38

BESORT-BEVIS.

besort, attendance, train: With such accommodation and besort, viii. 150. besort, to suit, to befit, to become: such men as may besort your age, viii. 32.

best-Send us to Rome The, vi. 163: Here the best means "the chief persons of Corioli."

best men-Men of few words are the, iv. 453: "best men, that is, bravest; so, in the next lines, good deeds are brave actions" (JOHNSON).

Best-That did betray the, iii. 420: An allusion to Judas Iscariot. best-condition'd, endowed with the best disposition, ii. 387: see condition.

best-indu'd, "gifted or endowed in the most extraordinary manner" (STEEVENS), iv. 439.

bested-Worse, "In a worse plight" (JOHNSON), v. 142.

bestow, to stow, to lodge, to place: bestow your luggage, i. 275; bestow these papers, vii. 125; bestow ourselves, vii. 356, 357; I will bestow him, vii. 386; you have bestow'd my money, ii. 13; our bloody cousins are bestow'd In England, vii. 241; will you see the players well bestowed? vii. 353; Where the dead body is bestow'd, vii. 390; the old man and his people Cannot be well bestow'd, viii. 59; Where he bestows himself, vii. 257.

bestow, to carry, to show: see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his true colours, iv. 333; bestows himself Like a ripe sister, iii. 76. bestowed her on her own lamentation, "gave her up to her sorrows

(STEEVENS), i. 508.

bestraught, distraught, mad, iii. 106.

beteem, to give in streaming abundance: which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes, ii. 263.

beteem, to suffer, "deign to allow" (Caldecott): That he might not beteem the winds of heaven, &c., vii. 310.

better, and worse-Still, “Better in regard to the wit of your double entendre, but worse in respect to the grossness of your meaning" (STEEVENS), vii. 369.

bettering thy loss makes the bad-causer worse, v. 426: “Bettering is amplifying, magnifying thy loss. Shakespeare employed this word for the sake of an antithesis, in which he delighted, between better and loss" (MALONE).

bevel, crooked, ix. 393

Bevis was believ'd-That, That the incredible incidents in the famous romance of Bevis of Southampton were now believed, v. 470.

BEWRAY-BILBOES.

39

bewray, to discover, v. 233, 285; vi. 255, 310, 347; viii. 40, 77; bewray'd, v. 64; ix. 322, 439.

bias, swelled, out of shape ("as the bowl on the biassed side," Johnson's Dict.): thy sphered bias cheek, vi. 91.

bid, to invite: I will bid the duke to the nuptial, iii. 83; bid your friends, iii. 84; he hath bid me to a calf's-head and α capon, ii. 139; I am bid forth to supper, ii. 362; I am not bid to wait upon this bride, vi. 287; bid me to 'em, vii. 19.

bid, endured: for whom you bid like sorrow, v. 432.

bid the base, and run the base: see base,-prison-base, &c.

Biddy, come with me, iii. 367; see note 92, iii. 367.

bide upon't-To, equivalent to "My abiding opinion is," iii. 414. ("Captain, thou art a valiant gentleman;

To abide upon't, a very valiant man.

Beaumont and Fletcher's King and No King, act iv. sc. 3.

"The wife of the said Peter then said, to abide upon it, I thinke that my husband will neuer mend," &c. Potts's Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, 1613, sig. T 4.)

bigamy-Loath'd, v. 410: "Bigamy, by a canon of the council of

Lyons, A.D. 1274 (adopted in England by a statute in 4 Edw. I.), was made unlawful and infamous. It differed from polygamy or having two wives at once; as it consisted in either marrying two virgins successively, or once marrying a widow" (BLACKSTONE). (Fielding, in his Amelia, applies the term bigamy to marrying two wives successively; vol. ii. p. 240, vol. iii. p. 19, ed. 1752.)

