Notes and Queries, Number 38, July 20, 1850

Excerpt

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 as "debase," to make base, "defile," to make foul. The analogy is not quite so perfect in such words as "define," "defile" (file), "deliver," "depart," &c.; yet they all may be considered of the same class. The last of these is used with us only in the sense of to go away; in Shakspeare's time (and Shakspeare so uses it) it meant also to part, or part with. A correspondent of Mr. Knight's suggests for the word delight in this passage, also, a new derivation; using de as a negation, and light (lux), delighted, removed from the regions of light. This is impossible; if we look at the context we shall see that it not only contemplated no such thing, but that it is distinctly opposed to it.

I am less inclined to entertain any doubt of the view I have taken being correct, from the confirmation it receives in another passage of Shakspeare, which runs as follows:

"If virtue no delighted beauty lack,

Your son-in-law shows far more fair than black."

Othello, Act i....