Act I, Scene 4 — Page 65
LEAR. Lear's shadow?
We are told that "the folio has given these words to the fool." And so they certainly should be, without the mark of interrogation. They are of no use whatever in Lear's speech; and without this arrangement, the fool's next words, "which they will make an obedient father," are unintelligible. It will likewise dispose of Mr. Steevens's subsequent charge against Shakspeare, of inattention to the rules of grammar.
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 92
KENT. I'll make a sop o' the moonshine of you.
It is certain that an equivoque is here intended by an allusion to the old dish of eggs in moonshine, which was eggs broken and boiled in salad oil till the yolks became hard. They were eaten with slices of onions fried in oil, butter, verjuice, nutmeg and salt.
Act II, Scene 3 — Page 109
EDG. Pins, wooden pricks, &c.
Rightly explained skewers. Greene, in his admirable satire, A quip for an upstart courtier, speaking of the tricks played by the butchers in his time, makes one of his characters exclaim, "I pray you, goodman Kilcalfe, have you not your artificial knaveries to set out your meate with pricks?" The brewers and bakers come in also for their share of abuse.
Act II, Scene 3 — Page 110
EDGAR. Poor Turlygood!
Warburton would read Turlupin, and Hanmer Turluru; but there is a better reason for rejecting both these terms than for preferring either; viz. that Turlygood is the corrupted word in our language. The Turlupins were a fanatical sect that overran France, Italy, and Germany, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They were at first known by the names of Beghards or Beghins, and brethren and sisters of the free spirit. Their manners and appearance exhibited the strongest indications of lunacy and distraction. The common people alone called them Turlupins; a name which, though it has excited much doubt and controversy, seems obviously to be connected with the wolvish howlings which these people in all probability would make when influenced by their religious ravings. Their subsequent appellation of the fraternity of poor men might have been the cause why the wandering rogues called Bedlam beggars, and one of whom Edgar personates, assumed or obtained the title of Turlupins or Turlygoods, especially if their mode of asking alms was accompanied by the gesticulations of madmen. Turlupino and Turluru are old Italian terms for a fool or madman; and the Flemings had a proverb, As unfortunate as Turlupin and his children.
Act II, Scene 4 — Page 113
LEAR. To do upon respect such violent outrage.
Explained by Dr. Johnson, "to violate the character of a messenger from the king." It is rather "to do outrage to that respect which is due to the king." This, in part, agrees with the ensuing note.
Act II, Scene 4 — Page 114
KENT. They summon'd up their meiny.
Meiny, signifying a family, household, or retinue of servants, is certainly from the French meinie, or, as it was anciently and more properly written, mesnie; which word has been regarded, with great probability, by a celebrated French glossarist and antiquary, as equivalent with mesonie or maisonie, from maison: in modern French ménage. See glossary to Villehardouin, edit. 1657, folio.
Mr. Holt White has cited Dryden's line,
"The many rend the skies with loud applause,"
as supplying the use of many in Kent's sense of train or retinue. With great deference, the word is quite unconnected with meiny, and simply denotes any multitude or collection of people. It is not only used at present in its common adjective form for several, divers, multi, but even substantively: for in the Northern parts of England they still say a many, and a many people, i. e. of people. In this sense it is never found in the French language; but we have received it directly, as an adjective, from the Saxon manɩ manɩᵹ, and as a substantive from menɩu, mænɩᵹeo, menɩᵹo, &c. &c.; for in that language the word is found written not less than twenty different ways. It is the same as the Latin manus. Horace uses manus poetarum; and Quintilian oratorum ingens manus. It does not appear that the Saxons used many for a family or household.
Act II, Scene 4 — Page 121
FOOL. Cry to it nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels.
The difficulties that have attended all inquiries concerning this term, have been not a little augmented by an expectation of finding an uniformity which it does not possess, and by not reflecting that it is in reality susceptible of very different explanations.
There is hardly a doubt that it originates in an Utopian region of indolence and luxury, formerly denominated the country of cocaigne,[21] which, as some have thought, was intimately connected with the art of cookery; whilst others, with equal plausibility, relate that the little pellets of woad, a commodity in which Languedoc was remarkably fertile, being called by the above name, the province itself acquired the appellation of the kingdom of cocaigne or of plenty, where the inhabitants lived in the utmost happiness, and exempt from every sort of care and anxiety. Hence the name came to be applied to any rich country. Boileau calls Paris un pays de cocagne. The French have likewise some theatrical pieces under this title. The Italians have many allusions to it; and there is said to be a small district between Rome and Loretto so called from its cheapness and fertility. With us the lines cited by Camden in his Britannia, vol. i. col. 451,
"Were I in my castle of Bungey Upon the river of Waveney I would ne care for the king of Cockeney,"
whencesoever they come, indicate that London was formerly known by this satirical name; and hence a Londoner came to be called a cockney. The French have an equivalent word, coqueliner, to pamper, cherish, or dandle, whence our cocker.
From the above circumstances it is probable that a cockney became at length a term of contempt; one of the earliest proofs of which is Chaucer's use of it in the Reve's tale, v. 4206: "I shall be halden a daffe or a cokenay." In the Promptuarium parvulorum, 1516, 4to, it is explained to be a term of derision. In Shakspeare's time it signified a child tenderly brought up, a dearling, a wanton. See Barret's Alvearie; and a little before it had been used in a bad sense, from an obvious corruption. See Hulæt's Abcedarium, 1552, folio. In this place too Mr. Steevens's quotations from Meres and Deckar might be introduced.
The next sense in which cockney was used seems to be conveyed in the line cited by Mr. Tyrwhitt from Pierce Plowman's Visions:
"And yet I say by my soule I have no salt bacon, Ne no cokeney by Christe coloppes to make:"
as well as in those from the tournament of Tottenham;
"At that feast were they served in rich array, Every five and five had a cokeney:"
where in both instances, with deference to the respectable authorities of Dr. Percy and Mr. Tyrwhitt, it signifies a little cock. In the latter quotation it might mean a peacock, a favourite dish among our ancestors; and this conjecture is countenanced by the words served in rich array. This mode of forming a diminutive with respect to animals is not unfrequent. Thus in the Canterbury tales, l. 3267: "She was a primerole, a piggesnie." And here again some apology may be necessary for differing from Mr. Tyrwhitt, who supposes that Chaucer "meant no more than ocellus, the eyes of that animal being remarkably small, and the Romans using oculus as a term of endearment." But the objection to this ingenious explanation is, that nie cannot well be put for eye; that in this case the word would have been pigseye, and that it is rather formed from the A. S. pɩᵹa, a girl. See Lye's Saxon dict. Similar words were afterwards constructed, but without due regard to the above etymology. For example, "Prythee sweet birdsnye, be content."--Davenport's City night cap, Act III. Scene 1. "Jella, why frownst thou? say sweet biddiesnie?"--Davies's Scourge of folly. "Ay birdsneys, she's a quean."--Shadwell's Virtuoso, Act III. And in Congreve's Old bachelor, Fondlewife calls his mate cockey.
It is observable that in all the above instances these appellations are only used to females. It is not improbable therefore, that, in an abstract sense, cockney might sometimes be used in speaking to male children as a term of endearment; and it may be necessary to make this remark here, for the purpose of anticipating any suggestion that it is connected with the present subject.
It remains only to notice the cockneys or sugar pellet which Mr. Steevens's old lady remembered to have eaten in her childhood. The French formerly used a kind of perfumed pastry made of the powdered Iris flower, sugar, musk, and rose-water; these were called pastilles; and from the similitude of the word to pastel, or the Languedoc woad mentioned at the beginning of this note as the produce of the pays de cocagne, it is not improbable that some latent affinity may exist. The animal involved in the English term might indeed be thought sufficient to indicate the form. Had the old lady, happily for us, described the shape of these comfits, and which motives of delicacy might have prevented, we could possibly have traced them from our Gallic neighbours in another descent of a very singular nature. The following extract from Legrand's Vie privée des Francois, tom. ii. p. 268, will explain this: "Croira-t-on qu'il a existé en France un tems ou l'on a donné aux menues pâtisseries de table les formes les plus obscenes, et les noms les plus infâmes? Croira-t-on que cet incroyable excés de depravation a duré plus de deux siécles? Aussi sont ce moins les noms de ces pâtisseries qu'il faut blâmer que les formes qu'on leur donnait. Champier, apres avoir décrit les differentes pâtisseries usitées de son temps, dit, Quædam pudenda muliebria, aliæ virilia (si diis placet) representant. Sunt quos c... saccharatos appellitent. Adeò degeneravere boni mores, ut etiam Christianis obscœna et pudenda in cibis placeant."
Minsheu's tale of the cock neighing, and Casaubon's derivation of cockney from οικογενης, i. e. domi natus, may serve to increase those smiles of compassion which it is to be feared some of the present remarks may have already excited.
It is worth remarking, although not immediately connected with the present subject, that in the Celtic languages coeg, and kok, signified anything foolish or good for nothing. They seem connected with the radical word for a cuckow, a silly bird, which has thus transmitted its appellation to persons of a similar nature. See the words cog in the Welsh dictionaries, and cok in Pryce's Cornish vocabulary. In the North they call the cuckow a gowk, whence genkit, foolish, and gawky. Our term cokes, for a fool, is of the same family, and, perhaps, cuckold.
Act II, Scene 4 — Page 132
LEAR. Thou art a boil.
The note on this word states that it was written byle in the old copies, which all the modern editors have too strictly followed; that the mistake arose from the word boil being often pronounced as if written bile; and that in the folio we find in Coriolanus the same false spelling as here.--But this charge against the editors seems to have originated in a misconception. The ancient and true orthography is byle and bile, and such was the common pronunciation. The modern boyl and boil are corruptions. Thus in the Promptuarium parvulorum, 1516, we have "Byle sore,--Pustula." In Mathews's bible, 1551, "Satan smote Job with marvelous soore byles." In Whetstone's Mirour for magestrates of cyties, 1584, 4to, "Dicyng houses are of the substance of other buildinges, but within are the botches and byles of abhomination." Bile is pure Saxon, and is so given in most of the old dictionaries.
Act II, Scene 4 — Page 135
LEAR. ... but this heart Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws.
On the word flaws we have the following note: "A flaw, signifying a crack or other similar imperfection; our author, with his accustomed license, uses the word here for a small broken particle. So again in the fifth Act,
'... but his flaw'd heart Burst smilingly.'"
Now there is some reason for supposing that flaw might signify a fragment in Shakspeare's time, as well as a mere crack; because among the Saxons it certainly had that meaning, as may be seen in Somner's Diction. Saxon. voce ꝼloh. It is to be observed that the quartos read flowes, approaching nearer to the original. In the above quotation flaw'd seems to be used in the modern sense.
Act III, Scene 2 — Page 147
FOOL. Marry, here's grace, and a cod-piece; that's a wise man and a fool.
Shakspeare has with some humour applied the above name to the fool, who, for obvious reasons, was usually provided with this unseemly part of dress in a more remarkable manner than other persons. To the custom Gayton thus alludes, when speaking of the decline of the stage: "No fooles with Harry codpieces appeare."--Festivous notes upon Don Quixote, p. 270.
Act III, Scene 2 — Page 150
FOOL. No hereticks burn'd but wenches suitors.
Dr. Johnson has very well explained why wenches suitors were burned; but Mr. Steevens's quotation from Isaiah iii. 24, "--and burning instead of beauty," has not been applied on this occasion with his usual discernment. Not to mention the improbability that the burning in question should have existed in the time of Isaiah, the expression itself is involved in the deepest obscurity. Saint Jerome has entirely omitted it; and if the Hebrew word, which in some translations has been rendered adustio, be susceptible of any fair meaning, it is that of shrivelled or dried up by heat. It is, therefore, in the bishop's bible and some foreign translations paraphrastically given, "and for their bewty witherednesse and sunne burning." The manuscript regulations for the stews in Southwark, printed but abridged in Stowe's Annals, would have furnished the learned commentator with a far more apposite illustration. In these it is said, "no stewholder shall keep any woman that hath the perilous infirmity of burning."
Act III, Scene 4 — Page 160
EDG. Pillicock sat on pillicock's hill.
In the metrical romance of Sir Gawain and Sir Galaron, there is this line,
"His polemous with pelicocus were poudred to pay."
Pinkerton's Scotish poems, vol. iii. 214.
In the comedy of Ignoramus by Ruggles, Act III. Scene 6, Cupes talks of "quimbiblos, indenturas, pilicoccos, calimancas;" where it is perhaps a new-fangled term for any kind of stuff or cloth. There is an attempt to explain the word in Warner's Letter to Garrick, p. 30; but whoever would be certain of finding the exact meaning, may consult, besides the article in Minsheu, 9299, the following books: Durfey's Pills to purge melancholy, iv. 311.--The Nightingale, (a collection of songs) 1738, p. 380.--Lyndsay's Works, as edited by Mr. Chalmers, ii. 145, and the excellent glossary.--Florio's Italian dictionary, 1611, under the articles piviolo, and rozzone.
Act III, Scene 4 — Page 162
EDG. Keep thy pen from lenders books.
When spendthrifts and distressed persons resorted to usurers or tradesmen for the purpose of raising money by means of shop-goods or brown paper commodities, they usually entered their promissory notes or other similar obligations in books kept for that purpose. It is to this practice that Edgar alludes.
In Lodge's Looking-glasse for London and Englande, 1598, 4to, a usurer says to a gentleman, "I have thy hand set to my book that thou received'st fortie pounds of me in money." To which the other answers, "It was your device, to colour the statute, but your conscience knowes what I had." Parke, in his Curtaine-drawer of the world, speaking of a country gentleman, alludes to the extravagance of his back, which had got him into the mercer's book.
Act III, Scene 4 — Page 163
EDG. ... ha, no nonny.
This was the burden of many old songs. One of these, being connected with Mr. Henley's curious note, is here presented to the reader. It is taken from a scarce collection, entitled Melismata. Musicall phansies, fitting the court, citie and countrey humours, To 3, 4, and 5 voyces, 1611, 4to. In Playford's Musical companion, p. 55, the words are set to a different tune.
