HORESTES (A newe enterlude of vice)
by John Pikeryng 1567
Original spelling version (modified punctuation) ---
Glossary and Appendices by Barboura Flues
Edited for the web by Robert Brazil All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2007 B. Flues, R. Brazil, and elizabethanauthors.com
APPENDIX I --- Glossary
addited (a): Axton defines as "armed". The OED meaning "bound" or "addicted" seems applicable. Not in OED.
adjuvate (v): aid, assist. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes (not listed in OED). 1st OED citation 1599 A. M. Gabelhouer's Bk. Physic. Only 4 uses listed in OED, apparently then died out.
amain (adv, n): (1) at full speed, speed. FS (9-2H6, 3H6, LLL, Errors, Temp, Titus); Golding Ovid; Lodge Wounds; Marlowe Massacre, Edw2; (anon./Greene) G a G; Greene Orl Fur; (anon.) True Trag, Locrine, Prison Pent, Weakest, Arden. (2) at full voice. FS (4-1H6, T&C, Edw3, V&A); Pickering Horestes; Devices; (anon.) Arden.
beswing (v): see "swing", below.
boot (v, n): help, relief. FS (many); Heywood Prov; Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid; Devices; Pickering Horestes; Churchyard De Tristibus; Sundrie Flowers; Robinson Delights; Lyly Euphues Eng; Kyd Sp Tr, Sol&Per; Greene G a G, Maiden's Dream; Lyly Bombie; Chettle Kind Hart; (anon.) Fam Vic, Willobie, Leic Gh.
caitiff/caitive (n, a): wretch, sometimes prisoner. FS (13); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid; Pickering Horestes; Devices; Gascoigne Jocasta, Supposes; Lyly Euphues Eng; Lodge Wounds; Kyd Cornelia; Greene James IV, Selimus; Sidney Antony; (anon.) Mucedorus; Drayton et al Oldcastle.
cake-bread (n): bread made in flattened cakes; or of the finer and more dainty quality of cake. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes.
cankered/cancred (a): corrupt. FS (6-John, R&J, 1H4, 2H4, Corio); Golding Ovid; Pickering Horestes; Gascoigne Jocasta; Lyly Euphues Wit, Love Met; others.
Charon/ferryman [across the river Styx] (n): [ferryman] (anon.) Arden. [Charon] FS (2-Rich3, T&C); Pickering H orestes; Watson Hek; Gascoigne Jocasta; Greene Orl Fur; Marlowe T1; Kyd Sp Tr; Sidney Antony. Widely used image in Ren. literature.
chambering (n): OED (omitting Horestes) defines as sexual indulgence, lewdness; luxury, effeminacy. Axton's definition of self-indulgence seems closer to the mark (but the idea of staying at home rather than venturing into battle should be included). NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes.
cheat (n): booty, spoil. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes; Adlington Apuleius; Greene Cony.
cheer (n): expression. FS (5-1H6, Shrew, 1H4, Edw3); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid, Abraham; Pickering Horestes; many others.
chill/chyll (v): rustic dialect -- I will/shall. Cf. Golding Ovid; Pickering Horestes; Edwards Dam&Pith.
churl/carl/carlot (n): countryman, possibly slave; miser, churl, peasant; after 1500, fellow of low birth.FS (2-AsYou, Cymb); Golding Ovid; Devices; Pickering Horestes; Bedingfield Cardanus; Greene Fr Bacon; (anon.) Arden; Nashe Summers.
coat (n): skin, hide.
cocking (n): fighting, preparing to fire a gun. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes.
cockscomb (n): fool's cap. FS (MWW); Pickering Horestes; Oxford Interrogatory (1583); (anon.) Locrine, Dodypoll; Nashe Penniless, Strange News, Astrophel, Summers; Jonson Cynthia.
coil (v): beat, thrash. NFS. Cf. Udall Erasmus; Pickering Horestes; Preston Cambises.
commonality (n): common people. FS (Corio); Pickering Horestes.
curtsey (n): bow, gesture of respect, curtsey. FS (1H4, Ado, AWEW); Udall Royster; Pickering Horestes.
de (n): death.
descry (v): reveal, discover, perceive. FS (14); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid; Pickering Horestes; Devices; Gascoigne Jocasta; Edwards Dam&Pith; Lyly Euphues Wit; Lodge Wounds; Greene Pandosto, James IV; Watson Tears; Nashe Saffron; Peele Wives; Sidney Antony; (anon.) Selimus, Ironside, Willobie, Penelope; Harvey Pierce's Super; Chapman Bl Beggar.
disease (n): distress. FS (1H6, 2H4); Golding Ovid; Greene Selimus. disease (v): distress. FS (2H4, Corio); Pickering Horestes; Brooke Romeus; Bedingfield Cardanus; Golding Abraham; Edwards Dam&Pith; Lodge Wounds.
dotterel (n): dotard, fool, simpleton; one easily caught in a trap. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes; Golding Calvin on Deut; Lyly Love's Met.
dress (v): manage. keep, prepare. FS (Rich2, A&A); Pickering Horestes. (2) dress [him] (v): (2) deceive/playe a prank on him.NFS. Cf. Edwards Dam&Pith.
eke (adv): also. FS (7-H5, MND, MWW, AsYou, AWEW); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid; Devices; Pickering Horestes; Gates Defence; Churchyard De Tristibus; (anon.) Locrine, Willobie, Leic Gh; Armin Quips.
ensign (n): (1) standard. FS (Edw3, V&A); Pickering Horestes; many others. (2) standard-bearer (n). FS (H5). (3) body of men serving under one banner; a company, troop. NFS. Cf. Gates Defence; Greene Alphonsus.
estew (v): eschew, avoid.
fell (a): savage, cruel, dire. FS (many, Q1); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid; Pickering Horestes; Devices; Gascoigne Jocasta; Watson Hek, Tears; Kyd Sp Tr, Sol&Per; Greene Selimus; Marlowe Edw2; Armin Quips; (anon) Leir, Locrine, Mucedorus, Woodstock, Penelope.
fet (v): fetch/fetched. FS (2H6, H5); Heywood Prov; Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid; Devices; Pickering Horestes; Lodge Wounds; Greene Selimus.
fill/fyle (n, line 178): fillet, strip of thread (thread of life). Cf. Pickering Horestes.
fine (n): (1) conclusion, end. FS (Ado, AWEW); Devices. (2) purpose. NFS. Dekker Patient Grissel. (3) the fine of life: the end of life. FS (AWEW); Hall Chron (1548); Pickering Horestes. (4) in fine: in short. FS (Ham); Churchyard De Tristibus, (anon.) Leic Gh.
flirt/flurt (v): give a sudden sharp strike or blow. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes. Only OED citation until 1611: 1563-87 Foxe A. & M. (1631) III. xii. 881/1 Flirting him under the chin, and on the eares. flirt/flurt (n): (1) sharp tap or blow. NFS. Cf. Breton Flourish. (2) sudden jerk or movement; gust of wind. NFS. Cf. Greene Fr Bac (1st OED citation).
flort: see "flirt", above.
flout (n): mocking speech or action. FS (LLL): Lyly Euphues Eng, Whip. (v): mock, jest. FS (Shrew); Pickering Horestes; Armin Quips.
franion (n): gallant/fellow (n). NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes; Edwards Dam&Pith (1st OED citation); Greene Pandosto (name of character); Peele Wives. OED contemp citations: 1587 Turbervile Epitaphs & Sonn; 1589 (anon.) Rare Triumphs; Spenser FQ.
frequent (n): crowd. This meaning not in OED. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes.
gear/geere (n): clothes. FS (2-2H6, LLL); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid; Pickering Horestes; Edwards Dam&Pith; Kyd Sp Tr.
gip (int): expression of derision or contempt, "get out, go along with you." NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes; Greene Upst Court; Disp Cony; Heywod 1 EdwIV; Dekker Bach Banq.
gird/gyrd (v) : impel, release a blast. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes.
gise/gys: Jesus. Part of imprecation.
gynney: see jenny, below.
halter sycke/haulter sack (n): gallows bird. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes (OED missed this 1st citation); Florio, Capestro,
happest (a): probably "fortunate", from hap "luck, fortune". NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes.
hempstring (n): one who deserves the halter (hanging). NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes; Gascoigne Supposes (1st OED citation); Chapman d'Olive.
hent (v): (1) held, took, seized. FS (2-MM, WT); Cf. Brooke Romeus; Pickering Horestes.
hest (n): behest. FS (3-1H4, Temp); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid; Pickering Horestes; Gascoigne Jocasta; Kyd Sol&Per; (anon.) Locrine.
hight/hyght (v): (1) is/was called/named (v). FS (4-LLL, MND, Pericles); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid, Abraham; Pickering Horestes; Watson Hek; Gascoigne Jocasta; Greene G a G, Alphonsus; Kyd Sp Tr; Peele Wives; Nashe Summers; (anon.) Leic Gh; Munday Huntington.
hourchet/hurchet (n): Axton suggests "boy"; not listed in OED but possibly a variation "hurcheon" - urchin. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes.
