297. Do sorely ruffle, are very boisterous or blustering. Used metaphorically in Titus Andronicus, i. I. 313:

To ruffle in the commonwealth of Rome.'

The substantive 'ruffle' occurs in A Lover's Complaint, 58: 'Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew Of court, of city.'

The quartos have 'russel' or 'russell.'

301. with. See above, 1. 249.

ACT III.

Scene I.

4. elements. So the folios. The quartos read element,' that is, the sky. 6. the main, or mainland; generally used by Shakespeare for the sea. Steevens quotes from Bacon's Considerations touching a War with Spain (Life and Letters, ed. Spedding, vii. 490): 'In the year that followed, of 1589, we gave the Spaniards no rest, but turned challengers, and invaded the main of Spain'; where the context shows that he is not speaking of what was technically known as the Spanish main,' but of the landing an army on the coast of Spain itself. In the very next page Bacon says, 'In the year 1596 was the second invasion that we made upon the main territories of Spain,' which shows clearly what was meant by the main' in the former passage. Professor Delius is of opinion that in the present line 'the main' has its usual sense of sea.

7-15. tears... all. Omitted in the folios.

8. eyeless. Compare King John, v. 6. 12:

6

Thou and eyeless night

Have done me shame.'

IO. to out-scorn. Steevens proposed to read 'out-storm,' quoting A Lover's Complaint, 7:

Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.'

But Lear's speech in the next scene is true scorn and defiance.

12. the cub-drawn bear, whose dugs have been drawn dry by her cubs, and who is therefore famished. Steevens quotes from As You Like It, iv. 2. 115, where the same idea occurs:

6

A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,

Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch,

When that the sleeping man should stir.'

And line 127:

'Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness.'

14. unbonneted. In Shakspeare's time 'bonnet' denoted the headdress of men as well as of women. In the Authorised Version of Exodus xxviii. 40, &c., the mitres of the inferior priests are called 'bonnets.' See The Merchant of Venice, i. 2. 81, and Richard II, i. 4. 31. Unbonneted' occurs in Othello, i. 2. 23:

'And my demerits

May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune

As this that I have reach'd.'

18. note, knowledge, observation. Compare Winter's Tale, i. 1. 41: 'It is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note.' The quartos read 'art,' which would mean skill in physiognomy.

19. dear, important. See note on i. 4. 263, and Hamlet, iii. 4. 191: 'Such dear concernings.'

22-29. who have . . . furnishings, omitted in the quartos.

24. speculations, scouts, watchers; abstract for concrete. Compare 'discretion,' ii. 4. 144. Johnson conjectured that it is a misprint for speculators.'

25. Intelligent, giving information, acting as intelligencers or informers. See iii. 5. 9, iii. 7. 11.

26. snuffs, quarrels. To take in snuff' is to take offence at anything. Compare 1 Henry IV, i. 3. 41, where there is a pun upon the expression:

'Who therewith angry, when it next came there,

Took it in snuff.'

And Ben Jonson, Silent Woman, iv. 2: He went away in snuff.'

Ib. packings, plots. Compare Merry Wives of Windsor, iv. 2. 122: 'There's a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy against me.' Hence 'packed' in the sense of confederate, in Much Ado about Nothing, v. 1. 308:

'Margaret,

Who I believe was pack'd in all this wrong.'

29. furnishings, dressings, things external to the substance to which they are attached. In Scotland the trimmings of a lady's dress are called 'furnishings.'

30-42. But true you. These lines are omitted in the folios. They are necessary to explain what follows.

30. a power, an armed force. See Macbeth, iv. 3. 185:

For that I saw the tyrant's power afoot.'

31. scatter'd, divided against itself, and so like an army broken up and dispersed.

33. at point, ready. See i. 4. 316.

37. Some is not unfrequently used as a singular, but it is not clear in this passage whether Cordelia alone is intended.

38. bemadding, maddening. See Abbott, § 438.

39. plain, complain. Compare Richard II, i. 3. 175:

'After our sentence plaining comes too late.'

45. my out-wall, my exterior. Compare Timon of Athens, iii. 5. 32, 33: 'And make his wrongs

His outsides, to wear them like his raiment, carelessly.'

48. fellow, companion. See i. 3. 14.

50. go seek. See note on Hamlet, i. 5. 132.

Ib. Give me your hand. The hesitation expressed in 'I will talk further with you' is at an end.

52. to effect, as to effect.

Compare Macbeth, iv. 1. 61 :

To what I ask you.'

'Answer me

53, 54. in which your pain (lies) That way, I'll (go) this. The reading of the folios. The quartos have 'I'll this way, you that.'

Scene II.

2. hurricanoes. The word, perhaps of West Indian origin, which comes to us from the Spanish huracan, was not yet naturalized. See Troilus and Cressida, v. 2. 172:

"The dreadful spout

Which shipmen do the hurricano call.

And Drayton, Mooncalf (ed. 1631, p. 240), l. 168:

'And downe the shower impetuously doth fall,

Like that which men the Hurricano call.'

In Ralegh's Guiana (Hakluyt Soc. ed. p. 157) it is called 'hurlecan' and 'hurlecano.'

3. cocks, weathercocks.

4. thought-executing, doing execution with the swiftness of thought.

