# Love's Labour's Lost (1925) Yale/Notes

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NOTES
Dramatis Personæ. A list of characters for this play was first supplied by Rowe in 1709. Berowne (spelled 'Biron' in the second and later Folios and in most modern editions) is accented on the second syllable, and rimes with 'moon' (cf. IV. iii. 232). Longaville rimes with 'ill' (IV. iii. 123) but sometimes also with 'compile' (IV. iii. 133) and with 'mile' (V. ii. 53). Boyet rimes with 'debt' (V. ii. 335); Rosaline with 'mine' (IV. i. 53) and 'thine' (V. ii. 133). Moth was probably pronounced as if spelled 'Mote' (cf. IV. iii. 161, where the common noun, mote, is spelled 'Moth' in the early editions). Armado is often spelled 'Armatho,' which probably indicates the pronunciation (Spanish d = th).
Unusual irregularities are found in the quarto and folio editions of Love's Labour's Lost in the naming of the characters. The confusion is particularly striking in IV. ii, where the names of Holofernes and Nathaniel are transposed through most of the scene. Throughout the play the Princess is often called 'Queen'; and the names of Armado, Holofernes, Nathaniel, Costard, and Dull are erratically supplanted in stage directions and speech headings by the titles, Braggart, Pedant, Curate, Clown, and Constable, while Moth is often referred to as Page or Boy. Some recent editors have attempted to discriminate on the evidence of these phenomena between the original and the revised portions of the play. Thus Mr. Dover Wilson argues that passages using the designations 'Braggart,' 'Pedant,' etc., belong to the revision of 1597, whereas passages that give the proper names 'Armado,' 'Holofernes,' etc., are part of the original play. But this leads to risky conclusions.
​Love's Labour's Lost. The spelling of the title is that of the third Folio. The earlier Folios have Loues Labour's Lost. The first Quarto has on the title-page Loues labors lost, but as running-title Loues Labor's lost. 'Labour's' was evidently intended as a contraction of 'Labour is.' Meres, however, referred to the play as Loue labors lost, clearly regarding 'labors' as the nominative plural. Likewise the play is known in France as Les Peines de l'Amour Perdues and in Germany as Verlorene Liebesmüh.
I. i. 12. Navarre shall be the wonder of the world. The opening speech of the King shows the influence of Marlowe's versification in its special sonorousness, alliteration, and exhilaration. Compare with the present line Marlowe's Dido, l. 730: 'Lest I be made a wonder to the world.'
I. i. 14. Still and contemplative in living art. Quietly contemplating the art of perfect living. The line alludes to the common mediæval distinction between the contemplative and the active life. Mr. J. S. Reid (Iowa Philological Quarterly, July, 1922) suggests that 'living art' refers particularly to the Stoic term, ars vivendi, ethical (as distinguished from physical and logical) philosophy.
I. i. 62. feast. Theobald's emendation for the 'fast' of the early editions.
I. i. 67, 68. If study's gain be thus, and this be so, Study knows that which yet it doth not know. If the benefit of study consist only in the development of casuistry, then there is no such thing as knowledge: instead of discovering the true, study merely merges the true and the false.
I. i. 73. Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain. In which the final result of painful striving is only further pain.
I. i. 80–83. Study me how to please the eye indeed, By fixing it upon a fairer eye, Who dazzling so, ​that eye shall be his heed, And give him light that it was blinded by. 'Me' (l. 80) is the 'ethical dative'; 'Who' (l. 82) refers to the eye mentioned in l. 80 or to its owner; and 'it' (l. 83) is the object of 'by.' The passage may be paraphrased: Rather study how really to please your eye by fixing it upon that of a sweetheart, whereupon your own eye will be dimmed; but the 'fairer eye' will be your sole attention and give light to you whom it has blinded.
I. i. 88–93. These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Too much to know is to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name. The learned astronomers who give names to the stars have no more real control of them than have the ignorant. Encyclopedic knowledge is but parrot-like, no more essential than the bestowal of a name at the baptism of an infant.
