The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-26
New ShaISespenrian Inter preta-


Inc butHOHfW UCCtCN, IN It's last number,
contains an article, attributed to Professor
L. >. Baynes, on Shakespearian glossarie5, in
which are to be found some remarkable sug-
gestions as to the meaning of certain wor Is
and phrases, in the exposition of which the
commentators are, the reviewer thinks, all
wrong, or on which their glimmering of un-
derstandlng has been sadly imperfect, or
which they have despairingly omitted to
notice at all. Among the first class occurs
the word sight, as in the passage in the
speech of "Calchas" in Tr0dUS dad Crcy-
Sidd:-
That through the sight bear in things to Jove
have abandoned Troy
The common Interpretation of this passage
makes slght signify foresight, but the reviewer
shows 10y multitude of contemporary pas
sages that Stght meant in a general sense ShU,
beng, in fact, the substantive of the part-
ciple seen, which often occurs in the sense of
skilled or instructed. Again, the word "be-
zonian' is painfully traced by Dyce to the
vague sense of beggar, or the foreign sense
of a needy and disbanded soldier. The Edin-
burgh reviewer by quotation from Mark
ham, proves that in English it was the con-
temptuous equivalent of ''illiterate peasant,
a sense which gives peculiar force to Pistols
braggart apostrophe to Justice Shallow, "Uu-
der which king bezonian?' To 'balll logic
in the TamiHg If tie SbreiC, is another terri
BILE stumbling-block of the critics, and they are
generally content to interpret it as ''chop
logic, without attempting to find deriva-
ton which shall satisfy us why it has that
meaning. The reviewer traces the word
chalk" to the Anglo-Saxon 6ayca, division,
ridge, or fuTOw, a rafter or beam. The word
balk is used in all these senses in the north of
England and Scotland to this day. The root
idea in it is separation OF distinction. Hence
to balk logic is proved by the reviewer to be,
by sound derivation, the same as to divide.
distinguish, or chop logic We may ven
| ture, indeed, on our own part, to suggest
another illustration. In Scotland ''the ballls"
mean the scales of weighing machine as
well as the dividing ridge of a field or
rafter of house. Probably this sense
is a derivation from the same root,
but if we were to adopt it we
should find to balk logic, meaning to weigh
logic, or argument, not at least an inapplica-
| BILE sense. The reviewer again resorts to the
| North Country for an exposition of Shake
speare meaning in the passage in MacJeH,
| "Who cannot want the thought. Dyce gives
! this up as simply incorrect averring that it
must have been written "WhO can want the
! thought and other commentators founder
worse. But the Edinburgh reviewer tells us
that our difficulty arises solely from not OBJ
serving that in Shakespeare day the verb
want had double sense, one of which sur
| wives in North England or the Low
lands of Scotland to this day, where the
| word signifies to 'be without" or mot
have. The reviewer cites passages from
writings contemporary with Shakespeare in
which the word has this meaning, and there
is also one to be found so late as in Mil
tons "Areopagitica." OF words entirely
furnished by the reviewer is ''windlace,
which occurs in ''Polonius's" speech to 'Rey-
| naldo" and which is shown not to signify the
machine ''windlass, but a winding or cir
cuitous course. Further curious information,
| illustrated with vast amount of reading and
contemporary quotations, is given of other
words, such as ''erants, document, ''rue,
''genius," ''lurch, ''hilding," ''tender-
hefted, ""cheapening, etc. Some Of these will,
of course provoke controversy, but in most
if not all, there is at least matter which will
help Shakespearian critics, and that much
more important class. ShakeSpearian readers
to follow their author better in some of the
passages in which he is ''hard to be under
stood With one example of things no
generally understood, we must conclude
this brief reference to a very meritoriOuS
article. We all fancy that we know what
''zany is He is commonly described il
general terms as fool, a merry-andrew,
mimic. But the Edinburgh reviewer declare
that not one of those who have treated o
fools and clowns, not even Dyce, seems t,
know what is the particular distinction of
zany, and what it is that gives point to dozen
of illusions to him which will be found in tn
literature Of the Elizabethan age. A zauy
says the reviewer, was not a mere butfOon, h
was the obsequious follower of buffoon
he was not a mere mimic, he was the al
tenuated mime of a mimic. He was a sci
want who dressed like his master, and ape
him on the stage, his imitation of his mas
ters tricks being usually abortive, and tent
ing to the ludicrous effect of imbecilit
and failure. To this day we see i
the sawdust some remnants of the oil
system where one clown is clever in som
things and another produces laughter b
vain attempts to initiate the clever one.
a single clown combines both character
! doing successful tumbling on his own accoun
and playing the zany to the riders. We al
: obliged to the reviewer for thus defining th
G functions of the zany and endowing us wit
= a new word by reviying an old one. We wer
Y rather in want of such word in worl
where there is so much of weak imitation
: Apes are bad enough; but there is somethin
: worse even than an ape-namely, an unsu
= cessful one: and we are glad to know that h
G proper name is zany.
n EBnrsnnnISETnS