name is borrowed from the Italian Giacomo, it should be printed Jachimo, in order to prevent any mistake in the pronunciation.
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 65
IMO. From fairies and the tempters of the night, Guard me, beseech ye!
See p. 128.
Act II, Scene 3 — Page 72
Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings.
The frequent mention of the lark, especially among our older poets, has been already exemplified in a variety of corresponding passages with the above, which either Shakspeare might have imitated, or which are imitations from him. To these the following may be added:--
"On morowe tho the dai sprong And the larke bigan her song."
Romance of Sir Oluel. MS.
"Even at the twelyght in the dawnynge Whan the larke of custome gynneth synge For to salue in her heavenly laye The lusty goddesse of the morowe graye."
Lydgate's Sege of Troye, B. i.
"Whan the larke messager of day Of custome aye Aurora doth salue, With sondry notes hir sorowe to transmue, Or Phebus ryse to joye and gladnesse."
Lydgate's Sege of Troye, B. iii.
"Upsprang the golden candle matutyne, With cleir depurit bemys chrystallyne, Glading the mirry fowlis in thair nest: Or Phebus was in purpour kaip revest Upsprang the lark, the hevene's mynstral syne In may intill a morrow mirth fullest."
Dunbar's Golden terge.
"With merry note her loud salutes the mounting lark."
Spenser's Fairy queen, B. I. Canto xi. st. 51.
"Early, cheerful, mounting lark, Light's gentle usher, morning's clerk, In merry notes delighting; Stint awhile thy song, and hark, And learn my new inditing.
"Bear up this hymn, to heav'n it bear E'en up to heav'n, and sing it there," &c.
Davies's Acrostick hymns, 1599.
"... and then my state, (Like to the lark, at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate."
Shakspeare's 29th Sonnet.
"The larke that left her food, her nest, her yong, And early mounting, first with her sweet song Saluted heaven."
Niccolls's London Artillery, 1616, 4to.
"And the lark from out the furrow, Soars upright on matin wings, And at the gate of heaven sings."
Penshurst. In Dodsley's collection, vol. iv.
Act II, Scene 4 — Page 88
IACH. The roof o' the chamber With golden cherubims is fretted; her andirons (I had forgot them) were two winking Cupids Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely Depending on their brands.
Mr. Steevens calls the golden cherubims a tawdry image, and proceeds, justly enough, to ridicule an idle representation of the heavenly choirs; but the poet must be cleared from any imputation of blame. He is not accountable for the fashions or follies of his age, and has, in this instance, given a faithful description of the mode in which the rooms in great houses were sometimes ornamented. That brands were those parts of the andirons which supported the wood, according to Mr. Whalley, remains to be proved. The Cupids would not lean or hang over these bars, but rather stand with their faces turned from them, and opposite to the spectator. The brands are more likely to have been the inverted torches mentioned by Mr. Steevens.
Act II, Scene 5 — Page 94
POST. Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd, And pray'd me, oft, forbearance: did it With a pudency so rosy, &c.
A useless note on this speech, which would make our poet equally vulgar and obscene, when he was expressing a sentiment of the most refined delicacy, may be well dispensed with in any future edition.
Act III, Scene 1 — Page 99
CYM. Our ancestor was that Mulmutius, which Ordain'd our laws ... ... Mulmutius, Who was the first of Britain, &c.
The judicious and necessary omission of the words "made our laws," after the second Mulmutius, originally belongs to Sir Thomas Hanmer, who would have deserved more thanks from his readers for his regulations of Shakspeare's metre, if they had not been too frequently made without a proper regard to the accuracy of the text.
Act III, Scene 1 — Page 100
CYM. Thy Cæsar knighted me.
Although our old writers frequently make mention of Roman knights, that is, military chieftains, it is very much to be apprehended that the present expression must be regarded as a downright anachronism, as well as another similar passage, in p. 213, where Cymbeline addresses Belarius and his sons: "Bow your knees; arise my knights of the battle, &c." The word knight was formerly used with great latitude. Dr. Bullein calls Dioscorides "that olde famous Egyptian knyghte."
Act III, Scene 2 — Page 105
IMO. (Some griefs are med'cinable;) that is one of them, For it doth physick love;----
The whole of this should be included in the parenthesis, as in Mr. Malone's edition. No reason has been assigned by Mr. Steevens for the variation, which may be an error of the press.
Act III, Scene 3 — Page 117
BEL. ... Euriphile, Thou wast their nurse----
The above name might have been borrowed from the story of Amphiaraus and Eriphile, in Pettie's Petite palace, 1598, 4to.
Act III, Scene 4 — Page 120
PIS. ... whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile.
So in the anonymous play of Wily beguilde,
"Whose tongue more venom than the serpent's sting."
It is difficult to say which is the imitation.
Act IV, Scene 2 — Page 154
GUI. But his neat cookery.
