Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunder-bolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thun der, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world! FOOL. O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house 8. Vaunt-couriers - Avant couriers, Fr. This phrase is not unfamiliar to other writers of Shakspeare's time. It originally meant the foremost scouts of an army. So, in Jarvis Markham's English Arcadia, 1607: 66 as soon as the first vancurrer encountered him face to face." Again, in The Tragedy of Mariam, 1613: 66 Might to my death, but the vaunt-currier prove." Again, in Darius, 1603: "Th' avant-corours, that came for to examine." STEEVENS. In The Tempest "Jove's lightnings" are termed more familiarly 66 the precursors "O' the dreadful thunder-claps-." MALONE. 9 STRIKE flat, &c.] The quarto reads, -Smite flat. STEEVENS. Crack nature's moulds, all GERMENS spill at once,] Crack nature's mould, and spill all the seeds of matter, that are hoarded within it. Our author not only uses the same thought again, but the word that ascertains my explication, in The Winter's Tale : "Let nature crush the sides o' the earth together, "And mar the seeds within." THEOBALD. So, again in Macbeth : " and the sum " Of nature's germens tumble altogether." STEEVENS. -- spill at once." To spill is to destroy. So, in Gower, De Confessione Amantis, lib. iv. fol. 67: 2 "So as I shall myself spill." STEEVENS. - court holy-water-] Ray, among his proverbial phrases, p. 184, mentions court holy-water to mean fair words. The French have the same phrase. Eaû benite de cour; fair empty words. Chambaud's Dictionary. The same phrase also occurs in Churchyard's Charitie, 1595: "The great good turnes in court that thousands felt, "Is turn'd to cleer faire holie water there," &c. STEEVENS. Cotgrave in his Dict. 1611, defines Eau benite de cour, "court holie water; compliments, faire words, flattering speeches," &c. is better than this rain-water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughter's blessing; here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools. LEAR. Rumble thy bellyfull! Spit, fire! spout, rain! Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters : FOOL. He that has a house to put his head in, has a good head-piece. The cod-piece that will house, * Quartos, taske. † First folio, That will with two pernicious daughters join. See also Florio's Italian Dict. 1598: "Mantellizare, To flatter, to claw, to give one court holie-water." MALONE. 3 You owe me no SUBSCRIPTION;] Subscription, for obedience. WARBURTON. See p. 34. MALONE. So, in Rowley's Search for Money, 1609, p. 17: " I tell yee besides this he is an obstinat wilfull fellow, for since this idolatrous adoration given to him here by men, he has kept the scepter in his own hand and commands every man: which rebellious man now seeing (or rather indeed too obedient to him) inclines to all his hests, yields no subscription, nor will he be commanded by any other power," &c. REED. 4 - 'tis foul!) Shameful; dishonourable. The man that makes his toe What he his heart should make, Shall of a corn cry woe, And turn his sleep to wake. -for there was never yet fair woman, but she made mouths in a glass. Enter KENT. LEAR. NO, I will be the pattern of all patience, I will say nothing'. KENT. Who's there? FooL. Marry, here's grace, and a cod-piece; that's a wise man, and a fool 8. KENT. Alas, sir, are you here? things that love night, Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies Gallow the very wanderers of the dark 1, 66 5. So beggars marry many.] i. e. A beggar marries a wife and lice. JOHNSON. Rather, So many beggars marry;" meaning, that they marry in the manner he has described, before they have houses to put their heads in. M. MASON. 6 cry woe,] i. e. be grieved, or pained. So, in King Richard III. : "You live, that shall cry woe for this hereafter." MALONE. 7 No, I will be the pattern of all patience, I will say nothing.] So Perillus, in the old anonymous play, speaking of Leir : 8 "But he, the myrrour of mild patience, " Puts up all wrongs, and never gives reply." STEEVENS. - GRACE, and a COD-PIECE; that's a wise man and a fool.] In Shakspeare's time, "the king's grace" was the usual expression. In the latter phrase, the speaker perhaps alludes to an old notion concerning fools, mentioned in King Henry VIII. MALONE. Alluding perhaps to the saying of a contemporary wit; that there is no discretion below the girdle. STEEVENS. 9 - ARE you here?] The quartos read-sit you here?. STEEVENS. GALLOW the very wanderers of the dark,] So, in Venus and Adonis : And make them keep their caves: Since I was man, Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot LEAR. Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pother3 o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipp'd of justice: Hide thee, thou bloody hand; Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man * of virtue * First folio omits man. "-'stonish'd as night-wanderers are." MALONE. Gallow, a west-country word, signifies to scare or frighten. WARBURTON. So, the Somersetshire proverb: "The dunder do gally the beans." Beans are vulgarly supposed to shoot up faster after thunder-storms. STEEVENS. 2 - fear.] So the folio: the latter editions read, with the quarto, force for fear, less elegantly. JOHNSON. 3-keep this dreadful POTHER-) Thus one of the quartos and the folio. The other quarto reads thund'ring. The reading of the text, however, is an expression common to others. So, So, in The Scornful Lady of Beaumont and Fletcher: - faln out with their meat, and kept a pudder." " STEEVENS. 4 That under covert and CONVENIENT seeming-] Convenient needs not be understood in any other than its usual and proper sense; accommodate to the present purpose; suitable to a design. Convenient seeming is appearance such as may promote his purpose to destroy. JOHNSON. 5 - concealing CONTINENTS,] Continent stands for that which contains or incloses. JOHNSON. Thus in Antony and Cleopatra : " Heart, once be stronger than thy continent!" These dreadful summoners grace.-I am a man', More sinn'd against, than sinning. KENT. Alack, bare-headed ! Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel; Which even but now, demanding after you, * First folio, More harder than the stones. Again, in Chapman's translation of the twelfth book of Homer's Odyssey: " I told our pilot that past other men "He most must bear firm spirits, since he sway'd "The continent that all our spirits convey'd," &c. The quartos read, concealed centers. STEEVENS. 6 and cry These dreadful SUMMONERS grace.] Summoners are here the officers that summon offenders before a proper tribunal. See Chaucer's Sompnour's Tale, v. 625-670. Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. vol. i. STEEVENS. 66 I find the same expression in a treatise published long before this play was written: - they seem to brag most of the strange events which follow for the most part after blazing starres, as if they were the summoners of God to call princes to the seat of judgment." Defensative Against the Poison of Supposed Prophecies, 1581. MALONE. 7 I am a man,] Oedipus, in Sophocles, represents himself in the same light. Oedip. Colon. v. 270. τα γ' εργά με Πεπονθότ ̓ εσί μᾶλλον ἢ δεδρακότα. TYRWHITT. 8 Alack, bare-headed!] Kent's faithful attendance on the old king, as well as that of Perillus, in the old play which preceded Shakspeare's, is founded on an historical fact. Lear, says Geoffrey of Monmouth, "when he betook himself to his youngest daughter in Gaul, waited before the city where she resided, while he sent a messenger to inform her of the misery he was fallen into, and to desire her relief to a father that suffered both hunger and nakedness. Cordeilla was startled at the news, and wept bitterly, and with tears asked him, how many men her father had with him. The messenger answered he had none but one man, who had been his armour-bearer, and was staying with him without the town." MALONE. |