Part 9

Mr. Theobald explains this "into a thousand pieces of the same bigness," as if Beatrice had torn the letter by rule and compass. Mr. Steevens more properly supposes halfpence to mean _small pieces_; but his note would have been less imperfect if he had added that the halfpence of Elizabeth were of _silver_, and about the size of a modern silver penny.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 469.

D. PEDRO. ... the little _hangman_ dare not shoot at him.

Dr. Farmer has illustrated this term by citing a passage from Sidney's _Arcadia_; but he has omitted a previous description in which Cupid is metamorphosed into a strange old monster, sitting on a _gallows_ with a crown of laurel in one hand, and a purse of money in the other, as if he would persuade folks by these allurements _to hang_ themselves. It is certainly possible that this might have been Shakspeare's prototype; we should otherwise have supposed that he had called Cupid a hangman metaphorically, from the remedy sometimes adopted by desparing lovers.

SCENE 4. Page 488.

MARG. Clap us into _light o'love_.

When Margaret adds that this tune "goes without a burden," she does not mean that it never had words to it, but only that it wanted a very common appendage to the ballads of that time. The name itself may be illustrated by the following extract from _The glasse of man's follie_, 1615, 4to. "There be wealthy houswives, and good house-keepers that use no starch, but faire water: their linnen is white, and they looke more Christian-like in small ruffes, then _Light of love_ lookes in her great starched ruffs, looke she never so hie, with eye-lids awrye." This anonymous work is written much in the manner of Stubbes's _Anatomie of abuses_, and for the same purpose.

ACT IV.

SCENE 1. Page 510.

BENE. Tarry, sweet Beatrice.

BEAT. _I am gone, though I am here._ There is no love in you--Nay, I pray you let me go.

Though three explanations have been already offered, there is room for further conjecture. From the latter words of Beatrice it is clear that Benedick had stopped her from going. She may therefore intend to say that notwithstanding she is detained by force, she is in reality absent; her heart is no longer Benedick's.

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 524.

LEON. His _May of youth_, and bloom of _lustyhood_.

An allusion to these lines in the old calendars that describe the state of man:

"As in the month of _Maye_ all thyng is in myght So at xxx yeres man is in chyef lykyng. Pleasaunt and _lusty_, to every mannes syght In beaute and strength, to women pleasyng."

In the _Notbrowne mayde_ we have the expression _lusty May_. Capel's edit. p. 6. Roger Ascham, speaking of young men, says; "It availeth not to see them well taught in yong yeares, and after when they come to _lust and youthfull dayes_, to give them licence to live as they _lust_ themselves." _Scholemaster_, 1571, fo. 13. See a former note in p. 45.

SCENE 1. Page 529.

CLAUD. If he be, [angry] he knows how to turn his girdle.

Mr. Holt White's ingenious note may be supported by the following passage in Carew's _Survey of Cornwall_, 1602, 4to. p. 76: the author is speaking of wrestling. "This hath also his lawes, of taking hold onely above girdle, wearing a girdle to take hold by, playing three pulles, for tryall of the mastery, &c."

SCENE 4. Page 554.

BENE. Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife; there is no _staff_ more reverend than one _tipp'd with horn_.

In this comparison the prince is the staff, and the question is what sort of a one is here alluded to. Messrs. Steevens, Reed, and Malone, conceive it to be the staff used in the ancient trial by wager of battle; but this seems to have but small claim to be entitled _reverend_. On the contrary, as the combatants were of the meaner class of people, who were not allowed to make use of edged weapons, the higher ranks usually deciding the business by hired champions, it cannot well be maintained that much, if any, reverence belongs to such a staff. It is possible, therefore, that Shakspeare, whose allusions to _archery_ are almost as frequent as they are to cuckoldom, might refer to the _bowstaff_, which was usually tipped with a piece of horn at each end, to make such a notch for the string as would not wear, and at the same time to strengthen the bow, and prevent the extremities from breaking. It is equally possible that the walking-sticks or staves used by _elderly_ people might be intended, which were often headed or _tipped_ with a cross piece of _horn_, or sometimes amber. They seem to have been imitated from the _crutched_ sticks, or _potences_, as they were called, used by the friars, and by them borrowed from the celebrated _tau_ of St. Anthony. Thus in _The Canterbury tales_, the Sompnour describes one of his friars as having "a scrippe and _tipped staf_," and he adds that

"His felaw had _a staf tipped with horn_."

