King John.

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds,
Makes deeds ill done! King John, Act 4, Scene 2.

Be now as prodigal of all dear grace
As nature was in making graces dear.

Love's Labour's Lost, Act 2, Scene 1.
Maria.

That last is Biron, the merry mad-cap lord:
Not a word but a jest.

Let us once lose

Love's Labour's Lost, Act 2, Scene 1.

Biron.

our oaths to find ourselves,

Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.
Love's Labour's Lost, Act 4, Scene 3.
Lucio.

Sir, I know him, and I love him.

Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love.

Duke.

Lucio.

Come, sir, I know what I know.

Measure for Measure, Act 8, Scene 2.
Escalus.

One, that, above all other strifes, contended especially to know himself.

Duke.

What pleasure was he given to?

Escalus.

Rather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at any thing which profess'd to make him rejoice: a gentleman of all temperance. Measure For Measure, Act 3, Scene 2.

In Normandy saw I this Longaville:
A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd;
Well fitted in the arts, glorious in arms;
Nothing becomes him ill, that he would well.
The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss,
(If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,)
Is a sharp wit match'd with too blunt a will;
Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills
It should none spare that come within his power.

Princesse.

Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so?

Maria

They say so most, that most his humours know.

The young Dumain, a well-accomplish'd youth
Of all, that virtue love, for virtue loved:

Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill;
For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,
And shape to win grace though he had no wit.

Love's Labour's Lost, Act 2, Scene 1.
Polonious.

My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,

Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
Mad call it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.

Queen.

More matter, with less art.

Polonious.

Madam, I swear I use no art at all.

That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause:
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.

Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2.

Ye have a figure which takes a couple of words to play with in a verse, and by making them to change and shift one into others place they do very pretily exchange and shift the sence, as thus:

We dwell not here to build us boures,

And halles for pleasure and good cheare:
But halles we build for us and ours,

To dwell in them whilest we are here.

Meaning that we dwell not here to build, but we build to dwel, as we live not to eate, but eate to live, or thus:

Or thus:

We wish not peace to maintaine cruell warre,
But we make warre to maintaine us in peace.

If Poesie be, as some have said,
A speaking picture to the eye:
Then is a picture not denaid
To be a muet Poesie.

Or as the Philosopher Musonius wrote:

With pleasure if we worke unhonestly and ill
The pleasure passeth, the bad is bideth still:
Well if we worke with travaile and with paines,
The paine passeth and still the good remaines.

A wittie fellow in Rome wrote under the Image of Cæsar the Dictator these two verses in Latine, which because they are spoke by this figure of

Counterchange I have turned into a couple of English verses well keeping the grace of the figure.

Brutus for casting out of kings, was first of Consuls past,
Cæsar for casting Consuls out, is of our kings the last.

Cato of any Senatour not onely the gravest but also the promptest and wittiest in any civills-coffe, misliking greatly the engrossing of offices in Rome that one man should have many at once, and a great number goe without that were as able men, said thus by Counterchange.

Againe:

"

It seems your offices are very little worth,
Or very few of you worthy of offices.

In trifles earnest as any man can be

In earnest matters no such trifler as hee."
The Arte of English Poesie, Lib. III, Chap. XIX.

Shakespeare sometimes uses this figure Antimetavole or the Counterchange, and in some, at least, of the few passages my memory has enabled me to quote, he takes a couple of words to play with a verse and making them to change and shift one into anothers place exchange and shift the sense, for example: dear grace, graces dear; do ill deeds, deeds ill done; not a word but a jest, and every jest a word; lose our oaths to find ourselves, lose ourselves to keep our oaths: and Polonious says 'tis true 'tis pity; and pity 'tis 'tis true, -, and he afterwards calls it a foolish figure." Polonious says moreover farewell "it", and I have therefore thought it probable that he may refer to an alteration which is sometimes made by rabbating of a sillable or letter from the beginning of a word, as to say twixt, for betwixt; gainsay for againesay; ill for evill; for Polonious says 'tis for it is, using 't for it. Shakespeare often alters words in this way, most frequently, I think, in Love's Labour's Lost, for example:

Armado.

Some obscure precedence that hath to-fore been sain.

Love's Labour's Lost, Act 3, Scene 1.
Armado.

Holofernes.

Chirrah!

Quare chirrah, not sirrah?

Love's Labour's Lost, Act 5, Scene 1.
Armado.

Arts-man, preambulate, we will be singuled from the barbarous.
Love's Labour's Lost, Act 5, Scene 1.
Biron.

What, are there but three?

Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration, a 'leven pence farthing better; most sweet gardon! I will do it, sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration! Love's Labour's Lost, Act 3, Scene 1. Holofernes.

