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SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013164532 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 BY 
 
 F. A. LEO. 
 
 '^^£»6***o»a.-^ 
 
 LONDON: 
 TRUBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL. 
 
 1885. 
 
 [A// rights reserved. \ 
 
BAL1.ANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 KUINUURCH AND LONDON 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The flattering wish of several of my 
 literary friends, to see my emendatory 
 and critical studies of Shakespeare pub- 
 lished in one volume, while they hitherto 
 were only dispersed in different Annuals, 
 weekly Papers and Reviews, met with 
 mine own, and I yielded with pleasure 
 to it, enlarging the context by a quantity 
 of Readings, not yet published. 
 
 I beg to mention that the counting 
 of the lines, in the quotations of the 
 text, is that of the Globe edition ; while 
 the text of the leading quotations, at 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 the top of each note, is taken from the 
 first Folio, and, where that does not 
 contain the lines, either from one of the 
 later Folios or from the Quartos. 
 
 F. A. LEO. 
 
 Berlin, May 1885. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE TEMPEST .1 
 
 THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA 2 
 
 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR 4 
 
 MEASURE. FOR MEASURE 6 
 
 COMEDY OF ERRORS 8 
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT' NOTHING 9 
 
 love's labour's LOST 10 
 
 midsummer-night's DREAM II 
 
 TAMING OF A SHREW 14 
 
 all's WELL THAT ENDS WELL IS 
 
 I. KING HENRY VL I? 
 
 CORIOLANUS , 18 
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET 44 
 
 TIMON OF ATHENS 49 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 JULIUS CiESAR 
 
 • 57 
 
 MACBETH 
 
 . 60 
 
 HAMLET . . ... 
 
 . 78 
 
 LEAR 
 
 . 109 
 
 OTHELLO 
 
 . 114 
 
 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 
 
 . 118 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 TEMPEST. 
 (I. ii. loo.) 
 
 Who hailing into truth, by telling of it. 
 Made such afyriner of his memorie 
 To credite his owne lie, 
 
 I am sure we ought to read with Warburton 
 unto instead of into. {It is a great sin to swear 
 unto a sin — 2 Henry VI., V. i. ; so here, perhaps, 
 is meant to swear unto truth ; and in the New 
 Testament, i John v. 16, Ae shall give him life 
 for them that sin not unto death), and the con- 
 struction of the whole phrase would be the same 
 that Boswell gave : Who having made his memory 
 such a sinner unto truth as to credit his own 
 lie by telling of it. 
 
 (III. i. 14. I5-) 
 
 But thefefweet thoughts, doe euen refrefh my labours, 
 Mo/i biifie left, when I doe it. 
 
 My sweet and busy thoughts refresh my labour 
 
 A 
 
SHA KESPEA RE-NOTES. 
 
 (they refresh it by their busy doing — in a busy 
 way — busily !) 
 
 But thefefweet thoughts do even refrejh my labour 
 Moji hufily when I do it, 
 
 (For "busily" see Henry IV,, I,, and Titus 
 Andronicus.) 
 
 TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 
 
 (IV. iv. 202.) 
 
 Before giving the reading I proposed in the 
 Jahrbtuhoi i88o(vol. xv.), I have to repeat what 
 I stated there, namely, that Elze, in his " Notes 
 on Elizabethan Dramatists," and even earlier in 
 " Robinson's Epitome of Literature," vol. iii. p. 
 48, gave the same, and therefore has the claim 
 to priority, but that I did not know of his com- 
 bination ; and the fact that two came to the 
 same result may strengthen its power. 
 
 Come Jhadow , come, and take thisjhadow vp, 
 For 'tis thy riuall : thou Jencelejfe forme, 
 Thoujhalt he wwjhip'd, kifs'd, lou'd and ador'd; 
 And were there fence in this Idolatry, 
 My fuljiance Jliould lejlatue in thy Head. 
 
SHAKES^EARE-NOTES. 
 
 Instead of the word statue in the last line, 
 changes have been proposed, e.g., sainted^ statued, 
 stated, &c., and there is no reason decidedly to pro- 
 nounce any one of them as wrong, but neither is 
 there any to declare them as right. No one of 
 them bears the convincing stamp of Shakespeare. 
 This poet likes to squeeze the lemon of his 
 puns to the last drop, and as the lawyer— if a 
 crime has been committed — asks, " Ou est la 
 femme?" a Shakespearian scholar, if he has to 
 deal with an unintelligible line of the text, must 
 ask, " Where is the pith of the quibble ? where 
 is the antithesis ? " Here the pun lies in the word 
 shadow. 
 
 Julia calls herself and the picture shadow; her- 
 self, because the " sun " Silvia places her in the 
 shade ; the picture, because it is only the likeness 
 of life, the life's shadow — and she continues : 
 " If his passion were not blind, but clear-sighted, 
 my shadow (that is, my likeness) should be 
 where thine is now, and my personality (my 
 substance) would have been changed into a por- 
 trait (into a shadow) to be worshipped by him." 
 
 My fulftance Jhould bejhadow inthy ftead. 
 
SHAKESPEARB-NOTES. 
 
 In the same scene, 122-125, we read — 
 
 Vrfula, Iring my Picture there, 
 Goe, giue your Mqfter this : tell him from me, 
 One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget 
 Would better fit his Chamber, then this Shadow. 
 
 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 
 
 (Il.i. 52-) 
 
 Mi. Ford. If I would but goe to hell, for an eternall 
 
 moment, or fo : I could be knighted. 
 Mi. Page. What thou lieji ? Sir Mice Ford ? thefe 
 
 Knights will hacke, and fo thou Jhould/i not alter 
 
 the article of thy Gentry. 
 Mi, Ford. Wee burne day -light : heere, read, read: 
 
 perceiue how I might bee knighted. 
 
 Warburton gave us Ihe reading lac& instead of 
 hacke, Johnson proposed well hack, ^\ze smack; 
 but I believe the true, reading to be haUh, be- 
 cause this word leads us to the greatest variety 
 of puns in these lines ; and I am of opinion (as 
 already has been mentioned in another note), 
 that a right answer to the question : " Where 
 is the quibble ? " very often leads us to the com- 
 prehension of a hitherto misunderstood phrase. 
 And another question, too, must be raised : 
 " Which is the most natural thought and ex- 
 pression for this one individual, and, pronounced 
 
SHA KESPEA RE-NO TES. 
 
 by it, In this one situation ? " These two jolly 
 Windsor wives, always gay and laughing, and 
 besides this, actually in an eccentric,, mirth -^ 
 provoking situation, cannot speak prosaically of 
 hacking or smacking knights ; their mirth must 
 explode in an amusing equivocal, and charac- 
 teristic expression ; and, therefore, we have all 
 the more to look out for a quibble. 
 
 The puns lie here in the words knights and 
 nights. 
 
 Thefe knights will hatch (fuch a knight, as thou wouldft 
 be, remains a woman [muft lay eggs and hatch them], 
 and therefore cannot change the article of the gentry, 
 fince this article can only be changed by the man). 
 
 Thefe nights will hatch (take care for the night ; it is the 
 time for impregnation). 
 
 And Mrs. Ford answers — 
 
 JVe burn daylight. (No danger ! We are secured ; it 
 is broad daylight.) 
 
 And how comes Mrs. Ford to use the pun 
 knight, night, and light ? — Look at the verse of 
 Falstaffs letter — 
 
 By me, thine owne true Knight, by day or night : 
 Or any kinde of light, with all his might. 
 For thee to fight. 
 
SHA KESPEA RE-NO TES. 
 
 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 
 
 (I. i. 5 ff.) 
 
 Since I am put to know, that your ouine Science 
 Exceedes {in that) the lifts of all aduice 
 My _ftrength can giue you : Then no moi's remaines 
 But that, to yourfufficiency, as your worth is able, 
 And let them worke. 
 
 All editors agree that mischief has been dofte 
 in copying or composing these lines, and they: 
 have tried to cure what there is wrong. Let me 
 join them in endeavouring to give a reading that 
 brings sense, without changing too much : — 
 
 Since I am put to know, that your ownfcience 
 Exceeds the lifts of all, advice can give you ; 
 And thus no more remains, but add my Jlrength 
 To your fufficiency — your worth is able ! — 
 And let them work. 
 
 (I. iii. 42, 43.) 
 
 And yet, my nature never in the fight 
 To do inflander. 
 
 All readings, from Pope down to Dyce, Hal- 
 liwell, and Staunton, have changed, but not 
 emended ; the clearer and better understanding of 
 
SHA KESPEA RE-NO TES. 
 
 the poet's thoughts was not increased. I suppose 
 we ought to read — 
 
 Who may, in the amhii/k of my name,Jirike home 
 And put my nature never in thejight 
 To do mejlander. 
 
 Do me no slander, Douglas (i Henry IV., IV. 
 iii. 8). The contrast between name and nature 
 (personality, individuality) is the starting-point of 
 the whole phrase. 
 
 (III. ii. 275 ff.) 
 
 I regard these lines as a sort of epilogue, but 
 not written by Shakespeare; it was probably a 
 concession to the custom of the time, and added 
 by an actor or by the manager. Shakespeare 
 could not have written lines as — 
 
 Grace tojland, and Vertue go ; 
 
 and the words exacting and contracting, as nouns, 
 do not occur in any other play of Shakespeare. 
 I believe 
 
 Grace tojland, and Vertue go, 
 
 to be a misprint for 
 
 Place tojland on, way to go. 
 
 If this is a poor sense for Shakespeare, perhaps 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 it is just therefore on the level of him who 
 wrote these lines. 
 
 How may likenefs made in crimes. 
 
 Here I would accept the change proposed by 
 Malone — 
 
 . . . . wade in crimes ; 
 
 and understand likenesse as likeness of the angel. 
 How may a man, who has the outward likeness 
 of an angel, notwithstanding wade in crimes ? 
 
 COMEDY OF ERRORS. 
 
 II, i. 109-113. 
 
 IJee the Jewell beji enamaled 
 Will loofe his leautie : yet the gold hides ftill 
 That others touch, and often touching will. 
 Where gold and no man that hath a name, 
 By faljhood and corruption doth itfiame. 
 
 After having accepted the Warburton-emenda- 
 tion in the fourth line, wear instead of where, one 
 little change more is necessary — the change of 
 and, in the third line, into an ; and we read, with 
 the help of some transposed commas — 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 I fee, the jewel leji enq.inelled 
 Will lofe his beauty ; yet the gold hides Jijill 
 That others touch, an often touching will 
 Wear gold^— and no man that has a name 
 By falfehood and corruption does itfhame. 
 
 " I thought the character of my husband to be 
 of real unchangeable gold ; I see he is only 
 enamelled, and loses his beauty. If he were what 
 I thought him to be, he would not shame his 
 name by falsehood and corruption." — (An = if, 
 even if.) 
 
 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, 
 
 (V. i. 15 ff.) 
 
 Iffuch a one willfmile andflroke his beard, 
 Bidforrow, wagge, crie hem, when hefhould grone. 
 
 Under the many emendations of these lines 
 there is one which, though I cannot accept it, ex- 
 presses in a clear form the bitter humour that 
 lies at the bottom of Leonatus' speech. It is 
 that of Collier, under the mask of his corrector — 
 
 Call forrow joy ; 
 
 who could have expressed the same thought by 
 using a less violent change — 
 
 Call forrow wag. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 The same content is given in Schmidt's Dic- 
 tionary : " And if sorrow, a merry droll. ..." 
 
 But I believe another reading the right one, 
 and propose the following form — 
 
 Iffuch a one will/mile andjlroke his heard, 
 
 At Jorrow's rage crie "hem," when hejhould groan. 
 
 See Richard III., I. iii. 278 — 
 
 And in that Oiamejlill live my Jorroui's rage ! 
 
 LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST. 
 (IV. iii. 180.) 
 
 With men like men of inconftancy . 
 
 Like men perhaps is a misprint for like me, and 
 this is to be said " aside " — 
 
 With men 
 
 (Aside) like me — 
 
 men of inconftancy. 
 
 He knows that he is as much perjurious as 
 they are. 
 
 (V. ii. 295-297-) 
 
 Faire Ladies maskt, are Rofes in their bud ; 
 Difmaskt, their damaskefweet commixture Jhowne, 
 Are Angels vailing clouds, or Rofes hlowne. 
 
SHA KESPEA RE-NOTES. 
 
 The Quarto of 1598 reads varling clouds , the 
 Folio and the Quarto of 163 1 vailing clouds. 
 
 The sense is : Masked ladies are like angels 
 that are vailed — covered— by clouds. But being 
 dismasked, they vail the clouds. 
 
 MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. 
 
 (III. ii. 150.) 
 
 But you muft ioyne in Joules to mocke me to ? 
 
 Words and sense being sufficiently clear, a 
 change would not be necessary, and notwithstand- 
 ing, many editors have tried to alter the readings 
 perhaps because the form is rather forced. Han- 
 mer gives the reading in flouts, Warburton in- 
 solents, Tyrwhitt ill souls. I should like to ask 
 whether the following is absolutely objectionable ? 
 Nothing but the fact, that the word " insult," as 
 a noun, and in the sense here required, is not 
 to be found in Shakespeare, detains me from 
 decidedly proposing this emendation — 
 
 But you mii/ljoin infults, to mock me to ? 
 
12 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 (V. i. 59.) 
 
 That is, hot ice, and wondrous Jirange /now. 
 
 I have always found the " wondrous strange " 
 snow as wondrous as strange. Theseus wants 
 two antitheses ; the first is " hot ice," the second 
 couM be " black snow ; " but why must black 
 snow be wondrous ? Snow is easily made black 
 by particles of smoke driving in the air, while 
 " hot ice " really is an impossibility. Therefore 
 the epitheton " wondrous " must appear rather 
 suspicious; in its stead we look out for a word 
 that gives a more decisive expression of the 
 cliaracter of this here-mentioned snow. Now 
 there is- such another word that really gives an 
 antithesis, and that is found by only changing 
 one single letter — ponderous ! 
 
 Ponderous snow is really something strange, 
 and if Theseus says 
 
 Hot ice, and ponderous, Jirange /now, 
 
 he gives indeed two contrasts, that express per^ 
 fectly what he intends to say. 
 
 In the old reading " wondrous " is not an 
 adjective to " snow," but an adverbial attribute 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 13 
 
 to " strange," and this accumulation of tautological 
 expressions, 
 
 Wondrous Jirange, 
 
 says nothing ! " Wondrous strange " does not 
 characterise the snow more than it would the 
 stars, the moon, a house, a dog, or anything else, 
 and Shakespeare does not allow his people to say 
 such barren and poor things. 
 
 The word " wondrous " as attribute to another 
 adjective occurs eighteen times in Shakespeare ; 
 we have : wondrous heavy (twice), — fat, — sensi- 
 ble, — cold, — kind, — hot, — well (fol.), — affable, — 
 rare, — well-beloved, — malicious, — single, — light, — 
 pitiful, — fair. In all these cases "wondrous" is 
 applied as expressing a comparative gradation 
 of the following word ; in the two other cases 
 where Vv^e find it connected with " strange " — 
 
 (3 Henry VI,, II. i. 33)— 
 
 This is wondrous Jirange, 
 (Hamlet, I. v. 164) — 
 
 '7'w wondrous Jirange, 
 
 it does not stand in reference to a noun, and 
 it speaks of something supernatural, serving as 
 an exclamation upon an extraordinary apparition. 
 
14 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 The external form is the same ; but it does not 
 follow that this must always internally §ive the 
 same sense. In the two cases before quoted, 
 " wondrous " and " strange " are adverbially 
 applied, and this stands in opposition ^o the read' 
 ing in M. N. D., where "strange" pretends to 
 be an adjective, and cannot mean more than the 
 foregoing adverb, viz. — 
 
 Strangely Jirunge /now 
 or 
 
 Wonderfully wonderful f now. 
 
 And now, last not least : Shakespeare uses the 
 
 word " ponderous " in the sense here required in 
 
 Hamlet — 
 
 Why the fepulchre hath oped his ponderous 
 And marble jaws. 
 
 I dare not quote " most ponderous and sub- 
 stantial things" in Measure for Measure, because I 
 do not believe these words to be Shakespearian. 
 
 TAMING OF A SHREW. 
 (III. i. 2-4.) 
 
 Luc. Have you fofoone forgot the entertainment 
 Herfjier Katherine welcom'd you withall. 
 