[Music:
E that will an Ale-house keepe must have three things in store, a Chamber and a feather Bed, a Chimney and a hey no-ny no-ny hay no-ny no-ny, hey nony no, hey nony no, hey nony no.]
Act III, Scene 4 — Page 164
LEAR. ... unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.
Forked is a very strange epithet, but must be taken literally. See a note by Mr. Steevens in Act IV. Scene 6, of this play. The Chinese in their written language represent a man by the following character.
Act III, Scene 6 — Page 176
FOOL. He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.
Though health will certainly do, it has probably been substituted for heels, by some person who regarded it as an improved reading. There are several proverbs of this kind. That in the text has not been found elsewhere, and may be the invention of Shakspeare. The Italians say, Of a woman beware before, of a mule beware behind, and of a monk beware on all sides; the French, Beware of a bull's front, of a mule's hinder parts, and of all sides of a woman. In Samuel Rowland's excellent and amusing work, entitled The choice of change, containing the triplicity of divinitie, philosophie, and poetrie, 1585, 4to, we meet with this proverbial saying, "Trust not 3 thinges, dogs teeth, horses feete, womens protestations."
Act III, Scene 6 — Page 184
EDG. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.
On this speech Dr. Johnson has remarked that men who begged under pretence of lunacy, used formerly to carry a horn and blow it through the streets. To account for Edgar's horn being dry, we must likewise suppose that the lunatics in question made use of this utensil to drink out of, which seems preferable to the opinion of Mr. Steevens, that these words are "a proverbial expression, introduced when a man has nothing further to offer, when he has said all he has to say," the learned commentator not having adduced any example of its use. An opportunity here presents itself of suggesting a more correct mode of exhibiting the theatrical dress of Poor Tom than we usually see, on the authority of Randle Holme in his most curious and useful work The academy of armory, book III. ch. iii. p. 161, where he says that the Bedlam has "a long staff and a cow or ox-horn by his side; his cloathing fantastic and ridiculous; for being a madman, he is madly decked and dressed all over with rubins, feathers, cuttings of cloth, and what not, to make him seem a madman or one distracted, when he is no other than a dissembling knave." It is said that about the year 1760 a poor idiot called Cude Yeddy, went about the streets of Hawick in Scotland habited much in the above manner, and rattling a cow's horn against his teeth. Something like this costume may be seen in the portrait of that precious knave Mull'd Sack, who carries a drinking horn on his staff. See Caulfield's Portraits, memoirs, and characters of remarkable persons, vol. ii.
Act IV, Scene 2 — Page 209
ALE. Humanity must perforce prey on itself, Like monsters of the deep.
"Fishes," says Dr. Johnson, "are the only animals that are known to prey upon their own species." But Shakspeare did not mean to insinuate this; for he has elsewhere spoken of "cannibals that each other eat." He only wanted a comparison. Many of the insect tribes prey on their own species, as spiders, scorpions, beetles, earwigs, blattæ, &c.
Act IV, Scene 4 — Page 233
LEAR. That fellow handles his bow like a crow keeper.
The notes on this passage serve only to identify the character of a crow-keeper; but the comparison still remains to be explained. On this occasion we must consult our sole preceptor in the manly and too much neglected science of archery, the venerable Ascham. In speaking of awkward shooters he says, "Another coureth downe and layeth out his buttockes, as thoughe hee should shoote at crowes."
Act IV, Scene 4 — Page 234
LEAR. O well-flown bird!
The notes are at variance as to whether Lear allude to archery or falconry. Certainly to the latter. In an old song on hawking, set for four voices by Thomas Ravenscroft, O well flown is a frequent address to the hawk.
Act IV, Scene 4 — Page 239
LEAR. Hark, in thine ear: change places: and handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?
Mr. Malone's explanation of this children's sport is confirmed by the following extract from A free discourse touching the murmurers of the tymes, MS. "They hould safe your childrens patrymony, and play with your majestie as men play with little children at handye dandye, which hand will you have, when they are disposed to keep any thinge from them." The above discourse is a very bold and libellous address to King James I. on his pacific character, written, anonymously, with great powers of composition.
Act IV, Scene 4 — Page 240
LEAR. There thou might'st behold the great image of authority: a dog's obey'd in office.---- Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand: Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back; Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind, For which thou whip'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener. Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear: Robes and furr'd gowns hide all.
This admirable speech has a remarkable coincidence with the following passage from "Parke's Curtaine-drawer of the world," 1612, 4to, p. 16, a work of very considerable merit. "The potency and power of magnificence and greatnesse dare looke sinne openly in the face in the very market place, and the eye of authority never takes notice thereof: the poore harlot must be stript and whipt for the crime that the courtly wanton and the citie-sinner ruffle out, and passe over and glory in, and account as nothing. The poore thiefe is hanged many times that hath stolne but the prise of a dinner, when sometimes hee that robbes both church and commonwealth is seene to ride on his footecloth." If this book was written according to its date, and Mr. Malone be right as to that of Lear, a fact which is not meant to be controverted, the merit of originality will rest with Shakspeare.
Act IV, Scene 4 — Page 241
EDG. O, matter and impertinency mix'd.
This word was not used in its modern and corrupted sense of sauciness or intrusion, but merely to express something not belonging to the subject. Thus, an old collection of domestic recipes, &c., entitled, The treasurie of commodious conceits, 1594, is said to be "not impertinent for every good huswife to use in her house amongst her own familie." It does not seem to have been used in the sense of rude or unmannerly till the middle of the seventeenth century; nor in that of saucy till a considerable time afterwards.
Act IV, Scene 4 — Page 241
LEAR. ... we came crying hither. Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air, We wawl and cry:----
Evidently taken from Pliny as translated by Philemon Holland. "Man alone, poor wretch [nature] hath laid all naked upon the bare earth, even on his birth day to cry and wrawle presently from the very first houre that he is borne into this world."--Proeme to book 7.
THE FOOL.
The fool in this play is the genuine domestic buffoon: but notwithstanding his sarcastical flashes of wit, for which we must give the poet credit, and ascribe them in some degree to what is called stage effect, he is a mere natural with a considerable share of cunning. Thus Edgar calls him an innocent, and every one will immediately distinguish him from such a character as Touchstone. His dress on the stage should be parti-coloured; his hood crested either with a cock's comb, to which he often alludes, or with the cock's head and neck. His bauble should have a head like his own with a grinning countenance, for the purpose of exciting mirth in those to whom he occasionally presents it.
The kindness which Lear manifests towards his fool, and the latter's extreme familiarity with his master in the midst of the most poignant grief and affliction, may excite surprise in those who are not intimately acquainted with the simple manners of our forefathers. An almost contemporary writer has preserved to us a curious anecdote of William duke of Normandy, afterwards William I. of England, whose life was saved by the attachment and address of his fool. An ancient Flemish chronicle among the royal MSS. in the British Museum, 16, F. iii., commences with the exile of Salvard lord of Roussillon and his family from Burgundy. In passing through a forest they are attacked by a cruel giant, who kills Salvard and several of his people; his wife Emergard and a few others only escaping. This scene the illuminator of the manuscript, which is of the fifteenth century, has chosen to exhibit. He has represented Emergard as driven away in a covered cart or waggon by one of the servants. She is attended by a female, and in the front of the cart is placed her fool, with a countenance expressive of the utmost alarm at the impending danger. Nor would it be difficult to adduce, if necessary, similar instances of the reciprocal affection between these singular personages and those who retained them.
ON THE STORY OF THIS PLAY.
To the account already given of the materials which Shakspeare used, nothing perhaps of any moment can be added; but for the sake of rendering this article more complete, it may be worth while to add that the unpublished Latin Gesta Romanorum contains the history of Lear and his daughters under different names, and with some little variety of circumstance. As it is not tedious, and has never been printed, at least as far as we know at present, it is here subjoined in its English form. The manuscript used on this occasion is No. 7333, in the Harleian collection.
"Theodosius regned, a wys emperour in the cite of Rome and myghti he was of power; the whiche emperour had thre doughters. So hit liked to this emperour to knowe which of his doughters lovid him best. And tho he seid to the eldest doughter, how moche lovist thou me? fforsoth, quod she, more than I do myself, therfore, quod he, thou shalt be hily avaunsed, and maried her to a riche and myghti kyng. Tho he cam to the secund, and seid to her, doughter, how moche lovist thou me? As moche forsoth, she seid, as I do myself. So the emperour maried her to a duc. And tho he seid to the thrid doughter, how moche lovist thou me? fforsoth, quod she, as moche as ye beth worthi, and no more. Tho seid the emperour, doughter, sith thou lovist me no more, thou shalt not be maried so richely as thi susters beth. And tho he maried her to an erle. Aftir this it happid that the emperour held bataile ayend the king of Egypt. And the kyng drove the emperour oute of the empire, in so moche that the emperour had no place to abide ynne. So he wrote lettres ensealed with his ryng to his first doughter that seid that she lovid him more than herself, for to pray her of socouryng in that grete nede, bycause he was put oute of his empire. And when the doughter had red thes lettres, she told hit to the kyng her husbond. Tho, quod the kyng, it is good that we socour him in this nede. I shal, quod he, gadern an host and help him in all that I can or may, and that will not he do withoute grete costage. Yee, quod she, hit were sufficiant if that we wold graunt him V knyghts to be in felashyp wᵗ him while he is oute of his empire. And so hit was ydo indede. And the doughter wrote ayen to the fader, that other help myght he not have but V knyghts of the kyng to be in his felashyp at the cost of the kyng her husbond. And when the emperour herd this, he was hevy in his hert, and seid, alas! alas! all my trust was in her, for she seid she lovid me more than herself, and therfore I avaunced her so hye.
"Then he wrote to the seconde that seid she lovid him as moche as hirself, and when she had herd his lettres, she shewid his erand to hir husbond, and yaf him in counseil that he shuld fynde him mete and drink and clothing honestly, as for the state of such a lorde during tyme of his nede. And when this was graunted, she wrote lettres agein to hir fadir. The emperour was hevy wᵗ this answere, and seid, sith my two doughters have thus yhevid me, sothely I shal preve the third. And so he wrote to the thrid that seid she lovid him as moche as he was worthi, and praied her of socour in his nede, and tolde her the answere of her two sustris. So the thrid doughter when she had considered the myschief of her ffader, she told her husbond in this fourme: my worshipfull lord do socour me now in this grete nede, my fadir is put oute of his empire and his heritage. Then spake he, what were thi will I did therto. That ye gadre a grete oste, quod she, and helpe him to fight ayens his enemys. I shal fulfill thi will, seide the erle, and gaderid a grete oste and yede with the emperoure at his owne costage to the bataile, and had the victorye, and set the emperour ayen in his heritage. And then seid the emperour, blessed be the hour I gate my yongist doughter: I lovid her lesse than eni of the othir, and now in my nede she hath socoured me, and the othir have yfailed me; and therefore aftir my deth she shal have myn empire. And so hit was ydo in dede; for aftir the deth of the emperour, the yongist doughter regned in his sted and ended pesibly."
The same story is to be found in the formerly celebrated English chronicle erroneously supposed to have been written by Caxton, the early part of which was copied from Geoffrey of Monmouth. The circumstance of its having been printed by Caxton more than once, with a continuation to his own time, probably by himself, seems to have occasioned the mistake. See what has been said of it before, p. 261.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] This country has been humorously described by an old French fablier, from whose work an extract may be found in Mons. Legrand's entertaining collection of Fabliaux, tom. i. p. 251; and which verifies Mr. Tyrwhitt's conjecture, that the old English poem first published by Hickes, G. A. Sax. p. 231, was a translation from the French. See Cant. tales, vol. iv. p. 254.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Act I, Scene 1 — Page 325
SAM. Gregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals.
GRE. No, for then we should be colliers.
Of the various conjectures on the origin and real meaning of this phrase, that by Mr. Steevens seems deserving of the preference. In a rare little pamphlet entitled The cold yeare, 1614, 4to, being a dialogue in which the casualties that happened in the great fall of snow are enumerated, one of the interlocutors, a North-country man, relates that on his approach to London he overtooke a collier and his team, "walking as stately as if they scorned to carry coales." It was therefore a term of reproach to be called a collier; and thence, to carry coals was metaphorically used for any low or servile action. Barnaby Googe, in his New yeares gift to the Pope's holinesse, 1579, 4to, says he "had rather be a collyer at Croydon than a Pope at Rome."
A hint had been given, by a gentleman whose opinions are on all occasions entitled to the highest respect and attention, that the phrase in question might have originated from Proverbs xxv. 22. "If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink; for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head." But this is a metaphor expressive of the pain which a man shall suffer from the reproaches of his conscience, and as such, has been adopted into our language. Thus, in Newes from the North, otherwise called The conference between Simon Certain and Pierce Plowman, 1579, 4to, "Now God forbid that ever a lawyer should heap coales upon a merchant's head, or that a merchant should not be as willing and as ready to doo a goodly deed as a lawyer."
Act I, Scene 2 — Page 347
CAP. Such comfort, as do lusty young men feel When well-apparell'd April on the heel Of limping winter treads.
Two of the commentators would read lusty yeomen, and make the passage refer to the sensations of the farmer on the return of spring. One of them, Dr. Johnson, to render the present text objectionable, has been obliged to invert the comparison. Capulet, in speaking of the delight which Paris is to receive in the society of the young ladies invited to his house, compares it to that which the month of April usually afforded to the youth of both sexes, when assembled in the green fields to enjoy their accustomed recreations. Independently of the frequent allusions in the writings of our old poets to April, as the season of youthful pleasures, and which probably occurred to Shakspeare's recollection, he might besides have had in view the decorations which accompany the above month in some of the manuscript and printed calendars, where the young folks are represented as sitting together on the grass; the men ornamenting the girls with chaplets of flowers. From the following lines in one of these, the passage in question seems to derive considerable illustration.
