27. complexion, constitution, or temperament, as shown by the outward appearance; hence in recent times the meaning of the word has been narrowed. See notes on Merchant of Venice, iii. 1. 26, and Hamlet,

i. 4. 27.

28. perfect gallows. The allusion is of course to the proverb, He that is born to be hanged will never be drowned.' See line 53 of this scene and v. I. 217; also, Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. 1. 157,

Go, go, begone, to save your ship from wreck,

Which cannot perish having thee aboard,

Being destined to a drier death on shore.'

30. advantage. This verb is always used elsewhere by Shakespeare with an objective case following, as Two Gentlemen of Verona, iii. 2. 42,

'Where your good word cannot advantage him,

Your slander never can endamage him.'

32. Down with the topmast! One of the directions given by Captain John Smith, a contemporary of Shakespeare, for the handling of a ship in a storm is, 'Strike your topmasts to the cap.' (The Seaman's Grammar, p. 40.) The second Lord Mulgrave furnished Malone with a long and interesting criticism on the manner in which Shakespeare makes his sailors handle their ship in the storm, which he thinks perfectly suitable to the circumstances where a ship is drifting on to a lee shore. He quotes from Sir Henry Mainwaring's Seaman's Dictionary: 'It is not yet agreed amongst all seamen whether it is better for a ship to hull with her topmast up or down;' and 'If you have searoom it is never good to strike the topmast.' The whole may be read at length in the Variorum Shakespeare, 1821. For an explanation of the scene the reader is referred to the Preface.

33. Bring her to try with main-course. Ralegh (Works, viii. 339), describing a ship, says, ‘To make her a good sea ship, that is, to hull and try well, there are two things specially to be observed; the one, that she have a good draught of water; the other, that she be not overcharged, which commonly the king's ships are; and therefore in them we are obliged to lie at trye with our main course and mizen, which with a deep keel and standing streak, she will perform.' To lie at try' is to keep as close to the wind as possible; and the storm-sails, which are adapted for the purpose, and are always set on such occasions, are called try-sails. The 'main-course' is the main-sail. The following account of the disasters which befell Ralegh's ships at the outset of the Island voyage in 1597 will illustrate the present passage: 'On Twesday morninge, my sealf, the Bonaventer, the Mathew, and Andrew, were together, and steered for the North Cape, not doubtinge butt to have crost the fleet within six howres, butt att the instant the winde changed to the south, and

blew vehemently; so as wee putt our sealves under our fore corses, and stood to the west into the sea. Butt on Twesday night I perceved the Mathew to labor very vehemently, and that shee could not indure that manner of standinge of, and so putt her sealf a ̧try with her mayne course.' (Edwards, Life of Ralegh, ii. 171, 172.)

34. they are louder than... our office. By their howling they make the boatswain's orders inaudible.

Ib. weather, storm. So Winter's Tale, iii. 3. 103, 'both roaring louder than the sea or weather.'

39. incharitable, a more correct form than the one at present in use, 'uncharitable.' So we have 'infortunate,' King John, ii. 1. 178; 'incertain,' Measure for Measure, iii. 1. 127; 'ingrateful,' King Lear, ii. 4. 165; and several others.

43. for drowning, as regards drowning.

45. Lay her a-hold. Admiral Smyth, in his Sailors' Wordbook, says, 'Ahold. A term of our early navigators, for bringing a ship close to the wind, so as to hold or keep to it.'

Ib. set her two courses; off to sea again! The two courses are the mainsail and the foresail. The punctuation here adopted is that of Holt; the folio reads 'set her two courses off to Sea againe,' which would mean, keep her out two points more away from the land. 51. merely, absolutely. So Hamlet, i. 2. 137,

55. at widest.

Things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely.'

We still say 'at most,' 'at least,' 'at last,' 'at latest.' Observe that 'widest' is here a monosyllable.

Ib. glut, swallow up; a meaning for which we should now use 'englut.' The use of the word in this sense is rare. It does not occur elsewhere in Shakespeare. Johnson refers to Milton [Par. Lost, x. 633],

'Nigh burst

With suck'd and glutted offal.'