This speech has exercised the talents of a certain ingenious female illustrator of Shakspeare, who has endeavoured to ridicule the character of Imogen, and indeed the whole of the play. She degrades our heroine into a mere kitchen wench, and adverts to what she calls her œconomical education. Now what is this but to expose her own ignorance of ancient manners? If she had missed the advantage of qualifying herself as a commentator on Shakspeare's plots by a perusal of our old romances, she ought at least to have remembered, what every well informed woman of the present age is acquainted with, the education of the princesses in Homer's Odyssey. It is idle to attempt to judge of ancient simplicity by a mere knowledge of modern manners; and such fastidious critics had better close the book of Shakspeare for ever. In another part of her critique on this play, she condemns the giving of the drug to Imogen which Pisanio had received from the queen, from an idea that he was sufficiently warned of its soporific quality; and she positively states that the physician had, by a whisper, informed Pisanio of its property; not one word of which is to be found in Shakspeare. So much for the criticism and accuracy of a work to which Dr. Johnson condescended to write a dedication. He has likewise too often confided in its opinions in the course of several of his remarks on Shakspeare's plays.
Act IV, Scene 2 — Page 156
CLO. Know'st me not by my clothes?
GUI. No, nor thy tailor, rascal.
Mr. Steevens's correct ear has on this, perhaps single, occasion been deceived. He objects to the negation no, as "at once superfluous and injurious to the metre;" yet it is impossible to read the line harmoniously without it. Nor does it constitute the superfluity of the metre, which has, exclusively, two redundant syllables. If any alteration were allowable, it might be the following:--
"Know'st not my clothes? No, nor thy tailor, rascal."
Act IV, Scene 2 — Page 164
BEL. O thou goddess, Thou divine nature, how thyself thou blazon'st----
This judicious emendation from thou thyself, &c., claimed by one learned gentleman and adopted by another, is the original property of Sir Thomas Hanmer.
Act IV, Scene 2 — Page 168
GUI. With female fairies will his tomb be haunted.
i. e. harmless and protecting spirits, not fairies of a mischievous nature.
Act IV, Scene 2 — Page 169
GUI. And worms will not come to thee.
Mr. Steevens imputes great violence to this change of person, and would read "come to him;" but there is no impropriety in Guiderius's sudden address to the body itself. It might indeed be ascribed to our author's careless manner, of which an instance like the present occurs at the beginning of the next act, where Posthumus says,
"... you married ones, If each of you would take this course, how many Must murder wives much better than themselves."
Act IV, Scene 2 — Page 169
ARV. ... the ruddock would, With charitable bill,--bring thee all this; Yea and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none To winter-ground thy corse.
The question made by Dr. Percy, whether the notion of the redbreast covering dead bodies be older than the celebrated ballad of the babes of the wood, has been satisfactorily answered in the affirmative by Mr. Reed's note. In Dekker's Villanies discovered by lanthorn and candle light, 1616, 4to, it is said, "They that cheere up a prisoner but with their sight, are Robin red breasts that bring strawes in their bils to cover a dead man in extremitie." See chap. xv.
With respect to winter-ground; until some other example of the use of this word be produced, there will be no impropriety in offering a substitute in winter-green, that is, "to preserve thy tomb green with moss in the winter season, when there will be no flowers wherewith to deck it." Such a verb might have been suggested to Shakspeare, who often coins in this way, by the plant winter-green, the pyrola.
Ruddock was the Saxon name ꞃuꝺꝺuc, for the redbreast, and long continued to be so. In Bullokar's Æsop, 1585, 12mo, there is a fable "Of a fowlor and the bird cale'd Robin-red-brest," which concludes in these words: "Then the fowlor, hop of-taking many being lost, when it waz now tym too-rest, drawing the netz, he cauht only on Robin-ruddok, which being unhappy [unlucky] had abydd stil in the shrap."
Act IV, Scene 2 — Page 175
IMO. 'Od's pittikins!
Mr. Steevens's derivation from God's my pity, is not quite correct. It is rather from God's pity, diminutively used by the addition of kin. In this manner we have 'od's bodikins.
ON THE STORY OF THIS PLAY.
For the plot of Cymbeline, Shakspeare has been almost exclusively indebted to Boccaccio's novel of Bernabo Lomellin, Day 2, novel 9, as Mr. Malone has proved beyond the possibility of doubt. Unless we suppose, what is not probable, that Shakspeare was acquainted with the Italian language, or that he had heard the above novel read by some person in English, a difficulty arises in accounting for the manner in which he got access to it. The earliest English translation of the whole of the Decameron was first printed in 1620, by Isaac Jaggard, in folio, and in two parts, the first of which was republished under the title of The modell of wit, mirth, eloquence, and conversation, framed in ten days of an hundred curious pieces, by seven honourable ladies, and three noble gentlemen, preserved to posterity by the renowned John Boccacio, the first refiner of Italian prose, and now translated into English, 1625, in folio. See more on this subject in a preceding note, p. 102. Had Shakspeare been intimately acquainted with Boccaccio's Decameron, one should have expected that he would have made considerable use of that work; but this is the only play in which the most material part of the plot has been extracted from it. There are indeed one or two instances in which a very slight use has been made of it, but then evidently through the medium of an English translation. Is it not possible that our author might have known French enough to have occasionally read the Decameron in that language?
