or to
stand in meaning midway between the two and to be suggestive of both;
there is no way of determining precisely. In line 12 the word _pard_
means leopard. In line 18 _saws_ means "sayings" (compare the phrase
"an old saw"); _modern_ means "moderate," "commonplace";
_instances_ means what we mean by it today, "examples,"
"illustrations." (Line 18 as a whole gives us a vivid sense of the
justice's readiness to speak sapiently, after the manner of justices, and
to trot out his trite illustrations on the slightest provocation.) The
word _pantaloon_ in line 20 is interesting. The patron saint of
Venice was St. Pantaleon (the term is from Greek, means "all-lion," and
possibly refers to the lion of St. Mark's Cathedral). _Pantaloon_
came therefore to signify (1) a Venetian, (2) a garment worn by Venetians
and consisting of breeches and stockings in one. The second sense is
preserved, substantially, in our term _pantaloons_. The first sense
led to the use of the word (in the mouths of the Venetians' enemies) for
"buffoon" and then (in early Italian comedy) for "a lean and foolish old
man." It is this stock figure of the stage that Shakespeare evokes. In
line 22 _hose_ means the covering for a man's body from his waist to
his nether-stock. (Compare the present meaning: a covering for the feet
and the _lower_ part of the legs.) In line 27 _mere_ means
"absolute." In line 28 _sans_ means "without."

Of the words we have examined, only _sans_ is obsolete, though
_pard_, _saws_, and _pantaloon_ are perhaps not entirely
familiar. That is, only one word in the passage, so far as its outward
form goes, is completely alien to our knowledge. But how different the
matter stands when we consider meanings! The words are words of today, but
the meanings are the meanings of Shakespeare. We should be baffled and
misled as to the dramatist's thought if we had made no inquiries into the
vehicle therefor.

In the second place, to look beyond the present into the more remote
signification of words will put us on our guard against the reappearance
of submerged or half-forgotten meanings. We have seen that the word
_tension_ may be used without conscious connection with the idea of
stretching. But if we incautiously place the word in the wrong
environment, the idea will be resurrected to our undoing. We associate
_ardor_ with strong and eager desire. For ordinary purposes this
conception of the word suffices. But _ardor_ is one of the childr