And Steevens quotes Gorges's Lucan [p. 241, ed. 1614], vi. [537],
And oylie fragments scarcely burn'd
Together she doth scrape and glut.'

61. ling, heath, broom, furze. This is Hanmer's emendation of the Long heath, Browne firrs' of the folio. It was approved by Sidney Walker and adopted by Dyce. The epithets 'long,' 'brown,' are not specially applicable to heath and furze, and any epithets seem out of place. Neither is the mention of ‘ling' and ‘heath' tautological. Any one acquainted with the moors of northern England knows that 'ling' and 'heather' denote different varieties of erica. Farmer quotes from Harrison's Description of England in Holinshed (fol. 91 a), 'Brome... heth, firze, brakes, whinnes, ling,' &c.

62. The wills above, the will of the powers above. See Winter's Tale,

v. i. 46,

"'Tis your counsel

My lord should to the heavens be contrary,

Oppose against their wills.'

Scene II.

1. In many parts of this play the lines end with unemphatic monosyllables, making the verse sound like prose. In lines 12, 17, 54, for examples. This is characteristic of Shakespeare's latest manner.

2. roar. For this usage of the substantive for the verbal noun, compare 'stare,' iii. 3. 95.

4. welkin, sky; A. S. wolcen, cloud. Compare Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 2. 5, 'Like a jewel in the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven.' It occurs as an adjective in Winter's Tale, i. 2. 136,

'Look on me with your welkin eye,'

i. e. sky-blue eye. Compare also King Lear, iii. 7. 61, where we have a similar example of poetic exaggeration; Winter's Tale, iii. 3. 85; and Othello, ii. I. 11-15.

Ib. welkin's cheek. So in Richard II, iii. 3. 57, 'the cloudy cheeks of heaven.' And Coriolanus, v. 3. 151, 'the wide cheeks o' the air.' 5. fire, a dissyllable, as in Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii. 7. 22, 'But qualify the fire's extreme rage.'

See Webster and Marston's Malcontent, iv. I,

'A town on fire be extinct with tears.'

And Abbott, § 480.

6. brave, fine, the Scottish braw. See i. 2. 206, 411.

7. Who follows a neuter antecedent when it is personified, as here, in her.' So 2 Henry IV, iii. 1. 22,

'The winds

Who take the ruffian billows by the top.'

II. or ere. See v. 1. 103. So Macbeth, iv. 3. 173,

'Dying or ere they sicken.'

And King John, iv. 3. 20,

'Two long days' journey, lords, or ere we meet.'

In Old English 'or' was used in the sense of 'before,' as Chaucer, Flower and Leaf, 28 (ed. 1598),

'Long or the bright sonne vp risen was.'

In Daniel vi. 24 we have or ever they came at the bottom of the den.' And in Hamlet, i. 2. 183, according to the reading of the quartos, 'Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven

Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!'

The reading of the first folio is Ere I had ever.' This reduplication, which generally, but not always, intensifies the meaning of the adverb, may be paralleled by 'for because,' ' and if.'

13. fraughting. Pope read freighted.' The meaning is clear-the souls which made up the freight of the vessel. Theobald unnecessarily altered the word to 'freighting.' Cotgrave has 'Freter. To hire a ship of burden; and to fraught, or load her, hired.' loading, or furnishing of a (hired) ship.'

Freteure: A fraughting,

14. amazement means more than mere astonishment, confusion, and distress of mind. Compare Troilus and Cressida, v. 3. 85, 'Behold, distraction, frenzy, and amazement,

Like witless antics, one another meet.'

See 1 Peter iii. 6, and our note on Hamlet, iii. 2. 294.

Ib. piteous heart. So Richard II, v. 3. 126,

'Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear.'

'Piteous' is more commonly used of the object which excites pity.

15. woe the day! Compare Julius Cæsar, i. 3. 82,

But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead.'