TITUS ANDRONICUS.
Act II, Scene 1 — Page 276
AAR. And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes.
He is not here commending the beauty of his eyes, but adverting to their power of fascination. This was anciently supposed a peculiar quality of the eye, and many remedies or amulets were used to charm away its power.
Act II, Scene 3 — Page 287
TAM. While hounds, and horns, and sweet melodious birds, Be unto us, as is a nurse's song Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep.
We have here a curious lullaby note, which, as well as the present, may possibly have a drowsy effect on all readers but staunch antiquaries and etymologists. For the benefit therefore of the latter it may be observed, that Dr. Johnson is probably mistaken in supposing that the nurse's word by signifies sleep, otherwise than as a contraction of lullaby. It is to be wished that Mr. Holt White had favoured us with some proof that to lull originally signified to sleep, and that its present sense, to compose to sleep by a pleasing sound, is but a secondary one, retained after the primitive import had become obsolete. The same ingenious critic proceeds to state that by means house, and therefore lullaby is to go to house or cradle. There is so much plausibility in this conjecture that it is almost a pity to be obliged to dissent from it. Though it cannot be disputed that by signifies a dwelling, it is presumed that this sense is as unconnected with the word in question as Dr. Johnson's sleep. It would be a hopeless task to trace the origin of the northern verb to lull, which means to sing gently; but it is evidently connected with the Greek λαλεω, loquor, or λαλλη, the sound made by the beach at sea. Thus much is certain, that the Roman nurses used the word lalla to quiet their children, and that they feigned a deity called Lallus, whom they invoked on that occasion; the lullaby or tune itself was called by the same name. As lallare meant to sing lalla, to lull might in like manner denote the singing of the nurse's lullaby to induce the child to sleep. Thus in an ancient carol composed in the fifteenth century, and preserved among the Sloane MSS. No. 2593:
"che song a slepe wᵗ. her lullynge here dere sone our savyoure."
In another old ballad printed by Mr. Ritson in his Ancient songs, p. 198, the burden is "lully, lully, lullaby, lullyby, sweete baby, &c.;" from which it seems probable that lullaby is only a comparatively modern contraction of lully baby, the first word being the legitimate offspring of the Roman lalla. In another of these pieces still more ancient, and printed in the same collection, we have, "lullay, lullow, lully, bewy, lulla baw baw." The welsh appear to have been famous for their lullaby songs. Jones, in his Arte and science of preserving bodie and soule, 1579, 4to, says, "The best nurses, but especially the trim and skilfull Welch women, doe use to sing some preaty sonets, wherwith their copious tong is plentifully stoared of divers pretie tunes and pleasaunt ditties, that the children disquieted might be brought to reste: but translated never so well, they want their grace in Englishe, for lacke of proper words: so that I will omit them, as I wishe they would theyr lascivious Dymes, wanton Lullies, and amorous Englins."
Mr. White, in reviewing his opinion of the etymology of good-by, will perhaps incline to think it a contraction, when properly written good b'ye, of God be with you, and not "may your house prosper!"
To add to the stock of our old lullaby songs, two are here subjoined. The first is from a pageant of The slaughter of the innocents, acted at Coventry in the reign of Henry the Eighth, by the taylors and shearers of that city, and most obligingly communicated by Mr. Sharpe. The other is from the curious volume of songs mentioned before in p. 262. Both exhibit the simplicity of ancient manners.
"Lully, lulla, thou littell tine childe, By by lully lullay, Lully lullay thou littell tyne child, By by lully lullay.
O sisters too, how may we do, For to preserve this day This pore yongling, for whom we do singe By by lully lullay.
Herod the king, in his raging, Chargid he hath this day; His men of might, in his owne sight, All yonge children to slay.
That wo is me, pore child for thee, And ever morne and say; For thi parting, nether say nor sing, By by lully lullay."
* * * * *
"By by lullaby Rockyd I my chyld In a drē late as I lay Me thought I hard a maydyn say And spak thes wordys mylde, My lytil sone with the I play And ever she song by lullay. Thus rockyd she hyr chyld By by lullabi, Rockid I my child by by. Then merveld I ryght sore of thys A mayde to have a chyld I wys, By by lullay. Thus rockyd she her chyld By by lullaby, rockyd I my chyld."
Finis.
Act II, Scene 3 — Page 290
TAM. O'ercome with moss and baleful misletoe.
This epithet is extremely appropriate either conformably to an ancient, but erroneous, opinion, that the berries of the misletoe were poisonous; or on account of the use made of this plant by the Druids during their detestable human sacrifices.
Act III, Scene 1 — Page 305
TIT. Speak my Lavinia, what accursed hand Hath made thee handless in thy father's sight?
Dr. Warburton says, "we should read spight;" but there is no reason for a change for the worse. Titus had made no attempt to prevent the mutilation of his unhappy daughter, nor had it taken place in despite, i. e. contempt or hatred of him.
Act IV, Scene 3 — Page 338
TIT. And sith there is no justice in earth nor hell, We will solicit heaven, and move the Gods.