5. Vaunt-couriers, forerunners, precursors. Compare Tempest, i. 2. 201. The quartos spell the word 'vaunt-currers'; the folios Vaunt-curriors.' Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) gives, 'Avant-coureur: m. A forerunner, Auant

curror.'

7. Smite. So the quartos.

The folios read 'Strike.'

8. Crack nature's moulds. Theobald quotes Winter's Tale, iv. 4. 489, 490: 'Let nature crush the sides o' the earth together

And mar the seeds within.'

Ib. germens. See note on Macbeth, iv. I. 59.

Ib. spill, destroy; the original meaning of the word, from A. S. spillan. Compare Chaucer, Clerk's Tale, 1. 8379:

'My child and I, with hertly obeisaunce,

Ben youres al, and ye may save or spille
Your oughne thing.'

10. court holy water, flattery, fair words. Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) gives, 'Eau beniste de Cour. Court holy water; complements, faire words, flattering speeches, glosing, soothing, palpable cogging.' And Florio (Ital. Dict.), 'Gonfiare alcuno, to soothe and flatter one, to set one agogge or with faire words bring him into a fooles Paradise, to make one beleeue any thing, to fill one with hopes or Court-holy-water.'

12. here's a night pities. See i. 4. 59.

15. Nor, for neither; as in Othello, iii. 4. 116.

Ib. fire, a disyllable here as elsewhere.

16. tax. The quartos read 'taske' in the same sense. 18. subscription, yielding, submission. See i. 2. 19. 22. have... join'd. The reading of the quartos. will... join.'

24. foul, shameful. Compare Cymbeline, ii. 1. 65 :

'A wooer

More hateful than the foul expulsion is

Of thy dear husband.'

30. wake, waking. See I Henry IV, iii. 1. 219:

See i. 4. 335.

The folios have

'Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep.'

31. made mouths or grimaces.

See Hamlet, iv. 4. 50, and note on Hamlet, ii. 2. 353 (Clarendon Press ed.). 39. Gallow, terrify. Gally' in the same sense is still used as a provincialism. See Jennings on the Dialects in the West of England. In the Glossary to Palmer's Devonshire Dialogue, Galled' is explained as 'frightened.' In the Encyclopædia Britannica (eighth ed.), art. Mammalia, p. 232, col. 2, we read of the sperm whale that when frightened it is said by the sailors to be "gallied," probably galled.' But this is an error. Huntley (Glossary of the Cotswold Dialect), gives 'Gallow. To alarm; to frighten.' There is an Anglo-Saxon word gelan, to terrify, from which it is probably derived.

45. pother. One of the quartos has Powther,' the others Thundring.' The folios read 'pudder,' a form of the word which Steevens quotes from Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady [ii. 2]: 'Some fellows would have cryed now, and have curst thee, and faln out with their meat, and kept a pudder.' Modern editions read 'pother.'

48. of. Abbott, § 170.

49. thou simular man of virtue, thou man who feignest virtue. For this transposition of the adjective see All's Well that Ends Well, iii. 4. 30:

The folios omit' man.' 150:

To this unworthy husband of his wife.' Also note on Richard II, iii. 2. 8, and Abbott, § 419 a. 51. seeming. Compare Measure for Measure, ii. 'Seeming, seeming!

I will proclaim thee, Angelo.'

52. practised on, plotted against. See i. 2. 163. For 'practice' in the sense of plot, contrive,' see King John, iv. 1. 19:

'I doubt

My uncle practises more harm to me.'

And for the phrase 'practise on' see Henry V, ii. 2. 99:

That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,
Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use.'
See note on Hamlet, iv. 4. 64.

53. continents.

53, 54. cry .grace. 'I cry you mercy' occurs in Much Ado about Nothing, i. 2. 26. Compare Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 1. 182: 'I cry your worships mercy.' So in Othello, v. 1. 93: 'I cry you gentle pardon.' 56. Gracious my lord. Compare iii. 4. 4, and Winter's Tale, iv. 4. 477: 'Gracious my lord,

You know your father's temper.'

See Abbott, § 13.

59. More harder. See ii. 3. 7. The quartos read 'More hard then is the stone,' &c.

60. even but now. See Abbott, § 38.

Ib. demanding, asking.

'Demand' and 'require' were both used formerly in the simple sense of 'ask,' without the further idea which the words have now acquired of asking with authority. See The Tempest, i. 2. 139; Cymbeline, iii. 6. 92; 2 Samuel xi. 7.

66. vile. A frequent but not the uniform spelling of the old copies is 'vilde' or 'vild.'

68. That's sorry. The quartos have 'That sorrowes.'

69. and, apparently redundant in old ballads, but used with a certain emphasis as if equivalent to and that too.' Compare the Clown's song in Twelfth Night, v. I. 398:

"When that I was and a little tiny boy,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

A foolish thing was but a toy,

For the rain it raineth every day.'

The words and music are given in Mr. Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, p. 225.

75. Compare what is called Chaucer's Prophecy (Works, ed. Bell, viii. 152). The whole of the Fool's speech is omitted in the quartos.

88. Merlin, the ancient British prophet and magician, whose name is closely connected with the story of King Arthur. See 1 Henry IV, iii. 1. 150: Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies.'