I. i. 95. Proceeded. Almost certainly used in the technical sense of taking an academic degree. Berowne employs his own intellectual subtlety to discourage others from similarly training themselves.
I. i. 99. In reason nothing. Ber. Something, then, in rime. Shakespeare is very fond of playing on the alliterative phrase, rime and reason. Compare I. ii. 113.
I. i. 106. May's new-fangled shows. Since the rest of the passage is in alternate rime, it is assumed that the poet intended this line to end with a word riming with 'birth' (l. 104). Many editors have therefore substituted 'earth' (Theobald) or 'mirth' (Walker) for 'shows'; but neither seems natural, and it is quite likely that Shakespeare himself made the slip through inadvertence.
I. i. 109. Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate. Take an absurdly impractical course. The line ​is printed as in the Quarto. The Folio has the inferior version: 'That were to clymbe ore the house to vnlocke the gate.'
I. i. 114. Yet confident I'll keep what I have sworn. The second Folio reads 'swore,' which most modern editors introduce for the sake of rime.
I. ii. 58. the dancing horse. A famous performing horse named Morocco, first definitely mentioned in 1591 but apparently known as early as 1589. He was particularly accomplished in arithmetic.
I. ii. 83. Of what complexion? The four 'complexions' of the body were variously ascribed to the four elements (earth, air, water, fire) and to the four 'humours' (phlegm, choler, blood, melancholy).
I. ii. 95. she had a green wit. Perhaps Moth implies a pun on the green withes with which Samson was bound (Judges 16. 7): 'And Samson said unto her, If they bind me with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another man.'
I. ii. 115, 116. a ballet . . . of the King and the Beggar. The ballad of King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid is a favorite subject of allusion in Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Compare Armado's later mention of it in his letter (IV. i. 65 ff.). The extant version, printed in Percy's Reliques, appears to be post-Elizabethan.
I. ii. 167. the merry days of desolation. Perhaps Costard means 'dissipation.'
II. i. 41. Lord Perigort. Of course, an invented name. Périgord, near Bordeaux, was an important district during the Hundred Years' War between France and England. Shakespeare would have found it mentioned repeatedly in Holinshed in connection with the French campaigns of Henry VI's reign. Falconbridge, in the next line, appears to have been a name the poet liked. It is not French, but is applied ​to important characters both in King John and in 3 Henry VI. See note on the latter play, I. i. 239, in this edition.
II. i. 62, 63. And much too little of that good I saw Is my report to his great worthiness. My testimony to his worthiness is summed up in saying that I had much too little opportunity to observe it.
II. i. 74. That aged ears play truant at his tales. The aged are tempted away from business to listen to his tales.
II. i. 130. Being but the one half of an entire sum. That is, the sum which Navarre's father had lent to France amounted to two hundred thousand crowns. See Appendix A, p. 130.
II. i. 184. let it blood. Alluding to the nearly inevitable practice of blood-letting in sickness.
II. i. 188. No point. A pun on the English word, 'point' (i.e. my eye is not sharp enough), and the French negative, ne . . . point. Maria makes the same poor joke in V. ii. 278.
II. i. 193. The heir of Alençon, Katharine her name. Both the Quarto and Folio texts here print 'Rosalin' instead of Katharine, and in line 208 'Katherin(e)' instead of Rosaline. This is one of the chief points used by Mr. Dover Wilson in an ingenious elaboration of a theory proposed by Mr. Charlton in 1917 (The Library, vol. viii, pp. 355–370); namely, that Shakespeare, in the first version of the play, intended the ladies to be masked and Boyet to mix their names when the lovers inquire of him, and that in the revised version he intended to omit this motive of confused identity because of its employment later in V. ii. Mr. Wilson thinks that an unintentional blending of the two versions can be seen in the text of the present scene. There are very strong reasons against these assumptions. The only basis for the idea that the three ladies (unlike the ​Princess) wear masks in this scene is Berowne's exclamation, 'Now fair befall your mask!' (l. 123), and the reply of Rosaline ('Katharine' in the Quarto). This is far from conclusive. On the other hand, the evident purpose of the scene is to allow each of the lords an opportunity of falling in love with a lady with whom, by hypothesis, he has previously had only the slightest acquaintance, but with whose peculiarities of face and coloring they are all shown to be perfectly familiar when they next appear (see Berowne's soliloquy, III. i. 205 ff., and the whole of IV. iii). It is impossible to believe that any author, skilled or unskilled, could have had the idea of frustrating so essential a piece of dramatic business by having the ladies unrecognizably masked and making them converse at cross purposes with the wrong gallants.