Notwithstanding the difference in arrangement, it will hardly be questioned that the author is here indebted to Virgil's
"Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo."
This may be added to the list of classical allusions at the end of the play.
Act V, Scene 1 — Page 351
AAR. An idiot holds his bauble for a God, And keeps the oath which by that God he swears.
Even though the bauble here mentioned had been actually of that kind which is alluded to in the course of a note in All's well that ends well, Act IV., his imagination would be deemed not a little fanciful, who would connect it with the object of the singular oath in Genesis xxiv. 9. There cannot however be a doubt that Aaron refers to that sort of bauble or sceptre which was usually carried in the hand by natural idiots and allowed jesters, and by which, it may be supposed, they would sometimes swear. The resemblance which it bore to an image or idol suggested the poet's comparison.
Act V, Scene 2 — Page 363
TIT. So, now bring them in, for I will play the cook.
This redundant line ought to be thus arranged and printed:
So, Now bring them in, for I will play the cook.
Act V, Scene 3 — Page 364
MAR. Rome's emperor, and nephew, break the parle.
Dr. Johnson makes the sense "begin the parley." Is it not rather "break off this sort of discourse!"? for Lucius and Saturninus had already begun the parley by sparring language: to prevent the continuance of it Marcus interferes, by declaring that their quarrels must be adjusted by gentle words.
Throughout this play the name Andrŏnĭcus is improperly accented. It should have been Andronīcus.
THE CLOWN.
He is nothing more than a shrewd rustic, performing the office of a messenger.
PERICLES.
Page 388.
Pentapolis.]
"This," says Mr. Steevens, "is an imaginary city, and its name might have been borrowed from some romance. We meet, indeed, in history with Pentapolitana regio, a country in Africa, and from thence perhaps some novelist furnished the sounding title of Pentapolis," &c. But there was no absolute reason for supposing it a city in this play, as Gower in the Confessio amantis had done, a circumstance which had probably misled Mr. Steevens. In the original Latin romance of Apollonius Tyrius, it is most accurately called Pentapolis Cyrenorum, and was, as both Strabo and Ptolemy inform us, a district of Cyrenaica in Africa, comprising five cities, of which Cyrene was one.
Act I
GOWER. To sing a song of old was sung.
The editor, having very properly adopted Mr. Malone's amendment in the text, has forgotten to mention that the former reading was that old, and the note is consequently rendered obscure.
Act I, Scene 1 — Page 397
PER. See where she comes, apparell'd like the spring, Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king Of every virtue----
A transposition of spring and king has been suggested, but on no solid foundation; nor, it is presumed, is the passage incurably depraved, or even any change necessary. Mr. Steevens asks, "With what propriety can a lady's thoughts be styled the king of every virtue?" For this the poet must answer, who evidently designed an antithesis in king and subjects.
Act I, Scene 1 — Page 402
ANT. Read the conclusion then; Which read and not expounded, 'tis decreed, As these before thee, thou thyself shalt bleed.
Conclusion, which formerly signified a trial or experiment, is here put for riddle, itself a trial of skill. The practice of proposing such riddles, with the penalty for not expounding them, is borrowed from ancient romances. In that of Tristan de Leonnois, there is a giant who detains all passengers that he meets, and puts them to the test of unfolding a riddle. If they fail, he kills them. A hero at length presents himself, who, after explaining the riddle, proposes one in his turn; the giant not being able to expound it, is himself put to death. The construction of these riddles is the same as that in the play, as will appear from the following specimen:--
"Je d'un arbre jouy jadis Que j'aimois mieux que paradis; C'est arbre bel fruict m'apporta Que sa grand' beauté m'entorta Tellement que la fleur en pris: Et puis du fruist tant je mespris Qu'a le manger fu irrité. Dy moy du cas la verité, La me disant la vie auras; Si non sois seur que tu mourras."
Act I, Scene 1 — Page 402
DAUGH. In all save that, may'st thou prove prosperous!
This reading has been adopted in preference to that of the old copy, which was, of all said yet; and in support of it Mr. Mason has offered the following argument.
She cannot wish him more prosperous in expounding the riddle than those who had preceded him; because his success would cause the publication of her own shame. Feeling a regard for the prince, she deprecates his fate, and wishes he may not succeed in solving the riddle; but that his failure may be attended with prosperous consequences. Now she must have very well known that the failure in question could be attended with no other consequences than the forfeiture of his life, a condition that had been just before expressly declared. Nor was such a wish on the part of the lady likely to operate as an inducement to the prince to try his chance. The words "save that" appear to have no regular antecedent. Would it not therefore be more charitable towards the lady to suppose that her mind revolted at the guilty situation she was placed in; and that a sudden affection for the prince, and a desire to be honourably united to such a man, might take possession of her mind, and induce her to wish, according to a sense which may be extracted from the old reading, that, as to all which had been uttered, he might prove successful? It should be remembered too, that this idea corresponds entirely with the character of the princess in Gower. Should this interpretation be thought just, the present speech must be supposed to be privately addressed to the prince.
