SHAKSPEARE'S USE OF THE WORD "DELIGHTED."
(Vol. ii., pp. 113. 139.)
Although Mr. Hickson's notion of the meaning of delight, in the three passages of Shakspeare he has cited, is somewhat startling, it was not to be summarily rejected without due examination; and yet, from a tolerably extensive acquaintance with old English phraseology, I fear I cannot flatter him with the expectation of having it confirmed by instances from other writers.
I believe that lighted is rather an unusual form to express lightened, disencumbered, but that it was sometimes used is apparent; for in Hutton's Dictionary, 1583, we have "Allevo, to make light, to light."—"Allevatus, lifted up, lighted." And in the Cambridge Dictionary, 1594, "Allevatus, lifted up, lighted, raised, eased or recovered." The use of the prefix de in the common instance of depart for to part, divide, is noticed by Mr. Hickson; and demerits was used for merits by many of our old writers as well as Shakspeare. I find decompound for compound in Heylyn's Microcosmos, 1627, p. 249., thus:—"The English language is a decompound of Dutch, French, and Latin."
These instances may serve to show that it is not at all improbable Shakspeare may have used delighted for lighted==lightened==freed from incumbrance; and it must be confessed that the sense and spirit of the passage in Measure for Measure would be much improved by taking this view of it.
On the other hand, it certainly does appear that the poet uses the termination -ed for -ing, in the passages cited by Mr. Halliwell, where we have professed for professing, becomed for becoming, guiled for guiling, brooded for brooding, and deformed for deforming: it was not unreasonable, therefore, to conclude that he had done so in these other instances, and that delighted stood for delighting, and not for delightful, as Mr. Halliwell implies. How far the grammatical usages of the poet's time may have authorised this has not yet been shown; but it appears also that the converse is the case, and that he has used the termination -ing for -ed; e.g. longing for longed, all-obeying for all-obeyed, discontenting for discontented, multiplying for multiplied, unrecalling, for unrecalled. Dr. Crombie (Etymology and Syntax of the English language, p. 150.) says:
"The participle in ed I consider to be perfectly analogous to the participle in ing, and used like it in either an active or passive sense, belonging, therefore, neither to the one voice nor the other exclusively."
Supposing for a moment that Shakspeare used delighted for delighting, the sense of the passages would, I presume, be in Measure for Measure, "the spirit affording delight;" in Othello, "if virtue want no beauty affording delight;" in Cymbeline, "the gifts delighting more from being delayed." Here we have a simple, and, in the last two instances, I think, a more satisfactory meaning than Mr. Hickson's sense of lightened, disencumbered, affords, even could it be more unquestionably established.
I have, however, met with a passage in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia (ed. 1598, p. 294.) which might lead to a different interpretation of delighted in these passages, and which would not, perhaps, be less startling than that of Mr. Hickson.
"All this night (in despite of darknesse) he held his eyes open; and in the morning, when the delight began to restore to each body his colour, then with curtains bar'd he himselfe from the enjoying of it; neither willing to feele the comfort of the day, nor the ease of the night."
Here, delight is apparently used for the return of light, and the prefix de is probably only intensive. Now, presuming that Shakspeare also used delighted for lighted, illuminated the passage in Measure for Measure would bear this interpretation: "the delighted spirit, i.e., the spirit restored to light," freed from "that dark house in which it long was pent." In Othello, "if virtue lack no delighted beauty," i.e. "want not the light of beauty, your son-in-law shows far more fair than black." Here the opposition between light and black is much in its favour. In Cymbeline, I must confess it is not quite so clear: "to make my gifts, by the dark uncertainty attendant upon delay, more lustrous (delighted), more radiant when given," is not more satisfactory than Mr. HICKSON'S interpretation of this passage. But is it necessary that delighted should have the same signification in all the three passages? I think not.
These are only suggestions, of course, but the passage from Sidney is certainly curious, and, from the correct and careful manner in which the book is printed, does not appear to be a corruption. I have not seen the earlier editions. I have only further to remark, that none of our old authorities favour DR. KENNEDY'S suggestion, "that the word represents the Latin participle delectus."
Since the above was written, Mr. HICKSON'S reply to MR. HALLIWELL has reached me, upon which I have only to observe that he will find to guile was used as a verb. Thus in Gower, Confessio Amantis, fo. 135. ed. 1532:
"For often he that will begyle,
Is gyled with the same gyle,
And thus the gyler is begyled."
We most probably had the word from the old French Guiller=tromper, and the proverb is to the purpose:—
"Qui croit de Guiller Guillot, Guillot le Guile."
Horne Tooke's fanciful etymology cannot be sustained. MR. HICKSON'S explanation of "guiled shore," is, however, countenanced by the following passage in Tarquin and Lucrece:—
"To me came Tarquin armed, so beguil'd
With outward honesty, but yet defil'd
With inward vice."
MR. HICKSON has, I think, conferred a singular favour in calling attention to these perplexing passages in our great poet and these remarks, like his own, are merely intended as hints which may serve to elicit the true interpretation.
S.W. SINGER.
Mickleham, August 20. 1850.