II. i. 201. God's blessing on your beard. Longaville means to imply that Boyet's flippant answers are inconsistent with his venerable beard. In pronunciation 'beard' and 'heard' rimed better than at present, the latter word still retaining the long vowel of its infinitive.
II. i. 212. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you. Say 'farewell' to me, and I will say you are welcome (to depart).
II. i. 217. Kath. Two hot sheeps, marry. The Quarto assigns this speech to 'Lady Ka.' and the Folio to 'La. Ma.' Nearly all editors follow the latter, which, however, is probably a compositor's error occasioned by the fact that Maria is the speaker just above (l. 213). The three following lady's speeches (ll. 219, 220, 222), assigned in both the early editions simply to 'La.' or 'Lad.,' evidently belong to the same lady who speaks in l. 217. The Quarto's introduction of Katharine into the conversation is a dramatic gain.
II. i. 221. My lips are no common, though several they be. A quasi-legal pun. Several land, as ​opposed to common, was that in separate or private ownership. Katharine also calls her lips several as being more than one, or as being parted.
II. i. 244. margent. Alluding to the habit of printing explanatory notes on the margin (rather than the foot) of the page.
III. i. 3. Concolinel. Not satisfactorily explained. It has been interpreted as a corruption of the Irish words 'Can cailin gheal' (pronounced con colleen yal), i.e. 'sing, maiden fair.' Marshall suggests that it is French, 'Quand Colinelle,' which is at least as likely.
III. i. 9. brawl. French branle. Defined as the oldest of figure dances.
III. i. 13. canary. The canary was a very lively dance, allowing the improvisation of new steps.
III. i. 32. The hobby-horse is forgot. The 'hobby-horse,' a dancer made up to look like a horse, was a favorite figure in morris dances, and a special subject of Puritan invective. The line, 'O, the hobby-horse is forgot,' which Shakespeare uses again in Hamlet, III. ii. 145, has been supposed to come from a ballad.
III. i. 75. no salve in the mail, sir. That is, no quacksalver's remedy. Costard apprehends that Armado is calling for exotic (and hence suspect) remedies for the broken shin.
III. i. 86. is not l'envoy a salve? A pun on the Latin salve, used in salutations. The envoi, or concluding section, of a mediæval ballade ordinarily contained an address to the person to whom the poem was written.
III. i. 107. The boy hath sold him a bargain. This is usually explained as 'has got the better of him, made a fool of him,'—a sense which the idiom, to sell one a bargain, undoubtedly had. But I think the context shows that Costard, in the innocence of his rustic heart, really conjectures that l'envoy means goose, and that the goose mentioned in the incomprehensible ​speeches he has just listened to is a veritable bird, over the price of which Armado and Moth have been haggling.
III. i. 116. And he ended the market. There was a proverb: 'Three women and a goose make a market.'
III. i. 185. A very beadle to a humorous sigh. The beadle was an inferior kind of constable who whipped small offenders. See 2 Henry VI II. i. 135. 'Humorous' is here used in the sense of sentimental.
III. i. 190. This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid. The early editions, both quarto and folio, read 'This signior Iunios giant-dwarf, dan Cupid.' It may be better, instead of Hanmer's emendation as given in the text, to print with Hart: 'This signior junior,' i.e. Mr. Youngster.