 HoRT. But, wrangling pedant, this is 
 The patronejfe oflieavenly harmony. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 15 
 
 The metre of the third line is complete if we 
 read — 
 
 Katherine ! But, wrangling pedant, this is. , . . 
 
 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. 
 (V. iii. 65, 66.) 
 
 Our owne loue waking, cries to fee what's done. 
 While Jhamefull hate Jleepes out the afternoone. 
 
 A sense may be found in the quoted lines, 
 although not a very poetical one. Johnson and 
 Malone (see their Notes) are wrong, and so is 
 Mr. Singer, in their personification of "hate." 
 They consider "sleeping hate," and "dreadful, 
 revengeful, ruthless hate" as being synonymous, 
 and so their opinion must be, that, if " hate " had 
 not slept, the mischief would not have been done; 
 but that is an error in calculo ; " hate," of course, 
 can only be active when awake ; sleeping he is — 
 like Anteus — lifted up from his mother Earth — 
 without force, and so is "love." "Hate" and 
 "love," directed towards the same object, cannot 
 be awake at the same time. What I have found 
 in the two lines is this : — 
 
 " Love fell asleep, and by this fact, and in the 
 
1 6 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 same moment, Hate was awaking, and did mis- 
 chief, profiting by Love's sleep. Too late, 
 Hate being tired. Love awakes, and cries to see 
 what's done, while at the same time shameful hate, 
 like a gourmand, surfeited by a luxurious repast, 
 sleeps out the afternoon." 
 
 If this is not poesy, at least it is sense. 
 
 (V. iii. 216, 217.) 
 
 Her infuife comming with her moderne grace, 
 Subdii'd me to her rate. 
 
 " Modern grace " I have never agreed to, 
 and therefore should like to accept the proposed 
 reading, "modest grace," because what Shake- 
 speare generally understands by " modern," is not 
 in keeping with what Bertram wishes to say ; he 
 does not mean that grace, which every venal 
 coquette is accustomed to display, but just the 
 other one, that Seems natural and innocent, aiid 
 therefore seduces ! But zfwe are forced to retain 
 " modern," we may perhaps find something instead 
 of the incomprehensible insuit, an antithesis to 
 modern, and by this change understand why 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 17 
 
 Shakespeare had a good reason to apply this 
 Word — 
 
 Her ancient cuim'mg with her modern grace. 
 
 " Ancient," in the sense of " inveterate," " versed," 
 " business-routine-like." 
 
 I HENRY VI. 
 (IV. vii. 3.) 
 
 Triumphant death, fmear'd with captivity. 
 
 Walker asks, " Can any good sense be made 
 out of this line ? " Johnson explains it, " Death 
 having stained and dishonoured with captivity." 
 
 I believe Death here to be represented in the 
 appearance of a warrior. In the same way as the 
 Indian war-tribes are accustomed even to-day to 
 appear in the battle (smearing their body with the 
 slain enemies' blood, in order to make a more 
 horrid impression on their foes), and as our 
 Teutonic ancestors appeared, Death is supposed 
 to go triumphantly over the battle-field, "smeared" 
 with the terrible aspect of captivity ; terrible even 
 for those who are happy enough to escape the 
 sword of Death. 
 
i8 SHAKESPEARE--NOTES. 
 
 CORIOLANUS. 
 (I. i. 20.) 
 
 The leanneJJ'e that afflicts vs, the oliect of our mifery. 
 
 If we mentally supply which is before the object, 
 no misunderstanding is possible. 
 
 (I. i. 40.) 
 
 Partly proud. 
 
 Should we not rather X&2A portly proud? See 
 Spenser's Amoretti, or Sonnet 5 — 
 
 " Rudely thou wrongeft my deare hearts defire. 
 In finding fault with her too portly pride." 
 
 Delius proposes to read : " partly to please . . . 
 and partly to be proud." 
 
 (I. i. 95-) 
 
 To lale 't. 
 
 The Folio gives it to fcale V. Various commen- 
 tators adhere to the old reading, understanding it 
 in the sense of " to disperse," Knight even in the 
 sense of " to weigh." To use the word here in 
 the sense of " to weigh " would seem exceedingly 
 forced, and no one of the unlearned hearers of 
 Menenius would understand it. As for "disperse," 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 19 
 
 the old patrician may mean to do it a little more, 
 since he supposes the tale to have been heard 
 already by his audience, but it is more natural to 
 understand to stale the already heard story, to 
 make it as flat as every twice-told story is. See 
 Dyce's Remarks, &c., p. 158, and Walker's Criti- 
 cisms, vol. ii. p. 274. 
 
 (I. i. 218.) 
 
 Shooting their Emulation. 
 
 The sense of the last word is not very clear in 
 this place (if it does not mean : " They shout 
 at the success of their emulation ") ; perhaps we 
 ought to read, instead of their emulation, the inno- 
 vation. Then it means : " They shout at the inno- 
 vation, with which they have succeeded." 
 
 (I. i. 262.) 
 
 The prefent Warres deuoure him, he is growne 
 Too proud to he fo valiant. 
 
 May he perish in the present wars ! The con- 
 sciousness of his being so valiant has made him 
 too proud. 
 
 (I. i. 276.) 
 
 Demerits. 
 
 Ought we not perhaps to read dzce merits ? 
 
SHA KESPEA RE-NOTES. 
 
 (I. i. 282.) 
 
 . . . and in whatfqfhion 
 
 More then his Jingularity . 
 
 The modern editors put a comma after "fashion," 
 which is not to be found in the first Folio, and are at 
 a loss to understand " his singularity." I propose 
 to change kis to this, and to omit the newly added 
 comma ; then there is a very clear sense : the Tri- 
 bunes had been just speaking about the singular 
 fashion of arrangement between Cominius and 
 Marcius ; they now go to the Capitol, to see " in 
 what fashion more" — in what further fashion, 
 beside the just-mentioned singularity — " he goes 
 upon this present action." 
 
 (I. iii. 46.) 
 
 . . . when it fpit forth Hood 
 At Grecian fwoi'd. Contenning . . . 
 
 All editors read: At Grecian sword's contend- 
 ing. Collier's Corn, and Collier himself in his Sh. 
 ed,, proposed swords contemning, declaring it as 
 " Hector's forehead contemning at the Grecian 
 sword," and Dyce is right in asking whether 
 " contemning at " is legitimate phraseology. But 
 Volumnia does not speak about " contemning at." 
 She says, spit at; and the construction of the 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 phrase must be, "when contemning (full of con- 
 tempt) it spit forth blood at Grecian sword." 
 Therefore, my reading is — 
 
 . . . ivken it /pit forth blood 
 ^t Grecian /word contemning. 
 
 (I. iii. 55-) 
 
 What are you f owing heere ? AJinefpotte in good 
 foith. 
 
 Spot 3x16. Sport vi^re. the different readings of the 
 editors, but, in my opinion, neither of them is the 
 right one. It seems to me highly probable that 
 the first Folio has a misprint in the word spotte, for 
 I am disposed to regard this letter as an erroneous 
 repetition of the compositor, who looked at the/" 
 in the wfordfine (/and/ being easily confounded) ; 
 the words to be composed were not, as I conjec- 
 jecture, 
 
 ajinefpotte in good foith; 
 
 but 
 
 a fine pattern, good foith. 
 
 (I. iv. 3.) 
 
 You Shames of Rome: you Heard of Byles and 
 Plagues. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 The reading of Malone is — 
 
 Youjhames of Rome you! . . 
 
 But I prefer to receive as a better reading either 
 
 Tou Jhames of Rome ! You herd of — / lyles and 
 plagues. . . . 
 or 
 
 You Jhames of Rome! You / Herds of lyles and 
 
 plagues. . . . 
 
 In both readings, Coriolanus would in the climax 
 of his fury interrupt himself in his vociferation, to 
 use a still stronger expression than the intended 
 one was. It is like a ton-ent of thoughts and 
 words too powerful to pass the flood-gates of his 
 lips without hindrance. One wave overflows and 
 stops the other. 
 
 (I. vi. y6.) 
 
 Oh me alone. 
 
 This is intelligible, though not very clear ; pro- 
 bably the meaning is : " You lift me up, and even 
 me alone, just as you do with your swords." But 
 I should prefer to change alone into alofi. 
 
 (I. vi. 8i.) 
 
 [Though thankes to all) mti/i Ifele6i. 
 
 Hanmer has omitted the words /rom all after 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 23 
 
 select, which are found in the first Folio, and I 
 agree with him. 
 
 (I. vi. 84.) 
 
 Andfourejhall quickly draw out my Command. 
 
 Numerous notes and different emendations by 
 the editors of each century show, that the reading 
 of the first Folio did not satisfy the claims on intel- 
 ligibility, and generally it was the word four that 
 puzzled the critics. And, indeed, when Steevens 
 says, " he will submit the election to four indif- 
 ferent persons," it is a poor and rather indifferent 
 sense, and not at all Shakespeare-like. But there 
 is one word more, which must be regarded other- 
 wise than it has been hitherto, if we want to 
 understand it — the word command. It is im- 
 possible for Coriolanus to " command, which 
 men are best inclin'd," for inclination does not 
 depend upon command ; it acts without external 
 influence. But if we understand comtnand as 
 subject, and change and four into before, the 
 sense of the phrase seems very clear : " Before 
 you march, my command shall quickly draw out 
 those men, which are best inclined." 
 
24 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 (I. ix. 72.) 
 
 To vndercrejl your good Addition. 
 
 If undercrest is the word of the poet, this must 
 be the sense : In his modesty, Marcius is not of 
 opinion to have already merited the good addition, 
 the name of honour, Coriolanus ; he promises to 
 merit it by other deeds ; for him it is nothing 
 more but a hollow name, until he has " under- 
 crested " it, adorned it by new heroical actions, 
 and " to the fairness of his power." 
 
 (II. i. 54.) 
 
 Said, to hefomething imperfeSi in J'auourlng thejirji com- 
 plaint. 
 
 The following remark may be allowed to find a 
 place here, though I do not pretend to attach any 
 very great importance to it; it is, perhaps, too 
 " hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion." 
 
 If "first complaint " does not stand in connec- 
 tion with the mysterious charms of the worship 
 of Venus, I would suggest the following explana- 
 tion : — 
 
 Menenius gives his own portrait as that of an 
 Epicurean. He confesses to liking drinking and 
 revelling, so that I wonder he does not say any- 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 25 
 
 thing about eating. But perhaps he does ; he 
 does not at all favour " the first complaint," for 
 else he would favour the complaint of the ple- 
 beians, and since he already in the first words has 
 confessed to like drinking, the " thirst " has no 
 reason to complain. That Menenius is known 
 to be a gourmand, appears from the remark of 
 Brutus : " You are well understood to be a per- 
 fecter giber for the table," and if we therefore 
 take the f in favouring as a misprint for a 
 long^ and remember that Menenius says in the 
 same play — 
 
 "... but when we have ftufF'd 
 Thefe pipes and thefe conveyances of our blood 
 With wine and feeding, we have fuppler fouls 
 Than in our prieft-like fafts" — 
 
 we are induced to search in the first complaint 
 for a misprint for something belonging to the 
 culinary art; and the words "priest-like fasts" 
 remind us of the time when fasting was ordered 
 — the lenten time. ("Time of Lent" instead of 
 " Lenten time," see f. i. "Notes and Queries," 3d 
 S,, i. p. 88: "... this p'sent tyme of Lent.") 
 Is it not possible that first complaint is a mis- 
 print (or /east of Lent, and that, instead of 
 
 in favouring thefirjl complaint, 
 
26 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 we ought to read — 
 
 in favouring thefeqft of Lent. 
 
 (I will not too strongly advocate a change in the 
 word feast, and reading yf^^ for it. See Pericles, 
 Act II., Scene i. : "We'll have flesh for holidays, 
 fish for fasting days.") At all events the sense 
 given by the emendation is quite in keeping with 
 the whole portrait : Menenius likes neither wine 
 allayed with Tyber, nor lenten food, nor retiring 
 to bed early — in short, he confesses to being a 
 jolly fellow. 
 
 I have endured some not very agreeable re- 
 marks concerning this note, and I regret all the 
 more to be driven to say that the fisk or feast 
 of Lent does not displease me even to-day. If 
 one of these readings had been found in the Folio, 
 no note or emendation would have been tried, 
 because none would have been required ; while 
 the first complaint, with its whole train of elucida- 
 tions, has not yet been able to unite and found a 
 congregation of believers. 
 
 Menenius speaks English too perfectly to say 
 
 favouring thefrjl complaint, 
 
 if he means to express, " Whoever comes to me 
 with a grievance or a lawsuit, is sure to have^:he 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 27 
 
 question yielded to him, provided he is the first 
 who comes." He surely then would say — 
 
 Favouring tliejii;/i complainer. 
 
 And concerning the above-mentioned " worship 
 of Venus," Menenius is too old, and there is too 
 little of a corresponding touch of sensuality in his 
 whole character, to allow any one to believe him 
 capable of the twofold frivolity to feel and to 
 express such things. 
 
 I cannot help it — the sympathy for the feast of 
 Lent does not leave me. 
 
 (II. i. 21S.) 
 
 ... J have liued, 
 To fee inherited my very Wijkes: 
 
 I have obtained the realisation of my wishes. 
 (The wish to inherit, and the realised inheritance, 
 stand here in juxtaposition.) 
 
 (II. i. 271.) 
 
 teach the People. 
 
 Knight, Dyce, Collier's Corn, Grant White, and 
 Walker accept the reading touch. If the Tri- 
 bunes must " suggest to the people," they cannot 
 
28 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 hope that " teaching " would do for the purpose ; 
 only "touching" will teach the people, whose 
 mental power is not very great. 
 
 (II. ii. 133.) 
 
 . . . ^nd is content 
 Tofpend the time, to end it. 
 
 To end — what ? The time — of his life. He 
 is content to have no other occupation but to 
 sacrifice himself for his country. 
 
 (II. iii. 122.) 
 
 Wooluijh. 
 
 M. Mason and Grant White have the merit of 
 having introduced the reading foolish, instead of 
 the misprint of the first Folio Wooluisk. Corio- 
 lanus calls foolish " the napless gown of humility." 
 It is nearly incredible that judicious scholars 
 should be capable of adhering to the misprint of 
 the first Folio ! Wolvish tongue ! Is it possible to 
 receive this form seriously as a Shakespearian one? 
 Would any Englishman understand the words — 
 Why in this wolvish tongue should I stand here ? 
 — as expressing anything that could " suit the 
 action ? " We may say, with the citizens in the 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 29 
 
 opening scene of Coriolanus : JVo more talking 
 ont ! Let all discussions concerning this line 
 come to an end ; and if discussion must be 
 eternalised, discuss about foolish and woolless, 
 about gown and tongue, but not about the in- 
 curable nonsense wolvish tongue! 
 
 (II. iii. 251.) 
 
 And Cenforinus, nam'dfo by the people. 
 
 This line is wanting in the first Folio, and Pope 
 supplied it. He wrote : " And Censorinus, darling 
 of the people ; " Dyce calls the line "far from a 
 happy one," but says, " it seems to have now 
 acquired a sort of prescriptive right to a place in 
 the text." I do not think so ; I prefer the reading 
 which I propose. In North's Plutarch we read : 
 " Cenforinus alfo came of that familie, that was 
 fo furnamed, because the people had chofen him 
 Cenfor twife." The lines 
 
 And Cenfor irnis, nam'dfo by the people, 
 And nobly named fo, twice being cenfor, 
 
 are much nearer to the text and sense in Plutarch, 
 than "the darling of the people." Delius pro- 
 posed : "And Censorinus, that was so surnam'd ;" 
 in the form he comes yet nearer to Plutarch ; but 
 
30 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 I think the same verb must stand hi the first line 
 as in the next. 
 
 (III. i. 49.) 
 
 each way to better yours. 
 
 Your business is, to subdue the people, and I 
 will " better it," I will hinder you from doing so. 
 
 (III. i. 93.) 
 
 Giuen Hidra heere. . . . 
 
 Most of the editors read here. Collier's Corr. 
 has leave, and Dyce says : " Rightly perhaps, for 
 in this passage there is a harshness in understand- 
 ing Given as equivalent to permitted!' In Part 
 II, of King Henry VI., Act IV., Scene iv., we 
 find— 
 
 " Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother's death 
 ■ Hath given them heart and courage to proceed." 
 
 I propose therefore the reading : Given Hydra 
 heart. 
 