"The next VI. yere maketh foure and twenty And fygured is to joly Apryll The tyme of pleasures man hath moost plenty Fresshe and lovyng his lustes to fulfyll."
Act I, Scene 4 — Pages 364, 367
ROM. Give me a torch---- I'll be a candle-holder, and look on.
Froissart, describing a dinner on Christmas day in the hall of the castle of Gaston Earl of Foix, at Ortern, in the year 1388, has these words: "At mydnyght when he came out of his chambre into the halle to supper, he had ever before hym twelve torches brennyng, borne by twelve varlettes standyng before his table all supper." In Rankin's Mirrour of monsters, 1587, 4to, is the following passage: "This maske thus ended, wyth visardes accordingly appointed, there were certain petty fellows ready, as the custome is, in maskes to carry torches, &c." In the Weiss kunig, being a collection of wood engravings representing the actions of Maximilian the First, there is a very curious exhibition of a masque before the emperor, in which the performers appear with their visards, and one of them holds a torch in his hand. There is another print on the same subject by Albert Durer. The practice of carrying torch lights at entertainments continued even after the time of Shakspeare. See a future note on Hamlet, Act III. Scene 2.
Act I, Scene 4 — Page 368
MER. If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire.
There is no doubt that this is an allusion to some now forgotten sport or game, which gave rise to a proverbial expression, Dun is in the mire, used when a person was at a stand, or plunged into any difficulty. We find it as early as Chaucer's time in the Manciple's prologue:
"Ther gan our hoste to jape and to play, And sayde; sires, what? Dun is in the mire."
How the above sport was practised we have still to learn. Dun is, no doubt, the name of a horse or an ass. There is an equivalent phrase, Nothing is bolder than blynde Bayard which falleth oft in the mire. See Dr. Bullein's dialogue between soarenesse and chirurgi, fo. 10; and there is also a proverb, As dull as Dun in the mire.
Act I, Scene 4 — Page 376
MER. ... This is that very Mab That plats the manes of horses in the night.
No attempt has hitherto been made to explain this line, which alludes to a very singular superstition not yet forgotten in some parts of the country. It was believed that certain malignant spirits, whose delight was to wander in groves and pleasant places, assumed occasionally the likenesses of women clothed in white; that in this character they sometimes haunted stables in the night time, carrying in their hands tapers of wax, which they dropped on the horses' manes, thereby plaiting them in inextricable knots, to the great annoyance of the poor animals, and vexation of their masters. These hags are mentioned in the works of William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris in the 13th century. There is a very uncommon old print by Hans Burgmair relating to this subject. A witch enters the stable with a lighted torch: and previously to the operation of entangling the horse's mane, practises her enchantments on the groom, who is lying asleep on his back, and apparently influenced by the night-mare. The Belemnites, or elf-stones, were regarded as charms against the last-mentioned disease, and against evil spirits of all kinds; but the cerauniæ or bætuli, and all perforated flint-stones, were not only used for the same purpose, but more particularly for the protection of horses and other cattle, by suspending them in stables, or tying them round the necks of the animals.
The next line,
"And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,"
seems to be unconnected with the preceding, and to mark a superstition which, as Dr. Warburton has observed, may have originated from the plica Polonica, which was supposed to be the operation of wicked elves; whence the clotted hair was called elf-locks and elf-knots. Thus Edgar talks of "elfing all his hair in knots." Lodge, in his Wit's miserie, 1599, 4to, describing a devil whom he names Brawling-contention, says, "his ordinary apparell is a little low-crown'd hat with a fether in it like a forehorse; his haires are curld, and full of elves locks and nitty for want of kembing."
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 398
ROM. It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.
This line in particular, and perhaps the whole of the Scene, has been imitated by the ingenious author of the Latin comedy of Labyrinthus. In Act III. Scene 4, two lovers meet at night, and the Romeo of the piece says to his mistress, "Quid mihi noctem commemoras, mea salus? Splendens nunc subitò illuxit dies, ubi tu primum, mea lux, oculorum radiis hasce dispulisti tenebras." This excellent play was acted before King James I. at Cambridge, and for bustle and contrivance has perhaps never been exceeded.
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 398
JUL. Thou art thyself though, not a Montagu.
Dr. Johnson would have substituted then for though; but without necessity, because in that sense the latter word was anciently written tho: unskilful printers, deceived by sound, substituted though; whence the ambiguity has arisen. Thus Chaucer in his Canterbury tales, v. 2214,
"Yet sang the larke, and Palamon right tho With holy herte and with a high corāge He rose."
And again, v. 2392,
"For thilk sorrow that was tho in thyn herte."
Thus much in explanation of though, if put here for then, which is by no means clear. Mr. Malone's quotations on the other side of the question carry great weight with them.
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 400
ROM. When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds And sails upon the bosom of the air.
On this occasion Shakspeare recollected the 104th psalm, "Who maketh the clouds his charet, who walketh upon the wings of the winde."
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 405
JUL. ... at lovers perjuries, They say, Jove laughs.
This Shakspeare found in Ovid's Art of love, perhaps in Marlow's translation, book I,
"For Jove himself sits in the azure skies, And laughs below at lovers perjuries."
With the following beautiful antithesis to the above lines, every reader of taste will be gratified. It is given memoriter from some old play, the name of which is forgotten;
"When lovers swear true faith, the list'ning angels Stand on the golden battlements of heaven, And waft their vows to the eternal throne."
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 410
ROM. How silver-sweet sound lovers tongues by night.
In Pericles, Act V., we have silver-voic'd. Perhaps these epithets have been formed from the common notion that silver mixed with bells softens and improves their tone. We say likewise that a person is silver-tongued.
Act II, Scene 3 — Page 414
FRI. O mickle is the powerful grace, that lies In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities: For nought so vile that on the earth doth live, But to the earth some special good doth give; Nor aught so good, but strain'd from that fair use Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.
Thus all the copies. But in Swan's Speculum mundi, the first edition of which was published in 1635, they are quoted with the following variations;
"O mickle is the powerful good that lies In herbs, trees, stones, and their true qualities: For nought so vile that on the earth doth live, But to the earth some secret good doth give. _And nought so rich on either rock or shelf; But, if unknown, lies uselesse to itself._"
Act II, Scene 4 — Page 427
MER. ... for this driveling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.
When the physical conformation of idiots is considered, the latent but obscene allusion which this speech conveys will be instantly perceived. What follows is still less worthy of particular illustration. Mercutio riots in this sort of language. The epithet driveling is applied to love as a slavering idiot; but Sir Philip Sidney has made Cupid an old drivell. See the lines quoted from the Arcadia by Dr. Farmer, Much ado about nothing, Act III. Scene 2.
Act II, Scene 4 — Page 431
NURSE. I pray you sir, what saucy merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?
Mr. Steevens has justly observed that the term merchant was anciently used in contradistinction to gentleman. Whetstone, in his Mirour for majestrates of cyties, 1584, 4to, speaking of the usurious practices of the citizens of London who attended the gaming-houses for the purpose of supplying the gentlemen players with money, has the following remark: "The extremity of these men's dealings hath beene and is so cruell as there is a natural malice generally impressed in the hearts of the gentlemen of England towards the citizens of London, insomuch as if they odiously name a man, they foorthwith call him, a trimme merchaunt. In like despight the citizen calleth every rascall a joly gentleman. And truly this mortall envie betweene these two woorthie estates, was first engendred of the cruell usage of covetous merchaunts in hard bargaines gotten of gentlemen, and nourished with malitious words and revenges taken of both parties."
With respect to ropery,--the word seems to have been deemed unworthy of a place in our early dictionaries, and was probably coined in the mint of the slang or canting crew. It savours strongly of the halter, and appears to have signified a low kind of knavish waggery. From some other words of similar import, it may derive illustration. Thus a rope-rype is defined in Hulæt's Abcedarium to be "an ungracious waghalter, nequam;" and in Minsheu's dictionary, "one ripe for a rope, or for whom the gallowes grones." A roper has nearly the same definition in the English vocabulary at the end of Thomasii Dictionarium, 1615, 4to; but the word occasionally denoted a crafty fellow, or one who would practise a fraud against another (for which he might deserve hanging). So in the book of blasing of arms or coat armour, ascribed to Dame Juliana Bernes, the author says, "which crosse I saw but late in tharmes of a noble man: the whiche in very dede was somtyme a crafty man, a roper, as he himself sayd," sig. Aij. b. Roper had also another sense, which, though rather foreign to the present purpose, is so quaintly expressed in one of our old dictionaries, that the insertion of it will doubtless be excused:--"Roper, restio, is he that loketh in at John Roper's window by translation, he that hangeth himselfe."--Hulæt's Abcedarium Anglico-Latinum, 1552, folio. Rope-tricks, elsewhere used by Shakspeare, belongs also to this family.
Act II, Scene 4 — Page 431
NURSE. I am none of his skains-mates.
This has been explained cut-throat companions, and frequenters of the fencing school, from skein, a knife or dagger. The objection to this interpretation is, that the nurse could not very well compare herself with characters which it is presumed would scarcely be found among females of any description. One commentator thinks that she uses skains-mates for kins-mates, and ropery for roguery; but the latter words have been already shown to be synonymous, and the existence of such a term as kins-mate may be questioned. Besides, the nurse blunders only in the use of less obvious words.
The following conjecture is therefore offered, but not with entire confidence in its propriety. It will be recollected that there are skains of thread; so that the good nurse may perhaps mean nothing more than sempstresses, a word not always used in the most honourable acceptation. She had before stated that she was "none of his flirt-gills."
Act III, Scene 1 — Page 452
ROM. O! I am fortune's fool!
"I am always running in the way of evil fortune, like the fool in the play," says Dr. Johnson. There is certainly no allusion to any play. See the note in p. 146.
Act III, Scene 2 — Page 456
JUL. That run-away's eyes may wink.
A great deal of ingenious criticism has been expended in endeavouring to ascertain the meaning of this expression. Dr. Warburton thought the runaway in question was the sun; but Mr. Heath has most completely disproved this opinion. Mr. Steevens considers the passage as extremely elliptical, and regards the night as the runaway; making Juliet wish that its eyes, the stars, might retire to prevent discovery. Mr. Justice Blackstone can perceive nothing optative in the lines, but simply a reason for Juliet's wish for a cloudy night; yet according to this construction of the passage, the grammar of it is not very easily to be discovered.
Whoever attentively reads over Juliet's speech will be inclined to think, or even be altogether satisfied, that the whole tenor of it is optative. With respect to calling the night a runaway, one might surely ask how it can possibly be so termed in an abstract point of view? Is it a greater fugitive than the morning, the noon, or the evening? Mr. Steevens lays great stress on Shakspeare's having before called the night a runaway in The Merchant of Venice,
"For the close night doth play the runaway;"
but there it was already far advanced, and might therefore with great propriety be said to play the runaway; here it was not begun. The same remark will apply to the other passage cited by Mr. Steevens from The fair maid of the Exchange. Where then is this runaway to be found? or can it be Juliet herself? She who had just been secretly married to the enemy of her parents might with some propriety be termed a runaway from her duty; but she had not abandoned her native pudency. She therefore invokes the night to veil those rites which she was about to perform, and to bring her Romeo to her arms in darkness and in silence. The lines that immediately follow may be thought to favour this interpretation; and the whole Scene may possibly bring to the reader's recollection an interesting part in the beautiful story of Cupid and Psyche.
Act III, Scene 5 — Page 483
JUL. Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day.
Of the notes on this line, that by Mr. Malone is most to the point. He has shown from Cotgrave, that the hunt's-up was "a morning song to a new married woman, &c.;" and it was, no doubt, an imitation of the tune to wake the hunters, noticed by Mr. Steevens, as was that in the celebrated Scotish booke of godly and spirituall songs, beginning,
"With hunts up, with huntis up, It is now perfite day: Jesus our king is gane in hunting, Quha likes to speed they may."
It is not improbable that the following was the identical song composed by the person of the name of Gray mentioned in Mr. Ritson's note. It occurs in a collection entitled Hunting, hawking, &c., already cited in the course of the remarks on The merry wives of Windsor. There was likewise a country dance with a similar title.
CHO. { The hunt is up, the hunt is up, { Sing merrily wee, the hunt is up; The birds they sing, The Deare they fling, Hey, nony nony-no: The hounds they crye, The hunters flye, Hey trolilo, trololilo. The hunt is up, ut supra.
The wood resounds To heere the hounds, Hey, nony nony-no: The rocks report This merry sport, Hey, trolilo, trololilo. CHO. { The hunt is up, the hunt is up, { Sing merrily wee, the hunt is up.
Then hye apace, Unto the chase, Hey nony, nony-no; Whilst every thing Doth sweetly sing, Hey trolilo, trololilo. CHO. { The hunt is up, the hunt is up, { Sing merrily wee, the hunt is up.
Act III, Scene 5 — Page 496
NURSE. ... an eagle, madam, Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye.
Besides the authorities already produced in favour of green eyes, and which show the impropriety of Hanmer's alteration to keen, a hundred others might, if necessary, be given. The early French poets are extremely fond of alluding to them under the title of yeux vers, which Mons. Le Grand has in vain attempted to convert into yeux vairs, or grey eyes.[22] It must be confessed that the scarcity, if not total absence of such eyes in modern times, might well have excited the doubts of the above intelligent and agreeable writer. For this let naturalists, if they can, account. It is certain that green eyes were found among the ancients. Plautus thus alludes to them in his Curculio:
"Qui hic est homo Cum collativo ventre, atque oculis herbeis?"
Lord Verulam says, "Great eyes with a green circle between the white and the white of the eye, signify long life."--Hist. of life and death, p. 124. Villa Real, a Portuguese, has written a treatise in praise of them, and they are even said to exist now among his countrymen. See Pinkerton's Geography, vol. i. p. 556, and Steevens's Shakspeare, vol. v. 164, 203.
Act IV, Scene 2 — Page 508
CAP. Where have you been gadding?