Idumeneus: King of Crete during the Trojan War. Cf. Pickering Horestes.
iwis/ywus (adv): surely. FS (4-Rich3, Shrew, MV, Pericles); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid; Pickering Horestes; many others.
jenny/gynney (n): wench. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes.
jopard/jobard (v, n): risk. NFS. Cf. Udall? Thersites; Pickering Horestes.
let (v): (1) hesitate. NFS. Cf. (anon.) Fam Vic. (2) hinder, prevent. FS (Errors, Ham, Lucrece); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid; Devices; Churchyard De Tristibus; Pickering Horestes; Bedingfield Cardanus; Oxford letters; Robinson Delights; Lyly Euphues Eng; Lodge Wounds; Greene Selimus. Common.
lies (n): lays, destroys, overthrows. (1) object inanimate. Cf. Pickering Horestes (considerably later than OED citations). (2) object a living being FS (John). Cf. Pickering Horestes.
list (v): choose. FS (many); Heywood Proverbs; Brooke Romeus; Pickering Horestes; Devices; Churchyard De Tristibus; Gascoigne Jocasta; Peele Phoenix; Lyly Euphues Eng; Gates Defence; Underdowne History; Lodge Wounds; Sidney Arcadia; Armin Quips; Chapman Bl Beggar; (anon.) Leir, Willobie, Leic Gh.
lobcock (n): country bumpkin, lout, clown, blundering fool. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes; Udall Roister; Gascoigne Supposes; Edwards Dam&Pith; Nashe Unf Trav; (anon.) Locrine.
lout (v): (1) make obeisance, bow. NFS. Cf. Spenser FQ; many earlier uses. (2) mock: almost certainly derived from the previous meaning. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes. (3) make a fool of. FS (1H6).
meed (n): (1) reward, prize. FS (19); Golding Ovid; Devices; Pickering Horestes; Sundrie Flowers (E/N); Kyd Sp Tr; Lyly Woman ... Moon; Marlowe T1; Greene Card of Fancy; Pandosto; (anon.) Spenser FQ; Arden; Nobody/Somebody. (2) worth, merit. FS (3H6, Ham & Q2, not in Folio,).
mome (n): dolt, blockhead. FS (1-Errors); Pickering Horestes; Dekker Hornbook.
oundes/ounds: wounds. Usually short for "God's wounds".
out of hand (adv). suddenly, immediately. FS (4-1H6, 3H6, Titus, Edw3); Golding Ovid, Abraham; Devices; Pickering Horestes; Holinshed; Lodge Wounds; Gascoigne Jocasta; Greene Alphonsus, James IV; Sidney Antony; (anon.) Leir, Yorkshire Tr.
masship/masshyp (n): mastership.
pack/be packing (v): begone, depart. FS (5-Shrew, MV, MWW, Timon, PP); Pickering Horestes; Edwards Dam&Pith; Robinson Delights; Watson Hek; Lyly Euphues Eng; Greene Alphonsus, James IV; (anon.) Leir, Willobie. 1st 2 OED citations: 1508 Kennedie Flyting w. Dunbar; 1601 Chester Love's Mart.
packing (n): order to send away. FS (5-1H6, 2H6, Rich3, 1H4, Ham, OED missed citations); Pickering Horestes; Bedingfield Cardanus; Nashe Unf. Trav.
peradventure (adv): by chance. FS (14); Q. Eliz. letters; Golding Ovid; Pickering Horestes; Gascoigne Supposes; Pasquil Return; Harvey 4 letters, Pierce's Super; Nashe Unf Travl, Menaphon, Almond, Summers, Astrophel; Marston, Chapman, Jonson Eastward Ho; (anon.) Nobody/Somebody, Leic Gh.
perpend (v): weigh mentally, consider, investigate. FS (5-MWW, H5, AsYou, 12th, Ham); Pickering Horestes.
poll/poulle (n): head. FS (2H4, AWEW, Cor); Pickering Horestes.
port (n): (1) style of living. FS (Shrew); Pickering Horestes. (2) bearing, mien. FS (Shrew); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid; Devices; (anon.) Leic Gh. (3) dignity, worth. FS (MV); (4) city gate. FS (AWEW).
pressed (a): active, weighed down, present. FS (V&A); Pickering Horestes.
princox/princock (n): pert, forward, saucy boy or youth; conceited young fellow; a coxcomb. FS (1-R&J); Pickering Horestes; Underdowne History; Lyly Bombie; Nashe Absurdity, Penniless; (anon.) Locrine.
prosperous (a): favorable, auspicious, generous. FS (Timon); Pickering Horestes; Nashe Lenten Stuff.
puissant (a): powerful. FS (11); Golding Ovid; Devices; Pickering Horestes; Peele Phoenix; Munday Zelauto; Marlowe T1; Kyd Sp Tr; Nashe Unf Trav; (anon.) Woodstock, Mucedorus, Leic Gh.
reprehension (n): rebuke, censure. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes (OED missed this 4th citation); (anon.) Arden; Sidney Arcadia.
ruddock (n): (1) robin redbreast. FS (1-Cymb); Edwards Dam&Pith. (2) coin. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes; Lyly Midas; Drayton et al Oldcastle. Not in OED.
ruinate (v): ruin, destroy. FS (3H6, Sonnet 10); Pickering Horestes. OED 2st citation: 1548 Hall Chron (missed Horestes).
Chron (missed Horestes).
sauce-box (n): person addicted to making saucy remarks. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes; (anon.) Marprelate (1st OED citation), Locrine.
seely/sielie (a): silly, simple, innocent, vulnerable. FS (many); Brooke Romeus; Devices; Ovid Golding; Pickering Horestes; Churchyard De Tristibus; Bedingfield Cardanus; many others.
sequest (v): follow. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes (only 2 OED citations).
shent (a): disgraced, ruined, reviled. FS (5-MWW, 12th, T&C, Ham, Corio); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid; Pickering Horestes; Edwards Dam&Pith; Lyly Endymion; Greene Card of Fancy; (anon.) Penelope.
sooth (n): truth, faith, sometimes flattery. The meaning in Ironside may be, ironically, "untruths". FS (6-Rich2, H5, WT, 12th, AsYou, Pericles); Pickering Horestes; Devices; Edwards Dam&Pith; Gascoigne Supposes; Lyly Endymion, Woman/Moon; Kyd Sol&Per, Cornelia; Marlowe/Nashe: Dido; Greene James IV; (anon.) Woodstock, Ironside, Nobody/Somebody; Drayton et al Oldcastle; (disp.) Greene's Groat; Chapman D'Olive; Marston Malcontent.
sought: sooth, truth (see above.)
stomach/stomacke (n, v): (1) appetite for, inclination. FS (MV, Temp); Golding Ovid (used throughout); Greene Alphonsus; (anon.) Dodypoll. (2) temper, pride. FS (3-Shrew, Rich2, H8); Painter Palace; Pickering Horestes; Golding Ovid; Devices; Lyly Endymion; Greene G a G; Alphonsus; (anon.) Marprelate, Ironside, Weakest; Spenser FQ; Harvey Pierce's Super; Sidney Antony. (3) disposition. FS (Lear, Ado); Golding Ovid.
stour (v): stir up. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes
stour/stowre/stoor (n): battle. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes; (anon.) Locrine.
stout (a): (1) bold, resolute. FS (3-2H6, 1H4, John); Brooke Romeus; Painter Palace; Golding Ovid, Abraham; Devices; Pickering Horestes; Greene Orl Fur, Fr Bacon; Sidney Arcadia; (anon.) Ironside, Arden, Willobie, Penelope, Leic Gh.
strike/stryke (n): denomination of dry measure: bundle, bushel, handful (or corn stalks). NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes.
swing/swindge (v): beat, thrash. FS (2H4, John); Pickering Horestes; Lyly Bombie.
swaddle/zwaddle (v): beat soundly. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes.
syth (v): sigh. Cf. Pickering Horestes.
tretably (adv): Not in OED. Axton suggests "moderately".
trick (a): trim, neat, well adorned. FS (Ham); Pickering Horestes; Greene & Lodge Looking Gl; Sidney Arcadia.
tricksy (a): (1) artfully trimmed. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes. (2) clever. FS (MV, Temp); Marston Scourge; Dekker Honest Wh. tricksy (v) to make spruce, trim. Cf. Florio Nimfarsi.
trow (v): think, believe confidently. FS (16); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid, Abraham; Pickering Horestes; Churchyard De Tristibus; Devices; Sundrie Flowers (E/N); Edwards Dam&Pith; Lodge Wounds, Greene G a G, Alphonsus, James IV; Marlowe Jew/Malta, Edw2; (anon.) Woodstock, Marprelate, Ironside, Willobie; Drayton et al Oldcastle; Pasquil Apology; Phoenix; Chapman Bl Beggar.
trump/trompe (n): one who or that which proclaims, celebrates, or summons loudly like a trumpet; esp. in trump of fame and the like. NFS. Cf. Udall Eras; Brooke Romeus; Devices; Pickering Horestes.
tryccom (n): Not listed in OED. Axton suggests "trickery".
waniand/wanion (n): vengeance (refers to waning moon; use as an imprecation, with a waniand). FS (Per); Pickering Horestes; Peele Wives; Nashe Saffron.
wearied (ppa): worried, harassed.
whart (n): quart.
whether (n): which of the two. FS (AWEW); Pickering Horestes; Stubbes Anatomy.
wight (n): living being. FS (8-H5, LLL, MWW, Pericles, Oth); Brooke Romeus; Golding Ovid, Abraham; Oxford poem; Pickering Horestes; many others.
withsay (n): contradict, deny. NFS. Cf. Pickering Horestes. This is an early word, apparently dying out during this period. Last 2 OED citations: 1530 Palsgr. ; 1567 Turberv. Ovid's Ep.
