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List of Notes and Queries volumes and pages

Notes.

READINGS IN SHAKSPEARE, NO. II.

I cannot look upon this emendation, although sanctioned by the two latest editors of Shakspeare, as by any means a happy one. The original word in the second quarto, "ease," so nearly resembles "eale" in the first quarto (especially when printed with the old-fashioned long "[s]"); and the subsequent transition from ease to base is so extremely obvious, and at the same time so thoroughly consistent with the sense, that it is difficult to imagine any plausible ground for the rejection of base in favour of ill. Dram was formerly used (as grain is at present) to signify an indefinitely small quantity; so that "the dram of base" presents as intelligible an expression as can be desired.

But in addition to its easy deduction from the original, base possesses other recommendations, in being the natural antagonist of noble in the line following, and in the capability of being understood either in a moral or physical sense.

If the whole passage be understood as merely assertive, then base may have, in common with ill, a moral signification; but if it be understood as a metaphorical allusion to substantial matter, in illustration of the moral reflections that have gone before, then base must be taken (which ill cannot) in the physical sense, as a base substance, and, as such, in still more direct antagonism to the noble substance opposed to it.

In a former paper I had occasion to notice the intimate knowledge possessed by Shakspeare in the arcana of the several arts; and I now recognise, in this passage, a metaphorical allusion to the degradation of gold by the admixture of baser metal. Gold and lead have always been in poetical opposition as types of the noble and the base; and we are assured by metallurgists, that if lead be added to gold, even in the small proportion of one part in two thousand, the whole mass is rendered completely brittle.

The question then is, in what way "the dram of base" affects "all the noble substance?" Shakspeare says it renders it doubtful or suspicious; his commentators make him say that it douts or extinguishes it altogether! And this they do without even the excuse of an originally imperfect word to exercise conjecture upon. The original word is doubt, the amended one dout; and yet the first has been rejected, and the latter adopted, in editions whose peculiar boast it is to have restored, in every practicable instance, the original text.

Now, in my opinion, Shakspeare did not intend doubt in this place, to be a verb at all, but a noun substantive: and it is the more necessary that this point should be discussed, because the amended passage has already crept into our dictionaries as authority for the verb dout; thus giving to a very questionable emendation the weight of an acknowledged text. (Vide Todd's Johnson.)

Any person who takes the amended passage, as quoted at the head of this article, and restores "dout," to its original spelling, will find that the chief hindrance to a perfect meaning consists in the restriction of doth to the value of a mere expletive. Let this restriction be removed, by conferring upon doth the value of an effective verb, and it will be seen that the difficulty no longer remains. The sense then becomes, "the base doth doubt to the noble," i.e. imparts doubt to it, or renders it doubtful. We say, a man's good actions do him credit; why not also, his bad ones do him doubt? One phrase may be less familiar than the other, but they are in strict analogy as well with themselves as with the following example from the Twelfth Night, which is exactly in point:

Hence, since the original word is capable of giving a clear and distinct meaning, there can be no possible excuse for displacing it, even if the word to be substituted were as faultless as it is certainly the reverse.

For not only is dout an apocryphal word, but it is inelegant when placed, as it must be in this instance, in connexion with the expletive doth, being at the same time in itself a verb compounded of do. Neither is the meaning it confers so clear and unobjectionable as to render it desirable; for in what way can a very small quantity be said to dout, or expel, a very large quantity? To justify such an expression, the entire identity of the larger must be extinguished, leaving no part of it to which the scandal mentioned in the third line could apply.

But an examination of the various places wherein scandal is mentioned by Shakspeare, shows that the meaning attached by him to that word was false imputation, or loss of character: therefore, in the contact of the base and the noble, the scandal must apply to the noble substance—a consideration that must not be lost sight of in any attempt to arrive at the true meaning of the whole passage.

So far, I have assumed that "often" (the third substitution in the amended quotation) is the best representative that can be found for the "of a" of the original; and inasmuch as it is confirmed by general consent, and is moreover so redundant, in this place, that its absence or presence scarcely makes any difference in the sense, it is not easily assailable.

The best way, perhaps, to attempt to supplant it is to suggest a better word—one that shall still more closely resemble the original letters in sound and formation, and that shall, in addition, confer upon the sense not a redundant but an effective assistance. Such a word is offer: it is almost identical (in sound at least) with the original, and it materially assists in giving a much clearer application to the last line.

For these reasons, but especially for the last, I adopt offer, as a verb in the infinitive ruled by doth, in the sense of causing or compelling; a sense that must have been in familiar use in Shakspeare's time, or it would not have been introduced into the translation of Scripture.

In this view the meaning of the passage becomes, "The base doth the noble offer doubt, to his own scandal"—that is, causes the noble to excite suspicion, to the injury of its own character.

Examples of do in this sense are very numerous in Spenser; of which one is (F.Q., iii. 2. 34.):

And in Chaucer (Story of Ugolino):