BER. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Ho ratio. HOR. Most like:-it harrows me with fear, and wonder. BER. It would be spoke to. MAR. Speak to it, Horatio, HOR. What art thou, that ufurp'ft this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike form In which the majefty of buried Denmark fpeak. MAR. It is offended. BER. See! it ftalks away. [Exit Ghoft. HOR. Stay; fpeak: fpeak I charge thee, fpeak. MAR. "Tis gone, and will not anfwer. BER. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look pale: Is not this fomething more than fantasy? What think you of it? HOR. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the fenfible and true avouch Of mine own eyes. In like manner the honeft Butler in Mr. Addifon's Drummer, recommends the Steward to speak Latin to the Ghost in that play. REED. 3 it harrows me &c.] To harrow is to conquer, to subdue. The word is of Saxon origin. So, in the old black letter romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys: "He fwore by him that harrowed hell." Milton has adopted this phrafe in his Comus : "Amaz'd I ftood, harrow'd with grief and fear." STEEVENS. MAR. Is it not like the king? HOR. As thou art to thyfelf:. Such was the very armour he had on, an angry parle,] This is one of the affected words introduced by Lyly. So, in The Two wife Men and all the rest Fools, 1619: 66 that you told me at our laft parle." STEEVENS. -Лedded-] A fled, or fledge, is a carriage without wheels, made ufe of in the cold countries. So, in Tamburlaine, or the Scythian Shepherd, 1590: 66 upon an ivory Лled "Thou shalt be drawn among the frozen poles." STEEVENS. He fmote the fedded Polack on the ice.] Pole-ax in the common editions. He fpeaks of a Prince of Poland whom he flew in battle. He uses the word Polack again, A& II. fc. iv. POPE. Polack was, in that age, the term for an inhabitant of Poland: Polaque, French. As in F. Davifon's tranflation of Pafferatius's epitaph on Henry III. of France, published by Camden: "Whether thy chance or choice thee hither brings, With trait'rous knife a cowled monfter ended. JOHNSON. Again, in The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona, &c. 1612: All the old copies have Polax. Mr. Pope and the subsequent editors read-Polack; but the corrupted word fhows, I think, that Shakspeare wrote-Polacks. MALONE. With Polack for Polander, the transcriber, or printer, might MAR. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead hour,2 With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch. HOR. In what particular thought to work, I But, in the grofs and scope of mine opinion, MAR. Good now, fit down, and tell me, he that Why this fame strict and most obfervant watch have no acquaintance; he therefore fubftituted pole-ar as the only word of like found that was familiar to his ear. Unluckily, however, it happened that the fingular of the latter has the fame found as the plural of the former. Hence it has been supposed that Shakspeare meant to write Polacks. We cannot well fuppofe that in a parley the King belaboured many, as it is not likely that provocation was given by more than one, or that on fuch an occafion he would have condefcended to strike a meaner perfon than a prince. STEEVENS. 7-jump at this dead hour,] So, the 4to. 1604. The folio -juft. STEEVENS. The correction was probably made by the author. JOHNSON. In the folio we fometimes find a familiar word substituted for one more ancient. MALONE. Jump and just were fynonymous in the time of Shakspeare. Ben Jonfon fpeaks of verfes made on jump names, i. e. names that fuit exactly. Nafh fays" and jumpe imitating a yerfe in As in præfenti." So, in Chapman's May Day, 1611: "Your appointment was jumpe at three, with me." Again, in M. Kyffin's tranflation of the Andria of Terence 1588: "Comes he this day fo jump in the very time of this marriage?" STEEVENS. In what particular thought to work,] i. e. What particular train of thinking to follow. STEEVENS. 9 - gross and scope → General thoughts, and tendency at large. JoussoN. And why fuch daily caft of brazen cannon, HOR. Well ratified by law, and heraldry, I 2 daily caft-] The quartos read-coft. STEEVENS. Why fuch imprefs of Shipwrights,] Judge Barrington, Obfervations on the more ancient Statutes, p. 300, having observed that Shakspeare gives English manners to every country where his fcene lies, infers from this paffage, that in the time even of Queen Elizabeth, fhipwrights as well as feamen were forced to forve. WHALLEY. Imprefs fignifies only the act of retaining hipwrights by giving them what was called preft money (from pret, Fr.) for holding themselves in readiness to be employed. Thus, Chapman, in his verfion of the fecond Book of Homer's Odyffey: "I, from the people ftraight, will prefs for you See Mr. Douce's note on King Lear, A& IV. fc. vi. STEEVENS. 3 by law, and heraldry,] Mr. Upton fays, that Shakfpeare fometimes expreffes one thing by two fubftantives, and that law and heraldry means, by the herald law. So, in An tony and Cleopatra, A&t IV: "Where rather I expect victorious life, i.e. honourable death. STEEVENS. Did forfeit, with his life, all thofe his lands, Had he been vanquisher; as, by the fame co-mart, Puttenham, in his Art of Poefie, speaks of The Figure of Twynnes: "horfes and barbes, for barbed horfes, venim and dartes, for venimous dartes," &C. FARMER. -law, and heraldry,] That is, according to the forms of law and heraldry. When the right of property was to be determined by combat, the rules of heraldry were to be attended to, as well as thofe of law. M. MASON. i. e. to be well ratified by the rules of law, and the forms preferibed jure feciali; fuch as proclamation, &c. MALONE. as, by the fame co-mart, And carriage of the article defign'd,] Co-mart fignifies a bargain, and carrying of the article, the covenant entered into to confirm that bargain. Hence we fee the common reading [covenant] makes a tautology. WARBURTON. Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio reads-as by the fame co venant: for which the late editions have given us-as by that covenant. Co-mart is, I fuppofe, a joint bargain, a word perhaps of our poet's coinage. A mart fignifying a great fair or market, he would not have scrupled to have written-to mart, in the sense of to make a bargain. In the preceding speech we find mart used for bargain or purchase. MALONE. He has not fcrupled fo to write in Cymbeline, A& I. fc. vii: to mart, "As in a Romish ftew," &c. STEEVENS. And carriage of the article defign'd,] Carriage is import: defign'd, is formed, drawn up between them. JOHNSON. Cawdrey in his Alphabetical Table, 1604, defines the verb defign thus: "To marke out or appoint for any purpose." See alfo Minfheu's Dict. 1617: " To defigne or thew by a token." Defigned is yet used in this sense in Scotland. The old copies have defeigne. The correction was made by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE. |