Part 16

"Si nimius videor, seraque _coronide_ longus Esse liber: legito pauca, libellus ero."

The mark which was used in later times for the _coronis_ has been preserved in the etymologies of Isidore, lib. i. c. 20. It is this, [Illustration]; and in some manuscripts of that writer [Illustration] and [Illustration]. In other places it has these forms, [Illustration].

SCENE 5. Page 343.

CLO. But sure, he is _the prince of the world_.

The Devil is often called so by Saint John.

ACT V.

SCENE 2. Page 349.

PAR. Good Monsieur _Lavatch_.

"This," says Mr Steevens, "is an undoubted and perhaps _irremediable_ corruption of some French word." Yet the name is obviously _La vache_, which, whether really belonging to the clown or not, seems well adapted to such a character.

SCENE 2. Page 351.

CLO. Here is a _pur_ of fortune's sir, or of fortune's cat.

The text is perfectly intelligible, and requires no conjectural amendment. The clown calls Parolles's letter a _pur_; because, like the purring of the sycophant cat, it was calculated to procure favour and protection.

THE CLOWN.

He is a domestic fool of the same kind as Touchstone.

TAMING OF THE SHREW.

INDUCTION.

SCENE 1. Page 386.

SLY. Therefore, _paucas pallabris_.

Perhaps these words are part of an old Spanish proverb, corresponding with the Portuguese, "A o hom entendedor _poucas palavras_," i. e. to an intelligent man, few words. Most of the modern European languages have a proverb like our "word to the wise." In Ben Jonson's _Masque of Augures_, Vangoose is made to exclaim "hochos-pochos, _paucos palabros_."

SCENE 1. Page 394.

LORD. And when he says he is ----, say that he dreams.

Of the various modes of filling up this blank suggested in the notes, that of Dr. Johnson, who would insert _sly_, is the most probable. Mr. Steevens asks, "how should the Lord know the beggar's name to be Sly?" This is very true; yet Shakspeare might as well forget himself in this place as he certainly did a few pages afterwards, where he makes the Lord's servant talk of _Cicely_ Hacket, &c.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 414.

KATH. I pray you, sir, is it your will To make a _stale_ of me amongst these _mates_.

She means to say, "do you intend to make a strumpet of me among these companions?" but the expression seems to have been suggested by the chess-term of _stale mate_, which is used when the game is ended by the king being alone and unchecked, and then forced into a situation from which he is unable to move without going into check. This is a dishonourable termination to the adversary, who thereby loses the game. Thus in Lord Verulam's twelfth essay, "They stand still like a _stale_ at chess, where it is no _mate_, but yet the game cannot stir."

SCENE 2. Page 427.

PET. Be she as foul as was Florentius' love.

Dr. Farmer's note might have been omitted, as it refers to a story which has no manner of connection with that to which Petruchio alludes.

SCENE 2. Page 436.

PET. Tush, tush, _fear_ boys with _bugs_.

To _fear_ is to frighten. In Mathews's _Bible_, psalm xci. v. 5, is thus rendered: "Thou shalt not nede to be afraied for any _bugs_ by night." In the Hebrew it is "_terror_ of the night;" a curious passage, evidently alluding to that horrible sensation the night-mare, which in all ages has been regarded as the operation of evil spirits. Thus much seemed necessary in explanation or defence of the above most excellent old translation, which we have retained with very little change in the language; for the expression, from its influence on a modern ear, might have been liable to a very ludicrous construction. The word _bug_ is originally Celtic, _bŵg_, a ghost or goblin, and hence _bug-bear_, _boggerd_, _bogle_, _boggy-bo_, and perhaps _pug_, an old name for the Devil. _Boggy-bo_ seems to signify the _spirit_ Bo, and has been thought, with some probability, to refer to a warrior of that name, the son of Odin, and of great celebrity among the ancient Danes and Norwegians. His name is said to have struck his enemies with terror, and might have been used by the nurses of those times to frighten children, as that of Marlborough was in France on the same occasion. It is remarkable that the Italian women use _bau bau_, for this purpose, and the French _ba-bo_. It should seem as if _bug_ had been metaphorically applied to the _cimex_, that insect being in all respects _a terror of the night_. Nor was the word used in this sense till late in the seventeenth century, the old names for the house bug being, _wall-louse_, _wig-louse_, _chinch_, _punie_, and _puneez_; the two last from the French.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 442.

