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124. In grace whereof. . . . thunder. This seems to have been the first appearance of the king in public, after his usurping the crown and marrying his sister[-in-law], and is therefore celebrated as a gala day. He therefore seizes an opportunity to compliment Hamlet's concession, as he would fain term [or interpret] it, in his favour, by firing off the cannon to his honour at every toast'-Thomas Davies' Critical Observations, vol. iii, p. 12.

127. Rouse. From the Danish ruus, a surfeit in drinking, a deep draught, a bumper, which, going round all the company at a health-drinking, produces a carouse.

129. Too too. This is an intensive adverb denoting exceedingly. It is used in The Merry Wives of Windsor, II, ii, and 2 Henry VI, in this sense, and also by Shakespeare's contemporaries. See J. O. Halliwell's article in Shakespeare Society Papers, vol. i (1844), pp. 39-43.

132. Canon 'gainst self-slaughter. The sixth commandment:

'Against self-slaughter

There is a prohibition so divine

That cravens my weak hand'-Cymbeline, III, iv, 78-80.

See also III, iii, 11; Lear, IV, vi, 75; Julius Cæsar, V, i, 101. 140. Hyperion was properly speaking the father of the sun. Damm explains the name ὁ ὑπὲρ ἡμᾶς ἰὼν ἥλιος — the sun going over us. The name, however, came to be applied to Apollo, son of Jupiter and Latona, the god of poetry, music, medicine, augury, archery, and all the fine arts. He was represented as uniting the perfection of manly strength and beauty in his single self. The Apollo Belvedere shows the splendid conception of masculine power and form to which the Greek sculptors love to give existence. Though the penultimate, Hyperion, is long (Odyssey, i, 8), yet it has seldom commended itself to English verse so. It is used in Henry V, IV, i, 292; Timon of Athens, IV, iii, 184; Titus Andronicus, V, ii, 56; Troilus and Cressida, II, iii, 207; and again in Hamlet, III, iv, 57, with the penultimate short. Though Sir William Alexander and Drummond of Hawthornden use it in the classical form, Spenser, Gray, Akenside, Keats, etc., use it as here.

Ib. Satyr. Lucian in his Council of the Gods describes the Satyrs as a bold, rough, shaggy, species of beings, with pointed ears and little sprouting horns. They had goatlike feet, and were wild, amorous, and given to wine.

141. Beteem-Dutch betaeman, Anglo-Saxon ge-teman, to allow, permit, suffer. It occurs in Spenser's Fairie Queen, II, viii, 19; in Golding's Ovid's Metamorphoses, x, 157, as a translation of dignatur, regard as worthy; and in Midsummer Night's Dream, I, i, 131.

142. Heaven and earth. Deut. xxxi, 1; Isa. i, 2.

146. Frailty.
.... woman.

A condensation at once of Virgil's

'Varium et mutabile semper

Foemina-Eneid, iv, 569;

and of the pungent lines of Sophocles:

Ορκους ἐγώ γυναικὸς εἰς ὕδωρ γράφω.

'I write the vows that women swear

On water which no tracings bear.'

149. Niobe-the daughter of Tantalus, king of Lydia, and of Dione, daughter of Atlas. She, proud of her numerous offspring, despised Latona. Apollo and Diana, Latona's children, to avenge their mother's wrongs, slew, the one all the sons, and the other all the daughters (save Chloris), of Niobe, who, smitten mute and motionless with grief at this sudden calamity, was converted into a rock. This rock was trans

ported by a whirlwind to the summit of Mount Sipylus in Lydia, and from it tears flowed for ever.

150. Discourse of reason-power of arguing, inferring or drawing conclusions from premises; the logical faculty. See:

'Such large discourse,

Looking before and after,.

That capability and god-like reason'-IV, iv, 35-37

Bishop Wordsworth quotes in illustration of the poet's meaning, the following pertinent passage from Cicero's De Officiis: 'Homo autem, quod rationis est particeps (per quam consequentia cernit, causas rerum videt, earumque progressus et quasi antecessiones non ignorat, similitudines comparat, rebusque presentibus adjungit atque advertit futuras) facile totius vitæ cursum videt, ad eamque degendum preparat res necessarias.' 'But man, who is partaker of reason, whereby he seeth sequeles, behouldeth grounds and causes of things, is not ignorant of these proceedings, and, as it were, their foregoings, compareth semblances, and with things present joyneth and knitteth things to come, doth soone espie the course of his whole life, and to the leading thereof perceiveth things necessarie'-M. T. Cicero's The Three Bookes of Duties, turned out of Latin into English by Nicolas Grimald, 1583, book i, fol. 6.