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his

argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and pointdevise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak dout, fine, when he should say doubt: det, when he should pronounce debt, d, e, b, t, not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf; neighbour vocatur nebour; neigh abbreviated ne. This is abhominable, which he would call abbominable; it insinuateth me of insanie: anne intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic. Love's Labour's Lost, Act 5, Scene 1. Biron.

How much is it?

Costard.

O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors, sir, will shew whereuntil it doth amount; for my own part, I am, as they say, but to parfect one man, e'en one poor man; Pompion the great, sir.

Art thou one of the worthies?

Biron.

Costard.

It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompion the great; for mine own part, I know not the degree of the worthy; but am to stand Love's Labour's Lost, Act 5, Scene 2.

for him.

The many ways a maker may alter his words are thus described by Puttenham.

A word as he lieth in course of language is many wayes figured and thereby not a little altered in sound, which consequently alters the time and harmonie of a meeter as to the eare. And this alteration is sometimes by adding sometimes by rabbating of a sillable or letter to or from a word either in the beginning, middle or ending joying or injoying of sillables and letters suppressing or confounding their several soundes, or by misplacing of a letter, or by cleare exchange of one letter for another, or by wrong ranging of the accent. And your figures of addition or surplus be three, videl. In the beginning, as to say: I-doen, for doon, endanger, for danger, embolden, for bolden.

In the middle, as to say renvers, for revers, meeterly, for meetly, goldylockes, for goldlockes.

In th'end, as to say remembren for remembre, spoken for spoke. And your figures of rabbate be as many, videl.

From the beginning, as to say twixt for betwixt, gainsay for againe. say: ill for evill:

From the middle, as to say paraunter for parauenter, povrety for povertie, sovraigne for soveraigne, tane for taken. From the end, as to samorne for morning, bet for better and such like.

Your swallowing or eating up one letter by another is when two vowels meete, whereof th'ones sound goeth into other, as to say for to attaine t'attaine, for sorrow and smart sor' and smart.

Your displacing of a sillable as to say desier for desire, fier for fire. By cleare exchange of one letter or sillable for another, as to say evermare for evermore, wrang for wrong: gould for gold: fright for fraight and a hundred moe, which he commonly misused and strained to make rime. By wrong ranging the accent of a sillable by which meane a short illable is made long and a long short as to say soveraíne for sovéraine: grations for grátious; éndure for endúre: Salómon for Salomon.

These many wayes may our maker alter his wordes, and sometimes it is done for pleasure to give a better sound, sometimes upon necessitie, and to make up the rime. But our maker must take heed that he be not to hold specially in exchange of one letter for another, for unlesse usuall speach

and custome allow it, it is a fault and no figure, and because these be figures of the smallest importance, I forbeare to give them any vulgar name. * The Arte of English Poesie, Lib. III. Chap. XI.

York.

To tell thee whence thou camest, of whom derived,

Were shame enough to shame thee wert thou not shameless. 3 Henry VI., Act 1, Scene 4.

First Soldier.

Half won is match well made; match and well make it.
All's Well, Act 4, Scene 3.

Northumberland.

Believe me, noble lord,

I am a stranger here in Glostershire.
These high wild hills, and rough uneven ways,
Draw out our miles, and make them wearisome;
And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,
Making the hard way sweet and delectable.
But I bethink me, what a weary way,

From Ravenspurg to Cotswold, will be found
In Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company;
Which, I protest, hath very much beguiled
The tediousness and process of my travel:
But theirs is sweeten'd with the hope to have
The present benefit, which I possess:

And hope to joy, is little less in joy,

Than hope enjoy'd: by this the weary lords

Shall make their way seem short; as mine hath done
By sight of what I have, your noble company.

In these passages Shakespeare uses a figure which Puttenham says the Latines call Traductio, and I the tranlacer, which is when ye turne and tranlace a word into many sundry shapes as a Tailor doth his garment. See Archiv f. n. Sprachen. XXXVIII. 419.

Shakespeare often uses this figure „turning" and "tranlacing" a word into many sundry shapes as a norm, an adjective, verb &c.

Holofernes.

I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility.

The preyful princess pierced and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket.
Love's Labour's Lost, Act 4, Scene 2.

Shakespeare in this passage, „fills his verse with words beginning all with a letter," and he probably refers to Tautologia" or the Figure of selfe saying; (see Archiv f. n. Sprachen. XXXVIII. 77.) for Holofernes says, I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility," - and he then fills his verse with words all beginning with the letter P; (which happens to be the initial letter of the name Puttenham) and Puttenham in describing this figure says it is where our maker takes too much delight to fill his verse with wordes beginning all with a letter," and afterwards that, -such composition makes the meetre runne away smoother, and passeth from the lippes with more facilitie.

Armado.

By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person: thou wert immured, restrained, captivated, bound. Love's Labour's Lost, Act 3, Scene 1.