IV. i. 22. O heresy in fair, fit for these days! The recent Cambridge editors, following a suggestion of Hart, see in this line and in lines 30–33 below 'a direct allusion to the conversion of Henry IV' to Romanism, July, 1593. The detached lines mentioned fit the historical situation well enough, but the Princess' speech as a whole does not. In his early plays Shakespeare is very fond of introducing passages of reflective moralizing such as this, generally without any suggestion of topical interest.
IV. i. 48. The thickest, and the tallest. As Marshall remarks, Costard's otherwise dull and uncivil joke gains point if one remembers that the ladies' parts were performed by boys. The wit apparently lies in the fact that the Princess was represented by the oldest and stoutest of this group, whose figure was outgrowing its suitability to feminine rôles.
IV. i. 56. Break up this capon. To break up a fowl was to carve it. Capon is used figuratively, like the French poulet, for a love-letter.
IV. i. 91. the Nemean lion. The lion slain by Hercules in performance of his first labor. Here and ​in Hamlet I. iv. 83 Shakespeare erroneously accents the first syllable. Hart notes that Golding's Ovid gave him a precedent for the pronunciation.
IV. i. 102. Monarcho. 'The monarch'; a crazy Italian who lived about the English court. He was subject to delusions of grandeur, and though he died about 1580, was still a familiar subject of allusion twenty years later.
IV. i. 112. she that bears the bow. Rosaline is punning on 'shooter' and 'suitor,' which were pronounced alike, and often quibblingly confused. In Boyet's speech, line 111, the early editions all print 'shooter' for 'suitor.' In Shakespeare's time, it should be remembered, firearms had not replaced the bow in the fashionable sport of deer-slaying. Several writers see a special application in the deer-shooting allusions of this and the next scene to Queen Elizabeth's well-known fondness for the cross-bow. Cf. Appendix A, p. 128, note 1.
IV. i. 115. if horns that year miscarry. If the crop of horns is not good. Boyet succumbs to the inevitable jest about cuckolds' horns, produced by unfaithful wives.
IV. i. 123. King Pepin of France. Charlemagne's father, a very ancient monarch.
IV. ii. 32. So were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school. The word 'patch' is used ambiguously. If Dull were seen in a school, (1) a patch (fool) would be put to study, and (2) a patch (disfigurement, disgrace) would be put on learning.
IV. ii. 34. Many can brook the weather that love not the wind. Apparently a proverbial saying, similar to 'There is no accounting for tastes,' or 'It takes many sorts of men to make a world.' To brook the weather means to put up with foul weather.
IV. ii. 37. Dictynna. This rare epithet of Diana is found in Golding's Ovid and in Tottel's Miscellany. ​It made trouble for the early compositors, who spell it 'Dictisima' and 'Dictima.'
IV. ii. 42. The allusion holds in the exchange. That is, the point of the jest is still seen when Holofernes recasts (in ll. 40, 41) the form in which Dull has given it (l. 36).
IV. ii. 82. vir sapit qui pauca loquitur. That man is wise who speaks little. The sentence is borrowed directly from Lyly's Latin grammar.
IV. ii. 96–98. Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat . . . good old Mantuan. Holofernes quotes the opening words of the first eclogue of Mantuanus (Baptista Spagnuoli of Mantua, d. 1516), whose Latin poems were an elementary textbook in the schools of the day. The early editions read 'Facile' instead of 'Fauste,' which the recent Cambridge editors think an intentional misquotation. It is more probably a compositor's misreading of Shakespeare's manuscript.
IV. ii. 100, 101. Venetia, Venetia, Chi non te vede, non te pretia. Archaic Italian: 'Venice, Venice, he who has not seen thee cannot value thee.' The words are gibberish as they appear in the early editions. Theobald first explained them.
IV. ii. 103, 104. Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa. Notes of the old musical scale in incorrect order. They should run: 'ut (later replaced by "do"), re, mi, fa, sol, la.'
IV. ii. 105. As Horace says in his —. What saying of Horace Holofernes has in mind the commentators have failed to discover.
