been employed as a dissyllable only five lines before" Never lacks power," etc. 66 128. He were no lion, etc. - His imagination is still filled with the image by which he has already pictured the tyranny of the Dictator; roars, as doth the lion, in the Capitol." Hind, a she stag, is correctly formed from the Saxon hinde, of the same meaning; our other hind, a peasant, was originally hine and hina, and has taken the d only for the sake of a fuller or firmer enunciation. It may be noted, however, that, although there is a natural tendency in certain syllables to seek this addition of breadth or strength, it is most apt to operate when it is aided, as here, by the existence of some other word or form to which the d properly belongs. Thus, soun (from sonner and sono) has probably been the more easily converted into sound from having become confounded in the popular ear and understanding with the adjective sound and the verb to sound, meaning to search; and such obsolete or dialectic forms as drownd and swound (for drown and swoon) may be supposed to have been the more readily produced through the misleading influence of the parts of the verb which actually and properly end in d or ed. As we have confounded the old hinde and hine, so we have also the Saxon heord, meaning a flock or crowd (the modern German heerde), with hyrde, meaning a keeper or tender (the modern German hirt); our one form for both being now herd. 128. My answer must be made. I must answer for what I have said. See 57. 129. To such a man, That is, etc. To fleer (or flear, as is the old spelling) is to mock, or laugh at. The word appears to have come to us from the Norse or Scandinavian branch of the Gothic, one of the sources of our English tongue which recent philology has almost abjured, although, besides all else, we owe to it even forms of such perpetual occurrence as the are of the substantive verb and the ordinary sign of our modern genitive (for such a use of the preposition of, common to us with the Swedish, is unknown to the classical English of the times before the Norman Conquest, although we have it in full activity, probably adopted from the popular speech of the northern counties, in the written language of the twelfth century). 129. Hold, my hand. That is, Have, receive, take hold (of it); there is my hand. The comma is distinctly marked in the early editions. [Staunton omits it.] 129. Be factious for redress of all these griefs.Here factious seems to mean nothing more than active or urgent, although everywhere else, I believe, in Shakespeare the word is used in the same disreputable sense which it has at present. Griefs (the form still used in the French language, and retained in our own with another meaning) is his by far more common word for what we now call grievances, although he has that form too occasionally (which Milton nowhere employs). See 435. 130. To undergo, with me, an enterprise. - We should now rather say to undertake where there is anything to be done. 130. Of honorable-dangerous.-These two words were probably intended to make a compound adjective, although the hyphen with which they are connected by most of the modern editors is not in the oldest printed text. The language does not now, at least in serious composition, indulge in compounds of this description. Shakespeare, however, has apparently several such. Thus : More active-valiant, or more valiant-young. 1 Hen. IV. v. I. But pardon me, I am too sudden-bold. Love's Lab. Lost, ii. 1. More fertile-fresh than all the field to see. Mer. W. of Wind. v. 5. So full of shapes is fancy, That it alone is high-fantastical. Twelfth Night, i. 1. 130. By this they stay for me. That is, by this time. And it is a mode of expression which, like so many others which the language once possessed, we have now lost. Yet we still say, in the same sense, ere this, before this, after this, the preposition in these phrases being felt to be suggestive of the notion of time in a way that by is not. That is, 130. There is no . . . walking. walking. In another connection this might mean, that there was no possibility of walking; but here the meaning apparently is that there was no walking going on. 130. The complexion of the element. of the heaven, of the sky. North, in his Plutarch, speaks of "the fires in the element." The word in this sense was much in favor with the fine writers or talkers of Shakespeare's day. He has a hit at the affectation in his Twelfth Night, iii. 1, where the Clown, conversing with Viola, says, "Who you are, and what you would, are out of my welkin: I might say, element: but the word is over-worn." Of course, welkin is, and is intended to be, far more absurd. Yet we have element for the sky or the air in other passages besides the present. Thus: "I, in the clear sky of fame, o'ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the element, which show like pins' heads to her" (Falstaff, in 2 Hen. IV. iv. 3). It is curious to find writers of the present day who are scrupulous about the more delicate proprieties of expression still echoing Shakespeare's dissatisfaction: "The territorial element, to use that favorite word," says Hallam, Mid. Ages, I. 297 (edit. of 1855), probably without any thought of the remark of the all-observing dramatist two centuries and a half before. 130. In favour's like the work. The reading in all the Folios is, "Is favors" (or "favours for the Third and Fourth). The present reading, which is that generally adopted, was first proposed by Johnson; and it has the support, it seems, of Mr. Collier's MS. annotator. [It is adopted by Dyce, Hudson, and White.] Favour (see 54) means aspect, appearance, features. Another emendation that has been proposed (by Steevens) is, "Is favoured." But to say that the complexion of a thing is either featured like, or in feature like, to something else is very like a tautology. I should be strongly inclined to adopt Reed's ingenious conjecture, "Is feverous," which he supports by quoting from Macbeth, ii. 3: "Some say the earth Was feverous and did shake.” So also in Coriolanus, i. 4: "Thou mad'st thine enemies shake, as if the world Were feverous and did tremble." Feverous is exactly the sort of word that, if not very distinctly written, would be apt to puzzle and be mistaken by a compositor. It may perhaps count, too, for something, though not very much, against both "favour's like" and "favoured like" that a very decided comma separates the two words in the original edition. 134. One incorporate To our attempts. - One of our body, one united with us in our enterprise. The expression has probably no more emphatic import. 135. There's two or three. The contraction there's is still used indifferently with a singular or a plural; though there is scarcely would be. [On I am glad on't, see 50.] 136. Am I not staid for? This is the original reading, which has been restored by Mr. Knight. The common modern reading is, "Am I not staid for, Cinna?" the last word being inserted (and that without notice, which is unpardonable) only to satisfy the supposed demands of the prosody. 137. This speech stands thus in the First Folio: Yes, you are. O Cassius, If you could but winne the Noble Brutus The common metrical arrangement [which Hudson follows] is, Yes, You are. O Cassius, if you could but win The noble Brutus to our party. No person either having or believing himself to have a true feeling of the Shakespearian rhythm can believe this to be right. Nor am I better satisfied with Mr. Knight's distribution of the lines, although it is adopted by Mr. Collier : Yes, you are. O, Cassius, if you could but win the noble Brutus |