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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. i. JUNE 25, 1910.
SHAKESPEARIANA.
'RICHARD II.,' III. ii. 155-6: "SITTING 'ON THE GROUND " (11 S. i. 165, 323). Long before Kinglake, Sterne had remarked on this. See ' Tristram Shandy,' iii. chap, xxix :
" I won't go about to argue the point with you 'tis so and I am persuaded of it, madam, as much as can be, ' That both man and woman bear pain or sorrow (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a horizontal position.' "
W. A. H.
'HAMLET,' II. ii. 525: "THE MOBLED 'QUEEN " (11 S. i. 165). The text of the Folio presents no difficulty. The facsimile reprint of this passage gives " inobled Queene " twice, and "Inobled Queene' 4 once. "Ennobled 5 ' (exalted, renowned, famous, according to Richardson) appears to qualify the substantive "Queen"- suffi- ciently. T. B. WILMSHURST.
Tunbridge Wells.
[The facsimile referred to is that of the First Folio ; but it has to be remembered that
- ' mobled " in both lines is read by the Quartos
and the Second, Third, and Fourth Folios. This being so, one is justified in supposing that " mobled " is the true reading, and that of the First Folio due to hasty setting-up ; otherwise why should " mobled " have been replaced -after 1623 ?]
'2 HENRY IV.,' I. ii. (11 S. i. 323). Does not ' ' And if a man is through with them in honest taking- up n mean if a man has got through (at the end of) his power of getting credit with them? "Honest taking-up " is getting goods on credit with the promise of payment, as opposed to thievish taking of them. W. H. PINCHBECK.
' TITUS ANDRONICUS,' V. i. 99-102 (US. i. 324). That codding spirit had they from their mother,
As sure a card as ever won a set ; That bloody mind, I think, they learn'd of me, As true a dog as ever fought at head.
'These lines well express the brutal yet poetical mind of Aaron, who speaks them. " Card " is not a pun on " codding," but a slang term often applied to persons. A "rum card, n a "knowing carid," are ex- pressions to be heard any day. Aaron means that Tamora is a sure and ready one for a game of deceitful lewdness. ' ' Codding" is slang for lewdness. As to dogs fighting at head, I think if MR. APPLETON MORGAN stops and watches next time he sees two dogs fighting, he will find that they worry each other mostly about the head and neck. W. H. PINCHBECK.
Aaron exults in stating that Demetrius
and Chiron had that lustful spirit from their
mother, and, having the greatest admiration
for Tamora's wit, he extols her as being a
sure card one by whose agency the game
is ever won or success ensured. ' ' That
bloody mind n Aaron thinks must be due
to his example, for he declares he is as true a
dog as ever fought at the head, ' ' fought in
the forward," or foremost in pursuit. The
meaning is twofold : that of the fleshed
hound, or the fleshed soldier, eager for blood.
TOM JONES.
' 1 HENRY IV.,' IV. i. 99 :
All plum'd like estridges, that with the wind Baited like eagles having lately bath'd.
The critics tell us that in this passage a word, or possibly a line, has fallen out, or at any rate that the punctuation has need to be rearranged ; but they leave the text as they found it, save only with danger-signals appended to it.
The missing link (for a link is missing) is to be found in the line itself, if only the reader has the eye to see it. As once upon a time the bigger of two snakes in the Zoological Gardens devoured the smaller, so here the little word " with ?? has absorbed into itself the still lesser word " vie," which originally preceded and was separated from it ; it is possible that the writer purposely threw them together for brevity's sake, or the two monosyllables may have become incorporated by mutual attraction. The reinsertion of "vie" before "with' 1 will satisfy the grammar and the sense, and do no harm to the metre. PHILIP PERRING.
7, Lyndhurst Road, Exeter.
' TIMON or ATHENS,' III. v. 105 :
Now the gods keep you old enough ; that you may
live Only in bone that none may look on you !
I suggest for "in bone n "in hope," &c., i.e., may the gods so prolong your senile dotage that, as the days go on, your only hope may be to escape the sight of all man- kind. He has repeatedly taunted them with their age, and now wishes them a life akin to that of Swift's Struldbrugs with a bitter consciousness of the miserable spec- tacle they present.
In III. iii. 12 I would now unhesitatingly adopt Pope's emendation Three for "Thrive " (putting a comma after it), in the belief that by a confusion of proximity fertile in corruption the termination -ive, has been caught from give immediately following. Sempronius has already emphasized the word Three. K. D.