IV. ii. 124. You find not the apostrophas. You pronounce syllables which should be omitted. Or perhaps, as Gollancz suggests, Holofernes means the reverse (diereses): You omit syllables which should be pronounced.
IV. ii. 126. numbers ratified. Metre sanctioned by convention.
​IV. ii. 136. from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange queen's lords. A very confusing and probably corrupt passage. What Jaquenetta here says is directly opposed to her assertion (ll. 94, 95) that the letter was sent to her from Don Armado; and the designation of Berowne as 'one of the strange queen's lords' is equally absurd. The recent Cambridge editors add another to a great list of implausible explanations by theorizing that 'Berowne' is a compositor's error for 'Boyet' (written 'Bo' or 'Boy'), and that Jaquenetta understands Holofernes to mean by 'directed' imparted. They assume, therefore, that Boyet juggled the two letters.
IV. ii. 147. Trip and go. A common phrase, borrowed from the words of a popular morris dance song.
IV. ii. 169, 170. society—saith the text—is the happiness of life. Nathaniel's source for the remark has not been found. Perhaps he is inventing the 'text' like the 'certain Father' of line 155. There is a much quoted Latin hexameter line, repeated by Marlowe in Doctor Faustus, which may have been in Shakespeare's mind: 'Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris,' it is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in their pain.
IV. iii. 7. as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep. Alluding to the story that Ajax, disappointed of the award of Achilles' armor, went mad and attacked a flock of sheep, which he took for a hostile army.
IV. iii. 89. Stoop, I say. 'Stoop' is generally explained as equivalent to stooping, crooked; but there seems no justification for such a use. It is probably the verbal imperative, addressed sotto voce to Dumaine: Come off your stilts, abandon your exalted nonsense.
IV. iii. 180. With men like men, men of inconstancy. There is little to choose between many of the emendations of this line, which is clearly imperfect ​both in metre and in sense as printed in the early editions: 'With men like men of inconstancie.' The reading here accepted, which appears to be original with Craig, makes the line mean 'with ordinary, inconstant men.'
IV. iii. 212. sirs. Costard and Jaquenetta are addressed. Shakespeare uses 'sirs' of women alone in Antony and Cleopatra IV. xiii. 85.
IV. iii. 255. the school of night. Perhaps 'that which teaches night to be what it is: dark and sinister.' Most editors have preferred to adopt an emendation that originated with Theobald and Warburton: the scowl of night. The recent Cambridge editors lend their support to a fantastic notion of Mr. Acheson to the effect that 'the school of night' is a topical allusion to a society composed of Sir Walter Raleigh, the poet Chapman, Marlowe, etc., whom it is supposed Shakespeare was ridiculing in this play.
IV. iii. 256. And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well. An obscure line. The most obvious meaning is rather flat: 'And beauty's distinguishing mark (or perfection) well becomes the regions of light.'
IV. iii. 257. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. Perhaps an allusion to 2 Corinthians 11. 14: 'And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.' The idea recurs in Hamlet II. ii. 686, 637, and in Measure for Measure II. iv. 16, 17.
IV. iii. 299–304. The wording and argument of these lines are repeated in more extended form later in the speech. Compare especially lines 320–323 and 350–354. It is generally recognized that an earlier and a later, expanded and improved, version of the same speech have been accidentally amalgamated in the text which reached the printers. Mr. Dover Wilson argues that the opening lines of Berowne ​(289–295) were intended to begin both versions, and that they were followed in the earlier version by ll. 296–317 and in the later by ll. 318–365. See note on V. ii. 825–830.
IV. iii. 305. poisons up. Completely poisons. Theobald's emendation, 'prisons up,' is plausible and has been adopted by many editors.
IV. iii. 306. The nimble spirits in the arteries. The arteries were supposed to contain, not blood simply, but 'vital spirits.'
IV. iii. 336. When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd. The 'suspicious head of theft' may be interpreted either actively, i.e. the acutely watchful ears of a thief; or passively, i.e. the ears of one suspicious of being robbed. I think the former the more likely.
IV. iii. 364. For charity itself fulfils the law. Cf. Romans 13. 8: 'for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.'
