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