Act I, Scene 1 — Page 410
PER. ... for wisdom sees, those men Blush not in actions blacker than the night, Will shun no course to keep them from the light.
The old reading was show no course, which is equivalent with take no means; and the construction is, "they who blush not for bad actions will take no means to conceal them."
Act I, Scene 2 — Page 413
PER. Let none disturb us: why this charge of thoughts?
Both the old editions have change, which, as Mr. Mason has shown, may very well stand; and even the redundant word should, in the old copies, might be retained without diminishing the harmony of the line. The sense would then be, "Let none disturb us: why should this change of sentiment [disturb us]?"
Act I, Scene 4 — Page 426
CLE. If heaven slumber while their creatures want, They may awake their helps to comfort them.
As these lines stand they are ungrammatical. The original reading was, no doubt, if the Gods slumber, which was altered by the licencer of the press. This should either be restored, or the whole rendered correct.
Act II
Page 438.
GOW. ... what shall be next, Pardon old Gower; this longs the text.
Which Mr. Steevens thus explains: "Excuse old Gower from telling you what follows. The very text to it has proved of too considerable a length already." But has he not missed the meaning of this elliptical mode of expression, which seems to be, "Excuse old Gower from relating what follows; this belongs to the text, i. e. the play itself, not to me the commentator?" In the third Act he uses a similar speech,
"I will relate; action may Conveniently the rest convey."
Longs should be printed 'longs, as we have 'lated for belated in Macbeth, Act. III. Scene 3.
Act II, Scene 1 — Page 450
PER. ... I yet am unprovided Of a pair of bases.
These were a sort of petticoat that hung down to the knees, and were suggested by the Roman military dress, in which they seem to have been separate and parallel slips of cloth or leather. Gayton in his Festivous notes on Don Quixote, p. 218, says, that "all heroick persons are pictured in bases and buskins." In the celebrated story of Friar John and Friar Richard, as related in Heywood's History of women, p. 253, the skirts of the armed friar's gown are made to serve as bases. At the justs that were held in honour of Queen Catherine in the second year of Henry VIII., some of the knights had "their basses and trappers of cloth of golde, every of them his name embroudered on his basse and trapper."--Halle's Chronicle. But here the term seems applied to the furniture of the horses. The bases appear to have been made of various materials. If in tilting they fell to the ground, the heralds claimed them as a fee, unless redeemed by money; this indeed was the case with respect to any piece of armour that happened to be detached from the owner. Sometimes bases denoted the hose merely; as in the comedy of Lingua, 1607, where Auditus, one of the characters, is dressed in "a cloth of silver mantle upon a pair of sattin bases." In Rider's Latin Dictionary, 1659, bases are rendered palliolum curtum. The term seems to have been borrowed from the French, who at a very early period used bache for a woman's petticoat.--See Carpentier Glossar. medii ævi.
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 454
THAISA. And his device, a wreath of chivalry The word, Me pompæ provexit apex.
Pompæ, and not Pompei, is undoubtedly the true word; and the whole of Mr. Steevens's reasoning in favour of the latter is at once disposed of by referring to the work which appears to have furnished the author of the play with this and the two subsequent devices of the knights. It is a scarce little volume entitled, The heroicall devises of M. Claudius Paradin canon of Beaujeu, whereunto are added the lord Gabriel Symeon's and others. Translated out of Latin into English, by P. S. 1591, 24mo. The sixth device, from its peculiar reference to the situation of Pericles, may perhaps have been altered from one in the same collection used by Diana of Poictiers. It is a green branch issuing from a tomb with the motto SOLA VIVIT IN ILLO. The following are what have been immediately borrowed from Paradin; but it is also proper to state that the torch and the hand issuing from a cloud are to be found in Whitney's Emblems, 1586, 4to. As they are all more elegantly engraved in the original editions of Paradin and Symeon than in the English book above mentioned, the copies here given have been made from the former.
Act III, Scene 2 — Page 498
1. GENT. Or tie my treasure up in silken bags, To please the fool and death.
The notes on this passage having got into some little confusion by the introduction of the lines in Measure for measure which relate to the fool and death and the supplemental remarks on it, it will be necessary in all future editions to keep them separate, as it seems almost certain that they have no connection with each other.
Cerimon in most express terms declares that he feels more real satisfaction in his liberal employment as a physician, than he should in the uncertain pursuit of honour, or in the mere accumulation of wealth; which would assimilate him to a miser, the result of whose labour is merely to entertain the fool and death. But how was such amusement as this to affect those personages in the other instance, where the vain attempts of a fool to escape the jaws of his adversary form the whole of the subject? The allusion therefore is to some such print as Mr. Steevens happily remembered to have seen, in which death plunders the miser of his money bags, whilst the fool is grinning at the process. It may be presumed that these subjects were common in Shakspeare's time. They might have ornamented the poor man's cottage in the shape of rude prints, or have been introduced into halfpenny ballads long since consigned to oblivion. The miser is at all times fair game; and to prove that this is not a chimerical opinion, and at the same time to show the extensive range of this popular subject, a few prints of the kind shall be mentioned. 1. Death and the two misers, by Michael Pregel. 2. An old couple counting their money, death and two devils attending, a mezzotint by Vander Bruggen. 3. A similar mezzotint by Meheux without the devils. 4. An old print on a single sheet of a dance of death, on which both the miser and the fool are exhibited in the clutches of the grim monarch.
