Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/229

 9* s. in. MAR. 25,



NOTES AND QUERIES.

223

twice into what my readers are pleased o regard as a very pathetic scene:

Suffolk first died : and York, all haggled over, Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteeped, And takes him by the beard ; kisses the gashes That bloodily did yawn upon his face.

IV. vi. 11.

So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck He threw his wounded arm and kiss'd his lips.

IV. vi. 24.

One instance more from my 'Romeo and Juliet,' and I leave my good friend with the advice to be swift to read and slow to criticize :

They may seize

On the white wonder of dear Juliets hand, And steal immortal blessings from her lips, Who, even in pure and vestal modesty, Still blush as thinking their own kisses sin."

So much for the "horrible sibilation" in " affairs wise." In his objection to the " in- version " I frankly acknowledge that C. C. B. has a much stronger case. I should gladly have avoided this inversion if I could. I should much rather have presented the restored line thus :

A fellow all must damn wise in affairs.

This is a quite legitimate line with a " pause accent "on "wise" (Abbott's 'Sh. Gr.,' 453). Though from the first it suggested itself, I did not adopt it, because I had long acted on a rule which I had laid down to myself, in the attempted emendation of manifestly corrupt lines, to make no change in the received text further than was absolutely necessary. It is, however, quite possible that, along with its other mishaps, this unfortunate line has suffered from dislocation ; and if C. C. B. will only part with the " fair wife " he has already told us (9 th S. ii. 203) that he is not very much attached to her I shall part with the "inversion." R. M. SPENCE, D.D.

Manse of Arbuthnott, N.B.

An analysis of Roderigo's motives, followed to its ultimate conclusions, would carry us too far, but I will endeavour to indicate, in reply to DE. SPENCE, why I do not believe Roderigo would have been affected as supposed by this hint on the part of lago, although it is perhaps idle to attempt any forecast of the actions of one who had so little will of his own or judgment to know when he was being duped.

Since Roderigo had lost Desdemona through her marriage to the Moor, his only hope was that she would prove unfaithful to him when or with whom it mattered not to Roderigo, so he could ultimately profit thereby. He could not rest content with the fact that she was not for him honourably,

but readily took up a vicious suggestion, which lago fully instilled into his mind in speeches I. iii. 339-368 and 371-380. In II. i. 220, et seq., we find lago actually making a positive assertion of Desdemona's love for Cassio as something for the hopes of Roderigo to build upon, as also IV. ii. 172 to end of scene, where Roderigo shows willingness to accept Desdemona on any terms, and without any nice distinctions as to whether he alone should be the favoured one. As above stated, we are perhaps wrong in taking Roderigo seriously at all. lago in his tirade against Cassio uttered his mind freely, with doubtless little regard for the momentary effect on his poor dupe, whom he well knew, as the event proved, he could bend to his purpose as occasion might require.

The evident suggestiveness of the line, together with its utter irrelevancy, so far as bearing on any supposed marital relations of Cassio, first impelled me to look for another meaning. Grant White rejected the theory of any allusion to Bianca, and she is the only woman named, either in jest or earnest, as a possible wife of Cassio. As a fling at one already in possession of this not unmixed blessing, it would be meaningless as coming from lago. I cannot but believe that we have in this line the forenote the evil thought, which is to ripen into a definite plot, wherein the attractive lieutenant is to be made to appear the plausible object of a fair wife's illicit love, involving the final destruction of them both. E. M. DEY.

St. Louis, Mo.

' MACBETH,' I. ii. 14.

And Fortune, on his damned quarry smiling, Show'd like a rebel's whore.

Here there is surely no need to substitute " quarrel " for " quarry " in the original, as is commonly done, if we compare the following passage from * A Midsummer Night's Dream ' (II. ii. 150) :

And you sat smiling at his cruel prey. It is merely an instance of the word de- noting the result or object of an action coming to be used for the action itself. So we have "prey" again used similarly in ' Macbeth ' (III. ii. 53) : Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse.

Probably the nearest equivalent to

' quarry " is " carnage.

ALFRED E. THISELTON.

THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES OF THE SEVEN- TEENTH CENTURY. In Barnes's 'History of