It is obvious to remark that this meaning of prenzie exactly fits the sense: Angelo was a prince, and he was clad in robes of office, adorned with princely "gardes," or trappings. Shakspeare, no doubt, was very well acquainted with Italian tales and poems; the word may have become quite familiar to him. His intention here, in putting the term in question into Claudio's mouth, may have been to give an Italian character to the scene, introducing thus the local term of dignity of the deputy; thus recalling the audience, by the occurrence of a single word, to the scene of the plot; for though this is said to be in Vienna, yet it is to be observed that not a name throughout the play is German, everything is Italian. And let it not be objected that the use of this word involves an obscurity which Shakspeare would have avoided; we are hardly able to judge, now-a-days, whether a particular word was obscure or not in his time: at all events, there would be no difficulty in adducing instances of what we should call more obscure allusions, and I think there can be little doubt that the well-educated in those days well understood the Italian prenze to mean a prince.
H. C. K.
—— Rectory, Hereford.
"Hamlet" and G. Steevens.—In Act I. Sc. 4., Horatio asks Hamlet "What does this mean, my Lord?" (The noise of music within). Hamlet replies:
"The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassel, and the swaggering up-spring reels."
G. Steevens, in a note of this passage, says: "The swaggering up-spring was a German dance." Is not the allusion directed to the king, whom Hamlet describes as "a swaggering up-spring," or "upstart?" Should not the line—
"O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!"
in the Ghost's narrative in the fifth scene, be given to Hamlet?
James Cornish.