In these instances the epithet _reverend_ is much more appropriate than in the others.

* * * * *

Mrs. Lenox, assuming, with the same inaccuracy as had been manifested in her critique on _Measure for measure_, that Shakspeare borrowed his plot from Ariosto, proceeds to censure him for "poverty of invention, want of judgment, and wild conceits," deducing all her reasoning from false premises. This is certainly but a bad method of _illustrating_ Shakspeare.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Page 6.

EGE. Happy be Theseus, our renowned _duke_.

This is in reality no "misapplication of a modern title," as Mr. Steevens conceived, but a legitimate use of the word in its primitive Latin sense of _leader_; and so it is often used in the Bible. Not so the instance adduced of _sheriffs of the provinces_, which might have been avoided in our printed bibles. Wicliffe had most properly used _prefectis_. Shakspeare might have found _Duke_ Theseus in the _book of Troy_, or in Turbervile's _Ovid's Epistles_. See the argument to that of Phædra to Hippolytus.

SCENE 1. Page 9.

THE. You can endure the livery of a _nun_, For aye to be in shady _cloister_ mew'd.

The threatening to make a nun of poor Hermia is as whimsical an anachronism as any in Shakspeare.

SCENE 1. Page 13.

LYS. Making it _momentany_ as a sound.

_Momentany_ and _momentary_ were indiscriminately used in Shakspeare's time. The former corresponds with the French _momentaine_.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. Page 30.

FAI. And I serve the fairy queen, _To dew her orbs upon the green_.

Mr. Steevens in the happy and elegant remark at the end of his note on the last line, has made a slight mistake in substituting _Puck_ for the _fairy_. When the damsels of old gathered the May dew on the grass, and which they made use of to improve their complexions, they left undisturbed such of it as they perceived on the fairy-rings; apprehensive that the fairies should in revenge destroy their beauty. Nor was it reckoned safe to put the foot within the rings, lest they should be liable to the fairies' power.

SCENE 1. Page 32.

_Puck._ But they do _square_.

Dr. Johnson has very justly observed that to _square_ here is to quarrel. In investigating the reason, we must previously take it for granted that our verb _to quarrel_ is from the French _quereller_, or perhaps both from the common source, the Latin _querela_. Blackstone has remarked that the glaziers use the words _square_ and _quarrel_ as synonymous terms for a pane of glass, and he might have added for the instrument with which they cut it. This, he says, is somewhat whimsical; but had he been acquainted with the reason, he might have been disposed to waive his opinion, at least on the present occasion. The glazier's instrument is a _diamond_, usually cut into such a _square_ form as the _supposed diamonds_ on the French and English cards, in the former of which it is still properly called _carreau_, from its _original_. This was the _square_ iron head of the arrow used for the cross-bow. In English it was called a _quarrel_, and hence the glazier's diamond and the pane of glass have received their names of _square_ and _quarrel_. Now we may suppose without straining the point very violently, that these words being evidently synonymous in one sense, have corruptedly become so in another; and that the verb _to square_, which correctly and metaphorically, even at this time, signifies _to agree_ or _accord_, has been carelessly and ignorantly wrested from its true sense, and from frequent use become a legitimate word. The French have avoided this error, and to express a meaning very similar to that of _to quarrel_ or _dispute_, make use of the word _contrecarrer_.

SCENE 1. Page 37.

PUCK. The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down-topples she.

The celebrated duchess of Newcastle, in a poem of some fancy, entitled _The queen of fairies_, makes Puck or hobgoblin the queen of fairies' fool, and alludes to the above prank in the following lines:

"The goodwife sad squats down upon a stool, Not at all thinking it was Hob the fool, And frowning sits, then Hob gives her a slip, And down she falls, whereby she hurts her hip."

The above dame is a farmer's wife who has been scolding because she was unable to procure any butter or cheese, and at Puck's holding up the hens' rumps to prevent their laying eggs too fast.

With respect to the word _aunt_, it has been usually derived from the French _tante_; but the original Norman term is _ante_. See examples in Carpentier _Suppl._ ad Ducang. v. _avuncula_. So the author of the old and excellent farce of _Maistre Patelin_,

"Vostre belle ante, mourut-elle?"

