Scene 5. Page 499.
Cleo. Some innocents 'scape not the thunder bolt.
This alludes to a superstitious notion among the ancients, that they who were stricken with lightning were honoured by Jupiter, and therefore to be accounted holy. Their bodies were supposed not to putrify; and after having been shown for a certain time to the people, were not burned in the usual manner, but buried on the spot where the lightning fell, and a monument erected over them. Some, however, held a contrary opinion. See the various notes on the line in Persius,
"Triste jaces lucis, evitandumque bidental," Sat. ii.
The ground also that had been smitten by a thunderbolt was accounted sacred, and afterwards inclosed: nor did any one presume to walk on it. This we learn from Festus, "fulguritum, id quod est fulmine ictum; qui locus statim fieri putabatur religiosus, quod eum Deus sibi dicasse videretur." These places were therefore consecrated to the gods, and could not in future become the property of any one.
Scene 7. Page 512.
2. Ser. I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service, as a partizan I could not heave.
Dr. Johnson says the partizan is a pike, and so say many of our dictionaries; but it was in reality a weapon between a pike and a halbert. Not being so long as the former, it was made use of in trenches, in mounting a breach, and in attacking or defending a lodgment; on all which occasions the pike would have been unmanageable. Its upper extremity resembled that of a halbert, but was longer and broader. In more modern times it wanted the cutting axe which belongs to the halbert, though in that used by the old Switzers and Germans it seems to have had it. The etymology of the word has been much controverted, but appears to lie between the Latin pertica and the German bart, an axe, whence bardike, a little axe. Shakspeare himself has distinguished it from the pike, "Let us make him with our pikes and partizans a grave."—Cymbeline, Act IV. Scene 2.
Scene 7. Page 518.
Eno. Drink thou; increase the reels.