Suggested Reading
Axton, Marieed. Three Tudor Classical Interludes. Cambridge, D. S. Brewer; Totowa, NJ, Rowman and Littlefield. 1982.
The Bible (Geneva Version, Fascimile 1560 ed.). Columbus, Ohio, Lazarus Ministry Press, 1998.
George, Jodie Ann. "A pestelaunce on the crabyd queane: The Hybrid Nature of John Pikeryng's Horestes." Sederi: yearbook of the Spanish and Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies, N0. 14 (2004). This article discusses the possibility that Horestes might be a commentary on the murder of Lord Darnley. Link on "Discargar Articulo" to download the article. (Thanks for Nina Green providing this information.)
http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/listaarticulos?tipo_busqueda=ANUALIDAD&revista_busqueda=7539&clave_busqueda=200
Pickering, John. Horestes. Malone Society reprint. This hard-to-find book contains words and score for musical interludes in Horestes.
Shaheen, Naseeb. Biblical References in Shakespeare's Comedies. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1993.
Biblical References in Shakespeare's History Plays. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1989.
Biblical References in Shakespeare's Tragedies. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1987
Showerman, Earl. "Orestes and Hamlet From Myth to Masterpiece, Part I". The Oxfordian: The Annual Journal of the
Shakespeare Oxford Society, No. 7 (2004).
Stritmatter, Roger. The Marginalia of Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible" Providential Discovery, Literary Reasoning, and
Historical Consequence (a dissertation). Northampton, Mass., Oxenford Press, 2001.
Tilley, Morris Palmer. Elizabethan Proverb Lore in Lyly's Euphues and in Pettie's Petite Pallace. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926.
APPENDIX II: Connections
Legal terms
Legal term: Break FAITH.
Pickering Horestes (1132-33) HER: The gods never prolong my life, that day I shall appear / To break my faith, to thee now plight, my loving lord so dear.
Brooke Romeus (2029): Have kept my faith unbroke, steadfast unto my friend.
Golding Ovid Met (VII.1076): For breaking faith: and fretting at a vain surmised shame
MB Devices (67.16): For an example to the rest, if I shall break my faith.
Gascoigne ... Jocasta (II.1.437) JOCASTA: Of friendly faith which never can be broke.
Shakes LLL (I.1) BIRON: If I break faith, this word shall speak for me;
(IV.3) FERDINAND: You would for paradise break faith, and troth;
Rich3 (IV.4) Q ELIZ ... If thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him, / If thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him, / Thy broken faith hath made a prey for worms.
Rich2 (III.2) RICHARD II: ... They break their faith to God as well as us:
Edw3 (II.1) WARWICK: That he hath broke his faith with God and man,
K. EDW.: (IV.4) Which if thyself without consent do break, / Thou art not charged with the breach of faith.
King John (II.1) BASTARD: ... That broker, that still breaks the pate of faith, / That daily break-vow, he that wins of all, ... / Since kings break faith upon commodity,
2H4 (4.2) ARCHB OF YORK: Will you thus break your faith?
MND (II.1) OBERON: And make him with fair AEgle break his faith,
MV (V.1) ANT: My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord / Will never more break faith advisedly.
T&C (V.3) HECTOR: I must not break my faith.
Pericles (I.2) PERICLES: I'll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath:
Anon. Ironside (I.1.120): AYLWARD: Remember he hath often broke his faith
Willobie (XXXVII.2): Your words command the lawless rite, . Of Plato's laws that freedom gave, / That men and women for delight, / Might both in common freely have, / Yet God doth threaten cruel death, / To them that break their wedlock faith. [Note: In Plato his commonwealth all women were common, contrary to the commandment of God. Exod. 20, 14. Levit. 18. 20, 29. (No Match)]
(LIIII.2): Though some there be, that have done ill, / And for their fancy broke their faith:
Legal term: PARRICIDE; Prosecute ... revenge.
Pickering Horestes (420-431): HORESTES: Who offendeth the love of God, and eke man's love with willing heart / Must by [that] love have punishment as duty due for his dessert. / For me therefor to punish here, as law of gods and man doth will, / Is not a crime, though that I do, as thou dost say, my mother kill.
NATURE: The cruel beasts that range in fields, whose jaws to blood are wet, / Do not consent their mothers' paunch in cruel wise to eat: / The tiger fierce doth not desire the ruin of his kind; / And shall Dame Nature now in thee such tyranny once find / As not the cruel beasts vouchsafe to do in aney case? / Leave now, I say, Horestes mine, and to my words give place, / Lest that of men this fact of thine may judged for to be / Ne law, in sooth, ne justice eke, but cruel tyranny.
Greene Orl Fur (IV.1.33) MANDRICARD: To prosecute revenge against Marsilius,
Selimus (II.1.127-34) SELIMUS: And yet I think, think other what they will, / That parricide, when death hath given them rest, / Shall have as good a part as have the best; / And that's just nothing: for as I suppose / In Death's void kingdom reigns eternal Night, / Secure of evil and secure of foes, / Where nothing doth the wicked man affright, / No more than him that dies in doing right.
See also 26.3-13.
Anon. Leir (22.103-108) CAMBRIA: But I will prove her title to be nought / But shame, and the reward of Parricide, / And make her an example to the world, / For after-ages to admire her penance. / This will I do, as I am Cambrian King, / Or lose my life, to prosecute revenge.
Disp. Greene's Groat: and as ye would deal with so many parricides, cast them into the fire; ...
Shakes Lear (II.1) EDMUND Persuade me to the murder of your lordship; / But that I told him, the revenging gods / 'Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend;
(V.3) REGAN: [to Edmund] Let the drum strike, and prove my title thine.
Titus (IV.1) MARCUS: That we will prosecute by good advice / Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths,
Bible 1 Tim 1.9 refers to parricides, "murtherers of fathers and mothers" (No Match).
Proverbs, Epigrams, Wit and Wisdom, Science and Natural History
Proverb: Of DELAY.
Heywood Proverbs, #7: He that will not when he may, / When he would he shall have nay. / But to that nay, nay I say: / If of my wife I delay, / To take shrewd words: yet that stay / Stayeth them not from me next day.
Pickering Horestes (197-98) HORESTES: As you, good sir, the messenger of gods, as you do say? / Will they in revenging this wrong I make not long delay?
Aesop Fable: The loiterer often blames delay on his more active friend.
Proverb: It is useless to KICK against the blows.
Heywood Proverbs, #254: Folly to spurn or kick against the hard wall. / Being shod with cakebred, that spurner marth all. ... Otherwise: Folly to spurn or kick against the hard wall, / But against soft walls spurners spurn and kick all.
Pickering Horestes (976-77) HORESTES: I did but that I could not choose; it's hard for me to kick, / Sith the gods command, as one would say, in faith, against the prick.
Oxford letter (1-3-76, to Lord Burghley): It is but vain calcitrare contra li buoi (it is useless to kick against the blows)
Anon. Pasquil Apology (para 24): What is this, I pray you, but to fall groveling to the earth in the questions and controversies scanned between us, and being down, to use the last refuge, to kick and spurn?
True Trag (1025) SHORE'S WIFE: by reason he knew it bootless to kick against the prick.
Shakes Errors (III.1.17): Marry, so it doth appear / By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear, / I should kick, being kick'd; and being at the pass, / You would keep from my heels and beware of an ass.
Bible Acts 9. 5 It is hard for thee to kick against pricks. 26.14.So when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against pricks. (No Match).
Proverb: Too LATE to shut the stable door when the steed/horse is stolen.
Pickering Horestes (225) VICE: When steed is stolen, to late it is to shut the stable door.
(742-43) VICE: it is too late / When steed is stolen, for you in sooth to shut the stable gate.
Lyly Euphues Wit: It is too late to shut the stable door when the steed is stolen.
Pettie Palace (I.175-76): it is too late to shut the stable door when the steed is stolen.
Underdowne History: This is when the steed is stolen, to shut the stable door.
See Tilley, Eliz. Proverb Lore, #378.
Proverb: Give MEASURE for measure: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
Bedingfield Cardanus (III: 98b): Thereby we are taught to be mindful of another life, and that we ought not to do that to another, which we would not have done to ourselves.
Pickering Horestes (920-21) FAME: For look, what measure thou dost meet, the same again shall be / At other time, at other's hand, repaid again to thee.