biggen, iv. 383: "A cap, quoif, or dress for the head, formerly worn by men, but now limited, I believe, almost entirely to some particular cap or bonnet for young children. . . . Caps or coifs were probably first called beguins or biggins, from their resemblance to the caps or head-dress worn by those Societies of young women who were called Beguines in France, and who led a middle kind of life between the secular and religious, made no vows, but maintained themselves by the work of their own hands." Boucher's Glossary of Arch. and Prov. Words.

bilberry, wortleberry, i. 447.

bilbo, a sword (so called from Bilboa in Spain, which was famous for its manufacture of sword-blades), i. 365, 421.

bilboes-The vii. 423: "The bilboes is a bar of iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mutinous or disorderly sailors were anciently linked together. The word is derived from Bilboa, a place in Spain where instruments of steel were fabricated in the utmost perfection. To understand Shakespeare's allusion completely, it

should be known that, as these fetters connect the legs of the offenders very close together, their attempts to rest must be as fruitless as those of Hamlet, in whose mind there was a kind of fighting that would not let him sleep. Every motion of one must disturb his partner in confinement. The bilboes are still shown in the Tower of London, among the other spoils of the Spanish Armada" (STEEVENS).

bill, a sort of pike or halbert, or rather a kind of battle-axe affixed to a long staff, formerly carried by the English infantry, and afterwards the usual weapon of watchmen (" Bills—these long-popular weapons of the foot-soldier-were constructed to thrust at mounted men, or cut and damage their horse-furniture; sometimes they were provided with a side-hook to seize a bridle." FAIRHOLT): take thou the bill (with a quibble), give me thy mete-yard, iii. 171; my brain-pan had been cleft with a brown bill, v. 203; have a care that your bills be not stolen, ii. 113; a goodly commodity, being taken up of these men's bills (with a quibble both on taken up,—see take up, and on bills), ii. 117; manage rusty bills, iv. 149; take up commodities upon our bills (with a quibble), v. 197; our bills. Tim. Knock me down with 'em (with a quibble): cleave me to the girdle, vii. 49; Bring up the brown bills, viii. 96.

bill, a forest-bill, an implement carried by foresters with bills on their necks (with a quibble-see note 17, iii. 13), iii. 13.

bill, a placard posted by public challengers: He set up his bills here in Messina, ii. 74.

bill, a billet, a note: give these bills Unto the legions on the other side, vii. 189.

bin, been, ix 277.

bird-bolt, a short thick arrow with a blunted extremity, for killing birds without piercing them, ii. 74, 204; bird-bolts, iii. 325.

birds, deceiv'd with painted grapes, ix. 243: "Our author alludes to the celebrated picture of Zeuxis, mentioned by Pliny, in which some grapes were so well represented that birds lighted on them to peck at them" (MALONE).

birthdom, birthright, vii. 269.

bisson, blind: your bisson conspectuities, vi. 167; this bisson multitude, vi. 196 (see note 109, vi. 196).

bisson, blinding: bisson rheum, vii. 352.

bite my thumb at them—1 will, vi. 375; Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? &c., ibid.: "This mode of insult, in order to begin a quarrel, seems to have been common in Shakespeare's time. Decker, in his Dead Term, 1608, describing the various groups that daily frequented St. Paul's Church, says, 'What swearing is there, what

BITE-BLANKS.

41

shouldering, what justling, what jeering, what byting of thumbs, to beget quarrels!' [a passage originally cited by Malone]. ... The mode in which this contemptuous action was performed is thus described by Cotgrave [sub Nique], in a passage which has escaped the industry of all the commentators; 'Faire la nique: to mocke by nodding or lifting up of the chinne; or more properly, to threaten or defie by putting the thumbe naile into the mouth, and with a jerke (from the upper teeth) make it to knacke'" (SINGER). bite thee by the ear—I will, vi. 415: “This odd mode of expressing pleasure, which seems to be taken from the practice of animals, who, in a playful mood, bite each other's ears, &c., is very common in our old dramatists." Gifford's note on Jonson's Works, vol. ii. p. 184.

bitter sweeting-A very, vi. 415: sweeting means a kind of sweet apple; bitter-sweet or bitter-sweeting, an apple which has a compound taste of sweet and bitter ("A bitter-sweet [Apple], Amarimellum." Coles's Lat. and Engl. Dict.).

