184
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. m. MAR. n, 1911.
Wyndham has said, a semicolon at this" part
of the line is unusual, if not unparalleled.
Besides, it gives the first part of the line a
dragging effect which spoils the rhythm, and
" armed," standing alone, conveys a wrong
impression, by suggesting Tarquin's sword.
These and other difficulties are obviated
by pointing as follows :
To me came Tarquin, armed so, beguiled
With outward honesty, &c.
That is, furnished, as Sinon was, with the weapons of subtlety and deceit. " Arm " Was common in the sense of furnish or pre- pare ; see Chester, ' Love's Martyr ' (New Shaks. Soc., p. 6) :
Then (gentle Reader) over-reade my Muse, That armes herself e to flie a lowly flight.
" Beguiled " has the required sense, " made beguiling," in the Elizabethan translation of Seneca, ' Tenne Tragedies,' reprint Spenser Soc., Part I., p. 6 : And either his begiled hooks doth bayte, Or els beholds and sees the pray from hye,
where, however, the Latin, " deceptos in- struit hamos," may have led the translator to use a past participle.
The Quarto reading of * The Passionate Pilgrim,' xv. 2, is :
Lord how mine eies throw gazes to the East,
My hart doth charge the watch, the morning rise
Doth scite, &c.
Steevens rightly said that the meaning of this phrase was not very clear ; Malone suggested that the watch were enjoined to hasten through their nocturnal duty ; and Delius read " change " for " charge." By transferring the comma from the middle to the end of the second line, and reading " them " for " the " before " watch," we get a meaning consistent with the context, virtually without changing a letter (" the " with a stroke over it stands, as often, for " them," in xix. 40), viz. :
Lord, how mine eyes throw gazes to the east !
My heart doth charge them watch the morning rise,
Doth cite each moving sense from idle rest,
Not daring trust the office of mine eyes.
While Philomela, &c.
This is really nearer to the original than the modern editions, which have a full stop at "rest" instead of the comma of the Quarto, and a comma at " eyes " instead of its full stop. The change proposed has the further effect of bringing the stanza into line wilh the rest, which (including the two in xiv., shown by Profs. Dowden and Rolfe to be part of the same poem) are quatrains followed by couplets.
It is inconsistent with what follows to
say " the morning rise doth cite," &c., for
it has not risen, the lark which welcomes
daylight has not sung, and in 11. 16, 17, the
sun is bidden shine, and the day peep.
In the last line of the same poem,
Short night to night, and length thy selfe to morrow,
modern editions rightly add commas at " Short " and " night " ; but it would be well to have a comma also at " selfe," viz.,
Short, Night, to-night ; and length thyself, To-morrow,
or perhaps
Short night, To-night, &c. f
i.e., "O Night, [or "O To-night,"] be short: O To-morrow, be long."
It is easy to understand why it would be to the lover's advantage to have the next day lengthened ; see 1. 12 :
For why, she sigh'd, and bade me come to-morrow.
Throughout the poem he is longing for the day, not for the night following.
C. K. POOLER.
JORDAN NOT A TYPE OF BAPTISM. At
6 S. x. '299 (the main question being on
Jordan as a type of death) the REV. ED.
MARSHALL said : " The common patristic
interpretation is that the passage of the
Jordan is represented in baptism." I
venture to suggest that this is an error.
It is the passage of the Red Sea which is so
represented. The forty years in the wilder-
ness being a figure of human life under the
new law, baptism commences what death
terminates ; and to make the passage of
the Jordan an analogue of baptism is to
invert the whole scheme. See that very
ancient baptismal hymn, containing the
verse
Ex ^gypto venei-unt, qui mare transierunt ;
Virtutes cognoverunt, et laudes cantaverunt.
See also the allusion to the Red Sea in the Latin office for Easter Eve : " O vere beata nox, quse exspoliavit JEgyptios, ditavit Hebrseos " : after which the font is blessed. See further the very distinct language of the English Baptismal office, " figuring thereby (by the passage of the Red Sea) Thy holy Baptism. 1 '
I greatly doubt whether any of the fathers allude to the river Jordan in this manner. Would that the Rev. Ed. Marshall were yet with us, to explain the matter further !
RICHARD H. THORNTON.
36, Upper Bedford Plape,
