MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
WHEN the snow speckles the holly hedge and the feet of the blackbirds leave Y-shaped traces upon the paths, it is an agreeable thing to spread large books upon the table and to set off upon the hunt for words. It is a pursuit which, like that of the caribou, requires for its full enjoyment much heavy equipment. One needs the thirteen stout volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary, the twenty-four volumes of the Dictionary of National Biography, the Cambridge Ancient and Modern Histories, the large Liddell and Scott, the whole of the Loeb library, the full-size Smith and Larousse, and as many concordances as one can find. Few indeed are the private libraries which can today supply such lavish works of reference. Yet if one cannot always bring the quarry to bay in front of one's own log fire, one can at least discover its spoor and run it to earth later in the cold calm reading-room of the London Library. I derive a curious pleasure front dictionaries of classical geography, and it amuses me to trace backwards the origins and associations of some small place in Greece or Italy, the name of
which swims suddenly into the news. I had great fun during the campaign in Tunisia in following the Mejerda right back to Silius Italicus ; Anzio ("0 diva gratum . . .") was a stroke of fortune ; and when General Juin's forces occupied the fields around Venafro I could not resist quoting the concluding chords of the Regulus ode. I am aware, of course, that few people share my passion for these associations, nor do I often venture to record the results of my hunting in these Marginal Comments. The Editor of The Spectator, being a Cambridge man, does not care overmuch for classical allusions ; he will pass a Latin quotation now and then, but a Greek quotation earns his displeasure. And my readers, I fear, conclude (and not incorrectly) that I am showing off. * * * * Yet if, on a snow-bound afternoon, one pulls out Mr. Bartlett's Complete Concordance of Shakespeare one immediately enters a territory which teams with game, There are many different animals to chase. One can pursue some of Shakespeare's strange spellings, such as " abhominable " or " Cate-log." One can round up the words he used most frequently and observe his curious avoidance of certain themes. His marked restraint in the use of religious or theological terms may, of course, have been due to an uncharacteristic strain of caution. Yet it is curious that the word " God," except as an exclama- tion, occurs less frequently than the word " Jove " ; that his em- ployment of the word " heaven " is pagan rather than doctrinal ; and that the word " eternity " occurs more rarely in Shakespeare than in Shelley. One observes, moreover, as one turns the pages that he had a constant predilection for certain specific words. On the one hand, we have words like " enemy," " death," " blood," " valour " and " honour " occurring on almost every page. On the other hand we find that his favourite word was " love " and that in all his plays and poems the words " gentle," " sweet," " pity," " tender," " friend " and " dear " constantly recur. The word " dimpled " again is repeated more frequently than one would have expected ; and the psycho-analyst might contend that his excessive references to deer disclose -a guilt-complex arising from the .Charlecote incident. Curious also is his passion for the word " enough," his employment of the epithet " rich " as in " rich wisdom," and his pre- ference for the numeral twenty. And I wonder whether Sigismund Freud ever noticed that Shakespeare uses the word " father " far more frequently than he uses the word " mother." All these are stimulating objects of pursuit.
It is interesting also to discover and to follow up those of Shake- speare's expressions which have an unexpected tinge of modernity. Unlike Spenser, he did not care for archaisms ; the word " clepe " occurs only once, and " eke " and " eftsoons " are rare indeed. On the other hand. we find " topsy-turvy," " Flibbertigibbet," " tittk- tattle " and " blinking idiot." The expression " I guess " is used in the American sense and the epithet " homely " is employed to signify both simple and ill-favoured. It may have been these slight coincidences which emboldened Mr. H. L. Mencken to state, in his invaluable work upon " The American Language," that " the American of today is much more honestly English, in any sense that Shakespeare would have understood, than the so-called standard English of England." Here in itself is a whole field of research. It would be interesting, for instance, to explore the origins of the familiar American word " chore," which in the form of " charwoman " occurs as early as 1596, but which does not figure in any of Shakespeare's writings. An even more rewarding chas'e is that of the words which, since Shakespeare's day, have changed their meaning. " I am afraid," we read in Twelfth Night, " this great lubber, the world, will prove a cockney." What on earth did Shakespeare mean by that ? The word " cockney " was originally used to describe the small mis-shapen eggs which hens, especially in these times of austerity, occasionally mislay. From that it was applied to boys who displayed effeminate characteristics. The country folk thereafter used the word to deride those whom they regarded as the soft and pampered denizens of the great towns ; and finally it was transferred to the citizens of London, born within the sound of Bow Bells. " Conceited " is another word which was used- by Shakespeare to mean something different from its present significance. " Cloud-kissing Ilion," we read in Lucrece, "which the conceited painter drew so proud." The association dearly is with the Elizabethan term -" conceit " and the meaning is nothing more than " ingenious."
* * * * How rarely does Shakespeare use exclusively rural expressions such as " dibble " or " the mower's swath "! It is curious also to realise that, although he often mentions spring, summer and winter, the word " autumn " occurs seven times only in the plays. The word " connive " is used only once, the word " beer," which figures so frequently in our own discourse, occurs four times only, the word " century " only twice. In truth, it is a pleasant pastime to follow up on winter evenings some of Shakespeare's forgotten words:— " allicholy," " mobled," ." dern," " busse," " doxy," " asinego," or " womby." It is helpful to discover that he used the word " caddice " for may-fly, " gasmess " for the expression of terror, " brabbles " for quarrels, or " crants " for garland. He could speak of " giglet for- tune " using the word much as the French say gigolo today. The word " eyas " is a corruption of " nyas " and derives from the French term "niais " as applied to an untrained hawk. " This is no world," we read in the first part of Henry IV, " to play with mammets." Here indeed is a quarry worth pursuing. For " mammet " is a variant for " maumet " and derives from the Old French word "mahumet." In mediaeval times there was a notion, mistaken it is true, that the Prophet Mahomet had proclaimed himself a God. The word was thus used originally to designate a false god or an idol. " Moloc " writes Skelton, " that mawmett, there darre no man withsay." Thereafter the word was used by fervent protestants to deride the images of the Catholic Church ; and finally it was employed for any form of doll, puppet or guy. And to those who enjoy these forms of hunting I recommend tracking the origins and transmutations of " fusty," " ingle " and " fadge."
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I had always supposed, until I read through Bartlett's concordance, that Shakespeare shared with Milton a delight in lovely place-names. Yet, in fact, he is comparatively sparing of this decorative device. " Where America," we read in the Comedy of Errors," the Indies ? " That is the only mention in Shakespeare of that novel name. It was Martin Waldseemiiller who first used the name in his Cosmo- graphia Introductio of 1507. " Americi terra," he wrote, "sine Americans dicenda." But was it really the Florentine Amerigo, son of Nastagio Vespucci, who first discovered the continent ? Or was it Cabot ? There is every reason to believe that Vespucci was an untruthful man. It is sad to think that the name of a whole continent may be founded upon a lie. Yet it is comforting, when the snow speckles the holly hedge, to close the door and to spread large books upon the table. And to chase strange words along the labyrinths of the past.
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