ACT III.
Scene 1. Page 465.
Shy. It was my turquoise.
If the reason last assigned in Mr. Steevens's note for the value which Shylock professes for the turquoise be entitled to any preference, the information whereon it rests must be referred to the right owner, who is Anselm de Boot, Nicols being only the translator of his work.
Scene 2. Page 469.
Por. ... he makes a swan-like end.
Fading in musick.
That the swan uttered musical sounds at the approach of death was credited by Plato, Chrysippus, Aristotle, Euripides, Philostratus, Cicero, Seneca, and Martial. Pliny, Ælian, and Athenæus, among the ancients, and Sir Thomas More, among the moderns, treat this opinion as a vulgar error. Luther believed in it. See his Colloquia, par. 2, p. 125, edit. 1571, 8vo. Our countryman Bartholomew Glantville thus mentions the singing of the swan: "And whan she shal dye and that a fether is pyght in the brayn, then she syngethe, as Ambrose sayth," De propr. rer. 1. xii. c. 11. Monsieur Morin has written a dissertation on this subject in vol. v. of the Mem. de l'acad. des inscript. There are likewise some curious remarks on it in Weston's Specimens of the conformity of the European languages with the Oriental, p. 135; in Seelen Miscellanea, tom. i. 298; and in Pinkerton's Recollections of Paris, ii. 336.
Scene 2. Page 472.
Bass. Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
'Tween man and man.
The greatest part of the current coin being of silver, this metal is here emphatically called the common drudge in the more frequent transactions among men.
Scene 2. Page 472.
Bass. Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence.
However elegant this emendation by Dr. Warburton, it must yield to the decisive reasoning of Dr. Farmer and Mr. Malone, in favour of paleness, which ought to have been adopted in the text.
Scene 2. Page 474.
Bass. Fair Portia's counterfeit?
A further illustration occurs in the beginning of Lilie's dedication to his Euphues, "Parasius drawing the counterfeit of Hellen, made the attire of her head loose." In Littelton's English and Latin dictionary, we have "A counterfeit of a picture, ectypum."
Scene 2. Page 480.
Gra. We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.
The meaning is "Antonio with his argosie is not the successful Jason; we are the persons who have won the fleece." See the note in p. [153].
Scene 2. Page 480.
Por. ... else nothing in the world
Could turn so much the constitution
Of any constant man.
This word occasionally signified grave, as in the present instance. In Withall's Shorte dictionarie, 1599, 4to, fo. 105, we have "sadde, grave, constant,—gravis." So in Twelfth night, when Malvolio is under confinement, he says, "I am no more mad than you are; make the trial of it in any constant question."