Page:Hamlet - The Arden Shakespeare - 1899.djvu/271

 I. V. 133: whirling words, Schmidt defines whirling "giddy." Mr. Craig prefers F hurling. But compare 1 Henry VI. I. v. 19, "My thoughts are whirl'd like a potter's wheel."

I. V. 150: old true-penny. Mr. Craig notes these words as occurring in The Returne from Pemassus, II. iv., and Beaumont and Fletcher, The Loyal Subject, I. iii; he adds that Truepenny is the name of a character in Ralph Roister Doister, and is defined in Bailey's Dictionary (1721), "a name given by way of taunt to some sorry fellow."

II. ii. 63: preparation, used specially for a force ready for combat, as in Coriolanus, I. ii. 15.

II. ii. 339: the humorous man. Mr. Sidney Lee notes a mention in Henslowe's Diary, p. 183, of "The honorable lyfe of the humorous Earle of Gloster with his conquest of Portugalle."

II. ii. 381: carry it away. Mr. Craig compares Romeo and Juliet, III. i. 77, and notices an example earlier than any in New English Dictionary, Nash, The Unfortunate Traveller (1594), Grosart's Nash, V. 42.

II. ii. 402, 403. Mr. Craig quotes from Apollo Shroving (1627), "It lifts a man up till he grow lesse and lesse like a hawk after a hernshaw."

II. ii. 605: John-a-dreams, Mr. Craig notices "John-dreaming" as an epithet in Hall's translation of Homer, 1581, b. ii.

III. iv. 135. Compare Jonson, The Fortunate Isles, "Enter Skogan and Skelton, in like habits as they lived."

IV. ii. 33: Hide fox, defined as "hide and seek, a child's play," by Pegge, Alphabet of Kenticisms, I735.

IV. vii. 139: unbated. Compare "unrebated swords" in North's Plutarch, "Coriolanus," p. 241, ed. 1603.