GAUDY NIGHT. Act III., Sc. 11. "Let's have one other gaudy night." A gaudy night is a night of rejoicing. In the Universities and Inns of Court a gaudy day was a feast day. Gaudies, says Phillips, are "double commons, such as are allowed on gaudy-days." GRATES. Act I., Sc. 1. "Grates me :-The sum." Grates me is offends me, is displeasing, grating, harsh to me. HARRIED. Act III., Sc. 3. "That so I harried him." To harry is from the Anglo-Saxon hergian, to ravage, to devastate, as by an army. To harass is from the same root, and harried here means vexed, annoyed. Ho! Act IV, Sc. 2. "Ho, ho, ho!" These interjections have the sense of stop. HOLDING. Act II., Sc. 7. "The holding every man shall bear." The holding is the burthen of the song. HOPE. Act II., Sc. 1. "I cannot hope Cæsar and Antony shall well greet together." In this passage hope is used in the sense of expect. Chaucer has used it with the same meaning, but the inaccuracy was shown by Puttenham, in Shakspere's time, by a droll instance from the speech of the Tanner of Tamworth to Edward IV.:-"I hope I shall be hanged to-morrow." LATED. Act III., Sc. 9. "I am so lated in the world." The Anglo-Saxon læt has the meaning of slow or tardy, of permission, and of obstruction or hindrance, and we have thence both let and late. Lated is here obstructed, and therefore unsuccessful. In 'Macbeth,' "Now spurs the lated traveller apace," we have a similar sense. LAUREL. Act I., Sc. 3. "Sit laurel victory, and smooth success." The practice of using the substantive as an adjective was a peculiarity of the poets of Shakspere's day, and it has been adopted with advantage in the present age. LIEUTENANTRY. Act III., Sc. 9. "Dealt on lieutenantry." That is, made war by lieutenants, by deputy. Lieutenant is from the French, the holder under another, or tenant of a place. MERED. Act III., Sc. 11. "The mered question." Mere is a boundary, and to mere is to define limits. Spenser used the word both as a substantive and a verb. MERELY. Act III., Sc. 7. "The horse were merely lost." Merely is utterly, entirely. MODERN. Act V., Sc. 2. "As we greet modern friends." Modern, in Shakspere's time, was used to express anything common and ordinary. So in 'As You Like It'— "Full of wise saws and modern instances." MOUNT. Act II., Sc. 4. "As I conceive the journey, be at the Mount." The Mount no doubt means Mount Misenum. The original omits the article. Muss. Act III., Sc. 11. "Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth.” A muss is a scramble, throwing things into a crowd to be scrambled for. NURSE. Act V., Sc. 2. "The beggar's nurse and Cæsar's." The nurse is unquestionably death; not the gross substance which nourishes equally the beggar and Cæsar, as Johnson interprets it. PLATES. Act V., Sc. 2. "As plates dropp'd from his pocket." Plates were pieces of silver money. In Marlowe's 'Jew of "He is worth three hundred plates;" which a previous line proves to be equal to two hundred crowns. PLEACH'D. Act IV., Sc. 12. "Thy master thus with pleach'd arms." Pleach'd is intertwined, folded. PROCESS. Act I., Sc. 1. "Where's Fulvia's process?" Process is used in the sense of order or summons in a suit at law. PYRAMIDES. Act V., Sc. 2. "My country's high pyramides." Pyramiaes is used as a quadrisyllable; it is the Latin plural of pyramid. "Were well deserv'd of rashness." That is, you would well deserve reproof on account of rashness. RANG'D. Act I., Sc. 1. "Of the rang'd empire fall." Ranged, as Capell (the most neglected of the commentators) properly explains, is orderly ranged; he refers to a passage in Coriolanus' 66 Bury all which yet distinctly ranges, In heaps and piles of ruins." REGIMENT. Act III., Sc. 6. "And gives his potent regiment to a trull." Regiment is here used in its Latin sense of government or rule. RENEAGUES. Act I., Sc. 1. "Reneagues all temper." Reneagues is renounces. It is usually spelt reneges; Chaucer uses it in the form of reneyes in the same sense, but Coleridge suggested the form reneagues, which gives us the proper pronunciation, as in leagues, and we have adopted his suggestion. SAFE. Act I., Sc. 3. "Which most with you should safe my going." Sofc is here used as a verb active, to make safe. In Act IV., "Best you saf'd the bringer.” SEEL. Act III., Sc. 11. "The wise gods seel our eyes." To seel was to close up the eyes of the wild hawk, for the purpose of taming. STATION. Act III., Sc. 3. "Her motion and her station are as one." Station is the act of standing, as motion is the act of moving. STONE. Act II., Sc. 2. "Your considerate stone." An allusion, probably, to the old saying, " As silent as a stone;" a frequent comparison among our ancient writers. "And take in Toryne." To take in is to gain by conquest, to take. TOKEN'D PESTILENCE. Act III., Sc. 8. "On our side like the token'd pestilence." The token'd pestilence is that stage of the plague when the spots appear on the skin, and which were called God's tokens. TRIPLE. Act I., Sc. 1. "The triple pillar of the world." Triple is here used in the unusual sense of third or one of three, and except in 'All's Well that Ends Well' (Act II., Sc. 1), "bad me store up, as a triple eye, safer than mine own two," we know of no other instance of triple being used otherwise than in the ordinary sense of threefold. VILD. Act V., Sc. 2. "In this vild world." Vild was the old spelling for vile, and is used by Shakspere and the writers of his time. To weet, from the Anglo-Saxon witan, is to know. Chaucer uses it in the form of wete. YARE. Act III., Sc. 11. "For being yare about him." Yare is prompt, nimble. See 'The Tempest.' YIELD. Act IV., Sc. 2. "And the gods yield you for 't." In 'As You This is equivalent to the gods reward you for it. |