purpose, III. I. 146. The phrase "to the purpose" means literally ' in conformity to one's purpose or idea': hence 'right, correctly.' A literal translation of F. à propos; propos and purpose are practically the same word, each coming from Lat. propositum.

quick, 1. 2. 29, 300, 'full of life, sprightly'; the original notion of the word is 'life'; cf. "the quick and the dead." So quicken='to cause to live' or (intransitively) 'to revive.' "The Mistress which I serve quickens what's dead," The Tempest, III. 1. 6.

rascal, Iv. 3. 80. A term of the chase for animals not worth hunting on account of their lean, poor condition, or too young; cf. As You Like It, III. 3. 58, "Horns?...the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal." Hence the general sense mean, good for nothing.' F. racaille, 'rabble.'

repeal, III. 1. 51; in the literal sense 'to recall' (F. rappeler, Lat. re, 'back' + appellare, to 'call, summon'), especially from exile; cf. Richard II., II. 2. 49, "The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself," i.e. returns from exile.

rheumy, II. 1. 266, 'causing cold.' In Shakespeare rheum has its original notion 'moisture,' 'flux'; and "rheumatic diseases" (A Midsummer-Night's Dream, II. I. 105) are those which produce a flux or flowing of the 'humours' of the body, e.g. catarrhs, coughs, cold. Gk. peûua, 'a flowing,' from péew, 'to flow.'

rive, I. 3. 6, IV. 3. 85, 'to cleave, split'; cf. Coriolanus, V. 3. 153, a bolt (i.e. thunderbolt) that should but rive an oak." Now uncommon except in the participle riven. Akin to rift, 'a fissure, rent,' and reef (literally 'a gap' in the sea).

rote, Iv. 3. 98; always used in the phrase, by rote 'by heart,' literally in a beaten track or route'; cf. routine. From O. F. rote, modern F. route, 'way' Lat. rupta (i.e. rupta via), ‘a way broken through obstacles.'

sad, I. 2. 217, 'grave, serious,' without any notion of sorrow; a common use then. Cf. Henry V., IV. 1. 318, "the sad and solemn priests"; and Milton, Paradise Lost, VI. 541, "in his face I see sad resolution." The original sense was 'sated,' A. S. sæd being akin to Lat. satis, 'enough.'

save, III. 2. 66, v. 5. 69, 'except'; save followed by the nominative case was a common idiom from Chaucer's time to Milton's. Cf. 1 Kings iii. 18, "there was no stranger with us in the house, save we two." So in Paradise Lost, II. 814, "Save he who reigns above, none can resist." In these instances save is a conjunction of participial origin, not a

preposition, and probably came from an absolute construction. Thus save I" may be short for 'I being saved'='excepted.' Now save, like except, is commonly treated as a preposition.

66

security. Elizabethan writers often use secure 'too confident, careless,' Lat. securus. Cf. Richard II., v. 3. 43, secure, foolhardy ," and Fletcher's quibbling lines,

king,"

"To secure yourselves from these,

Be not too secure in ease."

In Macbeth, III. 5. 32, “Security is mortal's chiefest enemy,” the sense is 'carelessness, over-confidence'; so in this play, II. 3. 8.

sennet; a term frequent in the stage-directions of Elizabethan plays for a set of notes on a trumpet, sounded as a signal, e.g. of departure (1. 2. 24); what notes composed a 'sennet' is not known, but it was different from a 'flourish' (I. 2. 78). Sometimes spelt signet, which shows the derivation-O. F. signet, Lat. signum, ‘a sign.'

shrewdly, III. I. 146; used by Shakespeare unfavourably with an intensive force='highly,' 'very'; cf. All's Well That Ends Well, 111. 5. 91, “He's shrewdly vexed at something." This use comes from shrewd (the past participle of schrewen, 'to curse') in its old sense 'bad'; cf. King John, V. 5. 14, "foul shrewd news," i.e. bad news.

sirrah, III. I. 10; a contemptuous form of address. Derived ultimately from Lat. senior; cf. sir=O. F. sire from senior (whence also Ital. signor).

smatch, v. 5. 46, 'taste, spice of'; a softened form of smack, which was sometimes written smach in Middle E. Cf. 2 Henry IV., I. 2. III, "Your lordship...hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time." Akin to Germ. geschmack, ‘taste.'

sooth, 'truth'; cf. forsooth, soothsayer (1. 2. 19). Used adverbially (cf. II. 4. 20, "Sooth, madam, I hear nothing"), sooth is short for 'in sooth.' Adverbial phrases in constant use naturally get abbreviated.

stare, IV. 3. 280, 'to stiffen, stand on end'; the original notion was 'fixed, stiff'; cf. Germ. starr, 'stiff,' and the verb starren, which, like stare in E., is used both of eyes looking fixedly and of hair 'standing on end.' Cf. The Tempest, 1. 2. 213, "with hair up-staring."

