Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

Was ever man so ray'd?] That is, was ever man so mark'd with lashes? JouN.

Was ever man so ray'd.'

[ocr errors]

Ray'd' is no doubt put for arrayed, dressed. Biondello, when describing Grumio in a fornier scene, says-' a monster, a very monster in apparel.' B.

Pet. Sit down, Kate, and welcome.
Soud, soud, soud, soud!

-Soud, soud, &c.] That is, sweet, sweet. Soot, and sometimes sooth, is sweet. So, in Milton, to sing soothly, is to sing sweetly. JoHN.

[ocr errors]

Soud, soud.' Where Dr. Johnson discovered that soud' has the meaning of sweet, I cannot tell. I rather think that it stands for quick, and that it is contracted of soudain fr.' Quick, quick, quick. He then goes on, why when, I say,' the more particularly to mark his impatience. Soot is undoubtedly sweet. B.

Bion. Oh master, master, I have watch'd so long
That I'm dog-weary; but at last I spied

An ancient angel coming down the hill,

Will serve the turn.

An ancient angel.] For angel Mr. Theobald, and after him Sir T. Hanmer and Dr. Warburton, read engle. JoHN.

It is true that the word enghle, which Sir T. Hanmer calls a gull, deri ving it from engluer, Fr. to catch with bird-lime, is sometimes used by B. Jonson. It cannot, however, bear that meaning at present, as Biondello confesses his ignorance of the quality of the person who is afterwards persuaded to represent the father of Lucentio. The precise meaning of it is not ascertained in Jonson, neither is the word to be found in any of the original copies of Shakspeare.

Angel primitively signifies a messenger, but perhaps this sense is not strictly applicable to the passage before us. So, Ben Jonson, in the Sud Shepherd:

[ocr errors]

-the dear good angel of the spring, The nightingale."

And Chapman, in his translation of Homer, always calls a messenger an angel. See particularly B. xxIV.

In the Scornful Lady of Beaumont and Fletcher, an old usurer is indeed called:

[blocks in formation]

'An ancient angel.' It is scarcely possible that either angel or engle should be right. The Poet, I think, may have written ayeul, the French word for Grandfather. He means to say that the pedant is a very old man, or like one of their forefathers (for ayeul signifies both grandfather and forefather or ancestor, however

remote.) That this is the true reading, I am the rather inclined to believe, as Biondello, when questioned about the person he had seen, describes him as being formal in apparel; in gait and countenance surely like a father.'

[ocr errors]

The error has originated at the Printing Press. The u was there turned and misplaced, and the y mistaken for g. It should at the same time be remembered that the Printers' types of that time [1600] were very clumsily and imperfectly cut.

B.

Pet. With silken coats, and caps,. and golden rings, With ruffs, and cuffs, and fardingals, and things; With scarfs, and fans, and double change of bravery, With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knavery.

-fardingals, and things;] Though things is a poor word, yet I have no better, and perhaps the author had not another that would rhime. I once thought to transpose the words rings and things, but it would make little improvement. Joan.

Fardingals, and things.' Things is, indeed, poor and unmeaning: why then may we not read strings' and in the sense of ribbands? as in Pope.

Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with strings.'
With silken coats, and fardingals, and strings,

1 With caps, and scarfs, and fans, and golden rings;
With ruffs, and cuffs, and double change of bravery,
With amber bracelets, beads, and all this naverie.'

I have changed knav'ry' (which has no sense here) to naverie, i. e. brilliancy, splendor. The word is formed on the naive of the French, (which signifies having lustre, being showy) and by the same analogy as the neuverie or noverie (uovelty) of our earlier writers. The propriety of the expression, in this place, is

evident. B.

Tra.

Where then do you know best,
We be affy'd; and such assurance ta'en,
As shall with either part's agreement stand?

-Where then do you know best,

Be we affy'd;

This seems to be wrong. We may read more commodiously:
-Where then you do know best

Be we affied;·

[blocks in formation]

'Where then do you know best.'

Read:

Then where you do know best,
Be we affied,' &c. B.

Kath. And so it shall be so, for Katharine.

And so it shall be so.] A modern editor very plausibly reads-And so it shall be, Sir. MAL.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

And so it shall be sol, for Katharine.' Petruchio had just before said it is the blessed Sun.' B.

Love's Labor Lost.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Long. Biron is like an envious sneaping frost,
That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

Sneaping frost. So sneaping winds in the Winter's Tale: to sneap is to check, to rebuke. STEEV.

-Sneaping frost.'

Sneaping' is here used in the sense of stopping, hindering, and not in that of rebuking, reproving, as Mr. S. has explained it. No one except himself, it may be supposed, can have any idea of the objurgation of a frost. B.

Cost. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken with the man

ner.

Taken with the manner.] So in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630; '-and, being taken with the manner, had nothing to say for himself.' STEEV.

'I was taken with the manner.'

A quibble; the meaning is, 'taken with the manor,' and it should be so printed. He speaks immediately after of the manor-house. B.

King. There did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,

Base minnow of thy mirth.] The base minnow of thy mirth, is the contemptibly little object that contributes to thy entertainment. Shakspeare makes Coriolanus characterise the tribunitian insolence of Sicinius, under the same figure:

[ocr errors]

-hear you not

This Triton of the minnows! STEEV.

'Base minnow,'-the minnow is a very small fish, called also the pink. B.

Arm. I do love that country girl, that I took in the park with the rational hind Costard: she deserves well.

The rational hind Costard;] Perhaps, we should read-the irrational hind, &c. TYRW.

Shakspeare uses it in its bestial sense in Julius Cesur, act i. sc. S. and as of the masculine gender;

[ocr errors]

He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.' Again, in K. Henry IV. P. I. sc. iii. you are a shallow cowardly hind, and you lie.' STEEV.

'The rational hind, Costard.'

Hind' is here to be understood in the sense of boor. He means, that Costard, though a clown, is rational. Hind is likewise boor in Julius Cæsar and Henry the bestial sense is out of the question. B.

Cost. It is not for prisoners to be silent in their words ; and, therefore, I will say nothing:

It is not for prisoners to be silent in their words;] I suppose we should read, it is not for prisoners to be silent in their wards, that is, in custody, in the holds. JouN.

The first quarto, 1598, (the most authentic copy of this play) readsIt is not for prisoners to be too silent in their words;' and so without doubt the text should be printed. MAL.

« AnteriorContinuar »