Lyly Euphues Wit: I will pray that thou mayest be measured unto with the like measure that thou hast meten unto another.
Pettie Palace: For it is God's word and will that such measure as is met met shall be measured again. ... They which deal vigorously with other,shall be rudely dealt withal themselves.
Munday Zelauto (p. 71): If you knew what God is, you would then consider with yourselves, how you should do to another man as you would be done to yourself.
(92) and work no worse to her, than you would to your own selves.
(175): seeing you should use to all men as you would be dealt withal.
Greene GaG (II.3.139-42): GEORGE: Why, my Lord, measure me but by yourself. / Had you a man had served you long and heard your foe / misuse you behind your back, and would not draw his sword / in your defense, you would cashier him.
Shakes 3H6 (II.6.55): Measure for measure must be answered.
MM (V.1.416): Like doth quite like, and Measure still for Measure.
Bible Matt. 7.2 (No Match).
See Tilley, Eliz. Proverb Lore, #436-37.
Proverb: Take TIME in time ere time be taken.
Heywood Proverbs, #285: Take time when time cometh, we are oftimes told of it, / But when time cometh, yet can we take no hold of it. ... Otherwise: Take time when time cometh, assay to be bold of it, / But slipper[y] as an eel's tail is the hold of it. ... Otherwise: Take time when time cometh, are we set time to take? / Beware time, in mean time, take not us in brake, ... Otherwise: Take time when time cometh, when time cometh thou sayst well / But when cometh good time to take, I cannot tell.
Pickering Horestes (226) VICE: Take time, I say, while time doth give a leisure good therefore.
Pettie Palace: Therefore to avoid inconveniences, take time in time.
Greene Alphonsus (IV.148-49) BELINUS:Let us make haste and take time while we may, / For mickle danger hapneth through delay.
Farmeer Madrigals: Take time while time doth last,
See Tilley Eliz. Proverb Lore,#629.
Proverb: TIME and tide tarry for no man.
Heywood Proverb, #170: The tide tarryeth no man. but here to scan, / Thou art tied so, that thou tarryest every man.
Gosson Abuse: They do but tarry the tide: watch opportunity, and wait for the reckoning,
Pickering Horestes (280): IDU: Take them forthwith and forward go; let slip no time ne tide, / For chance to leisure to be bound, I tell you, cannot bide.
Whetstone Devices (110.85): Think on thy end. the tide for none doth wait,
Anon. Pleasant Delights (Scoff of a Lady): The tide will not tarry, / All times it doth vary,
Lyly Euphues Eng: Euphues knowing the tide would tarry for no man ...
Endimion (IV.2.9-12) EPITON: Why? You know it is said, the tide tarrieth no man. ... SAMIAS: True. ... EPITON: A monstrous lie; for I was tied two hours, and tarried for one to unloose me.
Munday Zelauto: the tide tarryeth no man, and when we are assured of our wished Jewel: then may we defer the time as long as we list.
Lodge Wounds (V.5.326-28) SCILLA: My Flaccus, worldly joys and pleasures fade. / Inconstant time, like to the fleeting tide, / With endless course man's hopes doth overbear.
Rosalind: Til at last Aliena perceived time would tarry no man,
Shakes TGV: (III.3.39-41) PANTHINO: Away, ass! you'll lose the tide, if you tarry any longer.
LAUNCE: It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the unkindest tied that ever any man tied.
Anon. Pasquil Counter (para 10): In the mean season, because the Wind and the Tide will stay for no Man,
See Tilley, Eliz. Proverb Lore, #627; Howell English Proverbs, #7 and #10.
Proverb: TRUTH is the Daughter of Time.
Lempriere's Classical dictionary indicates that Veritas (truth) was considered the daughter of Saturn (time) -- the Greek equivalents would have been Chronos (or Kronos) and Aletheia -- though Lempriere doesn't so specifically state. His work is more Latinate than Greek in his references. But this had to have been a common Greek and Roman tradition -- and no doubt a commonplace in the renaissance.
Aulus Gellius (AD 130-180): Truth is the daughter of time
Another old poet: Truth is the daughter of Time.
Giordano Bruno:"For upholding this second view of science, Giordano Bruno was imprisoned for seven years and, when it was seen that in spite of the repeated tortures he would not agree even to a partial recantation was finally put to death. It must be kept in mind that in the famous passage in which Bruno sums up his cosmology with the motto veritas temporis filia (a motto that was later adopted by Galileo)..." (De immenso, VI, 19; Op. lat. I, 2, 229)
Irish coin (1553) VERITAS: TEMPORIS: FILIA: M:D:LIII
Pickering Horestes (1178) TRUTH: He that leadeth his life as his fancy doth like, / Though for a while the same he may hide, / [Yet] Truth, the daughter of Time, will it seek, / And so in time it will be descried,
Whitney Choice of Emblems 4 (1586) Veritas Filia Temporis
Bacon: Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.
Note: Thanks to Andy Hanna, Robert Brazil, and Mark Alexander for classical background and citations.
Proverb: Rash Ventring/VENTURING.
Heywood Proverbs, #160: I will set all, even at syxe and at seven, / Ye, and repent all, betwene ten and eleven.
Pickering Horestes (1070-72): Ye, and thates worsse, when I sought to venture, / I was dryven with out comfort awaye from their gate; / I was glad to be packinge for feare of my pate.
See also: Heywood Prov. #77.
Proverb: WORDS are but wind.
Pickering Horestes (146) VICE: Tout, tout, Rusticus, these words be but wind.
Hill Devices (68.5): But now I see, that words are nought but wind,
Gascoigne Supposes (II.8) SIENNESE: since I have received no greater injury than by words, let them pass like wind, I take them well in worth:
Jocasta (V.5.110] CREON: Thou doest but waste thy words amid the wind.
Lyly Euphues Eng: ... that the painted words were but wind,
Woman/Moon (II.1.234) STESIAS: Her hardest words are but a gentle wind;
Pettie Palace: ... he shall find their words to be but wind, their faith forgery, ...
Greene Card (para 59): She that is won with a word will be lost with a wind;
Anon. Leir (3.40) GONORILL: Which cannot be in windy words rehearsed,
Ironside (III.1.29-30) CANTERBURY: Stay, York, and hear me speak. Thy puffy words, / thy windy threats, thy railing curses,
Arden (I.1.436-37) ALICE: ... oaths are words, and words is wind, / And wind is mutable.
Shakes Errors (III.1) DROMO/EPHESUS: A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind, / Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.
Ado (V.2) BEATRICE: A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind, / Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.
Lucrece (190): And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words.
Pass Pilg (XXI): Words are easy, like the wind;
Nashe Summers (1489) SUMMER: Words have their course, the wind blows where it lists;
Munday Zelauto (p. 178): ... this is but a trifle, and your words are now to be esteemed as wind,
John a Kent (1.4) SIR GRIFFIN: Wind-breathed words are vainer than the wind;
Huntington (III.17) ROBIN: For the rough storm thy windy words hath raised
Chapman D'Olive (II.2.244-46) D'Olive: whether by answering a fool I should myself seem / no less; or by giving way to his wind (for words are but / wind) might betray the cause;
See Tilley, Eliz. Proverb Lore, #713.
Religious/Biblical
(MARKED means marked in Oxford's copy of the Geneva Bible)
(No Match means not marked in Oxford's copy of the Geneva Bible)
Sin: ADULTERY, PARRICIDE.
Pickering Horestes (187) HOR: Or shall I let the adultress dame still wallow in her sin?
Nashe Penniless: Clytemnestra, that slew her husband to enjoy the Adulterer Ægistus, and bathed herself in milk every day to make her young again, had a time when she was ashamed to view herself in a looking-Glass, and her body withered, her mind being green.
Shakes Edw3 (II.1) COUNTESS: In violating marriage sacred law, / You break a greater honor than yourself:
Anon. Willobie (XVIII.2): To seek to spoil his neighbor's wife,
(XXVI.5) No sin to break the wedlock faith?
(XXXVII.2): Your words command the lawless rite, / Of Plato's laws that freedom gave, / That men and women for delight, / Might both in common freely have, / Yet God doth threaten cruel death, / To them that break their wedlock faith. / Note: In Plato his commonwealth all women were common, contrary to the commandment of God.
Disp. Greene's Groat: for my gluttony, I suffer hunger; for my drunkenness, thirst; for my adultery, ulcerous sores
Bible (No Match, passages that follow) Exod. 20.14 Thou shalt not commit adultery; 20.17 ... neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour's wife, ... nor anything that is thy neighbor's. Lev.18.20,29. Deut. 5.18 Neither shalt thou commit adultery; 5.21 Neither shalt thou covet thy neighbor's wife, nor ought that is thy neighbor hath.
ALL HAIL ... Sovereign.
Pickering Horestes (244-45) HORESTES: At hand, O king, thy servant is, which wisheth to thy grace/ All hail with happy fate certain, with pleasures many fold.
