36 BENCH-HOLES-BESONIAN. benches,- bench-holes, holes of privies, vii. 570. bending author-Our, iv. 508: "By bending our author meant unequal to the weight of his subject, and bending beneath it; or he may mean, as in Hamlet, 'Here stooping to your clemency'" (STEEVENS). beneath-world-This, vi. 508: compare th' under generation; see note 142, i. 541. benefit proceeding from our king—Of, v. 78: “Benefit is here a term of law. Be content to live as the beneficiary of our king" (JOHNSON). benison, blessing, vii. 31, 256, 328; viii. 19. bent-Her affections have their full, ii. 101; the very bent of honour, ii. 123; thy affection cannot hold the bent, iii. 352; in the full bent, vii. 132; fool me to the top of my bent, vii. 163: "Bent is used by our author for the utmost degree of any passion or mental quality. The expression is derived from archery; the bow has its bent when it is drawn as far as it can be" (JOHNSON). Bergomask dance-A, ii. 321; your Bergomask, ibid.: “A dance after the manner of the peasants of Bergomasco, a county in Italy belonging to the Venetians. All the buffoons in Italy affect to imitate the ridiculous jargon of that people, and from thence it became a custom to mimic also their manner of dancing" (HANMER). Bermoothes-The, The Bermudas, i. 184. beshrew, to curse, but a mild form of imprecation,=" a mischief on," i. 266; ii. 369, 380; vi. 464; vii. 131; and in many other passages. 66 besmirch, to be-smut, vii. 116; besmirch'd, iv. 482: see smirch. besonian, iv. 396; besonians, v. 168: The Italian origin of the word besonian (see post) shows that it properly means a needy fellow, a beggar:" but it was also used in the sense of "a raw or needy soldier;" and eventually it became a term of reproach,-“ a knave, a scoundrel" ("Bisogno, need, want. Also a fresh needy soldier.... Bisognoso, needy, necessitous." Florio's Ital. and Engl. Dict.: "Bisongne... a filthie knaue, or clowne; a raskall, bisonian, base humored scoundrell.” Cotgrave's Fr. and Engl. Dict. For the following illustrations of the word I am indebted to Mr. Bolton Corney; "Their order is [in Spain], where the warres are present, to supplie their regiments, being in action, with the garrisons out of all his dominions and prouinces before they dislodge, besonios supply [ing] their places, raw men, as wee tearme them. By these meanes hee traines his besonios, and furnisheth his armie with BESORT-BETEEM. 37 trained souldiers." A brief discourse of Warre, by Sir Roger Williams, 1590, 4to, p. 11: "Bisognio or Bisonnio, a Spanish or Italian word, and is, as we terme it, a raw souldier, unexpert in his weapon, and other military points." The theorike and practike of moderne warres, by Robert Barret, 1598, folio, sig. Y 4: "Bisoños, Voyez Visoños.... Visoño, nouueau soldat, apprenty." Tesoro de las dos lengvas Francesa y Española, por Cesar Ovdin, 1607, 4to: “Bisoño, el soldado nueuo en la milicia, es nobre casual y moderno," &c. Tesoro de la lengva Castellana, o Española, por D. Sebastian de Cobarruuias, 1611, sig. s 2 verso: Cobarruuis or Covarruvias gives us twenty-five lines on this word: he states that some Spanish soldiers in Italy learned the word Visoño, and were accustomed to ask alms, saying Visoño pan, Visoño carne, &c., and were thence called Visoños; which circumstance is alluded to by one of their dramatists, Torres Naharro). besort, attendance, train: With such accommodation and besort, vii. 390. besort, to suit, to befit, to become: such men as may besort your age, vii. 270. best-Send us to Rome The, vi. 157: Here the best means "the chief persons of Corioli." best men - Men of few words are the, iv. 452: "best men, that is bravest; so, in the next lines, good deeds are brave actions" (JOHNSON). Best-That did betray the, iii. 432: An allusion to Judas Iscariot. best-condition'd, endowed with the best disposition, ii. 388: see condition. best-indu'd, "gifted or endowed in the most extraordinary manner" (STEEVENS), iv. 441. bested-Worse, "In a worse plight" (JOHNSON), v. 137. bestow, to stow, to lodge, to place: bestow your luggage, i. 235; bestow these