Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

Of shame―] i. e. disgraceful diminutions of territory. JOHNSON. 330. And scar'd the moon- -] Folio-scarr'd. Perhaps rightly, to distinguish it from scared or frightened: -yet it should not be concealed that in K. Richard III.

we meet:

"Amaze the welkin with your broken staves.” MALONE.

[blocks in formation]

Sigh'd truer breath.] The same expression is found in our author's Venus and Adonis, 1593:

"Ill sigh celestial breath, whose gentle wind "Shall cool the heat of this descending sun." Again, in The Two Noble Kinsmen, by Beaumont and Fletcher, 1634:

"Lover never yet made sigh

"Truer than I."

413.

MALONE.

-he might have broil'd and eaten him too.]

The old copy reads-boil'd. The change was made by Mr. Pope, or some subsequent editor.

420. -sanctifies himself with's hand,

MALONE,

-] Alluding, improperly, to the act of crossing upon any strange

event.

425.

-He will

JOHNSON. -sowle the porter of Rome gates by th' ears:] i. e. I suppose, drag him down by the ears into the dirt. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson's supposition is just. Skinner says the word is derived from sow, i. e. to take hold of a person

by

53

by the ears, as a dog seizes one of these animals. So, Hey.. wood, in a comedy called Love's Mistress, 1686:

"Venus will sowle me by the ears for this." Perhapes Shakspere's allusion is to Hercules dragging out Cerberus. STEEVENS.

Whatever the etymology of sowle may be, it appears to have been a familiar word in the last century. Lord Strafford's correspondent, Mr. Gerrard, uses it as Shakspere does. Straff. Lett. Vol. II. p. 149. "A lieutenant soled him well by the ears, and drew him by the hair about the room. ." Lord Strafford himself uses it in another sense, Vol. II. p. 158. "It is ever a hopeful throw, where the caster soles his bowl well." In this passage, to sole seems to signify what, I believe, is usually called to ground a bowl. TYRWHITT. To sowle is still in use for pulling, dragging, and lugging, in the West of England.

427.

S. W.

-his passage poll'd.] i. e. barred, cleared. JOHNSON. To poll a person, anciently meant to cut off his hair. So, in Damatas' Madrigall in praise of his Daphnis, by J. Wootton, published in England's Helicon, 1614:

"Like Nisus golden hair that Scilla pol'd." It likewise signified to cut off the head. So, in the ancient metrical history of the battle of Floddon Field: "But now we will withstand his grace,

"Or thousand heads there shall be polled."

The folio reads-poul'd.

E iij

STEEVENS.

MALONE.

434

434. whilst he's in directitude.] I suspect the author wrote:

-whilst he's in discretitude.

A made word, instead of discredit. He intended, I suppose, to put an uncommon word into the mouth of this servant, which had some resemblance to sense; but could hardly have meant that he should talk absolute nonsense. MALONE.

450. discourse.

451.

-full of vent. -] Full of rumour, full of

JOHNSON.

mull'd,- -] i. e. soften'd and dispirited, as wine is when burnt and sweeten'd. Lat. Mollitus.

HANMER.

458. -because they then less need one another.] Shakspere, when he chooses to give us some weighty observation upon human nature, not much to the credit of it, generally (as the intelligent reader may observe) puts it in the mouth of some low buffoon character. WARBURTON.

[blocks in formation]

Without assistance.] i. e. without assessors; with

out any other suffrage.

525.

JOHNSON.

-reason with the fellow,] i. e. have some talk with him. In this sense Shakspere often uses the word.

534.

-some news is come,

JOHNSON.

That turns their countenances.] i. e. that renders their aspect sour. This allusion to the acescence of milk occurs again in Timon of Athens,

"Has

"Has friendship such a faint and milky heart, "It turns in less than two nights?" MALONE. 553. can no more atone,] To atone, in the active sense, is to reconcile, and is so used by our author. To atone here, is, in the neutral sense, to come to reconciliation. To atone is to unite. JOHNSON. 582. Upon the voice of occupation,-] Occupation is here used for mechanicks, men occupied in daily busiSo Horace uses artes for artifices:

ness.

"Urit enim fulgore suo qui prægravat artes
'Infra se positas."

[ocr errors]

MALONE. 583. The breath of garlick-eaters!] To smell of garlick was once such a brand of vulgarity, that garlick was a food forbidden to an ancient order of Spanish knights, mentioned by Guevara. JOHNSON,

To smell of leeks was no less a mark of vulgarity among the Roman people in the time of Juvenal. Sat. iii. -quis tecum sectile porrum

"Sutor, et elixi vervecis labra comedit?"

And from the following passage in Decker's, If this be not a good Play the Devil is in it, 1612, it should appear that garlick was once much used in England, and afterwards as much out of fashion.

"Fortune favours nobody but garlick, nor garlick neither now; yet she has strong reason to love it: for though garlick made her smell abominably in the nostrils of the gallants, yet she had smelt and stunk worse but for garlick."

Hence, perhaps, the cant denomination Pil-garlick

for

Act IV. for a deserted fellow, a person left to suffer without friends so assist him. STEEVENS.

585. As Hercules, &c.] An allusion to the apples of the Hesperides. STEEVENS. 590. Do smilingly revolt;] Smilingly is the word in the old copy, for which seemingly has been printed in late editions.

To revolt smilingly, is to revolt with signs of pleasure, or with marks of contempt. STEEVENS.

616. They'll roar him in again.- -] As they hooted at his departure, they will roar at his return; as he went out with scoffs, he will come back with lamenta

-you

and your cry!

tions. JOHNSON. 643. -] Alluding to a pack of hounds. So, in Hamlet, a company of players are contemptuously called a cry of players, STEEVENS. 693. As is the osprey-] Osprey, a kind of eagle, ossifraga. POPE.

We find in Michael Drayton's Polyolbion, Song xxv. a full account of the osprey, which shews the justness and beauty of the simile:

"The osprey, oft here seen, though seldom here it breeds,

"Which over them the fish no sooner doth espy, "But, betwixt him and them by an antipathy,

[ocr errors]

Turning their bellies up, as though their death they saw,

"They at his pleasure lie, to stuff his gluttonous

maw."

So, in the Battle of Alcazar, 1594:

LANGTON.

"I will

« ForrigeFortsæt »