SHAKSPEARE'S USE OF "CAPTIOUS."

(Vol. ii., p. 354.)

In All's Well that Ends Well, Act I. Sc. 3., Helena says to the Countess, speaking of her love for Bertram,—

"I know I love in vain; strive against hope;

Yet, in this captious and intenible sieve,

I still pour in the waters of my love,

And lack not to lose still."

It is not without hesitation that I venture to oppose MR. SINGER on a point on which he is so well entitled to give an opinion. But I cannot help thinking that MR. SINGER'S explanation, besides being somewhat too refined and recondite, is less applicable to the general sense and drift of the passage than that of Steevens, which Malone and Mr. Collier have adopted.

What I think wanting to Steevens' interpretation, is an increase, if I may so express myself, of intensity. He takes the word, I conceive, in its right bearing, but does not give it all the requisite force. I should suggest that it means not merely "recipient, capable of receiving," but, to coin a word, captatious, eager or greedy to receive, absorbing; as we say avidum mare, or a greedy gulf. The Latin analogous to it in this sense would be, not capax, or MR. SINGER'S captiosus, but captax, or captabundus; neither of which words, however, occurs.

The sense of the word, like that of many others in the same author, must be determined by the scope and object of the passage in which it is used. The object of Helena, in declaring her love to the Countess, is to show the all-absorbing nature of it; to prove that she is tota in illo; and that, however she may strive to stop the cravings of it, her endeavours are of no more use than the attempt to fill up a bottomless abyss.

The reader may, if he pleases, compare her case with that of other heroines in like predicaments. Thus Medæa, in Apollonius Rhodius:

"Παντη μοι φρενες εισιν αμηχανοι, ουδε τις αλκη Πηματος."

And the same lady in Ovid:

"—— Luctata diu, postquam ratione furorem,

Vincere non poterat. Frustra, Medea, repugnas.

——

Excute virgineo conceptas pectore flammas,

Si potes, infelix. Si possem sanior essem:

Sed trahit invitam nova vis."

Or Dido, in Virgil or Ovid:

"Ille quidem malè gratus, et ad munera surdus;

Et quo si non sim stulta carere velim:

Non tamen Æneam, quamvis male cogitat, odi;

Sed queror infidum, questaque pejus amo."

Or Phædra, in Seneca:

——"Furor cogit sequi

Pejora: vadit animus in præceps sciens,

Remeatque, frustra sana consilia appetens.

Sic cum gravatam navita adversâ ratem

Propellit undâ, cedit in vanum labor,

Et victa prono puppis aufertur vado."

The complaints of all are alike; they lament that they make attempts to resist their passion, but find it not to be resisted; that they are obliged at last to yield themselves entirely to it, and to feel their whole thoughts, as it were, swallowed up by it.

Such being the way in which Shakspeare represents Helena, and such the sentiments which he puts into her mouth, it seems evident that the interpretation of captious in the sense of absorbent is better adapted to the passage than the explanation of it in the sense of fallacious.

"I know I love in vain, and strive against hope; yet into this insatiable and unretaining sieve I still pour in the waters of my love, and fail not to lose still."

I said that the sense of fallacious seemed to be too refined and recondite. To believe that Shakspeare borrowed his captious in this sense, from the Latin captiosus, we must suppose that he was well acquainted with the exact sense of the Latin word; a supposition which, in regard to a man who had small Latin, we can scarcely be justified in entertaining. This interpretation is, therefore, too recondite: and to imagine Helena as applying the word to Bertram as being "incapable of receiving her love," and "truly captious" (or deceitful and ensnaring) "in that respect," is surely to indulge in too much refinement of exposition.

That Shakspeare had in his mind, as MR. SINGER

suggests, the punishment of the Danaides, is extremely probable; but this only makes the explanation of captious in the sense of absorbent more applicable to the passage, with which that of Seneca, quoted above, may be aptly compared.

I am sorry that Johnson was so unfortunate as to propose carious as an emendation; but even in doing this, he had, according to my notion of the lines, the right sense in view, viz., that of letting through or swallowing up, like a rotten tub or a quicksand.

I hope that MR. SINGER will take these remarks in good part, as being offered, not from a wish to oppose his opinion, but from a conviction that the interpretation now given is right, and from a desire that to every word in Shakspeare should be assigned its true signification.

J.S.W.

Stockwell.