153. Hercules-the son of Jupiter and Alcmena, famous for his feats of strength, courage, and endurance, clearness of mind, and energy of will.

157. Dexterity-cunning haste.

179. Hard-near to, close, as in Acts xviii, 7. 180-181. Funeral baked-meats

marriage-tables. Massinger has, 'The same rosemary that serves for the funeral will serve for the wedding'—Old Law, IV, i, 35. Cotgrave explains

'Pasteserie, f. (All kinds of) pies or baked-meats; pasterie works; also the making of paste-meats,' 1611.

182. Dearest foe-greatest, worst, direst.

185. In my mind's eye. Similarly Telemachus in the Odyssey, i, I15, is represented as 'Οσσόμενος πατέρ ̓ ἐσθλὸν ἐνὶ φρεσὶν.

'In his mind's eye his father dear beholding.'

Chaucer uses 'thilke eyen of his minde.' In Davies' Microcosmos, 1605, 'Through their closed eies their mind's eye peeps. Shakespeare elsewhere uses, 'Mine eye is in my mind'-Sonnet 113; 'the eye of mind'-Lucrece.

193. Attent―'animum advertite; marke; be ye attent, give ear; understand yee, hearken'—Richard Bernard's Terence, in English, p. 174, ed. 1607, first published in 1598.

200. Cap-à-pé (French cap-à-pied)-from head to foot. Line 228. 230. Beaver. Baviera, the chin-piece of a casque or head-piece 'Florio's World of Words, 1598. Worcester says from French buvoir, because it enabled the wearer to drink. Derived by some from French bavière, a bib.

245. Gape-not yawn or open, but 'yell,' 'roar.' Compare: 'A gaping pig'-Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 54.

248. Tenable. Quarto 1603 reads tenible, that of 1604 tenable, folio 1623 treble. Though the last is probably a mere misprint, it has been explained by Caldecott to mean, 'Impose a threefold obligation of silence,' and has been illustrated by reference to V, i, 230:

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'I would be trebled twenty times myself'-Merchant of Venice, III, ii. 257. Foul deeds will rise.

Num. xxii, 53.

'Be sure your sins will find you out’

SCENE III.

II. Crescent-undergoing development. Laertes, following the example of his father, is here speaking crib; for Herodotus (iii, 134) said long ago The mind grows with the growth of the body' ('αυξανομένῳ τῳ σώματι συναύξονται καὶ αἱ φρένες).

12. Temple-John ii, 21; 1 Cor. iii, 16, 17.
15. Cautel-cautelle, vile, craft, subtilty, deceit.

'There is no

cautele under heaven, whereby the libertie of making or revoking his testament can be utterly taken away'-Swinburne's Treatise on Wills (1590), p. 61—W. L. RUSHTON. 18. Subject to his birth-liable to the laws affecting the alliances of princes.

20. Carve for himself-do what he likes.

Rushton in his Testa-.

mentary Language of Shakespeare, p. 50, quotes from Swinburne's Treatise on Wills, 1590, 'It is not lawful for legataries

to carve for themselves, taking their legacies at their own pleasure.

23. That body

the head-the state.

30. Credent-readily believed, credulous.

36. Chariest (Anglo-Saxon cearig, careful; German karg, nig gardly)-coyest, most cautious. Perhaps, 'Th' unchariest,' as H. N. Hudson suggests.

38. Calumnious strokes. Compare Hamlet's saying, III, i, 135. 39. Canker-the Lozotania rosana. See Midsummer Night's Dream, II, ii, 3; Twelfth Night, II, i, 115; Two Gentlemen of Verona, I, i, 43.

