Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

3

and the measure is not less perfect than in many other

places.

JOHNSON.

Be-lee'd and becalm'd are terms of navigation.

I have been inform'd that one vessel is said to be in the Lee of another, when it is so placed that the wind is intercepted from it. Iago's meaning therefore is, that Cassio had got the wind of him, and becalm'd him from going on.

To becalm (as I learn from Falconer's Marine Dictionary) is likewise to obstruct the current of the wind in its passage to a ship, by any contiguous object. STEEVENS.

30. this counter-caster ;] It was anciently the practice to reckon up sums with counters. To this Shakspere alludes again in Cymbeline, act v.

And in Acolastus, a comedy, 1540: "I wyl cast my tounters, or with counters, make all my reckenynges." STEEVENS.

32. And I, God bless the mark!] So the quarto. The folio (to avoid the penalty of the statute, 3d of 1 James I. c. i. which lays a penalty for the profane use of the Name of God in Stage Plays, &c.) reads, "And I, bless the mark." MALONE.

-bless the mark!] Kelly, in his comments on Scots proverbs, observes, that the Scots, when they compare person to person, use this exclamation.

STEEVENS.

God save the mark!] is used by Hotspur in a similar

sense.

32. his Moorship's-] The first quarto readshis worship's

STEEVENS.

35. by letter] By recommendation from powerful friends. JOHNSON,

36. Not by the old gradation,-] Old gradation is gradation established by ancient practice.. JOHNSON.

38. I in any just term am affin'd.] Affined is the reading of the third quarto and the first folio. The second quarto and all the modern editions have assign'd The meaning is, Do I stand within any such terms of propinquity or relation to the Moor, as that it is my duty to Love him? JOHNSON,

JOHNSON.

49. honest knaves.-] Knave is here for servant, but with a mixture of sly contempt." 64. In compliment extern,―] In that which I do only

for an outward shew of civility.

So, in Sir W. D'Avenant's Albovine, 1629:

"-that in sight extern

"A patriarch seems.”

JOHNSON

STEEVENS,

66. For daws-] The first quarto reads, for doves— STEEVENS.

Doves are still called Doues in the eastern counties of the kingdom by the common people, who both in speaking and writing have but partially admitted the v.

What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe?] Full fortune is, I believe, a complete piece of good fortune; as, in another scene of this play, a full soldier is put for a complete soldier. To owe, is in ancient language, to own, to possess. STEEVENS.

78. As when, by night and negligence, the fire Is spy'd in populous cities.]

[ocr errors]

By night and negligence

negligence means, during the time of night and negligence.

MONCK MASON.

86. Are your doors lock'd?] The first quarto reads, Are all doors lock'd?

STEEVENS.

90. is burst. ]-i. e. broken. Burst for broke is ised in our author's King Henry IV. p. 2. "-and then he burst his head for crowding among the marshall's men."

113. Grange.]this is Venice;

STEEVENS

My house is not a grange.

STEEVENS.

That is, you are in a populous city, not in a lone house, where a robbery might easily be committed.” Grange is strictly and properly the farm of a monastery, where the religious reposited their corn. Grangia, Lat. from Granum. But in Lincolnshire, and in other nor thern counties, they call every lone house, or farnr, which stands solitary, a grange. WARTON. So, in T. Heywood's English Traveller, 1633: "Who can blame him to absent himself from

home,

"And make his father's house but as a grange?"

&c.

And in Measure for Measure,

Mariana."

"at the moated grange resides this rejected STEEVENS. 119. You'll have you daughter cover'd with a Barbary horse ;] Perhaps an allusion to Jeremiah, v. 8.

***

120. -your nephews neigh to you:] Nephew, in this

instance,

instance, has the power of the Latin word nepos, and signifies a grandson, or any lineal descendant, howSo, in Spencer :

ever remote.

"And all the sons of these five brethren reign'd "By due success, and all their nephews late,

"Even thrice eleven descents the crown obtain❜d.” Sir W. Dugdale very often employs the word in this sense; and without it, it would not be very easy to shew how Brabantic could have nephews by the marriage of his daughter. Ben Jonson likewise uses it with the same meaning. The alliteration in this passage caused Shakspere to have recourse to it. STEEVENS.

121. gennets for germans.] A jennet is a Spanish

horse. STEEVENS. 122. What profane wretch art thou?] That is, what wretch of gross and licentious lauguage? In that sense Shakspere often uses the word profane.

JOHNSON.

It is so used, in Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub: "By the sly justice, and his clerk profane.".

124.

STEEVENS.

your daughter and the Moor are making the beast with two backs.] This is an ancient proverbial expression in the French language, whence Shakspere probably borrowed it; for in the Dictionaire des Proverbes Françoises, par G. D. B. Brusselles, 1710, 12mo. I find the following article: "Faire la Bête à deux Dos," pour dire faire l'amour. PERCY.

In the Diclionaire Comique, par le Roux, 1750, this phrase is more particularly explained under the article

Bête.

0

Bete. "Faire la bête à deux dos.-Maniere de parler qui signifie etre couché avec une femme; faire le deduit.-" "Et faisoient tous deux souvent ensemble la bête à deux dos joyeusement.”—Rabelais, liv. i. There was a translation of Rabelais published in the time of

Shakspere. MALONE. 130. If't be, &c.] The lines printed in crotchets are not in the first edition, but in the folio of 1623. :

132.

JOHNSON.

this odd even-] The even of night is midnight, the time when night is divided into even parts. JOHNSON. Odd is here ambiguously used, as it signifies strange, uncouth, or unwonted; and as it is opposed to even.

This expression, however explained, is very harsh; and the poet might have written-At this odd steven. Steven is an ancient word signifying time. So, in the old ballad of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne:

"We may chance to meet with Robin Hood

"Here at some unsett steven."

MALONE. Again, in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, late edition, verse 1526:

"For al day meten men at unset steven."

STEEVENS.

Perhaps midnight is styled the odd-even time of night, because it is usually the hour of sleep, which, like death, levels all distinctions, and reduces all mankind, however discriminated, to equality.

So, in Measure for Measure:

"yet death we fear,

That makes these odds all even. MALONE.

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »