Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: ComediesJohnson, Samuel
General
Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: Comedies
Johnson, Samuel
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Criticism and interpretation
V.i.245 (130,5) [That's seal'd in approbation?] Then any thing subject
to counterfeits is tried by the proper officers and approved,
a stamp or _seal_ is put upon it, as among us on plate, weights,
and measures. So the Duke says, that Angela's faith has been
tried, _approved_, and _seal'd_ in testimony of that _approbation_, and,
like other things so _sealed_, is no more to be called in question.
V.i.255 (131,6) [to hear this matter forth] To hear it to the end;
to search it to the bottom.
V.i.303 (132,4) [to retort your manifest appeal] To _refer back_ to
Angelo and the cause in which you _appealed_ from Angelo to the
Duke.
V.i.317 (133,5) [his subject I am not, Nor here provincial] Nor here
_accountable_. The meaning seems to be, I am not one of his natural
subjects, nor of any dependent province.
V.i.323 (133,6) [the forfeits in a barber's shop] [Warburton had explained
that a list of forfeitures were posted in barber shops to
warn patrons to keep their hands off the barber's surgical instruments.]
This explanation may serve till a better is discovered.
But whoever has seen the instruments of a chirurgeon, knows that
they may be very easily kept out of improper hands in a very
small box, or in his pocket.
V.i.336 (134,7) [And was the duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and a
coward, as you then reported him to be?] So again afterwards,
_You, sirrah, that know me for a fool, a_ coward,
_One of all luxury_--
But Lucio had not, in the former conversation, mentioned _cowardice_
among the faults of the duke.--Such failures of memory are
incident to writers more diligent than this poet.
V.i.359 (135,8) [show your sheep-biting face, and be hang'd an
hour' Will't not off?] This is intended to be the common language
of vulgar indignation. Our phrase on such occasions is
simply; _show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged_. The words
_an hour_ have no particular use here, nor are authorised by custom.
I suppose it was written thus, _show your sheep-biting face,
and be hanged--an' how? wilt not off_? In the midland counties,
upon any unexpected obstruction or resistance, it is common to
exclaim _an' how_?
V.i.388 (136,9) [Advertising, and holy] Attentive and faithful.
V.i.393 (136,l) [be you as free to us] Be as _generous_ to us, pardon
us as we have pardoned you.
V.i.401 (136,2) [That brain'd my purpose] We now use in conversation
a like phrase. _This it was that knocked my design on the head_.
Dr. Warburton reads,
--baned _my purpose_.
V.i.413 (137,3) [even from his proper tongue] Even from Angelo's
_own tongue_. So above.
_In the witness of his_ proper _ear
To call him villain._
V.i.438 (138,5) [Against all sense you do importune her] The meaning
required is, against all reason and natural affection; Shakespeare,
therefore, judiciously uses a single word that implies both;
_sense_ signifying both reason and affection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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