'But in conclusion put strange speech upon me;'

that is, adressed me in strange terms. Measure for Measure, iv. 2. 120.

See also Macbeth, iv. 3. 239:

101. green, immature. See King John, iii. 4. 145:

'How green you are and fresh in this old world !'

102. Unsified, untried, inexperienced.

Ib. circumstance, a collective word.

107. Tender, regard. See Two Gentlemen of Verona, iv. 4. 145:

'I thank you, madam, that you tender her.'

And Richard III, ii. 4. 72.

109. Running. This reading, proposed by Collier, was first adopted by Dyce. The quartos have Wrong,' the folios, 'Roaming.' The reading in the text is more in accordance with the figure in the previous line.

112. go to, an exclamation of contempt and impatience.

v. 1. 51.

See Macbeth,

114. almost all the holy. The folios omit the words 'almost' and 'holy,' which have the appearance of being insertions for the sake of the metre.

115. springes, snares. See v. 2. 290. Compare Gosson, Apologie for the Schoole of Abuse, p. 72 (ed. Arber): When Comedie comes vpon the Stage, Cupide sets vpp a Springe for Woodcockes, which are entangled ere they descrie the line, and caught before they mistruste the snare.'

116. prodigal, adjective for adverb. Compare Macbeth, ii. 3. 143: 'Which the false man does easy.' See Abbott, § I.

117. Pope filled up the line by reading 'Oh, my daughter,' and Capell by 'gentle daughter.'

119. a-making. Compare 'a-killing' in Othello, iv. 1. 188, and see Abbott, § 24 (2).

121. something, somewhat. See Macbeth, iii. 1. 132: something from the palace.'

Ib. scanter. 'Scant' only occurs elsewhere as an adjective, in v. 2. 271. 122. entreatments. Not elsewhere found in Shakespeare. Johnson interprets it as 'company, conversation'; like 'entertainment' in line 64. But 'parley' in the next line seems to point to the sense of preliminary negotiations, and so solicitations.

.

126. in few, that is, in few words, in short. See Tempest, i. 2. 144:

'In few, they hurried us aboard a bark.'

127. brokers, go-betweens, negotiators. See Lover's Complaint, line 173. 128. that dye. The folios read the eye,' using the word in the same sense in which it occurs in the Tempest, ii. 1. 55: With an eye of green in it'; where it signifies a dash of colour.

Ib. investments, vesture. See 2 Henry IV, iv. I. 45:

'Whose white investments figure innocence.'

129. implorators, solicitors.

130. Breathing, whispering. Compare Two Gentlemen of Verona, iii. 1. 239 : 'If so, I pray thee, breathe it in mine ear.'

And King John, v. 7. 65:

'You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.'

And Hamlet, ii. I. 31, 44.

Ib. bawds. Theobald's conjecture. The old reading is 'bonds.' 133. slander, abuse or disgrace.

Ib. moment. So the folios and earlier quartos. The fourth and subsequent quartos read 'moments.' If the reading of the text be correct, 'moment' must be taken as an adjective. This is very common when the first substantive is the name of a place, as 'Lethe wharf,' i. 5. 33.

135. come your ways. See iii. 1. 129, 'Go thy ways.' 'Ways' in this phrase, which is still common, is probably a relic of the old genitive.

Scene IV.

1. shrewdly, keenly, piercingly.

2. eager, sharp, from Fr. aigre. See i. 5. 69, and Chapman's Homer, Iliad, xi. 231:

'The eager anguish did approve his princely fortitude.'

3. hour. Here, as often, a dissyllable.

8. wake, feast late. For a night-feast the word is used in Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2. 318: At wakes and wassails.'

Ib. rouse. See note on i. 2. 127.

9. wassail, revelry; from A. S. was hal, 'be f health.' See note on Macbeth, i. 7. 64.

