Page:Twelfth Night (1922) Yale.djvu/115

IV. i. 19. foolish Greek. 'Merry Greek' was a proverbial name for a jester and practical joker. But it is quite possible that Sebastian used the word here seriously to describe Feste's Illyrian nationality.

IV. i. 24. fourteen years' purchase. The term is taken from land transactions. In Shakespeare's time the current price was twelve years' purchase; i.e., the land would be valued at twelve times the annual yield.

IV. ii. 16. Gorboduc. A mythical British king, whose story was dramatized in the earliest regular English tragedy (by Sackville and Norton, 1561).

IV. ii. 101. propertied. Perhaps an allusion to stage 'properties' which, as Collier suggests, 'when out of use, were thrust into some dark loft or lumber-room.' The words 'here' and 'in darkness' in the context support this interpretation.

IV. ii. 105–107. Malvolio . . . bibble-babble. The clown here impersonates Sir Topas, as he does again in the first part of his next speech.

V. i. 23. conclusions to he as kisses. 'As in the syllogism it takes two premises to make one conclusion, so it takes two people to make one kiss.' (Cambridge editors.) Compare the Clown's similar syllogistic joking in I. v. 51 ff.

V. i. 42. the bells of Saint Bennet. Though the scene is supposed to be Illyria, it is likely that Shakespeare and his auditors thought of the London church of St. Benedict, or Bene't, at Paul's Wharf (later destroyed in the great fire of 1666).

V. i. 122. Like to the Egyptian thief. The robber Thyamis in the Greek romance of Theagenes and Chariclea, of which an English translation appeared in 1587.

V. i. 153, 154. Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art As great as that thou fear'st. Assume your just dignity as my husband and you will be the equal of Orsino.