KATH. And, for your love to her, _lead apes in hell_.

It is perhaps an ill-natured, though a very common, presumption, that the single state of old maids originates either in prudery or in real aversion to the male sex, and that consequently they deserve some kind of punishment in the next world. It is therefore not a matter of wonder that some of our waggish forefathers, impressed with this idea, should have maintained that these obdurate damsels would be condemned to lead apes in the inferior regions, instead, as Mr. Steevens has ingeniously suggested, of children; or perhaps with a view to compel them to bestow such attention on these deformed animals as they had formerly denied to men. So in Rabelais' hell, Alexander the great is condemned, for his ambition, to mend old stockings, and Cleopatra, for her pride, to cry onions.

It is said that homicides and adulterers were in ancient times compelled by way of punishment to lead an ape by the neck, with their mouths affixed in a very unseemly manner to the animal's tail. The fact is mentioned in the early Latin dictionary entitled _Vocabularius breviloquus_, and in the _Catholicon_ of Johannes Januensis, both printed at the end of the fifteenth century, under the article _anulus_. It is added, that the above punishment being found too opprobrious was commuted for wearing a ring on the finger, which the higher classes caused to be made of gold or silver; and this is further stated to have been the reason why the general practice of wearing rings declined. After all it may be a mere fabrication for the purpose of introducing an etymology of the word _annulus_, that cannot here be repeated.

SCENE 1. Page 450.

HOR. And, _twangling Jack_.

It is the author's desire to withdraw a former note on this passage, which, as well as a few others of a confidential nature, was not intended for publication. To _twangle_ means to make any sharp shrill noise on a stringed instrument, as a bad player would do. A _Jack_ denotes a low or mean person, and is occasionally used as a term of reproach. Thus Horatio is afterwards called "swearing _Jack_." _Twangling Jack_ may sometimes allude to that little machine in harpsichords and spinnets in which the quill is placed that strikes the wires. The _jangling Jack_ mentioned in Mr. Steevens's note is not connected with the other. He is a mere _prating fellow_. Thus in Drant's translation of Horace's ninth satire, 1567, 4to:

"A _prater_ shal becom his death, Therefore, let him alwayes, If he be wise, shun _jangling jackes_, After his youthful dayes."

SCENE 1. Page 461.

GRE. My hangings all of _Tyrian tapestry_.

Whether the purple of Tyre be here alluded to is doubtful. There is a Turkish city of some celebrity in Natolia called Tiria, where, according to the account of Paul Lucas, carpets are manufactured; and in the _Comedy of errors_, Act IV. Scene 1, mention is made of _Turkish tapestry_.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 470.

LUC. ... for, _but_ I be deceiv'd.

Mr. Malone has well explained this word as meaning _unless_, in which sense it is often used by Shakspeare. It is the Saxon buꞇon, _nisi_. Sometimes it was used with _if_, as "I wol breake thy heed _but if_ thou get the hense;" from Terence's "Diminuam ego tibi caput, _nisi_ abis," Udall's _Floures from Latine_, 1533, 12mo.

SCENE 2. Page 487.

PET. Go to the feast, revel and _domineer_.

So in Tarlton's _Jests_, "T. having been _domineering_ very late at night with two of his friends." In these instances to _domineer_ is to _bluster_.

SCENE 2. Page 487.

PET. She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My houshold stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing.

In the anonymous play of _A knacke to knowe a knave_, 1594, one of the old men says, "My house? why, 'tis my goods, my wyfe, my land, my horse, my ass, or any thing that is his." If Mr. Malone's conjecture respecting the date of _The taming of the shrew_ be well founded, it is difficult to say whether Shakspeare is the borrower, in this instance, or not.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 494.

