Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/169

 ii s. vm. AUG. go, 1913.1 NOTES AND QUERIES.

163

The following are not alexandrines, but irregularly " regular," supported by many other like lines, as has been, above, but slightly shown :

To mask | thy mon | strous visage ? | Seek none, conspiracy. II. i. 81.

And talk | to you sometimes ? | Dwell I | but

in | the suburbs. II. i. 285.

Will come | when it | will come. |

What say I the augurers ?

II. ii. 37. That touch | es Cae I sar nearer : | read it, | great

Csesar. III. i. 7.

No worthier | than the dust ! |

So oft | as that | shall be.

III. i.116.

Pope proposed to " mend " the last but one of these lines by leaving out "great." What a ruinous change that is, with the monotony of two " Caesars," and the loss of the call, or cry, on the *'read" following the pause!

And Mr. Verity would make a trimeter couplet out of " No worthier," &c. Read it with the context :

How many times shall Csesar bleed in sport, That now on Pompey's basis lies along No worthier | than the dust. |

So oft | as that | shall be So often shall the knot of us be call'd The men that gave their country liberty. What a tiresome, slow tune a trimeter couplet would be there ! and just amid the excited clamour after the murder. It mars the sense.

The Pitt Press editor would make a trimeter couplet also of the latter of II. iv. 31, 32:

Why, know'st thou any harm 's intended towards

him ? None that | I know will be, | much that | I fear

may chance.

How much greater the contrast of the " know " to the " know'st," when read rapidly naturally, " will " almost equalling ''11"! It is printed as a couplet in the First Folio ; but there is no heed to be taken to any claim for its verse-consistency. And surely Abbott was wrong in the following " trimeter couplet " :

As JEneas did The 61d Anchises bear, fl so from the waves of

Tiber Did I the tired Caesar.

Wluit a verse! "So from." And if read, as Shakspeare had it in his head, with the extra syllable at the pause, after the second foot, then (as in hundreds of lines) the accent is on the first syllable of the foot following " S6." As to the second foot, of course the double hissing was not heard in

" Anchises. ' a The Shakspearian plural of "prince" is "prince," of " circumstance ' y is "circumstance," of "princess/ 5 "prin- cess." Therefore read

The old | Anchise(s) bear, j so from [ the waves \ of Tiber.

And Abbott was surely wrong also in sug- gesting a trimeter couplet for II. i. 285 :

And talk ] to you sometimes. | Dwell I | but in ] the suburbs.

Compare " t' lay 'pon 's " of I. ii. 175,. already noted, and then read for the mean- ing. What is the meaning in Portia (of alL earnest people) stopping her heart appeal,

Am I yourself

But, as it were, in sort or limitation, To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed. And talk to you sometimes ?

hurrying on w^ith

Dwell I but in the suburbs Of your good pleasure ?

by inserting a chirpy couplet :

And talk to you sometimes ? Dwell I but in the suburbs ?

One might as well fancy Queen Katherme trying to smile a little wheedling coquetry on King Henry VIII. If Shakespeare is humorous, he knows when not to be vulgar.

To repeat, verse - consistency is not in 1 the First Folio ; as when it printed V Julius Csesar,' I. ii. 56 sqq.,

That you might see your shadow :

I have heard

Where many of the best respect in Rome ....

Into what dangers, would you

Leade me Cassius ?

What those lines in full are is obvious enough. And surely editors are right in. rearranging also these First Folio lines

What meanes this Showting ?

I do feare the People choose Caesar

For their King.

I, do you feare it ? as

What means this shouting ? I do fear, the people Choose Caesar for their king.

Ay ; do you fear it ? and in not leaving as one " line " Come hither sirrah : In Parthia did I take thee Prisoner. V. iii. 36.

But why not restore further from the First Folio, and print I. iii. 71-3 instead of (as in Globe ed., &c.)

Unto some monstrous state.

Now could 1, Casca, nan.e to thce a man

Most like this dreadful night, on which unfinished first line Mr. Wright (keeping First Folio reading, as does Mr.