Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/517

 io"s.in.JcxK3,igo5.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

425

SHAKESPEARIAXA.

' MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM,' V. i. 58-60. Merry and tragical ! Tedious and brief ? That is, hot ice, and wondrous strange snow. How shall wee tinde the concord of this discord ?

In the Fifth Song of 'Other Songs of Variable Verse,' by Sir Philip Sidney (Arber's 'English Garner,' i. 565), 1581-4, the follow- ing lines occur :

Think now no more to hear of warm fiue-odoured

snow,

Nor blushing lilies, nor pearls ruby-hidden row, Nor of that golden sea whose waves in curls are

broken. But of thy soul, &c.

la not this " warm fine-odoured snow " that to which Shakespeare alludes ? It is evident that Sidney is carrying on a traditional con- ceit, no doubt familiar to Shakespeare, who very frequently echoes a thought, word, or passage from Sir Philip.

Are not the germs of these conceits from Petrarch ? I am not, I regret to say, familiar with his works, but I read in Prescott's reply to ' Da Ponte's Observations ' ('Essays,' London, 1850) an extract from Petrarch's Canzoni (' Tre Sorelle'), beginning : " Quando agli ardenti rai neve devegno" ("When I become snow before their burning rays"), referring to his mistress's eyes ; and a few lines lower the blood freezes that it may burn. Prescott calls this "a melancholy parade of cold conceits, of fire and snow, thawing and freezing." Similar antitheses are found in one of Dray ton's sonnets, copied. Mr. Lee tells us in his introduction to ' An English Garner' (1904, p. xc), from 'L'Idee,' 1579, of De Pontoux, who hands them down from Petrarch.

I venture to submit that this explanation is more satisfactory than any of the many suggested ones found in the notes to the Shakespearian passage, some of which in- clude an altered text. Prescott, in the essay referred to, gives further comment upon these " antitheses of cold and heat, of ice and flames," from Petrarch's works. And see Sidney again in ' Astrophel ' (Arber, p. 506) :

Some lovers speak

Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing tires.

While in a passage in ' Arcadia,' book ii., we have the strangest snow of all : " red flakes in the element when the weather is hottest."

H. C. HART.

'THE WINTER'S TALE,' I. ii. 156-8. The difficulty in "ornaments oft do's" of the Folio has been explained by supposing an s to have been interpolated after "ornament" or after "do." Also, see Abbott, par. 333,

where many instances are given of third' person plural in s. May we not, however,, understand "do's" as being a contraction of do us "and so prove, as ornaments oft do- (prove to) us, too dangerous"? The "us" includes the king among those to whom. " ornaments " (an allusion to the queen) oft. prove too dangerous.

4 THE WINTER'S TALE,' III. ii. 103-7. Bucknill says :

" Hastily is the reading which I venture to sug-- gest in place of ' lastly,' which breaks the con- struction and sense of the passage, it being evident that the denial of childbed privilege is one and the same offence against decency and humanity as the poor woman's exposure in open court while still, suffering from parturient debility."

"Lastly "of the text indicates that these- are separate counts, were anything needed' to guide us to a right interpretation. That the "immodest hatred" of the husband* should have caused him to withhold the usual marks of honour and sustaining love during her weakness the tender kiss and. pressure of the hand, if no more was ample- cause for the plea of " childbed privilege; denied."

'THE WINTER'S TALE,' III. ii. 107-15, After saying,

Now, my liege,

Tell me what blessings I have here alive; That I should fear to die,

Hermione passes on to the onJjy con- sideration that prompts her to- take an interest in her fate. She wishes to live to.

vindicate her honour " no life but foe

mine honour, which I would' free." Lest thft proofs of her innocence should sleep for ever,, she fights for life in which to call them into- activity, and therefore denounced a con- demnation upon surmises as rigour and not law. E. MSRTON DEY.

" A FAIRE VESTALL, THROXED BY THE

WEST," 'MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM,' II. i<. 158. This allusion has long been supposed to mean Elizabeth, and confirmation of this opinion may be found in Barntield's ' Cyn- thia,' 1595:

In Western world amids the Ocean maine r In compleate Vertue shining like the Sunne, In great Renowne a maiden Queene doth raigne- Whose royall Race in Ruine tirst begun, Till Heaven's bright Lamps dissolve shall nere be

done :

In whose faire eyes Love linckt with vertue been,, In everlasting Peace and Union. Which sweet Consort in her full well beseeme Of Bounty, of Beauty fairest Fayrie Queene.

This passage should have some bearing on- the date of 'Midsummer Xight's Dream,' more particularly as another famous line