SCENE 2. Page 39.

Enter OBERON and TITANIA.

Mr. Tyrwhitt's remark that the Pluto and Proserpine of Chaucer were the true progenitors of Oberon and Titania, may be perfectly true; but the name of Oberon as king of the fairies, must have been exceedingly well known from the romance of Huon of Bourdeaux, in which this Oberon makes a very conspicuous figure.

SCENE 2. Page 41.

TITA. Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, By paved fountain.

Milton, doubtless, had these lines in recollection when he wrote,

"To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade."

_Par. lost_, b. v. l. 203.

SCENE 2. Page 41.

TITA. _To dance our ringlets_ to the whistling wind.

An allusion to what the country people call _fairy rings_, which they suppose to be the tracks of the dances of those diminutive beings.

SCENE 2. Page 43.

TITA. The _nine mens morris_ is fill'd up with mud.

This game was sometimes called _the nine mens merrils_, from _merelles_ or _mereaux_, an ancient French word for the jettons or counters, with which it was played. The other term _morris_ is probably a corruption suggested by the sort of _dance_ which in the progress of the game the counters performed. In the French _merelles_ each party had three counters only, which were to be placed in a line in order to win the game. It appears to have been the _Tremerel_ mentioned in an old fabliau. See Le Grand _Fabliaux et contes_, tom. ii. p. 208.

Dr. Hyde thinks the morris or merrils was known during the time that the Normans continued in possession of England, and that the name was afterwards corrupted into _three mens morals_, or _nine mens morals_. If this be true, the conversion of _morals_ into _morris_, a term so very familiar to the country people, was extremely natural. The doctor adds, that it was likewise called _nine-penny_, or _nine-pin miracle_, _three-penny morris_, _five-penny morris_, _nine-penny morris_, or _three-pin_, _five-pin_, and _nine-pin morris_, all corruptions of _three-pin_, &c. _merels_. Hyde _Hist. Nerdiludii_, p. 202.

SCENE 2. Page 44.

TITA. The _human mortals_ want their winter here.

In the controversy respecting the immortality of fairies, Mr. Ritson's ingenious and _decisive_ reply in his _Quip modest_ ought on every account to have been introduced. A few pages further Titania evidently alludes to the _immortality_ of fairies, when, speaking of the changeling's mother, she says, "but she, _being mortal_, of that boy did die." Spenser's fairy system and his pedigree were allegorical, invented by himself, and not coinciding with the popular superstitions on the subject. _Human mortals_ is merely a pleonasm, and neither put in opposition to _fairy mortals_, according to Mr. Steevens, nor to _human immortals_, according to Ritson; it is simply the language of a fairy speaking of men.

A posthumous note by Mr. Steevens has not contributed to strengthen his former arguments, as the authors therein mentioned do not, strictly speaking, allude to the sort of fairies in question, but to spirits, devils, and angels. Shakspeare, however, would certainly be more influenced by popular opinion than by the dreams of the casuists. There is a curious instance of the nature of fairies, according to the belief of more ancient times, in the romance of Lancelot of the lake. "En celui temps," (the author is speaking of the days of king Arthur,) "estoient appellees faees toutes selles qui sentremettoient denchantemens et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principalement en la Grande Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la vertu des paroles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoy _elles estoient tenues en jeunesse et en beaulte_, et en grandes richesses comme elles devisoient." This perpetual youth and beauty cannot well be separated from a state of immortality. Nor would it be difficult to controvert the sentiments of those who have maintained the mortality of _devils_, by means of authorities as valid as their own. The above interesting romance will furnish one at least that may not be unacceptable. Speaking of the birth of the prophet and enchanter Merlin, it informs us that his mother would not consent to the embraces of any man who should be visible; and therefore it was by some means ordained that a _devil_ should be her lover. When he approached her, to use the words of the romance, "la damoiselle le tasta et sentit quil avoit le corps moult bien fait; non pourtant les dyables n'ont ne corps ne membres que l'en puisse veoir ne toucher, _car spirituelle chose ne peut estre touchée, et tous diables sont choses spirituelles_." The fruit of this amour was Merlin; but he, being born of woman, was but a semi-devil, and subject to mortality. A damsel with whom he had fallen in love, prevailed on him to disclose some of his magical arts to her, by means of which she deceived him, and preserved her chastity by casting him into a deep sleep whenever he importuned her. The romance adds, "si le decevoit ainsi _pource qu'il estoit mortel_; mais s'il eust este _du tout dyable_, elle ne l'eust peu decepvoir; car ung dyable ne peut dormir."