The rear may be closed with the same subject as represented in the various dances of death that still remain. Nor should it be concluded that because these prints exhibit no fool to grin at the impending scene, others might not have done so. The satirical introduction of this character on many occasions supports the probability that they did. Thus in a painting of the school of Holbein, an old man makes love to a girl, attended by a fool and death, to show, in the first instance, the folly of the thing, and in the next, its consequences. It is unnecessary to pursue the argument, as every print of the above kind that may in future occur, will itself speak much more forcibly than any thing which can here be added.
Act IV, Scene 3 — Page 539
The two last lines in the quotation from The wife for a month should be printed thus:
Hung up my picture in a market place, And sold me to vile bawds.
Act IV, Scene 3 — Page 540
BAWD. ... to scatter his crowns in the sun.
"There is here," says Mr. Malone, "perhaps, some allusion to the lues venerea, though the words French crowns in their literal acceptation were certainly also in Boult's thoughts." Mr. Mason sees no allusion whatever to the above disease. That a French crown did signify the lues venerea cannot be doubted; but Mr. Mason's difference of opinion might be further supported by reflecting that if the Frenchman came to renovate[18] his malady, he could not well be said to scatter it. It must therefore be inferred that he was to scatter nothing but his money. As Mr. Mason has not favoured us with an explanation of the coins in question, it is necessary to state that they were crowns of the sun specifically so called, écus du soleil; and in this instance, for the sake of antithesis, termed crowns in the sun. They were of gold, originally coined by Louis XI. Their name was derived from the mint mark of a sun; and they were current in this kingdom by weight, in the same manner as certain English coins were in France.
Act IV, Scene 3 — Page 541
BOULT. ... we should lodge them with this sign.
This sign is properly referred by Mr. Malone to the person of Marina, and cannot, for the reasons in the last note, allude to the sun, according to Mr. Mason's second explanation. Nor is this gentleman's argument supported by the instance adduced of the sun having been used as the sign of a brothel. It was by no means exclusively, or even particularly so. The following passage from Dekker's Villanies discovered, or the belman's night walks, may throw some light on the subject before us. "He saw the doores of notorious carted bawdes (like hell gates) stand night and day wide open, with a paire of harlots in taffata gownes (like two painted posts) garnishing out those doores, being better to the house then a double signe."
Act IV, Scene 6 — Page 567
MAR. Thou 'rt the damn'd door-keeper to every coystrel That hither comes enquiring for his tib.
Mr. Malone thinks Tib a contraction of Tabitha; but quære if not of Isabel? In all events it was a name given to any lewd woman. In Pasquil's mad cappe, 1626, 4to, an excellent satire, mention is made of a tinker and his tibbe. Why this name was exclusively applied to a loose woman, or how it got into the game of gleek, does not appear.
Act V, Scene 3 — Page 607
PER. Heav'ns make a star of him!
So in 1 Henry VI. Act I.
"A far more glorious star thy soul will make Than Julius Cæsar----"
This notion is borrowed from the ancients, who expressed their mode of conferring divine honours and immortality on men, by placing them among the stars. Thus on a medal of Hadrian the adopted son of Trajan and Plotina, the divinity of his parents is expressed by placing a star over their heads; and in like manner the consecration medals of Faustina the elder exhibit her on an eagle, her head surrounded with stars. Other similar medals have the moon and stars; and some of Faustina the younger the inscription SIDERIBVS RECEPTA.
THE CLOWN.
Although Boult, the servant to the pandar and his wife, is not termed a clown in the dramatis personæ, it should seem that he has an equal claim to the appellation with several other low characters that have been introduced into plays for the purpose of amusing the audience. He bears some affinity to the tapster in Measure for measure; but there is nothing that immediately constitutes him the jester to a brothel. See what has been said on such a character in the article relating to the clown in Measure for measure.
ON THE STORY OF PERICLES.