CRU. ... their _blue coats_ brushed----

Thus in Nashe's _Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriell Harvey's hunt is up_, when this foul-mouth'd writer has accused his adversary Harvey of defrauding Wolfe his printer of thirty-six pounds, he adds, that he borrowed of him a _blue coat_ for his man; "and yet Wolfe did not so much as _brush_ it, when he lent it him, or presse out the print where the _badge_ had been." In another place, alluding to the same transaction, he states that Wolfe "lent him one of his prentises for a serving creature to grace him, clapping an old _blue coate_ on his backe, which was one of my Lord of Harford's liveries (he pulling the _badge_ off)."

The practice of giving liveries to menial servants has not originated in modern times. It is mentioned in some of the statutes made in the reign of Richard the Second. In that of Edward the Fourth the terms _livery_ and _badge_ appear to have been synonymous, the former having no doubt been borrowed from the French language, and signifying a thing _delivered_. The badge consisted of the master's device, crest, or arms, on a separate piece of cloth, or sometimes silver, in the form of a shield, fastened to the left sleeve. Greene, in his _Quip for an upstart courtier_, speaking of some serving men, says, "their cognizance, as I remember, was a peacocke without a tayle." In queen Elizabeth's time the nobility gave silver badges, as appears from Hentzner's _Travels_, p. 156, edit. Norimb. 1612, 4to. "Angli magnifici domi forisque magna assectantium famulorum agmini secum trahunt, quibus in _sinistro brachio scuta ex argento facta_ appendunt." But this foolish extravagance was not limited to persons of high rank. Fynes Moryson, speaking of the English apparel, informs us that "the servants of _gentlemen_ were wont to weare _blew coates_, with their masters badge of silver on the left sleeve, but now they most commonly weare clokes garded with lace, all the servants of one family wearing the same liverie for colour and ornament:" we are therefore to suppose that the sleeve badge was left off in the reign of James I. Yet the badge was at one time so general an accompaniment to a blue coat, that when any thing wanted its usual appendage, it was _proverbially_ said to be _like a blue coat without a badge_.

The custom of clothing persons in liveries and badges was not confined to menial servants. Another class of men called _retainers_, who appear to have been of no small importance among our ancestors, were habited in a similar manner. They were a sort of servants, not residing in the master's house like other menial domestics, but attending occasionally for the purpose of ostentation, and _retained_ by the annual donation of a livery consisting of a hat or hood, a badge, and a suit of clothes. As they were frequently kept for the purpose of maintaining quarrels and committing other excesses, it became necessary to impose heavy penalties on the offenders, both masters and retainers. In process of time they were licensed. Strype complains of the too great indulgence of queen Mary in this respect. "She granted," says he, "more by half in her short five years than her sister and successor in thirteen. For in all that time there were but fifteen licenses of retainer granted, whereas queen Mary had granted nine and thirty. She was more liberal also in yielding the number of retainers to each person, which sometimes amounted to two hundred. Whereas Q. Elizabeth never yielded above an hundred to any person of the greatest quality, and that rarely too. But Bishop Gardiner began that ill example, who retained two hundred men: whereas under Q. Elizabeth the Duke of Norfolk retained but an hundred; and Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, but forty." He has added a list of the persons to whom Mary granted licenses, and the number of persons retained. _Eccl. memorials_, iii. 479.

Nor did these retainers always consist of men of low condition. The entertaining author of a book entitled _A health to the gentlemanly profession of serving men, or the serving man's comfort_, 1598, 4to, (to whom these notes have occasionally been indebted, and who with good reason is supposed to have been Jervis Markham,) has certainly alluded to them in the following curious passage, wherein he is consoling the objects of his labour: "Amongst what sort of people should then this serving man be sought for? Even the duke's sonne preferred page to the prince, the earles seconde sonne attendant upon the duke, the knights seconde sonne the earles servant, the esquires sonne _to weare the knightes lyverie_, and the gentlemans sonne the esquiers serving man: Yea I know at this day, gentlemen younger brothers, that weares their elder brothers _blew coate_ and badge, attending him with as reverend regard and duetifull obedience, as if he were their prince or soveraigne." Let us congratulate ourselves that we no longer endure such insolent aggressions, the result of family pride and ignorance, and which had been too often permitted to degrade the natural liberties and independence of mankind. The excellent old ballad of _Times alteration_, has the following illustrative stanza of the coats and badges in question:

"The nobles of our land Were much delighted then, To have at their command A crew of lusty men; Which by their coats were known Of tawny, red or blue, With crests on their sleeves shown, When this old cap was new."