SCENE 2. Page 45.

TITA. Therefore the moon, _the governess of floods_, _Pale_ in her anger, _washes all the air_, That rheumatic diseases do abound.

Thus in Newton's _Direction for the health of magistrates and studentes_, 1574, 12mo, we are told that "the moone is _ladie of moysture_;" and in Hamlet, Act I. Scene 1, she is called "the _moist_ star." In Bartholomæus _De propriet. rerum_, by Batman, lib. 8. c. 29, the moon is described to be "mother of all _humours_, minister and _lady of the sea_." But in Lydgate's prologue to his _Storie of Thebes_, there are two lines which Shakspeare seems closely to have imitated;

"Of Lucina the moone, _moist and pale_, That many _showre fro heaven_ made availe."

The same mode of expression occurs in Parkes's _Curtaine drawer of the world_, 1612, 4to, p. 48: "the centinels of the season ordained to marke the _queen of floods_ how she lends her borrowed light." This book deserves to be noticed for the good sense which it contains, and the merit of some occasional pieces of poetry.

SCENE 2. Page 50.

OBE. I do but beg a little changeling boy To be my _henchman_.

Of all the opinions concerning the origin of this word, that of Sir William Spelman alone can be maintained. If instead of deriving it from the _German_, he had stated that it came to us through the _Saxon_ Henᵹeꞅꞇ, a _horse_, his information had been more correct. Although in more modern times the pages or henchmen might have walked on foot, it is very certain that they were originally _horsemen_, according to the term. Thus in Chaucer's _Floure and the leafe_:

"And every knight had after him _riding_ Three _henshmen_, on him awaiting."

If the old orthography _henxmen_ had not been unfortunately disturbed, we should have heard nothing of the conjectures about _haunch_ and _haunch_-men.

SCENE 2. Page 58.

Enter DEMETRIUS, _Helena following him_.

However forward and indecorous the conduct of Helena in pursuing Demetrius may appear to modern readers, such examples are very frequent in old romances of chivalry, wherein Shakspeare was undoubtedly well read. The beautiful ballad of the Nut-brown maid might have been more immediately in his recollection, many parts of this scene having a very strong resemblance to it.

SCENE 2. Page 61.

HEL. I'll follow thee, and _make a heaven of hell_.

Imitated by Milton:

"The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a _heav'n of hell_, a hell of heaven."

_Par. lost_, b. i. l. 254.

SCENE 2. Page 62.

OBE. Quite overcanopied with _lush_ woodbine.

See what has been already said on this word in p. 8; the meaning is the same as there. Theobald's amendment from _luscious_ was probably in conformity with that passage; and the printers of the old editions not comprehending the meaning of _lush_, which even in their time was an antiquated word, ignorantly, as well as unharmoniously, substituted _luscious_.

SCENE 3. Page 68.

HER. ... in human modesty Such separation, as, may well be said, Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid.

That is, "_let there be_ such separation," &c. A comma should be placed after _modesty_.

ACT III.

SCENE 1. Page 77.

QUIN. When you have spoken your speech, enter into that _brake_.

It is submitted that _brake_ cannot _in this instance_ signify _a large extent of ground, overgrown with furze_, but merely the hawthorn bush or _tyring-house_ as Quince had already called it.

SCENE 1. Page 83.

BOT. Nay I can _gleek_ upon occasion.

Again, in _Romeo and Juliet_, Act IV. Scene 5:

"1. MUS. What will you _give us_?

_Pet._ No money, on my faith; but the _gleek_."

On which consult Mr. Steevens's posthumous note in Mr. Reed's last edition.

Mr. Pope had justly remarked that to _gleek_ is to _scoff_. In some of the notes on this word it has been supposed to be connected with the card game of _gleek_; but it was not recollected that the Saxon language supplied the term Glɩᵹ, _ludibrium_, and doubtless a corresponding verb. Thus _glee_ signifies _mirth_ and _jocularity_; and _gleeman_ or _gligman_, a minstrel or _joculator_. _Gleek_ was therefore used to express a stronger sort of joke, a _scoffing_. It does not appear that the phrase _to give the gleek_ was ever introduced in the above game, which was borrowed by us from the French, and derived from an original of very different import from the word in question.