 It has given me great satisfaction to see that 
 Alexander Dyce, in his second edition, has 
 received this reading in the text. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 31 
 
 (III. i. 98.) 
 
 awake your dangerous Lenity. 
 
 In All's Well that Ends Well, Act V., Scene 
 iii., the words — 
 
 "Oft our difpleafures, to ourfelves unjuft, 
 Deftroy our friends, and after weep their duft," 
 
 are to be understood as follows : " In our dis- 
 pleasures we often destroy our friends, and after 
 we weep their dust." In the same manner the 
 words awake your dan£-erous /emiy are to be un- 
 derstood, " Vou must awake from your dangerous 
 lenity," or rather, Lenity is taken, as it were, as 
 a nightmare reposing in his sleep on, and so 
 depressing, the energy. The nightmare is to be 
 awakened and driven away. 
 
 (Ill.i. 154.) 
 
 To iumpe a Body. 
 
 I retain the word jump, because I like it better 
 than Pope's emendation vam/> (adopted by Dyce), 
 and Singer's imp. Neither "vamp" nor "imp" 
 express what Coriolanus means ; he will " treat " 
 the body with a dangerous physic, and hopes to 
 
32 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 "cure," not to " vamp" it, and since the treatment 
 is dangerous, he jumps, i.e., he risks the body. 
 
 (III. i. 203.) 
 
 And Jo are like to do. 
 
 Menenius speaks that to himself. Since there 
 is the question, who will prevail, Coriolanus or the 
 Tribunes, Menenius fears the latter : " I fear you 
 will remain in your place, and Coriolanus will lose 
 his new-won consulship." 
 
 (III. ii. 29.) 
 
 / hxiue a heart as little apt as yours, 
 But yet a hraiiie. . . . 
 
 Singer proposes "soft " for " apt," and Collier's 
 Corn substitutes a new line. If a change was 
 necessary I would prefer another reading, and 
 propose : " I have a heart as lightly rapt as yours." 
 Many instances of this use of the word lightly are to 
 be found in Johnson, Richardson " (R. of Brunne, 
 Chaucer, Gower, Holland: Plinie)," and Coleridge's 
 Glossarial Index " (R. of Gloucester), "and even in 
 this play we find it (IV. i. 29). As to rapt, see 
 Johnson, Richardson " (rapt: borne, carried away, 
 transported ; and hence [met] rapt, rapture, trans- 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 33 
 
 port, trance, ecstacy, violent motion or emotion 
 of the mind, senses, passions)," and Coriolanus 
 (IV. V. 122), where the heart is rapi( in joy ; but it 
 might as easily be rapi in anger. But no emenda- 
 tion is wanted, since in the text of the Folio a clear 
 sense is to be found : " Her brain is apt to better 
 vantage" (see Macbeth, I. ii. 31 : "surveying van- 
 tage "), but not her heart. I cannot say that a 
 construction of the phrase which makes " apt " 
 dependent on " better " is a natural one ; but since 
 it is a possible one in the language of Shakespeare, 
 a change is perhaps not permitted, else I should 
 like to stick to my reading, lightly rapt. The 
 newest reading is that of Mr. Kinnear in his 
 Cruces Shakespearian^ — 
 
 As little Jioops as yours. 
 
 This seems to me an exceedingly easy way of 
 emending, and if it were followed generally, no 
 more Cruces Shakespeariance would exist. The 
 best prescription for curing the crux-disease would 
 be : If any word in Shakespeare's works does not 
 suit you, please efface it, and put in its stead any 
 other you like. 
 
34 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 (III. ii. 80.) 
 
 That will not hold the handling : or fay to them . . . 
 
 Before say I have omitted the or of the Folio, and 
 believe I have thus restored this much discussed 
 passage to clear sense : " Go to them, with this 
 bonnet in thy hand, and — having stretch'd it, thy 
 knee bussing the stones, waving thy head — say to 
 them ..." 
 
 (IV. i. 9.) 
 
 A Nolle cunning. 
 
 Perhaps calling. 
 
 (IV. i. 30.) 
 
 Like to a lonely Dragon. 
 
 He does not compare himself with a lonely 
 dragon (for just now there is no reason to suppose 
 that he will be feared ; and why should his den ?), 
 but the banishment ; he says : " Though I go 
 alone, as if I were going to ... " It is to be 
 remembered that banishment was the hardest 
 destiny for a Roman. A banished Roman was 
 lost for ever ; but Coriolanus assures his mother 
 that he will — even banished — perform deeds that 
 will "exceed the common:" "There is a world 
 elsewhere." 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 35 
 
 (IV. ii. 16.) 
 
 y^re you mankinde ? 
 
 There is a malicious and low sense in these 
 words. Volumnia says to Brutus : " Will you be 
 gone ? " Virgilia to Sicinius : " You shall stay too," 
 and continues : " I would I had the power to say 
 so to my husband." The tribune understands 
 quite well the stinging pain of these words, but he 
 prefers to comment on them in a spiteful sense, as 
 expressing the lady's kindness, to men, since she 
 wants to retain him and Brutus, and to have her 
 husband too. And therefore he asks : " Are you 
 mankind ? " Volumnia has too much of feminine 
 purity to understand the coarse quibble, and 
 answers in the clear sense of the word, calling 
 him and his father a fox. 
 
 (IV. V. 222.) 
 
 Directitude. 
 
 Singer says : " There can be no doubt that the 
 servant is intended to blunder in the use of directi- 
 tude," The servant will say that Coriolanus is now 
 in a dejected position, " but when his crest is up 
 again . . ." The servant himself does not under- 
 stand the word he uses, for else he would show 
 his erudition by answering the question, " Directi- 
 
36 ' SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 tude, what's that ? " At all events, he means " de- 
 jectitude " (the emendation of Collier's Corn), and 
 therefore the wrong word must noi be changed. 
 
 {IV. vi. 95.) 
 
 Than Boyes purfuing Summer Butter-flies, 
 Or Butchers killing Flyes. 
 
 In the ¥o\io, flies in the first instance is written as 
 here, but in the second line Flyes. I should pre- 
 fer another word after "killing," since the com- 
 parison is as forced as the repetition ; so that I 
 suppose the latter to be an error of the com- 
 positor's. 
 
 After further consideration, I find that "con- 
 fidence" here means "carelessness," or rather "indo- 
 lence." They have such confidence in Coriolanus 
 that they even do not ask whither he leads them. 
 They are as indolent, as thoughtless, in following 
 him, as butchers are who, standing in their shops 
 on a hot summer-day, use the fly-flap without 
 reflecting on what they are doing. The poet, in 
 carrying out this trope, comes — and this is rather 
 Shakespearian — to another parallel: the butcher 
 is Coriolanus, or rather war's fate, provoked by 
 him, and the confiding Antiates are the flies. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 37 
 
 (IV. vi. i6o.) 
 
 . . . Would, halfe my wealth 
 Would luy this for a lye. 
 
 The repetition of would is somewhat heavy ; 
 could, in the second line, would perhaps be a 
 better reading. 
 
 (IV. vii. 24.) 
 
 Yet he hath left vndone. 
 
 Aufidius hints at the conquest and demolition of 
 Rome and the massacre of the inhabitants, and 
 his words signify : " He has not yet done it, and 
 I doubt whether he will do it." Afterwards he 
 says : " When, Caius, Rome is thine, thou art 
 poor'st of all ; then shortly art thou mine." 
 
 (IV. vii. 52.) 
 
 Hath not a Tombefo euident as a Chair e. 
 
 For "chair" Singer reads " hair ; " Collier's Corn 
 and Grant White " cheer," The best remark yet 
 made is made by Dyce : he calls the line "a dark 
 passage." Let us try to make it clear. In order 
 to penetrate the poet's meaning and intention, 
 we must not examine a phrase taken out of its 
 
38 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 connection with the scene, but we must feel with 
 the acting persons, and from out of this feeling we 
 must know how they think and how they speak. 
 And, therefore, let us now become Aufidius for a 
 moment, and see whether it might be possible 
 for us to think on the " chair," the sella curuh's 
 in Rome, and reflect on things which do not 
 stand in any relation to the passionate feelings of 
 envy and revenge which dominate us. Aufidiud 
 feels thoroughly that he has lost his position as 
 the first general of the Volsces, and that his glory 
 is darkened by Coriolanus ; he hates him, and 
 has the clear intention to ruin him ; so clear, that 
 he knows already the ways and means of doing it. 
 Though Coriolanus is hated by him and by some 
 other Volscian generals, he is not hated by the 
 people, and to make him so must be the first 
 step. Aufidius knows that, though small merits 
 are willingly acknowledged, people do not like to 
 be reminded of great and important merits which 
 lay them under the obligation of gratitude, and 
 that he who is idolised is nearest to be hated as 
 soon as he himself mentions his deeds — 
 
 He has a merit [great enough] to choke it in the 
 utterance ; 
 
 and therefore he provokes Coriolanus in act 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 39 
 
 V. scene vi., and hopes that in his fury he 
 will boast of what he has done for the Volscian 
 people, and that the " fire " of his merits shall be 
 driven out by the " fire " of the people's pride. 
 But that does not lie in the nature of Coriolanus, 
 and by just going the contrary way, and hurting 
 the self-love and vanity of the Volsces in remind- 
 ing them of the origin of his name of Coriolanus, 
 he facilitates for Aufidius the attainment of his 
 purpose. But that is a fact, though it is of a 
 stirring dramatic effect (Coriolanus perishing in 
 Antium by the same contempt of the people as 
 in Rome), which has nothing to do with the 
 former combinations of Aufidius. He intends to 
 provoke Coriolanus to become his own pane- 
 gyrist, and so he says : 
 
 Power, unto itself most commendable. 
 Has not a tomb so evident as a claim 
 To extol what it hath done^ 
 
 i.e., " if he who has merits claims the extolment 
 of his deeds, his power is lost." And, therefore, 
 I propose not to read chair, but claim. 
 
 What has been written above is all very well, 
 and when I wrote it I was fully convinced of 
 
40 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 having hit the bull's eye; but upon mature con- 
 sideration I fear that cAair is better than claim, 
 because it gives the same sense in a more 
 poetical form. The juxtaposition of tomb and 
 chair — the chair {sella curulis) having materially 
 a greater right and chance of becoming pos- 
 sibly a tomb than a claim ever could — -is just 
 what a poet writes, while a scrutinising critic 
 afterwards alters chair to the very correct but 
 very prosaical claim. Claim says all, and there- 
 fore does not. say enough. 
 
 (V. i. i6.) 
 
 That hmie wrack' d for Rome . . , 
 
 Perhaps we should read worMd; for that is the 
 sense. The tribunes have won a noble memory 
 (ironically) by caring for the public interest (as 
 they ought to do as tribunes), and making coals 
 cheap, just as Publius and Quintus had the 
 merit of having brought the best water by con- 
 duits to Rome. 
 
 (V. i. 20.) 
 
 It was a hare petition of a State . . . 
 
 Monk Mason proposed "base" instead of 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 41 
 
 " bare ; " but dare may mean here : " without 
 reasonable expectation of success." 
 
 (V. i. 67.) 
 
 What he would do 
 Hefeni in writing after me; what he would not. 
 Bound with an Oath to yeeld to his conditions : 
 
 In his writine he said what he would do, and 
 what not ; and that an oath given to the Volscians 
 bound him in this way. The first guard says : 
 " You are condemned; our general has sworn you 
 out of reprieve and pardon ; " and Coriolanus 
 himself says : " My remission lies in Volscian 
 breasts," and : " The thing I have forsworn tp 
 grant." 
 
 (V. ii. 17.) 
 
 verified . . . with all thejize that verity would . . .fuffer. 
 
 This seems almost to be nonsense. Dyce calls 
 "verified" a most suspicious reading. Hanmer 
 and Collier's Corr. have "magnified." What I 
 propose is not much better than "magnified," 
 except perhaps that the expression is somewhat 
 more distinct, and that the word contains one 
 
42 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 letter more corresponding with the letters in 
 verified. I propose to r&2A glorified. 
 
 (V. ii. 8 1.) 
 
 Your ... 
 
 The reading of the first Folio is a misprint for 
 our. Menenius cannot call the gates "your," 
 since Coriolanus afterwards says " your." Per- 
 haps we ought to read yond. 
 
 (V. ii. 92.) 
 
 Ingrate forgetfulnefse Jhall poifon. 
 
 " Ingrate forgetfulness " is here subject: rather 
 than that pity shall note the fact how familiar 
 they have been, the ingrate forgetfulness of the 
 Roman people shall poison this thought. 
 
 (V. iii. 148.) 
 
 Speake to me, Son : 
 
 Thou haft affected the fine Jirains of Honor, 
 To imitate the graces of the Gods, 
 i To teare with Thunder the wide Cheekes 0' tK Jyre, 
 And yet to change thy Sulphure with a Boult 
 Thatfiiould hut riue an Oake. 
 
 Volumnia means : " Speak to me ! confess that 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 43 
 
 thou hast injured thine honour (in being the 
 enemy of thy native country), only for the pur- 
 pose to be as merciful as the gods." 
 
 (V. iii. 182.) 
 
 ^ then lie /peak a litle. 
 
 The last word she will speak before her death 
 shall be a curse on her son ! 
 
 (V. iv. 22.) 
 
 He Jits in his State, as a thing made for Alexander. 
 
 It means : He sits there in his chair, with all 
 the attributes of his dignity, in hard and brazen 
 taciturnity, like a statue of Alexander. The 
 most elastic use of the word thing, applied both 
 to persons and to objects, is of very common oc- 
 currence with Shakespeare. " He showed as little 
 life and movement — even when he saw me, his 
 best friend — as a thing would show that had 
 human form and looked like great Alexander, 
 but were made of brass" (see Cor. H. ii. 113, 
 where Cominius called Coriolanus a thing of 
 blood). 
 
44 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 (V. vi. Stage Dir.) 
 
 Antium. 
 
 Query : Is it not rather Corioli ? Aufidius' 
 words, " Dost thou think I'll grace thee with that 
 robbery, thy stol'n name Coriolanus in Corioli ? " 
 may be read in two different ways : " . . . I'll 
 grace thee with , , . thy in Corioli stol'n 
 name, . . . ," and then Antium may be right ; 
 but if we read, " Dost thou think I'll grace thee 
 in Corioli, . . . ," then Antium must give way 
 for Corioli, though Plutarch calls Antium the 
 native town of Aufidius, and the conspirator 
 says, '* Your native town . , ." 
 
 ROMEO AND JULIET. 
 
 (III. ii. 6.) 
 
 The Shakespeare-scholars of three centuries 
 have published so many more or less ingenious 
 notes about Juliet's " runaway," and yet the 
 question is still far from getting the right answer, 
 that no harm will be done to any one if a very 
 little and modest note tries to give the same, pro- 
 bably with no better effect than the other notes 
 realised. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 45 
 
 The Quarto of 1599 has the quoted line as 
 follows : — 
 
 That runnawayes eyes may wincke, and Romeo . . 
 
 If we take into consideration that the four last 
 letters of runnawayes are nearly the same as the 
 letters of the next word, eyes, it will not be entirely 
 unjustified to suppose that the repetition of the 
 four letters (for a and e are very easily mistaken 
 and interchanged) results from an error of the 
 compositor's, and that the real word in question, 
 or rather the mutilated word, only is runnawayes, 
 and not runnawayes eyes. 
 
 Now, in reading Juliet's soliloquy, we find that 
 she wants not merely night, but quite directly 
 cloudy night ; she is of opinion that 
 
 Louers can see to doe their Amorous rights. 
 And by their owne Beauties : 
 
 She calls the night a 
 
 , . . . sober futed Matron all in blacke, 
 
 and a 
 
 blackebrow'd night. 
 
 In short, she wants all as dark as possible, and 
 probably will have nothing to do with the inquisi- 
 tive, importunate, and prating moonlight 
 
46 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 The clouds therefore are, as I suppose, the 
 close curtain which shall make wink the moon's 
 eyes ; and Juliet says — 
 
 Spred thy clofe Curtaine Loue-performing night 
 
 (and then, lifting up her hand to the moon and the 
 stars). 
 
 That yonder eyes may wink. 
 
