Page:Love's Labour's Lost (1925) Yale.djvu/134

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122
Love's Labour's Lost

V. ii. 43. 'Ware pencils, ho! If we come to painting each other's portraits, take care.

V. ii. 44. red dominical. The red letter used in old almanacs to mark the Sundays of the year. The mediæval name for Sunday was 'dies dominica.'

V. ii. 51. A huge translation of hypocrisy. Katharine affects to think Dumaine's verses imitated from foreign rimers.

V. ii. 61. in by the week. Permanently caught.

V. ii. 65. hests. The only argument for this word (which editors unanimously admit to be decisive) is the requirement of a rime for 'jests' in the next line. The First Quarto and First Folio read 'deuice,' for which the Second Folio substituted 'behests.' So in line 74 wantonness is a Second Folio emendation of 'wantons be.'

V. ii. 67. So perttaunt-like would I o'ersway his state. Not very satisfactorily explained. The numerous conjectural emendations—pedant-like, portent-like, pendant-like, planet-like, etc.—are unconvincing. Marshall argues that perttaunt-like may be the term 'pur tant' (for so much) used in the card game of Post and Pair, quoting a line from John Davies' Wittes Pilgrimage (1610?): 'Then to Pur Tant hee's in subjection.' (Cf. Works of John Davies of Hereford, ed. Grosart, vol. ii. p. 38.)

V. ii. 121. Like Muscovites or Russians. Russian costumes were not uncommon in English courtly masquerades. Sir Sidney Lee suggests a particular allusion to a visit of Russian nobles to Elizabeth's court in 1583.

V. ii. 243. What! was your vizard made without a tongue? Mr. W. J. Lawrence explains (Times Lit. Suppl., June 7, 1923) that Elizabethan masks were kept in place by a tongue held between the wearer's teeth.

V. ii. 248. 'Veal, quoth the Dutchman. 'Veal'