KING LEAR. 1. Whence did Shakespeare derive the story of King Lear? In what other authors does it occur, and with what modifications? 2. Paraphrase and explain the passage: Good king, that must approve...shameful lodging. (ii. 2. 3. Explain the following passages: (a) And let me still remain The true blank of thine eye. (i. 1. 160.) (b) All this done Upon the gad. (i. 2. 25.) 167-179.) (c) I do profess to be no less than I seem ;...to fight when I cannot choose, and to eat no fish (i. 4. 14). (d) Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks With every gale and vary of their masters, Knowing naught, like dogs, but following. (ii. 2. 84.) (e) I'ld drive ye cackling home to Camelot. (ii. 2. 90.) Where is Camelot supposed to have been situated? In what legends does the name occur? (f) Poor pelting villages. (ii. 3. 18.) (g) O how this mother swells up toward my heart! (ii. 4. 56.) Bid them come forth and hear me, (h) Or at their chamber-door I'll beat the drum Till it cry sleep to death. (ii. 4. 118.) (i) Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels, when she put 'em i' the paste alive. (ii. 4. 123.) Derive the word 'cockney', and illustrate its use. (k) Court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rainwater out o' door. (ii. 2. 10.) (4) This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock: he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the harelip: mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth. S. Withold footed thrice the old; He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold; Bid her alight, And her troth' plight, And anoint thee, witch, anoint thee! (iii. 3. 120.) Whence did Shakespeare probably derive the names and attributes of the demons in this play? KING LEAR. I. Enumerate the Early English (Anglo-Saxon) forms which still survive in the inflexions of verbs. Contrast modern English with French, as regards the extent to which it is an analytic language. Explain the similarity of termination between present participles and some nouns; and parse the sentence-" when he returns from hunting." 2. Shew the importance of diminutives in augmenting the vocabulary of English, both from Latin and Early English (AngloSaxon) sources. Give twelve instances of English substantives which have corresponding adjectives of Latin derivation. 3. In what authors, and with what modifications, does the story of King Lear occur? Whence did Shakespeare take it? When did the first four editions of the play appear respectively? 4. Contrast the characters of Lear and Hamlet. What are the marks of difference between real and assumed madness, as instanced in Lear and Edgar? 5. Paraphrase and explain the following: Lear. No, they cannot touch me for coining; I am the king himself...There's your press-money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper; draw me a clothier's yard... There's my gauntlet; I'll prove it on a giant. Bring up the brown bills. Ó, well flown, bird!-i' the clout! i' the clout! hewgh! Give the word. (iv. 6.) 6. Discuss fully the following passages : (a) Good king, that must approve the common saw, Thou out of heaven's benediction com'st To the warm sun! (ii. 2. 167.) (b) O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o' door. (iii. 2. 10.) (c) I stumbled when I saw : full oft 'tis seen, Our means secure us; and our mere defects (d) Nay, come not near th' old man; keep out, che vor ye, or ise try whether your costard or my ballow be the harder: chill be plain with you. (iv. 6. 245.) (e) If I had a monopoly out, they would have part on 't: and ladies too, they will not let me have all fool to myself; they'll be snatching.-Give me an egg, nuncle, and I'll give thee two crowns. (i. 4. 167.) 7. Explain clearly the following phrases, adding notes where required: What makes that frontlet on?—it's had it head bit off by it young you neat slave, strike!—either in snuffs and packings of the dukes-Bedlam beggars-poor Turlygood-Hysterica passio -Modo he's called, and Mahu-five wits-plighted cunning. 8. Explain and (where you can) derive the words: Darkling — untented - pight-meiny - cockney-nuncle(chalky) bourn-intrinse-carbonado-fordid. I. OTHELLO. Write a concise argument of the play, distinguishing the motives of the Dramatis personæ. At what point does Othello begin to be jealous? Justify your assertion. 2. Discuss the following stage direction from Fechter's acting edition. "His face: The rich olive colour of the Moor." 3. Explain, correcting if necessary, and mentioning important emendations: (a) The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. (i. 3.) (b) One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens, (c) (d) (e) And in the essential vesture of creation Does tire the ingener. (ii. 1. 63.) Which thing to do, If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings, But, alas, to make me A fixed figure for the time of scorn To point his slow unmoving finger at! (iv. 2. 53.) (f) It is the cause...light relume (v. 2. 1—13). Explain how you think this passage should be played. (g) It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper. (v. 2. 253.) (h) Of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away 4. (a) Correct: Sing willow, willow, willow; Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stónes ;— Lady by these ::- [Singing] Sing willow, willow, willow. (iv. 3, reading of F, F,F) (b) Truth's a dog that must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when Lady the brach may stand by the fire and stink. 2 Lear, i. 4. 5. Explain the following words, and state anything you know about their history: ancient — carack — grise—seel—skillet—segregation—liberallown-mazzard-collied-jump (bring him jump when he may Cassio find)-quillets-mammering-leets. Determine the exact meaning of the word owe in the following passages: 6. (a) What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe, (b) (a) That sweet sleep Which thou owedst yesterday. (iii. 3. 332.) (b) Cas. (c) Lead to the Sagittary the raised search. (i. 1. 158.) Should you do so, my lord, My speech should fall into such vile success As my thoughts aim not at. (iii. 3. 220.) (d) Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia? (iii. 4.) (e) Admit they should have saved him; what should they have done with him? Bacon's Henry VII. (f) But if I. S. devise land by the statute of 32 Henry VIII, and the heir of the devisor enters and makes a feoffment in fee, and feoffee dieth seized, this descent bindeth. Bacon's Maxims of the Law, ix. (g) If the propagation of religious truth be a principal endof government, as government; if it be the duty of a government to employ for that end its constitutional power; if the constitutional power of governments extends, as it most unquestionably does, to the making of laws for the burning of heretics; if burning be, as it most assuredly is, in many cases, a most effectual mode of suppressing opinions, why should we not burn? If the relation in which government ought to stand to the people be, as Mr Gladstone tells us, a paternal relation, we are irresistibly led to the conclusion that persecution is justifiable. I. Macaulay on Gladstone On Church and State. BACON'S ESSAYS. XV-XXV. What does Bacon say are the causes, and what the remedies of Seditions? What was the primum mobile, and what illustrations does Bacon draw from it? (xv.) 2. What was the conduct of Henry III. of France towards the Protestants? What injudicious sayings of Cæsar, Galba, and Probus does Bacon quote? (xv.) 3. What simple proof have we of the existence of the mind of this universal frame'? How does it appear that Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart? Enumerate the causes of Atheism, and shew how a craving for infallibility in religious matters may be considered as such a cause. (xvi.) 4. Define Superstition. In what respects is it worse than Atheism? Discuss the remark-"The Master of Superstition is the People." (xvii.) 5. What, according to Bacon, are the things best worth seeing in travelling abroad? Can you add any to the list? (xviii.) 6. Give some account, with dates, of "Lorenzius Medicis," "Ludovicus Sforza," the Sultan Mustapha, and Bajazet. Also of the quarrels between Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, and the kings William Rufus and Henry I. (xix.) 7. Discuss the remark, "There be that can pack the Cards, and yet cannot play well." Explain, "as Narcissus did, in relating to Claudius the marriage of Messalina and Silius." (xxii.) 8. Why are selfish people likely to make bad public servants? What is "the wisdom of the rat, of the fox, and of the crocodile ?" (xxiii.) 9. IO. How should innovations be made; and why so? (xxiv.) (xxv.) II. Explain the phrases :- (xx.) |