 If we remember that the quartos generally were 
 published after some shorthand writing, that, as 
 Collier says, " The person or persons who pre- 
 pared the transcripts of the plays for the printer 
 wrote by the ear and not by the eye ; they heard 
 the dialogue and wrote it down as it struck 
 them," . . . the difference of some of the letters 
 in the two words, 
 
 riinnawayes 
 yondereyes 
 
 will not be of any importance, if we suggest the 
 possibility that one could believe to hear pro- 
 nounced " runnawayes," while the other said 
 "yonder eyes," (It is not to be forgotten that 
 many Englishmen of the best erudition pronounce 
 w instead of r — "gweat" for "great " !) 
 
 For the rest, let me say that Shakespeare 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 47 
 
 several times uses the word "yonder "or "yon" 
 with regard to the moon and to the heaven. 
 
 (II. ii. 107.) 
 
 By yonder blessed moon I swear. 
 
 (III. V. 8.) 
 
 ... In yonder east, 
 
 (III. V. 12.) 
 
 Yon light is not daylight. . . . 
 
 (III. V. 19.) 
 
 I'll say yon gray is not the morning's eye. 
 
 " Yon," " yond," and " yonder " are, in the whole, 
 used eleven times in " Romeo and Juliet." In 
 " Measure for Measure," iv. iii. 92, 93, the first 
 Folio gives the following lines — 
 
 Ere twice the Sun hath made his iournal greeting 
 To yond generation.^ . . . 
 
 Coriolanus, iv. v. no — 
 
 Yond Cloud. 
 
 One word more for those who mean that the 
 sun is not yet gone — 
 
 Gallop apace, . . . 
 
 > I may use this as an example even in the case of its here being only an 
 abbteviation (or fond = the under. 
 
48 StiAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 and that Juliet, therefore, cannot lift up her hand 
 to the moon. Well, she lifts up her hand to the 
 cause of light, may that be the sun or the moon, 
 and " yonder eyes " is an epithet quite as fit for 
 the one as for the other. But it is to be under- 
 stood that, if Juliet speaks of the sun's eyes, the 
 " close curtains " can be as well (and even better) 
 the darkness as the clouds. 
 
 Now to the most essential point of the question. 
 The text critic and emendator after having 
 examined and counterpoised all external evi- 
 dence, as language of the time, literary custom 
 of the author, ductus literarum, eventuality of 
 transcribers' or compositors' errors, a. s, o., has 
 one imperative duty — not to care for any result, 
 however ingenious, of those inquiries, if they do 
 not agree, with the character of the person and 
 of the situation. 
 
 Who is Juliet, and what does she feel and think 
 in the moment ? She is young and burning with 
 love. She expects and looks out for Romeo 
 
 To do their amorous rites. 
 She wants him to come, and to 
 
 Leap to these arras, untalked of and unseen. 
 And because he must remain untalked of and un- 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 49 
 
 seen, she is angry with yonder shining star, and 
 says : " Shut thine eyes ! " 
 
 A young loving girl of the energetic and pas- 
 sionate nature of Juliet does not care for anything 
 else but for her love — even not for any epithalamium 
 in the world, or for whether Romeo is a runaway 
 or not. Love is as near-sighted and as egotistic 
 concerning her passion and its objects as children 
 are concerning their plays and wishes ; and so I 
 cannot help it ; I must confess that I find yonder 
 eyes the best emendation, because it gives the 
 most natural and most unconstrained sense. 
 
 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 (III. iv. 112.) 
 
 . . . Go, lid all my Friends againe, 
 Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius Fllorxa : All, 
 lie once morefeaji the Rafcals. 
 
 Thus the i st Folio. The word Vllorxa was best 
 treated by those editors who removed it entirely 
 from the text ; for no attempt to mend it (all, 
 sirrah, all, a.s.o.) could succeed ; neither the spell- 
 ing nor the thought, nor even the correctness of 
 the verse were apt to support it. It must there- 
 
50 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 fore be of interest to discover how this " mons- 
 trum " of a word came into the text, and what it 
 possibly could signify. 
 
 In every printing-office each sort of type has 
 its letter-case, and the compositor of a MS. in 
 antique, intermingled with words in italics, is 
 forced, when in need of these, to go to the letter- 
 case that contains them. This happened with the 
 1st Folio, and the compositor went to the italic 
 letter-case to compose there the words Lucius, 
 Lucullus, Sempronms, at the same time with all 
 the other words of the same page to be composed 
 in italics. Returning to his stand, he uninten- 
 tionally took with him some letters more that 
 already had been composed by his fellow- 
 labourer, who was at work at the italic letter- 
 case. These letters came, again by mistake, into 
 the text, and remained there, perhaps just be- 
 cause the corrector did not understand their 
 meaning, and thought them to be of importance. 
 This is one possibility ; the other is, that some 
 one had written these letters on the margin of the 
 MS., perhaps to make a note not at all concern- 
 ing the play, and that the word by this frivolous 
 and mischievous act, and by the misunder- 
 standing of the compositor, came into the text. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. si 
 
 So much for the way in which it was possible 
 to introduce Vllorxa into the text of Timon. 
 Now to the question what it might signify. 
 
 The writer in margin wrote, or the compositor 
 found at the italic letter-case, the words 
 
 Five pounds, ot ten angels, 
 
 composed in the ordinary form — 
 
 y lb or X a. 
 
 — v= s, x= lo, lb as the sign for Livre Sterling, 
 and a as the initial of Angel, a gold coin of that 
 period of the value of ten shillings or half a 
 pound. Under the microscope the lb in the Folio 
 shows the characteristic stroke that runs through 
 the two / from the right to the left 
 
 The objection I met with, that the mark for the 
 pound as weight was lb, while the mark for the 
 worth of a pound as money was li, might well be 
 answered in this form, that the change was only 
 the result of a man's blunder while distributing 
 the letters of an earlier form. The first compositor 
 by mistake put the lb in the box belonging to li, 
 and the next mistake, resulting therefrom, was 
 that the second compositor used the lb instead 
 of li. I have said the objection could be an- 
 swered in such a way, but it is not necessary 
 
52 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 to appeal to this explanation ; another question 
 of more weight is to be raised, namely, whether 
 lb as mark for money-value has not been in 
 use in England, It must have been so, for only 
 from lb, and afterwards ft, the marks £ and 
 ^ could result ; or in other words, the mark for 
 the weight must have been the origin for the 
 mark of the money-value. An Englishman of 
 authoritative standing and experience wrote to 
 me : 
 
 "So far as I can discover, tke conventional sign for 
 pounds sterling at that time was ' li ' ; I have given some 
 instances on the slip of paper enclosed. But, as far as that 
 goes, there is no greater difficulty in supposing that 'W 
 might in some way be changed into ' II ' than that ' lb ' 
 might be." 
 
 But this uncertain declaration is not sufficient. 
 There must have existed a transitory period, 
 where lb (ft) was the mark as well for money as 
 for weight, and after which the disorder in the trade 
 and money markets, resulting from the ambiguous 
 use of this mark necessitated the adoption of two 
 different signs. One evidence of the justness of 
 this theory is to be found in the Subsidy-Roll of 
 1589 (discovered by W. Hunter), of which the 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 53 
 
 original is preserved in Carlton Ride Record 
 Office: 
 
 Jffid. IVilliam Shakespeare — ^ lb. — xiij s. iiij d. 
 
 But this one example is not of convincing power, 
 and therefore English scholars and keepers of 
 archives ought to make researches, and look for 
 material to answer this question. As soon as I 
 come, to England again I shall try my best to 
 do so. 
 
 Now several remarks have to be answered, that 
 were sent to me by friends, who did not agree 
 with my interpretation ; one of them raised a 
 doubt, whether /d.. It., or ltd. ever meant pounds 
 in Shakespeare's days, or whether 10 angels was 
 used in accounts for ;^5, or anything like it. 
 Concerning the first question, see the " Registers 
 of the Company of Stationers of London," vol. 
 iii. p. 35— 
 
 " 9. AugusH 1596. 38 Elizabeth{ae). 
 
 " Deliuered in full Court to the master and Wardens The 
 cities hill vnder their scale for XI" Lent in marche (1596) 
 last toward the shippes .... 40'' repaialle 38 marcij 
 
 1597." 
 
 In the first twenty lines of this page the sign ", 
 as pound, does not occur less than nine times. 
 
54 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 Besides we find in Knight, " Shakespeare, a 
 Biography " (London edition, p. 465 ; New York 
 edition, p. 469) — 
 
 " In the following Augiist the Lord Chamberlain's com- 
 pany performed Othello in the house of the Lord Keeper 
 at Harefield. The accounts of the large expenditure on 
 this occasion, in the handwriting of Sir Arthur Mainwar- 
 ing were discovered ly Mr. Collier amongst the Egerton- 
 Papers, and they contain the following entry : — 
 
 ' 6. August 1 60a. Rewardes to the vaulters, players 
 and dauncers. Of this X." to Burbidge's players of 
 Othello Ixiiif ocviijl af '." 
 
 See also p. 469 (resp., p. 473) ; X^'' ; and 
 p. 481 (resp. p. 485) ; 7000/. ; 500''; 933''' 6^ 
 8'^, etc. 
 
 The fact that the above-mentioned MS. has 
 been discovered to be a forgery, serves as a still 
 stronger evidence for my theory, for, no doubt, 
 the forger will have explored all existing material, 
 to give the most genuine form then in use, " the 
 better to beguile." 
 
 Concerning the other question, " Whether ten 
 angels was used in accounts," etc., see Ruding, 
 *' Annals of the coinage of Great Britain and its 
 Dependencies ; from the earliest period of auth- 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 55 
 
 entic history to the reign of Victoria," 3d edition. 
 London, 1840. 3 vols. Vol. i. p. 343 : — 
 
 The former proclamations to prevent the spreading of 
 rumours respecting the decry of the money having proved 
 ineffectual, and the universal expectation of that event 
 leing so deeply settled in men's heads, that the prices of 
 things were greatly enhanced; and as until the monies 
 were brought to the value at which they were intended, 
 and ought to be, not only the meaner- sort of people, a* 
 labourers, etc., but also all serving-men, soldiers, etc., living 
 only by pensions, and wages, would be pitifully oppressed, 
 her majesty was induced to make a final end, and to fix 
 the value of the coins current in the realm, at the follow- 
 ing rates by proclamation, to commence from the 4'* of 
 March, the date of the issuing thereof. Which rates were 
 then declared to be those at which they were current since 
 the 6** of Edward IF., and so on until the 16'* of Henry 
 
 Fill. 
 
 Fine Gold. 
 
 Sovereign was current for 30s. 
 Eyall „ „ „ 15s. 
 
 Angel „ „ >, 10*. 
 Half-Angel „ „ 5s. 
 
 The same statement is given in " New Shake- 
 speare Society's Papers," Series VI. No. 3 (edited 
 by F. J. Furnivall), p. loi ; while on p. vii. of 
 the volume, last line, stands: an angell of lOi. 
 Series VII., No. 7, p. vii., gives the mark li for 
 pound, etc. 
 
S6 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 See also Rye, "England as seen by Foreigners," 
 p. 52 (at the date of 1592) : — 
 
 " ^s regards the currency, the kings and queens of Eng- 
 land have rightly had gold and silver coins struck for pay- 
 ment. A double rose-noble is worth thirty-two English 
 shillings, that is, eighteen French francs, or eight thaler s, or 
 rix-dollars ; a rose-noble, half as much. An angel, having 
 on it the Knight St. George [^St^ Michael and the dragon"], 
 is worth ten shillings, . . . ." 
 
 One single remark has been made that may 
 somewhat militate against my conjecture of the 
 letters having been composed at the italic letter- 
 case, and then by mistake having been removed 
 to the other; the spaces wanting between v id 
 or X a; and therefore the other conjecture above- 
 mentioned might be the right one, that any one 
 wrote vl/orxa in margin, and that this by the 
 compositor was taken for one word, and there- 
 fore composed in the present form. 
 
 (IV. 3, 133, 134.) 
 
 Enotigh to make a whore forf wear e her trade 
 And to make whores, a bawd. 
 
 Dyce calls this an obscure passage ; I believe 
 all obscurity vanishes, if we construe as follows : 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 57 
 
 Enough to make a whore forswear her trade, 
 and to make a bawd forswear her business, that 
 consists in making whores. Johnson gave a 
 similar declaration. 
 
 JULIUS C^SAR. 
 (II. i. i83ff.) 
 
 Brut. 
 
 When Ccefars head is off. 
 Cass. Yet Ifeare him, 
 
 For in the ingrafted loue he hears to Ccefar. 
 
 Steevens has added the auxiliary verb — 
 Yet I do fear him; 
 
 and the modern editions give the phrase as in- 
 complete — 
 
 For in the ingrafted love he hears to Ccefar — 
 
 I cannot understand why. Take away the " in " 
 after " For " that the compositor erroneously has 
 given twice ("in the in . . . "), leave away the 
 comma after " him," and the sense is a clear as 
 possible, without the auxiliary of a broken phrase : 
 
 Yet I fear him 
 For the ingrafted love he hears to Ccefar. 
 
58 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 (III. i. 4;, 48.) 
 
 Know, Ccefar doth not wrong, nor without caufe 
 Will he be fatisfied. 
 
 I should not understand why so much is written 
 about this perfectly clear line, if I did not regard 
 all notes as nothing else but the result of a protest 
 as energetic as men could make it against Ben 
 Jonson's poor and witless remark. 
 
 Ccesar does not wrong means, " Caesar is not un- 
 just," and means the same thing whether you take 
 " wrong" as a noun or as a verb. 
 
 (III. i. 173 sq.) 
 
 To you, our Swords haue leaden points, Marke Antony : 
 Our Armes injirength of malice, and our Hearts 
 Of Brothers temper, do receiue you in. 
 With all kinde loue, . . . 
 
 I have no doubt that Capell's reading, accepted 
 by Dyce, is the right one : 
 
 To you ourfwords have leaden points, Mark Antony, 
 Our arms nojirength of malice, and our hearts, 
 Of brothers' temper, do receive you in 
 With all kind love, . . . 
 
 So that " have " refers to " swords " and at the 
 same time to " arms." 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 59 
 
 (IV. i. 43, 44.) 
 
 Therefore let our Alliance be combined, 
 Our beji Friends made, our meanesjlretcht. 
 
 The readings of the different Folios, of Malone, 
 Steevens and Staunton, are known to the scholar. 
 But all these emendations tend only to the en- 
 deavour to make the metre of the verse accord 
 with rule ; none of them tries to make the sense 
 intelligible. What means : Our best friends made ? 
 I believe that we here again meet with a com- 
 positor's error, who caught with one look at once 
 the words of two lines, and made the mischief 
 by intermingling them. I am sure we ought to 
 read — 
 
 Therefore let our alliance be made. 
 
 Our beJi friends all combin'd and our means Jlretch'd. 
 
 See King John, V. ii. 39— 
 
 JVhere thefe turn Chrijiian Armies might combine. 
 
 The alliance has been combined beforehand, 
 now is the moment to make it a real fact by 
 combining the powers ('< alliance " in the old 
 reading can impossibly mean "armies"); the 
 
6o SHAkESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 friends existed beforehand, now is the moment 
 to combine them. 
 
 MACBETH. 
 
 (I- V. 57, 58.) 
 
 Thy Letters haue tranfported me beyond 
 This Ignorant prefent. 
 
 There is only one single editor — at least as 
 far as I know — who speaks about the word 
 letters, and thinks it worth while to mention the 
 curious fact that Lady Macbeth declares to have 
 received letters, while she only means to speak 
 about one single letter. It is Delius who says: 
 " Shakespeare uses the word letters, even in the 
 plural form, where a single letter only is men- 
 tioned." There are some instances in Shake- 
 speare, it is true, where a doubt could be enter- 
 tained whether the word letters meant the 
 singular or the plural, but not a single one 
 where this doubt is clearly decided to the benefit 
 of Delius' opinion. 
 
 The word letters, in the present case, is of 
 the utmost importance for the characterisation of 
 Lady Macbeth; illustrated by the consequences 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 6i 
 
 drawn from this plural, she changes entirely from 
 what she has been in the eyes of some centuries 
 to a rather not less dreadful, but at least less dis- 
 tasteful shape. 
 
 She has got letters — not a single letter ! — she 
 has got letters — from the field ; her husband has 
 made her acquainted with all his hopes, wishes, 
 and aims. He did not want to have the spirit 
 of his wife poured into his ear ; just the contrary 
 — he has poured his spirit into her ear ! Long 
 before he met her — long before she could have 
 influenced him — he had his plan, and the means 
 to reach it, clear before his eyes. 
 
 (1. ili. ii6, 117.) 
 