papers, vi. 630; bestow yourselves, vii. 148, 149; I will bestow him, vii. 172; you have bestow'd my money, ii. 11; our bloody cousins are bestow'd In England, vii. 32; will you see the players well bestowed? vii. 145; Where the dead body is bestow'd, vii. 176; the old man and his people Cannot be well bestow'd, vii. 292; Where he bestows himself, vii. 44. bestow, to carry, to show: see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his true colours, iv. 338; bestows himself Like a ripe sister, iii. 63. bestowed her on her own lamentation, "gave her up to her sorrows' (STEEVENS), i. 483. bestraught, distraught, mad, iii. 110. beteem, to give in streaming abundance: which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes, ii. 268. 38 BETEEM-BIGGEN. beteem, to suffer, "deign to allow" (CALDECOTT): That he might not beteem the winds of heaven, &c., vii. 112. better, and worse-Still, “Better in regard to the wit of your double entendre, but worse in respect to the grossness of your meaning" (STEEVENS), vii. 159. bettering thy loss makes the bad-causer worse, v. 428: "Bettering is amplifying, magnifying thy loss. Shakespeare employed this word. for the sake of an antithesis, in which he delighted, between better and loss" (MALONE). bevel, crooked, viii. 409. Bevis was believ'd-That, That the incredible incidents in the famous romance of Bevis of Southampton were now believed, v. 485. bewray, to discover, v. 241, 283; vi. 227, 310, 339; vii. 277, 308; bewray'd, v. 53; viii. 335, 463. bias, swelled, out of shape (" as the bowl on the biassed side,” Johnson's Dict.): thy spherèd bias cheek, vi. 72. bid, to invite: I will bid the duke to the nuptial, iii. 68; bid your friends, iii. 69; he hath bid me to a calf's-head and a capon, ii. 133; I am bid forth to supper, ii. 367; I am not bid to wait upon this bride, vi. 292; bid me to 'em, vi. 518. bid, endured: for whom you bid like sorrow, v. 433. bid the base, and run the base: see base,-prison-base, &c. Biddy, come with me, iii. 370: see note 92, iii. 408. bide upon't-To, equivalent to "My abiding opinion is,” iii. 427. ("Captain, thou art a valiant gentleman; To abide upon't, a very valiant man.' Beaumont and Fletcher's King and No King, act iv. sc. 3. "The wife of the said Peter then said, to abide upon it, I thinke that my husband will neuer mend," &c. Potts's Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, 1613, sig. T 4.) bigamy-Loath'd, v. 414 : " Bigamy, by a canon of the council of Lyons, A.D. 1274 (adopted in England by a statute in 4 Edw. I.), was made unlawful and infamous. It differed from polygamy or having two wives at once; as it consisted in either marrying two virgins successively, or once marrying a widow" (BLACKSTONE). (Fielding, in his Amelia, applies the term bigamy to marrying two wives successively; vol. ii. p. 240, vol. iii. p. 19, ed. 1752.) biggen, iv. 381: "A cap, quoif, or dress for the head, formerly worn by men, but now limited, I believe, almost entirely to some particular cap or bonnet for young children... Caps or coifs were BILBERRY-BIRD-BOLT. 39 probably first called beguins or biggins, from their resemblance to the caps or head-dress worn by those Societies of young women who were called Beguines in France, and who led a middle kind of life between the secular and religious, made no vows, but maintained themselves by the work of their own hands." Boucher's Glossary of Arch, and Prov. Words. bilberry, whortleberry, i. 412. bilbo, a sword (so called from Bilboa in Spain, which was famous for its manufacture of sword-blades), i. 349, 392. bilboes-The, vii. 200: “The bilboes is a bar of iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mutinous or disorderly sailors were anciently linked together. The word is derived from Bilboa, a place in Spain where instruments of steel were fabricated in the utmost perfection. To understand Shakespeare's allusion completely, it should be known that, as these fetters connect the legs of the offenders very close together, their attempts to rest must be as fruitless as those of Hamlet, in whose mind there was a kind of