"there

stead, v. 1. 85, 'place'; for the plural cf. 1 Chronicles V. 22, fell down many slain...And they dwelt in their steads until the captivity." Obsolete now except in compounds, e.g. bedstead, homestead, instead. A. S. stede, 'place'; akin to Germ. stadt, 'town.'

success. Its usual sense in Elizabethan E. is 'result, fortune'-how a person fares in a matter, or a thing turns out, whether well or ill. So

clearly in v. 3. 66, "good success," and in Troilus and Cressida, 11. 2. 117, Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause." It also meant, as always now, 'good fortune'; cf. II. 2. 6, v. 3. 65.

testy, IV. 3. 46, ' easily angered, fretful'; cf. Richard III., III. 4. 39: "And finds the testy gentleman so hot,

As he will lose his head ere give consent." O. F. testu, 'heady,' from O. F. teste (i.e. tête), 'head.'

thorough, III. 1. 136, V. I. 110; a later form of through (cf. Germ. durch). Then not uncommon; cf. Marlowe, Faustus (1604), III. 106, "And make a bridge thorough the moving air." Used by modern writers sometimes for the sake of the metre; cf. Coleridge, Ancient Mariner, 64, "Thorough the fog it came." From this later form we have thorough, the adj.='complete,' and thoroughly.

toil, II. 1. 206, 'snare'; F. toile, 'cloth'; pl. toiles, 'toils, snares for wild beasts.' From Lat. tela, 'a web, thing woven.'

trash, IV. 3. 26, 74. Originally meant bits of broken sticks found under trees-from Icelandic tros, 'twigs used for fuel, rubbish'; this old meaning is seen in 1. 3. 108. Then any 'refuse, worthless matter, dross.' underling, I. 2. 141, 'an inferior.' Diminutive suffixes such as -ing sometimes express contempt; cf. 'hireling,' 'worldling.'

unmeritable, IV. 1. 12, 'devoid of merit.' In Elizabethan writers ⚫ the termination -able, now commonly passive, was often active=-ful; cf. 'tuneable' = tuneful in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, 1. 1. 184, "More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear." We still have 'changeable,' 'peaceable,' and some others, used actively.

unnumbered, III. 1. 63. Elizabethan writers constantly treat the termination -ed, which belongs to the passive participle, as equal to the adjectival ending -able; especially with words which have the negative prefix un-, and the sense 'not to be.' Cf. unavoided='not to be avoided, inevitable,' and unvalued='invaluable,' Richard III., IV. 4. 217, 1. 4. 27. So in Milton often; cf. L'Allegro, 40, “unreprovèd pleasures free”='not to be reproved, blameless.'

vouchsafe, 'to deign'; ordinarily 'deign to grant,' but also 'to accept' (II. 1. 313); cf. Timon of Athens, 1. 1. 152, "Vouchsafe my labour" (=accept my work). Literally to vouch, or warrant, safe.

while, I. 3. 82, 'the time'; common in exclamations of grief such as "woe" (or "alas") "the while"=the times, the age. See The Merchant of Venice, II. 1. 31 and Richard III., II. 3. 8 ("God help the while"). yearn, II. 2. 129, 'to grieve'; cf. Henry V., II. 3. 6, “ Falstaff he is dead...we must yearn therefore." There, as here, the 1st Folio reads

earn; cf. the Faerie Queene, III. 10, 21, "And ever his faint heart much earned at the sight." Chaucer uses ermen, 'to grieve.' The difference in spelling arises thus: earn comes from A. S. earmian, ‘to be sad (earm),' and yearn from ge-earmian, where ge- is merely a prefix which does not affect the sense. Cf. ean from eánian, and y-ean from

ge-ánian. In each the prefix ge- has softened into y-. The A. S. adj. earm 'poor, sad' is akin to Germ. arm, 'poor.' (Yearn, 'to long for,' is distinct.)

SHAKESPEARE'S USE OF PLUTARCH.

THE source to which Shakespeare owed the plot of Julius Cæsar is North's translation of Plutarch's Lives. Plutarch, a Greek writer of the first century A.D., wrote the biographies of many celebrated Greeks and Romans. There was a French translation of his work made by Jaques Amyot, Bishop of Auxerre. From this French version, not from the original Greek, this collection of Lives was rendered into English by Sir Thomas North. North's Plutarch (as it is commonly called) appeared in 1579; the numerous reprints proved its popularity then. It supplied Shakespeare with the material of his three Roman plays, Julius Casar, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra; with some details, and the names of certain characters, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream and Timon of Athens; and perhaps with some of the classical knowledge shown in the allusions scattered throughout his plays.

The special Lives upon which Shakespeare drew for the facts of Julius Cæsar were those of Cæsar, Brutus, and Antony; and his obligations may be ranged under three headings. He owes to North's Plutarch,

(1) The whole story of the play;

(2) Personal details concerning some of the characters ;

(3) Occasional turns of expression and descriptive touches. (1) That the whole story of Julius Cæsar is derived from Plutarch will be made plain by the "Extracts" which are given later. As illustrations of Shakespeare's indebtedness the following incidents and details of the play may be noted specially :

The Lupercalia and Antony's offer of the crown: the interview between Brutus and Portia: the omens of Cæsar's fall: Calpurnia's entreaties and Decius Brutus's persuasions: the warnings of the Soothsayer and Artemidorus: the murder: Antony's oration and the reading of the will: Cinna's death: the apparition of Cæsar's ghost: the battle at Philippi: the deaths of Cassius and Brutus.