 Glamis, and Thane of Cait/dor ! 
 The greateji is lehind. 
 
 (I. iii. 127-137.) 
 
 [Aside.] Two truths are told, 
 As happy prologues to the /welling art 
 Of the imperial theme. — I thank you, gentlemen. 
 [Aside,] This fupernatural foliciting 
 Cannot he ill; cannot be good : — if ill, 
 IVJiy has it given me earnefi offuccefs, 
 Commencing in a truth ? I am thane of Cawdor : 
 
62 SHAKBSPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 If good, why do I yield to that fuggejiion 
 IVhofe horrid image does unfix my hair, 
 And make myfedted heart knock at my ribs, 
 Again/l the ufe of nature ? 
 
 Further an in the same scene, he says to 
 Banquo — ' 
 
 (I. iii. 153-155-) 
 
 Think upon what hath chanced ; and, at more time, 
 The interim having weigh' d it, let usfpeak 
 Our free hearts each to other. 
 
 In the fourth scene, where the King has con- 
 ferred the dignity of Prince of Cumberland on 
 his son, Macbeth says — 
 
 (I. iv. 48-53.) 
 
 The Prince of Cumberland ! that is ajlep 
 On which I mufifall down, or elfe overleap, 
 For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires ! 
 Let not light fee my black and deep defires : 
 The eye wink at the hand ; yet let that be, 
 Which the eye fears, when it is done, to fee ! 
 
 He knows what he aspires to, and he has 
 made his wife acquainted with his plans-'-and 
 she ? She enters into the spirit of his ambitious 
 schemes, because she regards it as the wife's 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 63 
 
 duty to be the helpmate of her husband. And 
 she knows that he is in need of assistance. 
 
 (I. V. 17-31.) 
 
 . . . Yet do I fear thy nature ; 
 It is too full 0' the milk of human kindnefs, 
 To catch the neare/i way: thou wouldft be great ; 
 Art not without amlition ; hut without 
 The illnefs Jhould attend it: what thou wouldji highly, 
 That wouldft thou holily ; wouldft not playfalfe, 
 And yet wouldji wrongly win ; thou'ld/i have, great 
 
 Glamis, 
 That which cries ' Thus thou muft do, if thou have it ; ' 
 And that which rather thou dojifear to do 
 Than wijheji Jhould he undone. 
 
 She calls this " human kindness," but she under- 
 stands it as unmanly weakness, and therefore she 
 continues — 
 
 Hie thee hither. 
 That I may pour my fpirits in thine ear ; 
 And chajlife with the valour of my tongue 
 All that impedes thee from the golden round 
 Which fate and metaphyfical aid dothfeem 
 To have thee crown'd withal. 
 
 And what spirits are these ? It is a poor boast 
 if she calls them " my spirits l" She speaks of 
 
64 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 them a few lines later ; she appeals to them for 
 help — 
 
 (I. V. 41 s^.) 
 
 Come, youfpirits 
 That tend on mortal thoughts, unfex me here. 
 And Jill me from the crown to the toe-top full 
 Of direji cruelty 
 
 Well ! She invites those spirits to come to assist 
 her— -they did not live in her until then (if they lived 
 in her she would not want to call them ; Richard 
 III., Edgar, or lago do not invite the spirits to 
 come, those spirits that tend on mortal thoughts) ; 
 she wishes herself even unsexed ; she wants her- 
 self changed from the woman that has given suck, 
 and knows how tender 'tis to love the babe that 
 milks her, to a character hardened by energy, 
 and from the moment she has this certain point 
 in view she does not deviate from it, she would 
 have pluck'd her nipple from her child's boneless 
 gums, and dashed the brains out, had she sworn it. 
 And not to gratify her own ambition ; she does 
 not mark her satisfaction at the expectation of 
 future greatness, for when she says — 
 
 Thy letters have tranfported me leyond 
 This ignorant prefent, and I feel now 
 The future in the inftant. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 65 
 
 and some lines later — 
 
 Youjhall put 
 This night's great liifinefs into my difpatch ; 
 Which JhalL to all our nights and days to come 
 Give folely f over eign fway and mq/ierdom, 
 
 her words are only meant to be a stimulus for 
 the undetermined character of her husband. She 
 does not enjoy the future ; she is only on the look- 
 out for Macbeth's sake ; and she, indeed, does 
 the greatest and most direful part of the work ; 
 she deliberates and prepares ; she disposes and 
 acts — while he ? He stabs, and then totters 
 and trembles ! He is a hero in action, but a 
 coward in determination ; from I. 7, 3 1 until the 
 end of this scene, she is the hero and he the 
 coward ; afterwards, too, in the second scene of 
 the second act, where she makes herself bold 
 by the same remedy she uses to make the two 
 chamberlains drunk ; and later, after the murder 
 has been committed, look on the following words, 
 what poor weakness in him, what iron energy in 
 her — 
 
 (H. 2, 44, sg.) 
 
 Why, worthy thane. 
 You do unbend your nolle fir ength, to think 
 
66 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 So brainfickly of things. Go get fame water 
 And wajh this filthy witnefs from your hand. 
 Why did you Iring thefe daggers from the place ? 
 They mii/i lie there ; go carry them ; andfmear 
 Thefleepy grooms with blood. 
 
 Macs. I'll go no more. 
 
 I am afraid to think what I have done ; 
 Look on't again I dare not. 
 
 Lady Macb. Infirm of purpofe ! 
 
 Give me the daggers : the fieeping and the dead 
 Are hut as piSiures ; 'tis the eye of childhood 
 That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed, 
 I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal; 
 For it muftfeem their guilt. 
 
 If all this were natural in her, she would indeed 
 be the monster, as which she lives in the judg- 
 ment of the past and present, but it is not ! She 
 forces herself in the same way as she encourages 
 her husband — 
 
 Bntfcrew your courage to the fiicking-place. . . . 
 
 She has done it, and she perishes by it ! He was 
 the framer of all crimes. Long ago, long before 
 she got the last letter, he communicated to her 
 his dark intentions. 
 
 (I. 7, 47-54.) 
 
 What leqji was 't then 
 That made you break this enterprife to me f 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 67 
 
 When you diirji do it then you were a man ; 
 And, to he more than what yon were, you would 
 Befo much more the man. Nor time nor place 
 Did then adhere, and yet you would make both ; 
 They have made them/elves, and that their Jitnefs now 
 Does juimake you. 
 
 And she had even courage enough a moment 
 to think of murdering the king herself : — 
 
 Had he not refembled 
 My father as hejlept, I had don't. 
 
 Now we have different points of the greatest 
 moment for measuring the primitive character ; 
 she takes wine in order to deafen her con- 
 science and to acquire the force necessary to do 
 what must be done ; she is touched by a futile 
 resemblance, and, thinking on her father, is un- 
 able to act, as she had the intention to act, a 
 moment before ; but this does not prevent her, 
 after the murder has been committed, from smear- 
 ing the grooms with the king's blood : 
 
 The dead is hut as a piSiure I 
 
 She is a matter-of-fact nature, and this touch 
 of character leads her to the crime as well as it 
 makes her succumb to its burthen. This single 
 
68 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 crime, not committed but only aided by her, 
 drives her into madness and death ! 
 
 She would never have been the Lady Macbeth 
 we see in Shakespeare's play if she had not been 
 led to it by love for her husband, by her am- 
 bition in his interest. Her crime is not innate 
 cruelty, but hardness of heart and unwomanly 
 energy, though the former is even not strong 
 enough to withhold her from tender feelings; 
 and with a different husband she would have 
 been a different wife. 
 
 Concerning the dramatic power of the Lady's 
 character, nothing would be lost by losing the 
 trait of dire and voluptuous cruelty. Just the con- 
 trary ; an impressionable nature, driven /o de- 
 come hard and cruel, is of more powerful effect 
 than a character whose innate and natural obliga- 
 tion drives it ifo be hard and cruel. 
 
 While I met with several dissentient opinions 
 concerning my interpretation, expressed in a 
 rather harsh form, but happily not coming from 
 decidedly authoritative or professional quarters, 
 I enjoyed the great satisfaction, a short time after 
 my essay was published (in the Introduction to 
 my Translation of Macbeth, 1871) and reviewed, 
 of receiving some older English essays, treat- 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 69 
 
 ing the same question in the same sense. Tlie 
 gentleman who was kind enough to send me 
 those papers, taken from a great collection of 
 scraps, was the late Lord Mayor of Berlin, Mr. 
 Seydel, a man of the highest standing in scholar- 
 ship. One of the essays, " Distortions of the 
 English Stage — Macbeth," is found in the 
 National Review, October 1863 (28 pages); the 
 the other : P. W. Clayden, " Macbeth and Lady 
 Macbeth," in the Fortnightly Review, August 1867 
 (16 pages). I must declare that I did not know 
 either of them, and that I felt as much astonished 
 as gratified to find my opinion so strongly sus- 
 tained from two different quarters. As I may be 
 allowed to suppose that the essays I refer to are 
 not known or not remembered nowadays, it will 
 be of some advantage for the point in question 
 to give a few extracts from them : — 
 
 " Distortions of the English Stage : 
 Macbeth. 
 
 ..." But of all the plays of Shakespeare, none 
 is so grossly misunderstood as Macbeth. Nor is 
 this misapprehension confined to the stage : it 
 prevails even among those who have zealously 
 studied and admired Shakespeare. As John 
 
70 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 Kemble stands for Hamlet in our imaginations, so 
 does Mrs. Siddons for Lady Macbeth. She has 
 completely transformed this wonderful creation 
 of Shakespeare's, distorted its true features, and 
 so stamped upon it her own individuality, that 
 when we think of one we have the figure, of 
 the other in our minds. The Lady Macbeth 
 of Mrs. Siddons is the only Lady Macbeth we 
 know and believe in. She is the imperious, 
 wicked, cruel wife of Macbeth, urging on her 
 weak and kind-hearted husband to abominable 
 crimes solely to gratify her own ambitious and 
 evil nature. She is without heart-tenderness or 
 remorse. Devilish in character, violent in purpose, 
 she is the soul of the whole play — the plotter and 
 instigator of all its horrors, a fiend-like creature, 
 who having a complete mastery over Macbeth, 
 works him to madness by her taunts, and relent- 
 lessly drives him on against his will to the com- 
 mission of his horrible crimes, and we hate her as 
 we pity Macbeth. He is weak of purpose, amiable 
 of disposition, ' full of the milk of hirman kindness;' 
 an unwilling instrument of all her evil designs, 
 who, wanting force of will and strength of charac- 
 ter, yields reluctantly to her infernal temptations. 
 " Nothing could more clearly prove the great 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 71 
 
 genius of Mrs. Siddons than that she has been able 
 so to stamp upon the public mind this amazing 
 conception, that, despite all the careful study 
 which of late years has been given to Shakespeare, 
 this notion of the character of Lady Macbeth and 
 Macbeth should still prevail. Yet so deeply is it 
 rooted and so universal, that whoever attempts 
 to eradicate it will find his task most difficult. 
 But believing it to be an utter distortion of the 
 characters as Shakespeare drew them, and so at 
 variance with the interior thought, conduct, and 
 development of the play, as not only entirely to 
 obscure its real meaning, but to obliterate all its 
 finest and most delicate features, we venture to 
 enter upon this difficult task. 
 
 " Macbeth and his wife, so far from being the 
 characters above described, are their direct oppo- 
 sites. He is the villain who never can satiate 
 himself with crimes. She, having committed one 
 crime, dies of remorse. She is essentially a 
 woman— acts suddenly and violently, and then 
 breaks down, and wastes her life and thoughts in 
 bitter repentance. 
 
 "We now come to a consideration of Lady 
 Macbeth's character. At all points she was his 
 
72 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 opposite, or rather his complement. Where he 
 was strong, she was weak ; where he was weak, 
 she was strong. He was poetical and visionary of 
 nature ; she was plain and practical. He was 
 indirect, false, secretive ; she, on the contrary, 
 was vehement and impulsive. Between what she 
 willed and what she did was a straight line. She 
 was troubled by none of his superstitious fears or 
 visions. 'Her imagination was feeble and inactive, 
 her character was energetic ; she saw only the 
 object immediately before her, and she went to 
 it with rapidity and directness of purpose. She 
 was skilful in management and ready in contriv- 
 ance, as women are apt to be ; while Macbeth 
 was wanting in both these qualities, as men gener- 
 ally are. For herself she seems to have had no 
 ambition, and not personally to have coveted the 
 position of queen. Her ambition is but the reflec- 
 tion of Macbeth's, and her great crime was wrought 
 in furtherance of his suggestions and promptings. 
 
 " The determination and suggestion of the 
 murder is. his ; the management and detail of it is 
 hers. ... Her nature was not wicked in itself. 
 It was susceptible of deep feeling and remorse. 
 .... She had a strong will, and gave expression 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 73 
 
 to it in an exaggerated way : ' I have given suck, 
 and know,' etc. This is but a vehement, pas- 
 sionate, and exaggerated way of saying that if she 
 had sworn to herself to any thing, however shock- 
 ing, as deHberately and determinedly as Macbeth 
 had to commit this murder, she would do it in 
 spite of consequences, and not like him be 'afeard 
 to be the same in thine own act and valour as 
 thou art in desire.' She does not mean, nor 
 did Shakespeare mean, that so hideous an act 
 would be possible either for her to plan or to 
 commit ; but to prove her contempt of that con- 
 dition of mind when ' I dare not waits upon I 
 would,' she seizes upon the most horrible and 
 repulsive act that she can imagine, and declares 
 energetically that, shocking as that is, she would 
 not hesitate to do even that ' had she so sworn ' 
 to do it as Macbeth had. Yet this wild and 
 violent figure of speech is generally taken as the 
 key of her whole character. It is nothing of the 
 sort ; for the very line preceding it proves that 
 she had a tenderness of nature under all her 
 energy, and a power of love as well as of will. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 " Still, when the time approaches, Lady Macbeth 
 needs all her courage, and she stimulates it with 
 
74 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 wine lest it should break down : ' That which 
 hath made them drunk,' etc. 
 
 " She preserves her courage, however, to the 
 end, never loses her self-possession, and takes 
 care that the plan is carried out fully in all its 
 details. But once accomplished, she utterly 
 breaks down. She has over-calculated her 
 strength. She was not utterly wicked, and her 
 remorses are terrible. From this henceforward 
 we have no such scenes between her and her 
 husband ; he performs all his other murders 
 alone without her knowledge or connivance. 
 
 " And here the main feature of this play must 
 be kept in mind. Lady Macbeth dies of remorse 
 for this her crime ; she cannot forget it ; it haunts 
 her in her sleep ; the damned spot cannot be 
 washed from her conscience or her hand. . , . 
 That terrible night remains with her, and haunts 
 her, and tears her like a demon, and at last she 
 dies of it. 
 
 " But it is commonly thought that the murder 
 of Duncan was suggested and planned by Lady 
 Macbeth, and he was urged into it against his 
 will and contrary to his nature. Such a view is 
 utterly in contradiction of the play itself. The 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 75 
 
 suggestion is entirely Macbeth's, and he has 
 resolved upon it before he sees her. ... He 
 has already written to Lady Macbeth, and he 
 has but one thought and one theme. 
 
 " When he begins to doubt whether the murder 
 had not better be postponed, she says, ' What 
 beast was it then,' etc. ' It was not of my plot- 
 ting, but of your own.' ' Nor time nor place 
 did then adhere,' etc. You desired it, and still 
 desire it, but are afraid of consequences. These 
 words of hers would indeed seem to indicate that 
 he had urged the crime upon her against her will 
 at a previous interview not reported in the play, 
 or, perhaps, by a letter " (! !). 
 
 P. W. Clayden : " Macbeth and Lady 
 Macbeth." 
 
 " Macbeth is usually regarded as his wife re- 
 gards him in the opening of the play, while she 
 herself is judged entirely by her words. He is 
 usually represented as a tolerably good man, up 
 to the time when evil opportunity and a bad wife 
 conspired to transform him into a villain. His 
 
76 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 murders are supposed to be done at her instiga- 
 tion. Her ambition, for which she has ' un- 
 sexed' herself, led him away. 
 
 " Now, when we come to regard Macbeth and 
 his wife as two real characters, of whom all that 
 we know is recorded in this play, we arrive at a 
 conclusion the very opposite of the popular one. 
 . . . When Banquo utters a warning against am- 
 bition, Macbeth meditates thus : ' Two truths are 
 told,' etc. The plain meaning of that is, that 
 . , . amid the very honours the king is heaping 
 on him, he has conceived the idea of murdering 
 him. ... His mind was already made up. 
 
