(95) ROSALIND'S DESCRIPTION. From Rosalynde. ¶ 1. the clear in highest sphere: in the Ptolemaic astronomy the outermost sphere was the crystalline, which contained no stars or planet and was next to the empyrean; see note on "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," 1. 48, p. 479. (96) 21. Cf. The Song of Solomon, 4:4, "Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armory." ¶31. orient=clear, bright; cf. note on Comus, l. 65, p. 489. ROBERT GREENE (97) THE SHEPHERD'S WIFE'S SONG. From The Mourning Garment. ¶28. affects= emotions. (98) 36. spill-destroy. ¶ 42. tide time. sithe occasion. (98) SWEET ARE THE THOUGHTS THAT SAVOUR OF CONTENT. From Farewell to Folly. 9. mean: the middle part in music written in three parts; there is also a suggestion of the "golden mean.' ¶ 10. consort harmony. " (98) PHILOMELA'S ODE. From Philomela, the Lady Fitzwater's Nightingale. 201. THOMAS NASH (99) SPRING, THE SWEET SPRING. From Summer's Last Will and Testament, ll. 189 (100) 5. may: the flowers of the hawthorn; so called from the month in which they blossom. (102) A SWEET LULLABY. The poem is not certainly Breton's; it occurs in a collection, The Arbour of Amorous Delights, which contains poems by other poets besides Breton. ¶3. doubt fear. ¶ 4. chief chiefly. ¶5. lap wrap. ¶9. wit=intelligence. ¶ 13. wretch: a term of tenderness, mixed with pity. silly-simple, innocent. ¶ 14. can know (O. E. "cunnan," to know); cf. "Cupid's Curse," 1. 27, p. 94. (103) 39. rascal: i. e., of low birth. ¶ 40. of in. ¶48. quality: high rank; cf. King Lear, V. iii. 111, "If any man of quality or degree." (103) WORLDLY PARADISE. 3. balk ridge of land. ¶ 7. spring-tree or grove; literally, something springing up. Cf. Evelyn, Sylva, "When the spring is of two years' growth, draw part of it for quick-sets." (104) 18. plies=makes use of, i. e., by sneaking along in the cover of. box: a shrub, much used for hedges. ¶ 24. coney: rabbit. ¶ 27. moe=more. 42. cheer face, expression. 52. breedings=births. 58. ALEXANDER HUME = (105) OF THE DAY ESTIVALL. Stanzas 3, 4, 9, 12, 19-23, 27-33, 42, 43, 46, 49, 52, 54, Estivall of the summer (Latin "aestivalis"). 3. Sine=then. 5. Quhilk which. sunne soon. ¶ 7. clarks clerks; here used for poets. ¶8. stryp=rill. (106) 9. incontinent immediately (Latin "in," not, "continere," to hold in). ¶ 13. pastor shepherd. 15. camow=1 flat. ¶ 16. rowtting bellowing. kie=cows. ¶ 18. sall =shall. 19. Saife-save, except. ¶ 20. peeping-piping softly. ¶21. simples-medicinal herbs. 22. leife-leaf. 24. Na no. mair more. steir stir. 25. purpour -purple. ¶26. Yee-yea. smuther smoother nor than. ¶ 27. wals-waves. woltring -weltering, rolling. ¶29. cessile=yielding. ¶33. callor=cool. ¶34. can=begin to; so throughout the poem. (107) 41. Nocht-not. be-by. Phaeton: the son of Apollo; he attempted to drive the horses of the sun, and they ran away with him, scorching heaven and earth. ¶ 42. chyre -chariot. 43. Bot-but. be-by. haly-holy. On-one. ¶ 44. Quhilk who. dois -does. impire-have empire, rule. ¶ 48. fra from. ¶ 50. frechure freshness (French "fraîcheur"). fald=fold. ¶51. startling=running wildly. nolt-cattle. as as if. ¶ 53. heards shepherds and cowherds. trie-tree. ¶55. sey=sea. ¶ 56. Tends=stretch (Latin "tendere"). ¶58. tapisht=crouching. ¶59. beir-noise. ¶ 61. gaine=gone. ¶ 64. Fra= from the time that. ¶65. cule=cool, coolness. ¶67. warks-works, tasks. throw= through, because of. lay behind=were left undone. ¶ 68. enterprise=undertake. ¶ 69. quhair-where. ¶ 71. reik=reek, smoke. thraws=twists. (108) 76. pour pour purple. sanguine-blood-color. ¶ 78. Endlang-along. ¶ 79. perfite Perfect. ¶86. uther each other. 88. Quhilk-who. send=sent. BARNABE BARNES (109) AH, SWEET CONTENT. From Parthenophil and Parthenope. ¶ 14. here: i. e., in the lover's heart. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (109) HERO AND LEANDER. (110) 28. to=according to. Sestiad I. 1-90. ¶50. black: i. e., dark-complexioned. ¶52. Musaeus: a semi-mythical Greek musician and poet. ¶56-58. At Colchos, on the shore of the Black Sea, was kept the wonderful golden fleece in a sacred grove, guarded by a sleepless dragon; thither, in the Argo, went a band of "venturous youth"-Jason, Heracles, Theseus, and others to seek it and bring it home. (III) 61. Circe's wand: see prefatory note to Comus, p. 487. ¶65. The white of Pelops' shoulder: Pelops was slain and served up by his father Tantalus at a banquet which the latter gave to the gods, and Demeter (who alone tasted of the dish) ate his shoulder; he was afterwards restored to life and received from Demeter a shoulder of ivory in place of the one which she had consumed. ¶ 73. orient-bright; see note on Comus, l. 65, p. 489. his: Narcissus'; he fell in love with his own reflection in a fountain and pined to death. Thracian: Thrace borders the Hellespont on the north. WILLIAM SHAKSPERE The text is that of the Cambridge Shakspere. ¶ 81. (112) VENUS AND ADONIS. Lines 523-34, 613-42, 769-828. Venus has wooed all day the beautiful youth Adonis, who has received her advances coldly. ¶2. strangeness= distant manner, reserve. (113) 19. battle=army. = (114) 48. treatise discourse. ¶ 59. groan: i. e., with the pains of love. ¶61. reprove -disprove, confute. (115) 81. in sadness-in earnest. ¶82. teen vexation. ¶87. laund=glade. ¶ 100. mistrustful causing mistrust, apprehension. (115) THE RAPE OF LUCRECE. Lines 1079-1197. The Roman matron Lucretia, while her husband Collatinus is away with the army, has been violated by Sextus Tarquinius, son of the last king of Rome. (117) 46. stops . . . . rests: musical terms; used here for music itself. ¶48. "Take pleasure in singing where others like to hear you; or, serve up as a relish ?"-Schmidt. ¶49. dumps doleful music. ¶50. Philomel: Tereus, king of Thrace, pretending that his wife Procne was dead, married her sister, Philomela; when she discovered the truth, he cut out her tongue that she might not reveal her wrongs; the gods changed her into a nightingale. ¶54. diapason: "Deep notes harmoniously accompanying high ones."-Schmidt. ¶ 56. descant'st: to descant is to sing with variations on the theme. (119) SONNETS. Nos. 12, 18, 30, 33, 65, 102, and 104 refer to a beautiful youth; Nos. 66, 73, 98, and 111 may refer to a man or to a woman. (119) Sonnet xii. ¶9. question make=consider, ponder. (119) Sonnet xviii. ¶ 10. fair=fairness, beauty; brunettes were formerly considered not beautiful. ow'st ownest. (120) Sonnet xxx. 8. expense-loss. (120) Sonnet xxxiii. ¶6. rack=flying broken clouds. (121) 12. region pertaining to the upper air. (121) Sonnet lxv. ¶ 3. rage=violence, impetuosity. ¶4. action=activity, vigor. (121) Sonnet lxvi. ¶3. needy: i. e., lacking in merit. ¶ 4. faith-fidelity. forsworn =renounced. ¶9. art-knowledge, learning. ¶ 11. simplicity=silliness, folly (cf. “simpleton"). (122) Sonnet xcviii. ¶2. proud-pied=gorgeously variegated. ¶4. That so that. heavy Saturn: Saturn, the god whom Jupiter overthrew, was supposed to be morose and melancholy. Saturn was identified with Chronos, Time; and that seems to be the sense in which the word is used here. (123) Sonnet civ. ¶ 10. figure: that on the face of the dial. (123) Sonnet cxi. ¶4. public means: apparently a reference to the stage. public manners: vulgar cast of mind. ¶ 10. eisel vinegar, which was supposed to check the spread of contagious diseases. (124) Sonnet cxvi. ¶4. bends: bends its course, changes. the remover: the inconstant lover. ¶ 5. ever-fixèd mark: a steady object by which one can guide his course; cf. "star," 1. 7. 8. The "passage seems to mean, As the star, over and above what can be ascertained concerning for our guidance at sea, has unknowable occult virtue and influence, so love, besides its power of guiding us, has incalculable potencies."