Anon. Mucedorus (III.5.6-7) MESS: All hail, worthy shepherd. ... MOUSE: All reign, lowly shepherd.
Lyly Campaspe (II.1.5) PSYLLUS: All hail, Diogenes, to your proper person.
Endymion (II.2.104) SAMIAS: Sir Tophas, all hail!
(V.2.52) SAMIAS: All hail, Sir Tophas, how feel you yourself?
Kyd Sol&Per (II.1.30) BASILISCO: All hail, brave cavalier.
Anon. Ironside (V.1.25-29) EDRICUS: All hail unto my gracious sovereign! ... STITCH: Master, you'll bewray yourself, do you say / 'all hail' and yet bear your arm in a scarf? That's hale indeed. ... EDRICUS: All hail unto my gracious sovereign!
Leic Gh. (1904): Even they betrayed my life that cried all hail.
Shakes 3H6 (V.7) GLOUC: ... And cried 'all hail!' when as he meant / all harm.
Rich2 (IV.1) KING RICH: Did they not sometime cry, 'all hail!' to me? ...
TNK (III.5.102) SCHOOLMASTER Thou doughty Duke, all hail! ~~~ All hail, sweet ladies.
Nashe Summers (305-06): SOLS: All hail to Summer, my dread / sovereign Lord.
Note: Shaheen points out that no English Bible translation uses the phrase 'all hail' and that Shakespeare seems to derive the phrase from the medieval play The Agony and the Betrayal.
Note: If the authors of Mucedorus and Lyly use this phrase deliberately, it is with supreme irony; whereas the Leicester's Ghost phrase is very obviously meant to relate to the Biblical narration, but also with ironic overtones. Religious connotation in Horestes seems dubious.
Commandments: BLOOD for Blood; Eye for Eye, etc.
Golding Ovid Met (XV.194-95): Forbear (I speak by prophesy) your kinsfolks' ghosts to chase / By slaughter: neither nourish blood with blood in any case.
Pickering Horestes: (443) HOR: ... that blood for blood my father's death doth crave,
Gascoigne ... Jocasta (II.1.546-47) POLY: And who is he that seeks to have my blood, / And shall not shed his own as fast as mine?
(IV.1.253-54) CHORUS: Can flesh of flesh, alas can blood of blood, / So far forget itself, as slay itself?
(IV.1.334) CREON: Why should my blood be spilt for other's guilt?
Lodge Wounds (IV.1.301-02) CORNELIA: No, Marius, but for every drop of blood / And inch of wrong, he shall return thee two.
Marlowe T2 (IV.1.145) JERU: And with our bloods, revenge our bloods on thee
Kyd Sp Tr (III.6.410-12) HIER: Peace, impudent; for thou shalt find it so; / For blood with blood shall, while I sit as judge, / Be satisfied, and the law discharg'd.
Greene Fr Bac (IV.3.51) SERLS: Who will revenge his father's blood with blood.
Shakes 1H6 (IV.6) TALBOT: And misbegotten blood I spill of thine, / Mean and right poor, for that pure blood of mine
King John (I.1) KING: Here have we war for war and blood for blood,
(II.1) 1 CIT: Blood hath bought blood and blows have answered blows
R&J (III.1) LADY CAP: For blood of ours, shed blood of Montague.
Mac (III.4) MAC: It will have blood, they say. Blood will have blood.
Anon. True Trag (I.1) GHOST: Cresce cruor! Sanguis satietur sanguine! / Cresce, Quod spero citò. O citò, citò, vendicta! [ Increase, blood! Let blood be satiated by blood!Rise up that which I hope for, quickly! O quickly, quickly, revenge!]
Arden (V.5.10-11) ALICE: And let me meditate upon my Saviour Christ, / Whose blood must save me for the blood I shed.
Penelope (L.2): For blood shall I pay blood again.
Munday John a Kent (1.44) POWYS: but blood for blood shall duly be repaid.
Bible (No Match) Gen. 3.6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. Num. 35. (27) And the revenger of blood find him without the borders of the city of his refuge, and the revenger of blood kill the slayer; he shall not be guilty of blood: (33) So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it. 1 Kings 21.19 Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine. Matt. 23.35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
FAME ... Valor ... Death.
Pickering Horestes (896-97) FAME: What caused some for country's soil themselves to peril cast, / But that they knew that after death that fame of theirs shall last?
Lodge Wounds (III.2.54) MARIUS: Till they their shame, and I my fame attain by death.
Marlowe Edw2 (I.5.6-7)EDWARD: Give me my horse, and let's reinforce our troups / And in this bed of honor die with fame.
Anon. True Trag (398) RICHARD: Valor brings fame, and fame conquers death.
Shakes Ado (V.3) Done to death by slanderous tongues / Was the Hero that here lies: / Death, in guerdon of her wrongs, / Gives her fame which never dies. / So the life that died with shame / Lives in death with glorious fame.
GOD ... Mighty hand.
Brooke Romeus (2905): Whose mighty hand doth wield them in their violent sway,
Pickering Horestes (401) HORESTES: Show now that ye be gods in deed, stretch out your mighty hand
Golding Ovid Met (II.626): But God almighty held his hand, and lifting both away
(V.465): And he that rules the powers on Earth obey thy mighty hand:
Watson Hek (LVII): Persuade yourselves, Love hath a mighty hand, (matches Deut. 7.8)
Marlowe T1 (II.5.4) TAMB: Even by the mighty hand of Tamburlaine,
(V.1) SULTAN: Mighty hath God and Mahomet made thy hand
Note: Many lines seem to equate the power of Tamburlaine with that of God, using familiar Biblical allusions (including the phrase mighty arm twice in T1).
Anon. Woodstock (V.4.440-41) KING: and that almighty hand permits not / murder unrevenged to stand.
Willobie (IX.2): On worldly fear, you think I stand, / Or fame that may my shame resound, / No Sir, I fear his mighty hand, / That will both you and me confound,
Bible Deut. 7.8 ... the Lord hath brought you out by a mighty hand and delivered you out of the house of bondage from the hand of Pharaoh King of Egypt (MARKED).
Deut. 4.34 ... and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great fear, according unto all that the Lord your God did unto you in Egypt... (No Match, NEAR 4.31)
Deut. 19 2.The great temptations which thine eyes saw, ... and the mighty hand, ... so shall the LORD thy God do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid. (No Match)
Other Biblical uses of "mighty hand" omit the factors of fear and temptation. Gen. 49.24; Exod. 3.19 ; Exod. 32.11;,Deut. 3.24, 5.15, 6.21, 7.8. 9.26, 11.42, 26.40, 34.12; 2 Chron. 6.32; Ezek. 20.33, 34; 1 Esdras 8.47; 8.61; 1 Pet. 5.6
GOD ... Sees/directs everything ... Sparrow.
Pickering Horestes (183-84) HORESTES: Oh gods, therefore, sith you be just, unto whose power and will / All thing in heaven and earth also obey and serve until,
Brooke Romeus (2187-88): Then go (quoth he) my child, I pray that God on high / Direct thy foot, and by thy hand upon the way thee gye [guide]:
(2872-73): That no respect of hours, ought justly to be had, / But at all times men have the choice of doing good or bad;
Gascoigne ... Jocasta (III.2.84) MENECEUS: But God it seeth that every secret seeth
(III.2.164): Who thinks that Jove the maker of us all, / And he that tempers all in heaven on high, The sun, the moon, the stars celestial, / So that no leaf without his leaue can fall, / Hath not in him omnipotence also / To guide and govern all things here below?
Supposes (II.8) PHILOGANO: you should have feared the vengeance of God the supreme judge (which knoweth the secrets of all hearts)
Lyly Euphues Eng: Do you think Gentleman that the mind being created of God, can be ruled by man, or that anyone can move the heart, but he that made the heart?
Greene James IV (II.I.28-29) IDA: God with a beck can change each worldly thing, / The poor to rich, the beggar to the king.
(III.3.68) SIR BARTRAM: God will conduct your steps and shield the right.
Anon. Ironside (V.1.12): ULF: Surely, my lord, you are highly favored / of God, who sees each human action, ...
Fair Em (V.1.198) EM: That pleaseth God, which all things doth dispose --
Leir (3.7) LEIR: None knows, but he, that knows my thoughts & secret deeds.
(19.138-43) LEIR: Is Queen of France, no thanks at all to me, / But unto God, who my injustice see. / If it be so, that she doth seek revenge, As with good reason she may justly do, / I will most willingly resign my life, / A sacrifice to mitigate her ire:
Cromwell (I.3) FRISKIBALL: For God doth know what to myself may fall.
Leic Gh. (166-68) For though he may delude the People's sight, / It is in vain before God to dissemble, / Whose power the devils know, and knowing tremble.
Shakes AsYou (2.3.43-44) ADAM: He that doth the ravens feed, / Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, ...
Hamlet (V.2.168-69) HAM: Not a whit, we defy Augury; there's a special / Providence in the fall of a sparrow. (Q2, lines 3518-19, substantially the same; Q1, lines 2058-59: there's a predestinate providence / in the fall of a sparrow:)
Bible Matt. 10.29 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father? Luke 12.6: Are not five sparrows bought for two fardings, (No Match).
