"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.