Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/611

 10 s. VIIL DEC. 28, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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of your readers tell me what Ficinus really says ? I do not think the Prince's excla- mation implies that Shakespeare had made the mistake of supposing that Saturn and Venus could never be in conjunction.

W. H. W.

' VENUS AND ADONIS,' line 53 : He saith she is immodest, blames her miss ; What follows more she murders with a kiss.

Is " miss " in the above passage a whole word, used in the sense, which it formerly sometimes bore, of a lewd woman (in which case Adonis upbraids her as such) ? Or is it the first syllable of some such word as " misconduct," " misbehaviour," " mis- deeds," which was intended to follow ? Evidently Venus understood it in the latter sense, and, not liking what he had begun to say, would not let him finish his say. She cut him short. " What followed, she murdered with a kiss." If this may be, as I think it may be, and is, I should print " miss " thus : " mis ," and leave the next line to explain the interruption.

PHILIP PEERING.

OVID AND SHAKESPEARE (10 S. vii. 301). Without desiring to pass an opinion as to which of the authors, Ovid or Seneca, Shakespeare may have been indebted for the ideas contained in Portia's invocation to mercy, it may be said at least of the lines in the ' Epistolse ex Pont.,' II. ix. 11, to which MR. MORTON LUCE has drawn attention, that they form one continuous passage, and that they correspond in general with the speech in question ; while the precepts discovered by Prof. Sonnenschein in the first part of ' De dementia ' occur scattered over some twenty chapters of that work. The Professor's claim to have found the actual source of the famous lines, appearing when it did (University Review, May, 1905), would seem to be well founded, though the point ought not perhaps to be pushed too far. What does look highly probable is that Seneca, who, like Ovid, had incurred an emperor's displeasure for an imputed offence against a member of the imperial family, should have read, and read sympathetically, Ovid's work, and that he may have, consciously or un- consciously, imitated some of the thoughts in his own treatise.

Mr. Churton Collins notes (' Studies in Shakespeare ') another resemblance in Poly- nices's appeal to mercy in the ' (Edipus Coloneus ' :

" But seeing that Zeus himself in all that he does

has mercy at his side for the sharer of his throne, let mercy, I pray thee, be at thy side, father."" LI. 1267-9.

Here, though the motive is put into a nut- shell, the parallel is far wider of the mark than in either Seneca or Ovid.

N. W. HILL. New York.

' MEASURE TOR MEASURE,' II. iv. 94 r "ALL-BUILDING" (10 S. viii. 163). If the much-abused printer of the First Folio- is to be credited with the introduction into the text of the above epithet, then it is within the province of an editor to pro- pose an emendation to replace that which has been corrupted. But before attempting to invent a word of our own it is advisable to consider the context, or even some other passage in the play that may help to provide an appropriate reading. For instance, if we turn to I. iii. 19 *the Duke expressly says : We have strict statutes and most biting laws, The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds. Here is a suggestion of the " all -bridling law " which may have been the original phrase, but changed to " all-building," a mistake easily accounted for.

On the other hand, to prove that no- alteration is necessary we have only to follow the course of Angelo, the " demigod authority " who declares himself to be " the voice of the recorded law," and we learn that he has aroused " the drowsy and neglected act," awakened all the " enrolled penalties," does not intend the law to- " keep one shape," and has moreover made "laws for all faults" (V. i. 321). All thi& surely seems to indicate the mind of a man who would, with rhetoiical persuasiveness,, impress on Isabella the power of "the manacles of the all-building law " just before making his infamous proposal. Be- sides, there is probably a touch of irony in the expression. TOM JONES.

'HENRY IV.,' PART II., IV. iv. 90-92 (10 S. viii. 164, 304). I agree with C. C. B. I know now that the blackbird sings very early in the morning in the month of Feb- ruary ; and I believe that Shakspeare is- alluding to this. E. YARDLEY.

' ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA,' II. vii. 7-9" (10 S. viii. 303). In plain English, this passage means no more than that they try to make each other drunk by the arrange- ments which they adopt for the conduct of the feast, pledging each other continually ^ filling their cups to the brim, draining them to the last drop. All are not equally strong-