Glossing (advanced) Flashcards
1.1
‘referred’
- given/ bestowed
- but also entrusted/ committed which might imply Innogen’s agency
1.1
‘too bad for bad report’
ie. worse than even a negative report could convey
1.1
‘I do extend him, sir, within himself,/ Crush him together rather than unfold/ His measure duly’
ie. minimise rather than express the full extent of his merits
(imagery of compressed cloth)
1.1
‘for which their father, old and fond of issue’
- obsessed with the loss of his children
- could also suggest their father wanted more children
1.1
‘breeds him and makes him of his bedchamber’
- Gentlemen of the Bedchamber in Stuart court were personal attendants of the king
- demonstrates how Posthumus is privileged by the king as a member of the household
1.1
‘And in’s spring became a harvest’
- Posthumus became mature even in his youth
1.1
‘A sample to the youngest, to th’ more mature/ A glass that feated them, and to the graver/ A child that guided dotards’
ie. exemplary to the young, an image of good behaviour for the more mature (ie. a mirror that showed them good behaviour), a guide/ help for the aged
1.1
‘her own price’
- value as heir
- the punishment she is willing to endure
1.1
‘Always reserved my holy duty’
- except for my responsibility as a daughter to ‘honour my father’
(as in the Bible’s Fifth Commandment) ie. “Honour thy father and thy mother” - Innogen’s defiance of her father in marrying Posthumus does not negate her sense of her other filial duties
1.1
‘But he does buy my injuries to be friends’
- he returns her injurious behaviour with solicitude to maintain marital harmony
1.1
‘Past hope and in despair: that way past grace’
- hopeless at the loss of Posthumus and in that respect despairing of God’s grace
1.1
‘I chose an eagle/ And did avoid a puttock’
- eagle was the king of birds, puttock was a bird of prey and a scavenger
- contrasts Posthumus’ excellence with Cloten’s greed/ rapacity
1.1
‘Nay, let her languish/ A drop of blood a day and, being aged,/ Die of this folly’
- to pine away, based on the belief that blood lost through grief would cause one to wither and die
1.1
‘But that my master rather played than fought/ And had no help of anger’
- was not moved by anger, so preserved his self-control
1.2
‘There’s none abroad so wholesome as that you vent’
- flattering Cloten by claiming ‘the sweat he emits is more ‘wholesome’ than the air flowing in to replenish it
(here ‘abroad’ means ‘outside’)
1.2
‘His steel was in debt; it went o’th’ backside the town’
- Cloten’s rapier missed Posthumus’ body completely - like a debtor who avoids his creditors by taking the backstreets
1.2
‘So would I, till you had measured how long a fool you were upon the ground’
- until you had fallen down to show yourself a considerable fool
(to ‘measure out one’s length’ = to fall)
1.2
‘She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection should hurt her’
- (treats her wit as beams of light)
- she avoids shining them on fools, lest she be injured by them being thrown back from the surface of folly
1.3
‘If he should write/ And I not have it, ‘twere a paper lost/ As offered mercy is.’
- the lost letter would be like the loss of heaven’s mercy
- or like a pardon for a criminal that arrives too late
1.3
‘Could best express how slow his soul sailed on,/ How swift his ship’
- Posthumus’ soul moves at a slower rate than the ship leaving the shore
1.3
‘At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight, / T’encounter me with orisons’
- six am, noon and midnight were three of the Roman Church’s canonical hours (when prayers were supposed to be said)
- implies that Posthumus is a reason for praying, or that praying is a way of getting to Posthumus
1.3
‘…for then/ I am in heaven for him’
- ‘I am praying for him’
- ‘I am happy because of him’
- ‘I am uplifted spiritually because of him’
- ‘I go to heaven to meet him there’
1.3
‘And, like the tyrannous breathing of the north,/ Shakes all our buds from growing’
- Cymbeline’s anger is like the north wind that shakes spring flowers, obstructing the love of Innogen and Posthumus
1.4
Iachimo: ‘But I could then have looked on him without the help of admiration, though the catalogue of his endowments had been tabled by his side and I to peruse him by items’
- Then I could look on him without feeling wonder or amazement, even if the long list of his qualities had been arranged in tabular form and I could examine him item by item
1.4
‘that which makes him both without and within’
- in the judgement of others and in his personal character
1.4
‘How creeps acquaintance?’
