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NOTES.

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF "DELIGHTED," AS SOMETIMES USED BY SHAKSPEARE.

I wish to call attention to the peculiar use of a word, or rather to a
peculiar word, in Shakspeare, which I do not recollect to have met with
in any other writer. I say a "peculiar word," because, although the verb
_To delight_ is well known, and of general use, the word, the same in
form, to which I refer, is not only of different meaning, but, as I
conceive, of distinct derivation the non-recognition of which has led to
a misconception of the meaning of one of the finest passages in
Shakspeare. The first passage in which it occurs, that I shall quote, is
the well known one from _Measure for Measure_:

"Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot,
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the _delighted_ spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendant world." Act iii. Sc. 1.

Now, if we examine the construction of this passage, we shall find that
it appears to have been the object of the writer to separate, and place
in juxtaposition with each other, the conditions of the body and the
spirit, each being imagined under circumstances to excite repulsion or
terror in a sentient being. The mind sees the former lying in "cold
obstruction," rotting, changed from a "sensible warm motion" to a
"kneaded clod," every circumstance leaving the impression of dull, dead
weight, deprived of force and motion. The spirit, on the other hand, is
imagined under circumstances that give the most vivid picture
conceivable of utter powerlessness:

"Imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendant world."

To call the spirit here "delighted," in our sense of the term, would be
absurd; and no explanation of the passage in this sense, however
ingenious, is intelligible. That it is intended to represent the spirit
simply as _lightened_, made light, relieved from the weight of matter, I
am convinced, and this is my view of the meaning of the word in the
present instance.

_Delight_ is naturally formed by the participle _de_ and _light_, to
make light, in the same way