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72. Moe. See on iii. 1. 36 above.

75. No more a Briton. This is opposed to the preceding clause: Having been on the side of the Briton, but no longer a Briton, I have resumed, etc. Verplanck says: "In the original reading I understand Posthumus as continuing his figurative search of Death. As a Briton, he could not find Death where he did hear him groan,' etc. But he will find him,' for he (Death) is now a favourer of the Britons, and therefore Posthumus, no more a Briton,' resumes again his Roman character, in order thus to reach his wished-for death." This explanation is due to Capell, but that which I have given seems simpler.

78. Once touch my shoulder. In token of arrest. Cf. shoulderclapper = bailiff, in C. of E. iv. 2. 37.

79. Answer. Reprisal, retaliation.

86. Silly. Simple, rustic. Malone quotes the novel on which the play is founded as it appears in the translation of the Decamerone, 1620: "The servant, who had no great good will to kill her, very easily grew pitifull, took off her upper garment, and gave her a poore ragged doublet, a silly chapperone" [hood], etc. 87. Gave the affront. affront in iv. 3. 29 above.

Faced or confronted the enemy. Cf.

The noun occurs nowhere else in S. 90. Seconds. Others to second or aid him. Cf. Cor. i. 4. 43: "now prove good seconds;" and Id. i. 8. 15:

"Officious and not valiant, you have sham'd me
In your condemned seconds."

91. Had answer'd him. Had done like him.

SCENE IV. 1. You shall not now be stolen, etc.

"The wit of

the gaoler alludes to the custom of putting a lock on a horse's leg when he is turned to pasture" (Johnson).

10. The penitent instrument, etc. The penitential means of freeing my conscience of its guilt.

14 I cannot do it better, etc. This passage has been a stumbling

block to the commentators, but Dr. Ingleby's explanation (Shakes. Hermeneutics, p. 100) seems satisfactory. He says: "Posthumus rejoices in his bodily thraldom, because its issue will be death, which will set him free: certainly from bodily bondage, and possibly from spiritual bondage-the worst of the twain. So he prays for 'the penitent instrument to pick that bolt,' the bolt which fetters his conscience worse than the cold gyves constrain his shanks and wrists: that is, for the means of a repentance which may be efficacious for pardon and absolution. He then enters into these means in detail, following the order of the old Churchmen: namely, sorrow for sin, or attrition: 'Is 't enough I am sorry?' etc.: then penance, which was held to convert attrition into contrition: Must repent?' etc. then satisfaction for the wrong done. As to this last he says, if the main condition of his spiritual freedom be that ('To satisfy'), let not the gods with that object require a stricter render than his all-his life. These are the three parts of absolution. The third he expands in the last clause. He owns that his debt exceeds his all. He says, in effect: 'Do not call me to a stricter account than the forfeiture of my all towards payment. Take my all, and give me a receipt, not on account, but in full of all demands. Earthly creditors take of their debtors a fraction of their debt and less than their all, "letting them thrive again on their abatement; " but I do not desire that indulgence of your clemency. Take life for life— my all: and though it is not worth so much as Imogen's, yet 't is a life, and of the same divine origin; a coin from the same mint. Between man and man light pieces are current for the sake of the figure stamped upon them: so much the rather should the gods take my life, which is in their own image, though it is not so dear, so precious, as Imogen's.'

"The old writers compared the hindrances of the body to gyves. So Walkington in the Optick Glasse of Humors, 1607: 'Our bodies were the prisons and bridewils of our soules, wherein they lay manicled and fettered in Gives,' etc. And when Posthumus says

'Cancel these cold bonds,' he means free the soul from the body, as in Macb. iii. 2. 49:

'Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond

Which keeps me pale!'

but the epithet cold has reference to the material gyves, which were of iron. Cf. The Two Noble Kinsmen, iii. 1. 72, where Palamon says 'Quit me of these cold gyves' - that is, knock off my fetters."

30. Solemn music, etc. Pope, who put 30-209 in the margin as spurious, remarks: "Here follow a vision, a masque, and a prophecy, which interrupt the fable without the least necessity, and unmeasurably lengthen this act. I think it plainly foisted in afterwards for mere show, and apparently not of Shakespeare." Malone calls it "contemptible nonsense,” and Ritson considers the margin “too honourable a place for so impertinent an interpolation." The editors and critics, almost without exception (see p. 11 above), have been of the same opinion. Schlegel, Ward, and George Fletcher believe it to be Shakespeare's.