Before we dismiss the present subject, it will be necessary to observe that the _badge_ occurs in all the old representations of posts or messengers. On the latter of these characters it may be seen in the 52nd plate of Mr. Strutt's first volume of _The dress and habits of the people of England_, where, as in the most ancient instances, the badge is affixed to the girdle; but it is often seen on the shoulder, and even on the hat or cap. These figures extend as far back as the thirteenth century, and many old German engravings exhibit both the characters with a badge that has sometimes the device or arms of the town to which the post belongs. He has generally a spear in his hand, not only for personal security, but for repelling any nuisance that might interrupt his progress. Among ourselves the remains of the ancient badge are still preserved in the dresses of porters, firemen, and watermen, and perhaps in the shoulder-knots of footmen. The blue coat and badge still remain with the parish and hospital boys. The following figure of a person of a higher class with a badge, is copied from the view of Windsor in _Braunii civitates orbis terrarum_, 1573.

SCENE 1. Page 496.

PET. Where be these knaves? what no man _at door_.

Although _door_ might in the _middle_ of a line be pronounced as a dissyllable, it is submitted that it cannot, with any propriety, at the _end_. It were better to suppose an omission at the press, and read "at _the_ door."

SCENE 2. Page 506.

TRA. That teacheth tricks _eleven and twenty_ long.

We have here a very uncommon and perhaps unique expression; but it seems to mean no more than that the tricks were of an extraordinary kind. _Eleven and twenty_ is the same as _eleven score_, which signified a great length or number as applied to the exertions of a few or even of a single person. Thus in the old ballad of _The low country soldier_,

"Myself and seven more We fought _eleven score_."

SCENE 3. Page 513.

KATH. Why then the beef, and let the mustard rest, &c.

This part of the dialogue was in all probability suggested by the following whimsical story in _Wits, fittes and fancies_, 1595, 4to:--"A clowne having surfeited of beefe, and being therewith extreame sicke, vow'd never whiles he liv'd to eat beefe more, if it pleas'd God he might escape for that once: Shortlie after having his perfect health again, he would needs have eaten beefe, and his sister putting him in mind of his vow, hee answered: True (sister) not without mustard (good L.) not without mustard." This is not the only use that Shakespeare has made of this curious book, which was, in part, translated from a Spanish work, entitled _La floresta Spagnola_, by Anthony Copley, who was the author of a poem printed at the end, called _Love's owle: In dialogue-wise betweene love and an olde man_. Of this poem Copley thus speaks in his dedication: "As for my _Loves owle_, I am content that Momus turne it to a tennis-ball if he can, and bandy it quite away: namelie, I desire M. _Daniel_, M. _Spencer_, and other the Prime Poets of our time, to pardon it with as easie a frowne as they please, for that I give them to understand, that an Universitie Muse never pend it, though humbly devoted thereunto."

SCENE 3. Page 514.

PET. And all my pains is _sorted to no proof_.

This is explained by Dr. Johnson, "and all my labour has _proved_ nothing." It rather means, "all my labour is _adapted_ to no _approof_," or "I have taken all this pains without _approbation_." _Approof_ is used by Shakspeare in this sense, and should be here printed with an apostrophe, _'proof_.

SCENE 4. Page 529.

BION. Take your assurance of her _cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum_.

This is not the only instance in which our poet has borrowed his broad metaphors from the typographical art.

In _The winter's tale_, Act V. Scene 1, we have, "Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince; for she did _print_ your royal father off, conceiving you."

