Part 31
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.
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.
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."
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."
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.
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_.
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.
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.
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."
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."
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_.
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._"
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.
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.
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!