IV. iii. 383. Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn. An elliptical and proverbial expression: if we plant weeds, we shall not reap corn; unless we make the proper preparations, we shall not gain the desired results.
V. i. 22. to speak 'dout,' fine, when he should say, 'doubt.' Holofernes belongs to the pedantic group which sought during the Renaissance to bring the spelling and pronunciation of English words as close as possible to the real or fancied Latin original. Thus the earlier doute was written and sounded doubt on the authority of Latin dubitum, and the earlier dette made into debt on the analogy of Latin debitum. The new, unhistorical spellings managed to establish themselves, but not the pronunciations upon which Holofernes and his class insisted.
V. i. 31. Priscian a little scratched. That is, your Latin is passable, but hackneyed. Priscian wrote, during the fifth century A.D., works which were long ​the standard textbooks on Latin grammar. Previous editors have assumed that 'scratched Priscian' must be equivalent to 'breaking Priscian's head,' i.e. speaking ungrammatical Latin. Hence Theobald misingeniously invented an error by changing Sir Nathaniel's correct sentence to 'Laus deo, bone intelligo,' and altered Holofernes' French (misprinted 'Bome boon for boon' in the original editions) into 'Bone?—bone for bene.' But the schoolmaster's meaning is that the sentence is Priscian (correct Latin), but scratched by overuse. He would never admit that a positive error in grammar 'will serve.'
V. i. 45. honorificabilitudinitatibus. Dative (or ablative) plural of a genuine mediæval Latin word used by Dante and other writers. It was famous as the longest of all words. It means something like 'the state of being capable of honors.'
V. i. 50. horn-book. A rudimentary implement of education. It consisted in a paper containing the letters of the alphabet, Lord's Prayer, etc., fastened to a piece of board and protected by a covering of transparent horn.
V. i. 73. circum circa. This is Theobald's rather over-ingenious emendation of 'vnum cita' in the early editions. Hart proposes 'unciatim,' inch by inch, and the late Cambridge editors nimis cito, all too quickly. Furness thinks unum cita a meaningless bit of school-boy slang.
V. i. 82. ad dunghill. This, as Holofernes suspects, is a perversion of ad unguem, probably current in the grammar-schools.
V. i. 88, 89. the charge-house on the top of the mountain. Charge-house, defined as boarding-school in the Oxford Dictionary, is not otherwise exemplified. The mention of the top of the mountain has been suspected of containing some topical reference. Critics who wish to identify Holofernes with John Florio take ​mountain as suggesting Montaigne, whose essays Florio translated. The date of Florio's Montaigne, 1603, seems sufficient to discredit this theory.
V. i. 128. the Nine Worthies. They were variously listed, the most common enumeration being:—Three pagans (Hector, Alexander, and Cæsar); three Jews (Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabæus); and three Christians (King Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bouillon). Hercules and Pompey seem to have been first included by Shakespeare.
V. i. 145. Hercules in minority. The myth related that the infant Hercules' first exploit was to strangle two serpents which Juno had sent to destroy him. Hart quotes a line from Golding's Ovid (Metamorphoses ix. 79, 80), which may have stuck in the poet's memory: 'It is my Cradle game To vanquish Snakes.'
V. ii. 13. You'll ne'er be friends with him: a' kill'd your sister. M. Abel Lefranc (Sous le Masque de 'William Shakespeare,' 1919, ii. p. 73–80) identifies this sister of Katharine with Hélène de Tournon, an attendant of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, who actually died of love in 1577. But the incident is so similar to Viola's famous story of her sister in Twelfth Night that it seems more likely to have come from something in the personal experience of the poet than from anything in the source material of Love's Labour's Lost.
V. ii. 26. I weigh not you. A pun, as the next line shows, on two idioms: (1) 'I do not equal you in weight,' and (2) 'I don’t care about you.'
V. ii. 40. Much in the letters, nothing in the praise. Furness explains 'The resemblance was great in the dark colour of the letters, but not at all in the substance of the praise.'