Ib. up-spring, the English rendering of the German 'Hüpfauf': according to Elze the last and consequently the wildest dance at the old German merry-makings. It occurs in Chapman's Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany, [p. 83. ed. Elze, 1867:]

'We Germans have no changes in our dances,

An Almain and an up-spring, that is all.'

Some interpreters of the present passage takeup-spring' as a substantive in the sense of up-start,' which Pope actually substitutes for it.

11. Compare i. 2. 125–127, and v. 2. 258-262. The Danish drinking customs were familiar in England. Douce quotes from Cleveland's Fuscara, or The Bee Errant :

Tuning his draughts with drowsie hums

As Danes carowse by kettle-drums.'

12. triumph. In bitterest irony.

17-38. This heavy-headed revel . . . scandal. Omitted in the folios. 17. In Othello, ii. 3. 79, the Dane is mentioned as a deep drinker with the German and the Hollander. In the present passage there is probably an

indirect reflection on the drinking habits of the English, which are directly censured in the same scene of Othello. Compare Beaumont and Fletcher, the Captain, iii. 2:

Can suck more liquor: you shall have their children
Christen'd in mull'd sack, and at five years old
Able to knock a Dane down.'

18. tax'd, censured. See Troilus and Cressida, i. 3. 197:

6

They tax our policy and call it cowardice.'

19. clepe, call; from A. S. cleopian. See Love's Labour's Lost, v. I. 23, and Macbeth, iii. 1. 93, with our note.

Ib. swinish phrase. Could Shakespeare have had in his mind any pun upon 'Sweyn,' which was a common name of the Kings of Denmark? 20. addition, title. See Macbeth, i. 3. 106.

21. at height, to the utmost.

303, 'In the height.'

Compare Much Ado about Nothing, iv. 1.

22. The pith.. attribute. Johnson explains this to mean The best and most valuable part of the praise that would be otherwise attributed to us.' Attribute' is used in the sense of reputation,' as Troilus and Cressida,

ii. 3. 125:

Much attribute he hath, and much the reason
Why we ascribe it to him.'

24. mole of nature, natural blemish.

25. Malone quotes from Lucrece, 538, 9:

For marks descried in men's nativity

Are nature's faults, not their own infamy.'

26. his, for its.' See note on i. 2. 216.

27. complexion. In the old medical language there were four complexions or temperaments; the sanguine, melancholy, choleric, and phlegmatic.

30. plausive, pleasing, popular. See All's Well that Ends Well, i. 2. 53: His plausive words

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He scatter'd not in ears.'

32. nature's livery, or fortune's star. accidental.

A defect which is either natural or

33. Their. Theobald's correction for His' of the quartos, which after all Shakespeare may have inadvertently written.

34. undergo, endure, support. Johnson explains the line, As large as can be accumulated upon man.' Compare Measure for Measure, i. 1. 24:

'If any in Vienna be of worth

To undergo such ample grace and honour.'

35. censure, opinion. See i. 3. 69.

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36, 37. the dram . . . doubt. We leave this hopelessly corrupt passage as it stands in the two earliest quartos. The others read ease' for 'eale,' and modern writers have conjectured for the same word, base, ill, bale, ale, evil, ail, vile, lead.' For of a doubt' it has been proposed to substitute' of worth out,'' soil with doubt,' 'oft adopt,'' oft work out,' 'of good out,' 'of worth dout,' often dout,'' often doubt,' oft adoubt,' oft debase,'' overcloud,' ' of a pound,' and others.

40. spirit of health, a healed, or saved, spirit. See note on i. 2. 4.

43. questionable, inviting question, or conversation. Compare Macbeth, i. 3. 43:

'Live you? or are you aught

That man may question?'

In As You Like It, iii. 2. 393, an unquestionable spirit' means a spirit averse to conversation.

47. canonized. Used with the same accent in King John, iii. 1. 177, and iii. 4. 52; and so always. The sacred rites of the funeral were a kind of canonization.

Ib. hearsed, entombed. See Ben Jonson's Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke: Underneath this marble hearse.'

