Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/90

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. iv. JULY 29, 1011.

t>ook, dated 1816, as follows in vol. ii. p. 182:

11 '" Old Utis " signifies festivity in a high degree' (Steevens). ' " Utis," a merry festival from the French " huiet," " octo," the octaves ' ,(Pope). I conceive Shakespeare alludes to the story of Utis in the ' Odyssey.' The Prince and Poins are going to disguise themselves, and impose on Falstaff as two waiters or drawers. Shakespeare, who had heard probably of the story .of OVTIS and Polypheme, means to say that they will renew the old story of Utis (as it would be written in the translation) in their imposture on Falstaff."

This explanation deserves mention for its ingenuity, but does not appear to find favour with any of the modern guides .commentators, word-books, &c.~ within my reach. Is " Utis " in this sense known else- where?

Ulysses figures twice in ' 3 Henry VI.' :

I '11 play the orator as well as Nestor, Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could

(III. ii. 189) and

as Ulysses and stout Diomede With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents.

(IV. ii. 19).

Thero are also numerous references to him in ' Troilus andCressida.' One of these would probably have recalled to an excellent classical scholar like Dr. Butler Sophocles, p OLTOV; in which Ajax is speaking of Ulysses. Jebb translates, " What, thou askest me of that accursed fox."
 * Ajax,' 121, rj rovTrirptTrrov KtWSos e^ijpov

Thersites says ('T. and C.,' V. iv., first speech) " that same dog-fox, Ulysses, is not proved worth a blackberry."

The word is a natural one for a cunning rogue, and does not, therefore, imply Shakespeare's knowledge of the ' Ajax.'

NEL MEZZO.

' HENRY V.,' Act IV. CHORUS :

and through their paly flames Each battle sees the other's umber' d face. I possess ' The Companion Shakspere,' 3 vols., 1857, which belonged first to W. Benham, a pleasant writer recently dead, who gave it up on account of its minute print, and later to Joseph Knight? who pasted in it his early book plate " Militavi non sine gloria," with a flowing signature underneath. These volumes bear the marks of close study in various notes and comments, and 1 give one of these on the passage above :

" But Ulyxes

Of that stroke astoned not at all But on his stede stiffe as any wall.

With his swerde so myghtely gan race Through the umber unto Troylus face That he him gave a large mortall wound.

Lydgate, ' Chronicle at Troy,' Book 3. Ch. 22, edit. 1555. Umber is here umbriere, the (A.N.) beaver of a helmet. May not the word ' umbered' here signify ' shaded,' derived from this root?

K."

The note is written in so minute a hand that it is difficult to read it even with a magnifying glass. V. R.

DICKENS EMENDATION IN * HAMLET,' III. i. Dickens writes to Forster in 1847 (' Life,' vol. ii. p. 18, ed. 1876) of a

" Shakspearian .... speculation of mine. What do you say to ' take arms against a sea of troubles' having been originally written ' make arms,' which is the action of swimming? It would get rid of a horrible grievance in the figure, and make it apt and plain. I think of setting up a claim to live in The House at Stratford rent-free, on the strength of this suggestion."

On which Porster notes (ib., p. 19) :

" To his Shakespearian suggestion I replied that it would hardly give him the claim he thought of setting up, for that swimming through your troubles would not be ' opposing ' them."

I note, further, that "make arms" does not seem clear as a phrase for swimming, and that the " horrible grievance " in the figure (mixed metaphors) had been already remarked by Goldsmith, whose heavy cen- sure of the whole passage from ' Hamlet ' is notable in his ' Essays,' No. XVI. on ' Metaphor.' Goldsmith writes on this special phrase :

" Neither can any figure be more ridiculously absurd than that of a man taking arms against a sea, exclusive of the incongruous medley of slings, arrows, and seas, justled within the compass of one reflection."

Shakespeare will survive all these reflections, whether of critics or his own. It may be added, however, that arms and arming in his day afforded more natural expressions than now. To " take arms " may mean little more than- to prepare, as in the

Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage of ' Hamlet,' III. hi. 24.

POURQUOI PAS.

SHAKESPEARE AND " WARRAY " : SON- NET CXLVI. Every Shakespearian scholar, every reader of the Sonnets, has at some time or other been brought to bay by the famous defective lines,

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth . . . .the rebel powers that thee array.

" Fool'd by " or " foil'd by " have gener- ally been accepted as most serviceable guesses at the missing clause, and. editions either bracket them in the text, or mention them in a foot-note.