Proverb: It is useless to KICK against the blows. See Proverbs.
REPENT ... Late/too late.
Brooke Romeus (1137): And I that now too late my former fault repent,
(2582): To sell the thing, whose sale ere long, too late he doth repent.
Pickering Horestes (223-224) VYCE: Fall to it then and slack no time, for 'time once passed away / Doth cause repentance but too late to come,' old folks do say.
Golding Ovid Met (Ep.74): Repentance when it is too late that all redress is past.
(Ep.92): For fear that men too late to just repentance should be driven.
(Ep.180): Repentance when it is too late for thinking things amiss.
(II.770): Than all too late, alas too late gan Phebus to repent
Oxford letter (1-3-76, to Lord Burghley): Wherefore for things passed amiss to repent them it is to late, to help them, which I cannot but ease them that I am determined to hope for anything I do not, but if anything do happen preter spem
Gascoigne ... Jocasta (V.Ep.28) Who climbs too soon, he oft repents too late.
Lyly Gallathea (III.1) EUROTA: Tush Ramia, 'tis too late to recall it, to repent it a shame.
Anon. Ironside (III.2.34-35) HERALD: I fear your wills will put your wits to pain / and you repent it when it is too late.
Weakest (I.66): MERCURY: And with repentant thoughts for what is past,
Arden (V.5.18-19 ALICE: But now I find it, and repent too late.
Willobie (IV.1): Then to repent will be too late
(XII.6): I was thy friend, but now thy foe, / Thou hadst my heart, but now my hate, / Refusing wealth, God send thee woe, / Repentance now will come too late,
(XXX.5): Fond women oft repent too late.
Shakes Lear (I.4): Woe, that too late repents, --
Pass.Pil. (19): And then too late she will repent
Bible A number of verses combine the thought of repentance and time passing, including: Luke 10.13; Acts 3.10, 17.30; Eph. 5.15-16; and Rev. 2.5, 2.16 (both Rev. MARKED)
Rev.2.21 (see below) conforms to the Willobie passages concerning impure women).
Rev. 2.21 And I have her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not (MARKED).
TRUMPETS ... Blow.
Pickering Horestes (230) IDUMEUS: Whose praise throughout the world is blown by golden trump of Fame,
(322-25) SONG: The drum and flute play lustily. / The trumpet blows amain, / And vent'rous knights courageously / Do march before thear train:
Brooke Romeus (29): Whose praise with equal blast, fame in her trumpet blew:
Gascoigne ... Jocasta (IV.1.47) NUNCIUS: When dreadful blast of braying trumpets sound,
(V.2.730 NUNCIUS: So said Eteocles, and trumpets blown,
Edwards Dam&Pith (708) PITHIAS: But hark! Methink I hear a trumpet blow.
Anon. Willobie (XV.1): WHat now? what news? new wars in hand? / More trumpets blown of fond conceits?
Sun Tsu Art of War: and a drunk military man should order gallons and put out more flags in order to increase his military splendor.
Bible Matt. 6.2 The shalt not make a trumpet to be blown before thee, as the hypocrites do in the Synagogues, and in the streets, to be praised of men ... (MARKED).
Inversions: VIRTUE ... Vice.
Pickering Horestes (530-31) COUNCIL: And, as to waters from one head and fountain oft do spring, / So vice and virtue oft do flow from palace of a king;
(1196-98) DUTY: Likewise for her Council, that each of them may / Have the spirit of grace, their doings to direct. / In setting up virtue and vice to correct.
Golding Ovid Met (EP.562-64): To further or allure to vice: but rather this is meant, / That men beholding what they be when vice doth reign instead / Of virtue, should not let their lewd affections have the head.
Pref. (19): There was no virtue, no nor vice: there was no gift of mind
(Pref. 90): Decline from virtue unto vice and live disorderly,
(Pref.153): Each vice and virtue seems to speak and argue to our face,
Lyly Campaspe (II.2.19) ALEXANDER: Is love a vice? – HEPHESTION: ~~~ It is no virtue.
Gallathea (V.2) HAEBE: And what was honored in fruits and flowers as a virtue, / to violate in a virgin as a vice?
MB (V.3) MEMPHIO: Well, patience is a virtue, but pinching is worse than any vice.
Love's Met. (I.2) NIOBE: Inconstancy is a vice which I will not swap for all the virtues.
(II.1) CERES: ... and though to love, it be no vice, yet spotless virginity is the only virtue.
Shakes Rich3 (III.5) GLOU: So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue, ...
LLL (V.2) PRINCESS: You nickname virtue; vice you should have spoke; / For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.
King John (II.1) BASTARD: And being rich, my virtue then shall be / To say there is no vice but beggary.
Merchant (III.2) BASSANIO: There is no vice so simple but assumes / Some mark of virtue on his outward parts:
R&J (II.3) FRIAR LAURENCE: Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
Hamlet (III.4.158-60) HAM: ... Forgive me this my Virtue, / For in the fatness of this pursy times, / Virtue itself, of Vice must pardon beg, (Q2, lines 2351-53: substantially the same; not in Q1.)
Oth (II.3) IAGO: ... And give direction: and do but see his vice; / Tis to his virtue a just equinox,
Chettle Kind Hart: Everything hath in itself his virtue and his vice:
Anon. Willobie (I.18): Or virtue from a vice proceed?
(I.22): They find their vice by virtue crossed,
(XVIII.6): The time and place may not condemn, / The mind to vice that doth not sway, /But they that virtue do condemn, /By time and place, are led astray.
(XXVI.6): Your lewd examples will not serve, / To frame a virtue from a vice,
Leic Gh. (2236): He both in vice, and virtue, did excel.
Bible Wisd. of Salomon 5.13 ... and have showed no token of virtue, but are consumed in our own wickedness (MARKED). 7.30 ... but wickedness cannot overcome wisdom. (No Match)
See Shaheen, Comedies (191) ... re Measure for Measure, virtue, and Rom. 7.15, 19, 23 (No Match).
Authorship Considerations
Note: Within the eight entries, nineteen possible Biblical sources have been identified. Four are marked in Oxford's Geneva Bible, and one is very near a marked passage.
The De Vere Bible has 1063 marked verses [figures from Stritmatter].
Approximately 1,000 Biblical verses were used by Shakespeare.
Approximately 199 of the marked verses have been used by Shakespeare.
There are approximately 35,000 verses in the Bible [figures from Stritmatter].
Thus, roughly 1 in 5 of the verses marked in Oxford's Geneva Bible were used by Shakespeare.
Thus approximately 1 in 35 of all Biblical verses were used by Shakespeare.
Stritmatter waters down the Oxford factor somewhat by assuming that only 1/3 of the Biblical
verses are suitable for such references. Thus the favor of 1 in 35 would be reduced to approximately 1 in 10. The favored use of marked verses is still notable.
BF figures, including arguments and chapter heads, are similar but tilt slightly more toward the odds favoring use of marked passages.
The most "Shakespearean" of the texts on the elizabethanauthors site contain numerous passages that refer back to the Bible, showing heavy preference for the marked passages. Edmund Ironside in particular used many of the marked passages not used by texts of the acknowledged Shakespeare canon.
Note that 1 in 5 of the Biblical passages identified above, were marked in Oxford's Geneva Bible.
Functional Phrases, Imagery, Vocabulary, Other
BREATH ... Yield.
Pickering Horestes (733) CLYTEM: Let no man say that thou wast cause I yielded up my breath.
(815) HORESTES: And as thou hast been chiefest cause of yielding up thy breath,
Brooke Romeus (523): For pity and for dread well nigh to yield up breath.
(1057): Was wasted quite, and he thus yelding up his breath,
(1139): That soon my joiceless corps shall yield up banishd breath,
(1172): Alas what cause hast thou thus soon to yield up living breath?
(1423): With valiant hand thou madest thy foe yield up his breath,
(1820): (Before his time, forced by his foe) did yield his living breath,
(2961): With Romeus' dagger drawn, her heart and yielded breath,
Golding Ovid Met. (III.137): The third did straight as much for him and made him yield the breath,
(X.203): Upon the ground, so Hyacinth in yielding of his breath
Shakes 1H6 (IV.7) TALBOT: Speak to thy father ere thou yield thy breath!
Rich3 (V.3): Fainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath!
Due DESERT.
Golding Ovid Met (II.369): But put the case that my desert destruction duly crave,
(V.35): And which he hath by due desert of purchase dearly bought.
Pickering Horestes (421) HORESTES: Must by [that] love have punishment as duty due for his desert.
Hill Devices (36.3-4): To mortal creatures they assign / Their due deserts for recompense.
Heywood Devices (95.3): The doubtful hope, to reap my due desert,
Oxford poem (Cardanus): With due desert reward will never be.
Greene Pandosto (Para. 30): should have cause to think his rigor proceeded of due desert:
Disp. Greene's Groat (265): He simply gave to due desert her right,
Anon. True Trag (1468) CATESBY: else the due deserts of a traitor.