-Dowden. (124) Sonnet cxli. (125) 11. Who: the heart. the likeness: i. e., the mere likeness, because the heart is absent. (125) Sonnet cxliii. 13. "Will": not the sonneteer, but his false friend. (125) Sonnet cxliv. Cf. Drayton's sonnet, "An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still," p. 168; which sonnet was the earlier is uncertain; Drayton's was published first, in 1599, but some of Shakspere's sonnets were circulating in manuscript by 1598. ¶2. suggest= make underhand suggestions to, whisper to. ¶ 4. coloured ill: dark-complexioned, in contrast to "fair"; cf. Sonnet cxxvii. ¶ 14. fire drive by fire. = (126) Sonnet cxlvii. 7. approve prove by experience. ¶8. Desire=love. which: the antecedent is "Desire"; it is the subject of "except." except = protest against, refuse. (126) WHO IS SYLVIA. From The Two Gentlemen of Verona, IV. ii. (127) ON A DAY, ALACK THE DAY. From Love's Labour's Lost, IV. iii. ¶ 8. Wished: the reading in The Passionate Pilgrim and in the Second Folio; the First Folio, which the Cambridge Shakspere follows, has "Wish." (127) WINTER. From Love's Labour's Lost, V. ii. ¶ 9. keel cool by stirring (O. E. "celan," to cool). ¶ 11. saw = moral saying, maxim. (128) NOW THE HUNGRY LION ROARS. From A Midsummer-Night's Dream, V. i. Puck speaks the lines in the palace of Theseus. ¶4. fordone overcome. ¶ 14. triple Hecate's: Hecate, often identified with Proserpine, was goddess of the lower world, and hence was associated with darkness and night, as here; she was called "triple" because she was also thought of as Luna in heaven and as Diana on earth. (128) UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. From As You Like It, II. v. ¶3. turn form, shape. (129) BLOW, BLOW, THOU WINTER WIND. From As You Like It, II. vii. (129) IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS. From As You Like It, V. iii. (130) 17. prime = flower of life. (130) O MISTRESS MINE, WHERE ARE YOU ROAMING. From Twelfth Night, II. iii. 11. sweet and twenty-sweetly and many times; but some take the phrase as a term of endearment, meaning "twenty times sweet." (130) COME AWAY, COME AWAY, DEATH. From Twelfth Night, II. iv. (131) HOW SHOULD I YOUR TRUE LOVE KNOW. From Hamlet, IV. v. ¶ 4. shoon= shoes. 10. Larded = enriched, garnished. (131) AND WILL HE NOT COME AGAIN. From Hamlet, IV. v. (132) 9. cast away waste, expend uselessly. (132) TAKE, O TAKE THOSE LIPS AWAY. From Measure for Measure, IV. i. (132) WITCHES' INCANTATION. From Macbeth, IV. i. ¶ 1. brinded brindled, spotted. ¶ 2. hedge-pig-young hedge-hog. ¶3. Harpier: the name of some demon; its origin and significance are unknown. ¶ 12. Fillet: round slice. fenny-living in the fens. ¶ 16. fork: forked tongue. blind-worm's sting: the blind-worm, or slow-worm, a snakelike lizard, was supposed to be blind and venomous. 17. howlet's: the howlet is a kind of owl. 23. mummy: "A sort of semi-fluid gum that oozes from an embalmed body when heat is applied.” -Professor Manly. (133) 24. ravined = ravenous. 33. chaudron = entrails. 31. ditch-delivered = born in a ditch. drabharlot. (133) COME, THOU MONARCH OF THE VINE. From Antony and Cleopatra, II. vii. 3. fats = vats. (133) HARK! HARK! THE LARK. From Cymbeline, II. iii. 1. Cf. "What Bird So Sings, Yet So Does Wail," 1. 7, p. 92. ¶ 3. those springs: the dews. (134) FEAR NO MORE THE HEAT O' TH' Sun. From Cymbeline, IV. ii. Sung by Guiderius and Arviragus over Imogen, disguised as a boy, supposed to be dead. ¶ 14. thunder-stone = thunder-bolt. (134) COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS. From The Tempest, I. ii. ¶ 4. whist= hushed, still. 