I'll ever serve his mind with my best will : My heart can lend no succour to my head.-Per., i. 1. “ The Winter's Tale" is the only one of Shakespeare's plays which does not afford an instance of the dialogue in a scene ending with a rhyming couplet. "S'ADDED OR OMITTED IN THE FIRST FOLIO. Among the many typographical inaccuracies of the 1623 Folio, is that of adding a final. s' to a word which should obviously not have it appended, and of omitting a final's' or ''s' in a word which obviously requires either of these conclusions. It is needful therefore to bear in mind this peculiar error of the First Folio printer, when judging certain passages written by Shakespeare ; and we here collectively cite several passages that have given rise to debate upon the point in question. The italicised words in the following passages are printed in the 1623 Folio with an erroneously added 's': A man who is the abstract of all faults Their discipline Our bloods My lordt, farewell.-H. VIII., i. 2. Shakespeare elsewhere (“* Much Ado About Nothing," iii. 2) uses “hangman" as a nick-name. See ParticULAR NAMES. + As Abergavenny accompanies Buckingham to the Tower, the latter takes leave merely of Norfolk. For affection, When liver, brain, and heart, The son of Duncan, What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe, if he.-Oth., i. 1. With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, Yieldt his engrossments to the ending father.—2 H. IV., iv. 4. How parted with your brothers? How first met them?—Cym., V. 5. Takes no account See Peculiar Use of Words (page 576) for explanation of the mode in which the word “perfection " is used, in the present passage and in two others, by Shakespeare, with reference to the beautiful doctrine that prevailed in his time of marriage being the perfectioning of a human being. + The previous context of this sentence shows that the word "engrossments" refers to the heaps " which the over-careful fathers have “ engrossed and pil'd up"; therefore the construction is— His engrossments yield this bitter taste to the ending father.' How many ages hence She's a lady So our virtues When many times the captive Grecians fall, You bid them rise, and live.--Tr. & Cr., v. 3. In the earliest printed editions of “ Pericles " (which is not included among the plays in the 1623 Folio) there occur some of these additions and omissions of the final · s'or •'s’in a word. The italicised words in the following passages have an erroneously added 's': By Cleon train d in music, letters.—Per., iv. (Gower). Unto Diana there a votaress.--Ibid., iv. (Gower). And the italicised words in the following passages have the final 's' or "'s' omitted : Sure, all's effectless; yet nothing we 'll omit.-Ibid., v. 1. SARCASMS. Into the mouths of two of his gentlest women, Shakespeare has put bitter sarcasms; worded quietly, but none the less forcible and intense for their very temperance of expression. Cordelia, led in captive with her cruelly aggrieved father, inquires : Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters ?-Lear, v. 3. And Imogen, in reply to Cymbeline's storm of reproaches at the very moment he banishes her husband from her side, says : I beseech you, sir, Subdues all pangs, all fears.-Cym., i. 2. Again, when Pisanio, telling Imogen that he has received her husband's command to kill her, adding, “Oh, gracious lady, since I receiv'd command to do this business I have not slept one wink," she, with sarcastic quietude, replies :: Do't and to bed then.-Cym., iii. 4. With equal yet quite another force of effect, Shakespeare has put into the mouths of vehement and vicious-natured women sarcastic speeches remarkable for quiet wording, yet strength of sneer. Lady Macbeth, when her husband is aghast at the apparition of the murdered man sitting at the very festal board in the seemingly empty seat, exclaims : Shame itself! You look but on a stool.-Macb., iii. 4. Welcome, my lord: I marvel our mild husband Not met us on the way.--Lear, iv. 2. Cleopatra asks after Marc Antony's wife Fulvia by an epithet which, in the mouth of the imperial courtesan, is a superb scoff : What says the married woman?-Ant. & C., i. 3. And she afterwards alludes to his wife Octavia with terms that, used by the “ Serpent of old Nile," signify profoundest scorn : Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes Demuring upon me.-Ibid., iv. 13. Dionyza heaps contempt upon her husband Cleon's less unscrupulous character and his remorse for their joint deed in words of cutting taunt that are akin to Lady Macbeth's diction. They are well worthy the same dramatist's hand who, later on in his career, depicted that grandly drawn impersonation of criminal ambition : Cleon ... What canst thou say Dionyza. That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates, Who can cross it ? Be one of those that think SATIRE. Amid the numberless indirect satires upon the crimes, the vices, the errors, the follies, and the mistakes of mankind, that may be traced through all his plays and characters, there are to be found some passages of more direct satire in Shakespeare's works.. He satirises a fashion that prevailed in his time of painting the cheeks; together with other feminine affectations of manner : I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another : you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance.-Hamlet, iii. I. And another fashion, of wearing false hair: Oh, if in black my lady's brows be deckt, The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.- Mer. of V., iii. 2. And others, of foppishly curling the hair, and trimming or dyeing the beard : A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair ; wore gloves in my cap.-Lear, iii. 4. The wealthy curled darlings of our nation.-0th., i. 3. The barber's man hath been seen with him; and the old ornament of his cheek has already stuffed tennis-balls.—Indeed, he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.-M. Ado, iii. 2. What beard were I best to play it in ? ... I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.- Mid. N. D., i. 2. Others, of fantastical styles in dress, and fanatical adoption of foreign modes: There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy that he hath to strange disguises ; as, to be a Dutchman to-day, a Frenchman to-morrow; or in the shape of two countries at once; as, a German from the waist downward, all slops, and a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet. Unless he have a fancy to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you would have it appear he is.M. Ado, iii. 2. And one Deformed is one of them; I know him ; 'a wears a lock (meaning a long lock of hair, sometimes called a love-lock; a fashion originally introduced from the Continent by young gallants, and afterwards adopted by ruffianly fellows and thieves). -Ibid., iii. 3. How oddly he is suited ! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.- Mcr. of V., i. 2. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller ; look you lisp, and wear strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country ; be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have swan in a gondola.-As You L., iv, 1. Your son was misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow there, whose villanous saffron would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation of his colour ... that redtailed humble-bee I speak of.-All's W., Report of fashions in proud Italy, New customs, iv. 5. |