19. Of whence.

A redundant phrase, which may be compared with or ever,' &c., though not exactly parallel. See Pericles, ii. 3. 80,

And further he desires to know of you,

Of whence you are, your name, and parentage.'

Ib. more better. So in line 439 of this scene, more braver.' Compare 'more nearer,' Hamlet, ii. 1. 11, and more elder,' Merchant of Venice, iv. I. 251.

20. full poor. So in this scene, line 155, 'full salt.'

24. The stage direction, ‘Lays down his mantle,' was inserted by Pope. Steevens quotes Fuller's Holy State, p. 257, of Lord Burleigh, 'At night when he put off his gown, he used to say, Lye there, Lord Treasurer.'

26. wreck. The first folio has wracke,' and in lines 390, 414, and 488. This represents the pronunciation of the word in Shakespeare's time. See Venus and Adonis, 558. Florio (Ital. Dict.) has, 'Naufragio, a wracke, a shipwracke.' And in the Authorised Version of 1611 the form of the word is 'shipwracke,' in 2 Cor. xi. 25, 1 Tim. i. 19.

28. provision. Dyce reads 'prevision,' which means the same thing. Cotgrave gives 'Prouvoyance: Purveyance, provision, foresight.'

29. soul. The sense is here imperfect. Rowe read, to the detriment of the metre, 'no soul lost.' Others have proposed to change 'soul' to 'loss,' 'soil,' 'foil.'

30. Compare line 217, 'not a hair perish'd'; and 1 Henry IV, iii. 3. 66, "The tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.'

31. Betid. We have the same form in Richard II, v. 1. 42,

'Tales

Of woeful ages long ago betid.'

32. Observe here the curious repetition of 'which,' the first referring to 'creature,' the second to 'vessel.' For a similar distribution compare Winter's Tale, iii. 2. 164, 165, 206, and Macbeth, i. 3. 60, 61,

'Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.'

35. bootless, profitless. So 'bootless prayers,' Merchant of Venice, iii. 3. 20. We have 'boot,' a substantive, meaning 'profit,' in Richard II, i. 1. 164, ‘There is no boot,' i. e. there is no use in resisting. It comes from A. S. bót. The impersonal verb 'it boots' is frequent, e. g. Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. 1. 28, 'it boots thee not.'

37. ope, open, as in v. i.

49.

38. Pope, for the sake of the metre, omitted thou.'.

41. Out, fully, completely. Compare 'right out,' iv. I. 101.

43. Observe the inversion of the sentence. See below, 204, 224, and compare Timon of Athens, v. 1. 167,

'So soon we shall drive back

Of Alcibiades the approaches wild.'

47. tended. See i. 1. 6, and compare Richard II, iv. 1. 199, 'They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.'

50. backward. As examples of adverbs first turned into adjectives and then used as nouns, see Measure for Measure, iii. 2. 138, 'I was an inward of his'; and Sonnet cxxviii. 6, 'To kiss the tender inward of thy hand.' 'Outward' is a substantive in Sonnet Ixix. 5.

Ib. abysm. See Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 13. 147, 'the abysm of hell.' It comes from the old French abysme, so spelt in Cotgrave, who gives as the English equivalent abysmus.' He gives however abisme' as the English for 'barathre.'

53. Twelve year . . . twelve year. Pope altered 'year' in both cases to ' years,' objecting to the use of the singular as too colloquial and vulgar. Other instances of this use are in Taming of the Shrew, Induction 2, 115, where Sly talks of 'fifteen year;' in 1 Henry IV, ii. 4. 50, the prince says, 'five year'; 2 Henry IV, iii. 2. 224, Silence says, 'That's fifty-five year ago.' We still use 'pound' and 'stone' with plural numerals, as did Hamlet (iii. 2. 298), ‘I'll take the Ghost's word for a thousand pound.'

Ib. Observe that the first 'year' is a dissyllable, the second a monosyllable, like 'fare' in Merry Wives of Windsor, iii. 4. 98,

'Farewell, gentle mistress: farewell, Nan.' In both cases the first word is more emphatic than the second.