 "'What beast was it, then,' etc. This is the 
 most important passage in the play in the eluci- 
 dation of Macbeth's character. The meaning is 
 plain. It proves that they had actually talked 
 this matter over together long before the time at 
 which the action of the play begins. 
 
 " The popular misunderstanding of the character 
 of Macbeth is due, probably, to the description 
 his wife gives of him in the first interview we 
 have with her. ' Yet I do fear thy nature,' etc. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 77 
 
 But it is obvious that, so far as we see Macbeth 
 in the play, nothing could be wider of the mark 
 than this estimate of him. . . . For nothing can 
 be farther from the truth than the popular view 
 of Lady Macbeth. That wonderful characteristic 
 of genius, which enables it to put on the character 
 it conceives, reaches its highest manifestation in 
 this marvellous portrait. . . . But all the truth 
 and force of the delineation are lost when Lady 
 Macbeth is regarded as a mere tempter and 
 fiend. She is, in reality, nothing of the kind. 
 Her part is simply that of a woman and a wife 
 who shares her husband's ambition and supports 
 him in it. So far from suggesting his crimes, 
 she distincdy declares that he has broke the 
 enterprise to her; . . . and we have seen that, 
 before he saw his wife, Macbeth had made up 
 his mind to this first step in his career of crime. 
 All that she does is to back him in the execution 
 of his own design. 
 
 " She was afraid of her own nature. Had she 
 been utterly unsexed, she would not have called 
 on spirits to unsex her. . . . Her language is 
 everywhere that of a woman who, in screwing 
 her husband's courage to the stick ing-place, as 
 
78 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 she says, is also screwing her own. . . . But 
 when the necessity for action is over, all her 
 ready wit forsakes her; she faints, and must be 
 carried away ; . . . and from that time she is no 
 longer what she was. ..." 
 
 Is it not remarkable that the plural letters in 
 the line 
 
 Thy letters have travfported me, etc., 
 
 did not tell anything to the above-quoted authors, 
 while both had the same idea of Macbeth's 
 having communicated his plan to his wife before 
 sending the last letter, and while the justness of 
 this conception would have been best elucidated 
 and supported by the single s at the end of the 
 word letter? 
 
 HAMLET. 
 (I. i. 63, 64.) 
 
 So frown' d he once, when in an angry park 
 He/mot the Jledded Pollax on the Ice. 
 
 The Quarto of 1604 gives the following form- 
 He /woi thejleaded pollax on the ice. 
 Malone says : " All the old copies have Polax. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 79 
 
 Mr. Pope and the subsequent editors read Polack ; 
 but the corrupted word shows, I think, that Shake- 
 speare wrote Polacks!' 
 
 This conclusion seems to be somewhat weak. 
 Why does the corrupted word show, that Shake- 
 speare wrote Polacks? Why does it not show 
 that he wrote Pole-axe ? The corruption would 
 be a lesser one and the meaning clearer and 
 better. I must recur to some of the same words 
 I wrote in Notes and Queries (III. v. 410) : 
 
 " I always regarded /leaded or, as the modern 
 editors v&3.d, Jledded as nonsense. What a ridicu- 
 lous position it must have been to see a king, 
 in full armour, smiting down a sledded man, i.e., 
 a man sitting in a sledge ! It would not have 
 been a kinglike action. And it was of course not 
 a remarkable, not'a memorable fact, that in the 
 cold Scandinavian country in wintertime people 
 were found sitting in a sledge ; nobody would 
 have wondered at it — perhaps more at the con- 
 trary." 
 
 In the following words of my note I contend 
 for the word sturdy : 
 
 " When the king frowned in an angry parle, he 
 must have been provoked to it by an irritating 
 behaviour of the adversary, and Horatio, remem- 
 
8o SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 bering the fact, will surely also bear in mind the 
 cause of It, and so, I suppose, he used an epithet 
 which points out the provoking manner of the 
 Polack ; and, following as much as possible the 
 form Jleaded, I should like to propose the word 
 sturdy, or as it would have been written in 
 Shakespeare's time — 
 
 fleaded> 
 Jlurdie." 
 
 I do not agree with sturdy to-day, because I do 
 not agree with " the Polacks ; " but notwithstand- 
 ing I must say: z/any one adheres to "Polacks" — 
 and many do — he cannot find a better adjective 
 than sturdy. It is in every case far from being 
 such nonsense as Jledded, and I am sure it does 
 not merit the smiling irony of my most honoured 
 friend H, H. Furness. Mr. Pope says : " He 
 speaks of a prince of Poland whom he slew in 
 battle." 
 
 I never heard a battle called a " parle," and I 
 cannot suppose that a parliamentary negotiation 
 between two monarchs would end in a row. 
 No ! Horatio speaks of two positions he has seen 
 the dead king in : the first, when he went to war 
 against Norway — Horatio remembers the very 
 armour the king had on ; the second, when he 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 8i 
 
 became angry in the course of a discussion, and — 
 to vent his anger — smote his steeled pole-axe on 
 the ice. (For "to smite" in the same sense, see 
 Lucrece, 176,) You must see him how he frowned, 
 how he tried to overcome his passion, and how at 
 last this grew upon him, and he lifted his arm, and 
 battered the axe down on the ice ! There is more 
 life, more action and nature in this picture, than in 
 the poor Polack, who tumbles down and falls on 
 his nose. 
 
 (I. i. 113-T25.) 
 
 The Hamlet Quarto 1604 gives the abpve- 
 mentioned lines in the following form : ^ — 
 
 In the mojl high and palmy Jiate of Rome, 
 A little ere the mightiejl Julius fell 
 
 115 The graues flood tennatleJJ'e, and thejheeted dead 
 Didfqueake and gibber in the Roman Jireets 
 Asflarres with traines ofjier, and dewes of blood 
 Difqfters in thefunne ; and the moiji Jarre 
 Vpon whofe influence Neptunes Empierfiands, 
 
 1 20 Wasfcke almofl to doomefday with eclipfe. 
 And euen the like precurfe offeare euents 
 Js harlindgers preceading Jlill the fates 
 
 > The numbering is that of the Globe edition. 
 
82 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 And prologue to the Omen comming on 
 Haue keauen and earth together demonftrated 
 125 Vnto our Climatures and countrymen. 
 
 This not being found either in the Quarto 1603 
 or in the Folio, the Quarto 1604 is the only autho- 
 rity on which we are allowed to refer. 
 
 The following lines stand in Julius Caesar 
 (FoL) I. 3 :- 
 
 15 A common Jlaue, you know him well lyjight, 
 
 Held up his left Hand, which did flame and lurne 
 Like twentie Torches ioyn'd ; and yet his Hand, 
 Not senfihle of fire, remained vnfcorch^d, 
 Befides, I ha' notflnce put vp my Sword, 
 
 20 Agairift the Capitoll I met a Lyon, 
 
 Who glaz'd vpon me, and went surly by. 
 Without annoying me. And there were drawne 
 Vpon a heape, a hundred gqftly Women, 
 Transformed with their feare, whofwore, they Jaw 
 
 35 Men, all in fire, walke vp and downe theflreetes. 
 And yeflerday, the Bird of Night did fit, 
 Euen at Noone-day, vpon the Market-place, 
 
 and Julius Caesar (FoL) II. 2. 
 
 A Lionnefi'e hath whelped in thefireets. 
 And Graues haue yawn'd, and yeelded vp their dead ; 
 Fierce fiery Warriours fight vpon the Clouds 
 20 In Rankes and Squadrons, and right forme of Warre 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 83 
 
 Which drlxxled blood vpon the Capitoll : 
 The noije of Battell hurtled in the ^yre : 
 Horjfes do neigh, and dying men did grone, 
 And Ghq/is didjhrieke andfqueale about thejireets. 
 
 This is the material which the commentators 
 generally have in hand, to answer the question, 
 whether a line is wanting between j 1 6 and 1 1 7, 
 or whether the text in 118 is corrupt. Among 
 the many emendators who looked for the fault in 
 118 (I belong to them and have proposed some 
 rather extravagant readings !) Malone was the 
 first who suspected that a line might have been 
 lost. He says : 
 
 When Sh. had told us that the ' graves flood tenant- 
 less,' etc. which are wonders, confined to the earth, he 
 naturally proceeded to fay {in the line now Iqfi) that yet 
 other prodigies appeared in thejky. 
 
 He is seconded in this opinion by Singer (H. 
 ed.), Boaden, arid Moberly. The Clarendon 
 Edition goes farthest on this way, but not far 
 enough; quotes Plutarch, but does not give all 
 that is essential, neither tries it to restore the 
 wanting line. Let us follow the same system, but 
 in a somewhat more systematical form. 
 
 Shakespeare uses the source— as he often does 
 
84 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 — nearly verbatim, and so we are perhaps allowed 
 to judge of what is wanting by what is given. 
 We read in Plutarch (See the ed. of 1595) : 
 
 (p. 787, line 40 ff.) 
 
 For, touching the fires in the element, and fpirites run- 
 ning vp and downe in the night, and alfo thefolitary lirdes 
 to lefeene at noone dayes fitting in the great market place 
 .... that diuers men were feene going vp and downe in 
 fire: and furthermore, that there was a fiaue of the 
 fouldiers, that did cafl a maruellous burning flame out of 
 his hand, insomuch as they that faw it, thought he had bene 
 burnt, but when the fire was out, it was found he had no 
 hurt. . . . 
 
 (p. 790, line 41 ff.) 
 
 Againe, offigns in the element, the great comet which 
 feuen nights together was feene very bright after Ccefars 
 death, the eight night after was neuer feene more. Alfo 
 the brightnes of the fun was darkened. . . . 
 
 Now, looking for what Shakespeare took 
 from Plutarch, we find the following parallel 
 synopsis : — 
 
SHA KESPEA RE-NOTES. 
 
 85 
 
 A 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 i 
 
 Julius Caesar. 
 
 
 c 
 
 Plutarch. 
 
 13 
 
 
 '>3 
 
 
 £ 
 
 °>J 
 
 
 "S 
 
 Tie graues stood 
 tennatlesse, and 
 the sheeted dead 
 
 Did squeake and 
 gibber in the 
 Roman streets 
 
 I8 
 
 24 
 
 And Graues haue 
 yawned, and 
 yeelded vp their 
 dead; 
 
 And Ghosts did 
 shrieke and 
 squeale about the 
 streets. 
 
 787 
 
 41 
 
 and spirites run- 
 ning vp and 
 downe in the 
 night. 
 
 "7 
 
 As starres with 
 traines of fier, 
 and dewes of 
 blood 
 
 21 
 
 Which drizzled 
 blood upon the 
 Capitoll: 
 
 790 
 
 41 
 
 • 
 
 the great comet 
 
 Ii8 
 
 Disasters in the 
 sunne; and the 
 moist starre 
 
 Vfon whose in- 
 fluence Neptunes 
 Emfier stands. 
 
 
 
 790 
 
 43 
 
 Also the brightnes 
 of the sun was 
 darkened . . . 
 
 
 Was sicie almost 
 
 
 
 790 
 
 41 
 
 , . , which seuen 
 
 
 to doomesday 
 
 
 
 
 
 nights together 
 
 
 with eclipse. 
 
 
 
 
 
 was seene very 
 bright after 
 Caesars death, 
 the eight night 
 after was neuer 
 seene more. 
 
 
 
 IS 
 
 A common slaue, 
 you know him 
 well by sight. 
 
 Held vp his left 
 
 787 
 
 44ff. 
 
 and furthermore, 
 that there was 
 a slaue of the 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 souldiers, that 
 
 
 
 
 Hand, which 
 
 
 
 did cast a mar- 
 
 
 
 
 did flame and 
 
 
 
 uellous burning 
 
 
 
 
 burtte 
 
 
 
 fiame out of his 
 
 
 
 
 Lite twentie 
 
 
 
 hand, insomuch 
 
 
 
 
 Torches ioyrid; 
 
 
 
 as they that saw 
 
 
 
 
 andyet his Hand, 
 
 
 
 it, thought hehad 
 
 
 
 
 Not sensible of fire. 
 
 
 
 bene burnt, but 
 
 
 
 
 remairid vn- 
 
 
 
 when the fire was 
 
 
 
 
 scorched. 
 
 
 
 out, it was found 
 he had no hurt. . 
 
 
 
 24 
 
 Who swore, 
 
 they saw 
 
 Men, all in fire, 
 
 walke vp and 
 
 dawne the streetes. 
 
 787 
 
 44 
 
 that diuers men 
 were seene going 
 vp and dcwne in 
 fire: 
 
 
 
 26 
 
 And yesterday, the 
 Bird of Night 
 did sit, 
 
 Euen at Noone- 
 day, vpon the 
 
 787 
 
 41 
 
 and also the soli- 
 tary birdes to be 
 seene at noone 
 dayes sitting in 
 the great market 
 
 
 
 
 Marketplace 
 
 
 place. , . . 
 
86 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 And if we scrutinise whether Shakespeare has 
 taken all, or has left out something, we come to a 
 rather curious result — 
 
 (Plutarch, page 787.) 
 
 For, touching the fires in the element, and fpirites 
 running vp and downe in the night, and alfo the folitary 
 lirdes to he feene at noone dayes Jitting in the great 
 market place . . . that diners men were feene going 
 vp and downe in fire : and furthermore that there was 
 a flaue of the fouldiers, that did cajl a maruellous 
 burning flame ozit of his hand, infomuch as they that faiv 
 it, thought he had bene burnt, hut when the fire was out, it 
 was found he had no hurt. . . . 
 
 (Plutarch, page 790.) 
 
 Again of iigns in the element, the great comet which 
 feuen nights together was feene uery bright after Caefars 
 death, the eight night after was neuer feene more. Alfo 
 the brightnes of the fun luas darkened. . . . 
 
 Of the text quoted here nothing is wanting in 
 Shakespeare's Ifam/ei excepting the words printed 
 in roman type, namely— 
 
 Page 787— 
 
 For touching the fires in the element 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 87 
 
 Page 790 — 
 
 AgainCj of figns in the element, 
 
 and so we might have the right to suppose that 
 something similar was the content of the lost line ; 
 and if we see that the above (under p. 790) quoted 
 words stand in nearest reference to the following— 
 
 Againe, of figns in the element, the great comet, 
 
 while line 787 gives the word^res — as it were as 
 an interpretative epithet to comei ; and if line 1 1 7 
 in Hamlet speaks of the comet 
 
 Asfiarres with traines offier, 
 
 we will surely not go astray in supposing that the 
 wanting line speaks of the element ; and therefore 
 I have formed the following reading — 
 
 1 15 The graves fiood tenantlefs and thefiieeted dead 
 
 116 Didfqueak and gibber in the Roman fir eets ; 
 ( Ev'n in the element above were figns, or 
 
 ( \_Ev'n in the element were dreadful figns,] 
 fi8 Asfiars with trains of fire. . . . 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 (I. iii. 74.) 
 
 Are of a mq/ifeleSi and generous cheffin that. 
 
 In Quarto 1603 — 
 Are of a mqJifeleSi and generall chief e in that : 
 
 In Quarto 1604 — 
 Or of a moftfeleB and generous, chief e in that : 
 
 No doubt here is a fault, and something must 
 be changed ; but where ? 
 
 If you change one word and omit another, you 
 can dispose of two readings. You have to omit 
 either " a most " or "in that," and you have to 
 change the word " chief" (or, as the Folio gives it, 
 " cheff "). From these changes result the two 
 following readings — 
 
 Are offelefi and generous ^ape in that, 
 
 or 
 
 Are of a mqftfeleSi and generous Jhape. 
 
 The affected mode of expression suits remark- 
 ably well the character of Polonius, and " shape " 
 in the sense here required is a very familiar word 
 with Shakespeare. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 89 
 
 (I. iv. 36.) 
 
 I do not believe it a crime to give the nearly 
 1 00th emendating reading of a passage where 99 
 have been given by others. But I must confess 
 that among those 99 sinners I have been twice 
 sinning myself. Well ! let it be thrice ! There 
 is so much incredible nonsense among those 99 
 that even my two, now by myself rejected, read- 
 ings count perhaps among the best, without de- 
 riving therefrom any great claim to immortality. 
 