38. Attending. Awaiting.

43. Lucina. The goddess who assisted women in labour. Cf. Per. i. 1. 8, iii. 1. 10.

45. That.

So that. See on v. 3. II above. On the passage, cf. Mach. v. 8. 16.

60. Leonati seat. Cf. J. C. v. 5. 19: "Philippi fields;" T. of S. ii. 1. 369: "Pisa walls," etc.

67. And to become, etc. And suffer Posthumus to become, etc. Geck = dupe; as in T. N. v. I. 351: "And made the most notorious geck and gull," etc.

75. Hardiment. "Hard fighting, valorous service" (Clarke). Cf. 1 Hen. IV. i. 3. 101 and T. and C. iv. 5. 28.

78. Adjourn'd. Delayed, deferred.

89. Synod. The word refers to an assembly of the gods in five out of six instances in which S. uses it.

102. Delighted. Delightful; as in Oth. i. 3. 290: “If virtue no delighted beauty lack."

105. Jovial. See on iv. 2. 312 above.

116. As. As if. Cf. iv. 2. 51 and v. 2. 16 above. Foot us = seize us in his talons.

117. Our blest fields.

66

The Elysian fields.

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118. Prunes. That is, picks off the loose feathers, to smooth the rest. Cf. I Hen. IV. i. 1. 98. Cloys claws, or strokes with his claws; an accustomed action with hawks and eagles" (Steevens). This meaning of cloy was a plausible conjecture of Steevens, but no other instance of it has been found. The New Eng. Dict. gives none.

125. Scorn! Mockery.

129. Swerve. Err; as in A. and C. iii. 11. 50, etc.

133. Book? The tablet of 109 above.

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134. Fangled. "Gaudy, vainly decorated; perhaps the only instance in which the word occurs without new being prefixed to it' (Malone). The only other instance recorded in the New Eng. Dict. is from M. Grove, Pelops and Hipp. 1527: "Mens minds were not so fangled then as now they appear to be." Halliwell-Phillipps quotes Guilpin, Skialetheia, 1598: "new printed to this fangled age."

138. Whenas. When. Cf. C. of E. iv. 4. 140, etc.

146. Tongue and brain not. Speak without understanding. Cf. M. for M. iv. 4. 28: "How might she tongue me!"

S. does not use brain as a verb, except in the sense of beat out the brains. It is doubtful whether the present instance is his. 148. Be what it is. Be it what it may.

149. Action. Course.

156. The shot. Cf. Falstaff's play upon the word in 1 Hen. IV. v. 3. 31: "Though I could scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot here."

163. Are paid. With a play on the sense of punished. Cf. iv. 2. 247 above.

165. Drawn. Drawn dry, emptied. The metaphor is probably taken from drawing off the contents of a cask, not from removing the entrails of a fowl, as Steevens makes it.

168. Debitor and creditor. An account book (Johnson and Schmidt). Delius hyphens the words, which formed the title of certain old treatises on book-keeping. Cf. Oth. i. I. 31.

170. Counters. Round pieces of metal used in calculations. Cf. W. T. iv. 3. 38: "I cannot do 't without counters."

181. So pictured.

Being represented as a skeleton. 184. Jump. Risk, hazard. Cf. Macb. i. 7. 7: "jump the life to come."

185. How you shall speed. How you shall fare, what luck you shall have; as in T. of S. ii. 1. 283, K. John, iv. 2. 141, etc. Cf. the noun speed in iii. 5. 164.

189. Wink. Shut their eyes. See on ii. 3. 24 above. 202. Prone. That is, eager for the gallows.

208. Gallowses. Doubtless intended as a vulgar plural. Elsewhere we find gallows; as in 1 Hen. IV. ii. 1. 74: "a fat pair of gallows," etc.

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hath the prospect

209. Hath a preferment in 't. Apparently of promotion in it; that is, in a better state of society he would probably have a better office than that of gaoler.

SCENE V.-2. Woe is my heart. That is, to my heart. Cf. 66 woe is me " in Ham. iii. 1. 168, etc.

5. Targes. Targets, shields. Cf. L. L. L. v. 2. 556: “with targe and shield," etc. Here the word is a monosyllable. See p. 169 above. For proof = resisting power (a technical term with reference to armour), cf. Rich. II. i. 3. 73, Ham. ii. 2. 512, etc.

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13. The heir of his reward. That is, the reward meant for him reverts to me.

14. The liver, etc. For the liver as the supposed seat of courage, ocf. T. N. iii. 2. 22: "to put fire in your heart and brimstone in your

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