Mr. Steevens remarks that "the primitive sense of this word was to straggle from house to house and collect money under pretence of singing carols to the blessed Virgin;" and he quotes a note on Milton's Lycidas by Mr. Warton: but this derivation seems too refined. Mr. Warton's authority is an old register at Gadderston, in these words: "Receyvid at the gadyng with Saynte Mary songe at Crismas." If the original were attentively examined, it would perhaps turn out that the word in question has some mark of contraction over it, which would convert it into gaderyng, i. e. gathering or collecting money, and not simply going about from house to house according to Mr. Warton's explanation.
Act IV, Scene 5 — Page 525
FRI. ... and stick your rosemary On this fair corse----
This plant was used in various ways at funerals. Being an evergreen, it was regarded as an emblem of the soul's immortality. Thus in Cartwright's Ordinary, Act V. Scene 1:
"... If there be Any so kind as to accompany My body to the earth, let them not want For entertainment; pr'ythee see they have A sprig of rosemary dip'd in common water To smell to as they walk along the streets."
In an obituary kept by Mr. Smith, secondary of one of the Compters, and preserved among the Sloanian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 886, is the following entry: "Janʸ. 2. 1671. Mr. Cornelius Bee bookseller in Little Britain died; buried Jan. 4. at Great St. Bartholomew's without a sermon, without wine or wafers, only gloves and rosmary."
And Mr. Gay, when describing Blouzelinda's funeral, records that
"Sprigg'd rosemary the lads and lasses bore."
Act IV, Scene 5 — Page 528
PET. No money, on my faith; but the gleek: I will give you the minstrel.
From what has been said in page 118, it becomes necessary to withdraw so much of a former note as relates to the game of gleek. To give the minstrel, is no more than a punning phrase for giving the gleek. Minstrels and jesters were anciently called gleekmen or gligmen.
Act IV, Scene 5 — Page 529
PET. When griping grief the heart doth wound And doleful dumps the mind oppress.
The following stanza from one of Whitney's Emblems, 1586, 4to, is not very dissimilar from that of Richard Edwards, communicated in the note by Sir John Hawkins, and may serve to confirm the propriety of Mr. Steevens's observation, that the epithet griping was not calculated to excite laughter in the time of Shakspeare.
"If griping greifes have harbour in thie breste And pininge cares laie seige unto the same, Or straunge conceiptes doe reave thee of thie rest, And daie and nighte do bringe thee out of frame: Then choose a freinde, and doe his counsaile crave, Least secret sighes, doe bringe untimelie grave."
Griping griefs and doleful dumps are very thickly interspersed in Grange's Golden Aphroditis, 1577, 4to, and in many other places. They were great favourites; but griefs were not always griping. Thus in Turbervile's translation of Ovid's epistle from Hero to Leander;
"Which if I heard, of troth For grunting griefe I die."
Act V, Scene 1 — Page 536
ROM. An alligator stuff'd----
Our dictionaries supply no materials towards the etymology of this word, which was probably introduced into the language by some of our early voyagers to the Spanish or Portuguese settlements in the newly discovered world. They would hear the Spaniards discoursing of the animal by the name of el lagarto, or the lizard; Lat. lacerta; and on their return home, they would inform their countrymen that this sort of crocodile was called an alligator. It would not be difficult to trace other corrupted words in a similar manner.
STORY OF THE PLAY.
It has hitherto remained unnoticed, that one of the material incidents in this drama is to be found in The love adventures of Abrocomas and Anthia, usually called the Ephesiacs of Xenophon of Ephesus. The heroine of this romance, separated, by a series of misfortunes, from her husband, falls into the hands of robbers, from whom she is rescued by a young nobleman called Perilaus. He becomes enamoured of her; and she, fearing violence, affects to consent to marry him; but on the arrival of the appointed time, swallows a poisonous draught which she had procured from Eudoxus, an old physician and the friend of Perilaus, to whom she had communicated the secret of her history. Much lamentation is made for her death, and she is conveyed with great pomp to a sepulchre. As she had only taken a sleeping potion, she soon awakes in the tomb, which, on account of the riches it contained, is plundered by some thieves, who also carry her off. This work was certainly not published nor translated in the time of Luigi da Porto, the original narrator of the story of Romeo and Juliet; but there is no reason why he might not have seen a copy of the original in manuscript.
Two incidents in this Greek romance are likewise to be found in Cymbeline; one of which is the following: Anthia having become the slave of Manto and her husband, he is captivated with her beauty; and this coming to the knowledge of the jealous Manto, she orders a trusty servant to carry Anthia into a wood and put her to death. This man, like the servant in Boccaccio, and Pisanio in Shakspeare, commiserates the situation of Anthia, spares her life, and provides the means for her future safety. A similar occurrence is introduced into some of the tales of the middle ages. The other is the above-mentioned draught of poison swallowed by Imogen, as by Anthia, though not with precisely the same effect. As it is not to be found either in Boccaccio or in the old story-book of Westward for smelts, one might suspect that some novel, imitated from the Ephesiacs, was existing in the time of Shakspeare, though now unknown.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Fabliaux ou contes, tom. iv. p. 215.
HAMLET.
Act I, Scene 1 — Page 9
MAR. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.
The reason why the common people believed that ghosts were only to be addressed by scholars seems to have been, that the exorcisms of troublesome spirits were usually performed in Latin.
Act I, Scene 1 — Page 21
HOR. The cock that is the trumpet to the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the God of day; and at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, _The extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine_.
Besides the hymn of Prudentius referred to in Dr. Farmer's note, there is another said to have been composed by Saint Ambrose, and formerly used in the Salisbury service. It contains the following lines, which so much resemble Horatio's speech, that one might almost suppose Shakspeare had seen them:
"Preco diei jam sonat, Noctis profundæ pervigil; Nocturna lux viantibus, A nocte noctem segregans. _Hoc excitatus Lucifer, Solvit polum caligine; Hoc omnis errorum chorus Viam nocendi deserit. Gallo canente_ spes redit, &c."
See Expositio hymnorum secundum usum Sarum, pr. by R. Pynson, n. d. 4to, fo. vii. b. The epithets extravagant and erring are highly poetical and appropriate, and seem to prove that Shakspeare was not altogether ignorant of the Latin language.
Act I, Scene 2 — Page 35
HAM. Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self slaughter.
Mr. Steevens says, "there are yet those who suppose the old reading (cannon, in the sense of artillery) to be the true one." He himself was not of the number. It must be owned that fixing a cannon is an odd mode of vengeance on the part of the Deity; yet it is still more difficult to conceive in what manner this instrument could operate in avenging suicide. The pedants of Hierocles, who were the Gothamites of their time, might, if now existing, be competent to explain all this; or, indeed, we might ourselves suppose that suicides could be blown into atoms as the seapoys sometimes are, by tying them to the cannon's mouth, a method equally humane with the practice of driving stakes through their bodies. Mr. Malone's happy quotation has for ever fixed the proper meaning.
Act I, Scene 2 — Page 40
HAM. ... the funeral bak'd meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
The practice of making entertainments at funerals which prevailed in this and other countries, and which is not even at present quite disused in some of the northern counties of England, was certainly borrowed from the cœna feralis of the Romans, alluded to in Juvenal's fifth satire, and in the laws of the twelve tables. It consisted of an offering of a small plate of milk, honey, wine, flowers, &c., to the ghost of the deceased. In the instances of heroes and other great characters, the same custom appears to have prevailed among the Greeks. With us the appetites of the living are consulted on this occasion. In the North this feast is called an arval or arvil-supper; and the loaves that are sometimes distributed among the poor, arval-bread. Not many years since one of these arvals was celebrated in a village in Yorkshire at a public-house, the sign of which was the family arms of a nobleman whose motto is VIRTUS POST FUNERA VIVIT. The undertaker, who, though a clerk, was no scholar, requested a gentleman present to explain to him the meaning of these Latin words, which he readily and facetiously did in the following manner: Virtus, a parish clerk, vivit, lives well, post funera, at an arval. The latter word is apparently derived from some lost Teutonic term that indicated a funeral pile on which the body was burned in times of Paganism. Thus ærill in Islandic signifies the inside of an oven. The common parent seems to have been ar, fire; whence ara, an altar of fire, ardeo, aridus, &c. &c. So the pile itself was called ara by Virgil, Æn. vi. 177:
"Haud mora, festinant flentes; aramque sepulchri Congerere arboribus, cœloque educere certant."
Act I, Scene 2 — Page 41
HAM. He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.
In further support of the proposed elegant emendation, "Eye shall not look, &c.," this passage in 1 Corinth. ch ii. v. 9, may be adduced, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, the things which he hath prepared for them that love him." An objection of some weight may however be made to this change; which is, that in recitation some ambiguity might arise, or at least the force of it would not be perceived; whereas the other reading could not be mistaken.
Act I, Scene 3 — Page 51
POL. But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.
In Taverner's Proverbes or Adagies, gathered out of the Chiliades of Erasmus, 1569, 12mo, is the following adage: "Ne cuivis porrigas dexteram. Holde not forth thy hande to every man. He meaneth wee should not unadvisedlie admitte every body into our frendship and familiaritie." In the margin of the copy from which this extract is made, some person has written the above lines from Hamlet, on which the whole serves as an excellent comment, supporting Dr. Johnson's explanation of them in a remarkable manner.
Act I, Scene 4 — Page 59
HAM. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse.
This word is used in the various significations of a riotous noise, a drunken debauch, and a large portion of liquor. We had it probably from our Saxon or Danish progenitors; and though the original word is lost it remains in the German rausch. Hence our carouse; roister is of the same family, and perhaps the word row, which was very much used a few years since. The Greeks too had their καρωσις, nimia ebrietas.
Act I, Scene 4 — Page 60
HAM. And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his pledge.
Thus Cleaveland in his Fuscara, or The bee errant,
"Tuning his draughts with drowsie hums As Danes carowse by kettle-drums."
Act I, Scene 4 — Page 60
HAM. Keeps wassel----
As the whole that appertains to this ancient, and, as connected with convivial manners, interesting word, lies scattered in various places, and has been detailed by writers whose opinions are extremely discordant, an attempt seemed necessary to digest within a reasonable compass the most valuable of the materials on the subject. There cannot be the smallest doubt that the term itself is to be sought for in the well-known story of Vortigern and Rowena, or Ronix, the daughter of Hengist; the earliest authority for which is that of Walter Calenius, who supplied the materials for Geoffrey of Monmouth's history. He relates that on Vortigern's first interview with the lady, she kneeled before him, and presenting a cup of wine, said to him, "Lord king, wacht heil," or in purer Saxon wæs hæl; literally, be health, or health be to you! As the king was unacquainted with the Saxon language, he inquired the meaning of these words; and being told that they wished him health, and that he should answer them by saying drinc heil, he did so, and commanded Rowena to drink. Then, taking the cup from her hand, he kissed the damsel and pledged her. The historian adds, that from that time to his own the custom remained in Britain that whoever drank to another at a feast said wacht heil, and he that immediately after received the cup answered drinc heil. Robert of Brunne, in translating this part of Geoffrey of Monmouth, has preserved a curious addition to it. He states that Vortigern, not comprehending the words of Rowena, demanded their meaning from one of his Britons, who immediately explained to him the Saxon custom as follows:
"This es ther custom and ther gest, Whan thei are at the ale or fest, Ilk man that lovis qware him think, Salle say Wosseille, and to him drink. He that bidis salle say, Wassaile; The tother salle say again, Drink haille. That sais Wosseille drinkis of the cop, Kissand his felaw he gives it up; Drinheille, he sais, and drinks therof, Kissand him in bourd and skof. The king said as the knight gan ken Drinkheille, smiland on Rouewen, Rouwen drank as hire list, And gave the king, sine him kist. There was the first wassaille in dede And that first of fame yede Of that wassaille men told grete tale, And wassaille whan thei were at ale And drinkheille to tham that drank Thus was wassaille tane to thank."
An old metrical fragment preserved by Hearne in his glossary to Robert of Gloucester's chronicle, carries the practice of wassailing much higher, even to the time of Saint Alban in the third century:
"In that tyme weteth welle, Cam ferst wassayle and drynkehayl In to this londe, withowte wene, Thurghe a mayde, brygh and schene Sche was cleput mayde Ynge."
The chronicler proceeds to relate a story of this Ynge, who quitted Saxony with several others of her countrymen on account of hunger, and, arriving in Britain, obtained of the king as much land as she should be able to cover with a bull's hide. She afterwards invited the king and his nobles to a feast, and giving him wassel, treacherously slew him, her companions following the example by murdering the nobles. By these means she obtained possession of the whole kingdom, which was from her afterwards called Yngland. This statement is unworthy of notice in an historical point of view, being manifestly a corrupt account of the arrival of Hengist as related by Geoffrey of Monmouth. But the story of Vortigern is not improbable, and has at least furnished the origin of the words wæs hæl and drinc hæl, as used at convivial meetings in this country; for whatever may have been said or imagined concerning any previous custom of health-drinking among the Saxons or other German nations, it is certain that no equivalent term with our wassel is to be found in any of the Teutonic dialects.
