14. as a crab's like an apple. Compare Lyly, Euphues, p. 120 (ed. Arber): The sower Crabbe hath the shew of an Apple as well as the sweet Pippin.'

19. on's, of his. See i. 4. 99.

21. of either side, on either side. See Abbott, § 175.

23. I did her wrong. Lear's thoughts go back to Cordelia.

34. the seven stars, the Pleiades. See 1 Henry IV, i. 2. 16: 'for we that take purses go by the moon and the seven stars.'

37. To take 't again perforce! It is doubtful whether, as Johnson supposed, Lear is meditating the recovery of his kingdom by the help of Regan and Cornwall, as he hinted in i. 4. 300; or whether he is soliloquizing on the cruelty of Goneril in forcibly depriving him of the privileges she had agreed to allow him. The former is more in keeping with what he says in l. 31, 'I will forget my nature,' and gives perhaps the better sense.

ACT II.

Scene I.

I. Save thee, that is, God save thee; a common form of salutation. See Twelfth Night, iii. I. I: ‘Save thee, friend, and thy music.'

8. ear-kissing, the speaker's lips touching the hearer's ear. So the folios. The quartos have 'ear-bussing.'

Ib. arguments, subjects of conversation. See i. I. 208.

10-12. Omitted in two of the quartos.

10. toward, imminent, near at hand. See Hamlet, i. 1. 77, v. 2. 376. 17. queasy, easily disturbed, unsettled, and therefore requiring delicate management. Compare Much Ado abòut Nothing, ii. 1. 399: ' And I, with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice.' And Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 6. 20:

Agr. Who, queasy with his insolence

Already, will their good thoughts call from him.'

In the Paston Letters, ed. Fenn (iii. 350), it appears in the form 'coysy.' 18. Which... work! So the folios. The line is corrupted in the quartos to 'Which must aske breefenesse (breefnes) and fortune helpe.' Ib. Briefness, prompt and swift action.

24. the haste, in haste. The definite article was used in many such adverbial phrases, as for instance at the length,' at the least,' at the first,'

For

at the last.' In earlier English in all the haste' was not uncommon. 'haste' with the article see Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2. 196: 'Go, put it to the haste.'

26. Upon his party, on his side. See Richard II, iii. 2. 203:

And all your southern gentlemen in arms

Upon his party.'

And Richard III, iv. 4. 528. Johnson conjectured Against his party, for the duke of Albany'; but Edmund is endeavouring to alarm his brother to the utmost by suggesting every possible motive for flight.

27. Advise yourself, consider, reflect. See I Chron. xxi. 12: 'Now therefore, advise thyself what word I shall bring again to him that sent me.' And Henry V, iii. 6. 168:

Go, bid thy master well advise himself.'

Ib. on't. See i. 4. 99.

30. quit you well, acquit yourself well, do your best. Compare 1 Cor. xvi. 13: Quit you like men, be strong.'

31. Yield... here! All this is said in a loud voice so as to be heard by Gloucester.

34, 35. I have seen drunkards Do more than this in sport. Steevens quotes from Marston's Dutch Courtezan, iv. I (Works, ed. Halliwell, ii. 163): ‘Nay, looke you; for my owne part, if I have not as religiously vowd my hart to you,--been drunk to your healthe, swalowd flap-dragons, eate glasses, drunke urine, stabd arms, and don all the offices of protested gallantrie for your sake.' In his note on this passage Mr. Halliwell gives an illustration from Greene's Tu Quoque of the same custom: 'I will fight with him that dares say you are not fair: stab him that will not pledge your health, and with a dagger pierce a vein, to drink a full health to you.'

39. Mumbling of wicked charms. See Hamlet, ii. 1. 92 for an instance of this construction. Mumbling' is here a verbal noun, the prepositional prefix 'a' (= in) being omitted. Abbott, § 178. The quartos read 'warbling.'

Ib. conjuring, binding by incantations. Compare Timon of Athens, i. I. 7:

All these, spirits thy power

Hath conjured to attend.'

In Shakespeare the accent is most commonly on the first syllable, though there are instances of the other accentuation. We now employ the accent to distinguish the different senses of the word.

40. stand's. So one of the quartos. The other two have 'stand his';

the folios stand.'

Ib. auspicious mistress. Compare All's Well that Ends Well, iii. 3. 8:
And fortune play upon thy prosperous helm,
As thy auspicious mistress !'

45. revenging. So the folios. The quartos read ‘revengive.' Compare

' responsive' = corresponding, in Hamlet, v. 2. 159.

49. loathly, with loathing or abhorrence.

50. in fell motion, with fierce movement.

Forfell' see note on Mac

beth, iv. 2. 70. For in the quartos read with.' 'Motion' was a fencing term. Compare Hamlet, iv. 7. 102:

The scrimers of their nation,

He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye,

If you opposed them.'

And Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 304: 'I had a pass with him, rapier, scabbard and all, and he gives me the stuck in with such a mortal motion, that it is inevitable.'

51. charges home, with a home thrust. Compare Coriolanus, i. 4. 38; 'Mend and charge home'; and Winter's Tale, v. 3. 4:

'All my services

You have paid home.'

Again Hamlet, iii. 4. I.

52. lanced. Spelt lancht' and 'launcht' in the quartos. Compare Hollyband (Fr. Dict. 1593): 'Poindre, to pricke, to sticke, to lanch.' The folios read latch'd.'

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53-55. But when he saw... Or whether, &c. Either the construction is irregular or the reading was most probably whe'r' for 'whether,' as Staunton conjectured.

