ACT I.
Scene 1. Page 397.
Salar. There, where your argosies, with portly sail
Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood,
Or as it were the Pageants of the sea,
Do overpeer the petty traffickers.
Argosies are properly defined to be "ships of great burthen," and so they are described almost wherever they are mentioned. Mr. Steevens has quoted Rycaut's Maxims of Turkish polity, to show that the term originated in a corruption of Ragosies, i. e. ships of Ragusa. However specious this may appear, it is to be observed that Rycaut, a writer at the end of the seventeenth century, only states it as a matter of report, not as a fact; and he seems to have followed the slight authority of Roberts's Marchant's map of commerce. If any instance shall be produced of the use of such a word as ragosie, the objection must be given up. In the mean time it may be permitted to hazard another opinion, which is, that the word in question derives its origin from the famous ship Argo: and indeed Shakspeare himself appears to have hinted as much; for the story of Jason is twice adverted to in the course of this play. On one of these occasions Gratiano certainly alludes to Antonio's argosie when he says,
"We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece."
Act III. Scene 2.
Gregory of Tours has more than once made use of Argis to express a ship generally. With respect to Ragozine, it has been contended in a former note, page 89, that this name ought not to have been introduced in the discussion of the present subject.
Mr. Steevens remarks that both ancient and modern editors have hitherto been content to read "burghers on the flood;" and, on the authority of a line in which we have "burghers of a city," he has substituted "burghers of the flood." He might have been less inclined to this new reading, had he recollected that the "signiors and rich burghers on the flood" are the Venetians, who may well be said to live on the sea. It would be difficult to discover who are the signiors and burghers of the flood, unless they be whales and porpoises.
In calling argosies the pageants of the sea, Shakspeare alludes to those enormous machines, in the shapes of castles, dragons, ships, giants, &c., that were drawn about the streets in the ancient shows or pageants, and which often constituted the most important part of them.
Scene 1. Page 399.
Salan. Now, by two-headed Janus.
Dr. Warburton's note may well be spared in all future editions. If Shakspeare have shown a knowledge of the antique, which he might have obtained from his dictionary at school, the Doctor has, unluckily, on this occasion proved himself less profound in it than Shakspeare, or he would not have ventured to assert that the heads of Janus were those of Pan and Bacchus, Saturn and Apollo, &c. It is presumed that these heads will continue to perplex the learned for many generations.
Scene 2. Page 410.
Por. If a throstle sing.
Notwithstanding the apparent difference in opinion between Messrs. Steevens and Malone respecting this bird, they are both right. The throstle is only a variety of the thrush, as will be seen by consulting Mr. Pennant's Account of English birds. In The new general history of birds, 1745, 12mo, there is an account of "the song-thrush, or throstle;" and see Randle Holme's Academy of armory, book ii. ch. 12, no. lxxiii.
Scene 3. Page 413.
Enter Shylock.
His stage dress should be a scarlet hat lined with black taffeta. This is the manner in which the Jews of Venice were formerly distinguished. See Saint Didier Histoire de Venise. In the year 1581 they wore red caps for distinction's sake, as appears from Hakluyt's Voyages, p. 179, edit. 1589. Lord Verulam, in his Essay on usury, speaking of the witty invectives that men have made against usury, states one of them to be "that usurers should have orange-tawny bonnets, because they do Judaize."
Scene 3. Page 414.
Shy. He lends out money gratis, and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
"It is almost incredyble what gaine the Venetians receive by the usury of the Jewes, both pryvately and in common. For in everye citee the Jewes kepe open shops of usurie, taking gaiges of ordinarie for xv in the hundred by the yere; and if at the yeres ende the gaige be not redemed, it is forfeite, or at the least dooen away to a great disadvantage: by reason whereof the Jewes are out of measure wealthie in those parties."—Thomas's Historye of Italye, 1561, 4to, fo. 77.
Scene 3. Page 416.
Shy. He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes.
Fulsome has, doubtless, the same signification as the preceding epithet rank, the physical reason for its application being very generally known. "Ικτιδος pellis. Proverbium apud Germanos in vilissimum quodque et maxime fœtidum scortum. Nam Ictis, id est sylvestris mustela cum graviter exarserit, male olet." Erasmi Adagia. Spenser makes one of his shepherds speak thus of a kid:
"The blossoms of lust to bud did beginne
And spring forth ranckly under his chinne."
Fulsome is from the Gothic fuls, i. e. foul, fœtid. That it sometimes had another root, viz. full, is manifest from the line in Golding's Ovid, whose expression "fulsome dugs" is in the original "pleno ubere," but is of no service on the present occasion, though quoted by Mr. Steevens.
Scene 3. Page 418.
Shy. About my money and my usances.
Mr. Steevens asserts that use and usance anciently signified usury, but both his quotations show the contrary. Mr. Ritson very properly asks whether Mr. Steevens is not mistaken; and Mr. Reed, maintaining that he is right, adduces a passage which proves him to be wrong. A gentleman, says Wylson, borrowed 1000 pounds, running still upon usury and double usury. "The merchants termyng it usance and double usance, by a more clenly name," i. e. interest, till he owed the usurer five thousand pounds, &c. The sense was obscured by the omission of an important comma after the word name. Mr. Malone's note was quite adequate to the purpose of explanation.
Scene 3. Page 421.
Shy. ... seal me there
Your single bond; and in a merry sport,
If you repay me not, &c.
Thus in the ballad of Gernutus:
"But we will have a merry jeast
For to be talked long;
You shall make me a bond, quoth he.
That shall be large and strong."