NOTES

ACT I., SC. I.

I. i. 23. Broached steeped. It also means transfixed, as witness Marlowe's Lust's Dominion, I. i., 'I'll broach them if they do.'

I. i. 31. Hymenean bond-the bond of Hymen, the God of Marriage.

I. i. 45. Aconite-wolf's-bane or monk's-hood, not 'the deadly nightshade,' as some assert, which belongs to the genus Solanum. Aconite by the Elizabethans was supposed to be of such deadly virulence and so hasty in its effects that in 2 Henry IV. IV. iv. Shakespeare says

'The united vessel of their blood

Mingled with venom of suggestion

As force perforce, the age will pour it in,
Shall never leak, though it do work as strong

As aconitum or rash gunpowder.'

The ancients believed it to be the creation of Hecate from the foam of Cerberus when Hercules dragged him up from Hades to present him to Eurystheus in his twelfth and last labour.

I. i. 55. Importune. Note the falling of the accent on the penultimate syllable.

I. i. 64. Savours not humanity. Note the elision of the preposition of. Cf. All's Well that Ends Well, III. v. 104, 'Some precepts worthy the note.'

I. i. 117. Vesta's sacred fires. Sacred because those who tended them were vowed to perpetual virginity.

I. i. 120. On fitting fortune=On fortune that is worthy of being accepted.

I. i. 130. Contents satisfaction.

I. i. 135. He has just grounds direct him. Another instance of ellipsis. Cf. Julius Cæsar, I. i. 3, 'You ought not walk'; also Merchant of Venice, II. vii. 43, 'To come view fair Portia.'

I. i. 143. Change fresh airs . . . about them. They may travel where they please but their griefs are their constant companions.

ACT I., Sc. II.

I. ii. 73. The chaplet. The victor in a campaign received a chaplet of laurel or ivy; also the conqueror at the Olympic Games. To that custom the passage here refers. Cf. also Horace, Odes, I. i. 29, 'Me doctarum hederæ præmia frontium. Diis miscent superis.'

I. ii. 79. Provincial garland. The reference seems to be to the fact that the garland was composed of Provencal roses. Hamlet makes the same allusion (III. ii. 285) in his remark to Polonius. 'Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers-if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me-with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes,-get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?' In this connection Douce would have us read 'roses of Provins,' for while, as he asserts, there is no evidence to show that Provence was ever celebrated for its roses, it is well known that Provins, in La Basse Brie, about forty miles from Paris, was formerly very celebrated for the growth of this flower. It is probable (continues Douce) that this kind of rose, which in our old herbals is called the 'Great Holland' or 'Provence Rose,' was imported into this country both from Holland and France, from which latter country the Dutch may at first have procured it.

I. ii. 87. On the issue of a willing mind=On the purposes or determined actions of a mind desirous to show its loyalty.

I. ii. 98. Applause runs madding—i.e., applause expends itself in

undiscriminating eulogy. Cf. Milton, Paradise Lost, vi. 210, 'The madding wheels of brazen chariots razed'; also Gray's fine phrase, 'Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife.'

I. ii. 100. Leader-on. This is a image drawn from the actions of the coryphæus, or leader among the priests of Bacchus, the God of Wine, during the celebration of the Dionysia of Greece or the Bacchanalia of Rome.

I. ii. 106. Slights. May either mean subtle deeds or rebuffs; it may also mean, 'I would not so belittle myself.'

1. ii. 170. Learn to reel, thrum, or trim a lady's dog. Reel=to wind the thread from off the distaff; also to thrum to cover with small tufts like the thrum of the loom. This was the way in which many poodles were clipped in those days, so that the line may also be read in the sense of 'thrum' being to trim a dog so as to leave the tufts on it resembling the 'thrums' of the loom.

1. ii. 175. Corncutters were then a branch of the barber-surgeons. 1. ii. 186. 'Instead of following them. . . us.' Cf. here Henryson's Robin and Makyn.

SCENE III.

I. iii. 9. Foredooming destiny. Rendering my fate sure.

I. iii. 13. Such a crooked by-way. Run in such a devious path, or in a path so alien to honour truth.

I. iii. 22. At odds with nature. Has much the same meaning as Shakespeare's famous phrase, 'Out of suits with fortune' (As You Like It, I. ii. 258).

I. iii. 53. Must stand my privilege=must plead my excuse for being where I am.

I. iii. 57. In niceness in needless coyness. Cf. Cymbeline, III. iv. 158, Fear and niceness the handmaids of all women.'

I. iii. 72. But a brother . . . . grave; that is to say that Ithocles, as far as the case of Penthea and Orgilus went, had been more cruel than the grave.