Which of the peers Have uncontemn'd gone by him, or at least Might [not] corrupt minds procure knaves as corrupt And, finally, in this play "out" is twice peculiarly used: The honourable board of council out [left out,'' omitted '].—Ibid., i. I. In the play of "Troilus and Cressida " we meet with a remarkable recurrence of words framed by Shakespeare from classical derivatives, or words used by him in their more strictly classical sense [See COINED WORDS]; several instances of words terminating in "ive," such as "directive," "persistive," "protractive," "tortive," "unplausive," and "unrespective"; several instances of the antique form of possessive case, "his" instead of 's'; and several examples of certain words used in peculiar senses :— This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions [titles to distinction']; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant.— Tr. & Cr., i. 2. Bull-bearing Milo his addition [' title of distinction'] yield To sinewy Ajax.—Ibid., ii. 3. We will not name desert before his birth; and, being born, his addition ['title'] shall be humble.-Ibid., iii. 2. I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence A great addition [' title to distinction'] earned in thy death.-Ibid., iv. 5. The obligation of our blood forbids A gory emulation ['contest '] 'twixt us twain.-Ibid., iv. 5. A good quarrel to draw emulous ['hostile'] factions and bleed to death upon. — Ibid., ii. 3. He is not emulous ['full of arrogant rivalry'] as Achilles is.-Ibid., ii. 3. Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of late, Made emulous ['enviously rivalling'] missions 'mongst the gods themselves, When rank ['coarse,'' gross'] Thersites opes his mastiff jaws.—Ibid., i. 3. The seeded pride That hath to this maturity blown up In rank [ rampantly arrogant'] Achilles must or now be cropp'd, To overbulk us all.-Ibid., i. 3. Thou shouldst not bear from me a Greekish member Wherein my sword had not impressure made Of our rank ['rampant'] feud.—Ibid., iv. 5. The play of "Coriolanus " exhibits a prevalence of words elisionally contracted [See ELISIONAL ABBREVIATIONS]; which tends to mark the period of its composition as coeval with the one whereat Shakespeare wrote his " Winter's Tale" and " King Henry VIII." There are also in "Coriolanus" several passages containing instances of indefinitely expressed conditional time; and it presents recurrent token of words used peculiarly and in peculiar senses. For instance, he uses "have" more than once in this play with especial force : : He hath deserved worthily of his country: and his ascent is not by such easy degrees as those who, having been supple and courteous to the people, bonneted, without any farther deed to have them at all into their estimation and report.Coriol., ii. 2. And since the wisdom of their choice is rather to have my hat than my heart, I will practise the insinuating nod, and be off to them most counterfeitly.--Ibid., ii. 3. And, in confirmation of our idea that the particular force of "have " was just then in his mind, we observe that he employs in this play an unusual noun framed therefrom : It is held, That valour is the chiefest virtue, and He also uses the word "end," in various passages of this play, with much force of ellipsis :— He cannot temperately transport his honours From where he should begin, and [to where he should] end; but will It shall be to him, then, as our good wills, A sure destruction. So it must fall out To him, or our authorities. For an end [of this sort], We must suggest the people in what hatred He still hath held them.-Ibid., ii. 1. He covets less Than misery itself would give; rewards His deeds with doing them; and is content To spend the time [thus, as the due mode] to end it.—Ibid., ii. 2. Serv'd his designments In mine own person; holp to reap the fame Which he did end [by making] all his.-Ibid., v. 5. In this play, likewise, "enforce" (and, in one instance, “force," as an abbreviation of "enforce ") is used to express urge' and 'urge against Enforce his pride, And his old hate unto you.-Ibid., ii. 3. In this point charge him home,-that he affects Tyrannical power: if he evade us there, Enforce him with his envy to the people.-Ibid., iii. 3. And when such time they have begun to cry, Let them not cease, but with a din confus'd Enforce the present execution Of what we chance to sentence.-Ibid., iii. 3. In "Romeo and Juliet" we are struck with the rarity of elliptical sentences; one of the points in its diction which lead us to believe it to be an early written play of our dramatist. We also find in it a multitude of conceits, quibbles, and plays on words; another point of style which marks it as one of Shakespeare's more youthful productions [See BITTER PUNS, &c.] The word "earth" is peculiarly used in three passages of this tragedy :— Earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she, She is the hopeful lady of my earth.-R. & Jul., i. 2. The latter expression giving the doubly included meaning of she is the hopeful inheritrix of my landed estates,' and 'she is the sole surviving issue of my body, in whom I have centred all my hopes'; because Shakespeare sometimes uses "earth" for 'land' or 'landed possessions, and because he employs "earth" in the two next quoted examples from this play to express corporeal part,' 'material part,' 'the earthly portion of a human being': Can I go forward when my heart is here? Turn back dull earth, and find thy centre out. [He climbs the wall, and leaps down within it.]—Ibid., ii. 1. O, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once! To prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty! Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier !—Ibid., iii. 2. The rather uncommon verb "prorogue" (which Shakespeare in only two other plays uses, introducing it but once in each of them, and then in a different sense from the one in which he here employs it) is twice employed in the present play to express delay,' defer,' put off,' 'postpone': My life were better ended by their hate, Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.