THE ΑΡΑΞ ΛΕΓΟΜΕΝΑ IN SHAKESPEARE
When we examine the vocabulary of Shakespeare, what first strikes us is its copiousness. His characters are countless, and each one speaks his own dialect. His little fishes never talk like whales, nor do his whales talk like little fishes. Those curious in such matters have detected in his works quotations from seven foreign tongues, and those from Latin alone amount to one hundred and thirty-two.
Our first impression, that the Shakespearian variety of words is multitudinous, is confirmed by statistics. Mrs. Cowden Clarke has counted those words one by one, and ascertained their sum to be not less than fifteen thousand. The total vocabulary of Milton's poetical remains is no more than eight thousand, and that of Homer, including the Hymns as well as both Iliad and Odyssey, is about nine thousand. In the English Bible the different words are reckoned by Mr. G.P. Marsh in his lectures on the English language at rather fewer than six thousand. Those in the Greek Testament I have learned by actual count to be not far from five thousand five hundred.
Some German writers on Greek grammar maintain that they could teach Plato and Demosthenes useful lessons concerning Greek moods and tenses, even as the ancient Athenians, according to the fable of Phædrus, contended that they understood squealing better than a pig. However this may be, any one of us to-day, thanks to the Concordance of Mrs. Clarke and the Lexicon of Alexander Schmidt, may know much in regard to Shakespeare's use of language which Shakespeare himself cannot have known. One particular as to which he must have been ignorant, while we may have knowledge, is concerning his employment of terms denominated απαξ λεγόμενα.
The phrase απαξ λεγόμενα—literally, once spoken—may be traced back, I think, to the Alexandrian grammarians, centuries before our era, who invented it to describe those words which they observed to occur once, and only once, in any author or literature. It is so convenient an expression for statistical commentators on the Bible, and on the classics as well, that they will not willingly let it die.
The list of απαξ λεγόμενα—that is, words used once and only once—in Shakespeare is surprisingly long. It embraces a greater multitude than any man can easily number. Nevertheless, I have counted those beginning with two letters. The result is that the απαξ λεγόμενα with initial a are 364, and those with initial m are 310. There is no reason, that I know of, to suppose the census with these initials to be proportionally larger than that with other letters. If it is not, then the words occurring only once in all Shakespeare cannot be less than five thousand, and they are probably a still greater legion.
The number I have culled from one hundred and forty-six pages of Schmidt is 674. At this rate the total on the fourteen hundred and nine pages of the entire Lexicon would foot up 6504. It is possible, then, that Shakespeare discarded, after once trying them, more different words than fill and enrich the whole English Bible. The old grammarians tell us that a certain part of speech was called supine, because it was very seldom needed, and therefore almost always lying on its back—i.e. in Latin, supinus. The supines of Shakespeare outnumber the employés of most authors.
The array of Shakespearian απαξ λεγόμενα appears still vaster if we compare it with expressions of the same nature in the Scriptures and in Homer. In the English Bible words with the initials a and m used once only are 132 to 674 with the same initials in Shakespeare. The scriptural once-onlys would be more than twice as many as we find them were they as frequent in proportion to their total vocabulary as his are.
The Homeric απαξ λεγόμενα with initial m are 78, but were they as numerous in proportion to Homer's whole world of words as Shakespeare's are, they would run up to 186; that is, to more than twice as many as their actual number.