48. cerements. 'Cerecloth' occurs in Merchant of Venice, ii. 7. 51, where see our note. The quarto of 1603 here reads 'ceremonies.' As this copy is probably derived from short-hand notes taken at the play, it would seem to show that 'cerements' was pronounced as a trisyllable. 'Sepulchre' is usually, but not always, accented by Shakespeare on the first syllable.

49. inurn'd. This is the reading of the folios, the first having 'enurn'd.' The quartos, including that of 1603, have 'interr'd.' The change can scarcely have been made by any one but the poet himself. Inurn'd' is used in a general sense for interred,' as 'urn' for 'grave,' in Henry V, i. 2. 228. 52. complete. Accented on the first syllable, as in Measure for Measure, i. 3. 3, and on the second in King John, ii. 1. 433.

53. glimpses, the glimmering light of the moon struggling through the clouds.

54. we ought in strict grammar to be 'us.'

Ib. fools of nature, playthings of nature, who are completely under her influence. Compare Measure for Measure, iii. I. II:

Merely thou art Death's fool.'

55. disposition. See Hamlet, i. 5. 172, iii. 1. 12, and our note on Macbeth,

iii. 4. 113.

56. reaches. Compare Hamlet, ii. 1. 64, and 2 Henry VI, i. 2. 46: 'Above the reach or compass of thy thought.' The plural is here used as in i. 1. 173. 59. impartment, communication.

61. waves. So the quartos, as in 1. 78. The folios have 'wafts' in both. Either word means beckon,' and both are used by Shakespeare.

So we

have a double form of the verb 'graff' and 'graft.' In line 68 all the copies read 'waves.'

Ib. removed, remote, retired. See As You Like It, iii. 2. 360: 'so removed a dwelling.'

64. should is sometimes used, as the German sollen, with reference to the statement or opinion of another. Compare Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 2. 122: Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?' And As You Like It, iii. 2. 182: 'But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be hanged and carved upon these trees?' And Macbeth, i. 2. 45: 'You should be women,

And yet your beards forbid me to interpret

That you are so.'

65. fee, from Anglo-Saxon feoh (vieh in German), meaning first ‘cattle,' then 'money,' like pecus, pecunia in Latin, for the importance of cattle in a simple state of society early caused an intimate connection between the notion of cattle and of money or wealth.' (Wedgwood, Dictionary of English Etymology, s. v.) Cowell, in his Law Dictionary, derives it from 'fief.' Whatever its origin it comes to mean 'property,' 'estate.' • A pin's fee,' is 'a pin's worth.'

71. beetles, projects, leans over. So 'beetle brows,' Romeo and Juliet, i. 4 32. 73. deprive, here used with the accusative of the thing, not, as usual, of the person. Lettsom quotes Lucrece, 1186:

And 1752:

"Tis honour to deprive dishonour'd life.'

That life was mine which thou hast here deprived.'

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·

Ib. sovereignty of reason, the control which reason exercises over a sane mind. With your sovereignty of reason,' compare your cause of distemper' in iii. 2. 303.

75. toys, idle fancies.

82. artery. Speltarture' in the quartos,

artire' in the folios. Compare Drayton's Elegies, p. 298 (ed. 1631): Shewing the artyre.' Cotgrave however always spells it ' artery.'

83. Nemean lion's. Compare Love's Labour's Lost, iv. I. 90: Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar.

Ib. nerve, muscle. So Coriolanus, i. 1. 142:

The strongest nerves and small inferior veins.'

85. lets me, hinders me. Compare Romans i. 13, and 2 Thessalonians ii. 7. 89. Have after, like 'have with you.' See Richard III, iii. 2. 92: 'Come, come, have with you.' In Foxe's narrative, Latimer said to Ridley on their way to the stake, 'Have after, as fast as I can follow.'

90. it. That is, the issue.

Ib. Nay,

e. let us not leave it to heaven, but do something ourselves.