5. featly neatly, dexterously. (135) FULL FATHOM FIVE THY FATHER LIES. From The Tempest, I. ii. Ariel, invisible, is singing to Ferdinand, shipwrecked on Prospero's isle, who supposes that his father, king of Naples, has been drowned. (135) WHERE THE BEE SUCKS THERE SUCK I. From The Tempest, V. i. Sung by Ariel, whom Prospero has just promised soon to release from his service. CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM "For there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his 'tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide' [cf. 3 Henry VI, I. iv. 137], supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country."-Robert Greene, Green's Groats-Worth of Wit, 1596 (written by 1592). And there, though last not least, is Aëtion; -Edmund Spenser, "Colin Clouts Come Home Againe," 1595. "As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare; witness his 'Venus and Adonis,' his 'Lucrece,' his sugared sonnets among his private friends, etc. As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage. . . . . As Epius Stolo said that the Muses would speak with Plautus' tongue if they would speak Latin, so I say that the Muses would speak with Shakespeare's fine filed phrase if they would speak English."-Francis Meres, Palladis Tamia, 1598. "Ingenioso. What's thy judgment of . . . . William Shakespeare? .... "Judicio. Who loves Adonis' love or Lucre's rape, His sweeter verse contains heart-robbing life, "Kempe. Few of the university pen plays well; they smell too much of that writer Ovid, and that writer Metamorphosis, and talk too much of Proserpina and Jupiter. Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down, ay and Ben Jonson too."-Anonymous, The Return from Parnassus, 1606 (acted, 1601-2?). "The younger sort take much delight in Shakespeare's 'Venus and Adonis'; but his 'Lucrece,' and his tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, have it in them to please the wiser sort."-Gabriel Harvey, MS note of uncertain date, in Speght's edition of Chaucer (1598). "These may suffice for some poetical descriptions of our ancient poets; if I would come to our time, what a world could I present to you out of Sir Philip Sidney, Ed. Spenser, Samuel Daniel, Hugh Holland, Ben Jonson, Th. Campion, Mich. Drayton, George Chapman, John Marston, William Shakespeare, and other most pregnant wits of these our times, whom succeeding ages may justly admire."-William Camden, Remains, 1605 (written, 1603). IVDICIO PYLIUM, GENIO SOCRATEM, Arte MarONEM, "In judgment a Nestor, in genius a Socrates, in art a Virgil, the earth hides, the people mourn, Olympus holds him."] STAY PASSENGER, WHY GOEST THOV BY SO FAST? READ IF THOV CANST, WHOM ENVIOVS DEATH HATH PLAST, WITH IN THIS MONVMENT SHAKSPEARE WITH WHOME QVICK NATVRE DIDE: WHOSE NAME DOTH DECK YS TOMBE -Inscription on the tablet to Shakspere in the Stratford church, between 1617 and 1622. Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh To learned Chaucer, and, rare Beaumont, lie A little nearer Spenser, to make room For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb. Until Doomsday, for hardly will a fift Betwixt this day and that by Fate be slain For whom your curtains may be drawn again-William Basse, 1622. "Who, as he was a happy imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together; and what he thought he uttered with that easiness that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who only gather his works and give them you, to praise him. It is yours that read him. And there we hope, to your divers capacities, you will find enough both to draw and hold you; for his wit can no more lie hid than it could be lost. Read him, therefore, and again and again."-John Heminge and Henry Condell, Address prefixed to the First Folio edition of Shakspere, 1623. Shakespeare, thou hadst as smooth a comic vein, As strong conception and as clear a rage, -Michael Drayton, "To Henry Reynolds," 1627. See Milton's lines on Shakspere, p. 341. "I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out line. My answer hath been, Would |