* * * * *

To the stories already mentioned in the notes to this play as resembling that of the _induction_, the following are to be added:--1. _The sleeper awakened_, in the Arabian nights. This is probably the original of all the rest. 2. A similar incident in the story of _Xailoun_ in the _Continuation of the Arabian nights_. 3. In _The apophthegms of King James, King Charles, the marquess of Worcester_, &c., 1658, 12mo, there is the story of an old bachelor named _Thomas Deputy_, who at the marriage of Edward Lord Herbert taking a fancy to one of the bride's waiting-maids, was persuaded by the old Marquess of Worcester to marry her at the same time. Thomas, being overpowered on this occasion with the joy he felt from the liberal donations of the noble assistants at the wedding, and also with the good wine that was freely circulated, became altogether incapable of consummating his marriage; and the Marquess, after relating to the company "the story of the begger who was made to believe he did but dream of the happiness that was really acted," determined to make the experiment in the person of old Thomas, and accordingly ordered that he "should be disrobed of his new wedding garment, the rest of his fine cloaths taken from him, and himself carried unto his old lodging in the porter's lodge, and his wife to respite the solemnization of the marriage bed untill his comportment should deserve so fair an admission: which was done accordingly. The next morning made the experiment to answer the height of all their expectations; for news was brought unto the Marquesse, all the rest of the lords and ladies standing by, that _Thom._ took all yesterdayes work but for a dream, or at least seemed to do so, to humour the fancy." 4. Winstanley, in his _Historical rarities_, 1684, 8vo, has a story of Aladine the Persian, called the old man of the mountain, who built a magnificent palace near a city called _Mulebet_, and filled it with every sort of luxury and delight. "Hither he brought all the lusty youths he could light on, casting them into prison, where they endured much sorrow and woe. And when he thought good, he caused a certain drink to be given them, which cast them into a dead sleep: then he caused them to be carried into divers chambers of the said palaces, where they saw the things aforesaid as soon as they awaked; each of them having those damsels to minister meats and excellent drinks, and all varieties of pleasures to them, insomuch, that the fools thought themselves to be in paradise indeed. Having enjoyed this happiness a whole day, they were in a like sleep conveyed to their irons again; after which, he caused them to be brought into his presence, and questioned where they had been; which answered, by your grace, in paradise, and recounted all the particulars before mentioned." Winstanley has also given the story of Philip duke of Burgundy. 5. A similar incident in the penny history of _The frolicksome courtier and the jovial tinker_.

The author of the story in the Tatler might have used a novel in the _Piacevoli notti_ of Straparola, nott. 8, fab. 2. and the outline of the _Taming of the shrew_ may be found in a Spanish work entitled _El conde Lucanor_, 1643, 4to, composed by Don Juan Manuel, nephew to Ferdinand the fourth king of _Castile_.

The character of Petruchio bears some resemblance to that of Pisardo in Straparola's _Novels_, night 8, fab. 7.

WINTER'S TALE.

ACT I.

SCENE 2. Page 27.

LEON. And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour.

This is not the only gross and offensive metaphor of the kind that our poet has used. In _Measure for measure_, we have "groping for trouts in a peculiar river."

SCENE 2. Page 30.

LEON. ... I have trusted thee Camillo, With all the nearest things to my _heart_---- ... wherein, priest-like thou _Hast cleans'd my bosom_.

So in Macbeth we have,

"_Cleanse the stuff'd bosom_ of that perilous stuff, Which weighs upon the _heart_."

SCENE 2. Page 39.

CAM. ... If I could find example Of thousands that had struck anointed kings And _flourish'd after_, I'd not do't.

If, as Mr. Blackstone supposes, this be an allusion to the death of the queen of Scots, it exhibits Shakspeare in the character of a cringing flatterer accommodating himself to existing circumstances, and is moreover an extremely severe one. But the perpetrator of that atrocious murder _did flourish_ many years afterwards. May it not rather be designed as a compliment to King James on his escape from the Gowrie conspiracy, an event often brought to the people's recollection during his reign, from the day on which it happened being made a day of thanksgiving? See _Osborne's traditional memoyres_, and the almanacks of the time under the 5th of August.

SCENE 2. Page 41.

POL. In whose success we are _gentle_.