Читать книгу Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 - Various - Страница 6

On "Run-awayes" in Romeo and Juliet.—

Your readers will no doubt exclaim, is not this question already settled for ever, if not by Mr. Singer's substitution of rumourer's, at least by that of R. H. C., viz. rude day's? I must confess that I thought the former so good, when it first appeared in these pages, that nothing more was wanted; yet this is surpassed by the suggestion of R. H. C. As conjectural emendations, they may rank with any that Shakspeare's text has been favoured with; in short, the poet might undoubtedly have written either the one or the other.

But this is not the question. The question is, did he write the passage as it stands in the first folio, which I have copied above? Subsequent consideration has satisfied me that he did. I find the following passage in the Merchant of Venice, Act II. Sc. 6.:

Is it very difficult to believe that the poet who called the departing night a run-away would apply the same term to the day under similar circumstances?

Surely the first folio is a much more correctly printed book than many of Shakspeare's editors and critics would have us believe.

H. C. K.

—– Rectory, Hereford.

The Word "clamour" in "The Winter's Tale."—Mr. Keightley complains (Vol viii., p. 241.) that some observations of mine (p. 169.) on the word clamour, in The Winter's Tale, are precisely similar to his own in Vol. vii., p. 615. Had they been so in reality, I presume our Editor would not have inserted them; but I think they contain something farther, suggesting, as they do, the A.-S. origin of the word, and going far to prove that our modern calm, the older clame, the Shakspearian clamour, the more frequent clem, Chaucer's clum, &c., all of them spring from the same source, viz. the A.-S. clam or clom, which means a band, clasp, bandage, chain, prison; from which substantive comes the verb clæmian, to clam, to stick or glue together, to bind, to imprison.

If I passed over in silence those points on which Mr. Keightley and myself agreed, I need scarcely assure him that it was for the sake of brevity, and not from any want of respect to him.

I may remark, by the way, on a conjecture of Mr. Keightley's (Vol. vii., p. 615.), that perhaps, in Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5., Shakspeare might have written "till famine clem thee," and not, as it stands in the first folio, "till famine cling thee," that he is indeed, as he says, "in the region of conjecture:" cling is purely A.-S., as he will find in Bosworth, "Clingan, to wither, pine, to cling or shrink up; marcescere."

H. C. K.

—– Rectory, Hereford.

Three Passages in "Measure for Measure."—H. C. K. has a treacherous memory, or rather, what I believe to be the truth, he, like myself, has not a complete Shakspeare apparatus. Collier's first edition surely cannot be in his library, or he would have known that Warburton, long ago, read seared for feared, and that the same word appears in Lord Ellesmere's copy of the first folio, the correction having been made, as Mr. Collier remarks, while the sheet was at press. I however assure H. C. K. that I regard his correction as perfectly original. Still I have my doubts if seared be the poet's word, for I have never met it but in connexion with hot iron; and I should be inclined to prefer sear or sere; but this again is always physically dry, and not metaphorically so, and I fear that the true word is not to be recovered.

I cannot consent to go back with H. C. K. to the Anglo-Saxon for a sense of building, which I do not think it ever bore, at least not in our poet's time. His quotation from the "Jewel House," &c. is not to the point, for the context shows that "a building word" is a word or promise that will set me a-building, i. e. writing. After all I see no difficulty in "the all-building law;" it means the law that builds, maintains, and repairs the whole social edifice, and is well suited to Angelo, whose object was to enhance the favour he proposed to grant.

Again, if H. C. K. had looked at Collier's edit., he would have seen that in Act I. Sc. 2., princely is the reading of the second folio, and not a modern conjecture. If he rejects this authority, he must read a little farther on perjury for penury. As to the Italian prenze, I cannot receive it. I very much doubt Shakspeare's knowledge of Italian, and am sure that he would not, if he understood the word, use it as an adjective. Mr. Collier's famed corrector reads with Warburton priestly, and substitutes garb for guards, a change which convinces me (if proof were wanting) that he was only a guesser like ourselves, for it is plain, from the previous use of the word living, that guards is the right word.

Thos. Keightley.

Shakspeare's Works with a Digest of all the Readings (Vol. viii., pp. 74, 170.).—I fully concur with your correspondent's suggestion, and beg to suggest to Mr. Halliwell that his splendid monograph edition would be greatly improved if he would undertake the task. As his first volume contains but one play (Tempest), it may not be too late to adopt the suggestion, so that every variation of the text (in the briefest possible form) might be seen at a glance.

Este.