-Ibid., ii. 2. I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it, On Thursday next be married to this county.-Ibid., iv. 1. In "Timon of Athens" we have remarked a recurrent use of “to” and "to be in passages where the construction is peculiar and rendered somewhat obscure by the mode in which these words are introduced; as, for instance :— But [it is requisite] to support him after,-Timon, i. 1. Nor has he with him [wherewith] to supply his life.—Ibid., iv. 2. To [who would '] have his pomp, and all what state compounds, That I had no angry wit to be [ by being '] a lord.*—Ibid., i. I. And also three instances in one scene, of "when" being elliptically understood [See ELLIPTICAL STYLE]. In "Julius Cæsar" we find an idiomatic phrase (signifying bear a * This sentence has been suspected of error, and has been variously altered; but. we think, other similarly constructed sentences used by Shakespeare show this one to be correct as it stands, and that it bears the double signification of that being a lord, I should have no angry wit,' and 'that I had given up (Apemantus's) angry wit in order to be a lord.' 6 hard opinion of,' bear ill-will,' bear a grudge') thrice repeated, which is used nowhere else by Shakespeare : Cæsar doth bear me hard; but he loves Brutus.-Jul. C., i. 2. I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard.—Ibid., iii. 1. We also meet herein with three instances of "but used peculiarly and transposedly: the first phrase signifying, 'Where none but Brutus may find it'; the second Do but send him hither'; and the third, 'Do but pluck his name out of his heart' : Take this paper, And look you lay it in the prætor's chair, Send him but hither, and I'll fashion him.-Ibid., ii. 1. It is no matter, his name 's Cinna; pluck but his name out of his heart, and turn him going. Ibid., iii. 3. are In this play likewise the words "constancy and "constant ' repeatedly used to express self-possession,' firmness,' 'steadiness,' and self-possessed,' ' firm,'' steady': But bear it as our Roman actors do, With untir'd spirits and formal constancy.—Ibid., ii. 1. I have made strong proof of my constancy, Giving myself a voluntary wound Here, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience, And not my husband's secrets?—Ibid., ii. 1. O, constancy, be strong upon my side, Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue !—Ibid., ii. 4. Cassius, be constant: Popilius Lena speaks not of our purposes.-Ibid., iii. 1. But I am constant as the northern star, Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality ... Let me a little show it, even in this, That I was constant Cimber should be banish'd, And constant do remain to keep him so.-Ibid., iii. 1. Slight" is twice used in this drama as an epithet of contempt:— This is a slight unmeritable man.—Ibid., iv. 1. Away, slight man !—Ibid., iv. 3. There are three allusions in this play to time by the clock, which of course has subjected Shakespeare to the charge of anachronism [See ALLEGED DISCREPANCIES, &c.]. But not only was the impression of current time evidently strong in the author's mind while he wrote this piece, it was also imperatively requisite that he should maintain the impression of present dramatic time well before the imagination of his audience, in order to counterbalance the effect of prolonged dramatic time, which it was incumbent upon him to give for the due lapse of events between the opening and the close of the play [See DRAMATIC TIME]: Peace! count the clock. The clock hath stricken three.-Ibid., ii. I. What is 't o'clock ? In Cæsar, 'tis strucken eight.—Jul. C., ii. 2. 'Tis three o'clock; and, Romans, yet ere night We shall try fortune in a second fight.-Ibid., v. 3. Macbeth" there is a notable prevalence of compound words and of simply plain common words in even some of the most strikingly grand passages [See FAMILIAR AND HOMELY EXPRESSIONS]. There are also several instances of the word "even" elliptically understood [See ELLIPTICAL STYLE]. There are to be observed in the tragedy of "Hamlet" a recurrence of words punningly used, and of scraps of doggerel verse: both of which, however, are attributable to the peculiar mental condition of the hero, whose assumed madness and veritable melancholy take these means of venting their many wayward moods. The first words uttered by Hamlet contain a pun : A little more than kin, and less than kind.-Hamlet, i. 2. And the next speech, of a single line : : Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.—Ibid., i. 2. Excellent well, you are a fish-monger.—Ibid., ii. 2. All which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down.-Ibid., ii. 2. What should we say, my lord?— Why, anything-but to the purpose.—Ibid., ii. 2. Nay, then, I have an eye of you.—Ibid., ii. 2. O, my old friend! thy face is valanced since I saw thee last; comest thou to beard me in Denmark ?-Ibid., ii. 2. Pray Heaven, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring.-Ibid., ii. 2. Why should the poor be flatter'd ? No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp.—Ibid., iii. 2. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed i' the Capitol; Brutus killed me.—It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.-Ibid., iii. 2. Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables.—Ibid., iii. 2. To withdraw with you: Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?—Ibid., iii. 2. Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.-Ibid., iii. 2. Indeed, this counsellor Is now most still, most secret, and most grave, Who was in life a foolish prating knave.-Ibid., iii. 4. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body.—Ibid., iv. 2. This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches.—Ibid., v. 1. Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?... Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery?... The very length of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha ?—Ibid., v. I. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that.—Ibid., v. 1. |