Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/565

 10" s.v.. TUNE is, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

465

than to rule when all feare of kindred was taken away."

This would serve for an argument to prefix to the play. It is worth noting that Greene's name Acomat (Achinat) conveniently altered for metric purposes would easily arise out of Primaudaye's Achmat, by a slight abrasion in the limb ol the old '* h,' 1 whose base is nearly closed And no doubt Greene's copy was a well thumbed one. I have not studied this play for the purpose of the present essay, since prose is its object. Probably Primaudaye will be found in it. I just note one passage, that of the tyrant Dionysius, Damocles, and the sword suspended " onely by one haire of a horse taile " over his head (Primaudaye, chap. Iviii. p. 638), which occurs in ' Selimus (11. 779-83), where the last line is " Fastened up onely by a horse's haire." The relation by Primaudaye may have ^uggested the plot to Greene.

f I have now finished my review of the rela- tionships between these two writers. I find one mention of T. B.'s * French Academy ' in Nicholas Storojenko's * Investigation ' of Greene's prose, in vol. i. (p. 154), prefixed to Grosart's edition. But it is so very mis- leading as to be erroneous, and speaks of the work as of date 1596, without any mention of its being a translation, or even of De la Primaudaye's name. It is to the effect that there is a reference in the preface of that edition (which I have not seen) to Greene's 'Repentance.' H. C. HART.

(To be continued.)

SH AKESPE ARI AN A. AND ADONIS ' : " Lo,

'VENUS AND ADONIS': "L,o, HERE THE GENTLE LARK." What is the meaning here of the word "gentle"? It can hardly be used in our common sense of the term ; for is not the lark one of the most pugnacious birds ? Is it used in the stricter sense of the term ? Compare " Gentles, perhaps you wonder at this show" ('Midsummer Night's Dream'), and "He's gentle, and not fearful" 'Tem- pest,' I. ii.). But if so used, why?

Lucis.

1 HAMLET,' V. ii. 120 : ** AND YET BUT YAW NEITHER." Mr. John Phin, of New York, in his new Shakespeare Monthly (16, St. Thomas Street, New York), makes an ingenious attempt to solve this obscure passage by the simple expedient of giving the word "but" its old meaning of "without," and retaining the word "yaw" as a term of seamanship. The en tire passage would then read, "Though,

would dizzy the arithmetic of memory, yet your definement is correct ; and without any deviation [yaw] from strict accuracy or verity of diction as regards his high qualities and intellectual activity." JOHN HEBB.

' MERCHANT OF VENICE/ II. ii. 80. Launce- lot Gobbo says, "It is a wise father that knows his own child." This seems to be a reversal of the old saw, " It is a wise child that knows his own father." Can any one give the origin of the latter saying ?

ISAAC HULL PLATT.

Wallingford, Pa.

1 TWELFTH NIGHT,' II. iv. 116: " GREEN AND YELLOW MELANCHOLY." Many fanciful and unconvincing notes have been written upon these words. One reflection stands in the way of acceptation of most of them*, in so far as they explain the colours, that green was the accepted hue of hope and rejoicing. There is a passage in ' The Historic of Promos and Cassandra ' (1578), Part II. Act IV. sc. ii., that gives us a much more realistic conception. When a "quean," or other unfortunate, received her punishment of the cart, she was placed sitting there, attired in green and yellow. It is not a pleasing image in such a beautiful connexion, 3ut I think we cannot ignore it. The passage is as follows :

But see, their cost bestowde of fyne Lamia,

To save hir feet from harde stones and cold waye,

[nto a Carte they dyd the queane convaye, Apparelled in colours verie gaye, Both Hoode and Gowne of 'greene and yellowe saye ;

lir garde weare Tipstaves all in blewe arraye,

before hir a noyse of Basons dyd playe, " this triumphe she ryd well nye a day.

Shakespeare has many echoes from this old lay, as I have shown in my edition of Measure for Measure.' But the fact

appears to be historical tself.

and speaks for H. C. HART.

" HIS GLASSY ESSENCE," * MEASURE FOR

MEASURE,' II. ii. 120 (10 th S. v. 264). I hope T ou can find space, in answer to the query of ucis, for the following, which recently ppeared in The New York Times. :

It has been suggested that "glassy essence" in ' Measure for Measure ' is a corruption of the text and "grassy" and "ghostly" have been conjec- tured. But will not the two following passages make it clear without change? %

then face to face." 1 Corinthians xiii. 12.
 * ' For now we see through a glass, darkly ; but

"The reflection also from glasses, so usually resembled to the imagery of the mind, every man knoweth to receive error and variety both in color,

] ] i rr i ii ' ^nuvvcin tu i twelve enui turn variety DOdn in coior,

to divide him [ Laertes J in veil tonally I magnitude, and shape, according to the quality of