II. iii. 12. 'did'; the Quartos and first Folio read 'doe'; the reading 'did' was first given in the second Folio; if this is adopted, 'get' = 'beget.'

II. v. 25. Black-Monday,' i.e. Easter Monday, so called, because of a storm which occurred on April 14, 1360, being Easter Monday, when Edward III. was lying with his army before Paris, and when many of his men-at-arms died of cold (Stowe).

II. v. 36. Jacob's staff'; cp. Gen. xxxii. 10, and Heb. xi. 21. "A Jacob's staff' was generally used in the sense of a pilgrim's staff,' because St James (or Jacob) was the patron saint of pilgrims.

II. v. 43. "A Jewess' eye'; the Quartos and Folios read a Jewes eye, probably pronounced Jewês'; 'worth a Jew's eye' was a proverbial phrase: that worth was the price which the Jews paid for immunity from mutilation and death.' The reading · Jewess'' seems very doubtful. II. vi. 51. by my hood'; this phrase is found nowhere else in Shakespeare; according to Malone, Gratiano is in a masqued habit, to which it is probable that formerly, as at present, a large cape or hood was affixed.

II. vii. 41. 'the Hyrcanian deserts'; Shakespeare three times mentions the tigers of Hyrcania, the name given to a district of indefinite extent south of the Caspian,' where, according to Pliny, tigers were bred.

II. vii. 53. undervalued' "in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, gold was to silver in the proportion of 11 to 1; in the forty-third year of her reign it was in the proportion of 10 to 1" (Clarendon).

II. vii. 69. tombs do'; Johnson's emendation for the old reading ' timber do.'

II. vii. 75. Halliwell notes that this line is a paraphrastical inversion of the common old proverb: Farewell, frost,' which was used in the absence or departure of anything that was unwelcome or displeasing.

III. i. 10. Knapped ginger'; perhaps to knap ginger' is to nibble ginger'; old women were fond of this condiment: Cotgrave invariably gives 'knap' as a synonym of 'gnaw' or ' nibble.'

III. i. 71. humility,' rightly explained by Schmidt as kindness, benevolence, humanity.'

III. i. 122. The special value of the turquoise' was its supposed virtue in indicating the health of the wearer: it was said to brighten or fade as its wearer was well or ill, and to give warning of approaching danger.

III. ii. 54. more love'; because Hercules rescued Hesione not for love of the lady, but for the sake of the horses promised him by Laomedon. III. ii. 99. veiling an Indian beauty'; it has been pointed out that

Montaigne in his Essay on Beauty' says: "The Indians describe it black and swarthy, with blabbered thick lips, with a broad and flat nose." If Shakespeare gives us a reminiscence of this, he must have read Montaigne in French, as Florio's translation was not published until 1603. III. ii. 102. 'Hard food for Midas,' who prayed that everything he touched might turn to gold, and soon regretted his prayer.

III. ii. 106. 'paleness' ; as Bassanio uses pale' of silver a few lines before, Theobald, on Warburton's suggestion, proposed to read 'plainness'; but 'pale' is a regular epithet of lead, and there seems no reason for changing the reading here.

III. ii. 112. 'rain,' so Folios 1, 2 and Quarto 2; the reading of the third and fourth Quartos 'rein' is generally preferred; Quarto 1 range.'

6

III. iv. 63. accoutred,' so Folios and later Quartos; Quarto 1 'apparreld, in some respects the preferable reading.

III. v. 82. And if on earth he do not mean it, then In reason'; the second Quarto it, it'; the Folios it, it is.'

Various emendations have been suggested for 'mean,' but no change is necessary, though no satisfactory explanation has hitherto been advanced. I am inclined to think that, with Prof. Skeat's kind assistance, the difficulty may be now removed: 'mean it'=mean, like 'foot it,' 'trip it'; and mean =moan (cp. Midsummer Night's Dream, v. i. 330). The sense of the line is clearly, if he don't cry now, he can't expect to sing hereafter.

IV. i. 36. Our holy Sabbath'; so the first Quarto; the second reads 'Sabaoth'; it is just possible that Shakespeare might have been misled by the expression, 'Lord God of Sabaoth,' which occurs in the New Testament. Sabbath' and 'Sabaoth' (i.e. hosts,' in the phrase 'Lord of hosts') were confused even by Sir Walter Scott, when in Ivanhoe, ch. x. he refers to "the gains of a week, aye the space between two Sabaoths." Similarly Spenser (F. Q. viii. 2):—

'But thenceforth all shall rest eternally

With him that is the God of Sabaoth hight.

Dr Johnson treated the two words as identical in the first edition of his Dictionary.

IV. i. 49. the bag-pipe sings i' the nose.

See Illustrations to . 56.

