Among funny instances of wresting from a text a meaning to suit a particular purpose, is that of the classical scholar who undertook to prove that the word “smile” was used as a euphemism for a drink in ancient times, by quoting from Horace’s Odes:—
Amara lento temperat risu.
Which is rendered by Martin:—
Meets life’s bitters with a jest,
And smiles them down.
By lento risu, it was argued, is clearly meant a slow smile, or one taken through a straw!
The meaning of the word Wretch is one not generally understood. It was originally, and is now, in some parts of England, used as a term of the softest and fondest tenderness. This is not the only instance in which words in their present general acceptation bear a very opposite meaning to what they did in Shakspeare’s time. The word Wench, formerly, was not used in the low and vulgar acceptation that it is at present. Damsel was the appellation of young ladies of quality, and Dame a title of distinction. Knave once signified a servant; and in an early translation of the New Testament, instead of “Paul, the Servant,” we read “Paul, the Knave of Jesus Christ,” or, Paul, a rascal of Jesus Christ. Varlet was formerly used in the same sense as valet. On the other hand, the word Companion, instead of being the honorable synonym of Associate, occurs in the play of Othello with the same contemptuous meaning which we now affix, in its abusive sense, to the word “Fellow;” for Emilia, perceiving that some secret villain had aspersed the character of the virtuous Desdemona, thus indignantly exclaims:—
O Heaven! that such Companions thou’dst unfold,
And put in every honest hand a whip,
To lash the rascal naked through the world.—iv. 2.