Shall witness I set forth as soon as you, And but e'en now return'd; I have not yet Bass. Were you the doctor, and I knew you not? Gra. Were you the clerk, that is to make me cuckold? Ner. Ay; but the clerk that never means to do it, Unless he live until he be a man. Bass. Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow; When I am absent, then lie with my wife. Ant. Sweet lady, you have given me life and living; For here I read for certain, that my ships Are safely come to road. Por. How now, Lorenzo ! My clerk hath some good comforts too for you. Ner. Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee. There do I give to you and Jessica, From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift, After his death, of all he dies possess'd of. Por. Gra. Let it be so: the first inter❜gatory, But were the day come, I should wish it dark, [Exeunt. NOTES TO THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. АСТ І. 1 Argosies with portly sail. Shakespeare has made the term 'argosies (ships of great burden) familiar, as well as classical. Steevens quotes Rycaut's Maxims of Turkish Polity, to shew that the term originated in a corruption of Ragosies; that is, ships of Ragusa. But Douce derives it from the famous ship Argo, and thinks Shakespeare hinted as much by adverting twice in the course of the play to the story of Jason. 2 And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand. Andrew had been the name of one of Antonio's ships, probably so called, as Mr Knight conjectures, in association with the great naval commander, Andréa Doria, famous through all Italy. When Antonio, in the next line, figures his Andrew 'vailing her high top,' the phrase means lowering her high-top when docked in the sand. 3 I'll grow a talker for this gear; that is, for this matter. In Scotland, the term is in common use, applied to riches. Spenser uses it as signifying dress or ornaments: Array thyself in her most gorgeous gear.' 4 Is that anything now? Both the quartos and the folio read, 'It is that anything now.' The word 'It' is clearly superfluous. Johnson thought we should read, 'Is that anything new?' 5. To find the other forth; that is, to find the other out. In the Comedy of Errors, we have to find his fellow forth.' To send one arrow after another to find the first, is an old expedient in archery: the expression was proverbial. 'I have seen a creditor in prison weep when he beheld the debtor, and to lay out money of his own purse to free him : he shot a second arrow to find the first.'-Dekker's Villanies Discovered, 1616. 6 Is there the county Palatine. I am always inclined to believe that Shakespeare has more allusions to particular facts and persons than his readers commonly suppose. The count here mentioned was, perhaps, Albertus a Lasco, a Polish Palatine, who visited England in our author's time, was eagerly caressed and splendidly entertained; but running in debt, at last stole away, and endeavoured to repair his fortune by enchantment.-JOHNSON. He came to England, it appears, in 1583, and on returning to his palace, near Cracow, engaged in operations hoping to transmute inferior metals into gold. 7 If a throstle sing. The throstle is the song-thrush. German-weissdrossel. This bird is easily taught to perform airs, and Portia perhaps alludes to this when she says, that the Frenchman falls a-capering when the throstle sings. 8 What think you of the Scottish lord? In the folio this question (found in the quarto editions) stands, What think you of the other lord?' After the accession of James VI. to the English throne, it would not have been prudent, and scarcely safe, to throw ridicule on a Scottish lord; and Shakespeare's editors, Heminge and Condell, had most likely made the alteration. 9 Shylock. Supposed to be derived from Scialac, the name of a Maronite of Mount Libanus. Douce says that the Jews of Venice were distinguished by wearing a scarlet hat, lined with black taffeta. They were a wealthy and numerous body of usurers. The Jewish gaberdine, mentioned in this speech, was a long loose coat. 10 Upon the Rialto. Rialto is the name, not of the bridge, but of the island, from which it is called; and the Venetians say il ponte di Rialto, as we say Westminster Bridge. In that island is the Exchange; and I have often walked there as on classic ground. In the days of Antonio and Bassanio, it was second to none.-ROGERS. The associations called up by Venice and the Rialto are described by Byron, in imperishable verse, in the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold. 11 Fearful guard. Warburton proposed to substitute 'fearless guard,' forgetting, as Johnson said, that in Shakespeare's language a 'fearful guard' was one that was not to be trusted, but gave cause of fear. ACT II. 1 Thou hast got more hair on thy chin than Dobbin my fill-horse has on his tail. Fill or phill horse is the horse between the shafts or fills. 6 'Stage tradition, not improbably from the time of Shakespeare himself, makes Launcelot, at this point, kneel with his back to the sand-blind old father, who, of course, mistakes his long back hair for a beard, of which his face is perfectly innocent.'-STAUNTON. 2 More guarded than his fellows'. Guards were ornaments, fringes, or laces. Thus in Henry VIII. (Prologue) we have 'motley coat guarded with yellow.' 3 A sad ostent; that is, a grave appearance-a display of seriousness. 4 Black Monday. Stowe has a note on the origin of this phrase. 'It is Easter Monday, and was so called on this occasion: in the 34th of Edward III. (1360), the 14th of April, and the morrow after Easter Day, King Edward, with his host, lay before the city of Paris, which day was full dark of mist and hail, and so bitter cold, that many men died on their horses' backs with the cold. Wherefore, unto this day, it hath been called the Black Monday.' 50, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly To seal love's bonds. Warburton (whose 'critical telescope' was unmatched) saw a joke in this allusion, which the ignorance or boldness of the first transcribers had murdered.' He proposed to read 'Venus' widgeons !' 'For widgeon,' he said, 'signified, metaphorically, a silly fellow, as goose or gudgeon does now. The calling love's voteries Venus' widgeons is in high humour.' On this discovery, Johnson sarcastically remarks, 'How it is so very high humour to call lovers widgeons rather than pigeons I cannot find. Lovers have in poetry been always called turtles or doves, which in lower language may be pigeons.' 6 Gilded tombs do worms infold. This is the reading of Johnson, now universally adopted. All the old copies have 'Gilded timber.' Rowe inserted 'Gilded wood.' 7 Sensible regreets; that is, cordial salutations. ACT III. 1 As ever knapped ginger; that is, snapped or broke ginger. In Scottish ecclesiastical history we find the word used by John Hamilton, a secular priest of the sixteenth century. King James V., he says, hearing one of his subjects knap southron [affect to speak English], declared him a traitor! 2 Thou torturest me, Tubal: it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah, when I was a bachelor. This pathetic allusion to the loss of Leah's present an early love-token-is a redeeming trait in the character of the Jew it links more closely his sordid and malignant nature to humanity. The turquoise was classed among the most precious of stones, and was supposed to possess miraculous power in subduing enmity, and forewarning its owner of approaching evil and danger. 3 To peize the time; that is, to poise or weigh the time-to hang it in suspense. 4 Thus ornament is but the guiled shore To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on The second folio prints 'guilded (then the common form of gilded) |