from nouns. The noun and the verb might be exhibited together in one system of inflection; father, for instance, might be at once declined and conjugated, through fathered, and fathering, and have fathered, and will father, and all the other moods and tenses, as well as through fathers and father's, and of a father, and to a father, and the other so called nominal changes. It is to this their identity of form with the noun that our English verbs owe in a great measure their peculiar force and liveliness of expression, consisting as that does in their power of setting before us, not merely the fact that something has been done or is doing, but the act or process itself as a concrete thing or picture. Shakespeare in particular freely employs any noun whatever as a verb. It is interesting to note the germ of what we have here in The Merchant of Venice (i. 2) : "Her name is Portia ; nothing undervalued To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia." The Merchant of Venice had certainly been written by 1598. 213. I have made strong proof.-The prosody concurs here with the sense in demanding a strong emphasis upon the word strong. 214. All the charactery.-All that is charactered or expressed by my saddened aspect. The word, which occurs also in the Merry Wives of Windsor, v. 5, is accented on the second syllable there as well as here. And no doubt this was also the original, as it is still the vulgar, accentuation of character. Shakespeare, however, always accents. that word on the char-, as we do, whether he uses it as a noun or as a verb; though a doubt may be entertained as to the pronunciation of the participial form both in the line, "Are visibly charactered and engraved," in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii. 7, and in the "Show me one scar charactered on the skin" of the Second Part of King Henry the Sixth, iii. 1, as well as with regard to that of the compound which occurs in Troilus and Cressida, iii. 2, "And mighty states characterless are grated -The stage direction near the beginning of this speech is merely Knock in the original edition.. 214. Lucius, who's that knocks ?-Who is that who knocks? The omission of the relative is a familiar ellipsis. Vid. 34. Who's, and not who is, is the reading of all the Folios. It is unnecessary to suppose that the two broken lines were intended to make a whole between them. They are best regarded as distinct hemistichs. Mr Collier, however, prints "Who is't that knocks ?" Does he follow his MS. annotator in this ? 217. The Lig. (for Ligarius) is Cai. throughout in the original text. The authority for the prænomen Caius, by which Ligarius is distinguished throughout the Play, is Plutarch, in his Life of Brutus, towards the beginning. 218. To wear a kerchief.—Kerchief is cover-chief, the chief being the French chef, head (from the Latin Cap-ut, which is also the same word with the English Head and the German Haupt). But, the proper import of chief being forgotten or neglected, the name kerchief came to be given to any cloth used as a piece of dress. In this sense the word is still familiar in handkerchief, though both kerchief itself and its other compound neckerchief are nearly gone out. In King John, iv. 1, and also in As You Like It, iv. 3 and v. 2, the word in the early editions is handkercher; and this is likewise the form in the Quarto edition of Othello. 218. Would you were not sick!--I do not understand upon what principle, or in what notion, it is that the Shakespearian editors print would in such a construction as this with an apostrophe ('Would). Even if it is to be taken to mean I would, the I will not be a part of the word which has been cut off, like the i of it in the contraction 'tis. 221. Thou, like an exorcist. "Here," says Mason, “and in all other places where the word occurs in Shakespeare, to exorcise means to raise spirits, not to lay them; and I believe he is singular in his acceptation of it.” The only other instances of its occurrence, according to Mrs Clarke, are ;-in the Song in Cymbeline, iv. 2: "No exorciser harm thee! Nor no witchcraft charm thee! Nothing ill come near thee!" in All's Well that Ends Well, v. 3, where, on the appearance of Helena, thought to be dead, the King exclaims, "Is there no exorcist Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?" and in the Second Part of King Henry the Sixth, i. 4, where Bolingbroke asks, "Will her ladyship [the Duchess of Gloster] behold and hear our exorcisms ?" meaning the incantations and other operations by which they were to raise certain spirits.-In Mr Collier's regulated text, in this speech, at the words "Soul of Rome," we have the stage direction," Throwing away his bandage." 221. My mortified spirit.-Mor-ti-fi-ed here makes four syllables, spirit counting for only one. And mortified has its literal meaning of deadened. 224. As we are going To whom it must be done.—While we are on our way to those whom it must be done to. The ellipsis is the same as we have in 105, "From that it is disposed." I do not understand how the words are to be interpreted if we are to separate going from what follows by a comma, as is done in most editions. 225. Set on your foot.-This was probably a somewhat energetic or emphatic mode of expression. In Scotland they say, "Put down your foot" in exhorting one to walk N on briskly. At the end of this speech the old copies have Thunder as a stage direction. SCENE II.-The same. A Room in CESAR'S Palace. Thunder and Lightning. Enter CÆSAR in his night-gown. 227. Cæs. Nor heaven, nor earth, have been at peace to-night: Serv. My lord? Enter a SERVANT. 229. Cæs. Go bid the priests do present sacrifice, And bring me their opinions of success. Serv. I will, my Cal. What mean you, Cæsar? Think you to walk forth? Cæs. Cæsar shall forth: The things that threatened me 233. Cal. Cæsar, I never stood on ceremonies, And graves have yawned, and yielded up their dead: The noise of battle hurtled in the air, Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan; And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets. And I do fear them. 234. Cæs. What can be avoided, Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods? Cal. When beggars die, there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes 236. Cæs. Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come, when it will come. Re-enter a SERVANT. What say the augurers? Serv. They would not have you to stir forth to-day. Plucking the entrails of an offering forth, They could not find a heart within the beast. 238. Cæs. The gods do this in shame of cowardice: Cæsar should be a beast without a heart, If he should stay at home to-day for fear. That Cæsar is more dangerous than he. And I the elder and more terrible; And Cæsar shall go forth. 239. Cal. Alas, my lord, Your wisdom is consumed in confidence. Do not go forth to-day: Call it my fear, That keeps you in the house, and not your own, 240. Cæs. Mark Antony shall say, I am not well; Here's Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so. 241. Dec. Cæsar, all hail! Good morrow, worthy Cæsar: I come to fetch you to the senate-house. 242. Cæs. And you are come in very happy time And tell them, that I will not come to-day: 244. Cæs. Shall Cæsar send a lie? Have I in conquest stretched mine arm so far |