In Ælfric's version of Genesis, ch. i. ver. 1, the inanis et vacua of the Vulgate is rendered ẏꝺel ⁊ æmꞇɩᵹ. Now it is conceived that inanis never signified infertile, but useless, unprofitable; and such appears to be the meaning of idle. In two or three of the early Latin and English dictionaries, inanis is rendered idle; and in this sense the latter word is used by Shakspeare in Richard the third, Act III.:
"You said that idle weeds were fast in growth."
It is clear that in the last instance infertility is out of the question: but useless and unprofitable well denote the poet's meaning, or rather that of the inventor of the proverb, which was afterwards corrupted into "ill weeds," &c.
It is conceived therefore that Dr. Johnson is not accurate in his opinion, that idle in the before-cited Saxon translation is an epithet expressive of the infertility of the chaotic state. Wicliffe has not adopted this term; he has preferred vain: but in the first page of the English Golden legend, which contains a part of the first chapter of Genesis, we have—"the erth was ydle and voyde." Here Caxton the translator must have followed the Vulgate, corroborating what is already stated on the construction of idle. The learned reader will not want to be informed why this term could not occur in any of the subsequent English versions of the Bible.
Scene 3. Page 447.
Iago. ... the food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida.
There is another phrase of this kind, viz. to exchange Herb John for coloquintida. It is used in Osborne's Memoirs of James I., and elsewhere. The pedantic Tomlinson, in his translation of Renodæus's Dispensatory, says, that many superstitious persons call mugwort Saint John's herb, "wherewith he circumcinged his loyns on holidays," p. 317. Shakspeare, who was extremely well acquainted with popular superstitions, might have recollected this circumstance, when, for reasons best known to himself, he chose to vary the phrase by substituting the luscious locusts of the Baptist. Whether these were the fruit of the tree so called, or the well known insect, is not likely to be determined.
ACT III.
Scene 4. Page 556.
Des. ... I had rather have lost my purse
Full of cruzadoes.