Among other valuable remarks that have already been made in some notes on this word by Messrs. Steevens and Malone, it has been observed that the wassel bowl was particularly used at the season of Christmas, and that in process of time wassel came to signify not only meetings of rustic mirth, but also general riot, intemperance, and festivity. In the eleventh volume of Archæologia, the learned Dr. Milner has exhibited and described an ancient oaken cup, formerly belonging to the abbey of Glastonbury, which with great probability he supposes to be of Saxon times, and to have been used for wasselling. In The antiquarian repertory, vol. i. p. 217, there is an account, accompanied with an engraving, of an oaken chimney-piece in a very old house at Berlen near Snodland in Kent, on which is carved a wassel bowl resting on the branches of an apple-tree, alluding, probably, to part of the materials of which the liquor was composed. On one side is the word ~was̀s̀heíl~, and on the other ~dríncheíle~. This is certainly a very great curiosity of its kind, and at least as old as the fourteenth century. Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, in his will gave to Sir John Briddlewood a silver cup called wassail; and it appears that John Duke of Bedford, the regent, by his first will bequeathed to John Barton, his maitre d'hotel, a silver cup and cover, on which was inscribed WASHAYL. During the Christmas holidays these wassel-bowls were often carried from house to house by the common people with a view to collect money. There are, besides, other significations of the word wassel that deserve to be noticed. These are, 1. A drinking song sung on the eve of Twelfth-day. 2. A custom of throwing toast to apple-trees for the purpose of procuring a fruitful year; which, says Mr. Grose, who has mentioned this practice in his provincial glossary, seems to be a relic of the heathen sacrifice to Pomona. 3. The contents of the wassel-cup, which were of different materials, as spiced wine or ale, with roasted apples and sugar, mead, or metheglin, &c. There was also what was called wassel, or more properly wastel-bread, which may be deserving of particular notice, as there is much diversity of opinion among those who have mentioned it. Bishop Lowth, in his Life of William Wykeham, had supposed that the term was derived from the wastell, vessell or basket in which the bread was made, or carried or weighed; an etymology which is with great reason contested by Dr. Milner in his paper on the Glastonbury cup. The latter writer is of opinion, that during the times of wasselling a finer sort of bread was provided, which on that account was called wassel-bread; and other persons had already conceived that the bread in question took its name from being dipped in the wassel-bowl. As a preliminary objection to these conjectures, it must be observed that the genuine orthography of the word is wastel, and not wassel, which is undoubtedly a corruption, and has led to much misconception. The earliest instance in which mention is made of wastel-bread is the statute 51 Henry III., entitled Assisa panis et cerevisiæ; where it is coupled with the simnel bread, which was made of the very finest flour, and twice baked. It appears from the same statute that wastel-bread was next in fineness to the simnel, and is described as white bread well baked. There does not seem therefore any reason for concluding that the wastel-bread was in particular, but in general use at all seasons. We are told by Hoveden the historian, that at an interview which took place between William king of Scotland and Richard the First, at Northampton, a charter was granted to the Scotish monarch, in which it was agreed, that, whenever he should be summoned to the English court for the performance of homage, his daily allowance, among other things, should consist of twelve simnels and as many wastels. In Matthew Paris's history of the abbots of Saint Alban's, p. 141, it is said of the abbot; "Solus in refectorio prandebit supremus, habens vastellum." It is surprising how Mr. Watts the editor should misconceive the meaning of this word so much as to call it a canopy; nor is it indeed much less extraordinary that Dr. Milner, who is so well skilled in ecclesiastical antiquities, should have supposed it to signify a wassel-bowl. The regulation is general, and it had escaped the learned writer's recollection that wasselling was of a particular season; for it could not be applied in its subordinate sense of revelling or rioting, to so grave a person as an abbot. The Doctor might have been misled by the authority of Mr. Blount in his edition of Cowel's law dictionary, where the conjecture on the part of Mr. Somner, that the wastel bread might have been derived from pastillus, is termed unlucky; but, as it is presumed, without sufficient reason, although it may not be the exact origin of the expression. Chaucer, speaking of his Prioress, says,
"Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde With rosted flesh, and milk, and wastel-brede."
We cannot suppose that these animals would have been regaled with a food which was set apart for particular festivities, but rather with what was to be procured at all times, though of a more delicate and expensive nature. In short, what seems to be the most probable original of this much disputed word is the French gasteau, anciently written gastel, in the Picard language ouastel or watel, and signifying a cake; a name which might with great propriety have been applied to this sort of bread on account of its superior quality, in like manner as the simnel bread was so termed from the Latin simila, the finest part of the flour. The cake-like form, too, of this kind of bread seems to be alluded to in the following extract from the register of William of Wykeham, which has been quoted by Bishop Lowth for a very different, but, as it is submitted, inapplicable purpose: "Octo panes in wastellis, ponderis cujuslibet wastelli unius miche conventualis," i. e. eight loaves in the form of wastels or cakes, the weight of each being that of a conventual manchet. And to conclude this part of the subject, in the old French language the term wastelier is used for a pastry-cook or maker of wastiaux, where it is not likely that there could have been any connection with our wassel in its Saxon and legitimate construction. What the heralds call torteauxes, in reality little cakes, from the French tourte, were likewise termed wastels, as we learn from the old book on coat armour ascribed to Dame Juliana Bernes, the celebrated abbess of Sopewell near Saint Albans.
The wassel songs were sung during the festivities of Christmas, and, in earlier times, principally by those itinerant minstrels who frequented the houses of the gentry, where they were always certain of the most welcome reception. It has indeed been the chief purpose in discussing the present subject, to introduce to the reader's notice a composition of this kind, which is perhaps at the same time to be regarded as the most ancient drinking song, composed in England, that is extant. This singular curiosity has been written on a spare leaf in the middle of a valuable miscellaneous manuscript of the fourteenth century, preserved in the British Museum, Bibl. Reg. 16, E. viii. It is probably more than a century older than the manuscript itself, and must have been composed at a time when the Norman language was very familiar in England. In the endeavour to translate it, some difficulties were to be encountered; but it has been an object to preserve the whole and sometimes literal sense of the original, whilst from the nature of the English stanza it was impossible to dispense with amplification.
AN ANGLO-NORMAN SONG.
Seignors ore entendez a nus, De loinz sumes venuz a wous, Pur quere NOEL; Car lem nus dit que en cest hostel Soleit tenir sa feste anuel A hi cest jur. Deu doint a tus icels joie d'amurs Qi a DANZ NOEL ferunt honors.
Seignors jo vus di por veir Ke DANZ NOEL ne velt aveir Si joie non; E repleni sa maison, De payn, de char & de peison, Por faire honor Deu doint a tuz ces joie damur.
Seignors il est crié en lost, Qe cil qui despent bien et tost, E largement; E fet les granz honors sovent Deu li duble quanque il despent Por faire honor. Deu doint a.
Seignors escriez les malveis, Car vus nel les troverez jameis De bone part: Botun, batun, ferun gruinard, Car tot dis a le quer cuuard Por faire honor. Deu doint.
NOEL beyt bien li vin Engleis E li Gascoin & li Franceys E l'Angevin: NOEL fait beivre son veisin, Si quil se dort, le chief enclin, Sovent le jor. Deu doint a tuz cels.
Seignors jo vus di par NOEL, E par li sires de cest hostel, Car bevez ben: E jo primes beurai le men, Et pois apres chescon le soen, Par mon conseil, Si jo vus di trestoz Wesseyl Dehaiz eit qui ne dirra Drincheyl!
TRANSLATION.
Lordings, from a distant home, To seek old CHRISTMAS we are come, Who loves our minstrelsy: And here, unless report mis-say, The grey-beard dwells; and on this day Keeps yearly wassel, ever gay, With festive mirth and glee.
To all who honour CHRISTMAS, and commend our lays, Love will his blessings send, and crown with joy their days.[23]
Lordings list, for we tell you true; CHRISTMAS loves the jolly crew That cloudy care defy: His liberal board is deftly spread With manchet loaves and wastel-bread; His guests with fish and flesh are fed, Nor lack the stately pye.[24]
Lordings, you know that far and near The saying is, "Who gives good cheer, And freely spends his treasure; On him will bounteous heaven bestow Twice treble blessings here below, His happy hours shall sweetly flow In never-ceasing pleasure."
Lordings, believe us, knaves abound; In every place are flatterers found; May all their arts be vain! But chiefly from these scenes of joy Chase sordid souls that mirth annoy, And all who with their base alloy Turn pleasure into pain.
CHRISTMAS quaffs our English wines,[25] Nor Gascoigne juice, nor French declines, Nor liquor of Anjou: He puts th' insidious goblet round, Till all the guests in sleep are drown'd, Then wakes 'em with the tabor's sound, And plays the prank anew.
Lordings, it is our host's command, And CHRISTMAS joins him hand in hand, To drain the brimming bowl: And I'll be foremost to obey; Then pledge me sirs, and drink away, For CHRISTMAS revels here to day, And sways without control.
Now WASSEL to you all! and merry may ye be! But foul that wight befall, who DRINKS not HEALTH to me!
Act I, Scene 4 — Page 60
HAM. This heavy-headed revel, east and west, Makes us traduc'd, and tax'd of other nations: They clepe us drunkards.
Dr. Johnson has noticed the frequent allusions in this play to the king's intemperance, a failing that seems to have been too common among the Danish sovereigns as well as their subjects. A lively French traveller being asked what he had seen in Denmark, replied, "rien de singulier, sinon qu'on y chante tous les jours, le roy boit;" alluding to the French mode of celebrating Twelfth-day. See De Brieux, Origines de quelques coutûmes, p. 56. Heywood in his Philocothonista, or The drunkard opened, dissected, and anatomized, 1635, 4to, speaking of what he calls the vinosity of nations, says of the Danes, that "they have made a profession thereof from antiquity, and are the first upon record that brought their wassell-bowles and elbowe-deep healthes into this land."
Act I, Scene 4 — Page 68
HAM. That thou, dead corse, again, in cómplete steel----
This word is accented in both ways by our old poets as suited the metre. Thus in Sylvester's Du Bartas, edit. folio, 1621, p. 120:
"Who arms himself so cómplete every way."
But in King John, Act II., we have,
"Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth, Is the young Dauphin, every way compléte: If not compléte, oh say, he is not she."
Act I, Scene 4 — Page 68
HAM. Say why is this, wherefore, what should we do?
This interrogation is perfectly consistent with the opinions entertained by our forefathers concerning ghosts, which they believed had some particular motive for quitting the mansions of the dead; such as a desire that their bodies, if unburied, should receive Christian rites of sepulture; that a murderer might be brought to due punishment, as in the present instance; with various other reasons. On this account Horatio had already thus invoked the ghost:
"If there be any good thing to be done, That may do ease to thee and grace to me, Speak to me."
Some of the superstitions have been transmitted from the earliest times. It was the established opinion among the ancient Greeks, that such as had not received the funeral rites would be excluded from Elysium, and that on this account the departed spirits continued in a restless state until their bodies underwent the usual ceremony. Thus the wandering and rejected shade of Patroclus appears to Achilles in his sleep, and demands the performance of his funeral. The Hecuba of Euripides supplies another instance of a troubled ghost. In like manner the unburied Palinurus complains to Æneas.[26] In Plautus's Mostellaria, the cunning servant endeavours to persuade his master that the house is haunted by the ghost of a man who had been murdered, and whose body remained without sepulture. The younger Pliny has a story of a haunted house at Athens, in which a ghost played many pranks on account of his funeral rites being neglected. Nor were ghosts supposed to be less turbulent, even after burial, whenever the party had died a premature death, as we learn from Tertullian, in his treatise De anima, cap. 56, where he says, "Aiunt et immatura morte præventos eousque vagari isthic, donec reliquatio compleatur ætatis qua cum pervixissent si non intempestivé obiissent."
Act I, Scene 5 — Page 72
HAM. Speak, I am bound to hear.
GHOST. So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear.
These words have been turned into ridicule by Fletcher in his Woman-hater, Act II.;
"LAZ. Speak, I am bound.
"COUNT. So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear the fish-head is gone, and we know not whither." #/
Act I, Scene 5 — Page 72
GHOST. And for the day, confin'd to fast in fires. 'Till the foul crimes, &c.
A member of the church of Rome might be disposed to regard this expression as simply referring to a mental privation of all intercourse with the Deity. Such an idea would remove the inconsistency of ascribing corporeal sensations to the ghost, and might derive support from these lines in an ancient Christian hymn. See Expositio hymnorum, sec. usum Sarum.
"Sic corpus extra conteri, Dona per abstinentiam, _Jejunet ut mens sobria A labe prorsus criminum_."
The whole of the ghost's speech is remarkable for its terrific grandeur.
Act I, Scene 5 — Page 75
GHOST. And duller should'st thou be than the fat weed That rots itself in ease on Lethe's wharf.
The plant here alluded to might have been henbane, of which Gerarde says that it causes drowsiness, and stupefies and dulls the senses.
Act I, Scene 5 — Page 76
HAM. O, my prophetick soul! my uncle!
Copied, perhaps maliciously, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Double marriage, Act II.
"SES. Oh my prophetique soul!"
Act I, Scene 5 — Page 77
GHOST. But soft, methinks I scent the morning air-- The glow-worm shows the matin to be near.
It was the popular belief that ghosts could not endure the light, and consequently disappeared at the dawn of day. This superstition is derived from our northern ancestors, who held that the sun and every thing containing light or fire had the property of expelling demons and spirits of all kinds. With them it seems to have originated in the stories that are related in the Edda concerning the battles of Thor against the giants and evil demons, wherein he made use of his dreadful mallet of iron, which he hurled against them as Jupiter did his thunderbolts against the Titans. Many of the transparent precious stones were supposed to have the power of expelling evil spirits; and the flint and other stones found in the tombs of the northern nations, and from which fire might be extracted, were imagined, in like manner, to be efficacious in confining the manes of the dead to their proper habitations. They were called Thor's hammers.
Act I, Scene 5 — Page 77
GHOST. With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, And in the porches of mine ear did pour, &c.
Dr. Grey had ingeniously supposed this word to be a metathesis for henebon or henbane; but the best part of his note on the subject has been omitted, which is his reference to Pliny, who says that the oil of henbane dropped into the ears disturbs the brain. Yet it does not appear that henbane was ever called henebon. The line cited by Mr. Steevens from Marlow's Jew of Malta, shows that the juice of hebon, i. e. ebony, was accounted poisonous; and in the English edition by Batman, of Bartholomæus de proprietatibus rerum, so often cited in these observations as a Shakspearean book, the article for the wood ebony is entitled, "Of Ebeno, chap. 52." This comes so near to the text, that it is presumed very little doubt will now remain on the occasion. It is not surprising that the dropping into the ears should occur, because Shakspeare was perfectly well acquainted with the supposed properties of henbane as recorded in Holland's translation of Pliny and elsewhere, and might apply this mode of use to any other poison.