SCENE 1. Page 84.

TITA. And light them at the fiery glow-worms _eyes_.

Dr. Johnson's objection to the word eyes, has been very skilfully removed by Mr. Monck Mason; but this gentleman appears to have misconceived the meaning of Shakspeare's most appropriate epithet of _ineffectual_, in the passage from _Hamlet_. The glow-worm's fire was _ineffectual_ only at the approach of morn, in like manner as the light of a candle would be at mid-day.

SCENE 1. Page 88.

OBE. What night-_rule_ now about this haunted grove?

Mr. Steevens has properly explained _night-rule_. _Rule_ in this word has the same meaning as in the Christmas lord of mis-_rule_, and is a corruption of _revel_, formerly written _reuel_.

SCENE 2. Page 89.

PUCK. An _ass's nowl_ I fixed on his head.

The receipt for making a man resemble an ass, already given in a former note, must give place to the following in Scot's _Discoverie of witchcraft_, b. 13. c. xix. "Cutt off the head of a horsse or an asse (before they be dead), otherwise the vertue or strength thereof will be the lesse effectuall, and make an earthern vessell of fit capacitie to conteine the same, and let it be filled with the oile and fat thereof; cover it close, and dawbe it over with lome: let it boile over a soft fier three daies continuallie, that the flesh boiled may run into oile, so as the bare bones may be seene: beate the haire into powder, and mingle the same with the oile; and annoint the _heads of the standers by_, and they shall seem to have horsses or _asses_ heads."

SCENE 2. Page 95.

OBE. All fancy-sick she is, and pale of _cheer_.

Mr. Steevens deduces this word from the Italian _cara_; but it is from the old French _chere_, face. Lydgate finishes the prologue to his _Storie of Thebes_ with these lines:

"And as I coud, with a pale _cheare_, My tale I gan anone, as ye shall heare."

SCENE 2. Page 103.

HEL. So with two seeming _bodies_, but one _heart_; Two of the _first_, like coats in heraldry, Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.

It may be doubted whether this passage has been rightly explained, and whether the commentators have not given Shakspeare credit for more skill in heraldry than he really possessed, or at least than he intended to exhibit on the present occasion. Helen says, "we had two seeming bodies, but only one heart." She then exemplifies her position by a simile--"we had _two of the first_, i. e. _bodies_, like the double coats in heraldry that belong to man and wife as _one person_, but which, like our _single heart_, have but _one crest_."

SCENE 2. Page 112.

PUCK. And yonder shines _Aurora's harbinger_, At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there, Troop home to church-yards.

Aurora's harbinger is Lucifer, the morning star.

"Now the bright morning star, _day's harbinger_, Comes dancing from the East----"[11]

It was the popular belief that ghosts retired at the approach of day. Thus the spirit of Hamlet's father exclaims,

"But soft, methinks I scent the morning air."

In further illustration see a subsequent note on _Hamlet_, Act I. Scene 1.

SCENE 2. Page 117.

HEL. And, sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow's eye.

Again, in Macbeth:

"Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care." #/

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Page 145.

PHILOST. ... I have heard _it_ over, And it is nothing, nothing in the world; Unless you can find sport in their _intents_, Extremely stretch'd, and conn'd with cruel pain, To do you service.

Dr. Johnson suspects a line to be lost, as he "knows not what it is to _stretch_ and _con_ an _intent_;" but it is surely not _intents_ that are _stretch'd and conn'd_ but the _play_, of which Philostrate is speaking. If the line

"Unless you can find sport, &c."

were printed in a parenthesis, all would be right. Mr. Steevens, not perceiving this, has endeavoured to wrest from the word _intents_, its plain and usual meaning, and would unnecessarily convert it to _attention_, which might undoubtedly be _stretch'd_, but could not well be _conn'd_.

SCENE 1. Page 148.

PHILOST. The prologue is _addrest_.

We have borrowed this sense of the word (_ready_) from the French _adressé_.

SCENE 1. Page 157.

MOON. This lantern doth the _horned_ moon present.

But why _horned_? He evidently refers to the _materials_ of which the _lantern_ was made.

SCENE 2. Page 168.

PUCK. By the triple _Hecat's team_.