the adverb which we now write Ay. See the note on "I, as Æneas," in 54. 530. To make conditions.-To arrange the terms on which offices should be conferred. 531. Go to.-Johnson, in his Dictionary, explains this expression as equivalent to "Come, come, take the right course" (meaning, contemptuously or sarcastically). He adds, that, besides being thus used as “a scornful exhortation," it is also sometimes "a phrase of exhortation or encouragement;" as in Gen. xi. 4, where the people, after the flood, are represented as saying, “Go to, let us build us a city and a tower," etc. But it must be understood to be used, again, in the scornful sense three verses lower down, where the Lord is made to say "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language," etc. 534. Have mind upon your health.—Mind, is here remembrance, and health is welfare, or safety, generally; senses which are both now obsolete. 535. Away, slight man!-Vid. 494 and 522. 537. Hear me, for I will speak.—The emphasis is not to be denied to the will here, although it stands in the place commonly stated to require an unaccented syllable. Vid. 426, 436, and 613. 539. Must I observe you?-Pay you observance, or reverential attention. 541. You say you are a better soldier.-Vid. 525. 541. I shall be glad to learn of abler men.-The old reading is "noble men;" abler is the correction of Mr. Collier's MS. annotator. Even if this were a mere conjecture, its claim to be accepted would be nearly irresistible. Noble here is altogether inappropriate. Cassius, as Mr. Collier remarks, had said nothing about "noble men," whereas abler is the very expression that he had used (in 530) : "I am a soldier, I, Older in practice, abler than yourself 542. I said, an elder soldier.-This is the reading of all the old copies. But Mr. Collier prints older. 551. You have done that you should be sorry for.— The emphasis, of course, is on should. The common meeting of shall, as used by Cassius, is turned, in Brutus's quick and unsparing replication, into the secondary meaning of should (ought to be). Vid. 181. 551. Which I respect not.-Which I heed not. Here respect has rather less force of meaning than it has now acquired; whereas observe in 539 has more than it now conveys. 551. And drop my blood.-Expend my blood in drops. 551. Than to wring.-Although had rather (Vid. 54 and 57), being regarded as of the nature of an auxiliary verb, does not in modern English take a to with the verb that follows it (Vid. 1), it does so here in virtue of being equivalent in sense to would or should prefer. 551. By any indirection.-Indirectness, as we should now say. 551. To lock such rascal counters.-As to lock. Vid. 408. Rascal means despicable. It is an A. Saxon word, properly signifying a lean worthless deer. 551. Dash him to pieces.-This is probably to be understood as the infinitive (governed by the preceding verb be ready) with the customary to omitted. Vid. 1. 551. Be ready, gods, etc.-I cannot think that Mr. Collier has improved this passage by removing the comma which we find in the old copies at the end of the first line, and so connecting the words "with all your thunderbolts," not with "Be ready," but with "Dash him to pieces.” 554. Brutus hath rived my heart.-Vid. 107. 559. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear. -This is the reading of all the old copies. Mr. Collier has "did appear." 560. Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius.-In this line and the next we have Cassius used first as a trisyllable and immediately after as a dissyllable. 560. For Cassius is aweary of the world.—Whatever may be its origin or proper meaning, many words were in the habit of occasionally taking a as a prefix in the Anglo-Saxon period of the language. Thence we have our modern English, arise, arouse, abide, await, awake, aweary, etc. Some of the words which are thus lengthened, however, do not appear to have existed in the A. Saxon; while, on the other hand, many A. Saxon forms of this kind are now lost. More or less of additional expressiveness seems usually to be given by this prefix, in the case at least of such words as can be said to have in them anything of an emotional character. Shakespeare has used the present word in another of his most pathetic lines,-Macbeth's "I 'gin to be aweary of the sun." 560. Conned by rote.-The Anglo-Saxon connan, or cunnan, signifying to know, and also to be able,—its probable modification cunnian, to inquire,-and cennan, to beget or bring forth, appear to have all come to be confounded in the breaking up of the old form of the language, and then to have given rise to our modern ken, and can, and con, and cunning, with meanings not at all corresponding to those of the terms with which they severally stand in phonetic connexion. Can is now used only as an auxiliary verb with the sense of to be able, though formerly it was sometimes employed with the same sense as a common verb. Ken is still in use both as a verb and as a substantive. The verb Nares interprets as meaning to see, the substantive as meaning sight; and he adds, "These words, though not current in common usage, have been so preserved in poetic language that they cannot properly be called obsolete. Instances are numerous in writers of very modern date.... In Scotland these words are still in full currency." But the meaning of to ken in the Scottish dialect is not to see, but to know. And anciently it had also in English the one meaning as well as the other, as may be seen both in Spenser and in Shakespeare. The case is similar to that of the Greek eido (olda) and eidéw. Cunning, again, instead of being the wisdom resulting from investigation and experience, or the skill acquired by practice, as in Anglo-Saxon, and even in our older English, has now come to be understood as involving always at least something concealed and mysterious, if not something of absolute deceit or falsehood. As for con, its common meaning seems to be, not to know, but to get by heart, that is, to acquire a knowledge of in the most complete manner possible. And to con by rote is to commit to memory by an operation of mind similar to the turning of a wheel (rota), or by incessant repetition. Rote is the same word with routine. It is more difficult to explain the expression to con thanks, which is of frequent occurrence in our old writers and is several times used by Shakespeare. Nares explains it as meaning to study expressions of gratitude. But it really seems, in most instances at least, to signify no more than to give or return thanks. See a note on Gammer Gurton's Needle in Collier's edition of Dodsley's Old Plays, II. 30. Con in the present passage may perhaps mean to utter or repeat ; such a sense might come not unnaturally out of the common use of the word in the sense of to get by heart. The case would be somewhat like that of the two senses assigned to the same word in the expressions "to construct a sentence" and "to construe a sentence." It is remarkable that in German also they say Dank wissen (literally to know thanks) for to give thanks. Our common know is not from any of the AngloSaxon verbs above enumerated, but is the modernized form of cnawan, which may or may not be related to all or to some of them. Corresponding to cennan and connan, it may finally be added, we have the modern German kennen, to know, and können, to be able or to know. But, whatever may be the case with the German König (a king), it is impossible to admit that our English king, the representative of the A. Saxon cyng, cyncg, or cyning, can have anything to do with either cennan or connan. It is apparently of quite another family, that of which the head is cyn, nation, offspring, whence our present kin, and kindred, and kind (both the substantive and the adjective). 560. Dearer than Plutus' mine.-Dear must here |