Act I, Scene 5 — Page 77
GHOST. ... it doth posset And curd, like eager droppings into milk.
Many readers may require to be told that eager means sour, from the French aigre. In the preceding Scene it is used in the sense of sharp, and is there properly so explained; but the quotation of the present passage on that occasion seems misapplied.
Act I, Scene 5 — Page 79
GHOST. ... and sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head.
Heywood, a contemporary writer, has imitated this in his play of A woman kill'd with kindness;
"... and send them, laden With all their scarlet sins upon their backs Unto a fearful judgment."
Act I, Scene 5 — Page 81
HAM. My tables,--meet it is, I set it down.
It is remarkable that neither public nor private museums should furnish any specimens of these table-books, which seem to have been very common in the time of Shakspeare; nor does any attempt appear to have been made towards ascertaining exactly the materials of which they were composed. Certain it is, however, that they were sometimes made of slate in the form of a small portable book with leaves and clasps. Such a one is fortunately engraved in Gesner's treatise De rerum fossilium figuris, &c. Tigur. 1565, 12mo, which is not to be found in the folio collection of his works on natural history. The learned author thus describes it: "Pugillaris è laminis saxi nigri fissilis, cum stylo ex eodem." His figure of it is here copied.
To such a table-book the Archbishop of York seems thus to allude in The second part of King Henry IV., Act IV. Scene 1:
"And therefore will he wipe his tables clean And keep no tell-tale to his memory----"
In the middle ages the leaves of these table-books were made of ivory. Montfaucon has engraved one of them in the third volume of his "Antiquities," plate cxciv., the subject of which clearly shows that the learned writer has committed an error in ascribing them to remoter times. In Chaucer's Sompnour's tale one of the friars is provided with
"A pair of tables all of ivory, And a pointel ypolished fetishly, And wrote alway the names, as he stood, Of alle folk that yave hem any good."
The Roman practice of writing on wax tablets with a stile was continued also during the middle-ages. In several of the monastic libraries in France specimens of wooden tables filled with wax and constructed in the fourteenth century were preserved. Some of these contained the household expenses of the sovereigns, &c., and consisted of as many as twenty pages, formed into a book by means of parchment bands glued to the backs of the leaves. One remaining in the abbey of St. Germain des préz at Paris, recorded the expenses of Philip le Bel, during a journey that he made in the year 1307, on a visit to Pope Clement V. A single leaf of this table-book is exhibited in the Nouveau traité de diplomatique, tom. i. p. 468.
Act I, Scene 5 — Page 85
HAM. Swear by my sword.
In consequence of the practice of occasionally swearing by a sword, or rather by the cross or upper end of it, the name of Jesus was sometimes inscribed on the handle or some other part. Such an instance occurs on the monument of a crusader in the vestry of the church at Winchelsea. See likewise the tomb of John duke of Somerset engraved in Sandford's Genealogical history, p. 314, and Gough's Sepulchral monuments, Pref. ccxiii. Introd. cxlviii. vol. i. p. 171, vol. ii. p. 362.
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 115
POL. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it.
This is precisely Horace's,
"Insanire paret certo ratione modoque."
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 121
HAM. The clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the sere.
Sere is dry. Thus in Macbeth,
"He is deformed, crooked, old and sere."
Among the Saxons June was called the sere month. In the present instance sere appears to be used as a substantive. The same expression occurs in Howard's Defensative against the poyson of supposed prophecies, 1620, folio: "Discovering the moods and humors of the vulgar sort to be so loose and tickle of the seare," &c., fo. 31. Every one has felt that dry tickling in the throat and lungs which excites coughing. Hamlet's meaning may therefore be, the clown by his merriment shall convert even their coughing into laughter.
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 131
HAM. Buz, Buz.
Minsheu says, "To buzze, or hum as bees, buzze, buzze;" and again, in his Spanish dictionary, "when two standing or kneeling together, holding their hands upon their cheekes and ears, and so cry, buzze buzze, and hitting one another a good box on the eare, if he pull not his head away quickly." Selden in his Table talk, speaking of witches, says, "If any should profess that by turning his hat thrice, and crying buz, he could take away a man's life, (though in truth he could do no such thing) yet this were a just law made by the state, that whosoever should turn his hat thrice, and cry buz, with an intention to take away a man's life, shall be put to death." The expression has already exercised the skill of the critics, and may continue to do so, if they are disposed to pursue the game through the following mazes: "Anno DCCCXL Ludovicus imperator ad mortem infirmatur, cujus cibus per XL dies solummodo die dominica dominicum corpus fecit. Cum vidisset dæmonem astare, dixit buez, buez, quod significat foras, foras."--Alberici monachi trium fontium chronicon, Leips. 1698. Ducange under the article Buzi, says, "Interpretatur despectus vel contemptus. Papias. [Ab Hebraico Bus vel bouz, sprevit.]"
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 135
HAM. Your ladyship is nearer to heaven, than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine.
In Raymond's Voyage through Italy, 1648, 12mo, a work which is said to have been partly written by Dr. Bargrave, prebendary of Canterbury, the following curious account of the chopine occurs: "This place [Venice] is much frequented by the walking may poles, I meane the women. They weare their coats halfe too long for their bodies, being mounted on their chippeens, (which are as high as a man's leg) they walke between two handmaids, majestickly deliberating of every step they take. This fashion was invented and appropriated to the noble Venetians wives, to bee constant to distinguish them from the courtesans, who goe covered in a vaile of white taffety."
James Howell, speaking of the Venetian women, says, "They are low and of small statures for the most part, which makes them to rayse their bodies upon high shoes called chapins, which gave one occasion to say that the Venetian ladies were made of three things, one part of them was wood, meaning their chapins, another part was their apparrell, and the third part was a woman; The Senat hath often endeavour'd to take away the wearing of those high shooes, but all women are so passionately delighted with this kind of state that no law can weane them from it."
Some have supposed that the jealousy of Italian husbands gave rise to the invention of the chopine. Limojon de Saint Didier, a lively French writer on the republic of Venice, mentions a conversation with some of the doge's counsellors of state on this subject, in which it was remarked that smaller shoes would certainly be found more convenient; which induced one of the counsellors to say, putting on at the same time a very austere look, pur troppo commodi, pur troppo. The first ladies who rejected the use of the chopine were the daughters of the Doge Dominico Contareno, about the year 1670. It was impossible to set one foot before the other without leaning on the shoulders of two waiting women, and those who used them must have stalked along like boys in stilts.
The choppine or some kind of high shoe was occasionally used in England. Bulwer in his Artificial changeling, p. 550, complains of this fashion as a monstrous affectation, and says that his countrywomen therein imitated the Venetian and Persian ladies. In Sandys's travels, 1615, there is a figure of a Turkish lady with chopines; and it is not improbable that the Venetians might have borrowed them from the Greek islands in the Archipelago. We know that something similar was in use among the ancient Greeks. Xenophon in his œconomics, introduces the wife of Ischomachus, as having high shoes for the purpose of increasing her stature. They are still worn by the women in many parts of Turkey, but more particularly at Aleppo. As the figure of an object is often better than twenty pages of description, one is here given from a real Venetian chopine.
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 135
HAM. Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not crack'd within the ring.
It is to be observed, that there was a ring or circle on the coin, within which the sovereign's head was placed; if the crack extended from the edge beyond this ring, the coin was rendered unfit for currency. Such pieces were hoarded by the usurers of the time, and lent out as lawful money. Of this we are informed by Roger Fenton in his Treatise of usury, 1611, 4to, p. 23. "A poore man desireth a goldsmith to lend him such a summe, but he is not able to pay him interest. If such as I can spare (saith the goldsmith) will pleasure you, you shall have it for three or foure moneths. Now, hee hath a number of light, clipt, crackt peeces (for such he useth to take in change with consideration for their defects:) this summe of money is repaid by the poore man at the time appointed in good and lawfull money. This is usurie." And again, "It is a common custome of his [the usurer's] to buy up crackt angels at nine shillings the piece. Now sir, if a gentleman (on good assurance) request him of mony, Good sir (saith hee, with a counterfait sigh) I would be glad to please your worship, but my good mony is abroad, and that I have, I dare not put in your hands. The gentleman thinking this conscience, where it is subtilty, and being beside that in some necessity, ventures on the crackt angels, some of which cannot flie, for soldering, and paies double interest to the miser under the cloake of honesty."--Lodge's Wit's miserie, 1596, 4to, p. 28. So much for the cracked gold. The cracking of the human voice proceeded from some alteration in the larynx, which is here compared to a ring.
As metaphors are sometimes double, the present may be of that kind. A piece of cracked metal is spoiled for the ringing of it; so the human voice, when cracked, may be said to lose the clearness of its tone. All Mr. Steevens's quotations, except the last, are obscene, and none of them apply to Hamlet's simile.
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 137
HAM. 't was caviare to the general.
This word has been frequently mispronounced caveer on the stage. The other mode of spelling it in Mr. Reed's note, viz. caveary, as well as the Italian term in the text, which should rather be caviaro, would have been sufficient for the purpose of demonstrating how it should be accented; but the following line from Sir J. Harrington's 33rd epigram of the third book leaves no uncertainty in the matter:
"And căvĕārĕ, but it little boots."
Dr. Ramsey, physician to King Charles the Second, wrote a curious treatise on the worms of the human body, in which he says, "Caviale also is a fond dish of the Italians, made of the roes of sturgion, and altogether as unwholsome, if not much worse; invented by idle brains, and fansied by none but such as are ignorant what it is; wherefore I would have them consider the Italian proverb,
Chi mangia di Caviale, Mangia moschi, merdi, & sale.
Which may be Englished thus,
He that eats Cavialies, Eats salt, dung, and flies.
For it is only (as was said) the roes of sturgion powdred, pickled, and finely denominated Caviale, to be a bait for such woodcocks and dotrils that account every exotick fansie a real good." This commodity is still common in the North of Europe, and was formerly a considerable article of commerce between England and Russia.
Act II, Scene 2 — Page 145
1 PLAY. Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven.
i. e. would have drawn tears from them. Milche-hearted, in Hulæt's Abcedarium, 1552, is rendered lemosus; and in Bibliotheca Eliotæ, 1545, we find "lemosi, they that wepe lyghtly." The word is from the Saxon melce, milky.
Act III, Scene 1 — Page 158
HAM. ... To die,--to sleep,-- No more;----
There is a good deal on this subject in Cardanus's Comforte, 1576, 4to, a book which Shakspeare had certainly read. In fo. 30, it is said, "In the holy scripture, death is not accompted other than sleape, and to dye is sayde to sleape."
Act III, Scene 1 — Page 162
HAM. The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns.
The resemblance of this passage to the lines cited by Mr. Steevens from Catullus is very remarkable, yet no translation of that author into English is known to have been made. It is true, they might have occurred to our poet in his native language through the medium of some quotation; yet it is equally possible that both the writers have casually adopted the same sentiment. This is a circumstance that more frequently happens than they are aware of who hunt after imitations even in writers of the most original genius. Many of Shakspeare's commentators might seem to be implicated in this charge, if it were not that they have rather designed to mark coincidence than imitation. On the present occasion our author alludes to a country altogether unknown to mortals. That of the Pagan poet is happily illustrated by Seneca, who cites the lines from Catullus, when he causes Mercury to drag the emperor Claudius into the infernal regions. "Nec mora, Cyllenius illum collo obtorto trahit ad inferos."--Lud. de morte Claudii.
Dekker, in his Seven deadlie sinns of London, 1606, 4to, apostrophizing that city, exclaims, "Art thou now not cruell against thyselfe, in not providing (before the land-waters of affliction come downe againe upon thee) more and more convenient cabins to lay those in, that are to goe into such farre countries, who never looke to come back againe? If thou should'st deny it, the graves when they open, will be witnesses against thee."
In the History of Valentine and Orson, p. 63, edit. 1694, 4to, is this passage: "I shall send some of you here present into such a country, that you shall scarcely ever return again to bring tydings of your valour." As Watson, the translator of this romance, translated also The ship of fools into prose, which was printed by Wynkyn de Worde, it is probable that there was an edition of Valentine and Orson in Shakspeare's time, though none such is supposed now to remain. Perhaps the oldest we know of is that of 1649, printed by Robert Ibbitson. In 1586, The old book of Valentine and Orson was licensed to T. Purfoot.
Act III, Scene 1 — Page 166
HAM. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another; you jig, you amble, and you lisp and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance.
The folio reads prattlings, and pace; the quarto as in the text, which Dr. Johnson thinks best, though he admits that Shakspeare might have written both. Other very good reasons have been given for preferring the present reading; yet whoever will reflect on the typographical errors for which the quarto plays of Shakspeare are remarkable, may be disposed to think that the folio editors had good reason for their variation. Our author's bible might here, as in many other instances, have furnished his materials. "Moreover thus saith the Lorde: seyng the daughters of Sion are become so proude and come in with stretched oute neckes, and with vayne wanton eyes; seynge they come in trippynge so nicely with their fete; therefore, &c."--Isaiah, ch. iii. ver. 16. It has not been observed that lisp seems to refer to prattling, as jig and amble do to pace.
Act III, Scene 2 — Page 173
HAM. ... it out-herods Herod.
The violence of Herod in the old mysteries has been already exemplified by some extracts from the Chester and Coventry plays. One of the latter, of which some account has been given in the preceding pages, may truly be said on the present occasion to completely out-herod the others. It exhibits the fury of the monarch to so much advantage, that every zealous amateur of theatrical manners must be gratified with the following extracts.