42. Contagious blastments-injuries derived from contact with anything that can harm. Imminent—readily received.

50. Dalliance (Dutch dollen, to trifle, tamper, indulge one's self)— self-indulgence.

51. Recks not his own read—pays no attention to his own teaching; recks from reccan, curare, to give heed. Matt. xxiii, 3, 4;

Rom. ii, 19-21; As You Like It, II, iv, 81. 58-80. W. L. Rushton in his Shakespeare's Euphuism, pp. 46, 47, points out the following close resemblances between the advice of Polonius, and Euphues' counsel to Philantus in Lyly's Euphues and his England, 1579: line 58, If these few precepts I give thee bee observed;' 59, 'Be not lavish of thy tongue;' 64, 'Every one that shaketh thee by the hand is not joyned to thee in heart;' 65, 'Be not quarrelsome for every lyght occasion Beware,' etc.; 68, 'It shall be then better to hear what they say, than to speak what thou thinkest'-p. 246, Arber's Reprint; 70, 'Let thy attire bee comely, but not costly'-Ibid., 39, 75. Mr Edward Scott has found in the second edition of Caxton's Game of Chesse this sentence, 'My friend borrowed money of me, and I have lost my friend and my money' (1475?).

59. Give thy thoughts no tongue. This,' Lord Chedworth says, 'may remind us of the celebrated advice which Sir Henry Wotton, in his letter to Milton, says was given to Alberto Scipione, an old Roman courtier, "I pensieri stretti ed il viso sciolto," i.e. (as Sir Henry Wotton translates it), Your thoughts close and your countenance loose, will go all over the world'-Notes on Shakespeare's Plays, p. 247.

81. Season-bring into usefulness.

99, 106. Tenders (1) proffers; (2) promises.

102. Unsifted-without experience.

107, 109. Tender-(1) regard; (2) show me to be.

111, 112. Fashion—(1) manner; (2) changeableness.

115. Springes to catch woodcocks. Snares for simpletons'—a proverb quoted by Stephen Goзson in his Schoole of Abuse. 'When comedy comes upon the stage, Cupid setts upp a springe for woodcockes, which are entangled ere they descrie the line, and caught before they mistrust the snare' (1579),

52. On't. On used for of, in the sense of 'about it.' 54. Avouch for avouchment, unmistakable evidence.

55. Like... as thou art to thyself. So in The Historie of King Leir and his Three Daughters, 1605, we have (Hazlitt's

Shakespeare's Library, vol. vi, p. 327), 'So like to me as I am to myself.'

58. Norway-sovereign of Norway.

59. Parle-from French parler, to speak, as we now use parley. Conference held between enemies with a view to come to terms. So Giles Fletcher uses it, 'When they besiege a towne or fort they offer much parle, and send many flattering messages to persuade a surrendring'-Of the Russe Commonwealth, 1591. Compare The Taming of the Shrew, I, i, 117; King John, II, i, 205, 226; Richard II, I, i, 192, etc. 60. Sledded Polacks the sledge-driving Polanders. Sled is a sledge, a dray. See Synonymorum Sylva, 1595. Polack is the term constantly used for Pole by Blase de Vignere in his Chroniques et Annales de Poloigne, 1573. The old copies give Pollax, representing the pronunciation of Polacks. In The Russe Commonwealth, by Giles Fletcher the elder, 1591, we find this explanation of the term: 'The Polonian, whom the Russe calleth Laches, noting the first author or founder of the nation, who was called Laches or Leches, whereunto is added Po, which signifieth people, and so is made Polaches; that is, the people or posteritie of Laches, which the Latins after their manner of writing call Polanos' (p. 65).__ Henry III, in his epitaph by Passeratius, as translated by F. Davison in Camden's Remaines, is spoken of as the great king

'That ruled the fickle French and Polacks bold.'

Boswell says it is just possible that Polax may be right, being put for the person who carried the pole-axe,' which he shows, from a passage in Milton's Briefe History of Muscovie, was a mark of rank among the Muscovites. 'It must be remembered that Finland, Esthonia, and Livonia, the icy regions along the Baltic, where sledges would be most used, belonged to the kingdom of Poland before they were ceded to Charles XI. of Sweden; and that it was only in 1703 that Russia began to come into contact with the Baltic' -REV. C. E. MOBERLY.

62. Just. The quartos 1603 and 1604 have jump; the folio gives just. In the translation of the Andria of Terence by Maurice Kyffin, 1588, we have: 'Comes he this day so jump in the very time of this marriage' (V, i); and in George Chapman's May Day, 1611, there occurs:

'Your appointment was jump at three with me.'

See Ita attemperate venit hodie, he comes so jump, or in

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