fighting that would not let him sleep. Every motion of one must disturb his partner in confinement. The bilboes are still shown in the Tower of London, among the other spoils of the Spanish Armada" (STEEVENS). bill, a sort of pike or halbert, or rather a kind of battle-axe affixed to a long staff, formerly carried by the English infantry, and afterwards the usual weapon of watchmen (“Bills-these long-popular weapons of the foot-soldier-were constructed to thrust at mounted men, or cut and damage their horse-furniture; sometimes they were provided with a side-hook to seize a bridle." FAIRHOLT) : take thou the bill (with a quibble), give me thy mete-yard, iii. 163; my brain-pan had been cleft with a brown bill, v. 185; have a care that your bills be not stolen, ii. 110; a goodly commodity, being taken up of these men's bills (with a quibble both on taken up,-see take up, and on bills), ii. 113; manage rusty bills, iv. 145; take up commodities upon our bills (with a quibble), v. 181; our bills. Tim. Knock me down with 'em (with a quibble): cleave me to the girdle, vi. 539; Bring up the brown bills, vii. 324. bill, a forest-bill, an implement carried by foresters: with bills on their necks (with a quibble-see note 17, iii. 80), iii. 12. bill, a placard posted by public challengers: He set up his bills here in Messina, ii. 76. bill, a billet, a note: give these bills Unto the legions on the other side, vi. 680. bin, been, viii. 293. bird-bolt, a short thick arrow with a blunted extremity, for killing birds without piercing them, ii. 76, 197; bird-bolts, iii. 337. birds, deceiv'd with painted grapes, viii. 259: “Our author alludes to the celebrated picture of Zeuxis, mentioned by Pliny, in which some grapes were so well represented that birds lighted on them to peck at them" (MALONE). birthdom, birthright, vii. 53. bisson, blind: your bisson conspectuitics, vi. 160; this bisson multitude, vi. 183 (see note 109, vi. 255). bisson, blinding: bisson rheum, vii. 144. bite my thumb at them—I will, vi. 389; Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? &c. ibid.: "This mode of insult, in order to begin a quarrel, seems to have been common in Shakespeare's time. Decker, in his Dead Term, 1608, describing the various groups that daily frequented St. Paul's Church, says, 'What swearing is there, what shouldering, what justling, what jeering, what byting of thumbs, to beget quarrels!' [a passage originally cited by Malone]. ... The mode in which this contemptuous action was performed is thus described by Cotgrave [sub Nique], in a passage which has escaped the industry of all the commentators; 'Faire la nique: to mocke by nodding or lifting up of the chinne; or more properly, to threaten or defie by putting the thumbe naile into the mouth, and with a jerke (from the upper teeth) make it to knacke'" (SINGER). bite thee by the ear-I will, vi. 420: "This odd mode of expressing pleasure, which seems to be taken from the practice of animals, who, in a playful mood, bite each other's ears, &c., is very common in our old dramatists." Gifford's note on Jonson's Works, vol. ii. p. 184. bitter sweeting-A very, vi. 420: sweeting means a kind of sweet apple; bitter-sweet or bitter-sweeting, an apple which has a compound taste of sweet and bitter ("A Bitter-sweet [Apple], Amarimellum." Coles's Lat. and Engl. Dict.). black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes, i. 317: Ray gives "A black man's a jewel in a fair woman's eye." Proverbs, p. 47, ed. 1768. Black-Monday, ii. 367: "Black Monday (as Mr. Peck observes, Explanatory and Critical Notes upon Shakespeare's Plays) 'is a moveable day, it is Easter-Monday, and was so called on this occasion. In the 34th of Edward III. [1360], the 14th of April, and the morrow after Easter-day, King Edward with his host lay before the city of Paris; which day was full dark of mist and hail, and so bitter cold, that many men died on their horses backs with the cold. Wherefore unto this day it hath been call'd the BlackeMonday.' Stow, p. 264 b.” (GREY.) blacks-O'er-dy'd, iii. 424: Blacks, i.e. mourning habiliments: by |