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Coleridge on Shakespeare and Jonson

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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“The Laws of Candy”

Act i. Speech of Melitus:—

“Whose insolence and never yet match’d pride
Can by no character be well express’d,
But in her only name, the proud Erota.”

Colman’s note.

The poet intended no allusion to the word “Erota” itself; but says that her very name, “the proud Erota,” became a character and adage;—as we say, a Quixote or a Brutus: so to say an “Erota,” expressed female pride and insolence of beauty.

Ib. Speech of Antinous:—

“Of my peculiar honours, not deriv’d
From successary, but purchas’d with my blood.”

The poet doubtless wrote “successry,” which, though not adopted in our language, would be, on many occasions, as here, a much more significant phrase than ancestry.

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