THE BIBLE USED IN THE CHURCH.

Shakespeare's acquaintance, too, with the Bible text used in the church the following passages compared with the different versions go to evince:

1) "A horson ACHITOPHEL; a Rascally-yea-forsooth-knave”,

2. Henry IV., Act I, 11, 41, Folio;-the Quarto gives the same form of the name, which is also found in the Bishops' Bible. The present Authorised, the Genevan, and the 'Great Bible' versions have Ahithophel.

2) "for wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it." (1. Henry IV., Act I, 11, 99.)

Compare Prov., I, 20 and 24, in the Bishops' Version:

v. 20: Wisdome crieth without, and putteth foorth her voyce in the streetes.

v. 24: Because I have called, and ye refused, I have stretched out my hande, and no man regarded.

Instead of these italicized words the Geneva Bible has: 'none 'woulde regard'. The Great Bible reads: 'and no man re'garded it'.

3) "Did they not sometime cry, 'all HAIL!' to me?

"So Judas did to Christ." (Rich. II., Act IV, 1, 169.)

"so Judas kiss'd his master,

"And cried "all HAIL!' when as he meant all harm”.

(3. Henry VI., Act V, vII, 33.)

Compare Matth., XXVI, 49, where the Bishops' Bible reads:

And foorthwith when he came to Iesus, he sayd, HAYLE maister: and kissed hym.

This agrees also with the words of the Great Bible which were included in the Prayer-Book in the Gospel for the Sunday before Easter. The Geneva Bible does not give the word 'hail' except as a marginal reading. 'Hail' is, however, in Tomson's translation of Mark, XIV, 45, where no other Version has it.

THE APOCRYPHA.

We should remember that Shakespeare was familiar with the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament which no longer find a place in the common editions of the Authorised Bible.

THE HISTORY OF SUSANNA.

In 'The Merchant of Venice' (Act IV, 1, 223) the Jew is made

to say:

A Daniel come to judgement! yea, a Daniel!
O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!

(Cp., too, v. 333 & v. 340.)

Here Shakespeare is thought to have had in view The historie of Susanna', where 'a yong child, whose name was Daniel'1 proves wiser than the judges and convicts the two wicked elders of false 'witnesse by their owne mouth', thus saving Susanna from imminent death. Fro[m] that day forth was Daniel had in great reputation in 'the sight of the people'. But I ought not to forget remarking that, apart from this Susanna incident, Daniel's wisdom was held in high esteem of old. Compare, e. g., what is said about him in Daniel V, 11, 12:

There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is spirit of the holy gods, and in the dayes of thy father, light and understanding and wisdome like the wisdome of the goddes, was found in him . . . . Because a more excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding found in him, etc.

were

Comp., too, Daniel, IV, 6; VI, 3; Ezech., XXVIII, 3; The Bel and the Dragon; etc.

The above narrative of Susanna is also apparently alluded to in All's Well (II, 1, 141):

He that of greatest works is finisher

Oft does them by the weakest minister:

So holy writ in babes hath judgement shown,
When judges have been babes."

THE HISTORY OF BEL AND THE DRAGON.

In Much Ado About Nothing (Act III, III, 143) Borachio says that fashion makes young men appear "sometime like god Bel's "priests in the old church-window”,-the subject of the painting being taken from the apocryphal narrative, where Daniel detects the imposture of the priests of Bel.

1 I am quoting from the Geneva Bible, 1578. 'young child' is also in the Bishops' Bible and in the Great Bible. The Authorised version substituted ‘young youth' for 'young child', which latter agrees better with the passage quoted from All's Well (II, 1, 141). See Clarend. Press ed. of Merch. of Ven., p. 120.

THE WISDOM OF JESUS THE SON OF SIRACH, CALLED ECCLESIASTICUS.

The saying of Jesus, the son of Sirach, (Ecclesiasticus, chapt. XIII, 1)

He that toucheth pitche, shalbe defiled

had no doubt become a current proverb. Shakespeare refers to it in Much Ado, III, 1, 60:

they that touch pitch will be defiled;

in 1. Henry IV., Act II, IV, 455:

this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile;

and in other dramas (Love's Lab. Lost, IV, 111, 3; All's Well, IV, 1v, 24; 2. Henry VI., Act II, 1, 196; Timon, I, 11, 231). In illustration of Merch. of Ven., IV, 1, 184-186:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.

the commentators quote from Ecclesiasticus, XXXV, 20:

Oh, how faire a thing is mercie, in the time of anguish and trouble! It is like a cloude of raine, that commeth in the time of a drought. Compare, too, Deuter., XXXII, 2.

THE MACCABEES.