His majesty's entrance is announced by a herald in the vilest French jargon that can be conceived. He commences by enjoining silence on the part of the spectators, and ends with sending them all to the devil. "La gran deaboly vos umport." He then makes a speech, which begins in bad Latin, and thus proceeds:
"[I am] the myghtyst conquerowre that ever walkid on grownd, For I am evyn he that made bothe hevin and hell, And of my myghte power holdith up the world rownd; Magog and Madroke bothe thes did I confownde, And in this bryght bronde[27] there bonis I brak on sunder, That all the wyde worlde on those rappis[28] did wonder. I am the cawse of this grett lyght and thunder; Yt ys throgh my fure[29] that the[30] soche noyse doth make; My feyrefull contenance the cloudis so doth incumber, That oftymes for drede therof the verre[31] yerth doth quake. Loke when I with males[32] this bryght brond doth shake, All the whole world from the north to the sowthe, I ma them dystroie with won worde of my mouthe. To recownt unto you myn inewmerabull substance, Thatt were to moche for any tong to tell; For all the whole orent[33] ys under myn obbeydeance, And prince am I of purgatorre and chef capten of hell; And thase tyranees trayturs be force ma I compell Myne enemys to vanquese, and evyn to duste them dryve, And with a twynke of myn iee not won to be left alyve. Behald my contenance and my colur, Bryghter than the sun in the meddis of the dey. Where can you have a more grettur succur Then to behold my person that ys so gaye? My fawcun[34] and my fassion with my gorgis[35] araye? He that had the grace allwey theron to thynke, Lyve the myght allwey withowt othur meyte or drynke; And thys my tryomfande fame most hylist doth abownde Throgh owt this world in all reygeons abrod, Reysemelyng the favour of that most myght Mahownd. From Jubytor be desent[36] and cosyn to the grett God, And namyd the most reydowndid[37] kyng Eyrodde, Wycche that all pryncis hath undr subjeccion, And all their whole powar undur my proteccion; And therefore my hareode[38], here called Calcas, Warne thow eyvyry porte that noo schyppis aryve; Nor also aloond[39] stranger throgh my realme pas, But the for there truage do pay markis fyve. Now spede the forthe hastele, For the that wyll the contrare, Upon a galowse hangid schal be, And be Mahownde of me they gett noo grace."
When he hears of the flight of the messengers, he exclaims,
"I stampe, I stare, I loke all abowt, Myght I them take I schuld them bren at a glede[40], I ren, I rawe[41], and now I am wode[42], A that these velen trayturs hath mard this my mode The schal be hangid yf I ma cum them to."
The stage direction is, "Here Erode ragis in the pagond and in the strete also." He consults with his knights on putting the children to death; and on their dissuading him from it as likely to excite an insurrection, he says,
"A rysyng, owt, owt, owt."
There Erode ragis ageyne and then seyth thus:
"Out velen wrychis har apon[43] you I cry, My wyll utturly loke that yt be wroght, Or apon a gallowse bothe you schall dye Be Mahownde most myghtyst that me dere hath boght."
At length the knights consent to slay the children, and Herod says,
"And then wyll I for fayne trypp lyke a doo."
The bodies of the children are brought to him in carts; but he is told that all his deeds are come to nothing, as the child whom he particularly sought after had escaped into Egypt. He once more falls into a violent passion, orders his palfrey to be saddled, and hurries away in pursuit of the infant. Here the piece ends. It was performed by the taylors and shearmen in the year 1534; but the composition is of much greater antiquity.
Act III, Scene 2 — Page 179
HAM. ... Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core, ay in my heart of heart.
From this speech Anthony Scoloker, in his Daiphantus, or The passions of love, 1604, 4to, has stolen the following line:
"Oh, I would weare her in my heart's-heart-gore."
Act III, Scene 2 — Page 179
HAM. It is a damned ghost that we have seen.
i. e. the ghost of a person sentenced for his wickedness to damnation, and which has in this instance deceived us. Thus Spenser,
"What voice of damned ghost from Limbo lake Or guileful spright wandering in empty ayre, Sends to my doubtful eares these speeches rare?"
Fairy Queen, book i. canto 2, st. 32.
"He show'd him painted in a table plain The damned ghosts----" "Nor damned ghosts cald up with mightie spels."
Epithalamion, st. 19.
Act III, Scene 2 — Page 182
HAM. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
[Lying down at OPHELIA'S feet.]
Mr. Steevens has noticed the practice of lying at the feet of a mistress during dramatic representations; yet we are not to conclude that it prevailed at the public theatres. The instances which have occurred seem to be confined to entertainments at the houses of the nobility and gentry. These were plays, masques, masquerades, balls, concerts, &c. Many old pictures and engravings furnish examples of the above custom, the young men being often seen sitting or lying on the ground in conversation with their mistresses, and sometimes in Hamlet's situation. One of these shall be described more particularly. It is an extremely neat little print, belonging to a set designed to contrast the sufferings of Christ with the vanities of the world. The scene is a ball-room. In the background are the musicians and torch-bearers. In front a lady and gentleman are performing a dance before some standing spectators. In various parts of the room pairs of young gallants and their mistresses are seated on the floor, apparently more attentive to their own concerns than to the dancing; and one youth is sitting on the spread petticoat of his companion. The costume is French, and of the time of Louis the Thirteenth.
Act III, Scene 2 — Page 198
HAM. With two provencial roses on my razed shoes.
The old copies read provincial, which led Mr. Warton to ask, why provincial roses? and to conclude that roses of Provence were meant, on which conclusion the text has been most unnecessarily changed; because the old reading was certainly correct. There is no evidence to show that Provence was ever remarkable for its roses; but it is well known that Provins, in La Basse Brie, about forty miles from Paris, was formerly very celebrated for the growth of this flower, of which the best cataplasms are said to have been made. It was, according to tradition, imported into that country from Syria, by a count De Brie. See Guillemeau Histoire naturelle de la rose. It is probable that this kind of rose, which in our old herbals is called the Great Holland or Province rose, was imported into this country both from Holland and France, from which latter country the Dutch might have first procured it. There is an elegant cut of the Provins rose, with a good account of it, in the first edition of Pomet Hist. des drogues, 1694, folio, p. 174.
Act III, Scene 2 — Page 200
HAM. A very, very,--peacock.
The word that was in the original of Hamlet's quotation would have been too coarse to be applied to royalty; and therefore he substitutes another, which there is good reason to suppose was peacock. Dr. Farmer has given proof that this term was proverbial for a fool. Reginald Scot, speaking of Pope Julius the Third, says that he blasphemed Christ, and cursed his mother for a peacock. Disc. of witchcraft, b. 2, ch. viii. The bird in question is at once proud and silly.
Act III, Scene 2 — Page 205
Enter the players with recorders.
"i. e." says Mr. Steevens, "a kind of large flute." Yet the former note, to which he refers, vol. v. p. 149, describes this instrument as a small flute. Sir J. Hawkins, in vol. iv. p. 479, of his valuable History of music, has offered very good proofs that the recorder was a flagelet, and he maintains that the flute was improperly termed a recorder, and that the expressions have been confounded: yet his opinion that the books of instructions entitled 'for the recorder' belong in reality to the flute, seems rather doubtful. The confusion is in having blended the genus with the species. In the Promptuarium parvulorum, 1516, 4to, a recorder is defined to be a "lytell pype." In Udall's flowres for Latine spekyng selected oute of Terence, 1532, 12mo, the line from Virgil's Bucolics,
"Nec te pæniteat calamo trivisse labellum,"
is rendered, "and thynke it not a smalle thynge to have lerned to playe on the pype or the recorder:" and it is not a little curious that in modern cant language the recorders of corporations are termed flutes. The following story in Wits fits and fancies, 1595, 4to, shows that the pipe and recorder were different; such is the uncertainty of definition among old writers: "A merrie recorder of London mistaking the name of one Pepper, call'd him Piper: whereunto the partie excepting, and saying: Sir, you mistake, my name is Pepper, not Piper: hee answered: Why, what difference is there (I pray thee) between Piper in Latin, and Pepper in English; is it not all one? No, sir (reply'd the other) there is even as much difference betweene them, as is between a Pipe and a Recorder."
Act III, Scene 2 — Page 207
HAM. Do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.
A fret is the stop or key of a musical instrument, and consequently here is a play on words, and a double meaning. Hamlet says, though you can vex me, you cannot impose on me; though you can stop the instrument, you cannot play on it.
Act III, Scene 3 — Page 216
HAM. ... that his soul may be as damn'd and black As hell, whereto it goes.
To the stories collected in the notes that illustrate Hamlet's shocking design of killing the king at his prayers, may be added one in Howel's Parley of the beasts, p. 91, and another related in Chetwind's Historical collections, p. 77.
Act III, Scene 4 — Page 231
HAM. ... a vice of kings.
"A low mimick of kings. The vice is the fool of a farce, from whence the modern punch is descended." Thus far Dr. Johnson. The first position in his note is questionable, the others erroneous. The vice belonged to the old moralities; and the modern Punch is most certainly not descended from him, but legitimately from a character well known in the theatres of ancient Rome. We have borrowed him from the Italian Polichinello. With respect to the former part of the note, Hamlet's expression may be quite literal. Thus in King Henry the Fifth, we have "this grace of kings." Afterwards indeed, Shakspeare, in his usual manner, recollecting the ambiguity of the term, takes up another simile, and makes Hamlet call his uncle a king of shreds and patches. See a former note in p. 287.
Act IV, Scene 2 — Page 248
HAM. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body.
Hamlet's riddle seems still unresolved. Can this be its meaning? Instead of giving a direct answer to the inquiry after the body of Polonius, he seizes the opportunity of venting his sarcasm against the king, by saying that the body, i. e. the external appearance or person of the monarch, is with his uncle; but that the real and lawful king is not in that body.
Act IV, Scene 5 — Page 262
OPH. To be your Valentine.
The custom of choosing Valentines is of very long standing, and, like many others of a popular nature, is no more than a corruption of something similar that had prevailed in the times of paganism. It was the practice in ancient Rome, during a great part of the month of February, to celebrate the Lupercalia, which were feasts in honour of Pan and Juno, whence the latter deity was named februata, februalis, and februlla. On this occasion, amidst a variety of ceremonies, the names of young women were put into a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed. The pastors of the early Christian church, who by every possible means endeavoured to eradicate the vestiges of Pagan superstitions, and chiefly by some commutation of their forms, substituted, in the present instance, the names of particular saints, instead of those of the women: and as the festival of the Lupercalia had commenced about the middle of February, they appear to have chosen Saint Valentine's day for celebrating the new feast; because it occurred nearly at the same time. This is, in part, the opinion of a learned and rational compiler of the lives of the saints, the Reverend Alban Butler. It should seem, however, that it was utterly impossible to extirpate altogether any ceremony to which the common people had been much accustomed; a fact which it were easy to prove in tracing the origin of various other popular superstitions: and accordingly the outline of the ancient ceremonies was preserved, but modified by some adaptation to the Christian system. It is reasonable to suppose that the above practice of choosing mates would gradually become reciprocal in the sexes; and that all persons so chosen would be called Valentines, from the day on which the ceremony took place. There is another opinion on the origin of choosing Valentines, which has been formed on a tradition among the common people, that at the above season of the year birds choose their mates, a circumstance that is frequently alluded to by poets, and particularly by Chaucer; yet this seems to be a mere poetical idea, borrowed in all probability from the practice in question. Again, it has been supposed that the custom originated in the following manner: During carnival time, which usually happens about Saint Valentine's day, great numbers of knights assembled together in the various courts of Europe to entertain the ladies with feasts and tournaments, when each lady made choice of a knight who usually enlisted in her service for a whole year, during which period he bound himself to perform, at the instance of his mistress, whatever was consistent with propriety. One employment was the writing verses full of tenderness; not that it was requisite for the heart to be at all concerned in the matter. A little reflection, however, may serve to show that even this practice is only derivative from the older one.
It is presumed that the earliest specimens remaining of poetical Valentines are those preserved in the works of Charles duke of Orleans, a prince of high accomplishments, and the father of Louis the Twelfth of France. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, and remained a captive in this country twenty-five years, during which time he wrote several thousand lines of poetry, a few of them in English. Many of these poems are written on Saint Valentine's day, and in some of them his mistress is called his Valentine. In the Royal library of manuscripts, now in the British museum, there is a magnificent volume containing probably all that the duke wrote whilst in England. It belonged to King Henry the Seventh, for whom it had been copied from some older manuscript, and is beautifully illuminated. In one of the paintings the duke is represented in the White tower sitting at a writing table with guards attending him. In another part of it he is looking out of a window; and in a third he is going out of the tower to meet some person who has just alighted from his horse. At a distance is London bridge with the houses on it, and the curious chapel, all very distinct, and probably faithful copies. Besides the above work, this fine manuscript contains some compositions by the celebrated Eloisa, and other matters of less consequence.
In one of the duke's poems, he feigns that on Saint Valentine's day Youth appears to him with an invitation to the temple of love. On the same day he devotes himself to the service of several ladies, according to what he states to have been the custom in England. The following extracts from some of his poems are given, as containing allusions to the subject immediately before us:
"A ce jour de Saint Valentin Que chascun doit choisir son per, Amours demourrai-je non per Sans partir à vostre butin? A mon reveillier au matin Je n'y ay cessè de penser A ce jour de saint Valentin."
It appears from the following songs, that when Ash Wednesday happened to fall on Saint Valentine's day, the knights and their ladies assembled only in the afternoon, the morning being necessarily devoted to pious purposes.
"Saint Valentin quant vous venez En caresme au commencement, Receu ne serez vrayement Ainsi que accoustumè avez
Saint Valentin dit, veez me ça, Et apporte pers a choysir: Viegne qui y devra venir, C'est la coustume de pieça. Quand le jour des cendres, hola, Respond, auquel doit-on faillir? Saint Valentin dit, veez me ça, Et apporte pers à choysir. Au fort au matin convendra En devotion se tenir, Et après disner à loysir, Choysisse qui choisir vouldra; Saint Valentin dit, veez me ça, Et apporte pers à choysir."
Another French Valentine, composed by John Gower, is quoted by Mr. Warton in his History of English poetry, add. to vol. ii. p. 31, from a manuscript in the library of Lord Gower. In this the poet tells his mistress that in choosing her he had followed the example of the birds.