V. ii. 42. Fair as a text B in a copy-book. A large ornamental capital in the old 'Gothic' hand: a 'black-letter,'
​V. ii. 43. 'Ware pencils, ho! If we come to painting each other's portraits, take care.
V. ii. 44. red dominical. The red letter used in old almanacs to mark the Sundays of the year. The mediæval name for Sunday was 'dies dominica.'
V. ii. 51. A huge translation of hypocrisy. Katharine affects to think Dumaine's verses imitated from foreign rimers.
V. ii. 61. in by the week. Permanently caught.
V. ii. 65. hests. The only argument for this word (which editors unanimously admit to be decisive) is the requirement of a rime for 'jests' in the next line. The First Quarto and First Folio read 'deuice,' for which the Second Folio substituted 'behests.' So in line 74 wantonness is a Second Folio emendation of 'wantons be.'
V. ii. 67. So perttaunt-like would I o'ersway his state. Not very satisfactorily explained. The numerous conjectural emendations—pedant-like, portent-like, pendant-like, planet-like, etc.—are unconvincing. Marshall argues that perttaunt-like may be the term 'pur tant' (for so much) used in the card game of Post and Pair, quoting a line from John Davies' Wittes Pilgrimage (1610?): 'Then to Pur Tant hee's in subjection.' (Cf. Works of John Davies of Hereford, ed. Grosart, vol. ii. p. 38.)
V. ii. 121. Like Muscovites or Russians. Russian costumes were not uncommon in English courtly masquerades. Sir Sidney Lee suggests a particular allusion to a visit of Russian nobles to Elizabeth's court in 1583.
V. ii. 243. What! was your vizard made without a tongue? Mr. W. J. Lawrence explains (Times Lit. Suppl., June 7, 1923) that Elizabethan masks were kept in place by a tongue held between the wearer's teeth.
V. ii. 248. 'Veal, quoth the Dutchman. 'Veal' ​may be the Dutchman's pronunciation of 'well,' or the German viel (much), or a pun on 'veil' in the sense of mask. The editors' efforts to evolve wit and sense out of this dialogue are all far-fetched. Katharine is evidently punning on Longaville's name in the words 'long' (l. 245) and 'veal.'
V. ii. 250. Let's part the word. The recent Cambridge editors explain: 'half the word "calf" is "ca" which are the first two letters of Catharine, and "half" means "wife."'
V. ii. 280. Qualm, perhaps. Pronounced 'calm'; hence the pun. The same jest occurs in 2 Henry IV II. iv. 39–41.
V. ii. 282. statute-caps. An act of Parliament in 1571 required all ordinary citizens to wear woollen caps on Sundays and holidays. Hart quotes a still more apposite regulation for the apparel of London apprentices (in 1582), forbidding them at any time to wear within the city any head covering except a woollen cap. The object was to encourage the wool trade. It is worth noting that Shakespeare's uncle incurred a fine in 1583 for refusing to wear a cloth cap on Sundays and holidays.
V. ii. 339. Till this man show'd thee. Theobald first read 'man' for the 'madman' of the early editions, which spoils the scansion of the line and certainly does not improve the sense. A plausible explanation of the intrusion of the superfluous 'mad—' is that the compositor's eye caught the first syllable of 'madam' in the next line.
V. ii. 406. like a blind harper's song. Harping was proverbially the resource of the blind.
V. ii. 420. 'Lord have mercy on us.' The words put up on plague-stricken houses.
V. ii. 424. the Lord’s tokens. Spots on the body, marking the plague. Berowne jestingly so calls the lords' tokens, i.e. the gifts of, his three associates to ​the ladies who are wearing them. There is perhaps in these plague mentions a suggestion of the great London plague of 1592–1598, but Mr. Charlton argues that such jesting would not be natural while the actual plague was raging.
V. ii. 491. You cannot beg us. This slangy way of saying, 'We are no idiots,' seems to have arisen from the practice of suing for the guardianship of wealthy incompetents.