IV. i. 50. affection, Mistress of passion'; the Quartos and Folios read 'affection. Masters of passion.' The reading now generally adopted was first suggested by Thirlby; Maistres' or 'mastres,' the old spelling of 'mistress' evidently produced the error. 'Affection,' when contrasted with 'passion,' seems to denote 'emotions produced through the senses by external objects.'

IV. i. 56. a woollen bag-pipe'; the reading of all the old editions; 'wawling,'' swollen,' bollen,' have been variously suggested; 'woollen' probably refers to the covering of the wind-bag.

IV. i. 184. Cp. Mercy is seasonable in the time of affliction, as clouds of rain in the time of drought,' Ecclesiasticus, XXXV. 20.

IV. i. 255. Are there balance'; 'balance' was frequently treated as a plural by Elizabethan writers, though this is the only instance in Shakespeare.

IV. i. 451. Commandement,' so Quartos and Folios: clearly to be pronounced as quadrisyllable, Cambridge edition 'commandment.'

V. i. 4. Troilus'; the image is from Chaucer's Troilus and Cresseide; "Upon the wallis fast eke would he walke" (Bk. v. 666).

V. i. 7-14. Thisbe, etc.; Hunter (New Illustrations, i. 309) ingeniously suggests that the old Folio of Chaucer was lying open before Shakespeare when he wrote this dialogue, and that there he found Thisbe, Dido, and Medea, as well as Troilus. It is certainly striking that Thisbe, Dido, and Medea follow each other in the Legend of Good Women.' Shakespeare has seemingly transferred to Dido what he found in Chaucer's Legend concerning Ariadne (And to the stronde barefote faste she went' And turne agayne, and on the stronde hire fynde'). Chaucer's Medea directed Shakespeare's mind to Ovid, Metam. VII.

V. i. 15. 'Jessica'; Medea, who stole away from her father, Æetes, with the golden fleece, suggests Jessica's own story to Lorenzo.

V. i. 61, &c. "The corresponding passage in Plato is in his tenth book De Republica, where he speaks of the harmony of the Spheres, and represents a syren sitting on each of the eight orbs, and singing to each in its proper tone, while they are thus guided through the heavens, and consent in a diapason of perfect harmony, the Fates themselves chanting to this celestial music" (Du Bois, The Wreath, p. 60, quoted by Furness). The Platonic doctrine is, however, blended with reminiscences of Job xxxviii. 7, "The morning stars sang together."

V. i. 64. close it in'; Quarto I and Folios read in it,' which some editors have taken as equivalent to close-in it.'

V. i. 149. Like cut'er's poetry upon a knife.' Cp. accompanying illus

tration.

mee not least wrong beej let all borrowers gooe & buye

From an inscribed knife of the XVIIth Cent. Discovered at Norwich. Vi. 193. A similar repetition of the word 'love' at the end of ten consecutive lines is found in The Fayre Mayde of the Exchange' (1607); cp. Edward III. Act II. sc. i., where the sun' ends eight consecutive lines.

AS YOU LIKE IT

The Editions,

Preface.

As You Like It was published for the first time in the First Folio; a Quarto edition was contemplated many years previously, but for some cause or other was staied,' and the play is mentioned among others in 1623, when Jaggard and Blount obtained permission to print the First Folio, as 'not formerly entered to other men.' The text of the play in the four Folios is substantially the same, though the Second Folio corrects a few typographical and other errors in the first edition.

As You Like It was in all probability produced under circumstances necessitating great haste on the part of the author, and many evidences of this rapidity of composition exist in the text of the play, e.g. (i.) in Act I. scene ii. line 284, Le Beau makes Celia the taller,' which statement seems to contradict Rosalind's description of herself in the next scene (I. iii. 117), because that I am more than common tall': (ii.) again, in the first Act the second son of Sir Rowland de Boys is referred to as 'Jaques,' a name subsequently transferred to another and more important character; wherefore when he appears in the last Act he is styled in the Folio merely second brother': (iii.) ‹ old Frederick, your father' (I. ii. 87) seems to refer to the banished duke (‘Duke senior'), for to Rosalind, and not to Celia, the words thy father's love,' &c., are assigned in the Folio; either the ascription is incorrect, or Frederick' is an error for some other name, perhaps for 'Ferdinand,' as has been suggested; attention should also be called to certain slight inaccuracies, e.g. Juno's swans' (vide Glossary); finally, the part of Hymen in the last scene of the play is on the whole unsatisfactory, and is possibly by another hand.

Date of Composition.

(i.) As You Like It may safely be assigned to the year 1599, for while the play is not mentioned in Meres' Palladis Tamia, 1598, it quotes a line from Marlowe's Hero and Leander, which was printed for the first time in that year-five years after the poet's death