Madame Royale, the daughter of Henry the Fourth of France, built a palace near Turin which was called the Valentine, on account of the great veneration in which the saint was held in that country. At the first entertainment given there by the princess, who was naturally of a gallant disposition, she directed that the ladies should choose their lovers for the year by lots. The only difference with respect to herself was, that she should be at liberty to fix on her own partner. At every ball during the year each lady received from her gallant a nosegay; and at every tournament the lady furnished his horse's trappings, the prize obtained being hers. From this circumstance Monsieur Menage, to whom we are indebted for the above information, infers that in Piedmont, the parties were called Valentines; but the learned writer was not aware of the circumstances already stated, nor of the antiquity of the custom in his own country. See Menage Dict. étymologique, art. Valentin.
In an old English ballad the lasses are directed to pray cross-legged to Saint Valentine, for good luck. For the modern ceremonies on choosing, Valentines, the reader may consult Brand's Popular antiquities, and No. 56 of The connoisseur.
Act IV, Scene 5 — Page 263
OPH. Let in the maid, that out a maid, Never departed more.
In an Album that belonged in 1598 to a Dutch lady named Theodora Van Wassenaer, there is the following pretty French ballad addressed to her. The conclusion resembles the above lines in Ophelia's song:
"Au jardin de mon pere Un oranger il y a, Qui est si chargè d'orenges Je croy qu'il en rompra. Mignone tant je vous ayme, Mais vous ne m'aymez pas.
Elle demanda à son pere Quand on le cueillera, Ma fille, ma fille, Quand la saison viendra. Mignone, &c.
La saison est venue Le cueillerons nous pas? Elle prend une echelle, Un panier à son bras. Mignone, &c.
Elle cueillit les plus meures, Les verds elle y laissa; Elle les alloit porter vendre Au marcher de Damas. Mignone, &c.
En son chemin rencontroit Le fils d'un avocat; Que portez vous la belle Dans ce panier couvert? Mignone, &c.
Monsieur ce sont des orenges Ne vous en plait-il pas? Il en prend une couple, Dans son sein il les metta. Mignone, &c.
Venez vous en la belle, On vous les payera; _Elle y entra pucelle Grossette elle en sorta_. Mignone tant je vous ayme, Mais vous ne m'aymez pas."
Act IV, Scene 5 — Page 263
OPH. By Gis, and by Saint Charity.
The frequent occurrence of this adjuration sufficiently proves that Dr. Johnson's proposed change to Cis is unnecessary; nor indeed would the name of Saint Cecilia be proper to swear by. Mr. Ritson's Gislen, an obscure Irish saint, is equally out of the question. In the interlude of Mary Magdelain, she is made to say,
"Nay by Gis, twentie shillings I dare holde That there is not a gentlewoman in this land More propre than I in the waste, I dare be bolde."
In Promos and Cassandra, Dalia swears by Gys; and in Gammer Gurton's needle and some other old plays, the same expression occurs. Mr. Ridley's conjecture that Jesus is the corrupted word is the true one; but the corruption is not in the way that he has stated. The letters IHS would not be pronounced Gis, even by those who understood them as a Greek contraction.
Act V, Scene 1 — Page 297
2 CLO. ... therefore make her grave straight.
Dr. Johnson thought this meant "From East to West, in a direct line parallel to the church; not from North to South, athwart the regular line." The frequency of the above mode of expression in Shakspeare's plays sufficiently indicates that if he had alluded to the mode of burial contended for by Dr. Johnson, he would have adopted some other. It has occurred upwards of a hundred times already in the sense of immediately. Nor would it be easy to show that to make a grave straight, or in a direct line, was to make it East and West; or that it was the designation of Christian burial. The first clown rather adverts to the place where the grave should be made than to its form. Suicides were buried on the North side of the church, in ground purposely unconsecrated.
Much of this scene has been imitated in the Valiant Welshman, by R. A. [q. Robert Armin] 1663. See Act IV.
Act V, Scene 1 — Page 299
2. CLO. If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been bury'd out of Christian burial.
We have here a manifest satire on the partial verdicts of coroners' juries, where the suicide has been above the common condition of life. Judge Blackstone has hinted at them in his Commentaries. Nothing, however, but the partiality is reprehensible; the rest is an amiable tenderness towards the living, calculated to resist a law that justly deserves to be abhorred for a savage and impotent revenge so far as it regards the dead.
Act V, Scene 1 — Page 299
1 CLO. Come; my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profession.
2 CLO. Was he a gentleman?
1 CLO. He was the first that ever bore arms.
This is undoubtedly in ridicule of heraldry. Gerard Leigh, one of the oldest writers on that subject, speaks of "Jesus Christ, a gentleman of great linage, and king of the Jewes." And again, "For that it might be known that even anon after the creation of Adam, there was both gentlenes, and ungentlenes, you shall understand that the second man that was born was a gentleman, whose name was Abell. I say a gentleman both of vertue and of lignage, with whose sacrifice God was much pleased. His brother Cain was ungentle, for he offered God the worst of his fruites," &c.--Accedence of armorie, 1591, 4to, fo. 13. Another morsel of satire against the above science lurks in the very ancient proverbial saying,
"When Adam delv'd and Eve span, Where was then the gentleman?"
which is found in almost every European language. It was the text on which the rebel priest John Balle preached his sermon during the insurrection of Wat Tyler. Although the first clown afterwards explains why Adam bore arms, by means of a punning allusion to his digging with arms, there is still a concealed piece of wit with respect to the spade. Adam's spade is set down in some of the books of heraldry as the most ancient form of escutcheons: nor is it improbable that the lower part of this utensil suggested the well-known form of the old triangular shields; whilst from the spindle of Eve might have originated the lozenge-like escutcheon on which the arms of females are usually emblazoned.
Act V, Scene 1 — Page 308
HAM. ... the age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant, &c.
Mr. Malone's note, in exclusion of the others, is sufficiently satisfactory. The fashion of wearing pointed shoes, to which Hamlet had been supposed to allude, had ceased long before the time of Shakspeare; nor is it probable that he would have transferred it to the age of Hamlet. We still say a person treads close on the heels of another, in the same signification as in the text.
Act V, Scene 1 — Page 310
1 CLO. This same scull, sir, was Yorick's scull, the king's jester.
The frequency of such names as Eric and Roric in the Danish history, might have suggested that of the jester in question, but in a manner that may not very easily be discovered. Roric was the name of the king of Denmark contemporary with Hamlet, according to Saxo Grammaticus.
Act V, Scene 1 — Page 311
HAM. Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.----
There is good reason for supposing that Shakspeare borrowed this thought from some print or picture that he had seen. There are several which represent a lady at her toilet, and an old man presenting a scull before the mirror. A print by Goltzius exhibits Vanity as a lady sitting in her chamber with jewels, &c. before her, and surprised by the appearance of Death. In one of Henry the Eighth's wardrobe accounts, a picture at Westminster is thus described: "Item a table with the picture of a woman playing upon a lute, and an olde manne holding a glasse in th'one hande and a deadde mannes headde in th'other hande."--Harl. MS. No. 1419.
* * * * *
In a poem written by Anthony Scoloker, a printer, entitled Daiphantus, or The passions of love, comicall to reade, but tragicall to act, as full of wit, as experience, 1604, 4to, and recently quoted in p. 465, there are the following allusions to the play of Hamlet: In a quaint dedication he says, "It [the epistle] should be like the never-too-well read Arcadia, where the prose and verse (matter and words) are like his mistresses eyes, one still excelling another and without Corivall: or to come home to the vulgars element, like friendly Shake-speare's tragedies, where the commedian rides, when the tragedian stands on tiptoe: Faith it should please all, like prince Hamlet. But in sadnesse, then it were to be feared he would runne mad. In sooth I will not be moonesicke, to please: nor out of my wits though I displeased all."
"His breath he thinkes the smoke; his tongue a cole, Then calls for bottell ale; to quench his thirst. Runs to his Inke pot, drinkes, then stops the hole, And thus growes madder, then he was at first. Tasso he finds, by that of Hamlet, thinkes, Tearmes him a mad-man; than of his Inkhorne drinks.
"Calls players fooles, the foole he judgeth wisest, Will learne them action, out of Chaucers Pander: Proves of their poets bawdes even in the highest, Then drinkes a health; and sweares it is no slander, Puts off his cloathes; his shirt he onely weares, Much like mad-Hamlet; thus as passion teares."
FOOTNOTES:
[23] These two lines seem intended, in the original, as a kind of burden or chorus at the end of each stanza; but as they only intrude upon the measure, the translation were perhaps better without them.
[24] It was the custom at this time to serve up at entertainments peacock and pheasant pies, the forms of those elegant birds being externally preserved, and much pomp bestowed on their appearance. See what has been already said on this subject in p. 291.
[25] This is a stubborn fact against the opinion of those who maintain that wine was not made in England. See the controversy on this subject in Archæologia, vol. iii.
[26] The late Rev. Mr. Hole of Faringdon in Devonshire, whose loss is deplored by all who knew him, has left an essay on the character of Ulysses, which has been recently published by some kind and grateful friends. In this elegant morsel the learned author has noticed the anxiety which Homer's favourite heroes constantly manifest to give their enemies a prey to dogs, and thereby prevent the advantage of obtaining admission into the regions of happiness.
[27] sword.
[28] raps, blows.
[29] fury.
[30] they.
[31] very.
[32] malice.
[33] orient.
[34] falcon, or perhaps falchion.
[35] gorgeous.
[36] I am descended.
[37] renowned.
[38] herald.
[39] allow.
[40] burn on live coals.
[41] rave.
[42] mad.
[43] here upon, or perhaps haro!
OTHELLO.
Act I, Scene 3 — Page 422
OTH. Wherein of antres vast and desarts idle.
Dr. Johnson has very properly taken notice of Mr. Pope's inadvertency in substituting wild for idle; but whether he is strictly right in regarding this word as "poetically beautiful," according to Shakspeare's use of it, may admit of some doubt. Perhaps in a modern writer it would be poetical, where designed to express infertility. It may be worth while to examine how it was originally used.
In Ælfric's version of Genesis, ch. i. ver. 1, the inanis et vacua of the Vulgate is rendered ẏꝺel ⁊ æmꞇɩᵹ. Now it is conceived that inanis never signified infertile, but useless, unprofitable; and such appears to be the meaning of idle. In two or three of the early Latin and English dictionaries, inanis is rendered idle; and in this sense the latter word is used by Shakspeare in Richard the third, Act III.:
"You said that idle weeds were fast in growth."
It is clear that in the last instance infertility is out of the question: but useless and unprofitable well denote the poet's meaning, or rather that of the inventor of the proverb, which was afterwards corrupted into "ill weeds," &c.
It is conceived therefore that Dr. Johnson is not accurate in his opinion, that idle in the before-cited Saxon translation is an epithet expressive of the infertility of the chaotic state. Wicliffe has not adopted this term; he has preferred vain: but in the first page of the English Golden legend, which contains a part of the first chapter of Genesis, we have--"the erth was ydle and voyde." Here Caxton the translator must have followed the Vulgate, corroborating what is already stated on the construction of idle. The learned reader will not want to be informed why this term could not occur in any of the subsequent English versions of the Bible.
Act I, Scene 3 — Page 447
IAGO. ... the food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida.
There is another phrase of this kind, viz. to exchange Herb John for coloquintida. It is used in Osborne's Memoirs of James I., and elsewhere. The pedantic Tomlinson, in his translation of Renodæus's Dispensatory, says, that many superstitious persons call mugwort Saint John's herb, "wherewith he circumcinged his loyns on holidays," p. 317. Shakspeare, who was extremely well acquainted with popular superstitions, might have recollected this circumstance, when, for reasons best known to himself, he chose to vary the phrase by substituting the luscious locusts of the Baptist. Whether these were the fruit of the tree so called, or the well known insect, is not likely to be determined.
Act III, Scene 4 — Page 556
DES. ... I had rather have lost my purse Full of cruzadoes.
The following account of this Portuguese coin is presumed to be more correct than that already given. The cruzado was not current, as it should seem, at Venice, though it certainly was in England in the time of Shakspeare, who has here indulged his usual practice of departing from national costume. It was of gold, and weighed two penny-weights six grains, or nine shillings English. The following varieties of it as to type, are given from an English almanac of the year 1586, whence also the weight has been taken. The sovereigns who struck this coin were Emanuel and his son John.
Act III, Scene 4 — Page 558
OTH. ... The hearts, of old, gave hands; But now new heraldry is--hands, not hearts.
There cannot be a doubt that the text is right, and that there is a punning allusion to the new heraldry of hands in the baronets' arms. The plain meaning is--formerly the heart gave away the hand in marriage; but now, as in the new heraldry, we have hands only: no cordiality nor affection. In The tempest, Ferdinand says to Miranda, "Here's my hand;" to which she answers, "And mine with my heart in it." In this latter instance, Shakspeare, not Miranda, might recollect the gemmel rings, some of which had engraven on them a hand with a heart in it.
Act IV, Scene 2 — Page 601
OTH. The bawdy wind, that kisses all it meets.
The same image occurs more delicately, but less strongly, in a beautiful "Song to a forsaken mistresse," written by an anonymous author, about the time of Charles the First, and published in Playford's Select ayres, 1659, folio. As most persons of taste already possess the whole of it in Mr Ellis's Specimens of the early English poets, it is unnecessary to give more in this place than the stanza in which the above image occurs:
"I do confess thou'rt sweet, yet find Thee such an unthrift of thy sweets; Thy favours are but _like the wind, Which kisseth every thing it meets_: And since thou can'st with more than one, Th'art worthy to be kiss'd by none."
Act IV, Scene 2 — Page 635
OTH. Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge Had stomach for them all.
The same sentiment occurs in the third part of King Henry the Sixth, where Clifford says,
"Had I thy brethren here, their lives and thine, Were not revenge sufficient for me."