Willobie (commendation): But rather strive by due desert for like renown,
(LI.2): Love oft doth spring from due desert,
(LVII.2): Whose eyes discern the due deserts,
Penelope (I.2): Of those whom due desert doth crown
(I.5): His perfect zeal by due desert
DEVOID of.
Pickering Horestes: (1141) NOBELLES: Devoid of wars and civil strifes, ...
Brooke Romeus (618): Think that the whilst fair Juliet is not devoid of care.
Edwards Dam&Pith (765) EUBULUS: They live devoid of fear, their sleeps are sound, ...
Watson Hek (I): My heart devoid of cares did bathe in bliss,
(XXXVII): And yet through love remain devoid of blame:
(LXXXII): The life I led in Love devoid of rest
Greene Pandosto (Para. 24): the King, who quite devoid of pity commanded that ...
Anon. Leir (13.6) CORDELLA: When as I was devoid of worldly friends,
(19.319) LEIR: Since the other two are quite devoid of love;
(23.48) LEIR: In a strange country, and devoid of friends,
(28.8) KING: Devoid of sense, new-waked from a dream,
(29.5) 1 CAP: We are betrayed, and quite devoid of hope,
(30.66) CORDELLA: Fie, shameless sister, so devoid of grace,
Willobie (I.35): That mounts aloft, devoid of crime;
(XIII.3): I love to live devoid of crime,
(LXXIV.6): Devoid of lust, and foolish care,
Locrine (I.2.16) BRUTUS: Devoid of strength and of their proper force,
Shakes Hamlet Q1 only (202-204) HAM: O God, a beast / Devoid of reason would not have made / Such speed:
Titus (V.3.) LUCIUS: Her life was beast-like, and devoid of pity;
ELIZABETH (Queen) Identified.
Always the Same: Queen Elizabeth motto: semper eadem (always the same).
Pickering Horestes DUTY: For your gentle patience we geve you thanks, heartily; / And therefore, our duty weighed, let us all pray / For Elizabeth our Queen, whose gracious majesty / May reign over us in health for aye; / Likewise for her Council, that each of them may / Have the spirit of grace, their doings to direct. / In setting up virtue and vice to correct.
Sundrie Flowers (Ever/Never) Gascoigne's Passion (9): Always in one and evermore shall be,
Edwards Dam&Pith (1758-60) EUB: But chiefly yet, as duty bindeth, I humbly crave / True friendship and true friends, full fraught with constant faith, / The giver of friends, the Lord, grant her, most noble Queen Elizabeth!
(1768-74) SONG: The Lord grant her such friends, most noble Queen Elizabeth! / Long may she govern in honor and wealth, / Void of all sickness, in most perfect health! / Which health to prolong, as true friends require, / God grant she may have her own heart's desire, / Which friends will defend with most steadfast faith. / The Lord grant her such friends, most noble queen Elizabeth!
Anon. True Trag (2265 ff.) QUEEN: Worthy Elizabeth, a mirror in her age, by whose / wise life and civil government, her country was defended from / the cruelty of famine, fire and sword, war's fearful messengers. / This is that Queen, as writers truly say, / That God had marked down to live for aye. ' Then happy England mongst thy neighbor isles, / For peace and plenty still attends on thee; / And all the favorable Planets smiles / To see thee live, in such prosperity. / She is that lamp that keeps fair England's light, / And through her faith her country lives in peace. / And she hath put proud Antichrist to flight, / And been the means that civil wars did cease. / Then England, kneel upon thy hairy knee, / And thank that God that still provides for thee. / The Turk admires to hear her government, / And babies in Jewry, sound her princely name, / All Christian Princes to that Prince hath sent, / After her rule was rumored forth by fame. / The Turk hath sworn never to lift his hand, / To wrong the Princess of this blesséd land. / 'Twere vain to tell the care this Queen hath had, / In helping those that were oppressed by war, / And how her Majesty hath still been glad, / When she hath heard of peace, proclaim'd from far. / Geneva, France, and Flanders hath set down, / The good she hath done, since she came to the crown. / For which, if e'er her life be ta'en away, / God grant her soul may live in heaven for aye. / For if her Grace's days be brought to end, / Your hope is gone, on whom did peace depend.
Nashe Summers (132-38): SUMMER: And died I had indeed unto the earth, / But that Eliza, England's beauteous Queen, / On whom all seasons prosperously attend, / Forbad the execution of my fate, / Until her joyful progress was expir'd. / For her doth Summer live, and linger here, / And wisheth long to live to her content;
(1841-58) SUMMER: Unto Eliza, that most sacred Dame, / Whom none but Saints and Angels ought to name, / All my fair days remaining I bequeath, ...To wait upon her till she be return'd.
Anon. Willobie Always the same/Avisa: (XXXII, XLI, XLIII, LXII, LXXII)
Leic. Gh. Many.
Shakes Sonnet (76): ... Why write I still all one, ever the same,
Chapman D'Olive (IV.2.59-61) D'OLIVE: They are deceived that think so; I must confess / it would make a fool proud, but for me, I am semper / idem.
FORTUNE ... Spite/friend.
Brooke Romeus (2745): Where spiteful Fortune hath appointed thee to be,
Golding Ovid Met (VII.580): But that there followed in the neck a piece of fortune's spite.
Pickering Horestes (234) IDUMEUS: Through Fortune's spite is caught, alack, within old Meroe's net;
Anon. E.S. Devices: (50.25-27): But such is Fortune's hate I say, / Such is her will on me to wreak: / Such spite she hath at me alway,
Gascoigne ... Jocasta (I.1.43) CHORUS: That now complains of fortune's cruel spite.
Supposes (II.3) DAMON: oh spiteful fortune, thou doest me wrong I think,
Watson Hek (LXXXVII): My song shall be; Fortune hath spit her spite,
Lodge Wounds (I.1.317) GRANIUS: Ambition makes fell Fortune's spiteful thralls.
Greene G a G (I.4.50) BETTRIS: Oh lovely George, fortune be still thy friend!
(II.3.3) GEORGE: And fancy, being checked by fortune's spite,
Munday John a Kent (8.22-23) MARIAN: Not I, Sidanen, I with you complain / On fortune's spite and over-deep disdain.
Shakes 3H6 (IV.7): Therefore, that I may conquer fortune's spite
AWEW (V.2): ... let the justices make you and fortune friends:
Sonnet (37): So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite,
Sonnet (90): Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
Anon. True Trag (2003) KING: Daunted before by fortune's cruel spite,
Locrine (II.4.41) ALBA: By Humber's treacheries and fortune's spites.
Willobie (III.7): And fortune's friends, felt fortune's spite:
Leic Gh. (1327): Received his deadly wound through fortune's spite;
(1635): Even so, when Fortune, through my foes' despite,
PIN: worthless value of.
Pickering Horestes (57) VYCE: Tut, tut, for the blows he set not a pin!
(621) CLYTEM: The walls be strong and for his force I sure set not a pin.
(705) CLYTEM: By him and his, tell him in sooth, we do not set a pin.
Greene Alphonsus (I.1.160) ALPH: Whoere it be, I do not pass a pin,
Lodge Rosalind: I'll count your power not worth a pin;
Shakes TGV (II.7) LUCETTA: A round hose, madam, now's not worth a pin, / Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.
LLL (IV.3) BIRON: By the world, I would not care / a pin, if the other three were in.
MWW (I.1) Shallow: Tut, a pin! this shall be answered.
Hamlet (I.1.69) HAM: I do not set my life in a pin's fee. (Q1, line 447; Q2, line 671)
MM (II.2) LUCIO: if you should need a pin, / You could not with more tame a tongue desire it:
(III.1) ISA: O, were it but my life, / I'ld throw it down for your deliverance / As frankly as a pin.
Munday More HARRY: I'll not bate ye a pin on't Sir, for, by this cudgel tis true.
STATE ... Quiet.
Pickering Horestes (240) IDUMEUS: In quiet state, there also is this worthy real tree.
Golding Ovid Met (II.482-83): My lot (quoth he) hath had enough of this unquiet state / From first beginning of the world.
Gascoigne ... Jocasta (I.1.460) CHORUS: What careful toil to quiet state it brings,
(II.2) CHORUS: Of our estate that erst in quiet stood.
(IV.1.317) CREON: A quiet end of her unquiet state.
Watson Hek I (XCVI): live secure and quiet in estate,
Lodge Wounds (I.1.10) SULPITIUS: Hath forced murders in a quiet state;
(II.1.131) ANTHONY: But seek not, Scilla, in this quiet state, / To work revenge upon an aged man,
(IV.1.113) OCTAVIUS: At not to boast their arms in quiet states.
Greene Selimus (8.3) ACOMAT: Hath changed his quiet to a soldier's state.
(21.13-14): CORCUT: But here no fear nor care is harbored / But a sweet calm of a most quiet state.
Anon. Ironside (I.1.28) CANUTUS: I plant you in your former quiet states.
Nashe Summers (1316) WINTER: But living loosely in a quiet state,
WILL ... Power.
