Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/516

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NOTES AND QUERIES. no s. XL MAY 29, im

of the Hampshire Field Club Papers and Proceedings for 1889 and 1898, if he will furnish to these columns a verbatim copy of tho paragraphs in which the above date us given.

Was the wedding celebrated by a masque or similar form of entertainment, as we are led to believe from the lines in the drama ? HENRY PEMBERTON, Jun.

Philadelphia.

' KING LEAR,' I. v. 14-19 :

Fool. Shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly; for though she's as like this as a crab's like an apple, yet I can tell what I can tell.

Lear. Why, what canst thou tell, my boy ?

Fool. She will taste as like this as a crab does to A crab.

There is a difficulty, commonly ignored, in interpreting this passage. Craig, recognizing this, tried to solve it by the suggestion that " as a crab's like an apple " " may have been An old saying, meaning as an apple is like .an apple." This guess, besides lacking authority and failing to give any intelligible meaning to the passage, misses the Fool's point entirely. The difficulty has arisen olely from wrongly referring the demonstra- tive pronouns. In 1. 15 " she " = Goneril, and this " = Regan; but in 1. 18 it is just the other way, for here '' she " Regan, and " this " = Goneril. Thus the Fool means : " You think that Goneril compared to Regan is as a crab to an apple [cp. I. iv. 327-30], but I can tell you a great secret Regan's treatment of you will be as crabbed as even Goneril's was " ; or, in other words, " Regan and Goneril are as like each other as two crabs." Thus, too, the equivoque in "kindly" is brought out. For the " irregularity " as -we should consider it now in the use of the pronouns, cp. ' Macbeth,' I. A. E. A.

I. iv. 281-3 :

Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,

More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child

Than the sea-monster !

" The " undoubtedly points to some par- ticular " monster," and the context shows that this monster must be typical of ingrati- tude. The first part of the Clarendon Press note proves conclusively that the hippo- potamus is referred to. Unhappily, however, the note continues : '' Why [Shakespeare] should call the river-horse a ' sea-monster ' is not clear " ; and the validity of this objection has, curiously enough, not been questioned hitherto. Instead, we have denial (without proof) of the fact that Shakespeare had a special kind of animal in his thoughts, a ad suggestion (again without proof ) that the

reference is to the monsters of classical anti- quity associated with the names of Hercules and Perseus ! It is to be hoped that the following quotations will effectually prevent any further waste of ink in the matter :

" The hippopotamusdoesnotconfineitself to rivers only, but when opportunity occurs of exercising choice, it has been known to prefer the waters of the ocean as its home during the day." ' Encyc. Brit.'

" Ludplph in his ' History of Ethiopia ' gives an

entire figure on a large scale Below this is a

figure of the sea-horse putting up his head above the water : thence called the river-home by the Greeks." ' Penny Cycl.'

The following quotations from the 'N.E.D.' will also prove interesting :

" 1572, Bossewell, ' Armorie,' II. 65 b, The water Horsse.of the Sea is called an Hyppotame."

" 1605, Daniel, 'Philotas,' 274, Me thought a

mighty hippopotamus, ) From Nilus noting, thru*!* into the maine. "

A. E. A.

'HENRY VI.,' PART III., II. v (10 S. xi. 85, 244). Though not resulting in actual death, the combat that took place before the castle of Gerberoi between Robert, Duke of Normandy, and his father William the Conqueror, when the son spared his father's life, would be familiar to the minds of Shakespeare's audience. So, too, in a less degree, the fictitious encounter between the knight Melicertus and his son Pleusidippus in Greene's ' Menaphon,' which appeared about the date of this early play, would be well known to Shakespeare, Marlowe, Peele, and the other dramatists who have been sup- posed to be its authors. N. W. HILL.

New York.

Shakespeare was, no doubt, familiar with the story of William the Conqueror's encounter with his son Robert at Gerberoi in 1078. Polydore Vergil describes the incident. C. E. LOMAX.

Louth, Co. Lincoln.

' MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR,' I. iii. 49 : " SHE CARVES " (10 S. xi. 243). The follow- ing quotations will help to explain this gesture :

" Chironomus= a carver ; one that useth apish motions with his hands.

" Chironomia= a kind of gesture with the hands, either in dancing, eating of meat, or pleading, &c." Littleton's ' Lat.-Eng. Diet.,' 1675.

" Her amorous glances are her accusers ; her very looks write sonnets in thy commendation ; she carves thee at board, and cannot sleep for dreaming on thee in bed." Day's ' Isle of Gulls,' 1606.

" Her lightness gets her to swim at the top of the table, where her wry little finger bewraye. carving." Sir Thos. Overbury's ' Wife,' &c., 1632.