black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes, i. 247 : Ray gives "A black man's a jewel in a fair woman's eye." Proverbs, p. 47, ed. 1768. Black-Monday, ii. 362: "Black Monday (as Mr. Peck observes, Explanatory and Critical Notes upon Shakespeare's Plays) 'is a moveable day, 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 call'd the BlackeMonday.' Stow, p. 264 b." (GREY.)

blacks-O'er-dy'd, iii. 410: Blacks, i.e. mourning habiliments: by o'er-dy'd blacks "Sir Thomas Hanmer understands blacks dyed too much, and therefore rotten" (JOHNSON).

bladed corn, vii. 261: see note 84, vii. 261.

blank, the white in the centre of the butts (see clout), also the mark or aim in gunnery: the blank And level (the mark and range or line of aim) of my brain, iii. 432; As level as the cannon to his blank, vii. 389; The true blank of thine eye, viii. 11; within the blank ("shot," JOHNSON) of his displeasure, viii. 204.

blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what—As, iv. 129: "Blanks. A mode of extortion, by which blank papers were given to the agents of the crown, which they were to fill up as they pleased, to authorize the demands they chose to make." Nares's Gloss.: "Stow records, that Richard II. 'compelled all the Religious, Gentlemen, and Commons, to set their scales to blankes, to the end he might, if it pleased him, oppresse them severally, or all at once: some of

42

BLANKS-BLOOD.

the Commons paid 1000 markes, some 1000 pounds,' &c. Chronicle, p. 319. fol. 1639" (HOLT WHITE). blanks-Commit to these waste, ix. 370: "Probably this Sonnet was designed to accompany a present of a book consisting of blank paper. Lord Orrery sent a birth-day gift of the same kind to Swift, together with a copy of verses of the same tendency" (STEEVENS).

blast in proof, burst in the trial (a metaphor, as Steevens observes, from the proving of fire-arms or cannon), vii. 409.

bleared thine eyne, imposed upon you, deceived you, iii. 183 (The expression is a very old one).

blench, to start off, to fly off, to shrink, to flinch, i. 536; iii. 417 (where Steevens explains Could man so blench? by "Could any man so start or fly off from propriety of behaviour?"); vi. 8, 40; vii. 355.

blenches, "starts, or aberrations from rectitude" (MALONE), ix. 387. blend, blended, blent: blend with objects manifold, ix. 420: see note 9, ix. 420.

blent, blended: being blent together, ii. 384; beauty truly blent, iii. 330. blind-worm, a slow-worm, vii. 260; blind-worms, ii. 280.

blister'd breeches, "breeches puffed, swelled out like blisters" (STEEVENS), breeches "gathered into close rolls or blisters" (FAIRHOLT), v. 488.

bloat, bloated, swollen with intemperance, vii. 386.

block, the shape or fashion of a hat,-properly the mould on which felt hats were formed: changes with the next block, ii. 75 (Dekker uses the word metaphorically: "But, sirra Ningle, of what fashion is this knights wit, of what blocke?" Satiro-mastix, 1602, sig. c 2). block, the hat itself: This' a good block, viii. 99: see note 106, viii. 99. blood, disposition, inclination, temperament, impulse: Blood, thou still

art blood, i. 492; faith melteth into blood ("as wax, when opposed to the fire kindled by a witch, no longer preserves the figure of the person whom it was designed to represent, but flows into a shapeless lump; so fidelity, when confronted with beauty, dissolves into our ruling passion, and is lost there like a drop of water in the sea," STEEVENS), ii. 90; wisdom and blood combating, ii. 102; his important blood, iii. 264; Let thy blood be thy direction till thy death! vi. 45; Strange, unusual blood, vii. 63; To let these hands obey my blood, viii. 87; our bloods No more obey the heavens, &c., viii. 385 (see note 1, viii. 385).

blood-To be in, (a term of the chase), to be in good condition, to be vigorous: The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,—blood, ii. 198;