From Pistol to Plotinus
Falstaff, as he and his await the new king's coming in 2 Henry IV, V, 5, 25 ff., lauds his own zeal and constancy. "Fal. But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with desire to see him; thinking of nothing else, putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done but to see him." Whereupon Pistol comments, "'Tis 'semper idem,' for 'obsque hoc nihil est:' 'tis all in every part;"1 and Shallow agrees: "'Tis so, indeed." On the "all in every part," Warburton had pointed out; "The sentence alluded to is, 'Tis all in all, and all in every part." Then Ritson noted2 that a Latin statement of this doctrine appears in The Phoenix Nest 1593 (S. R. October 8, 1593): "Tota in toto, et tota in qualibet parte." Malone next added two contemporary English renderings of this doctrine concerning the soul.3. In Drayton's Mortemeriados, 1596 (S. R. April 15, 1596):
And as his soul possesseth head and heart, She's all in all, and all in every part.
In Nosce Teipsum, 1599 (S. R. April 14, 1599), by Sir John Davies:
Some say, she's all in all, and all in every part.4
____________________So doth the piercing Soule the body fill, Being all in all, and all in part diffus'd.
See also The First Part of Feronimo, II, 4, 2-6:
You are as like Andrea, part for part, As he is like himselfe . . . . . . I could not think you but Andreas selfe, so legd, so facst, so speecht, So all in all
( Boss, F. S., The Works of Thomas Kyd, p. 316). The Latin form of the statement occurs in Pedantius: "Dro. Quod ad documenta aulicalia attinet, me audi. Primum, dissimulandum est profundissime (hoc est in Aulico totum in toto & totum in qualibet part)" (Smith, G. C. M., Pedantius ( Materialen, Vol, VIII), 11. 1435-37). Professor Smith notes on this passage, "S. Thom. Aq. Sum. Th. I. 77, I ad I: totum universale adest cuilibet parti secundum totam suam essentiam et virtutem, ut animal homini et equo, et ideo proprie de singulis partibus praedicatur, totum vero integrale non est qualibet parte, neque secundum totam essentiam neque totam virtutem et ideo nullo modo de singulis partibus praedicatur, sed aliquo modo...de omnibus simul, ut si dicamus, quod paries, tectumm et fundamentum sunt domus.
"Javellus supra III lib. de Anima, III. 6: Si anima intellectiua est tota in toto et tota in qualibet parte.
-157-
Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: On the Literary Genetics of Shakspere's Poems & Sonnets.
Contributors: T. W. Baldwin - Author.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press.
Place of publication: Urbana, IL.
Publication year: 1950.
Page number: 157.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
One moment ...
- Georgia
- Arial
- Times New Roman
- Verdana
- Courier/monospaced
Reset