- How have you stolen into acquaintance with one another?
1.4
‘…rather shunned to go even with what I heard than in my every action to be guided by others’ experiences’
- preferred to resist assent to the advice of others than allow myself to be influenced by them
1.4
‘upon warrant of bloody affirmation’
- pledge to support his claim by shedding blood
1.4
‘I profess myself her adorer, not her friend’
- her worshipper, not her lover
- ‘friend’ could mean ‘sexual partner’ or more negatively ‘paramour’
1.4
‘Either your unparagoned mistress is dead, or she’s outprized by a trifle’
- either your lady is dead (because the ring is valued ‘more than the world enjoys’ ie. more than what is on this earth currently) or she is worth less than the ring
1.4
‘We are familiar at first’
- we are on familiar terms from the start
1.4
‘I will have it no lay’
- I will not permit the wager
1.4
‘Lest the bargain should catch cold and starve’
- take sick and die upon cooler headed consideration
1.5
‘That I did amplify my judgement in other the conclusions\
- enlarge my knowledge by other experiments
1.5
‘To try the vigour of them and apply allayments to their act, and by them gather/ Their several virtues and effects’
- test the drugs’ potency and apply antidotes to determine how they work
- plans to test the strength of the animals and use the drugs which paralyse them
1.5
‘Think what a chance thou changest on’
- consider what an opportunity you have by changing sides
1.6
‘but most miserable/ Is the desire that’s glorious’
- but most pitiable is the unfulfilled desire of someone of high position
1.6
‘Blessed be those/ How mean soe’er, that have their honest wills,/ Which seasons comfort’
- those of low status who can have their plain desires, which increase their comfort, are nonetheless blessed
1.6
‘Change you, madam?’
- do you change colour?
- change your expression
1.6
‘Sluttery, to such neat excellence opposed,/
Should make desire vomit emptiness,/
Not so allured to feed’
- sexual desire would rather retch on an empty stomach than hunger to taste a debased woman, so different from a refined one
1.6
‘Can my sides hold, to think that man who knows/ By history, report or his own proof/ What woman is, yea, what she cannot choose/ But must be, will’s free hours languish/ For assured bondage?’
- Can my sides avoid bursting with laughter to think that a man, who knows by stories, other people, or his own experience that it is impossible for a woman to be constant, would waste his free time pining for someone to whom he is bound?
1.6
‘…-for certainties/ Either are past remedies or, timely knowing,/ The remedy then born’
- things we know for certain are either beyond our ability to do anything about, or, if we know in time, a solution can be created
1.6
‘lips as common as the stairs/ That mount the Capitol’
- kissed as many times as the hundred steps ascending Capitoline Hill to the temple of Jupiter
1.6
‘fastened to an empery/ Would make the great’st king double’
- joined with an empire that would double the territory of any king by marriage to such a woman
1.6
‘With tomboys hired with that self exhibition/ Which your own coffers yield;/ With diseased ventures’
- prostitutes who, for money, risk contracting all the venereal diseases that debauchery can bestow on nature
1.6
‘As I have such a heart that both mine ears/ Much not in haste abuse’
- ‘since I have such a trusting heart that it should not be hastily misled by what my ears have heard’
2.1
‘When I kissed the jack, upon an upcast to be hit away!’
- jack = a small white target ball
- upcast = another player’s throw
- Cloten’s jack has just ‘kissed’ the jack and then been knocked away by another player
2.1
‘upon an upcast’
- a casting/ hurling upward
- a chance/ accident