55. gasted, frightened. Steevens quotes from Beaumont and Fletcher, Wit at Several Weapons, ii. 3, but the word there in the original copies is 'gaster'd': 'Either the sight of the Lady has gaster'd him, or else he's drunk.' This is still an Essex word. Gast' as a participle occurs in Cursor Mundi (MS. Trinity College, Cambridge, fol. 31, quoted in Halliwell's Dictionary), p. 291 (Early English Text Soc., ed. Morris):

'His wille was but to make hem gast.'

The other three printed texts of the poem have 'agast,' 'agaste,' and 'a-gast.' Shakespeare uses 'gastness' in the sense of terror-stricken look, in Othello, v. I. 106:

'Do you perceive the gastness of her eye?' And Spenser has 'gastfull' in the sense of awful' in Shepherd's Calendar, August, 170:

'Here will I dwell apart

In gastfull grove therefore.'

Both these last-mentioned words appear to have been used as if they were etymologically connected with 'ghost.' For this derivation there is no foundation. Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) gives, Espoventable: com. Dreadfull, frightfull, fearefull; horrible, gastfull, horride.' The formgaster' is found

in Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Imposture (1603), p. 73 : ́ Did euer the God-gastring Giants, whom Iupiter ouerwhelmed with Pelion and Ossa, so complaine of theyr loade?' Mr. Skeat has pointed out to me an excellent example of 'gast' in The Vision of Piers Plowman, Text A. Passus vii. 1. 129:

'Bobe to sowen and to setten and sauen his tilþe,

Gaste Crowen from his Corn and kepen his Beestes.'

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58. dispatch. Warburton reads dispatch'd' unnecessarily.

59. arch, chief. Steevens quotes a passage from Heywood's If you Know not Me you Know Nobody (Works, i. 239, ed. 1874), but it is not a good instance of the word:

The Queen is much besotted on these Prelates,
For there's another raised, more base then he,
Poole that Arch, for truth and honesty.'

62. caitiff. The reading of the quartos. The folios have coward.' The former is from the Latin captivus,' through the French chétif,' and as a captive at the mercy of his conqueror was a type of one who had fallen very low, the word was used to denote any one who was base and wretched. See note to Richard II, i. 2. 53 (Clar. Press ed.).

65. pight, fixed, firmly resolved; the participle of 'pitch.' Troilus and Cressida, v. 10. 24:

'You vile abominable tents,

Compare

So in Midsum

Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains.' Ib. curst, chiding, harsh; generally applied to a scold. mer Night's Dream, iii. 2. 300:

'I was never curst;

I have no gift at all in shrewishness.'

Also applied to speech, as in 2 Henry VI, iii. 2. 312:

'I would invent as bitter-searching terms,

As curst, as harsh and horrible to hear.'

66. discover, expose. Compare Measure for Measure, iii. 1. 199: 'I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government.'

68. would. See Abbott, § 331.

Ib. reposure. The reading of the quartos. The folios have 'reposall' or 'reposal.' We have similarly formed the words 'exposure,' 'composure,' and on the other hand 'disposal' and 'proposal.'

69. The words 'virtue, or worth' are in loose construction with the rest of the sentence; 'the reposure of any trust, (or the belief in any) virtue or worth, in thee.'

70. faith'd, believed, trusted. See Abbott, § 294 for examples of verbs similarly formed.

Ib. what I should deny, as to what I should deny; the suspended object of the following sentence.

72. character, handwriting. See i. 2. 56.

See

73. suggestion, prompting, temptation; generally in a bad sense. The Tempest, iv. 1. 26; Macbeth, i. 3. 134; and for the verb 'suggest,' Richard II, i. I. IOI:

'Suggest his soon-believing adversaries.'

Ib. practice. The quartos have 'pretence'; but practice' is more in keeping with plot' and 'suggestion.' See i. 2. 163.

74. a dullard. Compare Cymbeline v. 5. 265:

'What, makest thou me a dullard in this act?'

75. not thought. For this transposal of the negative see The Tempest, v. I. 38 Whereof the ewe not bites.'

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76. pregnant is used by Shakespeare, without any reference to its literal meaning, in the sense of 'ready.' See note on Hamlet, iii. 2. 56 (Clar. Press ed.); and compare Troilus and Cressida, iv. 4. 90. In Measure for Measure, ii. 1. 23, Antony and Cleopatra, ii. I. 45, Cymbeline, iv. 2. 325, it signifies manifest, obvious.' In Twelfth Night, ii. 2. 29, it has a sense very nearly like that which it bears in the present passage:

'Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,

Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.'

Where 'pregnant' seems to mean ready, prompt, watchful.
Ib. potential, powerful. So Othello, i. 2. 13:

And hath in his effect a voice potential

As double as the duke's.'

Ib. spurs, the reading of the quartos, much superior to that of the folios 'spirits.'

77. For 'Strong' the folios read 'O strange.' It is used in a bad sense, as in Richard II, v. 3. 59:

'O heinous, strong and bold conspiracy!'

And Timon of Athens, iv. 3. 45:

Thou 'lt go, strong thief,

When gouty keepers of thee cannot stand."

Ib. fasten'd, confirmed, determined.

78. Tucket within. The stage direction of the folios, put after 'seek it,' line 77. Compare Henry V, iv. 2. 34:

'Then let the trumpets sound

The tucket sonance and the note to mount.'

A set of notes on the trumpet played as a signal for the march.

85. capable, able to inherit although illegitimate.

87. strange news. The reading of the quartos. The folios have 'strangenesse' or 'strangeness.'

89. How dost, my lord? See Abbott, § 241. The later folios read 'does.'

95. tend, attend. See The Tempest, i. 1. 8.