As the very great popularity of this play in former times may be supposed to have originated rather from the interest which the story, replete with incident, must have excited, than from any intrinsic merit as a dramatic composition, it may be worth while, and even interesting to many, to give the subject more ample discussion. To trace it beyond the period in which the favourite romance of Apollonius Tyrius was composed, would be a vain attempt. That was the probable original; but of its author nothing decisive has been discovered. The following circumstance, however, has led to a conjecture concerning him, which shall be stated with as much brevity as possible. When Tarsia, the Marina of Pericles, has finished the song which she addresses to her unknown father Apollonius, she receives from him a hundred pieces of gold, with a command to leave him. Athenagoras, the Lysimachus of Pericles, afterwards meets her, gives her two hundred pieces, and prevails on her to make another effort to sooth the melancholy of Apollonius. She returns to him, requests permission to renew their conversation, and insists on his taking back his money, unless he can expound certain riddles which she proceeds to state. Now these riddles, three in number, are to be found in a work entitled Symposii ænigmata. The original editor of this book, Pierre Pithou, thought fit, without the smallest authority, to entitle the supposed author Cælius Firmianus Symposius. Heuman, a subsequent editor, placing implicit confidence in this name, maintained that this person could be no other than the celebrated father of the church Cælius Firmianus Lactantius; for having found that he had written a work, now lost, under the title of Symposium, he concluded that the name of Symposius, which occurs at the beginning of the ænigmas, was a mistake, and that he had therefore proved his point. But this futile reasoning was easily subverted by the superior critical talents of the truly learned Fabricius, who demonstrated the impossibility of such an error, and that Heuman had even misconceived the meaning of the word Symposium, which could not apply to a work like the ænigmas. Besides, the evidence of Saint Jerome remained to show that the symposium was not written, like the ænigmas, in hexameter verses. Lactantius is therefore out of the question; and though there is no immediate proof respecting the time in which Symposius lived, it appears that it must have been before the eighth century, as bishop Aldhelm, who died in 709, quotes the ænigmas as composed by Symposius the poet. This, and many other circumstances, sufficiently identify him against the ill-founded assertions of Heuman, who regarded him as a nonentity. Aldhelm himself wrote ænigmas so much in the manner of Symposius, that one might reasonably enough infer there was no great difference in their respective ages. The learned Barthius (see his Adversaria, lib. lviii. c. 1.), fully persuaded of the reality of Symposius, and acquainted with the occurrence of the riddles in the history of Apollonius Tyrius, concluded, with other learned men, that Symposius wrote the latter; and he justly terms the author dulcis scriptor et eruditus, as will be evident to any one who will take the trouble of reading it in Velser's edition, which is printed from a better manuscript than those used in the Gesta Romanorum. If, as Velser maintains, and Barthius admits, it was originally written in Greek, a difficulty arises with respect to Symposius, unless he be regarded as the translator. But, to say the truth, there does not appear to be any solid reason for supposing him the author, or even translator. It is not very probable that in either character he would have introduced his own matter from another work; and therefore, until some more fortunate discovery shall occur, the romance of Apollonius Tyrius must remain anonymous.
With respect to the language in which it was composed, Velser was of opinion, from certain Græco-Latin words which it contains, that this was Greek, and he speaks rather obscurely of a manuscript of it in that language at Constantinople. He seems to think that the translator was a Christian, living about the period of the decline of the Roman empire. Barthius conceived him to have been a monk of the sixth century. The Saxon translation mentioned in Wanley's list of manuscripts, and now in Bennett College, Cambridge, is doubtless from the Latin, and is alone a sufficient testimony of the antiquity of the work. At what time it was made must be left to the decision of those who are critically skilled in the Saxon language. One Constantine is said to have translated it into modern Greek verse about the year 1500; and this is probably the manuscript mentioned in Dufresne's index of authors, and afterwards printed at Venice in 1563. Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed that Velser was not aware of its having been already published in the Gesta Romanorum; and it may be added that it had been printed separately at Augsburg in 1471; perhaps as early as in the Gesta Romanorum; a fact that cannot well be ascertained, because there are editions of the latter without date which might have been printed before. Mr. Warton has committed a slight mistake in supposing that Alamannus Rinucinus made a Latin translation corrected by Beroaldus about the year 1520.[19] Vossius, whom he had misconceived, was speaking of a translation of Philostratus's life of Apollonius Tyaneus. What Mr. Malone has said of the English translations precludes the necessity of any further notice of them; but with respect to that gentleman's supposition, that there might have been an early prose translation from the Gesta Romanorum, in which the name of Apollonius was changed to Pericles, it becomes necessary to state that there are very good reasons for concluding that the story of Apollonius Tyrius, from the Gesta Romanorum, never was translated into English; and even that the Gesta Romanorum in question did not appear in our language till the beginning of the eighteenth century, and then but a small portion of it.[20] The name of Pericles has been very well accounted for by Mr. Steevens.
To render this article as complete as possible, and to facilitate the reference to a story once so celebrated, a list of the various manuscripts and printed copies is subjoined.
MANUSCRIPTS.
Those in Latin are, two in Bennett Coll. Cambridge; see Nasmith's Catal. Nos. cccxviii. ccccli.--Two in the Bodleian libr. Nos. 2435, 2540; see Catal. MSS. Angliæ, pp. 125, 134. Mr. Warton mentions a third, in H. E. Poetry, vol. i. p. 350, note h. A fourth is in the same library among Archb. Laud's MSS. No. 1302, Catal. MSS. Angliæ, p. 70; on what authority this is said to have been translated from the Greek, remains to be examined.
In Magdal. Coll. Ox. No. 2191, Catal. MSS. Angliæ, p. 72.--In Vossius's collection, No. 2409, Catal. MSS. Angliæ, p. 64.--In the Norfolk collection, now in the library of the Royal Society, No. 3181, Catal. MSS. Angliæ, p. 80.--Two in the Sloanian library; see Ascough's Catal. p. 854.--Two in the Vatican. See Montfaucon Bibl. bibliothecarum, i. 20, Nos. 275, 284.--In the Medicean library, Montfaucon Bibl. bibl. i. 372, No. xl.--In the royal library at Paris; Montfaucon Bibl. bibl. ii. 756, No. 5251.
