Explain "merely. "

(c) It shall be said, his judgment ruled our hands. (ii. 1. 147.) What is the use, and original signification of the auxiliary verbs'shall' and 'will'?

(d) Our arms in strength of welcome, and our hearts Of brothers' temper, do receive you in (iii. 1. 174.) The old editions read 'malice' for 'welcome.' What is the authority and value of the new reading?

(e) For Brutus' sake I am beholden to you (iii. 2. 70.) What is the exact meaning of beholden? Account for the form of the first syllable.

(f) With courtesy and with respect enough;

But not with such familiar instances (iv. 2. 15.) What is here the meaning of instance? In what other senses now obsolete does Shakespeare use the word?

I.

MACBETH.

Write a concise Argument to this Drama. Comment on its diction, attitude (characteristics common to the personages generally), and motive (or pervading sentiment).

2. To what period of Shakespeare's work is Macbeth to be assigned? Is there any reason to believe he ever visited Scotland? Who was Lawrence Fletcher, and in what document does his name precede Shakespeare's, and why?

3. Are the Weird Sisters properly human or non-human? What is the nearest analogous conception to them in Shakespeare's other plays? What are the limits of their supernatural power? How are these indicated in the scene with Macbeth and Banquo? What are their relations to Hecate? Why does Hecate appear in Act iii. Sc. 5, and not in Act i. Sc. 1? How ought she to be represented on the stage? Is she present in the Apparition scene? 4. Comment on the Porter's speech.

Give the substance of De Quincey's remarks on the "knocking at the gate"-Coleridge's on Duncan's appointment of Malcolm to be Prince of Cumberland-Knight's on Mrs Siddons' memoranda of her studying the part of Lady Macbeth-Mrs Jameson's on her reading of "We fail"-Gervinus's on Macduff's "He has no children."

5. Who is the "Perkins MS. corrector?" How does he

alter (a) Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark(b) What beast was't, then, that made you break this enterprise to me? (i. 5. 54; 7. 47.) Do you approve the alterations?

6. Explain: (a) fate and metaphysical aid (i. 5. 30.) (b) Duncan's horses, The minions of their race (ii. 4. 14.) (c) Come fate into the list And champion me to the utterance (iii. 1. 71.) (d) My fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in't (v. 5. 11.)

7. Paraphrase:

If it were done To our own lips. (i. 7. 1-12.)

MACBETH.

I. Sketch the life of Shakespeare, and point out his chief excellencies as a dramatist.

2. Describe the plot of 'Macbeth' and discuss the leading characters in it.

3.

Discuss fully the following passages:

(a) My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man, that function
Is smother'd in surmise; and nothing is

But what is not. (i. 3. 139.)

(b) If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'ld jump the life to come.-But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor. (i. 7. 1-10.)
I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other. (i. 7. 25.)

(c)

(d)

Ere to black Hecate's summons

The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night's yawning peal. (iii. 2. 41.)

4. Explain the following passages, discussing the words in italics.

(1) Letting I dare not wait upon I would,

Like the poor cat i' the adage. (i. 7. 44.) (2) But screw your courage to the sticking place. (i. 7. 60.) (3) Rather than so, come fate into the list,

(5)

(6)

And champion me to the utterance. (iii. 1. 71.)
We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it. (iii. 2. 13.)
Come seeling night,

Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day. (iii. 2. 46.)
You may

Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty,
And yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink.
(iv. 3. 70.)

(7) My mind she has mated and amazed my sight.

(v. I. 86.) 5. Explain (and derive where you can) the following words: thane, purveyor, weird, minion, avaunt, foisons, affeer'd, benison, tale, hurlyburly.

MACBETH.

I. To what extent is Macbeth historical? Does it contain any allusion to the reign in which it was first acted?

2. Examine the internal evidence for the opinion that the play is not wholly the work of Shakespeare.

3. Macbeth has been called 'the most purely tragic of all Shakespeare's plays.' Test this judgment by a comparison with Hamlet or with Othello.

4. 'Le style de Macbeth est remarquable, dans son énergie sauvage, par une recherche qu'on aura raison de lui reprocher, mais qu'à tort on regarderait comme contraire à la vérité autant qu'elle l'est au naturel.' Explain what M. Guizot means by this ' recherche.'

5. Analyse the character of Lady Macbeth.

6.

Discuss the readings in these passages:

(i) Present him eminence both with eye and tongue :
Unsafe the while, that we

Must lave our honours in these flattering streams.

(iii. 2. 31.)

(ii) And dare me to the desert with thy sword;
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
The baby of a girl. (iii. 4. 104.)

(iii)

My way of life

Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf. (v. 3. 22.)

5

7. Explain:

(i) Till he disbursed at Saint Colme's inch
Ten thousand dollars to our general use. (i. 2. 61.)
(ii) That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry Hold, hold!' (i. 5. 53.)
Come, seeling night,

(iii)

Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day. (iii. 2. 46.) (iv) Great tyranny! lay thou thy basis sure,

For goodness dare not check thee: wear thou thy wrongs;

The title is affeer'd! (iv. 3. 32.)

8. Paraphrase:

(i)

Present fears

Are less than horrible imaginings:

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is

But what is not. (i. 3. 137.)

(ii) If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'ld jump the life to come. (i. 7. 1.)

9. Quote any phrases from Macbeth which have become proverbial, and assign the context in which they occur.

HAMLET.

I. What is known regarding the sources to which Shakespeare was indebted for the story of Hamlet? What is the date, and what the form, of the earliest extant edition of the play?

2. Discuss the readings in these passages : The sheeted dead

(a)

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets,

As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun. (i. 1. 115.)

Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
To his own scandal. (i. 4. 36.)

(c) H. My father died within these two hours.

0. Nay,

Nay, then, let

'tis twice two months, my lord. H. So long? the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. (iii. 2. 133.) (d) Woo't drink up eisel? (v. I. 299.)

3. Explain:

(a) But there is, sir, an aery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question. (ii. 2.)

(b) H. Do the boys carry it away? R. Ay, that they do, my lord: Hercules and his load too. (ii. 2. 377.)

(c) I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant: it out-herods Herod. (iii. 2.)

(d) 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? (iii. 2. 286.)

O, the recorders! let me see one. (iii. 2. 360.)

Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil? (iii. 2. 361.)

(g) A vice of kings-a king of shreds and patches.

Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. (i) This quarry cries on havoc. (v. 2. 375.) 4. Paraphrase:

(a)

(b)

5.

(iii. 4. 98.)

(v. 2. 5.)

We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes,...
And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh,
That hurts by easing. (iv. 7. 119.)

H. The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,

That ever I was born to set it right! (i. 5. 188.)

What use is made of this couplet in the criticism on Hamlet in Wilhelm Meister? To what extent is Goethe's theory of the play modified by Coleridge's? Give your own view of Hamlet's character as conceived by Shakespeare.