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80. Orpheus. Compare the song in Henry VIII. iii. 1. 3:

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The story of Orpheus is told in Ovid's Metamorphoses, books x and xi. 84. Nor is not moved. iii. 4. II.

85. spoils, acts of rapine. So Henry V. iii. 3. 32:

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Heady murder, spoil and villany.'

87. Erebus. So Julius Caesar, ii. 1. 84:

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Not Erebus himself were dim enough

To hide thee from prevention.'

88. Portia and Nerissa enter at the opposite side of the stage to that at which Lorenzo and Jessica are seated, and are not overheard till Portia raises her voice, Peace, ho!' line 109. All the while the music is playing softly.

99. without respect, absolutely, without relation to the circumstances. 103. attended, attended to, marked. The difference is in the hearer's mind, not in the songs themselves, and the nightingale reputed the first of songsters because she sings at the time when she can best be heard, when the hearer's attention is not distracted. Compare Sonnet cii. 7-12:

As Philomel in summer's front doth sing

And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:

Not that the summer is less pleasant now

Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,

But that wild music burthens every bough

And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.'

106. the wren. See Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 1. 131:

The wren with little quill.'

And 2 Henry VI. iii. 2. 42:

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The chirping of a wren.'

108. To their right praise. So as to obtain the honour they deserve. 109. Endymion, the shepherd of Mount Latmos, beloved by Selene. Diana, huntress by day and Moon by night, does not desire to be waked till dawn. See the interpretation of this legend in Max Müller's Essay on Comparative Mythology (Chips from a German Workshop, vol. ii. pp. 78-84).

112. This must refer to a proverb importing that there are cases in which a blind man at no disadvantage as compared with any other man. 114. busbands' healths. So Pope. The first quarto reads husband bealth, which was altered, apparently by conjecture, in the second to busbands welfare. The folio, as usual, follows the second quarto.

115. Which.

The antecedent is 'husbands,' 'Who, we hope, speed the better for our prayers.' For which' see iv. I. 279.

121. A tucket sounds. This stage direction was inserted in the first folio. Tucket' means a particular set of notes played on a trumpet, from the Italian toccata, which, however, is not specially limited to a trumpet. Compare Henry V. iv. 2. 35:

Then let the trumpets sound
The tucket sonance and the note to mount.'

127. bold day. We should have daylight when the Antipodes have it, if you, Portia, who are our sun, would walk abroad at night.

129. We have had this play upon the two meanings of 'light' twice before, ii. 6. 42 and iii. 2. 91.

132. God sort all! God dispose all! See 2 Henry VI. ii. 4. 68: 'Sort thy heart to patience.'

And Richard III. ii. 3. 36:

'If God sort it so.'

136. in all sense, in all reason. Measure for Measure, v. I. 47:

Compare, for this meaning of the word,

'Poor soul,

She speaks this in the infirmity of sense.'

141. this breathing courtesy, this courtesy which consists merely in breath, i. e. in words. See Macbeth, v. 3. 27:

Mouth-honour, breath.'

142. Gratiano and Nerissa have been conversing apart in dumb show. 148. give me. Stevens proposes 'give to me,' to supply the defect in the metre.

Ib. posy. Spelt poesie in the first quarto and folios. They are the same words. See Hamlet, iii. 2. 162, where in reply to three doggrel rhymes spoken by the Player, Hamlet says, 'Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?'

149. Knives, as well as swords, had sometimes moral sentences, generally rhyming couplets, inscribed upon them. So Ford's Witch of Edmonton, iv. 2: 'Some knives have foolish posies upon them, but thine has a villanous one.' Specimens of these are given by Mr. Halliwell.

150. leave me not, do not part with me. So in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, iv. 4. 79:

'It seems you loved not her, to leave her token.'

See also 1. 172 of the present scene, and Albumazar, iii. 1:

"T has been an heirloom to our house four hundred years;
And, should I leave it now, I fear good fortune

Would fly from us, and follow it.'

151. What talk you. The same word 'what' is used indicating impatience in Coriolanus, iii. 3. 83:

'What do you prate of service?'

156. You should have been respective, you should have been regardful, if not of me, yet of your oaths. See Romeo and Juliet, iii. 1. 128:

'Away to heaven, respective lenity!'

For 'respect' see note on i. I. 74.

159. an if. See note on iv. I. 441.

162. scrubbed, stunted in growth, like 'scrub' or brushwood. Warton proposed stubbed,' i. e. stumpy.

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169. so riveted. For the metre's sake Pope omitted 'so,' and Capell read riveted so.'

175. Sidney Walker would read 'too unkind cause.'

177. I were best to cut. See note on ii. 8. 33..

199. the virtue of the ring, the power of the ring. Its possessor was to be master of Portia and all that she had. See iii. 2. 172.

of the verb contain.'

201. honour to contain, your honour involved in the safe keeping, holding fast, of the ring. Pope altered the word to retain.' This is a rare sense It is more common in the sense of restrain,' 'keep in order,' and hence perhaps comes its use in the present case, to keep the ring in its place.'

204. had pleased to have defended. pleased to defend.'

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Observe the double perfect for 'had

205. wanted, as to have wanted. This lax construction is due to the intervening parenthesis. The following words are grammatically faulty, though the general sense is clear. What man would have been so unreasonably wanting in modesty as to urge you to give up the thing you held as a sacred emblem?

206. a ceremony.

This word is used not only for 'rite,' but also for

a thing consecrated,' as Julius Caesar, i. I. 70:

'Disrobe the images,

If you do find them deck'd with ceremonies.'

In Hakluyt's Voyages, quoted by Richardson, a crucifix is called a ceremony. The word is also used for omens,' Julius Caesar, ii. I. 197:

'Of fantasy, of dreams and ceremonies.'

210. civil doctor, doctor of civil law.

214. Even be. 'He' is used, not him,' as if the words 'the which away' were merely parenthetical. Ib. did uphold.

'had held up.'

So the first quarto. The second quarto and folios read

217. shame and courtesy, shame at being thought ungrateful, and a sense of what courtesy required.

220. candles of the night. So Romeo and Juliet, iii, 5. 9:

Night's candles are burnt out.'

228. advised. See note on i. I. 142.

243. wealth, well-being, prosperity. So it is used in the Litany, 'In all time of our wealth.'

244. which, i.e. the loan of my body.

245. miscarried. Antonio uses this word metaphorically. It is especially applied to shipwreck. See iii. 2. 318:

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My ships have all miscarried.'

247. advisedly, deliberately.

263. richly, with rich lading.

Ib. suddenly, unexpectedly, without warning, as in ii. 8. 34.

268. living. See note on iii. 2. 158.

270. road. See note on i. I. 19.

278. You are not fully satisfied with the narrative you have heard of these events.

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280, 281. In the Court of Queen's Bench, when a complaint is made against a person for a 'contempt," the practice is that before sentence is finally pronounced he is sent into the Crown Office, and being there charged upon interrogatories" he is made to swear that he will "answer all things faithfully." (Lord Campbell's Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements.)

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280 inter'gatories. The word was generally pronounced in the elided form, as it is printed in the three first folios, even in a prose passage, All's Well that Ends Well, iv. 3. 207. We find, however, the full form in King John, iii. 1. 147: What earthly name to interrogatories

Can task the free breath of a sacred king?'

282, fear, be anxious about. See note on iii. 5. 3.

283. So sore, so sorely, grievously. The word is derived from the AngloSaxon sár, connected with the German schwer. It frequently occurs in the Bible, as e. g. Genesis xx. 8; The men were sore afraid.'

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