 It is the old editor-crux (Quarto 1604) — 
 
 . . . the dram of e ale 
 Doth all the noble fuljiance of a doubt 
 To his owne f candle. 
 
 My former readings were — 
 
 . . . the dram of ill 
 Turns all the noble fubjiance of a draught 
 
 and 
 
 Daubs all the noble fubfiance of a man 
 
 But now I should like to read — 
 
 . . , the dram of ill 
 Doth all the noble fubjiance oft addict 
 To his ownfcandal. 
 
90 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 There is no great change necessary, and the 
 new word "addict" is found in Hamlet, II. i. 19, 
 in a sense not too distant from the meaning here 
 required, but written with one d in the Quarto 
 1604, and with two af's in the first Folio. 
 
 (I. ii. 236-239.) 
 
 Should the form perhaps be — 
 
 Hamlet. . . . in the middle of her favour' s privacies ? 
 
 Guild. Faith . . . 
 
 Hamlet. In thefecret part. . . . 
 
 (II. ii. 540-541.) 
 
 IVotdd haue made milche the Burning eyes of Heaiien, 
 And pqffion in the Gods. 
 
 I prefer to understand " passion in " as a mis- 
 print for passioning. 
 
 Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven, 
 And paffioning the gods. 
 
 Made milch — Made passioning. 
 See Two Gentlemen, IV. iv. 172 — 
 
 Madam, 'twas Ariadne paffioning 
 For Thefeus' perjury. . . . 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 91 
 
 (Ill.iv. 52.) 
 
 ^ye me ; what act, that roares fo lowd\, ^ thunders in the 
 Index. 
 
 There are really commentators who try to 
 make sense out of this, and take the word 
 " index " seriously. Let me quote only what 
 Edwards, Steevens, and Malone say: 
 
 " Mr. Edwards observes that the indexes of 
 many old books were at that time inserted at the 
 begrinninor instead of the end, as is now the cus- 
 torn. This observation I have often confirmed. 
 So, in Othello II. vii. : 'An index and obscure 
 prologue to the history of lust and foul thoughts.'" 
 
 — Steevens. 
 
 " Bullokar in his Expositor, 8vo, 16 16, defines 
 an Index by * A table in a booke. The table was 
 almost always prefixed to the books of our poet's 
 age. Indexes, in the sense in which we now 
 understand the word, were very uncommon.' " 
 
 — Malone. 
 
 A charming image : An act, a deed, roaring and 
 thundering in the table of contents ! And clever 
 men, that give their name to such enormities ! ! 
 We may say with Hamlet : " My tables ! Meet 
 it is I set it down. ..." 
 
 If it is the question to look for nonsense in this 
 
92 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 innocent compositor's error, we do not want the 
 index of an old book — let us speak of the fore- 
 finger, the index ! Hamlet, standing before his 
 mother, with uplifted arm and outstretched fore- 
 finger, points towards the two pictures, and this 
 index thunders and roars ! It is not as bad non- 
 sense as " the table's content," but notwithstand- 
 ing I do not take it seriously ; I believe that 
 Shakespeare wrote simply — 
 
 That roars fo loud and thunders in thy cheji ? 
 
 (II. iv. i6i sq.) 
 
 (Quarto 1604.) 
 
 That monfter ciiftome, who all fence doth eate 
 Of hahits deuill, is angell yet in this 
 That to the vfe of a6iio?is faire and good, 
 He likewife giues a frock or liuery. . , . 
 
 The same words " custom " and " sense ' 
 juxtaposition occur in the same scene, ^y, 38 : 
 
 If damned cuflome haue not hrafd itfo. 
 That it be proof e and bulwark again/l fenfe. 
 
 Or, as we read in the first Folio — 
 
 If damned citftome haue ?iot braz'd itfo, 
 That it is proof e and bulwarke agahifl Senfe. 
 
 m 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 93 
 
 That monster custom, who eats up (destroys) 
 all sense, being a devil in his habits (use, custom), 
 is yet an angel in this . . . — habit here to be un- 
 derstood in the double sense of " custom " and 
 " costume," the latter for the pun with the follow- 
 ing " frock or livery." 
 
 (IV. vii. 1 19 s^.) 
 
 (Quarto 1604.) 
 
 That we would doe 
 IVeJhould doe ivhen we would : for this would change, 
 And hath abatements and delayes as many, 
 As there are tongues, are hands, are accedenis. 
 And then thisjhould is like a fpendthrifts Jigh 
 That hurts ly eajing. . . . 
 
 These words contain the fullest solution of the 
 King's character as well as of that df Hamlet. 
 How is it possible, reading these lines, to believe 
 that Shakespeare intended to give to the portrait 
 of Hamlet any touch of energy ! 
 
 I feel induced here to repeat what I remarked 
 in reviewing (in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch) Mr. 
 Halliwell Phillipps Memoranda on the Tragedy 
 of Hamlet : 
 
 Each period has its individual stamp for every 
 manifestation of intellectual life. The romantic 
 
94 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 period produces ideal philosophers, while in the 
 time of materialism the realistic philosophers are 
 in season. They are never more than the results 
 and consequences, the reflections of the genius of 
 the age, and while they at the best are nothing but 
 the shade of it, they believe to be its light, nay, 
 even itself! It is the like with the so-called 
 aesthetic criticism. In the romantic period it was 
 able to discover in Hamlet the soul that breaks 
 down under the burden it is charged with ; the 
 philosophical dreamer, whose imaginative sphere 
 of thought assumes for him the character of a 
 substantial fact, while the real substantiality of 
 things and actions flutters away before his mind 
 as a mere nothing. 
 
 And to-day ? The realism, that assumes some- 
 thing satyr-like as soon as it attempts to asso- 
 ciate and befriend itself with poetry, discovers in 
 Hamlet the energetic hero, who breaks down in 
 the struggle against the irresistible power of fate. 
 How poor in poetical feeling are those that have 
 the unenviable merit of having promulgated this 
 opinion. They have happily not been able to 
 popularise it ; it is not so easy to demoralise 
 the sound feeling of a people. They look out 
 and ask for a legal witness, who can take an oath 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 95 
 
 on having assisted at the murder of Claudius. If 
 they could get at such a person — oh, what an 
 energy they would display in stimulating Ham- 
 let to any sort of revenge ! but without that ? 
 Impossible ! How could he dare to act against 
 the civil law ? — Why oppose and confute this 
 opinion ! If Hamlet himself had not the power, 
 he who protests with every word against it, who- 
 ever should have the chance of doing so ? And 
 it does not matter ! Those utterances are, like 
 the witches in Macbeth, 
 
 Bubbles, as the water has. 
 
 They are symptoms of a period's disease, and 
 as soon as the bacilles, the bearers and promul- 
 gators of the epidemic, are gone, the disease itself 
 has vanished, Shakespeare and Hamlet are hap- 
 pily immortal, and a few little bacilles of aesthetic 
 philosophers, even if they have been able to unite 
 a little congregation around them (bacilles are 
 easily and enormously multiplied, just like the 
 Elodea canadensis), cannot do them very great 
 harm. They disappear, and Shakespeare and 
 Hamlet, as healthy and immortal as ever, have 
 not even remarked their existence. 
 
 But it is to be regretted that an old and highly 
 
96 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 esteemed champion in the Shakespearian tourna- 
 ment should allow himself to be enticed into this 
 path. In his preface we find the declaration why- 
 he has taken such a dangerous step — 
 
 Let me add, that the more I read of the tragedy of 
 Hamlet, the less I really understand it as a whole. 
 
 His whole deduction moves between the following 
 two limits ; in the beginning : 
 
 The present favourite idea is that in Hamlet the great 
 dramatist intended to delineate an irresolute mind 
 oppressed by the weight of a mission which it is unable to 
 accomplish. This is the opinion of Goethe, following, if 
 I have noted rightly, an English writer in the Mirror 
 of 1780. 
 
 and at the end of the book : 
 
 The preceding memoranda were in type before I 
 noticed that one or two of my views had been antici- 
 pated by Ritson in the year 1783, in remarks that have 
 lately been followed and amplified by two German 
 writers, Klein and Werder. 
 
 It is rather a wide step, from Goethe to Werder ! 
 One could be tempted to exclaim with Hamlet, 
 
 Look here, upon this picture, and on this ! 
 But the author shows us the inner struggle he 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 97 
 
 had to suffer ere he could decide to choose the 
 new way — 
 
 The more I read of the tragedy, the less I really under- 
 stand it ! 
 
 And yet it is the more astonishing for us that he 
 chose it, when we read the following words that 
 express the best understanding for what in this 
 question is right and what wrong : 
 
 . . . But the reason of the general failure in Hamlet- 
 criticism is no doubt chiefly to be traced to the want of 
 ability to enter fully into the inspiration of the poet's 
 genius. It may, however, be safely asserted that the 
 simpler explanations are, and the less they are biased by 
 the subtleties of the philosophical critics, the more likely 
 they are to be in unison with the intentions of the 
 author. 
 
 Could anything better be said ? could a clearer 
 understanding be better expressed ? And not- 
 withstanding, sacrifice Goethe and accept Werder ? 
 It is nearly incomprehensible I Our author says 
 (page 9)— 
 
 The problem to be solved by Hamlet was, to revenge 
 the murder without leaving a tainted name. 
 
 Where is this expressed in Hamlet? where is 
 it only hinted at ? Nobody has a right to give 
 
98 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 to a poet's words another meaning than he him- 
 self intended to express by them ; and that even 
 Mr. Halliwell is not always of the opinion marked 
 in the above-quoted words, is best proved by what 
 he says a few lines later — 
 
 Take note of Hamlet's desire to respect his perfect 
 conscience. 
 
 An energetic Hamlet would not care for his 
 conscience if he had to execute his father's order 
 and his holy revenge ; he would believe his con- 
 science burdened with a sin of omission if he did 
 not fulfil the ghost's command. 
 
 The prattling waveringness of Hamlet, his 
 fishing for every excuse of his inactivity, this 
 endless playing with words and wits, is, by the 
 representatives of the critical tendency we have 
 before us, regarded as an evidence of Hamlet's 
 statesmanlike wisdom and his self-denying sub- 
 ordination under the constraint of necessity — 
 
 So far from Hamlet being inactive, although the 
 active principle in his character is strongly influenced 
 by the meditative, he is really a man of singular deter- 
 mination, and, except in occasional paroxysms, one of 
 powerful self-control (page 14). . . . Much of the diffi- 
 culty in the interpretation of the tragedy arises from the 
 oversight of accepting his soliloquies as continuous illus- 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 99 
 
 trations of his character, instead of being, as they mostly 
 are, transient emanations of his subtle irritability. 
 
 Against this sort of deduction only one single 
 authentically victorious champion exists, and that 
 is, as I said before, Hamlet himself. A moment 
 after the ghost's report he is brimful of energy 
 and passion of revenge — but only for a moment ; 
 in his next words it is already weakened into a 
 witty phrase — 
 
 My tables, meet it is Ifet it down, 
 
 and becomes a shallow play with puns, at the end 
 of the scene* 
 
 Whoever, after having read the close of the 
 second Act, after the departure of the actors — 
 
 what a rogue and peafant Jlave am I! 
 
 is able still to support the opinion of Hamlet's 
 energetic character, has only one excuse, and that 
 is the same that Halliwell alone is honest and 
 courageous enough to express : 
 
 The more I read of the Tragedy, the less I really 
 understand it. 
 
 And besides the above-quoted scene in the second 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 Act, look at the monologue, where Hamlet him- 
 self declares that he understands 
 
 To take arms agaivjl afea of troubles 
 And by oppojing end it, 
 
 not in the form of a brave struggle against 
 life's violence, but in that of a cowardly suicide. 
 But he is wanting in even the energy necessary for 
 executing this ! He fears the dreams ! ! 
 
 there's the refpeSi 
 That makes calamity offo long life. 
 
 The advocates of Hamlet's heroic and energetic 
 nature are accustomed to find a great support of 
 their opinion in his words — 
 
 Thefpirit that I havefeen 
 May be the devil : and the devil hath power 
 To affume. . . . 
 
 I am sure, Shakespeare knew beforehand that 
 this remark would be made by a certain sort of 
 his critics, and in order to answer it, he made the 
 ghost say what was necessary to reduce this ob- 
 jection to nothing : 
 
 But, however thou purfuefi this aSi, 
 
 Taint not thy mind, nor let thy foul contrive 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 jigahifi thy mother might, leave her to heaven, 
 And to thofe thorns that in her bofom lodge, 
 To prick andjling her. 
 
 There is some internal resemblance between 
 those critics and Hamlet himself; both like to 
 misunderstand the ghost — Hamlet from want of 
 moral courage, the critics from their passion for 
 being by no means natural in their feeling, but 
 being as sagacious and subtle as possible ! The 
 ghost, being a devil, could have cursed the woman 
 too without risk of awakening Hamlet's suspicion ; 
 if he does not do so — nay, if he protects her, he 
 proves by this fact that his home is in heaven 
 and only the old and new aesthetic Hamlets can 
 be in any doubt about it ! 
 
 And at last Hamlet's words in the King's 
 Closet : 
 
 Now might I do it pat, now he is praying; 
 
 And now I'll do't, and Jo he goes to heaven ; 
 
 And Jo am I revenged. That would befcann'd : 
 
 A villain kills my father, and for that 
 
 I, hisfolefon, do this fame villain fend 
 
 To heaven. 
 
 Oh, this is hire andfalary, not revenge. . . . 
 
 and farther, till the end of the monologue. 
 
102 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 Why does he not speak there about my tainted 
 name or my conscience? How easy for him here 
 to appeal to the missing witness ? But no ! he is 
 full of hate and vindictive thirst for blood, only 
 that he comes too short of another quality ; and if 
 Hamlet was not able to demonstrate this to those 
 sagacious critics, perhaps Lady Macbeth has more 
 chance with them, and she would have the right 
 word for him, as she has it for the Hamlet-nature 
 in Macbeth — 
 
 Art thou afeard 
 To he the fame in thine own act and valour 
 Afthou art in dejire ? Wouldft thou have that 
 JVhich thoji ejieem'ji the ornament of life, 
 And live a coward in thine own efieem, 
 Letting ' I dare not ' wait upon ' I would' 
 Like the poor cat i' the adage? 
 
 But let that suffice. No discussion is of any 
 avail with the advocates of the above-attacked 
 theory, because they are determined not to be 
 refuted. Nor is it necessary for the benefit of the 
 public, for yon theory has happily not succeeded 
 in misleading its sound common-sense. I only 
 wished to express my regret that so predominant 
 and authoritative a scholar as the author of the 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 103 
 
 " Memoranda " was able, for a moment, to descend 
 to the level of — 
 
 The Hamlet's Energy of Character 
 Protection Co. — Limited ! 
 
 (V. i. 153 j^.) 
 
 H. Hotv long hq/i thou been a gravemaker ? 
 
 First Cl. Of all the days i' the year, I came to 't that 
 day that our Iqft king Hamlet overcame Forl'mlras. 
 
 H. How long is thatjince ? 
 
 First Cl. . . . it was the very day that yount 
 
 Hamlet was born. 
 
 First Cl. ... J have been fexton here, man 
 
 and boy, thirty years. 
 
 First Cl. . . . this Jkull has lain in the earth 
 
 three-and-twenty years. 
 H. fVkofe was it ? 
 
 First Cl. . . . This fame Jkull, Jir, was Yorick's 
 
 Jkull, the king's jejler. 
 
 H. ... Alas! poor Yorick ! I knew him. . . . 
 
 He has borne me on his back a thoufand times. . . . Here 
 hung thofe lips that I have kiffed I know not how oft. . . . 
 
 This is the entire material for treating the 
 
I04 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 still not decided question of Hamlet's age. 
 Yorick is dead twenty-fhree years, and has 
 borne Hamlet a thousand times on his back. 
 We have a right to suppose that in the time 
 of Yorick and Hamlet the use was the same 
 with children as nowadays, and that they were 
 not more than about three years old when they 
 most enjoyed to be carried pick-a-pack, and 
 therefore we are entitled to give Hamlet twenty- 
 six years, if the answers of the gravedigger do 
 not contradict the fact — and they really do not ! 
 He has been employed in the church's service 
 for thirty years ; he has been there already as 
 a boy, in various occupations, is sexton after a 
 few years, and later on grave- maker, and this 
 on the same day that Hamlet was born. So he 
 is in his position for thirty years, of which time 
 he is grave-maker for twenty-six years. 
 
 (V. i. 297 sg'.) 
 