V. ii. 517, 518. Where zeal strives to content, and the contents Dies in the zeal of that which it presents. Where the unintelligent zeal of the actors strives to content the audience, and the gist (contents) of the entertainment is destroyed by this very zeal in performance.
V. ii. 545. Abate throw at novum. Alluding to a game called novem quinque, in which the two principal throws were nine and five. The Cambridge editors explain the words as 'referring to the presentation of nine worthies by five players.'
V. ii. 549. With libbard's head on knee. Theobald explained this by quoting Cotgrave's definition of the French word masquine: 'The representation of a lion's head, etc., upon the elbow or knee of some old-fashioned garments.'
V. ii. 566. it stands too right. The point seems to be that Alexander's head sat crookedly on his shoulders. Shakespeare can have got this fact from North's Plutarch. Boyet may, however, simply mean that Nathaniel's nose is not aquiline enough for that of a worthy.
V. ii. 576. You will be scraped out of the painted cloth for this. That is, you will lose your place as one of the worthies. Painted cloths were a more humble substitute for tapestry in wall-coverings, and the nine worthies were a common subject of their decoration.
​V. ii. 577. your lion, that holds his poll-axe sitting on a close-stool. Theobald illustrated this Rabelaisian witticism very neatly by quoting the description of Alexander's arms in Gerard Leigh's Accidence of Armory, 1591: 'a lion or [of gold color] seiante [sitting] in a chair, holding a battle-axe argent.'
V. ii. 601. A kissing traitor. Alluding to the kiss of Judas Iscariot. Berowne gets the hint for this gibe from Dumaine's clipt in the line above. Dumaine uses the word in the sense of abbreviated, and Berowne seizes upon another sense, from 'clip,' to embrace.
V. ii. 607. Judas was hanged on an elder. An old belief. Sir John Mandeville reported that the tree was still standing.
V. ii. 619. worn in the cap of a toothdrawer. The brooch in the toothdrawer's cap appears to have been a distinguishing mark of his costume. Halliwell quoted a passage from the works of John Taylor, the Water-Poet (1630):—'In Queen Elizabeth's days there was a fellow that wore a brooch in his hat like a toothdrawer.' One of the costume sketches made by Inigo Jones for a mask at James I's court represents a toothdrawer wearing a very high hat with a brooch in the left side. (See publications of the (Old) Shakespeare Society, vol. 39, 1848.)
V. ii. 692. More Ates. Ate was goddess of discord. She is introduced at the opening of Peele's Arraignment of Paris and again in the fourth book of the Fairy Queen.
V. ii. 731, 732. I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion. 'To see day at a little hole' was a proverbial saying.
V. ii. 748, 749. The extreme parts of time extremely forms All causes to the purpose of his speed. The closing moments of a period force concentration upon the matter in hand, or subordinate everything else to the necessity of making the most of time. ​'Forms' is the old northern English plural, frequent in Shakespeare. Cf. 'runs' in line 310.
V. ii. 762. And by these badges understand the king. Badges are distinguishing marks. Berowne goes on to explain what they are; namely, the various evidences of the deep sincerity of the wooers' love.
V. ii. 824. Hence ever then. The Folio reading. The Quarto has 'Hence herrite then,' which Professor Pollard ingeniously explains as 'Hence hermit then.'
V. ii. 825–830. These six lines evidently come from the earlier version of the play. The expanded version is found in ll. 845–877. See note on IV. iii. 299–304. Mr. Dover Wilson suggests that ll. 878, 879 originally followed 830, and that the whole passage 831–877 was interpolated in the revision, Dumaine being then given in l. 831 the line of Berowne (825) which the poet intended to delete along with Rosaline's original answer (826–830).
V. ii. 844. The liker you; few taller are so young. Time in being long is the more like Longaville, who is 'long' both by name and by being tall for his age.
V. ii. 899. This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring. The poetical argument between winter and spring was a famous subject of the mediæval debate. One version, entitled Conflictus Hiemis et Veris, is ascribed to the celebrated Alcuin (A.D. 735–804).