Judas Maccabaeus, the hero of the Apocryphal Maccabees, appears as one of the Nine Worthies in Love's Lab. Lost, Act V.

FRENCH BIBLE.

In Henry V. (Act III, VII, 68) the Dauphin is made to say:

Le chien est retourne a son propre vemissement est la leuye lauee au bourbier.

This passage as it stands in the 1st Folio contains three obvious misprints: 'vemissement' for 'vomissement', the second 'est' for 'et', and 'leuye' for 'truye' truie.

The quotation is taken from the French Bible (2. Peter, II, 22), of which there were differing versions in use in the sixteenth century, most of them being apparently re-edited from, or based on, Olivetan and Calvin's Translation. I have compared several French Bibles and New Testaments. The text coming nearest to the above quotation I find given by La Sainte Bible, Lyon MDXXXXX [sic] (par Balthazar Arnoullet):

Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement: & la truye lauee est retournee au bourbier.

This is identical with Shakespeare's wording except for 'est re'tournee' repeated here with the required change of gender. Le Nouveau Testament à Lyon, 1584, offers the same version as the above Lyon Bible, but spells 'truie' instead of 'truye'. The French Bibles printed at Geneva 1588, 1605, at la Rochelle 1616, and the New Testament, Geneva 1562, all agree in rendering the latter part of the verse thus:

& la truye lauee est retournee à se veautrer au bourbier.

(The italics are in the original text.) Other Bibles differ still more.

LATIN BIBLE.

The phrase Medice, teipsum used by the Cardinal in 2. Henry VI. (II, 1, 53), which is from the Vulgate (Luke, IV, 23: Medice, cura te ipsum!) probably enjoyed proverbial currency.

THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER REFLECTED IN

SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS.

In the present section I purpose to follow up traces and reminiscences of the Prayer Book in the poet's works, a subject which ought to be of sufficient interest to demand the attention of the Shakespearean scholar. The Prayer Book, I may state, has experienced comparatively few changes since the Elizabethan age, so that Shakespeare worshipped according to the same rites, read the same version of the Psalms, and used much the same prayers, etc., as the English churchman of to-day. I quote from "The Booke of Common prayer', 1586.

I begin with the phrase: 'world without end' used by the poet in Love's Lab. Lost (V, 11, 799) and in Sonnet 57,5, and no doubt caught from the Prayer Book, where it occurs so frequently.

In

"THE LETANIE'

the words Good Lord deliver us form the recurring response to such supplications as, 'From all evill and mischiefe, from sinne', etc., 'From 'fornication, and all other deadly sinne, and from all the deceits of 'the world, the flesh and the devill'.

Compare Tam. of the Shrew, I, 1, 66:

Hor. From all such devils, good Lord deliver us!
Gre. And me too, good Lord!

BAPTISM.

The Priest administering baptism puts the following question:

Doest thou forsake the devil and all his workes, the vaine pompe and glory of the worlde, with all covetous desires of the same, etc.?

Compare,

Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye.

(Henry, VIII., Act III, 11, 365).

What King Henry V. says in the drama called after him (Act I, 11,31): what you speak is in your conscience wash'd

As pure as sin with baptism

agrees with the belief expressed in the baptism service:

Almightie and everlasting God, which ....

by the Baptisme of thy

welbeloved Sonne Iesus Christ, diddest sanctifie the flood Iordan and al other waters, to the mysticall washing away of sinne.

THE CATECHISM.

(Comp. Acts, XXII, 16).

'A Catechisme, that is to say, an Instruction to be learned of every 'childe, before he be brought to be confirmed of the Bishop'. From à priori considerations we might infer that young Will Shakespeare learned THE TEN COMMANDMENTS from the Catechism, and not from Exodus, XX, or Deuteronomy, V. This is established à posteriori by a passage in Richard III., Act I, IV, 200-202:

the great King of kings

Hath in the tables of his law commanded

That thou shalt do no murder.

This agrees with the words of the Catechism: "Thou shalt doe no murther', for which the Geneva Bible, the Great Bible, and the Bishops' Version, and the Authorised Version have: "Thou shalt not kill' (or Do not kill). See Exod. XX, 13; Deut. V, 17; Matth. V, 21; Rom. XIII, 9; Mark X, 19; Luke XVIII, 20; Jam. II, 11.—Only for Matth. XIX, 18, the Bishops' Bible and the Authorised Version give the same wording as the Catechism.

The Decalogue is moreover quoted from, or alluded to, in the following passages:

Could I come near your beauty with my nails,
I'ld set my ten commandments in your face.

(3. Henry VI., I, III, 144.)

Thy sins are visited in this poor child;
The canon of the law is laid on him,