Page:As You Like It (1919) Yale.djvu/121

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As You Like It
109

scribed as 'taller' than Celia. Malone suggested the emendation 'smaller,' which has been adopted by many editors unwilling to credit Shakespeare with even so trivial an error.

I. ii. 304. smoke . . . smother. Proverbial, equivalent to 'out of the frying pan into the fire.' 'Smother' is a suffocating smoke.

I. iii. 20. hem . . . him. A quibble on the likeness of sound between 'hem' and 'him.' Possibly the whole phrase is proverbial, although no commentator has quoted such a proverb.

I. iii. 38. Why . . . not. I.e., 'Why should I not hate him?' deserve well. I.e., 'to be hated.'

I. iii. 78. Juno's swans. As far as known, Juno had no swans. The peacock was her favorite bird. Shakespeare has possibly been influenced by the story of Jupiter and Leda.

I. iii. 128. Ganymede. He was a Trojan boy whom Jupiter, in the disguise of an eagle, seized and carried off from the midst of his playfellows on Mount Ida to make him cup-bearer to the gods.

I. iii. 131. Aliena. From the Latin, meaning a stranger. Cf. alien.

II. i. S. d. Duke Senior. So designated throughout the First Folio.

II. i. 5. penalty of Adam. I.e., 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread' (Genesis 3. 19). In the forest they do not suffer from this penalty, for they fleet the time carelessly as in the golden world where none had to toil. 'The season's difference' which some commentators take to be the 'penalty of Adam' is not so described in the Bible.

II. i. 13. toad. The natural history of Shakespeare's time spoke of the toad as 'venomous,' while it was believed to carry in its head a stone or jewel 'of power to repulse poysons.'