 Come,Jh.iiw ine what thou' It doe. 
 
 JVoo't weepe ? Woo' t fight ? Woo'l teare thyfelfe ? 
 
 JVoo't drinke up Efile, eate a Crocodile ? 
 
 I shall not waste time in mentioning or hinting 
 at all that has been said concerning these lines. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 105 
 
 I say with King Hamlet, "Brief let me be!" 
 and shall only declare that I cannot agree with 
 any of the proposed readings. Neither Yssel, 
 nor Esile, Eisel, or even Nilus tells me any- 
 thing; the best would be Nilus, if several valid 
 objections had not a powerful right against it : 
 the first of these is, that Shakespeare did not 
 write the word ; the second, that the Shake- 
 spearian climax is wanting. Hamlet proposes to 
 drink up the whole Nilus, swallowing which, he 
 must get a lot of crocodiles into the bargain. 
 And what is the gradation following after this 
 grand exploit ? To eat one poor, single croco- 
 dile! No; such a retrograde "climax" is not 
 like Shakespeare. But the most essential objec- 
 tion against Nilus, or any great thing else, is 
 to be found in the content of the second line. 
 Here is no great bravery in anything. Hamlet 
 proposes — weep, fight, fast, tear! Is that an 
 heroic deed .'' And do we want Nilus, or even 
 the little Yssel, to assist the weeping, fighting, 
 fasting, or tearing of Hamlet or Laertes .'' No ! 
 he has not the intention of performing any 
 homeric or herculean deed — he remains within 
 the limits of a commonplace insanity, and pro- 
 poses 
 
io6 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 Now I must interrupt myself, and speak of 
 drink up Eisel. Malone and many other com- 
 mentators after him found in the word up a hint 
 that Shakespeare intended to speak of the drink- 
 ing dry of a whole mass — a sea or a flood. If 
 we could get rid of this " up," perhaps we could 
 get rid of the flood too. Now, let us suppose we 
 found a form — that had no meaning in it — up rice; 
 every one would suppose that it was a misprint 
 for a price} A similar change could take place 
 here — 
 
 TJp eisel, 
 
 A peisel, 
 
 A poison, 
 
 The first fault would result from a wrong hearing, 
 the second from a wrong composing ; but as soon 
 as the correction is made, we find something that 
 at least suits the situation, and is not inconsistent 
 with the preceding thoughts. 
 
 IVod't weep ? woo't Jight ? woo't faji ? woo't tear thy- 
 self? 
 
 All these are very poor things ; but now he 
 
 ' See Measure for Measure, II. i. 39. The Folio has : Some run from 
 brakes of Ice [instead of vice\ . . . Dyce, II. Ed., vol. i. p. 527, No. 35, 
 and vol. ii. p. 59, No. 37. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 107 
 
 begins to be somewhat more energetic. He pro- 
 poses to take poison, and if that would not suffice, 
 he is even prepared to consume a crocodile. Here 
 we have the required climax, an intelligible word, 
 and the exaggeration of a momentarily disturbed 
 mind. Nilus of course would be more poetical, 
 but Shakespeare' did not, in this scene, intend to 
 allow Hamlet more than — 
 
 Weeping, fqfling, poifoning, a. s. 0. 
 
 (V. ii. 41, 42.) 
 
 As Peace Jhouldjiill her wheaten Garland weare 
 Andjland a Comma 'tweene their amities. . . 
 
 Instead of " comma," I should prefer the read- 
 ing " comart;" see Hamlet, I. i. 93 (Folio : cove- 
 nant). 
 
 (V. ii. 128.) 
 
 Ham. The concernancy fir, why doe we wrap the 
 
 gentleman in our more rawer breath ? 
 
 CouR. Sir. 
 
 HoRA. IJi not pojfihle to vnderjland in another tongue, 
 
 you will too' t fir really. 
 
 Thus the second Quarto. The following Quartos 
 have dodt instead of todt. 
 
io8 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 " What does your speech concern ? What is 
 the matter with the gentleman ? (Why do we 
 wrap him in our breath, that, though only air, is 
 rawer than himself — why do we speak of him ? ") 
 and Horatio, who does not relish this eccentric 
 sort of speech, asks in his matter-of-fact way : 
 " Can't you speak like other reasonable people ? " 
 
 (V. ii. 298.) 
 
 He's Jut, and/cant oflreath. 
 
 I recommend the reading of Plehwe, that has 
 been received by Moltke and mentioned in the 
 Furness edition : 
 
 He's hot andfcant of breath. 
 
 (See King John, IV. iii. 74 : / am hot with 
 haste.) 
 
 Hamlet being hot," there is a reason for the 
 Queen to give him her handkerchief, and we are 
 quit of the most unsympathetic fat Hamlet, as 
 well as we are quit of the thirty-years Hamlet by 
 Yorick's skull, that tells us that Hamlet is not 
 more than twenty-six years. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 109 
 
 LEAR. 
 (I. i. 76.) 
 
 . . . the mojl precious fquare of fevfe. . . . 
 
 The most precious sphere, space, province of 
 feeling ; and how is that everywhere called ? How 
 otherwise than heart? 
 
 Alexander Schmidt, the editor of the invalu- 
 able Shakespeare Dictionary, asked me in a letter : 
 " Where did you get your signification of square 
 from ? " I did not mean to say that " precious 
 square of sense " ought to be translated by 
 " heart ; " but the heart is indeed the precious 
 province of feeling, and no preciser and shorter 
 form for what Regan means can be found than 
 " heart." 
 
 Wright's most delicately sensitive part of my nattire 
 Grant White's entire domain of sensation 
 Johnson's compass of comprehension 
 
 (Steevens confirms Johnson's interpretation by quoting, 
 " The square of reason and the mind's clear eye," and 
 so I could claim the right of speaking of a square of 
 sense or sentiment, as of the place where our feeling 
 germinates ; but I will not make use of this right, because 
 Shakespeare himself indeed does not use the words in the 
 sense here required) — 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 What can they mean but " heart " ? 
 
 For those who still do not wish to accept 
 the " square of sense " as equivalent for " heart," 
 let us mention the possibility that square might 
 be a misprint for sphere or space. 
 
 (II. iii. 20,) 
 
 The Country giues me proof e, and prejident 
 Of Bedlam leggers, who . . . 
 
 ^ . .' . 
 
 Tnforce their charitie : poore Turlygod, poore Tom, 
 That's fomething yet : Edgar I nothing am. 
 
 Turlygod, or, as the later editions write, Turfy- 
 good, is nowhere else to be found in Shakespeare. 
 Warburton proposes Turfypin, Hammer Turluru, 
 and Johnson does not say much in saying : " It is 
 probable the word Turlygood was the common 
 corrupt pronunciation." I cannot help reading — 
 
 Enforce their charily. — Foor Tom ! he good ! poor Tom ! 
 
 That is a better way to enforce charity than by 
 saying something of which nobody knows what is 
 meant. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. iii 
 
 (IV. ii. 29.) 
 
 GoN. I haue heene worth the whiftle. 
 
 In the beginning of the scene she says : 
 
 .... J meruell our mild hujband. 
 Not met vs on the way. Now, Where's your Mqfter ? 
 Stew. Madam within . . . 
 
 She means, her husband ought to have given 
 her a sign of his presence, or to have met her on 
 her arrival, and blames him for having neglected 
 this duty of courtesy. 
 
 (IV. ii. 50-60.) 
 
 JViih plumed helm thyjlaier begins threats, 
 
 Alb. See thyfelfe diuell : 
 
 (The second Quarto brings the above-quoted 
 reading, while the first Quarto gives something 
 less intelligible : thy state begins thereat.) 
 
 Who is this " slayer " ? Not France, for he is 
 spoken of in the preceding line ; not Cornwall, 
 for why should he be called Albany's slayer ? 
 He is his confederate against France, notwith- 
 standing the secret designs which may be planned 
 on both sides against the brother-in-law; and 
 finally, why should Albany, after those words of 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 Goneril, be driven to the superlative and furious 
 expression : " See thyself, devil ! " 
 
 There must have been something horrid said, 
 something extraordinarily unnatural, that drives 
 this mild character to such an outburst of feeling ; 
 and we cannot suppose that the other received 
 reading, "thy state," should answer those ques-_ 
 tions. 
 
 But let us look back to Act III., N. f., 14-20 : 
 
 Corn. Where is the king ? 
 
 Os. My lord of Glqfter hath conveyed him hence : 
 Some Jive or fix and thirty of his knights, 
 Hot qiiejlr'ifts after him, met him at gate ; 
 Who, with fame other of the lord's dependants, 
 Are gone with him towards Dover; where they 
 
 hoqfl 
 To have well-armed friends. 
 
 Goneril hears this, and, exaggerating and dress- 
 ing it up, relates to her husband what she has 
 heard, namely, that even her father begins threats ; 
 but a certain unconscious feeling prevents her 
 from calling him " My father." She says in a 
 rather spiteful and contemptuous tone, "this 
 Lear." 
 
 With plumed helm this Lear begins threats. 
 Perhaps you will concede that an inarticulate 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 113 
 
 and swift pronunciation of the words "this 
 Lear," might easily lead to a misunderstand- 
 ing for "thy slayer." And after Goneril has 
 spoken so disdainfully of her father, it is but 
 natural that Albany should call her a devil. 
 Finally, let us not forget that " thy slayer " is 
 not elsewhere to be found in Shakespeare. 
 
 (IV. vi. 97 sg.) 
 
 Ha / Gonerill with a white beard ? 
 
 See I. iv. 107 — 
 
 How now, daughter ! what makes that frontlet on ? 
 
 He is reminded of this frontlet, seeing Gloster 
 with the dark band over his eyes. 
 
 Grant White's emendation of the next lines — 
 
 To Jay ay and no to everything that I said ay and no to, 
 
 is very commendable, while Malone's interpreta- 
 tion of the words, 
 
 and told me I had white hairs, etc., 
 
 clears away any difficulty of this part of the 
 passage. 
 
 H 
 
114 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 (V. iii. S5-) 
 
 Alout it, and write happy, ivhen th' hafi done. . . . 
 
 I cannot see why the captain should "write" 
 happy,, when the deed is done. Write — to 
 whom ? and why ? He is not far enough to 
 be obliged to correspondence ; and I am sure 
 Edmund does not want a letter — a written wit- 
 ness of the crime — where he at every monlent, 
 and by the nearest way, is able to ascertain 
 whether his order is executed or not. 
 
 I should like to propose the reading — 
 
 right happy. 
 
 OTHELLO. 
 (I.i. 21.) 
 
 {A Fellow almojl damn'd in a f aire wife) \ 
 
 It is not necessary to speak about all attempts 
 that have been made to give a sense to the 
 content of this line. Alex. Schmidt, in his 
 " Shakespeare Lexicon," calls it an " unintelli- 
 gible passage;" and the same opinion is ex- 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 115 
 
 pressed in nearly all studies made on the same 
 subject. 
 
 There is one way, acknowledged to be the 
 best, in elucidating and emending the text of an 
 author: it is in investigating his thought, in ex- 
 amining the ductus literarum of the manuscript 
 or the printed copy, and if that does not lead to 
 a conclusion, to ask whether similarity of sound 
 has perhaps been the error's cause. The last 
 step to be taken is, to prove that the result of 
 the emendation, the new word or phrase, belongs 
 to the stock of words or phrases found in the 
 author's works. 
 
 Now, this theory applied to the line in Othello, 
 let us ask what lago intends to say of Cassio in 
 addressing Rodrigo. He wishes to prove that 
 this Florentine, this great arithmetician, is any- 
 thing but a man. He never set a squadron in 
 the field, he knows no more about the division of 
 a battle than a spinster does. 
 
 The mutilated line must have contained some- 
 thing corresponding to that, and surely did so, 
 if I am allowed to suppose my conjecture to be 
 a right one. lago means : He is not a man, 
 knows nothing of the military profession, and can 
 at the best make women fall in love with him. 
 
ii6 SHAKESPE4RE-N0TES. 
 
 See, e.g-., Act I. Scene iii. lines 403, 404, where 
 lago speaks of Cassio — 
 
 He hath a per/on, mid a fmooth difpofe 
 
 To he JufpeBed : frarrCd to make women falfe 
 
 and Act II. Scene i. line 249 sq. — 
 
 hejides, the knaue is handfome, young: and hath all 
 thofe requifites in him that folly and greene mindes lOok 
 after 
 
 and — last, not least — II. i. 316 — 
 
 {For I fear Cajfio with my Night'Cape too) 
 
 Speaking of the /aire wife, lago no doubt 
 thinks on his own wife too. 
 
 iMow, concerning the sound, I find that damnd 
 in is very easily misunderstood for " tempting," 
 and concerning the ductus literarum and the 
 sound, ^^ almost" is easily misunderstood for "at 
 most" : 
 
 A fellow, at mojl tempting a fair wife. 
 
 This is perfectly in keeping with what has been 
 quoted above, the verb " to tempt " is very 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 117 
 
 familiar with Shakespeare, while " at most " in 
 a similar sense is found in Macbeth, III. i. 
 128. 
 
 The Athen^um (No, 3301, May 2, 1885, page 
 577) gives another explanation as answer to my 
 note published in the same paper: B. Nichol- 
 son, M.D., and Mr. A. Hall, are of opinion 
 that Cassio is married, and that his lady is 
 " the fair wife" he is " damn'd in." Mr. N. at 
 least confesses that he has 
 
 no intimation that Cassio was a married man ,- 
 
 but 
 
 the plot neither requires nor demands any other intima- 
 tion; the line itself tells us that he was, and it is conjirmed 
 ly this, that some of the incidents of the plot are thereby 
 rendered more probable and natural. 
 
 What an easy way to elucidate the text of 
 Shakespeare ; you marry Cassio, and all is per- 
 fectly clear ! 
 
1 1 8 SHA KESPEA RE-NO TES. 
 
 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. 
 
 {II. ii. 41-43.) 
 
 Your Wife and Brother 
 Made vuarres vpon me, and their conteftation 
 Was Theamefor you, you were the word ofwarre. 
 
 Warburton's emendation, " was them'd for 
 you," would be all that could be wished for, if 
 Shakespeare had one single time used the word 
 " theme " as a verb, but we find it only as a sub- 
 stantive, and therefore I dare to give another 
 reading — 
 
 . . . and their conteftation 
 Was tak'njrom you, you were the word of war. 
 
 From you they have taken (derived) their sup- 
 posed right and the stimulus to this war ; in their 
 position as wife and brother they thought it fit to 
 make war in your interest. 
 
 (II. ii. 112.) 
 
 Enob. Go too then : your Confideratejlone. 
 
 I propose the reading — 
 
 Your confederate'' s gone. 
 
SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. ' 119 
 
 This is quite in keeping with what Enobarbus 
 said in the words — 
 
 Or if You horrow one another's love for the in/iant, 
 
 and with what Caesar answers in his next speech. 
 Enobarbus' opinion is, that Antony has lost his 
 confederate, since he has lost Ceesar's love, and 
 Caesar answers — 
 
 I do not much di/like the matter . . . 
 . . . for't cannot be 
 IVeJhall remai7i in friend/hip. . . . 
 
 IV. XV. 32, 33. 
 
 Ant. quiche, or I am gone. 
 Cleg. Heere'sfport indeede : 
 
 To these words Malone gives the following 
 note : " Perhaps rather, here's a curious game, the 
 last we shall ever play with Antony I Or perhaps 
 she is thinking of fishing with a line, a diver- 
 sion which we have been already told she was 
 fond of. Shakespeare has introduced ludicrous 
 ideas with as much incongruity in other places." 
 
 Not only do I agree with Malone (as I agreed 
 with him before having known his note), I go 
 further than he did; I am sure Shakespeare 
 
120 SHAKESPEARE-NOTES. 
 
 means, "fishing with a line!" In II. v. lo sq. 
 we read — 
 
 Give me mine angle ; we'll to the river : there, 
 My mtific playing far off, I will betray 
 Tawny-Jinn' djijhes ; my bended hookjhall fierce 
 Their Jlimy jaws, and as I draw them up, 
 I'll think them every one an Antony, 
 And fay, Ah, ha ! you're caught. 
 
 Can there be any doubt that she is reminded of 
 this sport and of her words to Charmion — just in 
 the moment when she is doing the self-same thing 
 in direful earnest : lifting up Antony as with an 
 angle ?i 
 
 fKINTED BV BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO, 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 
 
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