Healer, or Saviour; Scyppend, the Shaper, or Creator. Ing or ung, on the other hand, was the regular termination of that description of verbal substantive which denoted the act. Thus Brennung was what in Latin would be called Combustio, and what in our modern English is still called the Burning. In other tongues of the same Gothic stock to which our own in part belongs both forms are still preserved. In German, for instance, we have, as anciently in English, end for the termination universally of the present participle, and ung for that of a numerous class of verbal substantives all signifying the act or thing done. It never could have been supposed that in that language these verbal substantives in ung were present participles. But in English the fact is, as Mr. Taylor has observed, that it is not the verbal substantive denoting the act which has assumed the form of the present participle, but the latter which has thrown away its own proper termination and adopted that of the former. This change appears to have commenced as early as the twelfth century, and to have been completely established by the fourteenth. Even after the middle of the sixteenth century, however, we have the old distinction between the two terminations (the end or and for the present participle, or the agent, and the ing for the verbal act) still adhered to by the Scottish writers. The consequence of the two forms having thus become confounded is, as Dr. Latham has remarked (English Language, 3rd edit. pp. 349, 350), that we now construct our verbal substantives in ing upon a false analogy. It has long been understood or assumed, at least, that the present participle of any English verb may be used substantively to express the verbal act or state. 1. What trade art thou?- The rationale of this mode of expression may be seen from the answer to the question :-“Why, Sir, a carpenter.” The trade and the person practising it are used in differently the one for the other : “What trade art thou ?” is equivalent to “ What tradesman art thou ?” So in 6 we have—“A trade ... which is, indeed, a mender of bad soles.” The thou, as here and in 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, was still common in the English of Shakespeare's age; it was the ordinary form in addressing an inferior; only when he was treated, or affected to be treated, as a gentleman, the mechanic received the more honourable compellation of you ;--as in 5, “ You, Sir, what trade are you." Thou, Sir, would have been incongruous in the circumstances. 6. Soles.-Quasi souls ;-an immemorial quibble, doubtless. It is found also (as Malone notes) in Fletcher's Woman Pleased. 7. This speech in the old copies is given to Flavius; and it is restored to him by Mr. Knight, who observes that the modern editors “ assume that only one [of the tribunes) should take the lead ; whereas it is clear that the dialogue is more natural, certainly more dramatic, according to the original arrangement, where Flavius and Marullus alternately rate the people, like two smiths smiting on the same anvil.” But this will not explain or account for the “mend me” of Marullus in 9. That proves beyond controversy that the preceding speech (8) was addressed to Marullus ; and it is equally clear that the you of speech 8 is the person to whom speech 7 belongs. The rating, besides, is as much alternate, or intermingled, in the one way as in the other: Mr. Knight gives six speeches to Flavius and five to Marullus; the common arrangement gives five to Flavius and six to Marullus. Mr. Collier, however, also gives the present speech to Flavius. The other changes which Mr. Knight charges the modern editors with proposing unnecessarily in the allotment of the speeches in this scene were all proposed, I believe, before the substitution of Marullus for Flavius in 7, which was made by Capell. 8. Be not out with me; yet if you be out.-The two senses of being out are obvious: They are out with one another," or, simply," They are out;" and " He is out at the elbows," or in any other part of his dress. 9. Mend me.-The answer shows that mend, not me, is the emphatic word. 12. But with awl.-Mr. Knight and Mr. Collier print "with all." This, apparently would accord with Farmer's notion, who maintains that the true reading is "I meddle with no trade, man's matters," etc., understanding with awl, or with all, I suppose, to involve, as one of its meanings, that of "with all trades." The original reading is, "but withal I am indeed, Sir, a surgeon," etc. And the Second Folio has "woman's matters." 12. As proper men.-A proper man is a man such as he should be. 15. Wherefore rejoice? etc.-This was in the beginning of B.C. 44 (A. U. c. 709), when Cæsar, having returned from Spain in the preceding October, after defeating the sons of Pompey at the Battle of Munda (fought 17th March, B.C. 45), had been appointed Consul for the next ten years and Dictator for life. The festival of the Lupercalia, at which he was offered and declined the crown, was celebrated 13th February B.C. 44; and he was assassinated 15th March following, being then in his fifty-sixth year. 15. Many a time and oft.—This old phrase, which is still familiar, may be held to be equivalent to many and many a time, that is, many times and yet again many more times. The old pointing of this line is, “Knew you not Pompey many a time and oft ?” It is like what all the Folios give us in Macbeth, i. 5. "Your face, my thane, is as a book where men What follows,—"Have you climbed up,” etc., is, of course, made a second question. 15. To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.--In modern English to pass a street, or a bridge, is to abstain from walking along it. It would be satisfactory, with respect to this line, if other instances could be produced of the usage of the language being different in Shakespeare's day. 15. That Tiber trembled underneath her banks. The proper antecedent of that (so, or in such wise) is left unexpressed, as sufficiently obvious.--Some of the modern editors have taken the unwarrantable liberty of changing her into his in this line and the next but one, because Tiber is one of those names of rivers which are always masculine in Latin. This is to give us both language and a conception different from Shakespeare's. 15. Made in her concave shores.-An imperfect line (or hemistich, as it is commonly called), but prosodically regular so far as it goes, which is all we have a right to look for. The occasional use of such shortened lines would seem to be, at least in dramatic poetry, one of the proper and natural prerogatives of blank verse, according well, as it does, with the variety of pause and cadence which makes the distinctive charm of verse of that form. But it need not be assumed, as is always done, that the fragment must necessarily be in all cases the beginning of a line. Why should not the poet be supposed sometimes, when he begins a new sentence or paragraph in this manner, to intend that it should be connected, in the prosody as well as in the meaning, with what follows, not with what precedes? A few lines lower down, for instance, it would seem to be better to consider the words "Be gone” as the last foot of the line than as the first. 15. Cull out a holiday.—In the Fourth (1685) Folio the a here appears as an, and so it continues to stand in most of the editions of the last century-a curious record of the commencement of an absurd perversion which infested our written language down to a recent date. It was not till pretty far on in the reign of George III. that it ceased to be accounted modish to write an happy, an history, etc. 16. Weep your tears.—We should scarcely now speak of weeping tears absolutely, though we might say “to weep tears of blood, or of agony, or of bitterness, or “to weep an ocean of tears, or our fill of This sense of the verb weep is quite distinct from the sense it commonly has when used transitively, which is to weep for, or to lament; as when in Cymbeline (i. 5) Iachimo speaks of “those that tears." |