Brooke Romeus (1658): And wisely by her princely power suppress rebelling will,
Pickering Horestes (183-84) HORESTES: Oh gods, therefore, sith you be just, unto whose power and will / All thing in heaven and earth also obey and serve until,
(255-57) VICE: It is not Idumeus that hath power to let / Horestes from seeking his mother to kill / Tut, let him alone, he'll have his own will.
Lyly Love's Met (III.2) MERCHANT: You are now mine, Protea. ... PROTEA: And mine own.
MERCHANT: In will, not power. ... PROTEA: In power, if I will.
Shakes LLL (II.1) MARIA: Is a sharp wit matched with too blunt a will; / Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills / It should none spare that come within his power
T&C (I.3) ULYSSES: Then every thing includes itself in power, / Power into will, will into appetite; / And appetite, an universal wolf, / So doubly seconded with will and powe
(II.2) PARIS: Were I alone to pass the difficulties / And had as ample power as I have will,
Pericles (II.2) SIMONIDES: Which shows that beauty hath his power and will, / Which can as well inflame as it can kill.
TNK (V.6.66) PIRITHOUS: and fell to what disorder / His power could give his will, bounds; comes on end;
Anon. Leir (14.15) PERILLUS: To think your will should want the power to do.
Chapman D'Olive (IV.1.10-3) VANDOME: No will, nor power, can withstand policy.
Bible 1 Cor 7.37 ... Nevertheless he that standeth firm in his heart, that he hath no need, but hath power over his own will, & hath so decreed in his heart, that he will keep his virgin, he doeth well (No Match). Note: Biblical origin of this common thought is questionable.
WOE worth.
Pickering Horestes: (508): IDU: Woe worth the time, the day and hour! Now may Horestes wail,
(785) EGISTUS: Ah, heavy fate and chance most ill! Woe worth this hap of mine!
Edwards Devices (7.25-27): Woe worth the time that words, so slowly turn to deeds,
Woe worth the time, yet fair sweet flowers, are grown to rotten weeds.
But thrice woe worth the time, that truth, away is fled,
(66.4, 8, 12, 14-16): Woe worth the wily heads that seeks, the simple man's decay. ...
Woe worth the feigning looks, one favor that do wait,
Woe worth the feigned friendly heart, that harbors deep deceit:
Woe worth the Viper's brood, oh thrice woe worth I say,
Hill Devices (36.17): Therefore I cry woe worth the hour,
(97.130; My love is lost, woe worth in woe I die,
Oxford Devices (77.refrain): And sing Bis woe worth on me, forsaken man.
Edwards Dam&Pith (1075, refrain) MUSES Song: Woe worth the man which for his death hath given us cause to cry!
Watson Hek (XCIII): MY love is past, woe worth the day and hour / When to such folly first I did incline,
Greene Alphonsus (I.1.87-88) ALBINIUS: Woe worth Albinius, / Whose babbling tongue hath caused his own annoy.
Nashe Summers (1880)WOOD NYMPHS, Song: Trades cry, Woe worth that ever they were born;
Anon Willobie (LXIII.4): And if thou canst, woe worth the place, / Where first I saw that flattering face.
Penelope (VII.4) Woe worth the wretch that did bewray / My good Ulysses' wary wit,
Shakes TNK (III.6.249-250) EMILIA: Despise my cruelty and cry woe worth me, / Till I am nothing but the scorn of women.
Bible (King James) Ezekiel 30.2 (No Match).
Note: The poetry of "RH" is attributed to Richard Hill, a contemporary of Edwards, Hunnis, Heywood, and others represented in this volume.
Note: Shakespeare's Two Noble Kinsmen is inevitably associated with Edwards, whose lost play Palamon and Arcite is believed to be the immediate source of TNK.
Note: Penelope's Complaint is associated with Willobie his Avisa: possibly as a response, possibly the work of the same author.
APPENDIX III: Vocabulary, Word Formation
Distinctive Words, Phrases:
Truth, the daughter of time (see Connections). "Slack" as a verb.
Favored Words, Phrases: heavy fate (3); heart and nails (4); gracious mind (4) bridle (3); revenge the/my wrong (3); cruel beasts (3); in faith (13); brought to misery (3)
Compound Words: 8 words (3 nouns, 4 adj, 1 adv).
(nouns): bat-end, cake-bread, setting-up. (adj): cruel-wise, knock-um, over-rash, thousand-fold. (adv): well-won.
Words beginning with "con": 20 words (12 verbs, 4 nouns, 3 adj, 1 adv).
nouns): conqueror, conquest, consent, contrary. (verbs): condemn, condescend, confess, conquer, consent, consider, consist, constrain, contain, content, continue, contrive. (adj): content, contented, convenient. (adv): continually.
Words beginning with "dis": 8 words (7 verbs, 1 noun).
(noun): dissension. (verbs): disclose, disease, dismay, dispatch, display, dispose, distress.
Words beginning with "mis": 5 words (4 nouns, 1 verb).
(nouns): mischance, mischief, misery, mistress, (verb): mistake.
Words beginning with "over": 1 word (adj): over-rash.
Words beginning with "pre": 7 words (1 noun, 5 verbs, 1 adj).
(nouns): present. (verbs): prepare, preserve, pretend, prevail, prevent. (adj): present.
Words beginning with "re": 34 words (10 nouns, 20 verbs, 4 adj).
(nouns): recompense, renown, repentance, request, resistance, return, revenge, revengement, revenging, reward. (verbs): rebel, receive, recompense, refrain, refuse, remain, remember, remit, repair, repent, reply, report, request, require, requite, restrain, return, revenge, revoke, reward. (adj): regal, repaid, replete, reward.
Words beginning with "in": 14 words (5 nouns, 4 verbs, 3 adj, 1 prep, 1 conj).
(nouns): infamy, injury, intent, interlude, invasion. (verbs): incline, inquire, intend, invade.
(adj): indifferent, infect, inflamed. (prep): into. (conj): indeed.
Words beginning with "un": 15 words (3verbs, 6 adj, 2 adv, 2 prep, 2 conj).
(verbs): unrevenged, understand, undertake. (adj): unfit, unhappy, universal, unkind, unrevenged, unwise. (adv): undoubtedy, untruly. (prep): under, unto. (conj): unless, until.
Words ending with "able": 1 word (adj): honorable.
Words ending with "less": 3 words (2 adj, 1 conj).
(adj): comfortless, fatherless. (conj): unless.
Words ending with "ness": 4 words (nouns). courageousness, likeness, trustiness, wickedness.
APPENDIX IV: Sentence Construction
Grammatical inversions are notable in Horestes, in volume and complexity. Shown below are examples (updated spelling).
(9-14) VICE: What? you had not best their parts to take;
* * *
Or else me chance your pate for to ache.
* * *
Shall arrive in this land, revenged to be.
(59-60) VICE: Well, sirs, to entreat me, sith you begin, / I am contented; my blade now shall in.
(172) HORESTES: Provokes me now all pity quite from me to be exempt;
(183-84) HORESTES: Oh gods, therefore, sith you be just, unto whose power and will
All thing in heaven and earth also obey and serve until,
(199-200) VICE: What need you doubt? I was in heaven when all the gods did gree
That you of Agamemnon's death, for sooth, revenged should be.
(207-208) VICE: Among the gods celestial I Courage called am;
You to assist in very truth from out the heavens I came;
(235-239) IDUMEUS: And he, which sometime did delight in clothed coat of mail,
Is now constrained in Charon's boat over the brook to sail,
That flows upon the fatal banks of Pluto's kingdom great
And that in shade of silent woods and valleys green do beat,
When souls of kings and other wights appointed are to be
(281) IDUMEUS: For chance to leisure to be bound, I tell you, cannot bide.
(332) HEMPSTRING: By his ounds! I have sought thee, some news to tell.
(436-37) HORESTES: To save her life whom law doth slay, is not justice to do;
Therefore, I say, I will not yield thy hests to come unto.
(438-39) NATURE: If Nature cannot bridle thee, remember the decay
Of those which heretofore, in sooth, their parents sought to slay:
(445) IDUMEUS: Come on, Horestes; we have stayed your muster for to see.
(484-87) IDUMEUS: For counsel, as Plato doth tell, is sure a heavenly thing;
And Socrates, a certainty, doth say, counsel doth bring
Of things in doubt; for Livy says, no man shall him repent
That hath, before he worked ought, his time in counsel spent;
(495) IDUMEUS: The gods thee bliss, when in the war thou forward shalt proceed.
(502-03) HORESTES: The sacred gods preserve and save thy state, oh king, I pray;
And send thee health, and after death to reign with him for aye.
(522-23) COUNSEL: Protegeus, an evil king a carrion likeness to,
Which all the place about the same to stink causeth to do.
(566-69) CLYTEM: And found occasion him to meet
In Cytheron,
Where each of them the other did greet
The feast upon.
(619) CLYTEM: Till your return this city I to keep do sure intend.
(653) VYCE: For fear you should the ghost up yield.
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This page copyright © 2007 R. Brazil, and B. Flues, and elizabethanauthors.com