A Saxon translation. Bennett Coll. Camb. See Nasmith's Catal. No. cci. and Wanley, Libror. vett. septentrional. catal. apud Hickesij Thesaur. p. 146.
A French translation is among the royal MSS. in the British museum, 20 c. ii. evidently made from the Latin about the 15th century.
A fragment in old English verse, probably by Thomas Vicary of Wimborn minster in Dorsetshire, on the story of Apollonius Tyrius, was in the possession of the late reverend and learned Dr. Farmer of Cambridge. See it noticed in the present vol. of Mr. Steevens's Shakspeare, pp. 381, 609.
PRINTED COPIES.
Apollonii Tyrii historia, no date, but before 1500, 8vo.
The same published by Velser, 1595, 4to.
In modern Greek verse. Venice, 1563, 1601, 1696, 8vo.
In Italian rime. Venice, 1486, and without place, 1489, 4to.
In Italian prose, reformed; and published for the benefit of the common people, per piacer del popolo, Milan, 1492, 4to.
In Spanish, in the Patrañas of Juan Timoneda, Alcala, 1576, and Bilbao, 1580, 8vo. This translation may be presumed to have been made from the Gesta Romanorum, as other stories from it are in the same work.
In German, Augsburg, 1471, folio, and 1476, 4to.
In Dutch, Delft, 1493, 4to.
In French, b. l. Geneva, 4to, n. d. Again, transl. by Gilles Corrozet, Paris, 1530, 8vo. Again, Amst. 1710, Paris, 1711, 12mo, modernized by M. Le Brun. It is abridged in Melanges tirées d'une grande bibliotheque, vol. lxiv. p. 265. It is also among the Hist. tragiques de Belleforest, tom. vii. 1604, 12mo.
In Engl. transl. by Rob. Copland from the French, and printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 1510.
The patterne of painful adventures &c. that befell unto Prince APPOLONIUS, &c. translated by T. Twine, 1607, Originally published by W. Howe, 1576.
In Gower's Confessio amantis, 1483, 1532, and 1554, folio, from Godfrey of Viterbo.
In the Pantheon or universal chronicle of Godfrey of Viterbo, compiled in Latin in the 12th century. First printed at Basil, 1569, folio, and afterwards in Pistorius's collection of German historians.
And lastly, in most of the editions of the Gesta Romanorum, in which it makes the 153rd chapter. In comparing this with Velser's work, it will be perceived that it is the same, making allowance for the usual difference of manuscripts. In short, there is but one story.
A few years after the publication of this play, there appeared on the French stage a tragi-comedy on the same story, entitled Les heureuses infortunes. It is in two parts, each of five acts, and composed by Francois Bernier de la Brousse. It might be worth while to examine whether he had made any use of the English Pericles.
However unworthy of Shakspeare's pen this drama, as an entire composition, may be considered, many will be of opinion that it contains more that he might have written than either Love's labour's lost, or All's well that ends well.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] It is necessary that the reader should review Mr. Malone's preceding and satisfactory note.
[19] Hist. of Engl. poetry, III. lxiv.
[20] See the subsequent Dissertation on the Gesta Romanorum.
KING LEAR.
Act I, Scene 1 — Page 11
COR. ... I am sure, my love's More richer than my tongue.
Dr. Warburton would have it their tongue, meaning her sisters', which would be very good sense. Dr. Johnson is content with the present reading, but gives no explanation. Cordelia means to say, "My love is greater than my powers of language can express." In like manner she soon afterwards says, "I cannot heave my heart into my mouth."
Act I, Scene 1 — Page 12
LEAR. Nothing can come of nothing.
In the fourth Scene of this Act, Lear uses the same expression in answer to the fool, who had asked him if he could "make no use of nothing." For this ancient saying of one of the philosophers, Shakspeare might have been indebted to the following passage in The prayse of nothing, by E. D. 1585, 4to. "The prophane antiquitie therefore, unlesse by casuall meanes, entreated little hereof, as of that which by their rule, that nihil ex nihilo fit, conteined not matter of profit or commendation: for which those philosophers hunted, as ambicious men for dominion and empire."
Act I, Scene 4 — Page 60
FOOL. That such a king should play bo-peep.
Mr. Steevens remarks that little more of this game than its mere denomination remains. He had forgotten the amusements of his nursery. In Sherwood's Dictionary it is defined, "Jeu d'enfant; ou (plustost) des nourrices aux petits enfans; se cachans le visage et puis se monstrant." The Italians say far bau bau, or baco baco, and bauccare; which shows that there must at some time or other have been a connexion between the nurse's terriculamentum, the boggle or buggy bo, and the present expression. See the note in p. 202. Minsheu's derivation of bo-peep from the noise which chickens make when they come out of the shell, is more whimsical than just.